#because im obviously a city creature

[valdeswan]

36 year old KRS taking all his savings and buying a farm in a town in the middle of nowhere.

His line of work was a dangerous one, being a bodyguard for high-profile clients

After a job where KRS was blinded in one eye, he took the compensation money and his savings and quit.

His idea was to buy a small, nice house in a town far from the city. But LSH and CJS convinced him that he should buy a couple of acres and make it a farm. Their argument was something about how he should keep himself busy with something to avoid getting into trouble.

Bullshit. If you ask him. But they made him promise that after a three-hour session of them yapping, he only managed to convince them to buy something smaller. There is still a lot of space for only one person (for now)

They made him promise that once they retire, he would give them a room at the farm. KRS sometimes wonders why they tend to ask obvious questions.

The land was acquired at a low price due to its condition: weeds everywhere, rocks, and a two-story old wooden house with leaks.

He wouldn't have bought it if it weren't for the fact that the previous owner had told him he had completely redone the plumbing and wiring a few years earlier.

The only thing Roksoo carried with him when he arrived at his new residence was a bag with clothes and another with his few precious belongings: books, a coffee machine that his coworkers gave him for his birthday, and his pillow.

The moment he set foot on his new property, Roksoo kind of regretted it all because of the work the property needed. He was aware of the condition of the house when he moved in, but for some reason he thought it would be easy. Never again.

He blames LSH and CJS for putting ideas in his head about moving to a farm; this wasn't his idea about living like a slacker. He could do nothing but sigh and enter the house.

The first step creaked as he walked on it; he avoided stepping on the second one, which was obviously rotten. The board on the third and final step creaked and broke. KRS cursed and fell into the hole. He had scratches all over his calf when he managed to get his leg out of the hole.

KRS wondered if he should have been less stingy when it came to shelling out money to buy the property. It's not like he couldn't afford it; he wasn't as rich as he would have liked to be, but he wasn't lacking either.

There was nothing he could do now, so he simply sighed again and opened the creaking door. A cloud of dust made him cough and step back.

KRS mentally thanks the previous owner, who was kind enough to leave him his old tools in the shed. He left his bags on the floor and went to look for a broom to clean the interior to make it minimally habitable for the night.

Sexy Ahjussy activities. Imagine a tall, buff, black-haired middle-aged man with an eye scar🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🦅🦅🦅

[deadghosy]

Hi! I hope you're doing great!

So I saw the headcannons of reader as Catnap and Dogday and I fell in love with the way you write! So I was wondering if you could do a headcannon about the reader being bendy from bendy and the ink machine?

Like the reader can draw and bring ink creatures to help around the hotel, maybe draw some decorations for the hotel? Sometimes going full on ink demon form to protect it or just pick up their friends on their back to make them feel taller

And the reader was actually an animator at joey drew studios and died, I think that would be pretty cool!

P.s I would love if the reader was wearing the same suit bendy wore in bendy and the dark revival

HAZBIN HOTEL X BENDY!READER

Prompt: a cute “little” demon becomes a resident who helps with the designs around the hotel!

Starting off. You definitely appeared as baby bendy 😘 with ya cute ass red bow or white bow. What ever you want the bow color as you showed up to the door trying to seem professional as Charlie gushes at your cuteness and lets you in.

The picture of baby bendy in the car, yeah you have that as you literally fuckin' zoom in the hallways drinking apple juice like a bad ass kid….bendy!Reader and chibi!Reader both doing races to make sinners poor😭 lil evil asses….

I imagine Angel dust and Alastor ganging up on you as a team to insult you by your height until you grow up to ink demon from with a roar.

“HOLY SHIT-” “Oh my.” They both said as you they were blew off by the power of your roar. So you felt happy seeing them shocked to see that part of you as Charlie didn’t see it and had commented how adorable you are with your suit.

Shit you are a devil in an angel’s suit‼️

You still wore the suit you had in when you met Audrey…man you miss her. But you are getting taken care of by Charlie and her friends here. Plus her father.

You help design the banners around the place! And even your small ink minions help as well.

I can imagine bendy! Reader being like “fuck it.” Because they can’t reach for the cereal and turn into normal height looking bendy and just starts to act as if it’s normal. While in the background, the crew has pure confusion on their face. Like, “what the fuck? You can be taller?”

“Yeah! Pretty neat right?” “..Im out of here…” husk says walking away as niffty goes up to you excited to talk to you about your height.

You ran over alastor’s foot once….you never speeded over 120 mph in your whole life seeing Alastor chase after you.

I imagine you going to normal height as you are just chilling with your small or long tail swinging and husk gets curious as he picks it up with his paw. “So…this ya tail right here?” You nodded reading the new paper. “So you’re a sinner demon?” “I ain’t nothin'” you said with a smirk as you disappeared in ink.

No one knows what exactly what you are. You don’t have the basic looks to look like a sinner or a hell born. So it’s kinda confusing to other.

You’re obviously a human who died to the ink as you use to animate bendy…so you’re bendy?? Does that make since because whatever you died by is your demon form….hopefully that made sense..

You once went full ink demon mode because a sinner tried to attack at you and husk while just running errands for the hotel. You transformed getting taller with the ink covering your face as you growl and slashes at them with a giant gloved hand covered in ink. And after that husk respected you more.

“Bendy/reader, can you help me make a cute star design?” Vaggie asked as Charlie was trying to make a star gazing banner. You nodded with your cartoony smile and pulls out a marker and started to draw on the air. The star in the air becomes to life as vaggie’s eyes widen.

“Uhm…oh wow. Thanks?” Vaggie says as she walks away with question marks visible while you just smile.

Y’know those dubbed comics where bendy has an accent? I feel like that’s cannon because you and Angel would be babbling about which part of city you guys were from.

