#another weird thing that's happened to me this playthrough lol

[ilkkawhat]

as upset as I am to miss it, I think it's somehow creepier that drowning didn't play on the basement tvs when it was supposed to in this part of the game

[revalition]

OCT 10 - EMPATHY Understand others. Work your mirror neurons.

I really love this guy. Mostly. I rambled about it and then decided to shove it under the cut haha.

So as usual, tons of quotes and rambly commentary under the cut!

empathy!! I love him a lot, he has so much insight to offer. But. I will admit I did not like him at first!

probably not 20 minutes into my first playthrough, I'm on the phone with Sylvie. And yes, fail the empathy check... I'm like oooh no what is wrong with this empathy skill, it's completely broken... why is he *like this*.

but I give him another chance and accept the kingdom of conscience quest! which, uh, made me realize I hate moralism I suppose!!

And then we get to the tribunal... where he very nicely tells you to find a non-violent solution! so I once again. give him a chance (because the only one who dissuades me is half light, who I trust even less) and it ends up in several avoidable deaths... sigh.

he has so much good advice, and invaluable insights into other people. (esp. the working class husband side quest) and then there's these random bad bits mixed in - like all the skills I suppose.

He's like, look at this poor birch tree... and look at this poor dead fly... and I realize this guy is way too much like me. >:(

----

empathy fun facts! from my weird spreadsheet

- he's part of an exclusive group of 8 skills that restore more morale than they damage!

- he says sorry a dozen times and not a single one is directed at you! that's right, he does not apologize to you once!

- he says "we" more than he says "I" (only counting actually referring to himself, not quoting others)

- compared to the other skills I've checked so far, his swearing is at ~3/10 swearing amount edit!! empathy's score is 4.97... a perfectly average amount of swearing

----

here are empathyyy quotes!

this one obviously has to be here. empathy gives a few peeks into Jean's mental state

empathyyyy. interestingly, if empathy doesn't fire here, inland empire will say the exact same thing, word for word

empathy just knows, somehow. it sounds terrible.

kingdom of conscience empathy is so funny. the (only very slowly) at the end always gets me

these guys trying to save you from the evil phone call...

empathy during the tribunal!! at least he can admit when he's wrong... I really felt the limits of empathy's usefulness during my first tribunal. I trusted him and tried to do things peacefully and all that ended up happening was the gardener got shot and I ended up with a bunch of negative modifiers on the bomb throwing check. It's so easy to put some of the skills into the 'good advice' category and forget that they all have a really limited way of viewing the world, and that that impacts their decision making abilities... poor guy.

total annhilation :( as usual, this is in the last dream.

I don't think anyone who even slightly likes empathy wants to look at it, but the Love Quest has to be in here. empathy said it, it's real

these dialogue options...

it's sooo bad. the Love Quest is so painful. euuugh. Empathy is so *enthusiastic* about it too!!

lol.

this one's if you pass the empathy check and then pick the stupid dialogue options he warns you not to pick. you reprimand him sweetie!! empathy almost never reprimands you!

nooo not the cells :((

always love empathy insights into kim!!

another one <3 this one gives you the dialogue option to reassure kim that you'll be able to do it tomorrow

empathyyy :,( I hate (love) you

this is such a cool insight

empathy trying to steer you back... (also rhetoric using them??)

empathy picking up random weird stuff!

I really liked this one. And being able to visit the birch later <3

precious naive empathyy

these two haha

really like this one too. (I like the insects too empathy!! my sweet guy)

viscalc getting distracted by the coins *so* fast, and empathy not letting you forget what you just said haha

empathy is so surprised!

<3

empathy! looking out for everyone

empathy making me feel bad for bringing kim into the room (with the help of savvy and endurance!)

this one's nice too

It really, really is.

Ending it on a sad one today. The working class husband quest is the one part of the game I just can't engage with, which is why lines from it aren't in here. Even though I think it's the place where Empathy really really shines. If you pass the check, it has the one really impactful line - he knows how important your words are, choose them carefully. The failure is incredibly painful too. It's really beautifully done, and I would have absolutely included many of those lines in here if I could.

Anyways, that's sadly 30! I put aside some other nice ones I can share later though. It's a bit hard to find the best of them because the way I usually search for stuff doesn't catch everything... Empathy has so many great lines <3

[hpowellsmith]

Some things I've learned so far from the Honor Bound beta testing:

copy-pasting code is my nemesis. Many of the weird bugs like polyamorous characters showing up during makeouts when they shouldn't happen because of it

people who send bugs relating to smut scenes are heroes (I know it's awkward, and I appreciate it SO much because not everyone feels comfortable emailing that kind of thing)

sometimes I just forget something I wrote a while back

never underestimate my power to write a sentence, partially rewrite it, and then leave some of the original sentence there, left to be confusing to players

there is a character which some people absolutely despise, and others completely adore, which I love

do not neglect making miserable endings feel satisfying in some way or another (this is something I'm working on next week)

using variables for common verbs for gender-selectable characters/MCs is an absolute dream, 10/10 - so many fewer errors

Here are some of my favourite funny lines of feedback:

Phew! Who knew this annoying mf [Mandriotti] would be the one to come through?

[Fiore is] a gentleperson in the streets and a freak in the sheets, I must say!

Ok *swoon*! During my first playthrough I wasn't really impressed with Matia, but now, romancing her, she might be my favorite character!

Raffi has very prominent doggy vibes. Would pet.

SAVAREL MY BABY I had missed him so much ;_;

Then Varenn drops the F bomb and I know things are about to get real lol.

*sigh* Now I want to live in Zaledoan luxury with Hakim on staff. Couldn't I be Prince Javi? :D

I'm really glad I got to pet the cat! It also made me really soft every time the LIs pet cats! The cats in this game are very good!!

[tragedycoded]

Hellooooooooooooooo!

Can you tell us everything behind the places in Doom Metal Love Story : Fort Cano, Fort Sarras, the American Great Plains and so on?

Inspiration, do they exist (or similar places) and all ?

Also, bells ring when they ring, 1873 is a great year.

Thank you 💗

Gioia my love! Hi! Thank you for the question! I sure hope my rambling response makes sense I haven't had coffee yet LOL.

(Note to people who aren't familiar with DMLS or with me: I'm discussing an alternate-history start of a Weird Western novel, but I do touch on U.S. Army activity in American Indian territory during the 1870s. I am not ignoring or erasing the U.S. genocide of American Indians by creating an alt-history where that does not happen.)

Let's Go

The extent of my initial worldbuilding was "What if the U.S. didn't have territory past the Mississippi River?" + drawing on an absolutely cursed save file from when I was playing Crusader Kings II and Spain got wiped off the map in the 12th or 13th century.

(I don't think the Aztecs actually invaded Europe in that playthrough but it got real weird real fast.)

Things That Happened Before Sullivan Was Born

The United States had two gold rushes that I was specifically concerned with. The Georgia gold rush started in 1829, and is the reason most of the characters (Buck, the Hustons, the retired miners Royston gambles with) are from Georgia and tend to travel in groups.

There was another gold rush in California in the 1840s--it's my understanding that without that, America never would have gained an advantage on the world financial stage. That land would still belong to the 100 or so tribes native to that area, so unless France sent Catholic missions, there was no Spain to do it.

Everyone but the U.S. is thriving in this setting LOL.

(Everything east of the highlighted states belongs to the U.S. in this shitty timeline. The highlighted states are the ones that are considered part of the Great Plains.)

Since I have the U.S. no longer possessing territory west of the Mississippi River, I had to change some dates of the Louisiana Purchase--in real life, the U.S. acquired a huge chunk of land from France in 1803. I had this occur later, and I've been handwaving a lot; my memory is dogshit, and I'm not smart enough to sort out what the long-term effect of Spain not conquering the Aztec Empire would have been, other than "The Aztecs survived and native tribes have a better relationship with France than the U.S."

