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wwilloww · 4 years ago

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assless chaos | jjk

Pairing: Cowboy!Jungkook x OC!Lainey

Genre: Wild West. Crack. Fluff.

Rating: 18+

WC: 1.5k

Warnings: Assless chaps. Swearing. Bad dialogue. Like really bad dialogue. Ass worship. Infidelity. Making out against a portrait of Colonel Mustard.

A/N: This is for @hobiance. Meant to be read with a nice little western twang to it. Like you’re chewing a piece of straw and tellin’ a story round a fire. I let my dramatic self out on this one, so please judge this fic based on the description of Jungkook’s ass, not the quality of writing, thank you very much.

Based on this ask:

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©️wwilloww Do not repost, translate, or copy without express permission of the author.

ASSLESS CHAOS

“Ma’am?” The graveled voice of the cook crackles through the still air of the parlor as she sticks her head through the door. “You have a visitor.”

Lainey sighs, tipping the heavy book back just enough to peer over at the woman standing in the doorframe.

“Who is it?” she says, boredom lacing her tone, going back to her reading.

“A very handsome young man.” The older woman winks at her. “He says he has something to show you.”

Lainey’s brow furrows in confusion. Her cook speaks up over the silence, placating her uncertainty.

“He seems like a nice young man, ma’am. I think I recognize him as one of your husband’s men.”

“Alright, Bonnie, let him in.”

The double doors to Lainey’s parlor swing open — and then slam shut again with a loud bang. However, despite the loud noise, she doesn’t bother to look up from the book propped up in her hands.

“If you’re here to see my husband, he should be back by supper,” she calls from behind the pages. No one answers. The heavy but familiar sound of honest to goodness cowboy boots clicking against the hardwood floor echos through the office and it’s not until she hears them come to a halt in front of her desk that she looks up.

“Jungkook,” Lainey gasps, standing from her chair.

“Ma’am.” Jungkook tips his hat towards her before taking it off in a sign of respect. He tosses it casually onto a chair in the corner of the large room.

“I-I thought I told you—”

“To stay away?” Jungkook cocks an eyebrow and leans over the desk towards her, hands flat on the mahogany.

“You can’t be here,” she hisses. “Not now, not in my home, not—”

Her words are cut short by Jungkook’s hand reaching up to pinch her chin. Her eyes shoot open in shock. Such a simple gesture — and yet, she can’t help but feel her body react to the electricity that zings through her body as skin meets skin. It’s been so long since her husband, Taehyung — or really anyone for that matter had touched her like this — trapping such gentleness, such love in the smallest of movements.

“It wasn’t fair for you to ask me to stay away,” he pouts. “How could I? Especially when you look like this.”

He straightens up again, releasing her from his grasp. Lainey watches, mouth gaping as he rounds the desk to come stand before her.

“How could you,” she pokes him in the chest, “when you know exactly who my husband is? As the mayor, and soon to be governor, he runs this town. He’ll have his gun cocked and pointed at your head as soon as he sees you here.”

“You really think I’m worried about that?” Jungkook drawls. “You don’t think I didn’t know exactly what I was riskin’ when I came here?” He stands hardly a foot away and Lainey is forced to look up at the handsome man. His hair is parted sleekly to the side, the deep, rich color gleaming in the golden evening light that shines through the window. As much as she knows she should tell off the man standing before her, something in her chest tugs, begs, Please. Let him stay. He stands so close that she can smell his natural mix of sun and desert emanating off of him. He smells like something comfortable, like something she wants to fall into, like — dare she say it? — like sex.

Just as he’s leaning in, his lips parted oh-so devilishly, Lainey puts her hand to his chest, stopping him.

“You said you had something to show me,” she says hurriedly, her voice quacking ever so slightly.

Gaze still locked on her lips, he smirks. “Of course, I nearly forgot.”

“What is it?”

“Remember the governor’s ball, nary a month ago?”

How could she forget? The fateful night Jungkook finally pulled her behind the curtain of the stage and asked if her lingering gaze meant that she felt the same way he did. They exchanged confessions of adoration as Lainey’s husband stood just twenty feet away, giving his speech for his governor’s candidacy. The two of them confessed their love to one another behind the rich velvet curtains, only to swear any action on behalf of their throbbing hearts. Even after Lainey had slipped back to her husband’s side, her gaze hadn’t left the figure of the young cowboy, eyes roving over his strong frame and supple ass. Drinking him in was like tasting the sweetest of poisons.

“I remember,” she says softly. “How could I forget?”

“Then you’ll appreciate these.”

Jungkook rips of his chaps, the snaps popping off and scattering across the floor. As she takes in what lays beneath, Lainey slaps a hand to her mouth, a gasp ringing through the air.

Below lay a second pair of chaps.

Assless chaps.

“What in gods good tarnation are those,” Lainey gasps.

“Chaos. Assless chaos.” Jungkook takes a step closer until the pair stands chest to chest. “I know how much you like my ass —” Warmth creeps up her cheeks and she attempts to duck her head in embarrassment of his acknowledgment. But he’s quick to put a finger below her chin, nudging her head up so that she’s looking at him again. “—The way you can’t keep your eyes off of my blessed cheeks, even when your husband is standing right beside you with his arm around your waist.”

“I—” Her words stutter to a halt. All Lainey can think is that behind the beautiful man in front of her are two shining, round, perfect peaches, juicy and just begging to be squeezed. She nearly swoons at the thought of all of that cake, exposed to the room.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Jungkook murmurs. “I know what you’re thinking.” He takes her hands, which have been clutched to her chest, one in each of his large palms. Ever-so slowly, he brings them around his back and places her palms on his exposed ass.

She can’t help but give the slightest of squeezes.

Firm. Juicy. Perfectly round.

“It’s like they were sculpted by the gods,” Lainey murmurs, breath stolen by the utopian orbs beneath her hands. Never in all of her prairie-roving, stallion-taming days has she ever come into contact with such a faultless ass. Even without sight, she knows there’s no ass in this whole country that could rival the one she grasps in hands this very moment.

“My heart though,” Jungkook whispers. “My heart has been sculpted by you.”

Brought back to the moment, Lainey realizes who she is, where she is, who she’s with. She takes a step back, releasing Jungkook’s beautiful ass as she does. Her heart flutters at his words. Even as the sound has long cleared the space, she feels like she can still feel the vibrations of its echoes.

“We can’t,” she breathes, hand snaking up her torso and coming to rest above her pounding heart. “You know how I feel. You know how I… how I love you. Love you and that matchless ass of yours. But there’s so much more to consider.”

“Is it not enough for you?” He takes a step forward, just as she steps back again. “Is having me and a show-stealing ass not enough you? I fucking won the county fair with this beaut.”

“I know you did. And you won this heart, too,” you add so softly the words barely lift into the air.

If only she could melt into him, allow him to take her away somewhere far from the plaid ballgowns, the cow auctions, the dry desert of this town. Wasn’t she made for something so much bigger? For the great beyond of life? Not the smallness that her husband expected her to don, the repetitive role he asked her to play every day the sun poked her head above the dusty earth and the cows woke for their milking. A role he never thanked her for, either.

“I’m here to ask you to run away with me,” Jungkook says.

Lainey looks up at him.

The man before her holds a great expanse within his stallion soul. One she wanted to fall into. One she wanted to explore and map and know like the back of her palm.

Like being struck by lightning during the rainy season, a bolt of understanding hits her. She wants this. Wants him.

Jungkook has her backed up against the large painting of Colonel Mustard that decorates the parlor, the yellow of his turtle neck casting a glow about the darkening room.

“Can I—”

“Kiss me, Jungkook.”

Jungkook leans down to her, his palms coming to cradle her face as he brushes his lips against hers. Soft at first. And then all at once.

It is a kiss that consumes. One that swirls up all the feeling in the world into one large tumbleweed of emotion and sensation.

She pulls away, just enough to let a single word slip from her swollen lips.

“Yes.”

The moment the word slips out, she knows it’s true.

“Yes?”

“Take me with you when you leave this godforsaken town.”

“Really?”

“I’m all yours, cowboy.”

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taglist: @usuallynervoussheep @hesperantha @myimaginationsrunningwild @ladyartemesia @thatlongspringnight @ppersonna

#bhqdrabbles #bangtanarmynet #btscreatorscorner #btsgoldnet #btswriterscollective #ficswithluv #ksmutclub #jungkook #jungkook ff #jungkook fic #bts fic #bts drabble #bts #drabble #cowboy #jungkook crack

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ronnytherandom · 3 years ago

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I started Writing My Thoughts On Things Again, I'm Sorry

15/8/2021:

Mass Effect Legendary Edition (Whole trilogy w/ all dlcs, Adept Class, Hardcore difficulty, 68 Hours):

Still brilliant! I adore this series. The first Mass Effect was one of the first games I ever played back in 2010 and Mass Effect 2 is one of the games I’ve played the most accruing several hundred hours over multiple playthrough from 2010 onwards, while Mass Effect 3 is a game I greatly appreciated but have more mixed feelings towards. Retrospectively as much as I liked the first Mass Effect, I did not nearly appreciate it enough back in the day. For a first entry in a new IP it is incredibly fleshed out with interesting Lore, an intriguing story and a cool galaxy to explore. I appreciate its combat far more now than I did back then but would still argue it is relatively weak in comparison to more modern titles and its own successors. Though the VA is rough in some places it is excellent where it matters, especially in the case of Sovereign whose iconic dialogue on Virmire is etched into my brain. A key element of the first mass effect I felt was sorely missing from the later entries was its exploration. While the galaxy grew routinely larger no game after the first had a drivable Mako, a vehicle I adore, and further lacked the opportunity to land on and explore the terrain of alien worlds for resources and side missions which I feel lends a lot to the atmosphere of the setting and could be made even more compelling using updated technology and a larger selection of assets and interiors which might have emerged from the higher budget successors. As it is I appreciate its inclusion in the first game. Mass Effect was also my first encounter with impactful choices in a video game and this is certainly something I appreciate but leads me to a major criticism specifically targeting the dialogue wheel layout as it is strange to me how you can puzzle out all of these possible dialogue outcomes but put exactly all of the positive outcomes behind the Upper Left dialogue option. While this is less pronounced in the First entry as the Renegade dialogue fills roughly the same purpose while sounding more badass, it becomes truer throughout the series as renegade options routinely just become nasty and exclusionary.

Mass Effect 2 innovates in some key ways which I have grown to appreciate more in the past 20 hours of play than I did when it launched. Primarily, its focus on characters and your relationships to them. Barring a couple of notable exceptions I found myself greatly invested in every single member of the Normandy crew and I think it’s a remarkable feat that each crewmate could be written to be so sympathetic, relatable and interesting in a world so full of appreciable elements. I would go into specific examples but id end up listing every character except Miranda and Jacob. This of course plays well into the Suicide Mission narrative which is perhaps my favourite overarching plot within the trilogy as it incorporates not just all of these incredible characters and plays upon your investment in them but also relies on the threat of both the Reapers and Collectors which are two excellently designed enemies which I find significantly more compelling than Saren and the Geth or Cerberus and the Reaper Husk Armies. Mass Effect 2 has a powerful horror element composed of the Collectors phobic horror and the reapers cosmic horror and it does wonders for the game’s atmosphere. I remember at this moment the Collector soundtrack which, like the rest of the soundtrack is absolutely excellent. Inasmuch as I would criticise it from a purely musical perspective for being simple at times and perhaps overly repetitive it perfectly fits the camp space opera that is mass effect. Galaxy Map and Suicide Mission are absolute bangers. I would hesitate to call the combat great. Playing the game as a weapon heavy class is superior, I’d argue as even with an armour build dedicated to decreasing ability cooldown it is too long to adequately utilise the powers of ability heavy classes like the adept. Additionally, ability play feels far more limited than in the game’s predecessor due to the limitation of this games skill tree elements which are frankly a step too far in simplifying the interface. It doesn’t massively affect enjoyment of the game but I couldn’t help but note every time I visited the abilities menu how much I missed Mass Effects abilities menu. So while I would say Mass Effect maintains a very well balanced game with regards to combat, roleplay and story, Mass Effect 2 eschews combat and mechanical roleplay in favour of an excellent story. Additionally while lacking an exploration aspect the more structured side-missions found by scanning planets throughout the galaxy create a lot of fun moments and interesting gameplay, emblematic of the fact that mission design vastly improves between this game and its predecessor.

Mass Effect 3 goes some way to resolve its predecessor’s imbalance as the majority of the game possesses enhanced combat, a much better abilities mechanic and an excellent story. First the addition of more mobility, loadout and engagement options benefits the combat greatly, while the addition of more complex enemy types than previous games pushes you to fully utilise these new options. A massive reduction in ability cooldown combined with liberal cooldown reduction bonuses in the skill tree means that abilities are very useful and versatile and you generally feel very powerful. Sometimes too powerful if you’re thinking from a balancing standpoint but given it’s a single player game this criticism is much diminished and being powerful is fun regardless. The skill tree system in this game forms a synthesis between its predecessors’ systems and comes out the better for combining a regular sense of empowerment with interesting choices within your own character build. All of this contributes to a much-improved combat experience, especially over Mass Effect 2. This also lends itself to the old multiplayer system which I honestly enjoyed when it launched (who cannot love a playable biotic Volus?) and feel is sorely lacking from this legendary edition. I would argue the only real problem with the multiplayer was requiring a player to engage with it in order to achieve the best story outcome; the actual multiplayer gameplay was thoroughly enjoyable and it gave players the opportunity to experience combat as an STG agent or a Krogan Warlord which were both fulfilling experiences from my memory. The aforementioned story is truly excellent and successfully builds off events in previous games but primarily succeeds due to Biowares exceptional character writing which persists from Mass Effect 2. Even in the case of its worst side mission content but especially in its primary missions the stakes and outcome of events are thoroughly compelling and the involvement of beloved Normandy crewmates is bound to incite intense emotions. This is possibly the only game that makes me cry multiple times throughout a normal playthrough. Unfortunately my goodwill often runs out when it comes to consider the ultimate ending of this series which I do not approve of. I admit there are mitigating factors: you should not play the mass effect series for the culmination of its plot. This series lives and dies with its characters and all of the major character arcs reach satisfactory endings before the final moments of Mass Effect 3, so the final moments have no real meaning as the thematic purpose of the series is achieved by galvanising the galaxy and uniting all these disparate races into a single force to fight the Reapers. Thematically the game is a success but the extent to which it utilises the choices the player has made, upon which the series builds its reputation, is limited in scope. This can likely be laid at the feet of the leaks of the original story ahead of the games launch which pushed the developers to create a new ending to avoid spoilers, but the quality of that ending is poor as it boils all the choices made throughout the series down to selecting the colour of a space laser. To make an odd comparison, this is why I think Game of Thrones’ and Mass Effect’s endings are different kinds of bad. Mass Effect reaches a fully satisfying conclusion in the moments immediately after launching the final mission, whereas Game of Thrones built its whole series asking the question “Who Will Sit The Iron Throne” With the final answer being “Actually, no one” after slogging through multiple series which did not live up to the quality of the first. Mass Effect answers its dramatic question of “Can Shepard Unite The Galaxy Against The Reapers” satisfactorily following sixty hours of excellent content and the colour of the space laser doesn’t actually matter. It just hurts to think that the finale could’ve been so much grander and more interesting. I would recommend the games, the disappointment of the finale doesn’t even come close to outweighing the grandeur that is the rest of the experience of Mass Effect 3, let alone the whole series.

There are only a few pieces of content I had not encountered prior to this Legendary edition playthrough. The Mass Effect DLC Bring Down The Sky is fun in that it adds an interesting combat experience with incredible stakes and immerses you in a stellar scale event, but the experience is very short. As part of the legendary edition I recommend it but having to pay extra for it at its time of launch I would have found it disappointing. Mass Effect 2s Overlord DLC is very good, introducing fun combat encounters, an opportunity to operate the fairly fun Hammerhead vehicle (even if it doesn’t live up to the Glory of the Mako) and explore a nice open environment with a truly haunting ending which is a kind of non-choice but it is gratifying to make that choice anyway. Additionally the visuals in the final station when interacting with the VI elements are very nice. The Arrival DLC is also quite fun, with a pseudo stealth section to open it, something which I believe occurs nowhere else in the series. The general element of operating solo is quite novel for mass effect as I believe outside of this moment, the opening of the Citadel DLC and the final moments of Mass Effect 3 there is no point where you fight alone. The indoctrinated nature of the project team does not come as a shock but regardless the dlc is enjoyable as a combat experience and the scale of destruction shown necessary to even slightly inconvenience the reapers lends a lot to the scale of their threat. I do not believe I played any DLCs in Mass Effect 3 before, insofar as I did not consider From Ashes DLC content as it was already on the disk and all buying the day one dlc did was activate it. Leviathan is very interesting from a lore perspective and does interesting things with its investigative process but I find it to be a relatively passive and uninteresting experience for the most part. Omega was more my style with a lot of good combat and interesting new enemies and a bit of bombast besides but still left me largely unmoved. Citadel was excellent but mostly for its “endgame” content rather than its story content. Despite featuring many hilarious moments throughout the actual plot it failed to interest me but I was definitely there for all of the fun character moments and the party is absolutely hilarious.

Ultimately a hearty recommendation but with tempered expectations for the finale.

Deaths Door (True Ending, 13.7 hours):

A Delight. Deaths Door is a charming little game about a bird that stabs things and I love it. It is incredibly impressive that this was made by a team composed of two people. The gameplay is fun in all regards. Navigation is a good time especially when all of the environments are lovely and full of personality. Obstacles come mainly in the form of puzzles and these are at a sweet spot between ease and frustration without being at all complex. Combat could’ve used a bit more work, primarily to create more meaningful distinctions between weapons or add a little depth, but it is still engaging and good fun. While the main bosses are challenging and satisfying to defeat, I worry over the side bosses; perhaps something could’ve been done to make them more distinct from one another? But a small gripe. I like the world, the aforementioned environments are well realised, the general aesthetic is artful and distinct and the story is good if slightly sparse. One notable element is the dialogue which is very good with a quick wit. The finale of the main game has the right amount of spectacle and weight while the endgame is cool and fantastical, with an ample supply of secrets and collectibles to find. Over all the music is incredible, soundtrack full of absolute bangers. I really enjoyed completing this game and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s into action adventure and souls-like games.