I can see sir Pentious and you doing crafts as you made him an ink cartoon flower as he made you a bracelet bead with your name on it.

Lucifer will definitely play violin as you tap dance. Just a wholesome ass moment fr 💗🦆

You one time had fat nuggets in your doom buggy as you guys had shades just chilling around the hotel like bad asses✨

You miss your original family when you were alive and working. But everytime you open your eyes, you are greeted by the sweet comfort of your new family in the hazbin hotel.

You one time made an ink sculpture of your family and you tried to hold your smile but it faltered as you cry at how you missed your family as the ink sculpture melted due to your emotions.

Alastor appeared in your room seeing you sad little state as he comforted you. He had taken a liking to you ever since you joined the crew.

I can see you being childish because of your shortness so you use it to your advantage. YOU AND ALASTOR MAKE YOUR INK DEMONS FIGHT LIKE POKÉMON 😭😭

lol imagine bendy!reader making a whole like of fake ass tarrot cards to fuck with people as you have that smirk on your face.

“You’re gonna get run over toots…watch your back..” “what. The. Fuck-”

They got ran over by a mysterious person and a car….who knew who it was…it was you, you little bastard.

When the hotel has a talent and show day or night, you remembered how you animated bendy to do ballet and tap dancing. So with your information, that’s what you did. Yeah some sinners laughed..but some aplaude as they found it cute and so did your friends

You making ink blob bracelets for your friends as you can make them solid is a goal for real.

Headcannon on how you would try to make ink sculptures, but failing as you huff in anger and smash it with a full ink demon hand as the rest of your body is fine.

Headcannon of you just accidentally leaving ink footprints as you took off your shoes once 😭 niffty doesn’t complain as she likes to clean tho

I can see Lucifer picking your small body up happy for you to be so small as he has started in his eyes. And you are like annoyed at how the cast picks you up like a baby.

LMAO THAT WALMART MEME STOPPP😭😭 LUCIFER PUTS YOU UP TO THE DAMN WALMART CAMERA HAVING ALASTOR ALSO PICK LUCI UP 😭😭

I imagine you and Alastor having either a “bad ass son x calm father” troupe or a “non-biological sibling” troupe as you two get quite along

Your little ass doom buggy is such a weapon when needing to take a troubled guest in the hotel….YOU RAN THEM OVER?! 😨 ALL PEOPLE SEE IS A SMALL ASS INK DEMON HAVING A GUEST SCREAMING AS THEY GET RUNNED OVER TO THE DOOR-

So when the angels came for the battle, you were sure damn ready as you suffocated them in ink and control them into killing their own.

After seeing your full demon form, you definitely had been seen in a different light. They don’t see you as the cute baby bendy they seen you before.

Nah nah. They see you as a grown ass person as you are not in the baby bendy phase but more like the fanart type shit looks. With your charm, you definitely bring in some customers. 

HOPED YOU GUYS LIKED THIS AS THIS IS ALL I COULD COME UP WITH 🦆💗 MWAH

[sapphicmsmarvel]

Azriel: worlds collide

Like everyone else, I have seen the BikeTok and BookTok simp city and im eating it up. (except some of the comments, some are insane and cringey but!) 

So naturally I thought of Az on a bike then passed out. Then thought of him with a bookish girlfriend, and passed out again. 

Let's go!!

(also this fic exposes how much TikTok I watch and!! I don’t want to hear it!!)

Regular headcanons: 

-You two met because of Feyre and Nesta (and technically Elain since her and Azriel were besties). But Nesta got you to agree to a blind date with Azriel, you didn’t even know what he looked like. Elain and her husband assured you that Azriel was hot. 

-They didn’t let you down. 

-You and Azriel had been texting a bit but agreed to no photos of yourselves so you could get to know each other without the pressure of looks. 

-He was also nervous about his hands, he didn’t want you to think of him as a gross creature. 

-You sent him an array of outfits to pick from. He picked a blue sweater, you picked out a black button up for him. So you two knew what you’d be wearing on the date. 

-When he walked into the restaurant, you thought you’d died and gone to heaven. He was sex on legs. Gorgeous tanned skin, hands that you wanted wrapped around your throat. You knew he would talk someone through an orgasm. 

-When he saw you, he almost fell to the ground and thanked whatever god put you in front of him. You were beautiful. Your eyes were twinkling. He saw your luscious curves, he wanted to sink his teeth into your plump ass. He wanted your thighs wrapped around his neck. 

-Then your smile, your laugh and just you enchanted him. 

-You were no better, you were infatuated with him. 

-After three dates he officially asked to be his girlfriend. 

-You were terrified to ride the bike the first time. He made sure you were safe obviously but you were nervous. And now? You’re obsessed. 

-He always got the door for you, pulled out your chair, he was always bringing you flowers. 

-Obviously he was a god in bed, perfect even. Even when you two weren’t doing intense kinky shit you had a safe word just in case. Even after assuring him that you were fine, he felt better when you had a safe word. He made your first time together special too. 

-You gave him a handjob on the bike in the comfort of your garage. 

-He’s fingered you and eaten you out on the bike. You have no idea how he did so well balancing the bike to ensure you didn’t fall. 

-He held your books for you as you shopped. And at bookish events he always took pictures for you and encouraged your followers to go up and meet you. 

-After a year you two moved in together. A 3 bedroom townhouse. He got an office, you got a library room and then the bedroom for you two. 

-The Archeron Sisters took full credit for you two being together. His brothers adored you even before the relationship and now that you’re “officially” a little sister (because Az isn’t letting you go) they love you even more. 

When your relationship was shown online:

-Azriel was one of the most popular BikeTokers and you were one of the most popular BookTokers 

-You two had been dating for a few years when both your respective areas of the internet merged. 