The Military Situation

So the land the Army is occupying in DMLS belongs to the native tribes. The previous mission of "settle and expand the territory" became "evacuate all U.S. citizens still in the area and keep a presence on the plains so it won't be a huge surprise if France tries to invade the U.S. again."

The two forts that appear in DMLS are based on Fort Leavenworth (Sarras) and Fort Reno (Cano) but because of all the screwing around I've done, they aren't as well-supplied or fortified or populated as they were in our 1873-1874. This kind of gets touched on in a flashback in a Hofer POV chapter--getting sent to Fort Sarras feels like a death sentence, but it's the last stint Sullivan and Hofer have to do before they both retire.

(Sullivan and Hofer would have stayed at Fort Sarras until 1876 and then fucked off back home to Philadelphia if everything in the book hadn't happened. That's about when I see things really popping off with France.)

Fort Sarras does not have a federal penitentiary like Leavenworth does; that might have been the plan thirty years earlier but that's shot by the time Sullivan and Hofer transfer in. In real life, Fort Leavenworth is the oldest permanent settlement in the state of Kansas, and thousands of settlers and natives passed through on their way west every year.

Fort Reno technically didn't exist until July 1874--it was a temporary camp set up before the Red River War. Fort Cano was established for similar reasons (fighting with the locals) but about six months earlier. If Fort Sill, Fort Smith, or any of the other local forts made appearances in the novel I would have given them new names.

Fort Reno also does not have railroad access like Fort Cano does. That strongly ties in with some of the shit happening in Book 2 and 3. I can already see having to put a note in a foreword that says something like "I know there was no Fort Reno or railroad in June 1874 let me cook."

Minus the Alt-History Bullshit

If I were writing a proper historical novel and not alt-history, Sullivan wouldn't have been at Fort Reno--the 10th Cavalry was posted at Fort Sill, which is on the opposite side of Oklahoma (then called the Indian Territory), and they were sent to the Texas Panhandle with a few other companies to fight in the Red River War, which involved killing natives and forcing the survivors back to Fort Sill to be sent to a reservation.

So Royston would have been "saving" Sullivan from that scenario.

The alt-history was just me being high and writing alone in my room and trying to set up for a Bad Ending scenario, which had Sullivan and Royston surviving the events in the City--Royston calls out what would have happened in Hofer's last 1874 chapter. The City would have given them new bodies--Sullivan couldn't have survived the injuries he sustained, he had about fifteen minutes left. So it dumped them in a new timeline.

The "punchline" of all my shitty worldbuilding would have been that they ended up in our timeline in Book 2, and they still had to deal with the Hustons and Powell on top of not knowing shit about the political situation they were spat into.

But Sullivan had to lose Hofer in order for that scenario to happen. And he's already made it v clear to me how he feels about that. He's OK living in a timeline that's shittier for his country if it means there's less genocide and no me killing his best friend.

Post-Script

After I have the surgery I need to have to treat my trigeminal neuralgia I intend to take a field trip out to Fort Reno to see just how fucked Sullivan and Hofer were in the Bad Ending. I've been in this cursed-ass state for over a year and started DMLS in September 2023 and I have done zero novel-related sightseeing.

[ggren-mainz]

Umineko - question arcs playthrough -> ep 2 - 1

last part - All parts and episodes - next part

Welcome back after an almost 2-week break, it's time for the next chapter ;P. Also i decided I'll introduce my gf and family to umineko via the stageplay, as i have heard that it's pretty good. Only up to ep 3 (soon 4) now, but anyways.

edit 2 days later as this sat in drafts : Watched it with my sis (my mom deemed it too tiring) and she loved it. Her favorite is George (both the character and the actor ;P), and she had some very interesting theories, one of them being that genji is kinzo's child, which damn. Age-wise i don't think it works but at least she's thinking. Also the outro was very confusing but i think it might've revealed some stuff. I'm not sure, but I'll keep it in mind. Anyways amazing watch.

She also did the tierlist and it's so funny

Anyways

I want to start this by saying that the culprit actually showed to me in a dream. That's right, i had a premonition. Basically the dream was me and some friends running in a destroyed world from Shannon with a gun. So what I'm getting to is that I now solved the mystery, and will now just laugh for the following 7 chapters. Ha ha ha.

(pls if shannon actually has any relation with the culprit/is the culprit, do not tell me or make any jokes/imply it. I am simply fooling around because of this quite funny dream i had)

rocking that victorian newspaper boy inspired fit.

and the hippie look. Perfect case of underdressed x overdressed. Also Tomitake Flash?????

this reads like some insane foreshadowing. Or at least it's definitely related to our little characters as well. You could say that they're like fish from the perspective of the witches. anyways, I'll put s mental pin to this line and perhaps rethink it later.

glad to see she's included in the credits now.

Anyways what's with this aquarium date?? When is it happening? Basically George and Shannon are on a date, and are just having fun, being very cute.

can't really figure out if this line should mean more or not. Cause like it's not that weird, but also it could turn into something more sinister later. I'll see.

And they say romance is dead.

Oh also another thing we (me and my sis) noticed yesterday while watching the play, but George is 23 and Shannon is 16.... raises one eyebrow. Ok george...ok...

....what magic? Hey shannon i think George will understand it very well why not explain it to us?

OOooohhh so this happens before the first game time wise. ok ok makes sense.

woah woah woah this is a bit of a change of atmosphere.

so from how much i'm getting this is Shannon talking about breaking free from her fate as 'furniture'. She is on the shrine's rock (the one that was destroyed at the beginning of ch 1) and wants to break some mirror that was offered as a sacrifice. I wonder, does that mean that because she broke this mirror, the shrine broke down and as such somehow started this entire tragedy?

is the key here metaphorical, or could it be referring to the key in the ephitath?

what promise? what wish? so many questions....question arc moment....

We then have a long scene of George and his family visiting the main house, and Shannon realising her crush on him, and some discussions between the George Jessica and her. These 2 are very cute, unfortunately it seems that Eva wants to marry George with someone who would benefit them financially/bussiness wise.

and as such it leads me to the question. Did she marry like this? Was her marriage with Hideyoshi like this oooorrr....

(before this she says that she loves her husband a lot), ah i see. I mean it's not like this doesn't happen nowadays too, except instead of getting married and then falling in love it's more like getting together and then falling in love. Which is fine, but idk if in this world this is ideal, as i doubt divorce is that accepted lol. And also ofc cause we know George loves Sayo.

anyways Eva continues talking and then takes George away and then tells the girls they'll also find men they love but then leans in and whispers something so vile and malicious in Shannon's ear, that my computer crashed and i had to restart the game lmao.

after a lot of ctrl-ing this is what she says. Bad but i think my computer overexaggerated.

So Shannon feels like shit and is caught with her head in the clouds by Natsuhi who punishes her to clean the entire reception.

mayhaps i shouldn't have wondered so far lmao. (for context i was curious if Lanon was an actual character or was just gonna remain a name and then i kept seeing yasu and here i am lol)

this is what detroit become human and what i also assume nier automata (idk i only played the prologue) wished they could be.

huuuuuh??? So again this brings me back to my question, does magic actually exist? i think so. But maybe Shannon is imagining this and all those flashy bunny rabbits I see online are Kinzo's personal strippers, idk.

Holly shit guys, look! it's the witch!!

Also is this story very related to love? I didn't expect that, interesting. Maybe it's just this chapter or a sub-genre but idk ill see. Also she already has the ring on.

hmm is it really that simple? You know how they say, don't make a deal with the devil, this is how this feels.

Huh i can't believe all my questions have been answered. So this is why she broke the mirror, this is the wish and also the promise and also the magic. Makes sense.