The Bad Batch (season 1):

This was Allright. To open I cannot overstate how good the animation and art of this series is. It is routinely beautiful and well-choreographed. Visually there are no complaints. The problems begin with the opening episode which I feel overpromised on a relatively dark take on the Star Wars universe by immediately dropping us into an Order 66 plot full of death, danger, brainwashing and the threat of an emergent empire. Now granted this series never explicitly promises that all of this would continue but I enjoyed these elements of the first episode and I was dissatisfied by their limited usage throughout the rest of the show. This is not to say I disliked the show, I did enjoy the characters who are all good fun, and most of the plots were good. This series I felt had a lot of filler episodes, which I’d simply describe as episodes I enjoyed less due to underwhelming plot or conflict, but they were still enjoyable despite what id perceive as a lesser quality. The show also “suffers” from what I’d called Star Wars Syndrome of Filonitis which is how Everything Must Be Interconnected, with regular cameos from extended universe characters which I feel is beginning to get a bit much. These features feel to me more often like nostalgia grabs rather than organically featuring a character in service of the plot and development. For example, I appreciate the Captain Rex feature as that served to highlight the inhibitor chip problem and drive the characters to seek a solution, however I appreciated Rafa and Trace’s feature less both because I’m less attached to those characters (especially Rafa) but also because the episode didn’t serve any particular purpose or create any particular set piece which couldn’t have been achieved without those characters. This is a similar issue I have with The Mandalorian, I adored season one as it was relatively self-contained and only featured vague or subtler references to the wider canon: to contrast season two is full of cameos from the wider universe sometimes for no reason other than to have a cameo when those roles could easily have been filled with new and creative content which doesn’t rely upon nostalgia to make something interesting. Ultimately Bad Batch is worth watching for the characters and the good episodes, it is fun and entertaining, it just has its issues.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 1: The Phantom Blood:

Its uh, its not good. Now that’s a very broad statement, as to assess this show critically at all is to take it far more seriously than you should, but to be more even handed the show certainly has a bunch of fun elements. Only from a story perspective, there isn’t really that much there; and from a pacing perspective it needs to be seen to be believed. I’m certain that if you condensed the show down to a reasonable size for the amount of content it has, you’d probably have a movie with a two-hour runtime at most which would be quite enjoyable but on a whole this first part wastes about 80% of its time on overlong drawn-out internal monologues and the dilated timeframes of the show’s fights. It also has an annoying habit of overemphasizing the weight of a moment or the genius of a characters unexpected action usually with no less than three people commenting on any slight manoeuvre which ruins the pacing beyond belief. Now I understand this is a staple of the Jojo series, only part 1 handles it very poorly in comparison to later parts. The fighting is especially hindered by this as most actual combat usually involves only four or five punches but they tend to take twenty minutes getting to each one. Additionally, Johnathan Joestar is pretty boring as a character with no notable qualities aside from being good both morally and at fighting. The intrigue of the stone mask is cool but this part deals in that very little. Like I say though, Part 1 is still fun to watch if you can disengage your brain and admire the potent meme quality of the series. It is not “good” from a critical perspective but it is incredibly amusing and the campness gives it a degree of charm. If you just want to watch a bunch of beefy men shout at each other and perform magic punches this is a good time. Speedwagon, despite being the worst offender of the “Explain Everything Twice and Ruin the Pacing” category, is still entertaining for the awful accent and endearing character. He’s also definitely in love with Johnathan and I will not be taking questions on that. Baron Zeppeli has a cool hat. Theres a lot of fun to be had as the show embraces the weirdness of everything that’s going on. So, check it out, it might just be a So-Bad-Its-Good Masterpiece.

300 (film):

This film was not so great in my eyes. I think there was one particular shot of the landscapes around Sparta which I felt was visually cool but everything else about the film lacked quality for me, barring practical effects which have aged significantly better than the graphical effects. The visuals are largely uninspiring, the washed-out colour pallet doesn’t help. Perhaps the dialogue was amusing at release but for me it’s all been memed to death. I can’t say any of the performances are particularly compelling, nice to see Magneto and Faramir though. The action could’ve been good and there are certainly moments where it has impact, but the constant application of slow motion I feel reduces the sense of power that should be there, like watching people fight on the moon. Ultimately, I can’t stomach it for two primary reasons: Historical inaccuracy and Racism, which feed into each other. The values of the Spartans do not accurately reflect ideas that historical Spartans held to and I must ask why? Historical accuracy is the default state, so to usurp those ideas in favour of others means the author of the graphic novel Frank Miller and director Zach Snyder replaced those ideas with purpose, in order to make the film more appealing to a mass audience or to express their own ideas perhaps? And the values they chose for the Spartans were freedom, justice and democracy which were things the slaving and monarchical Spartans did not believe in at least in the modern sense. This reeks of an imposition of the propagandised values of western nations on a historical society. This in itself would not be so much of an issue without the demonisation and perversion of the Achaemenid empire and the peoples therein. To establish the primary conflict as one of Civilised white westerners against barbarous non-white easterners, when historically the conflict was between two nations of a broadly similar heritage both possessing facets of good and evil, in the early 2000s? It feels as though some reactionary interpretations of the War on Terror have simply been recreated here with classical history as window dressing. Add to that reactionary attachment to the battle of Thermopylae as a representation of the western world’s struggle against the eastern world, in addition to other more problematic interpretations, and this film plays straight into extreme right-wing ideas of race. Cannot recommend, there’s a lot more better things you could be watching.

18/08/2021: Darth Vader (2015) comic (incl. Vader Down event):

This was really cool. The first comic I’ve ever actually read so I don’t have much frame of reference but I certainly enjoyed this. It was compelling, I’ve blitzed through this whole run in a single day. I think it serves a valuable purpose of demonstrating Vader’s potential and development between Episodes IV and V, as well as the nature of internal conflicts within the Empire. A side note, it is amusing that Palpatine identifies infighting as a factor in the fall of the Sith Empire and yet encourages it for his own political purposes anyway. I felt that the art and style was very good and fit well with the Star Wars aesthetic, though I couldn’t say if it is truly excellent or just standard: it certainly wasn’t bad, though I think a few designs such as Dr Aphra’s ship were hard to read as it were. Speaking of, I think characters new and old were well portrayed. The titular Vader is unmistakably the same character as appears in the classic trilogy, similarly for Han, Luke and Leia etc. And it was a pleasure to see Chewbacca absolutely destroy someone. The aforementioned Aphra I thought was fine but she lacks distinction to my mind, the real star was Triple Zero and by extension Beetee who I thought were excellent comic relief in addition to being a genuine threat, something I can’t necessarily say I felt with regard to the antagonists. This latter part doesn’t matter overmuch, I think the purpose of these antagonists was more to present Vader with pressure to fulfil his personal goals rather than actually oppose him and they work well in that regard, but are unmemorable beyond their basic attributes. What I think this comic does particularly well is create a kind of puzzle narrative and its almost thrilling at moments when Vader’s plots might be discovered. As a result of this I am looking forward to reading more comics in future.

The Suicide Squad (2021): Highly enjoyable! A big step up for the suicide squad as a franchise and a lot more fun, playing into a brighter and more humorous genre than its predecessor to good effect; This time with good editing, soundtrack, direction… well good everything in comparison. I enjoyed all of the characters and their acting particularly the rivalry between Peacemaker and Bloodsport and Margot Robbie is still fantastic as Harley. They all pale before King however, who is endearing beyond belief and a lot of fun to boot. The “villain” if that term is applicable is very interesting and actually threatening, no mere beam of light into the sky! And the willingness to engage in more mature elements such as gore and character morality is of immense benefit, serving to distinguish it from generally more childish superhero media and reach towards more interesting themes around colonisation, foreign intervention, America and such. Only a reach towards however as I don’t think it ultimately says anything beyond “This thing, kinda bad and dumb”. As I saw noted, it observes the theme but doesn’t comment on it which is a shame as that would bring it all together quite neatly. I feel it can drag a little at times and sometimes the dialogue and specifically its humour don’t hit right but the rest is of such quality that it hardly matters. It looks good, sounds good and offers a chance to engage in a little mindless and bloody violence. I hope Harley keeps the javelin.

27/08/2021: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 2: Battle Tendency: TW: Mention of Nazism, Discussion of Sexism

This is MUCH better. Part 2 covers most of the problems I had with Part 1. The Monologues are less egregious so the pacing is much improved; the lore is fully integrated into the story and creates a genuinely good narrative and Joseph is a much more compelling and interesting protagonist with a quirky and entertaining personality. The Pillar Men are excellent villains and the fights are fully engaging. Even when you know that Joseph will pull out a “And next you’ll say” twist at the end of a losing fight it’s still surprising simply by dint of the strange and wacky solutions he creates. And these adventures are even more bizarre, playing into the weird camp of the series which works so well. All in all, the quality is excellent here HOWEVER there are some highly problematic elements. The show being set in the 1930s is a neat part of the travelling through time factor of the series but when you’re globetrotting around Europe you need some solution to the problem of Nazis popping up everywhere and this show does not provide one, and fails so drastically to offer even a slightly critical perspective on the fascist characters. The noble sacrifice of Von Stroheim and his later resurrection and heroism serve to idolise a Patriotic German Nazi Officer, which is not good, and this unchallenged perspective on an Actual Nazi is troubling especially when the character himself is an unrepentant mass murderer. Additionally, the show has a horrible attitude towards women, who exist almost exclusively for sex appeal and romantic interest in this show. Lisa Lisa does demonstrate ability and character but when presented with genuine combat is relegated first as a bit of eye candy during the fight with Esidesi (notably eye candy for Her Own Son) and later as a Damsel in Distress during her fight with Kars. Women are frequently used as objects in this part; Caesar Zeppeli uses women as props by controlling them with his Hamon powers and Suzi Q exists only to be rescued from Esidesi and then to be romanced by Jojo. It’s pretty ridiculous to be honest. I am informed that this improves over the course of the series but as for this part in particular it is a lot of fun just so long as you can ignore some incredibly troubling portrayals.

13/09/2021: Rick and Morty Season 4:

There is ultimately not much to say as Season 4 is simply more Rick and Morty and operates as such. It is good, even very good. It’s still very funny. Its voice acting is still the pinnacle of such work. It is still smart and has a lot of interesting ideas, only not to the extent of the copypasta fan boys. Its sci-fi universe is cool and its design and aesthetic are still excellent. I feel the show has passed a threshold however as there’s only so much time you can spend on the “dysfunctional family is dysfunctional theme”. I hope season 5 proves me wrong once I get to it, but season 4 is fun and I’d recommend it all the same, it’s just more Rick and Morty and I think that’s enough.

Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings: Spectacular! Very easily amongst the best if not The Best Superhero Movie (aside from Into the Spiderverse). To begin with complaints as they are limited, the colour grading was a bit dark in a couple of the fight scenes and in some moments of the climactic fight the CG effects are a little Too Much and distract from the central action of Shang-Chi, Xialing and a Dragon owning the shit out of a multiversal super spectre, which incidentally is fucking epic. Additionally, the standard MCU comic relief dialogue is a little meh at times but what’s new there? They still need to get a handle on that, especially because this film was really strong when it was serious. As much as I love Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery, he was just a tad much here. Aside from a few moments of weak dialogue however the rest of the film is excellent. Acting is good, effects are good, the film is quite beautiful primarily once Ta Lo is reached and the score is bangin. I appreciate most of all the fight sequences which to me look well-choreographed with interesting arenas which were always appropriate to demonstrate the characters abilities; the sequences serve to develop character and plot at key moments also. The way the camera is handled during the fights is also a big step up, with wide perspective and long shots rather than the snappy close shots of old which serve to really show off that choreography and don’t muddy your understanding of the flow of combat. There is a good thematic line throughout the film of reconciling the bad and the good of your familial and personal history, to understand yourself better and channel that into developing and achieving your ambitions and I adore how that ties in with Shang-Chi and Wenwu’s final confrontation due to the nature and treatment of the Ten Rings themselves. They are a very interesting fantastical element especially once Shang-Chi acquires them and the way that he utilises them create a very cool combat style I can’t wait to see more of, even considering that their full potential is yet to be unlocked. I additionally approve of how they have been differentiated from their comic counterparts which to my understanding are just slightly weaker infinity stones; thus, a one-to-one reproduction would’ve been a boring mistake to make. It’s a fantastic film, go see it.

26/09/2021: Sable (20 hours, 99% complete) Sable has the makings of an absolutely fantastic game, it just has a few hiccups and hurdles to deal with. Thankfully most can probably be dealt with by patch as there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the game; but a game should never be released in a state where it needs a patch to function normally. This game is incredibly buggy. Probably one of the buggiest games I’ve ever played at launch, and I preordered Skyrim. Most of my complaints are with the menus, which simply do not work properly sometimes, but there are other documented issues with collision detection and weird bike movement among others including one annoying persistent issue with the soundtrack being replaced by random ‘bong’ noises. For these reasons I cannot recommend the game Right Now until it is patched or if it is on a significant sale. However, once the bugs are fixed this game will be a stunning achievement. The story is good and leads to powerful emotional moments, aided along by an excellent atmospheric soundtrack and beautiful visuals. The style and colour give this game an exceptional look, though diminished by a fairly rapid day/night cycle. I understand that this creates a visual contrast to make the daytime feel more vibrant and impressive, but I would also hold the sun still in the sky if that were an option. The world is well built, with interesting lore and cool design work. Varied environments show off a range of colourful landscape all with their own distinct atmospheres and landmarks which are good both for navigation and exploration, this being the bulk of the game. Exploring these environments is satisfying for curiosities sake but also offers collectible Chums that I adore and an intriguing backstory and world history to consider. Riding a hoverbike is cool and fun, and the customisability is nice though I would take issue with the “balancing” of bike parts as the best bike can be acquired only a few hours in and must be bought, where bike parts earned through long quest chains pale in comparison. This annoys me as I believe players should be rewarded more for great deeds than for acquiring currency, besides which the quest bikes look cooler. This is of little importance however as the game is a very casual and chill experience, keeping an excellent balance where it is not strictly challenging but does maintain your focus and attention. This world is full of strangeness and a little sci-fi magic; though I would argue it could use more of this I think that would threaten to overwhelm the player when even this world’s most mundane elements are still stunningly cool. I think a thick coat of bugs covers what is ultimately a magnificent game with many cool things to explore and even marred by its worst features I still had a great time playing it.

27/09/2021: The Matrix

Brilliant. A very cerebral action movie which definitely earns its place as an iconic work of cinema and its clear to see why its influence is so widespread. Fantastic action with a clear and open perspective which utilises the interesting and dynamic cinematography that runs throughout the movie. I particularly enjoy how over the top the fights are in terms of environmental destruction and gestures as a whole, with a great deal of emphasis added by practical effects which I enjoy. Cool characters, good dialogue and excellent performances across the cast. And, an interesting world well-built and designed. The robots particularly are quite intimidating and I like their arthropodal form. All of the design works well to create the feeling of a greasy industrial post apocalypse which contrasts sharply with the boring homogenous simulation, the latter having its own value as a setting due to its familiarity which would’ve been especially prevalent when this film first released. I love the soundtrack, especially the final feature of Rage, but most of all I love how deeply you can read into this film and its meaning. Having watched many videos about it I was primed on the trans allegory going in and it is very clearly a present part of the narrative before even considering the context around the Wachowski sisters and their own experience. It is a very interesting part of the story and plays well into other themes built around deconstructing the illusions pressed on us by our society, drawing strong parallels between the struggles of living as a trans person and fighting against an imperialist capitalist society. It is worth watching for any of its constituent parts but together they form a magnificent work of art.

28/09/2021: Star Wars: Visions

The series is a bit of a mixed bag. It definitely overpromises with its first episode which is of a remarkably distinct style, is incredibly cool and has great wacky moments in addition to tasteful call-backs to the wider Star Wars canon. I love the umbrella sabre, it’s a fantastic idea and there needs to be more of them. From there a few episodes are fantastic, The Elder and the final episode, and id rank the Ninth jedi just below them, but the rest of the series is definitely not to my taste. The wide variety of styles on show are all fantastic and the animation is universally very good, just some of the plots are more childish than I would appreciate and the rest are simply not engaging for me to the point that despite a great deal of spectacle occurring I would often be distracted. It’s worth a look if you’re into animation and unique takes on star wars but I find generally lacking.

Django Unchained (2nd Watch) TW: Discussion of Racism and Slavery

Red Flag: Tarantino Movie is good. Very good. Stellar performances from Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Leo Di Caprio, Christoph Waltz and everyone else in the movie to be frank; a special note for the trivia about Leo Di Caprio’s cut up hand during the dining room scene, a lot of respect for a man who can keep working through that kind of injury. We can go through a Tarantino Checklist say the film is well shot with beautiful environments; has excellent and witty dialogue with good attention to detail and mannerism; and finally has great and gory action which does not flinch from terrible injury and really appeals to a perverse bloodlust that seems to crop up from time to time in normal people. Strangely enough however, I could not recall if Tarantino indulges in his predilection for feet here. This film does indulge in Tarantino’s other predilection however and that’s the N-word, but here I respect it. Unlike his non-period works, the use of the N-word is a facet of slavery just as chains, whips and plantations are and slavery is the subject of this film which seeks to be historically authentic. If anything, the absence of the N-word would be very wrong in this case despite being the project of a white man as without it the film would lack the context of a key form of oppression that still exists today. I think Django does an excellent job documenting and commenting on the institution as it existed in the pre-war period. Django experiences every level of status a black person would encounter in this setting: first a slave, then a freedman, a black slaver and finally a Liberator and the final message of the film is that slavery deserved to be destroyed and any argument made for its return is horseshit which is kind of a “Duh” statement but with the state of modern politics and the state of education in the US it’s something that needs reiterating. You can interpret this beyond the bounds of slavery itself in addition, by arguing that there are existing powers in this world which seek to discriminate based on skin colour amongst other factors and create oppressed minorities for the benefit of a wealthy few with power and should the systems that create this environment be completely destroyed it would be cause for celebration. Beyond this I particularly enjoyed the historical authenticity of the environments, of the very varied biomes of the wilder parts of the US at the time, and the contemporary outfits especially King Schultz’ coat which I desire more than any item of clothing I’ve ever seen. The film is good at building suspense both in the moment to moment and through longer story arcs, particularly the second act, but I do feel like the 2nd act lulls a little, perhaps spends slightly too long reaching its climax. This is a great spectacle of a film which looks and sounds fantastic, puts excellent performances on show, tells a great story and has quite a bit of meaning bundled into it.

29/09/2021: The Road to El Dorado (Unfinished)

Despite not finishing it I think this film is actually really good. It certainly has a few elements which don’t fully gel with me but I enjoyed my time with it; I only felt like I should really be doing something else and that I wasn’t fully engaged with it, potentially as I’m not keen on cons and high stakes acting as it feels like a form of vicarious embarrassment for me which makes me immensely uncomfortable. Personal hindrances aside most everything about this film is excellent, I loved the animation and the very colourful world. The characters were fun, the voice acting good, the constant horniness was a great bonus also. I take issue with the music, much as it’s not my right to criticise Elton John, I feel it would’ve been better fully incorporated into the film. I enjoy animated musicals more when said music is diegetic and I think them beginning to employ non-diegetic music is part of what led to their downfall, outside of market saturation. Additionally, I was not a fan of The Trail we Blaze, just not a song that worked for me. I also appreciate the integration of 3d and 2d animation here as I felt the styles were reconciled better here than in most movies, especially for the time. I might take issue with what seems to be a plot about two Spanish men of the colonial age coming to central America and “enlightening” its people through humanitarian acts and music as that would reflect some troubling attitudes but I hold out hope that by the end of the film they decide to come clean about the lie, return the gold and help defend El Dorado from Cortez and his troops. Its enjoyable, I don’t feel drawn to finishing it though.

30/09/2021: Hunters Moon, Ghost

Here’s a new one, music reviews. This single is pretty good I enjoy it a lot. Opens slow and gentle and rapidly builds into some strong rock with a very 80s feel which scans with Ghosts whole historical rock and metal style they’ve always employed but have gone in extra hard on since Prequelle. The lead riff the track opens on is really nice and I would love to have seen it explored further, but the heavier style that ramps up progressively as the song continues is still great climaxing on the 9/4 post chorus riff which goes hard as fuck and I love that bit especially. It feels like it would be spectacular to witness it live. The bridge is a moment I’m not so keen on, the initial bass work is a little bare bone and overly repetitive but it definitely picks up once the guitar and vocals come in, even if just for the final moments. The final chorus leads into a good finale though I think it’ll serve better on an album version with a transition into another track, as I usually prefer to be fair. Technically I enjoy all of the different sounds and effects employed on all the instruments, especially in that leading riff, all of which are played well with good time. The vocals are great as usual. It’s a great track, I feel it was maybe a little short and could’ve explored some of its musical ideas or given them a bit more time to breathe; perhaps less time could have been given to overrepresented elements like the bridge and given over to work more into the very atmospheric leading riff but this is still a hard and heavy rock track and I enjoy it greatly.