-He was just like “everyones finally catching up on how hot reading is huh” like it’s been his life. Reenacting famous sex scenes was one of his favorite things. Zade Meadows scenes with consent discussed beforehand??? (cough funhouse scene cough) (However he is not a fan of Zade meadows) 

-You just couldn’t stop laughing at the guys being like “these girls are freaks!” and Azriel always commenting “you guys are just finding this out?” 

-Which then leads to gossip pages talking about him and who his potential partner is. 

-You were used to your man getting steamy comments and DMs, he’s tried to get people to stop but they won’t so he stopped opening them and didn’t respond. 

-Then you started getting comments and DMS from bikers asking for a date. And then Az began pouting, which you ruthlessly teased him about. 

-”Can I post you on my page?” Az asked one night in bed. “Something without your face, but something?”

“Are you gonna send it to these guys and demand they take out their dicks for a measuring contest?” You asked dryly. 

He grumbled, and you turned off your kindle. You were done reading for the night. You had a big baby to comfort. “You do know, I’ve been dealing with his shit on your page since we began dating right?” 

“But…there’s no chance of me leaving you.” Your blood turned to ice. “Do you think so little of me that I’d leave you for some random person on the internet?”

His eyes widened when he saw how pissed off you were. “No I just…” He sighed, “I worry because I don’t see me as anything.”

“Let me put it this way: You are everything to me. No, you’re not anything, because you are everything to me. And I am the only girl that’s gonna ride your dick, and your bike. You a’re the only guy that gets to fuck me.” You said bluntly. “Capiche?” 

He blinked at you, then smiled, “I love you.” “I love you too, you’re on thin ice for even suggesting that bullshit.” You huffed even as your head hit his chest to go to bed. 

He kissed your forehead. And held you even tighter. 

-So he asked if you guys could film a video, just his hands would be in it, so some mystery was still there. 

You had wanted to redecorate your kindle and film it. So just your hands would be in it. You sighed and let the fool join. 

“Hey everyone, so join me today with a very special guest. My boyfriend!” You said happily into the mic but also sounded annoyed, “the fool wanted to join because of all the comments and DMs I get hitting on me.” 

He waved gleefully in the camera. Once again, only his hands were visible against your dining room table. His nails were painted black, and frankly well taken care of (because of you). He had a singular ring on his ring finger, one with your initial. You had one on yours as well, his initial. 

“Alright, baby. What’re we doing today?” You asked. 

“Redecorating your kindle.” It was easy to hear the adoration in his voice. 

“I went to a few local bookstores and picked these up.” You showed them to the camera. Your nails were painted the color of Azriel’s tip, but nobody knew that but you two. You hoped. 

“Alright let’s start.” 

Azriel picked up the biggest sticker and placed it in the middle, “how about here?” It was a sticker that was a tarot card style with a girl reading in it that said “the reader”. 

“Nah my popsocket is gonna block it, and that’s too pretty to be hidden.” You placed it up on the top corner. 

Then he picked up a candy heart style sticker that said “smut slut”. The camera couldn’t see his grin. “Shut up.” You said. “Nah, I love when you’re a smut…” He hesitated and looked sheepish. 

“Can you not say the word?” You laughed. 

“I don’t like the idea of calling you a slut.” “Nothngs wrong with being a slut.” You said. 

“Yeah but, I’m trying to be a gentleman!” 

“Baby, nothing you did last night was-” “Aye!” He laughed lightly. 

Throughout the video, you two teased each other, and all around had a good time. You smacked his hands away when he tried to take your sticker-fictional boyfriend away from you. He smacked your hands away when he tried to put a motorcycle sticker on it. But you let him put it there in the end, and happily kept it there. 

Tons of comments rolled in. All of them were talking about how cute you guys were. 

He posted a video later and he got a comment that talked about how nice his hands were. Naturally, others began agreeing. So he posted a video labeled, “I hope you guys realize that the reason my hands look so nice is because of my girlfriend.” 

And the video involved you being his backpack. And then you were tagged in the video as well. So your followers increased drastically, then when you posted a few pictures of you two from when you went to your cousin's wedding, even more followers and comments rolled in. 

You were wearing a cobalt blue dress that hugged your curves, he was in a black button up with nice dress pants and shoes. You had strappy silver heels on, even with the heels you came up to that mans chin. The first one was you two just looking at each other and smiling, clearly you both were laughing. Then the other one was a smiling one, but he wasn’t looking at the camera, he was looking at you. 

Some other videos he’s in are bookshopping vlogs or random tiktoks he makes appearances in. 

You also got the comments of “does he have siblings” and “are you looking for a sister-in-law” to which you responded, “I already have two <3 but wish you the best!!” 

You didn’t play about your sister-in-laws relationships either. Girl code, man. Also, you genuinely loved Azriels brothers and their girlfriends. 

Even Nesta and Feyre joined in on the BookTok craze. Talking about books the three of you liked. Book recs for Feyre because she was just getting into reading. Feyre’s reaction to Haunting Adeline. 

On the video where your sister-in-laws were in, you got a few comments that were golden.

“Idk who im more in love with azriel or y/n”

“Do any of you need a third in your relationship? I can cook” 

Of course there were still assholes who didn’t respect your relationship. The block button was a blessing. But for the most part, everyone was kind. 

The internet could be a bad place, but sometimes, sometimes it wasn’t so bad.