Also wait i just had a thought. Does Shannon break the mirror each loop, or did by any chance Kanon break it last time. Because you remember he said before he died that she should wait "another 100 years in hell for the next summoner" and assuming this summons the witch...

*shakes* who is it????

hmmm this sounds...suspiciously similar to Eva. Is she saying this because she wants to intimidate her and convince her to break the mirror or is Eva somehow behind this?

and this is just the exact quote. Why is she quoting her? Just to remind her? And if she doesn't just wanna remind her and she just thinks this then why call Kinzo Father? Is she related to him? Me and my sis have talked about the possibility of her being somehow related to Kinzo, like a daughter thingy. I'm not sure, and i definitely don't have enough clues to figure it out rn but anyways. Kinda hard to fake all of this tbh.

Immediatly after this line Kanon comes in to save Shannon, and after some more talking Beatrice gives both of them a butterfly shaped burn/bruise mark on their left palms. She does that by controlling their hands, which immediately remembered me of the ending scene in the stageplay, where Shannon and Kanon "shoot" each other with their hands in the shape of a pistol. who knows. I obviously dont.

these things are getting longer and longer...

next part

[fareehaandspaniards]

Oh so your baby squid hunter got a happy end too?? 🥺 Could you share more details?

Yes! To make a long story short, it's a Modern AU, but with a link to the past. I didn't think the idea through in detail, just a couple of things and the basis of it.

When I completed my playthrough of the game, the ascension of our own hunter gave me a great hope, for this is essentially the beginning of a new life for Yharnam as well, which they will now protect!

My idea was that a hunter (in my case, my Guillermo) has had his heart broken by the story of Old hunters, so as the Great One, he watches the passage of time - as Yharnam empties out completely, becomes a dead city, and then people - foreigners, settlers, and others - return there. Our new Great One simply watches the natural course of events, with only a little influence on people's fates to prevent something like previous Yharnam tragedy from happening. Eventually, most references to the Great Ones disappear from Yharnam again, knowledge of the Blood and Eyes is lost, and normal life begins again. Laurence's theory of healing Blood is preserved in passages of his manuscripts, so in part people use it in medicine, but it becomes something commonplace rather than innovative. The new generation doesn't know about insight.

And eventually, after so 400-500 years, Yharnam becomes more or less a modern city similar to our reality. (Modern world + ancient beliefs + old medicine)

In our hunter's soul there is still sorrow for the past times and for the people who died. The souls of many of them have remained untamed and have found no rest, and the New Great One decides, as it was in your post, to give them a second chance! The souls of hunters, scientists are reborn in the new reality, the only difference is that most of those who were separated by years - now exist in the same time and have a small difference in age, about 10 years or so (for example, Edgar in my interpretation was 26 when he died in a Nightmare of Mensis, Micolash was 43, and Damian was 55. In the new version, Edgar could be 18 y.o., Micolash - 24, and Damian - 29 y.o.)

Guillermo himself also takes on the guise of a human being to observe the new lives of his charges, who take on roles in their new lives that are similar to their past! And many hobbies they have retained even after death lol

But because people are incorrigible, something strange starts to happen again, because they are all in one way or another drawn to the forbidden, the secret, and even delighted when they find references to themselves in the past (only they don't know it's themselves)

The task of our Great One, however, is to prevent a new apocalypse from happening, but to do it as a human being - affecting them spiritually and physically.

This is my seedling! And a couple ideas for this AU:

Micolash is a DnD fan, this I know absolutely, though I've never done such a thing myself xD I even had a sketch of him with glasses and braces, I think he'd be a typical “nerd” that no one would take seriously at first until his creepy weirdness and calm attitude towards dismembered bodies is revealed… yeah… ahahaha…..

In this AU, it seems to me that Edgar could be his best friend and support, and they would both be consumed by the idea of unearthing the remains of an ancient civilization near Yharnam

Ludwig has a big Saint Bernard living with him:

And Logarius has this LOL:

(I really wanted to do a headcanon post on which character would get which pet, but Ludwig and Logarius' dogs are too firmly embedded in my head xDD They fit them xDD)

This AU has titles like Duke, Earl, etc., and Annalise would have been born into a wealthy ducal family, but would have found herself in university with the rest of the characters.

Logarius is a religious fanatic and a member of a blood cult. These are just facts, but I haven't thought about them yet.

Tomb Prospectors, Old Hunters - basically most of them become students at the new university in new Yarnam! But the ones like Damian, Valtr, Ludwig, Willem, for example, are still older than the rest. And Damian is still trying to patronize Micolash and keep him from getting hooked on drugs.

Gremia is a local criminal and hooligan who asks to help Damian with his studies and learn manners from him (I made up a whole romantic story there xd)

Laurence and Rom will definitely get married in this AU

Caryll can walk! Since there was no injection of the Great Ones' blood for him, he has very poor health, but is not limited in movement. And he would most likely be the lever that would have been the one out of everyone reaching for the Great Ones again. He's an empath and would have been led by the voices straight to the Hunter-Great One

Anything else is hard to remember! Honestly, I've left this idea in the “closet”. If it's to be taken seriously, it'll have to be done later and paired with someone else.

AND I forgot to mention that everything will end fine! They all will find peace, happy life (In their special ways) and say sorry to each other.

[aether-friskets]

a whole line collection for heather is crazy, congrats on finishing such a big project!! do you have any favorite phrases of hers that you found out while making all this? or just in general as you played the game. something silly or touching or just showing her character maybe.

thank you!! There's definitely a lot of interesting little tidbits you can pick up, although also a lot of "there's nothing interesting here" comments lol

i guess I'll give some random tidbits that I remember and liked for one reason or another (decided to put it under a read more because it's a bit long):

That weird old detective is out there, so I'm not leaving.

This was just funny to me, like I totally missed it on all previous playthroughs. It's from the beginning of the game, if you try to exit the bathroom from the entrance door. Also puts into perspective how much the relationship between Douglas and Heather changes over the course of the game, considering how she views him later on. At this point, though, he's just some weird old guy that won't leave her alone

also, I noticed certain item descriptions can change a bit? For example, what Heather says about the knife she's carrying changes before vs after first encountering monsters in the real world.

it goes from "It's a switchblade for self-defense. I've never used it, but just in case" to "It's a switchblade for self-defense. Better with than without it against those monsters", which is a neat little detail.

the other example of it that I spotted was with the pendant, another item you have for the whole game. I didn't notice the change until the church, after reading the book on Aglaophotis, but it's possible it changed sooner. It was just the addition of "I wonder why I feel sick inside when I look at it?", which might be a bit of further hinting towards its purpose at the end of the game.

Anyway, side tangent over, back to stuff that's more actually focused on Heather.

The bottle says, 'DANGER! Do not mix!' Hmm... mix with an acidic detergent and it'll produce poisonous chlorine gas.

I also love how she finds bleach and just goes "hmm if I combined this with detergent I could make poisonous gas" just, without any prompting or anything. Like girl why did you know that

There was a nice silver ring in here the last time I came... Bummer that it's gone, huh.

(jewellery display in the mall)

I mean, I'm no thief... I might act like one now and then, though.

(silver coins in the office building)

makes me wonder if she's perhaps shoplifted now and again... lol at the very least, shes no stickler for the law, which i can respect honestly

I don't really feel like eating and drinking stuff from an alternate reality, OK?

(shelves with wine in the mall)

I'd feel weird drinking anything sold in a place like this, though.

(vending machine in the office building)

But this popcorn doesn't look right. I don't think I'll be having any. But then again, I wouldn't eat anything else here either.

(popcorn stand in amusement park)

The insistence on not trusting random food and drinks you find lying around... which is probably the smart choice tbh

Hell, I might still be sleeping here, for all I know. ...I wish I were.