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bangtan-madi · 4 years ago

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546 Days Without You — Nine: Day 264

Pairing — Seokjin x Reader

Tags — boyfriend!Seokjin, older brother!Yoongi, producer/songwriter!MC, military au (ish), idol au (ish)

Genre — fluff, angst

Word Count — 2.3k

Summary — Kim Seokjin is your entire world, and that world falls apart the moment he and your older brother Yoongi are conscripted into the South Korean military.

Part — 9 / 15

Warnings — minor language

A/N — Taglist is open! Comment or submit an ask if you want to be added :) Also sorry for the late post. Tumblr has been giving me issues.

Previous — Next

The day the album drops, the group is on edge the whole morning. It's been this way every comeback. The members are progressively moodier until the morning of, then they become eerily quiet.

The second the clock ticks past the release date, there's a group sigh of relief. Map of the Soul: Dream is out in the world, and people are streaming it by the millions. No more writing, no more recording, no more producing: the brainchild of Bangtan is out.

Finally.

The hour after the release, the interviews begin. The band is scheduled for events from the initial release panel in Seoul all the way to interviews across the world. The next few weeks are going to be packed with speaking engagements and travel. Normally, this is where you let the managers take over since it's not common for producers to travel for these kinds of things. On any other album, you'd wave to them as they left for the airport and scurry back to the safety and familiarity of the studio.

But you just had to have your name put on the album.

"Oh, no," Namjoon says, grasping the hood of your sweatshirt as you attempt to do just that. "Don't think you're getting out of this panel."

Turning towards the leader with a scowl, you retort, "I'm not a member, Joon. This isn't where I'm supposed to be. This is your guys' time to shine. I belong in a studio."

He shakes his head adamantly. "Your name's on the album, several times I might add. Writer, producer, and artist. They may have looked over the writing and producing rolls in the past, but now?"

"Not gonna happen," Taehyung snickers as he makes his way towards the Big Hit dressing room.

"I think people are more intrigued by you then they are by us," Jimin agrees, coming out of the hair and makeup room looking picture-perfect. "This is year eight for us. You're something new in the mix."

You resist the urge to roll your eyes. "The media likes anything new and shiny."

"I heard you talking to Seokjin about this yesterday," Namjoon replies. "What did he say?"

Narrowing your eyes, you pull your hood out of his grasp with a pout. "He said I should do it."

This only causes Namjoon to smirk, knowing he's got you. He cups a hand next to his ear and leans down, as if trying to hear you. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that?"

Instead of dignifying his teasing with a response, you shove the leader a bit, earning a laugh from the gentle giant. "They'll get to see me on tour. Why isn't that enough?"

"Y'know, I like her point," Jungkook grins adjusting the tie around his neck. He, too, has been primed and ready for the panel. "We can just go straight to tour and skip all this."

Hoseok enters the room, followed closely by Manager Sejin. The two men are also ready for the day's events, and you realize you're not getting out of this.

"For what it's worth, these things are really fun if you ignore the cameras and pushy paps," he says, playfully linking his arm with yours. Smiling brightly at you, he turns and escorts you towards the dressing room, much to the awe and surprise of the others. "And that's why we have security: to keep those away. This is as much part of tour as actually performing."

Once out of earshot of the others, you turn to Hoseok and mumble, "Yeah...I guess I'm just a little nervous. I remember how the press treated you boys when you first debuted. It was less than kind."

"You're tough as nails, [Y/n]. You Mins are another breed altogether. Trust me, if Jimin can do it, you can, too."

"I heard that!"

Hoseok giggles and gestures towards the dressing room, where the stylist has picked out a few options for outfits. They're all pretty, and go perfectly with the boys' album-themed attire.

"You got this," he states, letting you go and giving you two, big thumbs up.

You sarcastically mirror both his expression and gestures. "I hope so!"

Once everyone is dressed to the nines and dolled up, you're escorted to a Big Hit vehicle and sent on your way to the panel. This is far from the first time that BTS as a group has done something like this. In fact, you've attended once before, for the Map of the Soul: Persona release. It was inside one of the largest conference halls in downtown Seoul, and the seats were packed with photographers, journalists, interviewers, and even Army. Everyone was ecstatic about the release, and you can feel that same energy in the air today, despite being two members short.

As the group piles in the building, you feel Jimin and Taehyung take both of your hands. Your best friend and oldest friends are the first to notice how out of place you feel. The lights, the cameras, the crowds; it's not that you're not used to them, but they've never been focused on you before.

"You got this," Jimin murmurs, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek before he leads the trio through the auditorium doors.

From backstage, you can easily see the ramp that leads to the stage, and the setup in the center. The backdrop is a large, lavender canvas, covered in a larger version of the white outline of the plum blossom album art for 'Dream.' The host of the panel is a well-known personality in the k-pop industry, and as he makes his introductions of the event to those gathered in the seats, you attempt to calm yourself by taking deep breaths.

In your pocket, your phone buzzes twice. Pulling it out, you swipe across the screen, seeing two texts from Seokjin.

"I know you're nervous, but just take those deep breaths like I told you. Hold it in, and then slowly let it out. Seven seconds in, hold, and out. And trust the boys. They won't let anyone ask you questions that are inappropriate or rude. They have your back, Jagiya." The second says, "You got this. I believe in you. If I can do it, you're going to knock it out of the park."

A relieved smile slips onto your face, and you shoulders relax as you text a swift, grateful reply. As you hit send, Jimin reaches once more for your hand and tugs you towards the stage.

"Time to shine," he says with a grin. "Are you good?"

You give a single, assured nod and walk proudly behind him onto the stage. The lights and sounds drown out into a single, mute note as you find yourself being guided to a seat between Hoseok and Jungkook, near the edge of the panel. You're farthest from Namjoon, for which you're grateful in a way; as the leader of the group, he ends up doing most of the talking. Physically distancing yourself from him might be the best idea to keep you from having to speak for the group.

Once the basic introductions are made, even though everyone already knows who everyone else is, the questions from the host begin. The first few are easy questions about the album itself, the making and inspiration and work that went into it. He asks about everyone's roles and the sub units, as well as how they've handled the comeback for the last installment of Map of the Soul. The boys, mostly Namjoon, answer in their usual fashion, both elegant and truthful in their dialogue.

Then, the inevitable questions start to slip in.

"How has it been preparing for an album and tour without two of your most senior members?"

"We'd be lying if we said it's been easy," Namjoon chuckles, trying to answer the host in the most graceful way possible. "Suga and Jin did a lot of work on 'Dream' before they left to do their service, so we still feel as if they're with us, in a way. Jin has his solo track on the album, and it's one he recorded before he left. Suga did much of the songwriting and producing, per usual. But it has been hard. It's been a struggle for all of us to adjust without them, especially when preparing for the tour."

The host nods to you next, and you feel your stomach drop. "But it seems you're not completely rid of a Min family influence. Ms. Min [Y/n], how has it been working with BTS so closely on this project?"

Namjoon gives a small nod of reassurance as you lean forward to speak into the microphone in front of you. "Well...I actually have always worked as a producer on BTS' albums, so this one wasn't so different."

"But this time you're featured on the album as well, is that right?"

Swallowing dryly, you shake your head in agreement. Hoseok places a calming hand on your knee under the table, and you force yourself to take a deep breath in like Seokjin instructed.

"Yes, I am."

"What brought that about?"

"Well, I had released my track 'Silhouette' on Soundcloud a little bit before, and it had gained a lot of traction amongst Armys. When it came time to decide the final track lineup for 'Dream,' Bang Si-hyuk-nim brought up the idea to include it." You nod down towards Namjoon with a smile. "RM thought it was a great idea, and while I didn't agree at first, eventually I came around. The story 'Silhouette' tells fits in perfectly with the narrative in 'Dream.' We added the track, and the rest is history."

The host nods, listening to your answer intently. "So does this make you the eighth member of BTS, or a stand-in for your brother?"

While trying to remain respectful, you can't help but laugh at the question. "Not even close. Everyone knows that there's only one Suga, only one Min Yoongi, and no one will ever come close to replacing my brother. I'm not trying to become the eighth member of BTS, nor am I trying to replace Suga or Jin. I'm a new artist that's being featured on the next album, just like any previous collaboration. The only difference here is that I happen to be related to one of the members. Those artists...they're one-of-a-kind. If I'm a stand-in for either of them, I'd probably fire myself for doing such a sh—sloppy job."

Your last comment earns a chuckle from the host, as well as the audience behind him. "I see you're quite a lot like your brother in many ways, so it's comforting to know that the band still has a Min on their side, even while Suga and Jin are away at service."

Jimin leans forward to speak into his mic, turning his head so he can flash a wink in your direction. "Yeah, she's been like glue for us this past year."

"We're glad to have her on board," Namjoon agrees. "And both Jin and Suga approved all of this, both before and after they left, so there's that extra bit of encouragement."

"So will we expect to see you on the Dream Tour?" Both the host and the rest of the audience go silent, waited with bated breath for your response.

Flashing a small smile, you attempt to hide your nerves when you reply, "You'll see me in a little over a month at the opening in Seoul...and every stop after that."

After the remaining hour of the launch event is over, and the press starts to slip out of the auditorium, the members are escorted backstage to the changing rooms. The announcements being made, from now until Tour begins, the six of you are going to spend the majority of your time traveling for events. You've looked at the calendar and have seen the stops planned. Busan is next, then Tokyo, Nagoya, Hong Kong, Macau, Los Angeles, and New York City. You even recall seeing a handful of stops in Europe, Australia, and South America, as the fanbase has grown exponentially on those continents.

"That went perfectly," Sejin says as the members come off-stage. He nods to you with a proud expression. "You were amazing. All of you."

Jimin scurries over to you and wraps you in a tight hug. "I knew you could do it," he murmurs against your shoulder. "Proud of you, [Y/n]-ah."

Your heart swells at their reassurance, and you pat Jimin's shoulder as a silent thank you. "How can you be sweaty after two hours of sitting?" you tease, shoving him off you.

The blonde scoffs, feigning a hurt expression. "Those lights are bright! And I'm wearing Gucci!"

"Does money make you perspire?"

"Go get changed," Hoseok laughs, separating you two like a mother with her children. "We need to get on to Busan, and tomorrow we fly to Nagoya!"

"Ahhh, now I really miss Jin-hyung and his amazing Japanese skills," Taehyung groans. "I should've practiced more."

The group laughs at his self-inflicted banter and begins the process of changing into travel clothes for the short trip across South Korea.

"How are we getting to Busan?" you ask.

"Can we vote?" Jungkook asks, raising his hand dramatically. "'Cause I vote train."

Sejin shakes his head. "We have a jet already reserved."

The youngest member extends his hand towards the manager, eyes intent and fist closed. "Rock-paper-scissors for it?"

Though amused, Sejin merely points to the dressing room. "Get changed, Jungkookie."

"But—" All Sejin has to do is look directly at the brunet, cock an eyebrow, and cross his arms, and the maknae is grinning apologetically and running for the dressing room. "Plane it is!"

Taglist — @joyful-jimin, @gracehiii, @live-2-fangirl, @rjsmochii, @btsnatalena

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genshin-djinn · 4 years ago

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genshin impact: how I feel so far

I’ve just finished the prologue! Here are all of my thoughts on Genshin Impact thus far presented in a very confusing and non- linear manner.

My first and most resounding opinion on this game is that it’s amazing. The graphics are insane— the lighting, the weather, clouds passing by. All of the characters have designs so ridiculous it’s hard for me to draw them and it makes me feel like the game is just flaunting the flawless animation of all these characters’ extremely convoluted designs.

places

I love the locations sO mUCH. My favorite places so far are the two major cities— Mondstadt is just so cheery and fits the vibe of the early game (by early game I mean the dvalin quest line). It’s presented as large but in a very linear manner that you learn quite quickly. It has plenty of places to buy stuff from and just genuinely feels like a cheerful, bustling, fantasy city. fantastic and I’m in love. Liyue Harbor is presented in a completely different architectural style and it’s excellent. Mondstadt makes me feel safe, Liyue Harbor makes me feel like I’m in a wild metropolitan center.

And importantly, both of these cities feel genuinely alive. All the romantic hullabaloo in Mondstadt, Yi Zhu trying to cheer up his little sister Yi Xian after their mother’s death, the mysterious locked door in Mondstadt, Anna making wishes to recover from her illness at the well and her brother going there at night to collect all the coins so he can pay for her medication.

Besides the main cities my other favorite location has been Qingce village. The walk over to it is very nice and the town has an incredible vibe with the scale- like terraced fields. And even beyond that, the town is filled with old citizens and children— showing how all of the young adults in the town have left and decided to try to find a new and more exciting life in Liyue Harbor.

I’m having a hard time thinking of something I don’t like about the locations and honestly I’m drawing a blank. I really love all the set design/ map design. I know I will never finish that “collect every geoculus and anemoculus” quest because that’s just not the kind of dedication I have to this game (unless I get really stuck at an adventure level, though.... then things are a wild card.)

adventure ranks

this is my biggest problem with Genshin Impact.

You can’t progress the main quest (which honestly I enjoy more than a lot of the side quest because of my sheer attachment to these characters and their stories, which I’ll talk more about later) until you hit a certain adventure rank. And it’s a real pain getting them. I’m the type of person who gets freaked out when fighting a level 1 ruin guard with a set of level 39 characters and an inventory full of honey chickens. I do sometimes go into this state of bloodlust when fighting hillichurls and I feel like actually seeking out their camps to return them to dust myself but then I find one of them dudes with a shield and remember that my one pyro unit is amber and uhh.... that feeling goes away real fast.

I hope that the game does what they did with adventure ranks 18-20 more often— my next quest in Liyue is locked until rank 23 (I am not looking forward to increasing my world level can I please just play on easy difficulty until forever) but I get this cool new Darknight Hero quest that I’ve been looking forward to to tide me over until I hit level 21 and can go on another bookworm date with Lisa. Yes, spacing out the main quest line is okay, but I really like having a lot of side quests in between as well so I can gain adventure ranks organically rather than specifically hunting for geo/ anemoculi.

characters

I love the characters in this game maybe as much as I love the locations in this game. Maybe more.

My favorite character is Kaeya because I am a sap for antiheroes with attitude problems. More on him later.

I’ve also become very attached to Amber. She’s just such a positive soul and she so genuinely wants to do what’s right and she’s so useful for lighting things on fire which is something I do not have any other character to do (holding out for Xiangling at level 20....). But she’s just not a great character fighting wise. She takes a while to load arrows and they aren’t super useful compared to any of the other seven characters I own. But she can light stuff on fire and I don’t have anyone else to do that so she must remain on my team for the time being.

next up is Lisa. I like Lisa. I know she’s there for the perverts who want to see anime women’s chests but I genuinely do like her. Her personality is, well, very different from all the other characters’ and I kind of like her constant over the top- ness. Her ability is useful but I switched her out for Chongyun in my team and I can’t bring myself to get rid of Aether or Kaeya yet.

I rolled Xingqiu, Beidou, and Noelle but haven’t used them much. All I know about them is “water bookworm young master whos closet good at fighting”, “pirate who stopped me from getting that fecking file folder I was trying to get”, and “maid whose voice I like in the english and Japanese version”. (Side note, I mainly use the Japanese voiceovers because I prefer them. Downside is I sometimes can’t understand a word the characters are saying but it’s worth it for the voice actors)

I also got Chongyun who seems like a nice boy. I rolled him after I started playing with Japanese voiceovers, though, so I don’t understand most of his idle dialogue. All I really know about him is that he’s super positive and he loves ice cream and that’s good enough for me

Next up is my somewhat problematic fave Kaeya. It’s morally bad that you can’t tell whether he’s lying or telling the truth but all it does is make me like him better as a character. I can 100% see why he’s paired up with Jean and Amber as the most visible characters in power in the Knights of Favonius— they all sort of fulfill different roles. I really want to see more of him in the main plot, not when he’s lying about his grandpa hiding pirate treasure. Also we know nothing about his real motivations and actual past besides “diluc’s step brother, maybe like saw diluc kill his dad or like saw diluc upset after his dad was killed wE dOnT kNow”. and I want to know.

Can’t talk about Kaeya without talkin about his bro Diluc. I can’t wait to see him in this next quest line. I really want Diluc on my team. Same with Jean. That is all.

Penultimately I’m gonna talk about my personal favorite god of freedom whose powers just got stolen, maybe god, definite good bard Venti. I really like Venti. He’s got a lot of charm and he just fits perfectly as the easygoing free god of Mondstadt. I started yelling when that signora gal nabbed him. don’t worry venti we will kill her for you

Annnnd finally here’s my opinions on Aether (I chose him to be my protagonist) and Lumine (the Princess, I think). I do kinda enjoy them. They’re a bit of the typical blank protagonist type (can be sassy, can be cruel, can be honest, can be kind) but Lumine’s dark turn is just fascinating and I want to learn more about their relationship and how it’s changed since they were separated. Where even is Lumine? What will Aether do when he learns that his entire purpose in life has been in charge of the ones who’ve been hurting his new friends? It sounds like a fascinating situation.

(also Venti refers to Lumine as Aether’s “imouto”/ little sister— does he call Aether Lumine’s “otouto”/ little brother if you chose Lumine as your protag? which twin is older? is it determined by your choice of protagonist? hmmm)

least favorite things

Besides my problems with adventure rank, I have two other main issues with Genshin Impact.

Firstly, basically all of the female characters are dressed in outfits that seem designed to show as much skin as possible.

annnd secondly it’s extremely difficult to roll five star characters (Jean, Venti, Diluc) without paying money. this is a good way for the company to make cash but it’s also kind of annoying.

wrap- up

Ok! Those are all my main thoughts for now, at the end of the prologue and before chapter 1! I’m off to play the darknight hero quest (probably gonna post some of my mishaps here too). also I want more primogems we should be able to pet dogs npcs excitement bye

#genshin impact

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suffering-and-happy-about-it · 4 years ago

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Nicole's Rambling: The Avengers Problem (for PS4)

Let's start with the usual chanting: ❗this is my opinion, it's biased as hell (since I grew up with Marvel comic books and movies) and you don't have to agree❗

I was wondering why Avengers game gets so hated... So I took a look and I played it myself. Let’s have a look.

SPOILERS AHEAD

First off: the game isn't in any way horribly bad. It's just a button smasher with a story that has its good and bad beats. It's not memorable at all, but it could've gone way more downhill in my opinion.

At the start of the game, you meet the mighty Avengers through child fan's eyes - it's pure fanservice and let's be honest, it's dope. It was sweet, but pretty dragged, to be honest. I really didn't need to play as all five Avengers (HAWKEYE IS MISSING, AGAIN) in the first hour of the game, but sure, why not?

For the most part, you see the squad through Kamala Khan's eyes. For those who might have not a clue who the hell Kamala is; I am not wondering about why you don't know who the hell she is. She's a Marvel heroine who outed in 2013 and who will have her own spinoff on Disney+.

And again, Ms Marvel is fine, but not memorable at all. I've never, until this day, met anyone who would say that 'Ms Marvel is my favourite superhero'. I was halfway through the game before I even realized it's Ms Marvel - AFTER SHE PULLED HER DAMN COSTUME OUT. That can be due to my utter ignorance or because I heard of her so little that I can count it on my fingers. In all honesty, I loved Kamala as the story progressed, the gal's not bad at all - but as the whole game, she had good and bad beats. There were times where I wished to play as Iron Man and the game forced me to play as her... Whatever.

Let's look at the three problems I have with this game and three positives I found in the game:

0. (Technically zero since it's a personal problem of mine) The soundtrack and the voice actors:

By any means, I am not trying to say they should hire RDJ for the role of Iron Man and Mark Ruffalo for the role of Banner... But it was so hard to distinguish the voice of Nolan North (For example: Nathan Drake x Iron Man) and Troy Baker (Samuel Drake x Bruce Banner). For me, as for a PS4 gamer, it's annoying to hear the same voices again and again in every game I am genuinely excited about (Idk how Xbox players are familiar with them). Of course, there's even Laura Bailey as the Black Widow; I feel like these are the three only people who do voice acting for games these days and sure, I should've seen that coming.