[goqmir]

so for Marenrow: City of Secrets (my custom magic set), wren and i have made all of the two-color signpost draft uncommons except two (18 total!). the final two to make are for the white/blue draft archetype, and have proven themselves the most difficult to make, because the archetype is such a novel idea. id like to explain the archetype and how it would work in this post, and maybe anybody that is so inclined could think of and share ideas for the cards or tell me their opinion on the archetype itself :)

so the red/blue and white/blue color pairs are "working together" in my set; they are two separate groups of scientists and wealthy nobles/politicians respectively, and the scientists control the nobles (the red/blue group is in charge of the white/blue group, in essence). the theme of the red/blue group in Marenrow is flipping coins for value, and so i think it would be cool for the white/blue group, their followers, to flip coins too.

so, the white/blue group's archetype is "flipping coins to determine two related outcomes on their cards", or what in my head i refer to as "coin control". this means that every white/blue instant and sorcery has "flip a coin" before its text, and could do one of two different things based on the outcome. furthermore, white/blue creatures would have "when this enters the battlefield, flip a coin" and would do different things based on the outcome too. for permanents, it doesnt necessarily have to be an enter-the-battlefield thing, and could instead be on like, attack triggers, card draw, maybe two different static abilities and only one is activated at all times based on the initial flip, stuff like that.

the idea here is that for the two modes, one is usually interaction, and the other is usually value. or to generalize further, when you win the flip, it should harm your opponents, and when you lose the flip, it should help you. the idea here is that both modes are good, and this creates a novel form of card compaction; every card is both an interaction piece and a value piece, but you cant control which half you get. the random nature will be hopefully offset by the cards being generally strong, so either way you get good solid results when you cast the card most of the time.

this differs from the red/blue archetype, because red/blue will flip coins more often, will care more about winning flips rather than getting value from win or lose, and notably has cards with triggered abilities that trigger when coins are flipped or when coin flips are won, which specifically wont be the case for white/blue. white/blue does not care about the coin flips themselves, it just uses them as pure card compaction, while red/blue's entire thing is cards that trigger when coins are flipped.

heres the main question: is this a good idea? does this sound like a fun, interesting, and novel archetype of deck to play? furthermore, is this too similar to the red/blue archetype? are they not unique enough? id love some opinions on this. the answer is obviously "make some cards and try it out" but like. vibes alone, does this sound interesting, fun, and valuable enough to make cards for, or should i change it somehow, or scrap it altogether for a different concept?

furthermore, id love if anyone shared any ideas they might have for cards if theyre so inclined! the cards would be templated something like "flip a coin. if you won, [interact with you opponent]. if you lost, [do value (make tokens, gain life, draw cards, untap permanents, etc etc etc)]." to make the cards fun and cohesive, the cards should probably have related abilities for each mode, ie "if you won, tap two permanents an opponent controls" and "if you lost, untap two permanents you control" yknow something in that flavor and vibe. im blanking a little on ideas for cards, so if anyone is so inclined to share their thoughts, id love to hear it! most suggestions for the set have made it into the current product or future plans in one way or another, so its very worthwhile :)

thank you for reading my big long ramble teehee im glad to finally have put a lot of these thoughts into words

[kvothbloodless]

A incredibly weird problem I see in a good portion of fantasy stories these days is something Ive been calling "Inferna delenda est", and which my less pretentious friends (all of them) call "the hell problem". Its sort of something that, because its a genre convention, is almost always ignored, but once you see it, it cant be unseen.

I admittedly only started seeing this after reading UNSONG, which is literally About this problem. But now that its been pointed out, I cant unsee it elsewhere, and any media which runs into it but doesnt address it becomes almost entirely ruined for me.

The issue of Inferna delenda est is present in any setting which 1. Has real, proven afterlifes where most people literally go when they die and 2. Has one of those afterlifes be at all comparable to Hell, i.e. any place where a significant number of sapient creatures are tortured for all eternity.

If those two criteria are met, almost any plot becomes pointless and trivial. What does it matter that a hero saves a city from destruction when beneath their feet millions of people are burning, and many of those saved will join them? Who cares whether the ruler of a country is corrupt or not? The evil that would be stopped by replacing them with even a perfectly competent and benevolent ruler is staggeringly inconsequential compared to that of an eternity of torment.

Like, im not being vague or making an analogy here. Im just saying that its incredibly difficult to care about a plot to stop a war or kill an evil wizard when the story offhandedly mentions the fact that millions of people are 100% being tortured for eternity in a real place and no one is doing anything about it.

And even further, it makes it Really hard to view the heroes as...actual heroes. The degree of callousness required to keep the existance of hell in the background (from an in-universe perspective) is just ridiculous. Like, if youve got your high fantasy hero saving an entire continent from an evil demigod or whatever, the fact that theyre Not constantly thinking about hell is just... if you have that kinda power, and you literally know for a fact that Hell is a place, then you should be fucked up about it!

Like I can understand that growing up in that setting youd be resigned to it, not much a random soldier or whatever can do about it. But once they become super powerful? And they never even Mention Hell? That much callousness automatically moves you down a few notches from hero.

Obviously in a lot of settings hell just sorta Exists, and soul sorting is vague, but even then like. Break into Hell! Rescue people or at least relieve their pain! Its just so insane that the worst thing literally imaginable as a physical place (maximum pain that lasts literally forever with no hope of relief) is a staple of lots of fantasy settings and so many authors just do not in any way address that.

And like I said, its not that theyre writing Poorly because of this. Its a genre staple, and if you dont give it too much thought it doesnt seem to be an issue, especially given [gestures vaguely in the direction of christianity and its popularization of the concept of hell]. But god now that its been pointed out it drives me Nuts.

Anyways idk where i was going with this. Read unsong, i guess?

[i3utterflyeffect]

Could you provide a summary of the Rain World lore, or point to any good videos that do that? I’m interested in the Creatures™️ and want to know more about what you’re basing them off of

I'm so sorry anon i tried to make this short. this is all copypasted from a document. the power of autism killed me

if my frothing is too much here's a video by daszombes that probably summarizes this all

IN MY DEFENSE THO this video is also like, 20 minutes long.

im like. going into game mechanics and going into it in a similar way to how a normal player might be introduced to the game. and doing a bunch of shit abt it.