She brings up the idea of dreaming and nightmares a few times in cutscenes and such, and I can see why. It would be nice to wake up from something like that and realize it didn't really happen. But, she knows that's not the case.

Is someone sleeping here...? All this red stuff around here is blood. This guy's not sleeping.

(corpse in subway)

There's a dead body inside this box thing. There's nothing interesting here.

(corpse in amusement park)

The door's open. Inside there's someone wrapped in a bag. Maybe--no, they're definitely dead.

(corpse in the church)

I think it's a little amusing seeing the range of reactions to the corpses, for some reason

like girl if its in a bag and not moving its safe to assume its dead by now, especially in a room full of corpses

I also think it's interesting seeing bits where she thinks about Alessa more near the end...

And I don't want to remember them. Because I'm not Alessa anymore... But Alessa is still me. I'm really not trying to deny it or anything.

This line surprised me because while I didn't remember seeing it before, I said pretty much the same thing in a post talking about some of my thoughts on heather a little while ago. And it does sum it up well. She's not Alessa anymore, but Alessa is still part who she is.

i also noticed Heather often switches between "I" and "her"/"Alessa" when talking about her.

It's a picture of me when I was 7. I look bored and sad. Well, of course I do. I was always like that back then.

Like in this instance of talking about a photo of Alessa...

The scribbling on the floor here is Alessa's. For some reason, she always drew monsters like this when she was alone.

vs talking about these drawings on the floor in Alessa's room.

I--no, it wasn't me. Alessa wrote this a long time ago.

Or here, where she can't even make up her mind which to use.

24 years ago, Mo... Dahlia used me to summon God.

(oh there's also this part where she almost calls Dahlia Mom but decides she doesn't deserve that title loll)

There are even a few hints of original Cheryl left, which is nice.

This is my sketchbook, from 17 years ago. On the front cover is a picture of Dad. Really awful work.

(Cheryl's sketchbook)

But I do have just a trace of one more memory left. I haven't forgotten my sweet and gentle mother.

(After reading Harry's diary)

obviously, the "sweet and gentle mother" is Jodie, because I can't imagine Dahlia described that way by her lolll

also this line just made me laugh a bit:

Helmets? Should I take them with me...? Nah, never mind. It's pretty geeky-looking.

ooh there's also a couple lines that made me sad when I found them, I'll put those here:

My home... My dad! Is he okay? I'm sure he is. He must be.

(literally a few minutes before getting back to the apartment and finding him)

I just... Don't want to remember. Get me out of here.

(Alessa's sickroom)

I used to take these dolls with me when I went to bed. Scarlett and... Damn, I forgot the other one's name. In fact, I don't even know which one is Scarlett.

(dolls in Alessa's bedroom)

I want to get out of here, but I just can't. This is for Dad... and for myself. And... For Claudia, too.

(trying to exit the final room back through the door you entered)

also...

I'm exhausted, but I don't think I can sleep now.

(heather's bed)

I'm tired, but it's no time to sleep.

(motel bed)

get this girl some REST!!

Anyway, this is a lot of random stuff, and there's probably more i could've said, but overall... It's really interesting to see all these little details! Like obviously her dialogue and actions within cutscenes says a lot, but I think getting all this insight into her mind through little item interactions is really interesting! This ended up being a bit rambling and not very actually insightful, but I hope it still gives somewhat of an idea :D

[neriyon]

10 Characters from 10 Fandoms

Tagged by @zylphiacrowley , ty ty~

These are mostly in whatever order they popped up in my head, since I was hit with the "instantly forget everything you've ever liked" beam when I started writing this.

Hythlodaeus - Final Fantasy XIV I wuv purple wife guy... All the way from when he was just a weenwoon ghost. Honestly, FFXIV has sooo many good characters that picking just one feels kinda weird haha.

DIY - Welcome to My Home Help, the bastard chuuni wizard in a big hat has me by the throat. Everyone else seems ready to strangle him (both npcs and other players). And then there's me who's spamming the heart emote at him every chance I can lol.

Waka - Okami Another bastard of a man. Like FFXIV, Okami has tons of cool characters! But teen me latched into Waka so hard on my first playthrough. And listen. He's a pretty man with long hair, nice voice AND has a flute that he both plays and uses as a laser sword in battle. Yeah. Oh and he shows up to tell you mysterious (and funny) prophecies.

Wei Wuxian - Mo Dao Zu Shi (Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation) I'll be honest, he came to mind while writing Waka's thing (club long haired flute playing guys lol). But yeah, he fits in the "morally grey, overly dramatic and little asshole-ish pretty boy with long hair" category I happen to like very much.

Ukitake Jushiro - Bleach Long white hair! Twin swords! Gentle and silly old man who can kick your ass! Bleach was one of my first animes ever, and I still like the setting itself (and many of the characters).

Courier - Arknights First one that had me going "oh I like him, he's never leaving my team". Also first one I E2'd, and he's still my go-to vanguard for almost every stage. Who can say no to that adorable little smile and voicelines offering to make you food~

Blade - nu:carnival Cute white haired assassin android boy! I started this game thinking I'd fixate on Edmont based on the website character infos, but nope, Blade being cute airhead with love for cute things (and Darling) got me first.

Sleeping Beauty (Briar Rose/Ibarahime) - SINoALICE Game may be gone but having played it for it's entire global run I felt I needed to include it haha. And! Who better than the character that got me into it~ Sleepy's basically what it says in the jar - she prefers to sleep 24/7 and will react violently if you try to force her awake.

Devola & Popola - Nier Automata Cheating and putting them both (lol). I love 9S too, but kinda felt like they deserved to get mentioned so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Idk what it is about them, but I spent a very long time just standing next to them when they first showed up haha. I'm specifically mentioning the Automata ones, since I met them first, and am yet to finish my Replicant playthrough (ooops)

Mashita Satoru - Death Mark I had hard time picking the last one since I didn't wanna go "too far back" in things I like/used to like, so I went with Death Mark since the second one came out not too long ago. The other characters are cool too, but Mashita is fan favorite for a reason. Guess we all love snarky detective who looks like he could really use some sleep.

Hoooo boy it was harder than I thought haha. I mainly only interact with FFXIV fandom, but at least I kinda.... glance towards these other 9 mentioned sometimes? Also purposefully skipping Ensemble Stars even tho I'm currently active player - I could not choose between Mika and Rei, and honestly straight up ignore 99,99% of the fandom.

[bitegore]

🍄♻️🤔

🍄Describe your wip/one of your wips in the format of “_ + =__”

okay for the sake of my fucking sanity i am NOT going to presume I get any real wiggle room here. or i will do another 400 line proof. because it is fun but oh my god it takes so long.

((Felyx + Taran)(Rex + Haven + Taran) + fake dating)^spite = fireworks

♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP(s)

not sure it qualifies as a "wip" because I haven't actually decided to pull it out of the graveyard of abandoned-works out-of-progress yet - call it a wip-aspirational or something lol - but the more I poke at Haven and Taran's actual story the more fun I have thinking about siccing Rex on the two of them. In like 2020 or 2021, so, a good while ago at this point and at a time I'd describe myself as "rusty" I started working on whatever the worst version of a meetcute is (ending in the equation above) lol. If I recall correctly my endgame then was that the three of them would fall into a stable orbit. I think that's kind of silly now. They're not that kind of people.

other scrapped idea, same story: Rex and Taran were meant to get along. That's not happening. It's a lot funnier if Rex and Haven (both deeply, deeply difficult people to get along with who hate accommodating for other people) can find a way to coexist pleasantly but Taran, resident NormalGuy who is extremely accustomed to unpleasant asshole bullshit, genuinely cannot get over Rex's various fuckeries beyond, like, the civility of "I recognize that you are living in my house now because the other person who lives here really likes you, and I don't want to have a screaming match in my own fucking kitchen." I tend to make Rex tolerable to speak to when I write him on his own because it's narratively difficult to use a protagonist who will just spit anything handed to him in someone else's face, but in this particular setup he is actively attempting to get Taran's genuine actual hatred on purpose because he's under the impression that's the goal and he's having fun with it also, so it lets me just make him a huge cunt asshole too which is more fun than having him show any scraps of humanity anyway :D

ok let me come up with something you have actual interest in lol

The Rex & Casey conversation fic I was working on ran into an unrecoverable roadblock (I decided the premise needed work) and has to be restarted in a different place with a slightly different version of Casey (tragic!), so one of the things I had to scrap to keep it rolling is Rex commenting on the color of the sky. It's really sad for me because I always think it's funny when you have a guy In a hell dimension like "damn... this place is weird.... the sky isn't bright red, it's eerie". But I can't justify The Story bringing Rex into The Real World as a Plot Element now that I know more about how it works, so I

......