Side note: Nolan North is not a good fit for Iron Man in the slightest in my opinion, but if you like his Iron Man, that's cool as well!

The soundtrack... M A N, the soundtrack. When I heard Marvel gave a green light to the Avengers game, I expected to hear at least the iconic Alan Silvestri's 'The Avengers'. Problem with this is simple: Marvel had spoiled its consumers with good and memorable soundtracks (don't you tell me you don't remember as they all gathered for the first time). Since it was Marvel itself who gave the green light for this project, which was supposed to be based loosely on the movies' and comic book success, I hoped to get all of it.

It's not Iron Man when AC/DC song isn't playing in the background as he flies through a canyon for his life. I mean, Iron Maiden are fine; but come on. COME ON. It's not the same. It's not the Avengers (WITHOUT HAWKEYE) without their significant theme.

1. IT. BUGS. ALL. THE. TIME and the combat is incredibly repetitive:

When I was little, I was a rage gamer. I could barely play Crash Bandicoot or Rayman without losing my cool. Since then, I grew up, skilled and etc. I try not to rage when playing games since it's simply not worth it.

But when you're replaying a boring mission for the tenth part and you're almost over and SUDDENLY, the game bugs out and you lose control over the character (it starts running in circles, etc.) it sucks shit. And don't let me start on the minor bugs. Like when you don't cross the platform by one pixel and the game doesn't let you make combos when you're in the air and bug into a tree when you bug into a wall, a rock, fucking nothing... Bruh. It was released in August, shouldn't these bugs be fixed by now? The game is fucking broken, hoes. It barely feels like a game ready to launch at times.

When you're so lucky that you don't bug out in the middle of doing something, the combat... It isn't bad. It's not terrible, but the Avengers deserved something better. It didn't deserve mediocre combat that repeats itself in every level. Once you find yourself good combo, you're done for. You can use it to finish the game if you will.

2. There's too many missions, too much information and too much things player has to understand if he wants to play the game properly:

Okay, this might seem to be a little confusing; I didn't understand the game system at all when I first ran it on my PS4. There's story missions, HARM training sessions, daily missions for particular heroes, faction missions (SHIELD, Pym, Stark, etc.) and character-side-story missions, and a lot more.

Trust me, it doesn't sound that hard, but once you open the map menu for yourself... Oh boy, that's a different story. And if it only was the map menu. The inventory and such aren't too collected all together either. Before you can safely tell what is what, it will take you at least a whole afternoon. Also, the fact that game just spills it on you just like that, one thing after another, it doesn't help the overall feel.

On top of that, there are MULTIPLE currencies in the game; some even involve microtransaction. It mostly is involving the customization of the Avengers, so it's not THAT big of a deal; you can get one currency by collecting boxes and stuff, but it takes ages before you can buy one single thingy.

Also, if you would like to get stuff (very useful stuff) from factions (SHIELD and Pym mainly), you have to do in-factions daily quests, which usually require to do a certain amount of things as a particular hero (you can do some quests with Ms Marvel only, some with Black Widow, it usually involves the damage dealt while playing as a character etc.). And if you forget to fetch these minies? Well, no faction points for you, bucko.

The system feels overall too complicated in the begging and even after finishing the game, I am not certain by some.

3. The gameplay of the one and only... Natasha Romanov, and the entirety of Steve Rogers:

Right off the bat: IT. SUCKS. SHIT.

This was your shot in opening our mouths and showing why Black Widow BELONGS to the Avengers in the first place. Like, sure, storywise you proved the point, but gameplaywise... That's a different story.

Out of the bunch, Natasha feels the slowest, most clumsy and overall not too pleasant to play as. Mainly is because her attacks do... Nothing. The gun reloading is basically constant when I have to put it simply and it takes about 3-5 seconds for her to even reload; which can be a matter of life and death inside the game. Sure, she can make herself invisible; but that's like... It. It's not that it would be suffering when you are forced to play as Nat... But not a pleasant experience either.

On the other hand, maybe it's just me. I have friends who told me the same about her gameplay, but maybe there's someone who enjoys the Black Widow. It's my personal with the entirety of the gameplay.

Steve, on the other hand, isn't hard to play as. It's just fucking boring. At the start of the game, I couldn't wait to play as Steve's character. He seemed to be awesome - Jesus fuck, how could I be so wrong? As I said, he's incredibly boring and dry, his skills would do the same amount of work if they even weren't there. I think that Rogers is there just for the shock value (as a value that doesn't even work in the slightest) and nothing more.

As you learn to do the tricks and combos with them, it gets slightly better and skill tree and equipment upgrades can help almost unnoticeable... But really, Steve and Natasha are the absolute worst.

Now the reasons why the game convinced me it isn't a hot mess as I initially thought:

1. The characters, dynamics, chemistry and the overall story:

Sure, it is mainly a basic plotline, a cookie-cutter one, full of cliché - Avengers have to regroup after a traumatic event and you're the one who has to find them and bring them together.

Yet it is quite interesting; the game leads you to believe that Steve Rogers is dead after an event called the 'A-Day' (which you won't believe even if the game does the hardest to make you to, constantly remaining you that 'Oh boy, Cap died, did you know that?') and the Avengers had left to exile because they were considered as big bad for the people and the country. They have their emotional baggage and the banter between Banner and Stark (though it ends too soon), is just the thing that makes them human and relatable.

Even the villains are quite compelling; not like ultra super convincing, but the game can turn around when you least expect it to; which is definitely a huge plus.

The characters were done GOOD. The dialogues are full of personality and jokes you'd expect from each one of them; Banner is a wallflower cutie, Tony fishes for compliments all the time, Natasha is the big independent woman she always was and Thor? CHEF'S KISS, I swear. It hits the Shakespearean vibe perfectly and at the same time, he still is charming and quite funny to hang around.

Every time you can listen to a chit-chat between two characters, it is a great pleasure for you as a Marvel fan. Also, I need to say that regardless of my personal issue with the dub (regarding Tony and Bruce; since they're the people you spend most of your time with), the dialogues for these two characters are on point without a doubt. And I kinda grew fond of the in-game Bruce Banner throughout the course of the game, to be honest.

There are references, jokes, inside jokes, one-liners... The dialogue was done amazingly and that's a huge T H A N K Y O U to the developers.

2. The mind-blowing gameplay of... Tony Stark and Thor and AI, while not being too bright, getting stronger as you do:

In what the Natasha gameplay lacks, these two give you exactly what would you expect and way, way more than you'd ask for. Again, it mainly reflects the personal gameplay preferences of the player; let me tell you why I think these gameplays are, in my opinion, the best.

a) Tony's gadgets and weaponry: The suit itself is bloody brilliant. Once you master the ability to attack and fly at the same time, you have the moments when you can not only feel like Iron Man - but really be Iron Man. It's not even that your gameplay would suddenly become 10x easier; it significantly becomes funnier.

b) Thor's heavy fist-to-fist and Mjolnir preferences: the Mjolnir is bloody brilliant as well. Thor's combat is mainly physically based, but when you want to throw the hammer around like the madman you are, you can suit yourself. You can use the lightning if you please and you can fly if this style of combat suits you. It's all in your hands. Thor can take quite a bit of damage, which is significantly supporting you in this style. If you accidentally drop Mjolnir? Well, call it back and smash them!

Also, regarding the AI... As I said, they're certainly not the brightest sparks in the flame; yet thanks to the power getting bigger as you level up and continue with your story and a huge variety of enemies - from turrets to flying men with flamethrowers. It is just button smasher, but a pleasing one in this regard, I must say.

3. The fanservice to comic book fans, movie fans and loyalty to the property:

As one IGN review once said... "This game makes you feel like Batman." And this game more or less accomplished it as well, but diluted and stripped down. Of course, in no way I can compare this to the masterpiece to the Arkham saga; these games are brilliant.

But there are moments when the game can just drag you inside the story and tell you: "You're Iron Man now, boss. It's in your hands." And it's there. I think the only issue was that the team of devs just took too big of a bite. I wouldn't mind stand-alone titles emerging into one and big Avengers game. That would be fun as well and I would spend my time with it gladly.

To end it: it's a mess, but a good mess you might like. If I was to rate it, would be 5.1/10 Wait until it is on sale, don't rush it. I'm overall disappointed and I most likely will forget I have ever played it.

#avengers #marvel's avengers #avnegers ps4 game #avengers game #black widow #captain america #iron man #ms marvel #the incredible hulk #nicole's rambling #thor #WHERE DID YOU LEAVE CLINT #WHERE IS HE #Marvel Comics #why the fuck did you do

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jaybug-jabbers · 4 years ago

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Pokemon Prism Review

Well I’m currently finishing up the post-game content of Pokemon Prism.

Dang.

What a fun game.

(what follows is an informal review of the game. it got a little long, lol. it has some spoilers for the game, of course.)

My background

To give you a quick idea on my perspective on Pokemon, I grew up with Pokemon Red on the big grey brick Gameboy. After Red, I pretty much stopped playing for many years. My little brother had a Gameboy Color and had Silver, but I never got one myself. Wasn’t ‘til years and years later I found some emulators and played through several generations of Pokemon at once. So, Gen 2 really isn’t nostalgic for me. It’s close enough to Gen 1 to hit some nostalgia buttons, though. I am admittedly somebody who feels Gen 1 is the best gen of pokemon. I don’t care of people laugh or say I’m a genwunner for believing that. Gen 1, I feel, had the raw creativity and charm of the original idea, and it simply sets my imagination alight far more than any other gen does. Those simple pixel designs for those little virtual creatures just opened up a world in my mind. THAT SAID, I did play and very much enjoyed all the other gens of pokemon. I do not shun things just because they are new, and I am not one of those people who says the new designs of pokemon are stupid. I adore plenty of modern pokes.

Blend of Old and New

Anyway! Pokemon Prism, for those unaware, is a ROM hack of Pokemon Crystal. It essentially delivers a brand-new Pokemon adventure for the Generation 2 games. It’s a really neat blend of classic gameplay and modern features. You’ll find species from modern games all the way from Gen 3 (such as Breloom) to Gen 6 (such as Sylveon) but their sprites perfectly integrate them organically into the Gen 2 environment. You’ll get many modern pokemon moves and conviences but also plenty of throwbacks to older experiences. Miss crafting pokeballs from Apricorns? It’s there. Enjoy a simplier time when there weren’t any Natures? Well, there ya go. Really want to call Joey and talk to him about his Rattata? Well, err, no, you can’t do that, but let’s face it, the telephone feature was probably one of the most hated features in Gen 2. :P

But Prism isn’t simply about updating Gen 2 with some modern pokemon, moves and game features. Not in the slightest. It’s full of original mechanics and gameplay concepts, and has tons of original areas and an original storyline. Pokemon is known for experimenting with new gameplay ideas, so it’s really fitting and enjoyable to see these take shape as you play the game. Mining and crafting is introduced in the game, for example, and there are a couple new pokemon types. There’s even a few sections where you can play as your pokemon, Mystery-Dungeon style. Do all of these experiments with new concepts work? Probably not ALL of them– when you try something new, not all of them will work out as amazing as you’d hope. But a lot of them are welcome and fun additions. And the game is bristling with these new ideas! It’s a joy to see so much creativity and novelty.

Sprites

It should be noted the spritework for these games is A+ and utterly fantastic. There is perhaps 3 or 4 out of dozens and dozens of new sprites that I thought were a tad off? Seriously, they look AMAZING and their animations are perfect and they fit in with the style so well I found myself briefly getting confused as to which were originally from Gen 2 and which weren’t. Saying these sprites are good is no small thing, because they are such a vital part of the game. The backsprites were not shafted, either– something even Gamefreak often shortchanged on back then.

Music

It should also be noted the music in this game is really damn good and has a huge variety. There are tons of classic songs, classic remakes of modern pokemon songs, remixes, and original tunes. There were like one or two tunes I was a bit iffy on, but considering that’s only a few out of so many, that’s impressive. The new bike music and Surfing music are probably my favorites, and they are SO GOOD, and those are especially important ones to sound good, because you typically hear those a lot.

Writing

The writing in this game is fairly solid. Not A+, but still not bad. It suffers occasionally from slightly rough and confusing grammar, and the climax of the story is definitely anti-climactic and very weak. In addition, the post-game story basically does not exist, but that can be excused since most likely more story was planned but they ran out of time. (C&D)

I also felt that at times, the story felt out-of-place within the world of Pokemon and went “too far” in the darker direction. The entire prison sequence, especially, and the frequent mention of inmates being mistreated, pokemon being abused, etc., just felt a bit much. Because this game was largely concerned with replicating the feeling of a true Pokemon game (some hacks intentionally focus on making a story that would never take place in the Pokemon world, like zombie survival horror stories or whatnot), I find it relevant to mention that. All of that said, though, its darker departures were at least not *too* extreme. We don’t get the very jarring and frequent problem of some ROM hacks where it’s full of cussing all the time or intense violence. Compared to those it’s still relatively subtle. And while the NPCs in this game I felt were rude a little too often, (holy crap, it felt like 95% of Naljo and Rijon were crankyass people) I do appreciate the attempts at making people a little more “real” and not quite so freaking happy and idealized all the time like Nintendo tends to do. The dialogue often made me chuckle. It did go a tad overboard with that “realness” (because, hey, a variety of people exist in the world, you know, both rude and polite, optimistic and bitter) but oh well.

So yes, the writing had its drawbacks. But overall, it felt like it was progressing a pokemon-style narrative with some interesting ideas, and wasn’t simply a dreary rehash of the same basic tropes Pokemon has been regurgitating for ages now. I just think if the writing were cleaned up a bit– the grammar cleaned up in a few sections, the plot threads clarified a bit more, and the climax reworked– it could take a “decent story” and make it a great one. There’s definitely some neat ideas there, it just needs polish.

Maps

As to the different towns and locations in this game to explore, there are many. This game is ambitious AF. As I said, it’s FULL of new ideas, features, things to do, and places to explore. Naljo is the region you explore in the main game, but post-game you can wander a whole new region of Rijon (the featured location of an older ROM hack, Pokemon Brown) and beat all the gyms there. In addition, there’s a few towns in Kanto and Johto you can visit (I believe they originally planned to open up all of those regions eventually), AND one town in ANOTHER new region, Tunod. The game’s ambitiousness occasionally outpaces what it delivers, but that’s quite acceptable in my mind, since updates with additions to the game were originally planned. So, yes, there isn’t much to do post-game, but that’s largely because a lot of stuff was going to be added.

Back to the locations, though! It’s an important aspect of ROM hacks. Not everyone is good at designing a good town, with logical building placement, intuitive layouts, aesthetically pleasing locations, and interesting things to explore so it doesn’t feel totally plain and lacks character. I’m pleased to say this game does a great job of it, though. I should point out I have a terrible sense of direction and bad spatial memory. Despite that fact, I found myself remembering important features and where they were located– oh, the Move Deleter house is in Phacelia on the left, the bullet train is in Torenia– and that’s a good sign. Physical travel was not a sloggy chore, and it wasn’t bogged down in a confusing layout. Towns were memorable and fun to explore.

Pacing/Level Curve

Another thing ROM hacks can screw up, because it’s a tricky thing to do, is the challenge pacing. How many trainers? What teams do they have? What levels? Are the Gyms challenging without being insane? I actually Nuzlocked the main part of the game. In my opinion it was well-paced. There’s probably fewer trainers overall in this game than a standard Pokemon game. But it did not take me much extra grinding in the grass– and I was only doing that to play it safe for the Nuzlocke. And that’s GOOD. You shouldn’t have to do tons of grinding in the grass all the time just to have a reasonable shot at the gyms. Pokemon Uranium, sadly, seems to suffer from that issue. So, yeah, the pacing was very reasonable to me, good balance of fair and challenging.

… with one important note. Once you reach the League? Well, we could have used higher-levelled wild pokemon in the cave that served as the victory road. The highest in that cave was level 34 or so, and you were facing trainers with teams ~level 55. That’s a huge gap. Not everyone has the same play style. Some people like to do extra grinding before the Elites. Some people are Nuzlocking and may do extra grinding as a safety buffer. Some people might want to adjust their team & add a new pokemon to their team and need to grind them up from a lower level. For those cases, you NEED decently-levelled wild pokemon to grind on. So, yeah, I really do think the Seneca Caves wild pokemon need a level buff. It would also help with the level gap for the post-game. Trainers in Rijon are suddenly at levels 70ish and higher, and for some folks playing, that’s a bit much and they’d like to do a little grinding first.

Puzzles

This game has puzzles. You have been warned, lol. Apparently a lot of people found the number of puzzles a bit frustrating, or felt that some of them were excessively tricky or annoying. I find it very funny, because usually puzzles are my least favorite part of a pokemon game. But I really enjoyed the puzzles in Prism and didn’t find it annoying or offputting at all. I was sick with a cold through most of my play of Prism, and yet even in my dumb brainaddled state, I didn’t find the puzzles too difficult. I solved them all at a pretty average length of time, even the ones some people traditionally found a little unclear or confusing. (the Ruins puzzle often confuses folks, apparently, but I really didn’t have a problem with it at all.) I was briefly confused on one of the switch puzzles (and it contained an element of bad puzzle design imo– there’s a gap that you can leap down into when normally a gap of that size just gives the ‘run into wall’ sound and is not passable) but not for too long. Even the ice slide puzzles, which I traditionally hate with a passion, were not bad!

All except for one thing. The Magikarp Puzzle. Anyone who has played Prism knows what I mean. Haha, fuck that puzzle man. Even the creator of the ROM hack himself has acknowledged the puzzle was not great, heh. To be honest, I find it kind of hilarious, in a way, though. I mean, obviously it’s a nightmarishly difficult and frustrating puzzle and is intensely exhausting to look at, let alone try to solve. But it’s also kinda glorious in its demonicness. I didn’t spend too much time on it before just looking up a solution to it. It’s tedious and not fun at all, and hey, that’s OK, because even the creator realized that.

pls nerf magikarp

But seriously, outside of the magikarp puzzle, I didn’t just enjoy the puzzles in this game– I felt like they were an important part of what gave this game its character.

Fakemon

There are even a few fakemon in this game! Which I was excited to learn because I thought there weren’t! All of the fakemon are Legenderies. Unfortunately, I don’t care for most of their designs. Like, at all. I think Varaneous and Libabeel’s sprites look really, really shitty. They’re ugly and don’t match the style of Pokemon at all. This feels weird to say, since I love so much about this game, but man, there’s just no way around it, I hate ‘em. Everyone has their own tastes, of course. There’s a couple fakemon I have yet to capture– I’m finishing that up now and the very very last of the post-game. But one fakemon I did capture and ADORE LIKE NO OTHER is Phancero.

I happen to know about Phancero’s designer, because I saw their design years ago. They apparently were approached by the team and were asked permission for the use of the design, which is awesome. I won’t rant again about Phancero here because I already ranted about it before, and literally could keep ranting for pages. :P But yeah, it’s a totally creative and awesome pokemon both in idea and execution, and by FAR my favorite fakemon ever created.