ANYWAY!!!!!!!! Summary of Rain World. Let's go. For context purposes I will be telling the story of Survivor and then going into lore, other stories, and Downpour. Obviously spoilers for everything Rain World and Downpour.

WARNINGS

Mentions of general death and animal death (duh)

suicide

child death (briefly)

fictional speciecide/genocide

potential existential crisis fuel

let's get started.

Your name is The Survivor. You live with a family of five. A little sibling, a baby sibling, and your two parents.

The reason the game is called Rain World is because of the heavy rains that buffet your land-- somewhat manageable from the place your home is at, but in many cases, lethal-- not only because of the flooding, but also because it rains hard enough to give you blunt force trauma that will kill you.

You escape these floods using shelters, hiding and hibernating at the end of each 'cycle'-- the time between each downpour.

During one rain, you fall down, plunging into the abyss as you are seperated from your family. Your mission is to go home.

You find yourself in a dilapidated urban sprawl-- it's something close to it, anyway. Not a city, but incredibly industrial. The world is overgrown. This little yellow thing shows up-- it's called an observer but we'll call it by the nickname Iggy for now-- and it directs you to food and then shelter during the barebones tutorial.

You'll go a few cycles, and discover some base mechanics.

KARMA: Karma is, essentially, a way to keep track of how you're doing. Every time you survive a cycle, your Karma goes up. Every time you die, it goes down. You start with 5 base symbols, each granting you one level. Karma is required to navigate the world, as each reigon requires a certain level for you to get in. We'll talk about this later: Karma is actually pretty important to the lore.

CYCLES: Mentioned previously.

DEATH: You are never truly dead in Rain World. Each time you die, you return to your last shelter, restarting the cycle-- but Rain World is special because it's not just you who knows. Creatures have a chance of coming back to life at the end of every cycle, and they will remember you. There's a system that coincides with this--

REPUTATION: Every species has its own perspective on you, and your actions will change their perception of you. Killing a lot of lizards of the same color might make them afraid of you. If you don't, and instead treat them well, they might ignore you. You are prey, so balancing reputation is important-- and I can only think of one creature that won't try to kill you if your reputation's bad. Even the fish will personally drown you.

One creature is incredibly dependent on reputation that it can make or break a run: Scavengers. If you're kind and often trade, offer pearls (they love pearls), save them from enemies, etc., they'll treat you well. Get a bad reputation, though, and you're dead within seconds. Some animals are just skittish though-- there's literally personality values determining how creatures will act. I love that so much.

I think that's all the important lore-based stuff.

After a few cycles, Iggy will direct you to where (at the time you assume) your family is, and you'll follow them through the areas, going through a large building, a garbage waste, and eventually reaching a unusual ocean lined with pipes and with a sunken building in the distance. As you get closer, you discover that Iggy was not directing you to your family, but instead asking you to go to this building.

After a lot of swimming (and running in terror as the giant leviathan worms try to crush you with their metal jaws), you'll meet HER. A blue humanoid with wires spilling out, attached to the room by a mechanical arm-- similar to the ones you might find on a train.

You cannot understand her at this time, but her name is Looks To The Moon; We'll come back later.

After assigning you a fetch quest, Iggy drags you all the way back, and I'm not entirely sure what the beginner's route is, but I'm pretty sure it's (unfortunately) Dark Level Spider Hell.

Eventually, you crawl through that pit, run away from the centipedes trying to kill you, encounter giant birds with mouths like scissors that really want to kill you that are very very fast, run from them, and eventually make your way up to the next area.

THE LEG & THE UNDERHANG

The Leg is an alarming change from the semi-natural formations of the ground. This place is industrial. It's a metal beam-column, reaching up into the endless sky. This place is infested with lizards, and a scarier enemy:

Daddy Long Legs, also known as The Rot. These are blind�� Biological lumps of… something. They're black and blue, and completely blind. But they have great hearing, and the rot will find you if you're not careful. And it will consume you.

Keep the Rot in mind for later. It's important for the lore-- basically crucial.

If you can escape this hellscape and make your way to the top, you'll find yourself in a building larger than you can comprehend.

FIVE PEBBLES - SUPERSTRUCTURE

This area is simply labeled Five Pebbles. This will make sense later.

There's no gravity here, but there's lots of lights and strange things-- things that look like they'd belong inside of a creature, and little bite-sized rainbow things. These are called Neurons, and you actually need them for the fetch quest.

There's a lot of things going on, but you won't be able to admire it too long-- this place has Rot inside it too, and it's much harder to avoid when you can't control your path due to being weightless. It's pretty terrifying, but in a way, this place is kind of majestic.

You explore the sprawl of access shafts, and you begin to hear music-- the most acclaimed and chilling track in the game-- as you reach the General Systems Bus. The first time I arrived here, I was completely awestruck.

RANDOM GODS

A large room, with a single chamber isolated in the middle. Projected lights surround you, and you have to climb your way towards the top to enter the unusual room.

Inside is another robot, similar to Looks to the Moon, except he's pink, he wears a cloak, and most of all, he seems shocked at your presence, because the gravity in the room returns, and everything falls to the ground-- including you.

He talks for a moment, before seizing you with the power of Gravity™️, and lifting you up. He implants The Mark Of Communication into your brain-- a mark allowing you to understand the language he speaks.