Aha. Well. Actually. I can't justify Alan using The Story to bring Rex into The Real World, because I know how he works. Might have fixed my opinion on my own premise.

We'll see, I'll sleep on it. It needs to cook longer anyway. I also realized (aw2 spoilers) (for serious) (skip this paragraph now if you havent at least finished the first run of the game) if it happens in The Story In The Real World it's got to be situated between Saga's first time going through the loop with Alan and the Final Draft, but I still haven't found enough time to watch t full playthrough of Final Draft, so I'm sure when I hit Zane's part in there and then endgame I'll know a bit more about the direction I want to take.

🤔What’s a story you’d love to write but haven’t even started yet

Anything like that I have, either it's so busy being a concept I cannot write it yet, or I've started it just to make sure I won't forget it XD so it's hard to come up with. And most of the concepts are less "this is the kind of story I want to write", so much as "this is the kind of effect I want it to have". You know. I want to write something ~mind-bending~ or I want to ~do talking animals but cool~ or whatever.

A lot of words to say I'm drawing a huge blank on this question.

I think - and this is something I keep approaching with different stories but not leaning into, because, frankly, I'm the first line of concept-check for myself, and i get bored - I'd really like to try a story that works as one extended record-scratch. You start at the very end, in a scene that means basically nothing to anyone, and then in the events of reading the entire rest of the story you get more and more context until the very end of the book is the exact same scene as the first part, like, down to the description, and then it just loops infinitely. Something you could read spiral-binding style so it doesn't really have a "start" or an "end", just points between chapters with cardboard so you can close it anywhere, if it's a physical book. you know, some experimental shit.

Unfortunately I find time loops boring as hell to write. This would be ONE loop, so it'd maybe be better, but I'm still kind of burnt on being willing to touch another timeloop from how badly I did not enjoy the one I wrote for an exchange like two full calendar years ago. And also I do have other things to be doing.

That's also not a story! That's a plot structure! I might as well say I want to write The Hero's Journey for all it really tells you 😂 at my heart I'm a parodist, I'm going to need to see someone do it wrong and decide to do a better job than they did to really get a fire lit for an actual narrative here. I do love me some themes of insurmountable stupid bullshit you put yourself into on purpose because you decided you could surmount it and then discovered you couldn't, and some futile attempts at some stupid shit for retroactively-really-dumb reasons that weren't worth it, so it'll have that. as seasoning. because what is a permanent stable timeloop but one person committing suicide over and over? I'm only really able to approach the properly frozen-in-sequence ones as either Hand Of God (boring) or Sunk Cost Fallacy On Steroids (fun! interesting! miserable in a slightly unusual way!) so...

....well, it's going to have to keep simmering, because I like what I've got in the broth, but there's no meat in there yet, only spices. It would make a terrible meal right now. But it answers the question, I think.

[my-lunaberg]

Before I'll watch this long Sam vod I wanted to talk about something that I was reminded of while thinking abt the whole Sam Bucket/Sam Regular thing

Let me take you back to Minecraft Youtube circa 2015-2018. But not regular old English-Speaking Countries Minecraft Youtube, oh no. German Minecraft Youtube.

At the time, modded minecraft lets plays were all the rage, literally no one was playing the vanilla game and the idea of minecraft roleplaying was starting to crop up as well. It was quite different from dsmp mainly because it was all youtube videos and no (story-driven) streams, there were typically only 2-4 people actually playing on a server with other characters being npcs added in by mods and they tended to be a lot more structured overall with less of an improvised vibe

Now, I wanna talk about a thing that happened in probably my favorite one of these gmcyt series made by my favorite youtubers at the time: Fusionfall by Chaosflo44 and Arazhul_HD (Im calling them Flo and Roman from this point on bc idk i'd feel kinda weird if I didnt considering they only ever used their youtube titles in an ironic way lol)

Before I properly get into it though, I need yall to know that their minecraft series in particular, wether they were together or playing alone, always felt a lot like watching a playthrough of a really mediocre rpg where literally all there is to do is do boring and convoluted fetch quests mixed with minecraft. Like, these series were usually 100 episodes long and like 80 of them were always just these two guys doing a fetchquest and then dicking around and building while answering twitter questions or smth.

This was another one of those episodes were they were building some shit for their bases while telling childhood about detention or other school related stuff. Now, the way these series were structured was basically that they would both film a first episode from both povs and then only Roman would do a second one and then only Flo would do a third one and so on. This one was from Flos pov and at one point Roman was telling a pretty long story and every once in a while he would come into Flos base to get resources for his base and they would gesticulate in-game so Roman wouldnt have to interrupt the flow of his story. Then he finishes his story and asks Flo if he could get some resources and hes like "wtf do you mean, youve been taking shit from me the whole time" but Roman tells him that hes been working on his base and never left, what the fish is he talking about. So then they kinda argue back and forth and at some point Roman comes into Flos base again and he punches him and tells him to leave to which Roman is once again like "i dont know wth youre on about man" and when Flos like "you are literally in my house right now" he tells him that hes not and hes coming over. Now theyre arguing about that bc Roman is obviously at Flos house except he isnt, except he is. Or is he?!?!? Anyway, Roman is hanging out at Flos place for a moment while he yells at him and then. another Roman enters the building. and theyre literally identical, down to their gear Im pretty sure

And thats when my brain cuts off. I have no idea how this got resolved and frankly I dont ever want to know its so delightfully creepypasta-esque Im in love

So yeah thats that, now its dream smping time again

[expirisims]

What is going on with my Game?

So some of these are out of order, and that is because I had to replay the entire day! I got to the end and my game began doing that thing where it selects multiple sims. Now I did leave my cat in the room while I ran downstairs so it’s totally possible he stepped on something and there was nothing wrong with my game, but...I switched to the next household and they were clickable, but the panel remained on the Thigpen household. I reset and still nothing. I quit to desktop and went back in and still the same. So I had to resort to the backup of day 5 and it restarted the whole day. :/ It also curiously deleted the entire BAND!!! Really!? After all the work I did all week! I had to invite everyone over and ask them to join again, I really really hope there’s not a larger problem, I’ve been having some weird issues with this whole save lately. 

Anyway, Terrell learned a new composition!

Alyson enjoyed listening to the jam session that happened on both “Day fives”. And yes, that drummer is Blaine from the bookstore! I initially had another townie as the drummer, but she always dipped out on practice so she had to go!

More town news! Ida and Mack have a new little one on the way and Cristina must be over the moon! She dated Clark, but dumped him for a fling with Mack if I remember correctly. Buuut, I know that she’s really had an enormous crush on Reggie from day one of the playthrough! Guess she’s finally made it out of the friendzone!

I LOVE the toddling!

I didn’t know Marisela was a magician! Off to band practice while Alyson heads out again!