Conclusion

This is the best ROM hack I have played in years and probably ever. I haven’t played hundreds of ROM hacks, but I have probably played dozens over the years. I think they are a creative and wonderful expression of the pokemon community, but let’s be honest. There’s a lot of really bad ROM hacks out there. There’s even more ROM hacks that have a lot of potential but are never finished or anywhere near completion. (And that’s perfectly understandable. People run out of time, they have real life get in the way, etc.) The fact that not only did a ROM hack of this caliber get made, but was 95-99% completed? Is fantastic. It was an intensely massive project and I cannot begin to imagine how much work it must have been. Pokemon games are normally developed by an entire team at a company, and folks are paid to do it. The comparatively small team of devs who made this game in their spare time and implemented these amazing things had to do it all on their own. It’s no wonder it took as long as it did for them to finish it; and the amount of effort SHOWS. There is so much loving attention to detail and polish to Prism. (I mean, yes, there’s still some bugs and the occasional unfinished bits, but of course there are, those were going to be finished, but then the C&D hit)

Most ROM hacks are just strong in a few areas, because it’s one or two people who have strengths or interests in a few things. So, you’ll play a hack with a really good story but terrible fakemon and mapping, or you’ll play a hack with fantastic designs of new areas, but no new story, etc. Prism kinda has everything, though. It really did feel like playing a new Gen 2 game.

(It’s now almost 11pm and oh god where did the time go. I have a problem with being concise. :P This was far longer than I intended but thank you if you’ve read this far!)

This is a repost on a new blog. The original post was on Jan 17, 2017.

#pokemon #pokemon prism #pokemon fan games #pokemon rom hacks #mycontent #spoilers #pokemon reviews

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ais-n · 5 years ago

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1 | more like apologise for how harmful it was? how the mlm relationships were so clearly hetero? the sex scenes were so straight to me tbh. and i say this as someone who has read the books twice. first time i didn't see what i saw the second time. i think you genuinely wanted to have people of colour representation but it's very racist to me how hsin and emilio were done. constantly called "exotic" which is a thing americans like to use so much when it's not their ethnicity.

Hi! Thanks for the detailed explanation, I appreciate it! At first I had such HIGH HOPES I could reply to all three of your asks in one place but it turns out I talked too much (go figure lol) So I’m going to do then one at a time. I did want to start out replying to one offhand comment in the 3rd ask and then I’ll get into the rest. Below is what I had written before I realized I need to split it into three and then edited out saying I’m answering all at once. For anyone who hasn’t seen all three asks yet, that’s why part of what I’m talking about isn’t represented above - anon, hopefully it makes more sense to you since you know the future right now from what you had written in the past. ....wow, I made that confusing.

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Thank you for the explanation! I appreciate you too! Also you made me laugh out loud at the gay comment, so thank you for that XD You are not making me feel worse; I appreciate the courage you no doubt had to pull together to post this :) I could be wrong but if I imagine myself in your place, I imagine feeling a little scared or intimidated to post and yet feeling it is necessary. I think it’s really cool you were able to post this in such a thoughtful explanation. Thank you!

In order to not overwhelm anyone’s inbox - and to make it easier for you - I put these all together in one ask. [[[EDIT: JUST KIDDING I talk too much - this is answering stuff from each ask at a time, sorry. I put it behind a cut to make it less long on people’s dashboards.]]]

Still, I imagine with so much I want to talk about at once, I will probably miss things so let me know if I miss something you really wanted to talk about or you wanted follow up on something in particular.

Anyway READ MORE BELOW for a probably stupidly long reply lol Just, knowing me at least….

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Hi welcome to the below deck party! I don’t know why I said it that way. That was creepy sorry lol Anyway I’m breaking this up a little bit but the more I think about it the more I think this probably really can’t address everything properly in one place. So, again, seriously just let me know if you want follow up on anything - or if anyone does, for that matter. I’m not doing this quite in order though.

RACE:

Yeah actually, I agree that “exotic” is pretty ??? terminology to be using tbh. I don’t imagine I would use that wording if I were writing something today and if we were to edit the series now, I’d remove it. I don’t remember the context, to be honest; whether it was only used in narration or if it was used in dialogue too. Dialogue might stay, if it’s to show a person speaks a certain way and has certain views on life, but I’d personally probably change that in narration unless it had a specific reason for being there. Which my very vague memories combined with your comment make me think probably not?

In regards to Hsin/Emilio plus even terminology like ‘exotic’ or whatever being used - so, upfront, I need you to know this whole post is not an excuse or etc. It’s just an explanation.

I didn’t write Hsin or Emilio, so I honestly can’t speak for or about them. I would like to be able to give you some insight into “Sonny’s” background and his friends and family he said he was inspired by in writing them, or give you insight into Alicia’s background (as she is a person of color, at least I was always told she is), but I truly don’t even know what was a lie and what was truth anymore. He always told me his characters like Hsin and Emilio were based pretty directly on people he knew - well, Emilio in particular was hugely based on a cousin of his. But that cousin didn’t exist, it turns out, or at least not in the way I knew. We wrote our own characters and were in charge of their own stories, although we also co-wrote the series as a whole and had input on the plot and etc. But I never really dealt directly with Emilio or Hsin in the writing of them other than how my characters interacted with “his” characters.

I can’t speak on behalf of anyone so I honestly can’t say if Emilio and/or Hsin are concerning or not concerning portraitures of any demographic. I really feel that such a determination has to be up to each reader. I say that in part because I’ve heard over the years that people actually appreciated the way they were written, for various reasons, and some of the people saying that were from demographics that the characters represented. But that also doesn’t mean it has to be something across the board; that because one person feels a certain way, everyone else whether in or out of that demographic has to agree. Quite the opposite, really.

I wish I could even say something like “I know Sonny did a lot of research on xyz specific topic because we talked about abc in regards to it” but I can’t. I know we had those conversations but I don’t know if anything I was told is true. What I can say is the series was written basically 15 years ago. Or rather, started around 15 years ago, then written on/off over multiple years. And we started it essentially in the same vein as BL fanfic, just sort of as a fun thing to do on our off time without any initial plan to ever publicly share it. The good thing about humans and culture is we change as we grow, and there are many things we can continue to gain understanding of as we go.

One of the really good things about the last 15 years is it’s become more and more accessible to learn about the world and its people. When we started ICoS, for example, Google streetview wasn’t a thing. In order to try to be accurate about something like the streets of a particular city, we either had to totally make shit up and say the war changed everything in that town or I had to try to track down a paper map of it and hope nothing had changed significantly since then.

Slowly over the years, the globalization of information expanded. Over time, all the little details I didn’t know to even question became things I could find easily. Like, do they say W Something St or Something St W? Is it Avenue Blah or Blah Avenue? Do they even use terminology like avenue or streets? Do they commonly have alleyways everywhere or anywhere and if so how big are they? What are the roads made of? What is the lighting like? Are there basements?

I grew up in Midwest USA on the tail end of tornado alley where a basement is an absolute must. Imagine my absolute confusion when I learned there are houses out there where they DON’T go underground. Like, at all. wtf??? From my, at that time obviously limited, experience, the only people I personally knew who didn’t have some sort of underground space were apartment dwellers or my friend who lived in the mobile home park. It was such a staple understanding in my life to assume everyone had a basement in their home that I had no idea to even question the existence of such a thing when trying to write another location within the US, let alone anywhere else in the world. And at a certain point when we were writing it, I didn’t even know to ask certain questions, or if I did I didn’t have an easy way of finding it.

If you were to read the very, very original version of Evenfall and compare it to what’s most recently released, for example, there are many differences. One example of something you might notice is the streets are totally different in Monterrey. That’s because we had to make up streets the first time around because I could not find any maps for the city. I tried but they just weren’t accessible for whatever reason; not in the detail I needed and where I could find them, or probably afford. We had to just be like “Welp, guess the war changed it all, sry!” to explain the random names and structure. But as the years passed, information spread to a minute level across the world slowly but surely. First, Google eventually had the layout of the city streets, then it had satellite imagery, then it had Google streetview, then it had people randomly uploading photos to locations, and so on. Eventually, there was enough information from big to small to feel relatively sure we could at least somewhat accurately represent the geography - not perfectly, absolutely not because we’d never been there - but an approximation that hopefully wouldn’t be too jarring for someone actually able to visit, themselves.

You may wonder why the hell I’m talking about streets in Mexico when your comment was on Hsin’s and Emilio’s characterizations, but I mention it because I look at a lot of things in writing with that same level of paranoia of wanting all the details possible to write it to try to be as accurate to at least someone’s reality as possible. That’s one reason why I haven’t written Domino, for example, which focuses on Vivienne’s life; it probably seems like it should be easy to do, and in ways it is. But I don’t feel nearly educated enough on how it would be to grow up in France in a rural then urban area with the sort of pressures she had as a young woman and with her different levels of wealth and the way she looked and etc etc to be fair to anyone who may find representation within that and to not accidentally jar them totally out of the experience by the equivalent of randomly throwing a basement in the middle of Texas because who the fuck knew Texans don’t automatically have basements in all their homes??

Really, with anything, there is always room for improvement - especially with anything as complex as any aspect of any demographic which inherently then serves as some form of representation for a huge variety of human beings. Humans, being complex beings themselves, will thus have an even larger variety in the way any topic can be seen. What is severely off-putting to one person might be acceptable to another. Sometimes society steps in and is like nah bro, idgaf if you’re cool with that, I’m not. And sometimes it remains so complex that it’s hard to give one exact answer.

What we tried to do was listen to feedback as we wrote and take it into account in the writing of the series itself. Also, especially later in the series, whenever possible we tried to do research as much as possible on whatever detail or topic we had going on to try to be as accurate as possible.

I’m truly not trying to skirt any sort of issue, I just don’t think I can properly say a singular reply to your concern without being unfair to different voices I’ve heard on this topic over the years. If I had never heard directly or indirectly from people that they specifically appreciate the representation of the characters, if in fact I had only ever heard concerns about them, it would be easier to say we were wrong. But I’m not part of any of the demographics so I can’t speak on behalf of any of them. Thus, I can only listen to what different people tell me, and know that regardless of what I’m told, for them that is truth and thus I respect it.

What I will say is it certainly was not the intention to upset, insult, alienate, or otherwise cause concern for anyone reading the series for anything other than the actual things intended to be fucked up like the things the characters went through and so on. I’m very sorry that the characterization is so upsetting and concerning for you. That really sucks; it takes away from the point of the story and puts you in a place that is deeply uncomfortable. I’m very sorry we put you in that position.

RELATIONSHIPS

Actually, I’d love to hear more what you mean by your comment. I have certain inferences I make based on what I think you mean but I don’t want to misinterpret and misrepresent your concerns.

The way I interpret “how the mlm relationships were so clearly hetero? the sex scenes were so straight to me tbh.” is maybe related to the idea of dominance vs submission? Like making an equivalence of that to masculine = dominant = power/strength = top = Hsin, and feminine = submissive = weakness = bottom = Boyd? Is that what you’re suggesting or did you mean something else? I have a lot of thoughts on this subject but, again, I don’t want to ramble on a tangent if I am totally misunderstanding what you meant. Especially since I rambled so much above.

So if you’d like to explore the topic more and would like thoughts/answers/etc just let me know in another anon ask more specifically what you mean, if you can. Thank you :)

I’ll go onto ask 2 for now - I forgot exactly what came up in that ask vs the 3rd ask so I’m not sure how long it will take me to type up a reply. Just in case I don’t finish it today, I wanted to sign this off in the meantime with I hope you’re staying healthy and safe!

#Anonymous #ask ais #icos #in the company of shadows

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silyabeeodess · 5 years ago

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FusionFall: Thoughts on the Latest Update

So...guess who played through the whole update in one sitting?

I don’t usually give my thoughts on games themselves--if I do, it’s typically in regards to story and worldbuilding rather than gameplay--but there was so much to unpack with this that I feel like I want to cover some points. Some of this is just my personal thoughts, some of this will be a critique, and some of this--since I do post headcanons, stories, and a few theories--will be in regards to my approach on those now that we’ve been given new information. As this will contain spoilers, I’m leaving the info below the cut. That said, let’s begin:

To start out, I’d like to cover progression. I played with my lvl. 36 character, like I’m sure many of you have/will, and while I can’t speak for anyone playing this and receiving these missions on lower levels--when they’ll be getting other missions and the Nanos they need to level up at possibly the same time--as a result, I felt that the new World Nano missions we were given flowed really nicely. One thing that is both a gift and a curse with FusionFall is that, while it has vast areas to explore, rather than level up following a singular route like some games, you can do a bit of running around if you don’t stack your missions properly. Luckily, this doesn’t feel tedious simply because there is so much to explore and thanks to the quick travel system. However, for more experienced players who have already run through everything, I could see this being a little stale. The newer missions ran a pretty set path within a mostly singular route, so you could run from destination to destination rather than hopping from the different areas in the game. If they add updates with a similar scale, I hope they continue with this trend.

There were two new locations to explore in the game: Harada-Bridges Records and a digital world. Both are amazing!! I’m a sucker for this kind of worldbuilding anyway--I’ve made a huge list of products, stores, etc. in FusionFall and the Cartoon Networks shows just so I can pull them in to my stories rather than use generic stuff--but this took the cake. The team didn’t need to go this far, but they did. And I love them for it. The record studio had posters for bands and refs to some of the cartoons, it added more to the lore with the Gangreen gang and fleshed them out a bit, and they just looked awesome. I mean, look at this: The first words out of my mouth on seeing the digital world were literally, “Oh Mama!”

It’s not anything super complicated, but it has this awesome, almost Tron-like aesthetic that’s just beautiful. The glowing walls with shifting colors was a great touch and the enemies fit perfectly into this.

Speaking of enemies, let’s get to them and the new combat introduced. 99% of the time, unless it’s for an event, I play solo. (It’s just what I’ve always done.) And at this point, I’ve gotten pretty good handling the controls for the game if I do say so myself. Not that they’re overly complicated: Once you remember the buttons and what you need to look out for, you’re pretty golden.

Some of the combat introduced actually surprised me.

The enemies themselves weren’t anything too original, a lot of them we’ve seen before, but some of their abilities will catch you off guard if you’re unprepared. There’s a fusion monster that splits into two upon death that you have to beat, and then you later have to fight three Fusions at once, some of your Nanos abilities do nothing, and they’re constantly blasting away at you. I died once to the 3 Fusions, but handled myself pretty well: It did, however, force me to rethink my strategy in a way I never had before, which was refreshing. I couldn’t even attempt to take on one Fusion at a time in the group by luring one away because all of them reacted, so I ended up having to run around constantly as I was attacking in order to avoid getting bombed by fusion blasts. I like this experiment, as it breaks the old formula and gives the average player a new challenge without becoming frustrating. I hope the team continues this!

One thing that is frustrating though, and it’s been a problem since before the update, has to do with the fusion matter in Fuse’s Lair. Keep in mind, while I’m fighting three teams of three Fusions one right after the other, I only see one Revive ‘Em all the way at the start on the map, which is huge. (I got a bit frustrated back when I had to battle Fuse because the Revive ‘Em for that was pretty far too, so I constantly kept having to run back to Fuse through a course of fusion monsters and ziplines even though the game was saving my progress during the fight.) I get that it’s always been a thing when you tackle a boss and it’s a reasonable penalty for the most part, but when you have to go through such a massive location it gets a little ridiculous just to have one. Especially due to the fusion matter present in the Lair. Story-wise, it makes perfect sense: You’re in the belly of the beast, so to speak, and in most likely the location with the highest concentration of pure fusion matter on Earth. However, where this fails in terms of gameplay is that, not only can you step in it and have no idea because everything looks the same, it’s right in the middle of walkways you’re forced to go through or in small patches you accidently step on because again you can’ t see it like in the rest of the game. It’s a good thing I kept my Grim Tokens for a rainy day, because one tini-tiny patch literally killed me immediately after battling the last trio of Fusions despite the fact that there was no indicator I was standing in it during the fight. It makes it hard to even find somewhere to stand to recover as you’re going through, and it’s one thing I do hope they fix even if I never have to go back to the Lair myself.

Getting to some of the story/worldbuilding stuff, again, I do love where they’re taking the game. You can tell these guys aren’t just trying to make random missions for funsies; They’re taking plot development seriously, trying to connect various dots and add a whole new chapter for us to explore. Of course, you know I already love it, but also, not gonna lie...

I’m happy that it looks like I was right on the hivemind and symbiotic nature of Fuse with Planet Fusion theories. :)

As for the Belladonna/Buttercup one, I figured I probably wouldn't be right about it back then and, sure enough, the memory-loss idea was kept. The fact that the team actually brought more to such a minor thing in the game overall pleasantly surprised me though. While I can’t say I like the take due to the plot holes remaining, it’s not something I pin on the team as it was present in the first version of the game and even one of the devs commented on it being a little off and them needing to change some of the dialogue around it in a YouTube vid. There’s only one negative that I have to say about it and that’s an additional plot hole that was made by introducing “Belladonna” with her own separate Fusion and Nano. If she and Buttercup are one and the same, then it doesn’t really make sense that there’d be another one of her. Memory loss or no, Buttercup’s still Buttercup and from the information we’ve been given on the creation of Fusions, her Fusion wouldn’t change just because of the amnesia unless maybe they’re going for a split personality route, but even that seems a little weak--especially since we’re shown during the mission that Buttercup maintains fragments of her memories and then she remembers her true identity pretty fast. I think they’re working with it the best they can without tearing away from the original material though, which I really respect. I hope we get to see where Buttercup is going in the future now that they’re doing more with her character and giving her a chance to shine. That mission in particular felt like reading the chapter of a good comic, where you’re snapping at the bit waiting for the next issue to be published.

However, as for my personal stories, I’ll probably still be keeping to the Belladonna/Buttercup ideas that I had before and I’ll still leave the theory up for the sake of that theory, even though it was wrong. There are some things I’d like to play with for stories.

Well, Fusion Fellas, looks like we’ve got a lot to look forward too and a whole new world to explore!

#silya speaks #opinion #thoughts #fusionfall #fusionfall retro #video games #buttercup #fusions #critique

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meldelen · 5 years ago

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My Book Behind The Words - An Interview

So, @Alphafyers in Wattpad has kindly sent me some questions for a Wattpad interview section named My Book Behind The Words. I’ve just answered the questions and I thought you might like to read the interview. Here it goes.

1. What inspired you to start writing?

I’ve been writing since I was a child. Writing was my way to express my feelings, since I’m not a very open person when it comes to social relationships. I’ve always kept a personal diary until my teens, and always I’ve been writing stories, and I will always be writing. I can say I can’t live without that.

Mostly, my starting point was the books I love to read, particularly in the genre of fantasy. But I’ve also written for other genres since I read everything, several genres, without problems. Still, the high fantasy or epic fantasy remains my absolute favourite and source of inspiration.

2. Did you have any writers' block along the way? how did you get past them?

Of course, writer’s block is something perfectly natural, it happens to all of us. As I tell myself, the Muse can’t be forced. When facing a block, the best thing is to relax and wait for the proper moment in which inspiration will come back to you. Getting stressed and anxious over it is only going to make you more blocked.

What I do, in the meantime, is anytime a certain idea comes to mind, doesn’t matter if it’s a sentence, a dialogue or a whole sequence, I write it down manually in one of the many several notebooks I’ve for this purpose. Then it will be easier when inspiration comes back to you, to use these and not waste your investment.

3. Do you see yourself in any characters and why?

I don’t, and I try carefully not to insert myself in any of my characters. I say “I try” because I must be realistic, our characters are our children and it’s more likely than not that they resemble us in some aspect, or they have traits and ideas coming from us. It’s inevitable. It happened with the only book I’ve published so far, people asked me if the main character was based in myself, which is not true.

I prefer my characters to have their own agency and traits and not resemble me in any way. That’s how I enjoy them the most, and I’m sure my readers as well.

4. How old are you?

Just turned 34.

5.How old were you when you started writing?

I can’t tell exactly since, as I said, I’ve been writing since I was a child. Let’s say, from Primary School.

6. Can you remember what you felt when you first started writing? what did you feel?

I can remember it perfectly since I feel it every time I write: the sensation of giving birth to something new, unique, personal; no matter if good or bad according to general standards, because it’s something mine. I think this happens to every writer. This is a very warm, comforting feeling, and it’s what makes me feel good the most in this world. That’s why, no matter if I success as a writer or not, I will be writing nevertheless as long as I can.