The following dialogue occurs:

. . . ...is this reaching you? A little animal, on the floor of my chamber. I think I know what you are looking for. You're stuck in a cycle, a repeating pattern. You want a way out. Know that this does not make you special - every living thing shares that same frustration. From the microbes in the processing strata to me, who am, if you excuse me, godlike in comparison. The good news first. In a way, I am what you are searching for. Me and my kind have as our purpose to solve that very oscillating claustrophobia in the chests of you and countless others. A strange charity - you the unknowing recipient, I the reluctant gift. The noble benefactors? Gone. The bad news is that no definitive solution has been found. And every moment the equipment erodes to a new state of decay. I can't help you collectively, or individually. I can't even help myself. For you though, there is another way. The old path. Go to the west past the Farm Arrays, and then down into the earth where the land fissures, as deep as you can reach, where the ancients built their temples and danced their silly rituals. The mark I gave you will let you through. Not that it solves anyone's problem but yours.

Turns out, this entire massive superstructure IS this guy; Five Pebbles is his name, and this puppet is merely a more interaction-friendly extension of his larger form. He's also not very happy with you climbing through his structure, and kicks you out onto the surface of the structure.

Now, let's go back to Moon and get some more information. We'll go to the west later.

Moondown

Looks to The Moon greets you much more pleasantly than Five Pebbles:

Hello little creature. What are you? If I had my memories I would know… You must be very brave to have made it all the way here. But I'm sorry to say your journey here is in vain.B As you can see, I have nothing for you. Not even my memories. Or did I say that already? I see that someone has given you the gift of communication. Must have been Five Pebbles, as you don't look like you can travel very far… He's sick, you know. Being corrupted from the inside by his own experiments. Maybe they all are by now, who knows. We weren't designed to transcend and it drives us mad. It is good to have someone to talk to after all this time! The scavengers aren't exactly good listeners. They do bring me things though, occasionally…

After giving her a neuron, she will thank you.

These neurons are essentially their brains. She only has five left. She was previously a superstructure like Pebbles-- Who she calls her little brother-- but she has collapsed. Giving her these neurons can help her regain her memory.

You can also eat them! Don't do that. You will permanently kill her if you eat all of them. Also, she remembers if you've done that and won't talk to you.

Quick summary of the vanilla ending:

You go underground, find some religious stuff by an ancient culture before whatever culture created the upper world, you find a big golden ocean, you swim down, and… uh…

You get grabbed by a big worm that sends you to the ascension realm??

I don't fully know what the ending is. No one does. We call the big worm Jerry though, and he's a Void Worm.

Anyway, let's talk about the real basics. The juicy stuff:

Iterators and Ancients

Looks To The Moon and Five Pebbles are complex machines called Iterators, created by a dead race named the Ancients.

These Ancients have left the cycle by using something called Void Fluid, a corrosive material from the core of the world that cancels out your revival. This is called 'Ascension'. We'll talk about this more in a minute.

The Ancients way of life is structured around the idea of leaving the cycle of reincarnation, and they eventually succeed-- however, they decided that they should leave a gift to the 'lesser life' of this world, and allow them their own escape-- with less risk and an immediate payoff. Remember what Pebbles said?

A strange charity - you the unknowing recipient, I the reluctant gift. The noble benefactors? Gone.

Yep; The Ancients basically desired worldwide extinction, from what we can tell. And they didn't bother to create that solution themselves, instead tasking a bunch of sentient, functionally immortal beings, to throw themselves repeatedly at a proverbial wall trying to create this worldwide cleanse.

Iterators were made for this.

But let's talk some other things real quick before we dive into that mess.

KARMA AND YOU

Karma. These symbols are fun and also important.

You see, the base symbols Survivor starts with are representations of what the Ancient Monks call the 'five natural urges'. These don't change the gameplay at all, but karma is crazy important in lore.

Let's take a look at the base five.

KARMA 1: VIOLENCE

The lowest level of karma, this symbol generally represents anger, hate, and violent acts. The symbol is used in several others-- the ones for 'The Hunter' and 'The Outlaw', gotten by eating only meat for 3 cycles or committing needless bloodshed.

KARMA 2: LUST

Yeah. Lust. I've heard this can also be percieved as a desire for material objects (take that with a grain of salt), but other than that, I don't think I need to say more.

This symbol is used in the passage 'The Mother'.

KARMA 3: COMPANIONSHIP

The desire to form connections with others in general, not just friendships. Frequently found scrawled in areas with scavengers, and also used in 'The Chieftain', 'The Friend', and 'The Mother'.

KARMA 4: GLUTTONY

food… hrng….. Anyway this one is the desire to eat good food I assume????? What else is there to say, really?

It's used in The Hunter passage, as well as the Marytr (starve for several cycles intermittently), and Iggy uses it to point you to food.

KARMA 5: SELF-PRESERVATION/SURVIVAL

The urge to survive. This is why people pretty frequently talk about the ancients having a suicide culture-- not to mention that the others represent signs of depression. It's used in 'The Saint' (survive without using weapons) and 'The Nomad' (pass through 4 regions successfully) and, most notably, it's own passage: 'The Survivor', in which you survive five cycles with this amount of karma. It is the highest karma most slugcats can ascend to without Echoes-- We'll talk about Echoes in a minute.

There's one oddball karma that breaks from the formula, so I'm just going to mention that briefly:

7/7 KARMA: PEACE (O)

For some reason, this Karma is used in some other stuff, and only if it's your current highest Karma. Seen in 'The Monk' and 'The Saint' passages, it basically just means peace. That's all. This one's weird.

Let's get to arguably the most important topic:

ASCENSION AND ECHOES

oh god. where do i start. um.

Okay. So basically. Ascension is a separation from the cycle that keeps you from returning, or 'respawning'.

For ancients, this was simple-- they extract fluid from the core of the world named Void Fluid, and you just… Dive in, I guess?

There was a mass ascension at some point, leaving everything they created behind. But this is all lore for the ANCIENTS. Let's get to the slugcat method.

To ascend, you must reach true max karma (represented the symbol ⊗-- a crossed out circle) and go through the Depths and go into the Void Sea, but you can't get Max Karma yourself. There's two ways:

Visit Five Pebbles and gain the Mark Of Communication

or…

You can visit Echoes.