Poor Alyson, just trying to raise the relationship bar! I forgot Terrell is an unflirty sim :(

Dinner and bed time. For Terrell and Jerrod anyway. Alyson was off to another party at Jamie’s house.

Oh no! Don’t tell me it’s another babysitting “party” ugh.

Hey look! It actually IS a party! With other guests and music and all!

Umm...Adriana, why are you looking at Alyson like that??

OMG! Really???!!! You guys aren’t even enemies! Why do you have a beef with Alyson!?

Meanwhile, Sharon and Jamie just can’t be bothered... LOL!

Forget that!! We’re outta here!

She’s home and so tired that instead of walking the five feet from the bathroom to her bed, she walked all the way up to the kitchen to pass out...Sims logic...facepalm.

Jerrod is awake and hungry. Terrell, it’s all you this time, I just barely got Alyson to actually go to bed!

[ravenwolfie97]

2022 Art Summary

it is that time of the year again, folks. this year has felt like forever and so short simultaneously. it’s felt like nothing and everything was happening. it was a weird year for me, probably because for the most part it was rather monotonous. but there were some good things to look back on, and as per usual i’m here to round it up here for you all to look at and enjoy :3

i’ll be honest. i was really worried about the art summary this year at first because these first few months were so sparse. i even considered just condensing the whole thing into quarters since this one was so lacking. but as the year went on, the more things i had to share, so for sake of brevity i will be putting the first three months up all at once

included in this quarter are assorted Cosmic Legacy character sketches, a Genshin Impact sona to continue the trend i had wanted to set at the end of 2021 (which i did not continue afterward), a lil valentine’s day present to my girlfriend, and a shiny form for my sona that was just part of a inside bandwagon. not much to say otherwise :/

the one major thing that happened in the first few months of 2022 was that i FINALLY. GOT MY HANDS. ON A NINTENDO SWITCH. I CAN NO LONGER MEME ABOUT BEING SWITCHLESS

so that was pretty exciting :>

the release of Pokemon Legends: Arceus is what broke me, but before i played that i started off with a blind nuzlocke of Pokemon Shield, which is what the lil digital doodle in March is about; i had just caught a Stunky i named Wasabi and i was indifferent to Stunky up until catching him where i just fell in love with it

so, AI art, huh? this was when it was burgeoning, and still fun and popular to make. so when i saw some people using a 3d pokemon generator i made a whole bunch and gave it a go. i generated about 30 of them and hadn’t quite gotten to around a third of that, but the few i did were really fun to draw!

(the lil gremlin one at the top corner is uncolored here bc when i did try to color it my brain fully glitched and screwed up royally so i opted out of showing my failure here lol)

so my friend Cake started streaming a game called Your Turn to Die with me and our partner Stacey during the spring starting in late March, and it was such an incredible time that i miss being a part of (if you wanna watch our full playthrough, the vods are saved on her channel here)

so towards the end of our playthrough i decided to try my hand at drawing some stuff because my brain could not simply hold all of my feelings for them

i am definitely not biased because i played both Keiji and Rio Ranger in the stream, but i sure did like them a lot, and it was really fun to draw them :>

had a lot of cosmic drawings this month, most likely due to celebrating the One Year Anniversary of the concept at the beginning of the month! we celebrated with a cute little collab. i happened to continue the cosmic train on my end by coming up with a funny meme video idea (that we will get back to multiple times later on) and i also worked on a couple pieces in preparation for an upcoming event in the next month...

I FINALLY REMEMBERED TO SIGN UP AND PARTICIPATE IN ARTFIGHT FOR THE FIRST TIME

it was a really fun event but i did not anticipate how late i would start my entries and how much time it would take to do them well, so i only got a few out, but i’m really proud of them! it was awesome to see all these brain children of random people from all around, and to get a couple responses back of my own as well! i’m excited to give it another go next year :3

i did not get a whole lot of art things done this month because MY GIRLFRIEND (and her roommate) CAME FROM OVERSEAS TO VISIT!!

it was such a great time being with them, and we had so much going on i didn’t get much opportunity to do much, but that was fine. one thing, related to my partner actually, is my pokemon gym trainer sona here! Stacey had been thinking about a fakemon region and wanted her friends as gym leaders, so i offered myself as a ground-type trainer, since it’s one of my favorite types and is rather underrated

a little more work got done on the cosmic meme video, and a couple other lil doodles. not much else artwise, but an awesome month regardless :3

idk why this month was so lacking, cuz this is pretty much all i had lol

the one decent sketch of my sona being angy was inspired by a post i found on here that was like... if you were a villain in a movie, what song would be playing at the point you would snap

and the choice i made was Faint by Linkin Park cuz it seemed applicable. and then my brain decided to listen to it on repeat and i ended up drawing that sketch. so that was cool :0

as per usual i do at least attempt to do an october art challenge, and this time i wanted to try this year’s annual list from Thomas Sanders, and it was pretty fun! i was really into it the first week, but then i got behind and after that point many of the prompts didn’t hold my attention, so... i trailed off. again

but! i do really like these ones in particular. didn’t really have much else after that so i’m glad i had fun with those

again this is p much all i had - november was a pretty nice time actually, with lots of gaming stuff going on with me n friends, but not so much art stuff was going on then

after having completed playing pkmn shield back in june, i tried my hand at pkmn legends pretty much right after that... and it didn’t quite click with me, though i did really like it. and then over the next few months i got back into pkmn go and that’s when i realized That’s more like what legends is about - it just screwed me up coming from a regular pkmn game. so, this month, i picked it up again and i’ve gotten much farther and much more attached!

in addition, later in the month my friends and i got back into playing stardew valley after nearly a year’s hiatus, and we made our characters based on the main trio in Cosmic Legacy, and so i drew Lalun with a parsnip. it was funny

and speaking of cosmic and video game things, Sonic Frontiers came out and i... did not get that one (though i will one day cuz it looks rad) BUT one of my friends got super into it and got me hooked on one of the songs, and then the part of my brain that associates fandom stuff with songs (a rarely triggered part of my brain) started to tie that to [REDACTED] here, as inspiration for their character. maybe. idk but the song gave me vibes that they could definitely have and i thought it was cool and i made a cool art with it too so yay

and here we are, at the end of the year! the sonic hype train was still rolling so i thought about giving them another go and they turned out pretty good! and i pumped out some more pokemon content at the very end to inflate this month’s art stuff a lil bit more

OH YEAH and that cosmic meme got finished just in time for crimmis! here is the link to that since i would not post it here

all in all it’s been. a year, to say the least. i am definitely looking forward to new things in the new year, but this one had been pretty alright. lots of fun and memorable things that hopefully i can continue doing similarly in the future :3

[concrete-beach-party]

BG3 Playthrough: cleaning up

I'll stop marking these posts as spoilers as we're still quite early in Act I, but the rest of my post is under the cut for people who still haven't played the game.

So basically now we're doing everything we were supposed to do before rescuing Halsin.

cleared the Goblin camp, looted a bunch of stuff

killed the harpies near the the druid grove - apparently the dead Tiefling kid there could have been alive if we discovered this sooner

killed the lvl 5 spider underneath the small abandoned village so fast it never had a chance to attack (we're still lvl 4 though)

Resting at camp has been interesting these past few nights:

My (dark urge) butler has arrived and I tried to tell him that I'm not as evil as he thinks I am, but apparently (I use this word quite often lol) that's what I always say after losing my memory. Well dude, maybe there's some truth to it? Maybe I don't wanna be evil??

I still accept the cape he's giving because ... well, I like free shit I guess.

WE CAN FINALLY PLAY FETCH WITH SCRATCH!!

Where's my owl bear though? We told it to go to our camp and so far, it hasn't arrived :(

Gale:

Gale has snacked his maximum number of magical items and finally told me what's the matter with him. Asked me if I wanna expell him from the camp. My friend, I murdered Alfira, I'm in no position to say anything here. I'm happy you guys didn't kill ME.