7. What’s you’re outside life like?

I am a History teacher in high school level. I’ve taught several ages, though, and it’s been an enriching experience as a person. There was a time I worked also in a public library. Most of the time I focus my life on this experience and reading as well.

8. Where do you get your ideas from?

Mostly from the books I read and from my expertise – History – as well, as mentioned earlier.

9.What do you like to do when you're not writing?

Reading books! Also listening to music and playing some videogames and board games. I also love to travel.

10.What does your family think about your writing?

They acknowledge I’ve some skill concerning it, but sadly they’ve not been much supportive about it, not even when I published my book, which of course not all of them have bothered to read. It’s sad but there’s no purpose in denying the reality. I think most of them think it’s an oddity of mine, rather than something unique that should be encouraged. Certainly, I have practically no one to thank for encouragement, but my readers and myself.

11.What do you think makes a good story?

A good characterization, character development, proper world building and clever dialogues. It can be said fast, but it’s not easy to achieve. As for now I’ve better results in dialogues and characterization than in world building, but I’m working on it.

12. What's your favorite genre?

High fantasy, epic fantasy, fantasy in general. That’s also the main genre I write for.

13. Do you write on Wattpad or do you use software (like Microsoft word)?

It’s not sensible to write on Wattpad, you can lose your text easily. I write mostly by hand, and then I type in Microsoft Word the final version. You might think I’m outdated but after some experiences in losing corrupted files and with them parts of my stories, I’ve realized the handwritten notebooks can’t be corrupted. They are my main work tool, indeed.

14. What's the hardest thing to write for you and why?

Environment description, locations, maps. I hate it, but it’s needed to give some context to the story. In general, I just make the necessary description of something (landscapes, physical appearances, clothing) and leave the rest to my reader’s imagination. Which has worked so beautifully with many talented artists that have drawn for some of my stories.

15. Do you work on an outline or just go with the flow?

Both. I’ve a general outline of what I want to achieve, the general story, how the characters are, where I want them to go, and then I let the flow go. Any change I accept it when flowing if it serves me, so the outline must not be rigid and take hold of everything. I am more of a flow person, really, but the outline is needed as a guide and mainly, a starter point.

16. Do you have anything specific you want to say to readers?

Thank you so much for being there, without readers, writing would be mostly pointless. Also, I’ve dedicated each one of my stories to certain readers and I will be doing so as proof of my gratitude. You’re special because you make us special.

17. And lastly, do you have any advice for new writers?

Never give up. Write whatever pleases you, keep coming back at it, never give up, and overall, share! There’s always someone out there that will love what you wrote. Never let yourself be discouraged by failure or lack of exposure. All of us have started like you, all of us are still in process of ascending. Never give up, keep going, love what you do, and share it!

AMRC. 13/04/2020

#personal #the writer speaks #interviews #wattpad #my book behind the words #alphafyers #writing ideas #inspiration #my writing

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maid-of-the-golden-deer · 5 years ago

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A rundown on my thoughts on Vesperia (I’m at the beginning of the second part, am a chunk of the ways into the Nordopolica Coliseum stuff). Under the cut, broken into “what I liked”, “what I didn’t”, and “what I feel nuetrally on”.

Postives:

The characters are so lovely, I am so attached to all of them, especially Yuri, Flynn, and Estelle. I love the sliding scale of idealism to cynicism they have going (though none of them are 100% either), it’s so fascinating and endearing

Yuri. I’ve been told that he’s almost far and away one of the most popular characters in the whole series and man, I completely get it. The fact that he turns to morally grey actions because he cares so much about the well being of others, even people he knows he’ll never see again, is just so unique for a protagonist that it makes him so hard not to love. You can tell that he wants to be able to be cold, to be unfeeling, but he just can’t, he loves and feels and desires to help others so strongly that he can almost never say no to anything that’s asked of him, even if he’ll offer token complaint along the way. He’s just. A treasure. And he’s a goddamn adult for once, like young protags are fine but seeing a character who has a bit more life experience under their belt is so refreshing

Found family bitches!!! I legitimately teared up when Yuri pat Karol’s head to comfort him. He’s such a big brother to Estelle and Karol it’s so precious!!!! You can really feel that Yuri enjoys having people who rely on him, and whom he can rely on in return. He’s always so supportive!!

Estelle is an angel descended upon this world, I love how shes in many ways sort of a more typical protag than Yuri but instead the game examines the pros and cons of being Like That. That to have that inherent goodness and selflessness is a great thing, but it can also be very selfish. And watching her discover what she really wants in life is a fascinating journey I can’t wait to finish with her

Karol isn’t my favorite child in media but like I want to give the poor boy a hug, like everyone chatises (outside of Brave Vesperia) him for being a coward but like he’s only 12 years old????? I find it perfectly reasonable for him to run??????? He’s a fucking 7th grader. And his reaction to finally getting the acceptance he’s always craved? Mwah

Where I’m at in the story Flynn’s only been in and out and only playable once so I don’t know him as well but he’s an archetype I love so I have immediate bias for him lmao. I do like how they continually go out of their way to show you that him and Yuri have the same same goal, the same morals, the same hopes, but they simply cannot reconcile each other’s methods no matter what. That is exactly how you make amazing rival characters. Even when they opposed each other you could always feel the overwhelming care they have for each other, it’s so good....

Judith is a Queen, I don’t know much about her yet since she’s a relatively recent addition to my party but I love that like the designated fanservice girl has like an actual Reason to be so and like, isn’t just titties out for no reason and actively enjoys it. Her slightly moral ambiguity is also really well done, like you can super tell that she’s a good person but she’s done some shit that was at least callous to the consequences of her good deeds. Also, flirty friendships are my jam Yuri/Judith BrOTP 4 lyfe

Rita is a baby gay and I wish her the best of luck on her journey to come to terms with her lesbianhood. For the most part imo she’s a fairly standard tsundere but like, sometimes having an Archetype...but Gay(tm) is all you need to be a good character

I have no strong feelings on Raven since he’s also been in and out and I don’t really like how he’s voice acted. He’s like, chill, he’s the funky uncle

I tend not to retain much about the story of an RPG the first time I play it since theres so much dialogue and flavor text to plow through but I do kind of like the loose structure of it, it feels very natural, like I’m just along for a random ass adventure these people are having. It’s really linear but it never feels like it’s on rails or anything

Negatives:

I’m not super into the gameplay, I can’t tell if its not good, I’m just bad at it, or a mix of both

Okay the fact that you can’t see enemy health bars in combat unless you hold down a button which also pauses the action is Bad imo, it makes every fight feel way longer bc I’m getting no immediate feedback on my progess

It’s. So. Fucking. Obtuse on what it wants you to do sometimes!!! Like a lot of the time its obvious but then sometimes the only reason I didn’t need a guide is I was blindly spamming A or Y (for shit with the Sorcerer’s Ring) and running into the walls praying something was interactable. I know people complain about games these days holding your hand too much or something but geeze.

Related to the above, minimaps for the dungeons and towns please, like its nice to have on the overworld but honestly I get more turned around and lost in indoor locations, since a lot of the backgrounds aren’t super unique looking. It could be progessively filled out as you go like the overworld map. Please.

I LOVE the story and characters and as I said above but like. The cutscenes break up the action every fucking five seconds, these people can walk and talk!!!! Like not to somehow bring a Bioware comparison into this but like, some of the skits could be had while you’re traversingt he world map instead of stopping you dead. It makes the pacing very “stop and start” and jarring

The puzzles. Wait, that’s not accurate, the long ass sections where you just spam the Y button to hit shit with your socerer’s ring an back track. They suck. The game’s already plenty long, didn’t need padding

No strong opinions on:

The aesthetic. Standard fantasy setting, some of the monster designs are cute and fun, some feel lazy, I likely won’t remember any of them in the long run.

Same for the music. The Dahngrest theme is the only one that ever stood out to me as “oh, I like this”.

Worldbuilding too. The names are a bit Much so I can barely recall a lot of them, and the ones I do I def can’t spell lmao. And I find it hard to retain a lot of the background stuff that you find out when it’s mostly infodumped at you by Estelle like she’s Ye Olde Google

All in all I’m enjoying my time with it, though honestly more for the interactive experience elements than as a game.

#dont worry im not particularly scathing on the shit i dont like #like u might disagree but i promise there wont be a reason to hate him #wow suu talks about a 10+ yr old game #tbf its the fancy new version with all the shit and more #tales of vesperia #yuri lowell #since a good chunk of the pros section is me gushing about him lmao

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comicteaparty · 5 years ago

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March 30th-April 5th, 2020 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from March 30th, 2020 to April 5th, 2020. The chat focused on Crypts and Cantrips by Kieran Thompson.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Crypts and Cantrips by Kieran Thompson~! (http://cryptsandcantrips.kytri.net/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace until April 5th, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Discussions are freeform, but we do offer discussion prompts in the pins for those who’d like to have them. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic! Whether you finish the comic or can only read a few pages, everyone is welcome to join and chat with us!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 1

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic?

2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)?

3. Who is your favorite character?

4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most?

5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores?

7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content?

8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Just starting the first chapter...hmm, what is the establishment hiding, that they're so against the idea of making new maps?

And I'm intrigued by the idea of a society that's frankly & cheerfully accepting of trans people, but also, doesn't know that lesbians exist? Or has a fixation on a super-narrow PIV-specific idea of virginity. Or both? If the issue was "this person can't be allowed to get pregnant before the arranged marriage or it would be A Scandal," that would be a logical reason to divide up which sexy things are "safe" vs. which aren't, but it isn't framed that way...

Okay, end-of-the-chapter blurb says that is what it's about. It's just odd that the dialogue was coy about "the issue is pregnancy" while being so blunt about other things. (I was just reading another comic with a trans princess character, and wow, what an awkward plot twist that could lead to. "So, the good news is, there wasn't an accidental pregnancy in the direction you were afraid of, but...")

"I made a fantasy trope in this comic work the way I wish it worked in a certain other canon" is such a great motivator.

Geez, this kid's only been adventuring for 5 minutes before someone gets murdered in front of him. Poor guy.

...on the bright side, oh good, the princess is aware that lesbians exist.

Loving this axolotl dragon art. http://cryptsandcantrips.kytri.net/comic/chapter-3-extras-17/

And the orca dragon that follows.

Have now read through the Dramatic Twist. Not gonna go into details for the sake of other first-time readers, but it's more complicated than these plots usually seem to get in fantasy settings, and I'm into it.

warriorneedsfood

I like the comic. The relationships are fun to watch develop. I found the character introductions a little awkward with the announcement of their various types of sexuality. But after establishing them, I found their personalities interesting and was looking forward to reading more.

RebelVampire

What I liked about the beginning of the comic is kind of just how quickly it starts world-building with stuff like the issue of discrimination in the market or just the general name dropping of stuff. All of it felt pretty natural, and as I consider world-building vitally important for fantasy, I really liked the comic didn't hide its punches. My favorite moment was actually when the stranger on the road said "please come help my wagon" and then it devolved into them being attacked. This is like one of the most stereotypical fantasy things to happen, but that's kind of why I liked it. It added familiar comfort food with all the new stuff, and I liked just having something like that 100% met my expectations for what was about to happen. My favorite character right now is definitely Taneli. I love just how sweet and accepting she is. But I also kind of like she's just really...not entirely capable because she's lived the sheltered palace life and not gotten out much. Usually that's something I'd find annoying, but something about Taneli just makes it work so I absolutely adore how overall innocent she is even in spite of being stuck in an arranged marriage. I like seeing Kitov and Taneli interact the most. They have a beautiful, touching, and supportive relationship going on and I like how theyre similar in regards to world experience. It doesn't make it feel like either of them is somehow superior or has the upperhand, so it's just communication between equals.

RebelVampire

As for the art, I really like the character designs. They aren't overly complicated, but are each very unique as well, and I think overall they got that right fantasy DnD vibe to them that just really suits the story being told. I kind of like that the story is exploring the theme of duty and arranged marriages. Usually when it comes to arranged marriage, 90% of stories write protagonists that do everything in their power to escape and express their individuality and freedom. But I like that this story is kind of exploring the idea of duty and how we as people deal with the concept. I also just in general like it's exploring the political things surrounding it. Like I love that frank conversation Taneli had with the king about marrying him for the kid to become the ruler, and he was completely unoffended seeming. This was just a real refreshing approach since as much as I love freedom, I also love talking about when duty needs to override freedom. As for what I like about the comic's story is that this really feels like a tabletop campaign. So many stories claim to be tabletop rpg-like, but they really deviate from the feel I imagine when I think of such a story. So I kind of like that this comic captures that spirit of adventure perfectly. As for the comic's overall strengths, for me it's just kind of the whole fantasy package. Between the art, the world-building, story's feel of being a tabletop, I think the comic is like the epitome of high fantasy and hits all the notes I personally believe high fantasies need to hit. So if someone said fantasy comic, this would be at the top of the list for a comic I would think of.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 2

9. Why do you think King Rishor was murdered, and why was Taneli seemingly framed in the process? Also, how do you think Leo got involved in everything, and how big of a role do you think he had in the plot?

10. What do you think will happen to Kitov and company as they search for answers and try to avoid capture? Will the group be able to find Leo, and if so, will that be enough to clear their names of suspicion?

11. Given Kitov and Taneli are both similar in regards to their experience levels, how do you think the events of the story will change them and their perspectives on the world? In what ways do you think they’ll remain the same?

12. How do you think the world itself will be affected by King Rishor’s death? Could it escalate into a war, or might Minash Turgal change for the worse? How will this affect characters like Lirre who helps Kitov and company out?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

RebelVampire

I get the impression King Rishor was probably murdered for two reasons. Once, to destabilize the country/kingdom/w/e you wanna call it, and two to start some sort of war (hence why you frame Taneli). Leo I think is just the pawn of someone else. In some ways, I kind of feel like Leo is a victim of great pain and that pain was somehow manipulated for nefarious means. As for Kitov and company, I think they'll find Leo, but heck no will that clear them of suspicion. You can't just escape and have no consequences or continued suspicion. That will not play into their favor. SO they're gonna have to just dig deeper and deeper into the plot and still run from the law at every turn. Though I do kind of feel they'll wind up back home at some point and find out things are bad there too somehow. As for the world itself, since I already mentioned this, I do think there's gonna be war brewing. Maybe not get to the point where it happens, but people will be scrambling around to prevent it and there'll probably be lots of angry people causing havoc in Minash Turgal cause these are the sorts of things where people need someone to blame. I think Lirre will probably be fine because I don't want to think about bad things happening to Lirre O_O Finally, regarding Kitov and Taneli changing. I think they're both gonna gain some smarts from this. I feel like Kitov could learn some more street smarts and learn that not every nice seeming person is a good person and that it's okay to distrust people you just met. Meanwhile, I think Taneli is just gonna learn the struggles normal people go through outside of the sheltered life she's lived, and that she'll be much wiser when it comes to politics. However, I think they'll both remain lovely people who are sweet and have that twinkle in their eye.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I feel like the murder of King Rishor was foreshadowed on this page: https://cryptsandcantrips.kytri.net/comic/twelve-4/ With the whole "obviously the people like me, because if they didn't, they'd vote to replace me" bit. Like, sure, that's true on a country-wide scale... but votes are majority rule, not unanimous. And sometimes... the smaller group of people who disagree with you can be very vocal.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 3

13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic?

14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Taneli's my favorite too. She's very sheltered, but her heart's in the right place and she's adjusting as fast as she can, and she's active and enthusiastic which is great for plot motion. Plus, she gets the best clothes. I like the worldbuilding of "actually, our country has all kinds of mold-breaking things like non-hereditary elected rulers and public transportation." Here's hoping it catches on more widely. Leo's plotting is...complicated. Escorting the Princess gave him a great opportunity to get close for the assassination, and since he had the stuff in the luggage, it seems like he was plotting it the whole time. But the fact that Taneli was a Princess at all was supposed to be a secret from everyone except Kitov, right? The others were all surprised when it came out. Was it a plan that only came together when he arrived, and the poison was just planted to frame the others? Or was the poison in the luggage all along, and the secrecy of the whole mission was compromised from the beginning? Unrelated, I thought the sexual-orientation references were well-done. It's not like the whole cast sat in a circle and announced a list of identities each -- it came up naturally in one conversation with a few people, and they mentioned the parts of their experience that were relevant. Also really liked "masculinization potion." Some of the trans-related vocabulary stuck out from the rest of the dialogue, but this feels natural -- like, of course, those are the words a Medieval D&D Fantasy Person would use for it.

RebelVampire

What I'm most looking forward to seeing in the comic is probably just more of the plot revealed as to why assassinate the king and finding the whole motivation behind everything. Just because I'm hoping it opens up more questions to explore and also helps build the world. My final words are simply that this is a lovely comic with likeable characters and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes in terms of plot since the plot has definitely caught my interest.

Kytri

Hi, uh this is my first post here. I'm the writer/artist of Crypts and Cantrips. The week is over in about half an hour in my time zone, and I just wanted to stop in and say thanks for including my comic and for everyone's kind words.

My comics tend not to spark much discussion or feedback so it was a really nice change of pace.

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Crypts and Cantrips this week! Please also give a special thank you to Kieran Thompson for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Crypts and Cantrips, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: http://cryptsandcantrips.Kytri.net/

Kieran’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Kytri

Kieran’s Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/itsKytri

Kieran’s itch.io Store: https://Kytri.itch.io/

Kieran’s Teepublic page: https://www.teepublic.com/user/Kytri

Kieran’s TWITTER: https://twitter.com/Kytri

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #book club #bookclub #webcomic book club #webcomic bookclub #crypts and cantrips #crypts & cantrips #kieran thompson #comic tea party #ctp

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xaeneron · 5 years ago

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A Smol Nerd Talks about Backstory and Character Development

Hello frens,

I had someone ask about how I write character backstories, but since they included their discord information in the ask, I thought it might be better to answer that privately and put up this as a public post because the more I wrote, the more obnoxious it got. And because I thought it was interesting! I don’t claim to be an expert at any of this, especially since this is purely a hobby to me, but I do absolutely love character design and development and it makes me happy that the characters that I’ve put time and effort into are encouraging others to develop their own. So this is absolutely a post to skip if you’re not interested, but read on if you’re curious as to how my weird little brain works.

Essentially: Bits of insight into how I write character backstories, which blends a lot into character development and creation. Not really a step by step process, more word vomit.

...under a cut because holy fuck it got long. I’m sorry, I talk too much ><

Visualizing Characters

I’m not sure there’s really a starting place beyond “I would like this character to exist,” but I think it’s important to first stress how I view my characters in perspective to myself. No one method works for everyone, but it is kind of relevant to my own process.

My friends in undergrad made fun of me for this constantly, but for me, characters sort of...how do you put it, take up space in the mind. Even though they are functionally me since I created them, they’re...not? They exist as their own entities, telling me what they like and don’t like, what they’d like to do next, etc. Ive, who has dominated this space for years, has a tendency to claim any music that I listen to as his own (so I associate it with him), throws parties, and wants to play and write more stories when I want to sleep. I get that this is a really weird way of looking at characters because I’m essentially blaming myself for keeping myself awake, but I think it’s the best way to describe how I see the characters that I create. They’re friends that talk, and they develop their own opinions instead of me dictating what it is that they say (even though...well, I am. I’m sorry this is really fucking weird LOL).

Obviously I’m not saying that this can or would work for anyone, but it’s just how my brain works. It helps me visualize them, along with details like how their voices sound, the facial expressions they tend to make, the tone that they take when saying the same phrase as someone else, etc.

Assembling Personalities...

I know the original question was essentially just about backstories, but backstory writing and character creation bleed into each other a lot. Enough that I don’t really think you can do one without the other, and why as a result I’m kind of writing about both.