If someone has many vices, such as being arrogant or egotistical, or other connections to the world, they leave something described as a stain of their ego trapped between reality and ascension.

Ghosts, essentially. That's what they're called in the code as well. They will speak to you if you have the Mark, and a few will reminisce and admit they never even wanted to ascend. Whatever these beings are, they give you extra Karma, elevating you to the next level.

Now that your crash course on that is over, let's talk about the iterators, for realsies.

THE GREAT PROBLEM

Being made for a seemingly impossible task was not easy for them, especially after the ancients, well… 'dipped', I guess you would say.

No one could really get to the solution, despite having many cycles to do so, even before the Ancients left. Previously, the Ancient lived atop them in cities, so it was a very noticeable thing.

Some turned to other things: Art, companionship, creative projects, watching the world outside, talking with friends.

Others balanced between these things, finding something like a job and personal life balance.

And some went insane.

You see, the ancients created a 'Self-Destruction Taboo', which attempts to prevent the iterators from attempting to hurt themselves, only causing more damage as they try to work around it and find their own way out.

This wasn't common at first, but something happened that caused it to spiral out of control:

Sliver Of Straw and the Triple Affirmative.

The triple affirmative is a signal that informs all iterators that the Great Problem-- How to ascend all life-- Has been discovered. Three affirmatives:

Affirmative that a solution has been found.

Affirmative that the solution is portable.

Affirmative that a technical implementation is possible and generally applicable.

Here's the thing: The problem wasn't solved. Moon explains it best:

Do you know Sliver of Straw? She's quite legendary among us. Sliver of Straw is the only one to ever broadcast a specific signal: that the Big Problem we're all working on has been solved. The triple affirmative. […] She's also one of few that has ever been confirmed as exhaustively incapacitated, or dead. We do not die easily. Sliver of Straw sent [The Triple Affirmative] and the ensuing commotion was historically unparalleled, before or after. I still remember it. But… nothing happened - except that Sliver of Straw was apparently dead. When the dust settled we were all still there blinking at each other. Everyone had a theory. Some said that she did have a solution, but that the solution itself was somehow dangerous. These later became known as the Triangulators, who think that a solution should be inferred without being directly discovered. Some said she never had a solution, she just died. And when the systems broke down an erroneous signal was sent. One camp claimed that dying was the solution. Either way, after that these different factions developed, as well as a huge forensic effort to recreate and simulate Sliver of Straw's last moments. Some of the simulations were wrapped in a simulation wrapped in a simulation, in case something dangerous might happen. Nothing much has come from it.

Sliver of Straw also abbreviates to SOS, and their name is similar to needle in a haystack.

We're still not sure what happened: The one fan-theory that pretty much seemed canon due to a challenge level was debunked. SOS remains a mystery. I've got my own thoughts, but we're not talking about that here.

Anyway, after Sliver of Straw died, there soon became more and more self-destructing iterators, with one common method resulting in a term for it's failure: The Rot.

Remember that? Yeah. They slowly destroy an iterator, but it doesn't truly kill them. They're still alive in there, somewhere.

Let's talk about how the Rot works once we get to the point where it begins in the main storyline.

THE COLLAPSE

Looks to the Moon was constructed upon a shoreline, and there was originally no plans to create Five Pebbles.

Almost all Iterators are incredibly far apart, even in their local groups, so it would have seemed preposterous at the time of her creation.

However, her surface became inhospitable some time after her creation, and traversing the ground beneath her would have basically made any attempt at evacuation worthless.

So a solution was proposed-- Two iterators connected by a bridge. They could safely leave her to her own things, and meanwhile, the ancients could spend their remaining time NOT dying.

I'd love to talk about the politics surrounding Five Pebble's creation, but that's unnecessary and this doesn't need to get any longer.

After their creators passed on, Pebbles slowly became despondent and began talking in a private group, using the psuedonym 'Erratic Pulse' to obtain information on how he could circumvent the Self Destruction Taboo..

The local group has 3 others. Two are important, one isn't. (sorry Chasing Wind </3)

Seven Red Suns, or SRS, is our current topic.

They are someone Five Pebbles looks up to, and ended up giving him this info, which they regret.

There's also No Significant Harassment, who is mischievous and good friends with most of the group before everything falls apart.

Here's some in-game dialogue:

[LIVE BROADCAST] - PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment SRS: I can't stop dwelling over mistakes that I've made. I could just delete those memories of course, but that feels irresponsible. NSH: Oh? What kind of mistakes are we talking about here? SRS: I once gave someone some... sensitive information... the kind that could be dangerous if acted on. SRS: Yet I should have known they weren't in the right state to use that information responsibly. NSH: I take it you won't tell me the content, or to who. SRS: No, I will not, out of respect. NSH: Look, if you ever want to talk about it I can. We can share this little problem of yours. We were made to solve them after all! NSH: You're worried they're going to get themselves hurt by messing it up? SRS: They already have.

You can find the pearl containing this 'sensitive information' in other campaigns.

Here is Moon's comment on it:

This information is illegal. Someone probably tried to send it by a pearl somehow rather than risking being overheard on broadcast. It's an instruction on how to circumvent the self-destruction taboo. The problem with breaking taboos is that the barriers are encoded into every cell of our organic parts. And there are other taboos strictly regulating our ability to rewrite our own genome. Attempting to circumvent the issue using this process would be extremely risky. That's not to say that there exists any known methods that would avoid putting the user in harm's way. Those barriers are there for a reason. Where exactly did you find this pearl? I imagine you dug it up from somewhere within the surrounding facilities, in which case that wouldn't leave many options as to the recipient. That would explain a lot of things…

Pebbles used this pearl, and because of this, his water intake majorly increased, leaving Moon without any water at all: Iterators need water to function, though, as without it they can't flush out the massive amount of excess materials that is made by their operations. He didn't notice, not until Moon contacted him directly-- And he was angered by this, but not without reason.