After talking to me, Gale has decided he wants to make love to me. A natural progression of things. Sir, I'm flattered, but you're still pining for your goddess. Also, I'm pining for Astarion, so, well, this is awkward.

His puppy eyes afterwards made me regret my decision a bit. In another playthrough, I'll romance you, I swear. I still love you a lot.

Speaking of Astarion:

He finally warms up to me! As I'm writing this I'm still neutral in his eyes, BUT!

I know about his past as a slave

He finally tried to bite me, which was weird due to the fact that he already flat out told me he's a vampire, but in this scene we both pretended this never happend and what can I say? My boy now has the "Happy!"-Buff and that's nice.

Him saying "Shit." after I wake up while he tries to bite me is priceless

We found the amethyst to open the evil book we found in the wizard's cellar and Astarion wanted to have it. What could possibly go wrong? He has it and he's kinda happy about that. Again, I'm in no position to judge anyone in this camp.

Yes I am aware that Gale's condition stems from an evil book, thank you very much, game

So, yeah, not a lot happening in terms of main story right now. We're going after the swamp hag next, let's hope there's more opportunities to please Astarion. Yes, I admit, I spoilered myself a bit at this point, but that's normal for me.

btw: I find Astarion to genuinely be a useful character. Having someone who can lockpick is always nice and he deals quite a lot of damage. Maybe I'll give him Ranger as second class though? Sounds like a smart combination.

As for my cleric, I'm still trying to figure out how to play her best. She's weird.

[stormcallgaming]

🖋️ Tiger’s Review; Bully

This has been 5 years and 4 months in the making and I don’t even know what to say about that lmao I’m so bad at starting things and taking eight lifetimes to finish them. In my defense, I get obsessed with stuff and focus only on that for a while but then I move on for a while (in this case 5 years pft.) I thank the Bingo, Kaleidoscope and Casual A-Z challenges for giving me the motivation needed to FINALLY finish this game.

Bully is one of those classic games that can easily withstand the test of time. It’s such a good game with a damn good story and pretty cool characters. The main character has that little brother feel to me and I had that feeling throughout my playthrough.

I wanted him to succeed so I tried my best. And by “tried my best” I mean I failed a shit ton of times. Which brings me to my first complaint. When you fail a mission, there’s no option to retry, it just kicks you out and you have to run ALL the way back to the NPC that gave you that quest. This is super annoying, especially if you’re like me and fail a lot. I ended up giving up a few times because I got tired of having to run back and do everything over lol This is pretty understandable given the game’s age, though.

Another really weird thing for me is the button layout. Like, instead of O being the back button, it’s triangle. The amount of times I sat there pressing the O button repeatedly wondering why the feck nothing was happening lol And to pause the game, you press the touch pad instead of options. L2 and R2 cycle through your weapons/items, while you aim with L1 and shoot with R1. That kept messing me up on Mass Effect because I was pressing the wrong button (but I did learn the Mako has boost so it’s not all bad.)

I didn’t learn this until I was literally on the LAST chapter of the game, but you have to press the left side of the touch pad to get the map up. As someone who gets lost easily, this would have been really helpful lol

The trophies are all pretty simple, at least for the PS4 version. I didn’t really have any trouble with any except for “Sharp Dressed Man.” I’m not really one to buy clothes in games unless it’s my own character, like GTA, so I only have a couple pieces bought.

Between running around trying to make enough money and trying to FIND all the clothes, I think this is the trophy I spent the most time on. I was so confused because I bought out all the clothing stores, the school shop and the fair but still hadn’t reached 250. I read that the barber shop sells clothes, but I went to two and they had none so I didn’t bother checking the third. Turns out, 3rd time really is the charm lol

One thing I really love about this game is the fact that, when the game ends, it doesn’t actually end. It lets you run around and continue whatever you missed so you don’t have to play through the game again to collect trophies. The fact that this game, old as it is, had the thought to do this while new games don’t is honestly incredible. They do make you sit through the credits first, though. No amount of button pushing can skip ’em.

I suggest getting the flower trophy out of the way before finishing art class. You CAN flirt with guys, but there’s only like 2 or 3 that you can flirt with while you can flirt with ANY girl. I wish they had put a bit more into the NPC students… there’s only a couple unique students in each clique before they just copy and pasted them a bunch of times. It was kind of offputting… and creepy.

Maybe it’s just me, but the kiss trophy was painful. It’s so cringey watching them makeout and I had to look away, it’s just uncomfortable lol And the thing with Zoe… it was so weird because he had literally met her TWO TIMES and then they were talking about love. Is that normal for fifteen year olds? Am I just old?

Speaking of romance, here’s a hot take: Johnny Vincent deserves better! The whole game, I kept wishing he would just break up with that cheating [redacted]. Why did he keep taking her back? She claimed to love him but as soon as he turned around, she was making out with another guy. Not just one, either, she was with basically the whole ass school okay.

My man deserves better. Period.

Speaking of characters, whats-his-face nerd leader was creepy and annoying as hell. I thought he was cute at first but after seeing how he behaves, he became uglier every time he was on screen lol Derby is cute but I want to punch him sometimes. He reminds me of Atobe from Prince of Tennis in a way. Russel is the man and he is a precious idiot, okay.

The gym teacher was also a creep and I hate him. Like I said before, Jimmy is great and I view him as a baby brother. Must protect. Finally, I felt bad for Pete. He’s such a good kid but everyone treats him like dirt, even Jimmy – I would smack him for this if I could. Honestly, I think he’s the only sane person in this whole damn town.

I almost forgot to mention Dual Nebula. This trophy requires you to beat the high score in three different arcade games. The sumo one is the easiest, in my opinion, it only took me two or three tries. The one with the squirrel flinging nuts is second. I died a bunch of times but most of that was because I was trying to glitch it, having ZERO faith that I could do it on my own. The glitch didn’t work and I made it! Finally, the hardest one is the monkey one. It took me sooo many tries to get this one because you can’t jump over the spiders, you just gotta wedge yourself in the corner and hope for the best.

It was fun, but it’s time to say goodbye, Bullworth.

I think I’ve covered everything I wanted to about this game. It’s a really great game and I highly recommend checking it out. I didn’t do a playthrough of this game, but I do have some clips posted and a bunch more waiting to be posted. You can check out my playlist here.

I started this game on September 5th, 2017. I completed this game on January 14th, 2023.

My rating: ★★★★☆ (4.5)

Honestly, I wish I hadn’t done the clothes one last. Just look at the damn platinum screenshot, it’s terrible ò_ó) I should’ve waited on the last quest for Kleptomaniac… oh well. Nothing I can do now.

[goopi-e]

I played it s'more!

I beat the pirates at Lurеlin after a hellton of attempts! I restored the village - that whole quest was so wholesome! I found the Lobster Tunic! I think this place might be my fav locale! Screw Hatеno and their monopoly on cheese, screw Tаrrey Town and their prefabricated houses, Lurеlin is my true home.

Had another very magical moment. So there're a few islands near the Great Sky Islands (which I keep calling the Sky Plateau in my head because reasons) that have a fairy spawn point. One of them has this system of two basins that you can drain to reach the chests underwater. One of them was the magic rod, an item I fell in love with ever since the artbook leak. And I managed to catch another Star Fragment on the way there! What a cool trip that was. The only disappointing part was when I decided to be charitable and replace the fish I caught there with some of my own before leaving (tried to scan amiibos, decided it was too cheaty for my liking, forgot to throw out the loot. Don't ask) and... they were all dead upon release. Cool. So frogs and insects in Link's pants are alive, but fish aren't?