So that being said, when assembling those characters, I tend to go piece by piece and let things happen, instead of distilling in all the characteristics I want them to have. That’s a pretty surefire way to make a Mary Sue, and I have plenty of experience with making Mary Sues. A lot. It’s embarrassing. ;A;

Let’s take Ive, for example. His initial personality when I first made him was a happy-go-lucky, debonair, massive flirt without a care in the world. He waltzed through life, never getting attached to anyone or anything. A fairly simple and shallow character base. As I played, pieces just kind of came together - some from the Commander’s in-game characterization, and some from my own ideas. I let him pick up different facets of his personality over time, some good, some bad.

This works because Ive’s personality wasn’t set in stone from the get-go and changed drastically as time went on, but if you do have a personality you have your heart set on, then make sure your character responds to new challenges accordingly. Consistency is key, and the way they act in the present can also help you road map their past, figuring out how they got to where they are. And who knows, if you take another look, they might surprise you.

...Including the Weird Shit

Sometimes the tiniest quirks help make characters memorable to you, and help shape who they were and grow up to be. One of my OCs, Beck, is an obfuscating idiot who legitimately knows his way around a blade and is insanely clever when he wants to be. He also has a random deadly allergy to mangoes. Does he have a story that he (somewhat) fondly looks back on where his adopted daughter chases him around with a mango in retaliation for making fun of her? By golly yes he does. Is it important to the overall narrative? No. But does it establish more of his relationship with his daughter, even when she’s an adult? Yes. It also is the sort of anecdote that can snowball - what was he saying that was bad enough for her to chase him with tropical fruit? How did she even get a mango in the first place? Does she have a crush on someone? What sort of person is that? Is it someone new in town, or is it a stranger? What makes them different? Is Beck just assuming, and if so, is it because he’s dense or because he’s just trying to be a doting father? Even little things count, especially when sometimes it’s the anecdotes and sides stories that help make the world and characters you’re creating feel more real.

Write What You Know

This is pretty common advice, but it’s also pretty solid advice. It’s also something that I do often. None of my characters are straight self-inserts (arguably), but many of them have one or more facets of my personality, which makes it much easier for me to write them. Anyone who knows me personally will attest to this, particularly when you begin to note the amount of deadpan snarkers that my cast contains. My primary OCs (who don’t show up much here unfortunately) range from politely snarky to full on deadpan. Ive and Etiery are prime examples of this, while Richter also has his moments. Sharing traits with you helps writing their dialogue and motivations more organically, because again, it’s not what you want them to do, it’s how they would react as a living individual. If you’re not a naturally sarcastic person, it’s going to be harder to develop and accurately write a sarcastic character, etc. (Flashbacks to when I was a kid and my attempt at sarcasm and wit was “Go home old man, nobody needs you.”) Not impossible, of course, but something to keep in mind.

It’s not just personality, either. Rayne (one of my OCs) and Etiery are a chemist and engineer respectively because that is what I am. Part of the way their brains work stems from the fields that they choose to specialize in, and as someone in that field, I do have a certain amount of experience in thinking from that perspective. It’s okay to base characters on yourself or people you know, or take bits and pieces from people here or there. Again, it grounds you, and if you can write a realistic personality, you can write a more fleshed out backstory for said character, taking into account their motivations and decision-making.

Balancing Story vs. Personality

Part of storytelling is, well, getting across the story that you want to tell. In that, characters are instruments to help you move that plot forward. But if you’re fleshing out your characters, you also want the plot to be a vehicle to help them develop. Really, it depends on the story you want to tell and how you want to tell it, but if you’re like me and you focus first on characters, then my mindset is probably more applicable.

Essentially though, find a balance. You might need someone to do something for the sake of the plot, but think about if the one you’re picking is a good candidate for it, or if it’s better suited for someone else. If no one fits, maybe you need to take a look at the story step you’re making, or at the characters you’ve created. Remember also that although it’s easy to look at things objectively as an author and say things like “that’s so obvious, they shouldn’t go that way,” a character may still make that choice in the moment. Judgment - present, past, or future - can be questionable as it happens.

Pay Attention to the Timeline

This one’s pretty straightforward. One of the easiest things to mess up is to make your character too old or too young to be doing the things that they’re currently doing. Check and double-check. If you’re writing into an established timeline like GW2′s, make sure your character’s timeline fits with the established lore (unless you are very specifically breaking it for some reason). Ive, for example, is not one of the older generations of sylvari, but he is older than the sylvari protagonist in-game to account for his extra time spent training to compensate for his lack of eyesight. Keeping track of when events happen, often simultaneously, will help you decide how characters act and react - Etiery would not have been so kind (relatively speaking) to Ive had she met him before her fallout with her father, and as a result, they might never have become best friends, or friends at all.

Look at Things from All Angles

It’s important to look at a character and ask where they got certain characteristics from - are they naturally this kind/sarcastic/flirty/angsty/mean/etc., or did something happen that catalyzed that? If you’re writing backstory to explain that, take a look at the world you’re in or that you’re building - does the story you’re telling fit reasonably? Really challenge yourself to stay within your (universe’s) rules, instead of being tempted to bend them to make your character (and their story) exactly what you want. All universes have rules, and unless it is a specific plot point to break them, make sure you follow them! Making impossible loopholes to make sure your character has a degree by age 12 or can resurrect someone perfectly when the magic is explicitly stated to not exist can weaken your story and your character!

Richter is a good example of my personal thought process, being a glasses-wearing necromancer whose backstory is a street rat. He’s tall and awkward as an adult, so it’s not unreasonable that he was once a tall and gawky kid, the kind of kid whose arms are too long and everyone picks on. How does a kid like that survive on the streets? One of his major traits is the fact that he’s a bookworm: if he was orphaned, where did he learn to read? If he had parents long enough to teach him rudimentary reading skills (which he did), how much practical experience did he lose out on since he spent less time alone on the streets? As someone with a strong moral compass, Richter had to find a way to justify committing crimes to survive. A child like that would probably be too frightened to ask Grenth’s clergy or anyone at the schools in Divinity’s Reach (which he could not afford) to teach him in necromancy. How does he learn as a result? Is he afraid of his powers? Do people treat him differently because of them?

It’s kind of what I mean when I say pieces start falling into place. Start with a detail that you want for sure, and build up from that while maintaining its feasibility in the world that you’re working in.

And Don’t Ignore the Random

Seriously, I think this is my favorite part. Sometimes the things that you don’t expect sneak up on you and make it in. Fun fact for anyone fond of Ive: he originally wasn’t blind. OG Ive had nothing physically wrong with him. One day I was showing my friend my GW2 characters, including Ive in his full Rubicon set. I was nervous that she wouldn’t think it was as cool as I did, so I joked (although I would have anyway) that I didn’t know how he would see with the brim of the hat pulled so low. She replied, “Well, what if he has the hat pulled so low because he’s blind and it doesn’t matter to him?”

I chewed on that idea for the next day and a half, and suddenly a lot of things fell into place - why Ive and Eet get along as well as they do, more justification for Ive’s growing, below-the-surface jaded personality, an obstacle for him to overcome. I drowned in feels and texted her, and to this day it is still very much her fault that Ive can’t see.

His lack of vision is now one of the central pillars of his character, and it’s something I hadn’t even considered before my friend mentioned it in jest. So don’t ignore random inspiration!

#xae replies #anon ask response #character development #backstory #a lot of word vomit under the cut #i'm sorry in advance #I think about this shit a lot #lolol #I also love talking about my characters #so #ask away #conversation is welcome!#thanks if you bothered to read all of the vomit LOL

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commentaryvorg · 5 years ago

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Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 4.5

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time in chapter 4, Maki opened up about her past, she and Shuichi and Kaito were ADORABLE FRIENDS, Kaito was a huge hypocrite on the topic of burdens, twice, Kokichi helpfully suggested some improvements to Monokuma’s script like an absolute moron, and Kaito’s bonus training for his sidekicks was totally not him desperately trying to prove that they still need him or anything.

Now for the last of chapter 4’s free time!

Shuichi: (What can *I* do? The only thing I’m good at is solving mysteries, but I can’t figure out this academy.)

That’s not the only thing you’re good at, Shuichi! Your detective’s brain also makes you pretty good at coming up with plans. That plan with the cameras in chapter 1 was really not a bad plan if you ignore the fact that the entire premise of it (that the mastermind wouldn’t have a way of knowing about it) was flawed. But of course Shuichi wouldn’t think that or want to attempt something like that again since it indirectly got Kaede killed.

Keebo: “What can we each do to make sure that we all survive…? We all possess Ultimate talents. There *must* be something we can do.”

YES IT’S ALMOST LIKE THE ULTIMATE ROBOT COULD GET US OUT OF HERE OR SOMETHING.

Geez. I was mostly not being too mad at Keebo because I figured he was largely oblivious to the difference his weapons could have made anyway, but this makes it a whole lot less excusable. (And again, there is no indication given that he’s not doing so because of his inner voice, which is the only truly justifiable reason that would make sense within the story.)

So that’s even more reason for me to not hang out with Keebo here like I wasn’t going to anyway, because that should by all rights lead to Shuichi persuading him to use his weapons and get everyone out of here today. And that’s obviously not in line with canon.

Gonta: “Hi, Shuichi! How can Gonta help you today?”

Heh, this mostly just sounds like a polite, gentlemanly greeting, but in this chapter’s context, it definitely has undertones of “please tell Gonta he can help you today, Gonta really wants to be able to help you today”. Sorry, Gonta, I’d love to, but we’re already best friends; Shuichi needs to spread his friendship around others too.

Miu is in the computer room as she was all day yesterday as well, but interestingly, right now Kokichi’s hanging around in the corridor not too far from it too. He does apparently help her set things up for their Virtual World trip, so maybe that’s what he’s doing right now.

Despite Kaito not showing up anywhere on the Monopad’s map due to what is presumably a programming oversight (even characters who aren’t available should have their locations shown, with the understandable exception of Kokichi in chapter 5), he does exist during this free time slot and is perfectly available to hang out. The wiki says he is unavailable right now; the wiki is wrong. He’s in the warehouse. You’re welcome.

(The first time I played through this game myself, during which one of my missions was to find every piece of optional dialogue I might not have seen from Youtube playthroughs, I was determined not to give up on finding Kaito here and resolved to manually check EVERY SINGLE ROOM IN THE SCHOOL IF I HAD TO. Thankfully I started from the bottom up and the warehouse is on the first floor.)

Kaito’s reason for being in the warehouse probably has something to do with the fact that it apparently contains medicine. Like, you know, painkillers and stuff.

Kaito: “I can see my training is already having results for you and Maki Roll.”

It is, and Kaito has every right to be proud of himself for that!

But it’s also interesting that while a lot of the characters are focusing on thinking about what they can do, since that’s what they discussed at breakfast, Kaito is instead focusing on what he already has done. Almost as if thinking about what he can do in future is painful and discouraging because there’s almost nothing he can do (short of suggesting even more bonus training for his sidekicks, which still isn’t going to help them escape), and so he doesn’t want to dwell on that.

Kaito: “But don’t slow down here! It’s important to keep up your training every day.”

It is! Shuichi and Maki (with the addition of Himiko) are absolutely going to keep up their training every day when they get out of here.

(Also, remember back in chapter 2 when I mentioned that I’d started doing exercise myself thanks to Kaito? I’ve been doing that every single day for a little bit over a year now, and it’ll be several months more than that by the time this part I’m writing actually gets posted. Kaito is the best.)

Anyway, we’ve been on a roll with Maki lately in the rest of the story (pun totally intended), so let’s continue that by hanging out with her, shall we?

She happens to be in the dining hall, which is just across the corridor from the warehouse and therefore tantalisingly close to where Kaito is. They could all hang out as a trio again! Kaito would also want to hear more of Maki’s heartbreaking backstory! No? No. Silly game mechanics.

Maki: “Something only I can do… I can think of just one thing. …I know what you’re about to say. But… that’s the reality.”

Oh, Maki. That’s not the only thing you can do!

Maki: “Of course, I’ll think about… other things I can do.”

Exactly! You can fight and protect us!

Shuichi: “I didn’t know that assassins were scouted.”

As the event proper begins, Shuichi just straight-up continues the conversation they were having last night. This is why I had to save Maki’s third FTE until now at the earliest – because having this before that scene just does not make sense.

Maki: “It’s better if you didn’t know. Also, there’s no need for you to know.”

I dunno, Maki, if more people knew that there were child-slave assassins out there then maybe some people would be able to do something about it and this horrendous practice might stop. She just can’t see it that way, because she’s had to accept this as her reality in order to cope.

Maki: “The orphanage I was raised at was run for that reason.”

Shuichi: “…What do you mean?”

Maki: “To raise potential candidates for assassins.”

Yup, that’s the truth of her orphanage. That’s not remotely fucked up at all.

Shuichi: (How much is Maki carrying on her shoulders…? Such small shoulders…)

Heh. You sound like Kaito, Shuichi.

Maki: “The basic training forces your body to go beyond its human limitations. They physically beat us to help us withstand torture, and taught us how to die when needed…”

Happy fun Free Time with upbeat music as our friend casually tells us about how she was tortured.

(It really is a shame Kaito couldn’t be here to hear this too. He would 1000% want to help her carry this awful burden just like Shuichi is doing, even though all they can do is listen.)

Maki: “The only option left when you fail a mission is to die, right? Dying sooner is the nicer way out. It’s much better than being tortured alive.”

…I mean, she failed that one mission with the katana and didn’t have to die for it. I guess what she’s really talking about is if she were to get captured by an enemy of the assassin cult that would use her for information.

At least this means that when they’re all considering group suicide in chapter 5, Maki would know how to also kill herself painlessly at the end of it. You know. Reassuring thoughts.

Shuichi: (I can’t bear to think of what Maki had to go through…)

I know, Shuichi. It may have never really happened to her, but she’s still having to live now with the memory of it, believing that it really happened to her, and that’s not fucking fair at all.

Maki: “They tried to drag my dignity and tear it… To make me feel empty…”

They were trying to turn her into an empty, cold-blooded killer without a heart. And they didn’t succeed.

Maki: “I wouldn’t have accepted the job in the first place if I knew I couldn’t do it… But most importantly… If I broke, then *that girl* would replace me…”

We’ll hear more about this next time, but she’s talking about her best friend from the orphanage. She put herself through what she knew would be literal torture and refused to break under it because if she did, then her best friend would go through that instead. God, Maki is amazing.

(Again, technically none of that really happened to her, but thanks to those fake memories, the person standing here is someone who really would do that kind of thing.)

Shuichi: “That girl?”

Maki: “… Sorry… Pretend you didn’t hear any of that just now.”

But it seems like, at least for right now, she’s not quite ready to open up that much. She’ll get there, though.

Kokichi: “I bumped into Kaito, and he ended up giving me a lecture. He told me to think of a way to escape…”

Kaito has still been trying to get through to Kokichi! He still hasn’t given up on Kokichi and believes there’s some semblance of a decent person inside him who actually wants them all to escape! Kaito is so good.

(It also seems that, despite his earlier declarations, Kaito realised that punching him again might give off the wrong impression and decided to just stick to words this time.)

Kokichi: “But the only idea I can think of is becoming the blackened myself.”

And… Kaito’s not wrong about Kokichi, but he is underestimating how massively, completely inconceivable it is to Kokichi to actually acknowledge that buried part of himself and start being co-operative. What’s about to happen tonight isn’t going to be for lack of Kaito trying to stop it, but even Kaito isn’t enough here.

Kokichi: “That’d entertain everyone.”

Which is exactly what Monokuma wants, you are playing right into his hands and you should know this, you goddamn idiot.

Gonta: “Nrgh… Gonta tired… Gonta think too much…”

Awww, Gonta. He’s been trying so hard.

Gonta: “Rest is important, too… Gonta have to make sure he not useless when everyone need him!”

“When”. He’s still managing to stay so optimistic that that time will come. (Which it will. Sooner and far more tragically than you think, Gonta. Gaaaaah.)

Anyway, this time, in the very last chance we have for it, we’re hanging out with Kaito. Come on, now – you didn’t really think for a second I was going to go through the story without maxing out his FTEs, did you?

Kaito: “O-Oh, Shuichi… What’s the matter?”

Just like he did a day ago, Kaito doesn’t seem super-thrilled to suddenly encounter Shuichi wanting to talk to him.

Kaito: “Yeah, I don’t mind talking, but… My stomach hurts a little. Can we talk somewhere I can rest?”

But this time, he’s actually being somewhat honest about what the problem is. That’s pretty remarkable. Sure, for Kaito to be admitting to Shuichi that his stomach hurts a little, it must really be hurting one hell of a lot, but still. Kaito being willing to show even just a tiny bit of vulnerability in front of his sidekick is such a big deal and warms my heart. It’s okay, Kaito. Shuichi isn’t going to be any less inspired by you just because you’re struggling with a lot of things yourself, you absolute wonderful moron.

Shuichi: (I spent some time with Kaito… Didn’t he say his stomach hurt last night too? I hope he’s okay…)

I’m sure Kaito hates the fact that his tiny nugget of honesty is making Shuichi worry about him and doesn’t want him to do so at all… but Shuichi absolutely should be worried about his friend.

Kaito: “Hey, you got a minute? I got something to talk about.”

Shuichi: “Ah, okay…” (He seems upset…)

Shuichi’s already getting the sense that there’s something more forceful about Kaito than usual as we start the event proper, and boy is there a reason for that.

Shuichi: (Did I do something to make him angry?)

This, however, is not that reason. But of course Shuichi is lacking enough in self-assurance that he would immediately think this is somehow his fault. Of course it wouldn’t ever occur to him that maybe Kaito has issues and problems of his own and that might be what’s at the root of this rather than Shuichi having done anything wrong. (And this won’t be the only time Shuichi misunderstands Kaito in literally exactly this way.)

Kaito: “I’m just gonna say it! What are you moping around for!?”

Shuichi: “What?”

Kaito: “When my sidekick is moping, it really ticks me off!”

Shuichi: (I’m… moping?)

Shuichi isn’t moping. He’s still not a shining paragon of confidence or anything, but he’s been able to be a lot stronger and more positive lately. His own reaction to Kaito’s accusation just now shows that even he didn’t really think there was anything he was being particularly negative about, even though Shuichi is usually his own biggest critic.

Kaito disapproves of moping because it’s just wallowing in your negative feelings without making an effort to make it better. But in this context, the effort to make it better that Shuichi is supposedly avoiding would be asking Kaito for help. Right now, “Why are you moping?” really translates to “Why aren’t you letting me help you?”

Kaito: “I told you, man! Don’t hesitate to talk to me if something’s wrong. But you’re still keeping stuff from me! Am I not reliable enough!? Spit it out! If you bottle everything up, it can’t get fixed!”

What this whole thing really is is Kaito projecting weakness and worries onto Shuichi in another desperate attempt to show that Shuichi still needs his help. His “Am I not reliable enough!?” in particular shows what’s really going on. Kaito is terrified that he really isn’t reliable enough, not now that he’s dying and Shuichi solved the previous trial entirely without him and is seemingly strong enough that maybe he doesn’t really need Kaito’s support any more.

(It could also perhaps seem like Kaito is projecting his own behaviour of hiding his illness from his friends, but like last time, I don’t think the fact that he is incidentally being hypocritical here is the point. If the point was Kaito deflecting, that’d mean that acting like he wants to help Shuichi would just be an excuse to distract from his own problems. But of course Kaito wanting to help Shuichi could never be an excuse – Kaito always wants to help Shuichi, and that’s the real problem.)

Shuichi: “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not looking for advice…”

Kaito: “You’ve got some guts trying to lie to me.”

Shuichi: “…”

He’s not lying! Shuichi wouldn’t lie to Kaito, not about his own weaknesses and struggles, nor about wanting Kaito’s advice for his problems. He may sometimes hesitate to talk about what’s bothering him until Kaito prods him a little, but he has never and would never outright lie about it once prodded if something really was wrong. And if that wasn’t proof enough, Shuichi’s staring at Kaito here with a sceptical face like he’s wondering why Kaito even thinks this.

Kaito should know perfectly well that Shuichi isn’t lying here. So it’s really quite delightfully messed up that he would rather tell himself Shuichi is lying to him than face the idea that Shuichi doesn’t need him.

(Even though the only way in which that’s really true is that Shuichi happens to not particularly need his help right now. That’s a completely different thing from not needing him at all… but Kaito doesn’t seem to realise that.)

A couple of times previously, Kaito did a similar thing of starting off a conversation with someone by trying to make it about him listening to their troubles and helping them – once with Kaede in an invitation dialogue, and once in his first FTE with Shuichi. Both those times, though, when they didn’t need to talk to him about anything, he accepted that and was happy to start talking about something else. But not this time.

Kaito: “Fine then! Listen up…”

Shuichi: (Kaito encouraged me, complimenting me about my talent.)

If Shuichi isn’t going to ask for Kaito’s help despite Kaito insisting that he totally should be doing so, Kaito’s going to help him anyway, aggressively complimenting him and telling him he’s awesome so that Shuichi can see how inspiring and encouraging and important Kaito still definitely is. (Really, Shuichi had no reason to have ever stopped thinking that about Kaito in the first place, but apparently Kaito doesn’t see it that way.)

You may have noticed from the way I’ve been talking about this event that I’ve been casually assuming despite the flexibility of FTEs that this is definitely taking place during chapter 4, and that all of this is a part of Kaito’s canonical arc that I’ve been talking about the rest of the time. And the thing is, this event really does have to take place in chapter 4, going by the keeping-FTEs-in-line-with-canon logic I’ve been using. Kaito’s fourth FTE mentioned Shuichi being his sidekick, putting that in chapter 3 at the earliest, and while there are two slots in which Kaito is available in chapter 3, the second of those has him already feeling too unwell for it to be believable that a proper FTE would have canonically happened then. So this fifth and final one has to happen, not necessarily this late, but definitely during this chapter.

But even if that weren’t the case, I’d still consider this event practically a canonical part of this chapter. While nothing in it explicitly mentions chapter 4-specific details, this is so clearly written for Kaito’s chapter 4 state of mind as he desperately tries to compensate for the fact that he’s dying by being as helpful as he can to his sidekicks. It fits in beautifully with the rest of the hints toward that we’ve had so far up to this point – in fact, this event is significantly less subtle about it than anything else has been, which is why I’m happy I saved it until the end like this.

Shuichi: (I should tell him… Then he’d understand why. I told him all about the case that got me the title of Ultimate Detective. I told him everything… so that he would know how untalented I really am.)

However, it seems like all of Kaito’s aggressive compliments just made Shuichi feel like he doesn’t deserve them and actually start to feel bad about himself. Now, at least, he has something to talk about that Kaito might be able to help him with, even though he genuinely didn’t need to talk about this when this conversation began.

(I don’t think Kaito was deliberately intending to bring Shuichi’s issues out by complimenting him, though. That’s far too underhanded and manipulative for Kaito to do no matter what state of mind he’s in. Plus, I’m not sure he’s even that consciously aware of the reasons he’s been acting this way, which he’d have to be for this to be deliberate.)

Kaito: “I see… So you were chosen after you solved a case.”

Shuichi: “Yes, and the most important part… I just happened to find some evidence that was missed. I accidentally solved the puzzle. It was all coincidence, happenstance…”

As soon as Kaito says something that puts things in a vaguely positive-sounding light, Shuichi’s immediately jumping to insist that no, that’s not the point, he barely even deserved to solve that case. It’s hard to know how true it is that it was all just a coincidence, but I’m inclined to think it wasn’t. Even if it is just a matter of Shuichi noticing something everyone else missed, that’s still him having better observation skills than anyone else on that case, which is something that’s important for a detective to have. Shuichi’s just likely to not want to give himself enough credit what with how much the outcome of the case traumatised him.

Kaito: “Geez… You worry about the most trivial stuff, man.”

Kaito, you’re the one who was fishing for Shuichi to be worrying about even the tiniest thing so that you’d have an excuse to help him.

Shuichi: “You have no right to say that! You don’t know what I’ve been through!”

Kaito: “Hah! Nice! It’s good to see you actually have some bite to you.”

Shuichi’s response is a dialogue option that I picked, but I like this one, because I enjoy Kaito being proud of him for being able to stand by his own feelings, not even caring that Shuichi doing so involved snapping at him.

(Mind you, Shuichi was also standing by his own feelings earlier when he was asserting that he didn’t need any advice from Kaito right now, and Kaito was much less on board with that, but, you know.)

Regardless, when Kaito said “trivial”, he was really talking about the culprit’s feelings.

Kaito: “He killed someone and was trying to get away with it! He’s a bad guy!”

This is an instance of Kaito’s often fairly black-and-white way of thinking, but even so, him putting things this simplistically helps Shuichi move away from worrying about how the culprit felt. Even if the guy wanted revenge, that still doesn’t justify murder, so Shuichi was right to expose him for it. Kaede and Kirumi’s crimes so far during this killing game were much less black-and-white, such that Shuichi has a decent reason to feel at least a little bad about cornering them, but that one guy? Screw him, he’s nothing like them.

Kaito: “If he’d gotten away with it, he’d be crushed by the weight of his guilt. But you got him before that happened! He should be thanking you!”

It’s also very appropriately Kaito of him to see Shuichi’s job of catching criminals as important because it forces the criminals to take responsibility instead of running away from their own actions and the pain they caused. I especially love that Kaito even sees this as a good thing for the culprit himself. This will be a very relevant idea during this upcoming case in particular, in terms of a certain someone Kaito has already been trying to get through to a lot.

Kaito: “I’ll support you all the way! I know you did the right thing!”

This might still be Kaito overzealously trying to compensate for his own feelings of inferiority, but it’s adorable all the same. This is all Shuichi really needs from him at this point – not necessarily major advice on specific problems, but just knowing that Kaito’s there for him and on his side no matter what. You’re already doing enough, Kaito. Just keep being you.

Kaito: “And not just with that guy! From now on, if anyone holds a grudge against you… I’ll kick their ass!”

This is not ironic foreshadowing to the extent that one might think, because Kaito is never going to hold a grudge against Shuichi, however much it might seem that way. Of course, Kaito would also definitely want to kick the ass of anyone who even seems to hold a grudge against Shuichi, even briefly, just because doing so would hurt him. So… that’s a thing.

Kaito: “So you just gotta follow the path you believe in! You’re my sidekick. So don’t hold back, and rely on me whenever you need to!”

These are Kaito’s voiced lines for his final event, and they couldn’t be more appropriate. They’re adorably full of him believing in and supporting Shuichi, with just a dash of that delightful undertone of him desperately wanting Shuichi to still rely on him even if maybe Shuichi doesn’t need to quite as much any more.

Shuichi: “Kaito… thank you.” (Alright, so he’s foolhardy. But he supports me and expects nothing in return… He does so much for me… I could never turn my back on that. I will never betray his support and trust. I will never break my bond with Kaito!)

While Shuichi is completely oblivious to what’s going on with Kaito and why he’s being so aggressively supportive right now, it’s still just absolutely heartmelting how grateful he is for everything Kaito does for him and trusts him so wholeheartedly in return. For all of Kaito’s issues that this event has been subtly full of, they’re still incredible, adorable friends, which comes across so strongly here. Most FTEs, when they end on emphasising how much the protagonist has become friends with the subject, are kind of dampened by the knowledge that this is just an optional side thing that isn’t really there in the canon storyline. But here, this just serves to highlight the canon adorable friendship between these two even more and I love it.

And if only Kaito could hear everything Shuichi is thinking here. He would never turn his back on you, Kaito! No matter what weaknesses you might have and no matter what mistakes you might make! You have so much less to be afraid of than you think.

Shuichi: “…I understand, Kaito.”

…Shuichi doesn’t really understand. He only understands the fact that Kaito will always be there for him, and while that’s true (or at least, Kaito has no intention of ever making it untrue), that’s not remotely the full picture here.

Shuichi: “I will always depend on you.”

This sounds adorable on the surface, but is potentially pretty messed up if you think about it too hard. Ideally, what Shuichi means is, “I will always depend on you when I need to”, which is the healthy way of looking at it – everyone needs to depend on other people sometimes, and it’s great that Kaito will always be there for him during those times.

But… that might not actually be what Shuichi means. I’ve mentioned multiple times that Shuichi is pretty overly dependent, hence him latching onto Kaede and Kaito so easily… so he might be okay with the idea of always needing to depend on on Kaito. Which he shouldn’t! Nobody should want to be constantly dependent on someone else their entire life, and it’s especially unhealthy if it’s on one single person, no matter how reliable and genuinely well-meaning that person may be. Shuichi should want to become someone who doesn’t need to depend on someone else most of the time, even if that someone else is Kaito.

Kaito: “Yeah! Just leave it to me!”

Under normal circumstances, Kaito would probably be able to pick up on this and recognise that it’s unhealthy and assert that Shuichi should be striving to become more independent. After all, his former sidekicks he mentioned last FTE no longer need him any more, and he seemed perfectly happy with that.

But in the state of mind Kaito’s in by this chapter, he’s not about to do that. Kaito may be a little bit like this even at the best of times, but right now especially he has become incredibly co-dependent – meaning, he’s pathologically dependent on the idea that someone else depends on him. He needs to be needed. And that’s pretty messed up of him too. There is definitely a large part of Kaito that’s worried Shuichi already doesn’t really need him any more – but he’s not letting that part have a say and continuing to insist that of course Shuichi should be constantly depending on him.

Shuichi’s dependency and Kaito’s co-dependency make them a perfect match for each other in a wonderfully messed-up kind of way, and that dysfunctionality lurking beneath the surface is another of the many reasons I enjoy their friendship so much. If it weren’t for this, things wouldn’t be about to fall apart like they do, and this chapter and the beginning of the next wouldn’t be nearly as delightfully heartwrenching.

Shuichi: (Kaito’s smile was as bright as starlight. I couldn’t help but smile back.)

Bright like he’s a luminary or something! Space imagery! FRIENDS.

Shuichi: (…Everything is going to be okay. As long as we have this, we can move forward.)

Oh boy, it sure—

isn’t going to be even remotely okay barely twenty-four hours from now.

Shuichi: (Sometimes I feel as though I’m dragging him down, but I know I’ll catch up one day.)

You’re not, though, Shuichi! This could not be more completely opposite of how Kaito sees things! Kaito feels like he’s the one dragging Shuichi down, which is precisely why we just had this whole event of him desperately trying to show that he isn’t and that Shuichi can still benefit from his support! But Kaito has apparently managed to successfully convince Shuichi that he’s completely invincible and doesn’t have any problems of his own, so Shuichi has no goddamn clue.

Shuichi: (I bet he’d laugh and tell me I have a lot of nerve for a sidekick.)

He wouldn’t, though. The entire point of Kaito’s sidekicks is supposed to be that one day they’ll reach even greater heights than him – we went over that in his previous FTE. Kaito should laugh and then tell Shuichi how proud he is of him for coming this far. I guess Shuichi genuinely never did realise that most of the reason Kaito was telling him about his former sidekicks was to imply that the same thing applies to him.

Or, at least… Kaito should show pride in Shuichi if Shuichi ever overtook him. But that’s Kaito at the best of times, and those are not the times he’s in right now.

In the report card summary for this event, there’s also a very similar line to the one from before:

“Kaito, I know it seems as though you’re dragging me along, but I’ll be right there beside you.”

This is such a delightfully ironic line, and the writers clearly knew exactly how important it is since they essentially included it twice. Oh, Shuichi, if only you had any idea just how completely backwards you have it. If only Kaito would tell you what’s really going on in his head, and then you could support him in return and help him figure things out. But then, this is Kaito we’re talking about here.

All of Kaito’s previous FTEs featured him talking about himself, like FTEs are supposed to. And in general, the final event in particular is meant to involve the subject talking about their biggest issues now that they feel comfortable doing so because of their growing friendship with the protagonist, and maybe having the protagonist help them a little with that. But in Kaito’s final one, he doesn’t talk about himself at all. Because of course Kaito would never talk about his issues, especially not to Shuichi, who needs to see him as strong and invincible in order to be able to rely on him, or so Kaito is irrationally convinced. (And if he somehow miraculously did talk about his issues and Shuichi helped him with them, that’d probably mean that what’s about to happen in the main storyline shouldn’t happen the way it does any more, which we absolutely can’t have.)

Yet this final free time event of Kaito’s still manages to be thoroughly about his issues, not even despite the fact that he doesn’t talk about himself and makes it all about Shuichi’s issues instead, but precisely because of it. It is so appropriate for Kaito that things should be this way, and I love it.

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#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #ndrv3 #chapter 4 #daily life #free time events #commentary

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jaroslavlewis · 6 years ago

Text

ShinRan Shorts: The Curious Case of Holding and Knowing Mouri Ran

Title: The Curious Case of Holding and Knowing Mouri Ran

Author: Jaroslav Lewis

Fandom: Detective Conan

Pairing: ShinRan

Summary: Like Holmes, he could figure out a person so easily just by one look in the eye and one touch of the hand, but with her it was just different. There was so much more to learn, so much more to discover that it was hard to just observe.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Detective Conan and any of Gosho Aoyama’s characters. I simply borrow them when I’m lonely.

Shinichi realized Ran's hands were small.

He was surprised for she could throw such hard punches. But when she laced them around his, the first time they walked to school as a couple he realized how soft and gentle they felt intertwined in his own. They fit perfectly in his. He never noticed it even as he held her hand to school countless times back when he was Conan.

Of course, Shinichi was intrigued because how could he, a world-renowned high school detective who has such a keen eye for details, miss that part of her? It amazed him that he had known Ran his entire life. He thought he knew everything about her but as it turns out there were still more things to discover about her, parts of her he never really noticed before.

And so he found himself holding her hand to school every day. Ran didn’t even have to initiate anymore unlike the first time. He would automatically take her hand in his and with such simple gesture, Shinichi made interesting discoveries.

Shinichi found out that Ran swayed her arms a lot when she is happy so when she’s in such a good mood, Shinichi’s arm would be swayed along with the hand that’s holding hers. She’d also be humming to an upbeat tune. But when Ran’s having a bad day, she would just stay silent. She wouldn’t be swaying her arms but instead, she’d be holding his hand a little tighter than usual and she’d cling unto him for support. When she’s scared, she’d be squishing his hand so hard that he’d feel it going numb. He also found out that Ran’s hands could get cold easily, so during the winter, he’d be keeping her hand in his pocket to keep her warm.

And every time, no matter the circumstance Shinichi would happily oblige to hold her hand and he’d always find himself smiling every time he does.

Ever since they started dating, Shinichi had gotten so accustomed to holding Ran. Often times his peers would tease him and make fun of how he suddenly turned into such a clingy, protective boyfriend. Shinichi didn’t care though. There was no point in denying. He is so head over heels for her and quite a sucker for her touch.

Of course at first, it surprised him. He never really pictured himself to be the touchy-feely type. It was cheesy in a way but as their relationship progressed Shinichi found himself touching and holding Ran more often than not. He’d find himself playing with her hair when they are doing their homework together. Sometimes, he’d scooch closer to her when she’s concentrating on solving a problem and then he’d inhale her scent that smelled of orchids which was quite fitting because her name literally translates to the kind of flower she smells of.

Soon, holding Ran’s hand just wasn’t enough for him anymore. Shinichi started pulling her into his arms to feel more of her warmth and once again, he discovered something that surprised him.

Ran was smaller than him.

And she felt even smaller when she was when she is in his arms, like a fragile, precious being that he needed to protect at all costs. It was weird because he knew very well that Ran is more than capable of taking care of herself.

But despite all that, he would still wrap his arms around her whenever they would watch a movie on his couch. It didn’t matter what genre they were watching but he made sure to hold her extra tight when they’d put on a horror movie. So, he found himself watching more horror movies with her more often.

On bad days, he’d pull her into his arms and he liked it so much when she’d rest her head on his chest. To comfort her, he’d rest his head on top of hers, encaging her in a full embrace. When it’s still not enough, he’d kiss her forehead to assure her that good days will come.

And then Shinichi learned that the more he touched her, the more he would crave for her. It was selfish but he wanted more than just holding her hand, more than just embracing her…

He thought it was intense, how powerful the sense of touch was but also how intimidating it would consume his being. Whenever he’d touch her, his mind would shut off, almost like his other senses didn’t matter and reason was not an option. He just needed to feel and he craved.

It was a dangerous thing. He could remember quite well, when she kissed him on the cheek during their school trip to Kyoto. He snapped and he threw all reason away, grabbed her by the shoulders more forcefully than he would ever. Then, he leaned in for a kiss but sadly failed in his attempt when he felt the antidote wearing off. Though he wasn’t able to kiss her then at the Kiyomizu Dera, he knew that he would’ve kissed her senseless had the situation been different, if he only had enough time…

So when things got back to normal, Shinichi made sure he treasured his moments with Ran and he wasted no time showing her how much he loves her. So when holding her hand wasn’t enough and when it warranted more than just hugs and forehead kisses, Shinichi kissed Ran any chance he’d get.

There was no denying, Shinichi is well acquainted with Ran’s body. Though they never went as far as beyond making out when they’re alone, Shinichi knew how to touch Ran in the right places. He was gentle but had the right amount of roughness and boldness to make her squirm.

And it continues to marvel Ran, how much he seemed to have mapped every intricacy of her body and how his body seems like safe haven she’d perfectly fit in. She wonders if it’s another one of his detective tricks.

But Shinichi knows it was restraint that brought him to how much he knows her now. Holding back for so many years, he never knew what he was missing until he held her hand. Then suddenly, what started out as a small gesture is what lead him to crave for much more. It opened a gate to such desire, such need for something more.

Maybe as a detective, it was innate for him to be curious. But she was something else. She was so much more than his curiosity could handle.

So he figured maybe there will never be a time when he’ll stop learning more things about her. Because he knows very well, he’ll never get enough of her. Ever.

AN. So the idea for this started out when I made a blog post about Shinichi being a boyfriend. (Here’s the link: http://jaroslavlewis.tumblr.com/post/182018815115/random-dcmk-things-shinichi-as-a-boyfriend )

Then I figured I should make a fanfic for it and some peeps said that I should too. So this is what I came out with. This is a little different for the others I’ve written since there’s totally no dialogue in this one. It felt weird at first. I had about three drafts before I finished this fic. I had difficulty writing it from the middle part towards the end. When I finished writing, I realized that the actions were enough to tell the story. I know this is different from most of my fics, but I hope you guys liked it and I hope that Shinichi wasn’t OOC in this one. I really struggled! This is probably too long to be a ShinRan Short, but I’m still including it in the series just because I can. LOL.

I’m gonna be writing a new ShinRan fic after this. It will be a 3-5 part fic about a broken up ShinRan, in contrast to the one shot I wrote, From Where We Left Off ( If you haven’t read it already, Here’s the link: http://jaroslavlewis.tumblr.com/post/182140111795/from-where-we-left-off ) I’ll be posting a preview exerpt later. ;)

I also want to inform you guys that the ShinRan Shorts Series is open for requests. I’m also taking KazuHei requests. As a matter of fact, I’ve already received a request for a KazuHei Lemon from @anissa51-blog. I already have an idea for it and I’ll be working on it as soon as I’m finished with my upcoming ShinRan fic. If you guys have requests, just hit me up! Keep me writing, coz I really want to make up for my hiatus last year! <3

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