Coordinates feature on the mini-map is so cool! I found myself hurrying to write down coordinates of some interesting places I spotted in other ppl's playthroughs so many times! I think this is the closest thing I'll experience to how NЕS Zеlda was designed with players sharing secrets in mind. This is how I actually found these fairy islands!

Overall, the Sky exploration reminds me of the Great Sea -- a scenic assortment of isolated islands with very little going on. Which I kinda like, don't get me wrong. Something about that aesthetic, the vast expanse of nothing around you, the golden flora, the somber music is really athmospheric. I don't know which of the three overworlds I prefer, all of them are neat.

Bird Gliders are way more useful than you might think, especially pre-Autobuild.

When I first saw pictures of ppl making statues of Gаnоndorf, I thought this was a mod, but apparently it's an in-game feature??? Weird but ok???? Maybe I dismissed Tаrrey Town too early. We'll see. Maybe I'll spend my post-game pretending to take my blorbo on dates or something. Maybe I'll show him his horse. Maybe I'll take him home to Gеrudo City. Maybe I'll pelt his sorry ass with apples.

Apparently Zеlda's dragon parts have some sort of healing properties? Is it anti-gloom effect? Yellow hearts? Can't wait to check.

Bad news: Nауdra Spoon broke, and the current iteration of it doesn't resemble a spoon as much due to the base weapon being a trident (something from a Royal weapon set? Idk, I don't play the game in English and I'm not bothered to check the name. It's one of the good weapons tho). Good news: I discovered that the Nауdra scale freezes enemies, so the name of the weapon changed to Ice Cream Scoop. Note to self: test whether or not the scale works fused to a magic rod.

One time I found a Yıga base in the Depths. Was very scared to trigger the fight with them and tried to be very careful. Stole all their bananas and sundelions - nothing happened. Read their diary - nothing happened. Only then did I notice two "researchers" standing on the opposite end of the base. Lol. Lmao, even. Have fun dying from the Gloom exposure, clowns.

But seriously, it's cool to see the Yıga being busy with research of the Depths and engineering and whatnot. Very true to their roots, I feel. Never expected to like them as much as I do in this game, bc I thought they were lame when we only had BоTW. Wanna join them so badly now.

Also Bееdle of all people is cool! He had this very profound line about how ppl shouldn't be scared of insects, and I was mentally shaking his hand. This man. This man understands. I wish there was Bееdle armor set.

Currently am stuck on the Great Plateau. Found my first Like-Like there -- discovered first-hand that they still eat your shield if you get eaten. Lovely. Their names were literally translated to "shield-eaters" in Russian, which... not false, I guess, but not as funny.

Horse experience time! So the first thing I did post-tutorial was a bit of shrine-hunting on Hyrule Field, realizing that I'll need a paraglider for one of them anyway, and going back to the Lookout. On my way I caught a lovely horse so I won't have to walk all that way, but when I got the paraglider I immidiately left the area to go and find Lurеlin, sad to leave my horse behind. Many hours and a Blood Moon or two later, I returned to the Lookout to trade in my Poe Souls for an armor, and just as I was warping away, I saw my horsey! She was there the whole time! I thought she despawned ages ago! And the worst part? Not only was there a stable very close to where I caught her, but there's a quest that becomes available later in the Lookout that can add a mini-stable to that place!

Anyway, I named the horsey Caramalon. Because she has caramel colors and reminds me of Mаlon. :з.

Finally got a semblance of free time to play the Recently Released Videogame! No plot discussions happen in this post, I just gush about the little things.

My experience is, uh. Suboptimal. I am grateful my laptop can emulate Switch at all, but when your average FPS is around 5, only gets as high as 12 and has a tendency to go into decimals or freeze, fast-paced combat gets hard.

Despite that, the gameplay is fun! All the abilities are such a blast, and compliment one another nicely: for example, I cheesed one part of a certain shrine by Ultrahanding a platform in one place in the air for a bit, then effectively Stasising it with Recall, then Ascending on top of that still-Recalled platform, and then getting additional height by shield-jumping on a shield fused with a spring. Just for funsies. The intended solution was to essentially shield-surf on a short straight rail.

God I love fusing springs to shields. Revali who. My Bomb Flower count is criminally low, as I haven't figured a way to dupe them w/o exploding, and I don't have consistent source of rockets yet, but the springs are relatively early-game and do their job pretty well!

You know what I love even more than that? Glitches :^). And they're finally easy enough for me, a total noob, to perform. I only duped materials so far, timing a frame-perfect weapon dupe on my suboptimal setup sounds hard... but I wanna try and transfer the legendary MsgNotFound one of these days. I was so lucky to find a diamond in one of the caves tho!

Did you know that the shrine lobby (a tiny area seen through the entry portal) can serve as a cover for your campfire during rainy weather? It made more sense in BоTW, as Shеikah shrines were more material, but beggars can't be choosers.

So far my playthrough fits the "feral Lonk" stereotype. Towns are laggy, so I mostly wander around the wilderness aimlessly. The overall plan is to grind the full second stamina wheel + activate a few towers, then go get the Heart Container from the Great Plateau quest, get the Master Sword, grind shrines for hearts and only then hit a couple of dungeons. After that, joining the Yıga is a must. I'm not even sure I'll be able to fight the dungeon bosses or G-man with how hard even the basic combat currently is, so my only hope is to be able to tank through damage.

I wanted to get the Lobster Tunic so badly, but the guys at Lurеlin keep kicking my ass :^(.

Sadly, it seems you cannot skip the first memory. The puddles just aren't anywhere inside the geoglyphs.

Fujibаyashi-san loves to put the "temporary equipment loss moment" in all of the series entries done under him (except MC), and in TоTK alone there's soooo many. It's a whole shrine subset now, not to mention the dedicated pantsless quest in the gazette storyline. Wonder how's the Еvеntide doing these days - judging by a chasm, it doesn't seem like a similar event will take place here.

Speaking of chasms on the islands... Remember the PH-themed archipelago in the wetlands? There's a chasm on Mercay island. You know. The island where the Temple of The Ocean King is located. Something about the way BоTW/TоTK genuinely appreciates DS games feels very vindicating. First Monster Cake being a chancellor's favourite dessert, then the Phantom armor being one of the most OP sets, and now this chasm.

I saw Flowerblight :з.

Ang got owned by the Floormasters Gloom Hands once. Not touching them with a sturdy-stick-stick before I get s'more hearts, I know what comes after.

The guy with the sign! Such a cute concept, and the rewards are always so generous!

Depths are weird. The flora is super cool, and the landscape is twisted to a degree that merely figuring out how to get from point A to point B becomes a nontrivial challenge. Collecting Poes is fun, and I love getting the uncorrupted weapons from the ghosts of the past. Everything else scares me shitless. Mostly

Catching a Star fragment mid-air feels downright magical. I know they were probably coded with exactly that method of aquisition in mind, but it always feels like such a lucky catch.

Saw Nауdra once. Got the scale. Fused it to a spear. Now the spear looks like a comically large spoon, and I can't keep a straight face when this thing pops across half a screen, so I never equip it, but don't unfuse it either out of respect for the comedy aspect. The only funnier weapon that I've got so far is the honeycomb boomerang I got from a monster camp (the idea is genius, and I have honeycombs to maybe recreate it later), which is currently fused to a surprisingly high-damage Boko arm.

Yeah, I'm not unfusing my comically large Nауdra spon until I get a camera and take a selfie with it.

I always feel bad when fighting the apple-collecting Bokos. They have tiny Boko baskets on their backs :^(. They're just little guys :^(.

PORTABLE COOKING POTS. AND MULTIPLE TRAVEL MEDALLIONS THAT AREN'T LOCKED BY A DLC. YES.

Purаh is the prettiest woman to grace this world.

[graff-aganda]

Just finished a first watchthrough of The Quarry and. hm.