Failing the pearl caused him to break the genome reprogramming, causing biological parts to be converted into Rot.

When Moon falls, he shuts out all the other iterators, and goes radio silent.

You're caught up on the backing lore. Now... Campaign time.

TIMELINE: SPEEDRUN EDITION

SPEARMASTER

A messenger made by Seven Red Suns who can make spears outta bone-- a little bit trypophobic but I forgive them it's not their fault. No mouth btw. those spears are how it eats. slurp

Delivered the pearl containing the Taboo bypass, but Seven Red Suns sends you back, with a message of worries regarding his physical and mental health, trying to tell him to open up and talk about his feelings. Pebbles gets mad. He kicks you out, as well as the pearl you were carrying. Did I mention that he rips it out of your chest? That pearl was embedded in you.

Anyway, you can take the pearl to Moon because she's still standing, and she encodes it with a goodbye, telling you about how she's about to collapse. You run to the communication arrays and broadcast that message for her, before returning home to Seven Red Suns.

ARTIFICER

"God Forbid Women Do Anything", Genocidal Revenge edition. Artificer had two babies. Scavengers saw one take one of their precious Porls. Baby is dead. Artificer runs but the other baby gets dragged to hell by leeches and drowns.

Anyway, Artificer returns on a genocidal rampage, locked at Karma One: Violence. You use scavenger corpses to get through Karma gates. The only thing that can sate your hunger is blood and flesh. You are continuously aimbotted by Scavengers but you keep coming back to kill more and more.

You're also explosive, did I mention that? I don't think I mentioned that. She explodes. She's very angry. She can launch herself through the air and maul people.

You can get to Karma 10 through echoes, but you're still denied by the void. It's unclear if she becomes an Echo or not.

You also have another ending! If you go to Five Pebbles, he'll say 'hey, that drone you have is a citizenship drone for my city, scavengers are ripping the city apart, I see that you hate them, and if you kill their chieftain we both benefit'!

If you choose to go that route you can tear through the scavengers, have a boss fight, and get a cool mask. Who cares about being empty inside since you can no longer go on a genocidal murder spree and being forever chained to the mortal realm by your anger and bloodshed when you have a cool mask?

Moon is also dead, she's not there.

Blood and violence. Rip and tear.

Slugcat pup was killed so let their corpses rain from the heavens, etc.

HUNTER

You are rot, rot is you!

Actually, you're a messenger slugcat made by No Significant Harrassment. For some reason this guy ended up giving you the rot for reasons still unclear to us. Unintentionally? Intentionally? Who knows. Your cycle count goes down instead of up.

You have limited cycles to speedrun to Moon and MAYBE ascend if you're lucky.

Go through Pebbles? He gives you extra cycles and wishes you the best of luck. Kind of depressing that you're both condemned to the same fate.

Get to Moon; Deliver a pearl that's a message of well wishes and cares from NSH. More importantly, deliver a slag reset key and restart her. She gets her neurons back. She's alive! And unable to help you.

Now? Run.

Your biological time bomb is ticking, and when you get into negatives, it shows. Not only does it turn permadeath, but you begin to experience collapsing into seizure-like spasms randomly, a growing hunger, and according to the wiki HALLUCINATIONS?

Ascend and you get a happy ending, but if you die you're gonna get a horrific surprise in the next campaign!

Fun fact: original hard mode campaign. Hunter is more skilled than the other vanilla slugs, but their world is harder too.

GOURMAND

Food. That's it. Just food. It's either going to be the easiest slugcat or the hardest one.

You eat your list of foods, maybe visit the iterators, and fuck off back home. You don't even have to complete the list. You can just Fucking Leave.

If you do complete the list tho you get slugpups. I like em. Cute slugs.

you can also CRAFT NUKES btw. did i mention that? Gourmand has crafting mechanics and also can craft nukes if you do it right. Not joking

You can also regurgitate an entire living squid. How? Gourmand.

Also by the way Hunter may or may not have popcorned into a mindless mass of rot if you failed to ascend them. Oopsie.

SURVIVOR

See introduction.

MONK

Survivor but babey mode (affectionate)

Remember Survivor's little siblings? Monk is one of them. They're a vanilla bannana boy and my favorite little guy.

You basically choose a route and if you've already completed it with Survivor there's a happy sibling reunion. Oh, there's two routes now, by the way. Once you complete Gourmand you can go home to the Outer Expanse. No one's there but you're both chilling.

RIVULET

WELCOME TO HELL.

This is probably the one that gave Downpour its title. The rain happens every three minutes, maybe less if you get unlucky. The rain shelters are failing and the world's succumbing to Rot.

Go throw yourself into Moon, and you'll discover Monk has given her two neurons and a dress; thank you Monk :]

You also have the mark of communication from someone (who knows who) and you have a pearl for an iterator system that Moon doesn't have called the lymphatic system. Apparently the rain's bad because Pebbles isn't doing well, but how bad can it be?

…hey, why is the citadel covered in Rot? That's weird and annoying.

Was there always this much in the overhang? It's kind of obnoxious.

Finally, you're at Pebbles, so let's-

Oh.

OH.

THAT'S JUST… THE ROT.

THAT'S WHAT IT'S CALLED NOW. OKAY. FUCK.

Pebbles is so sick he can't even maintain zero gravity, it's going on and off.

Dive into the water of the newly discovered path and RUN.

When you get to him, he asks you to disconnect his only life support-- a Rarefraction Cell-- and deliver it to Moon. A final apology. Leave him to listen to his music pearl in peace, it's the only thing he has left.

Take that cell, run to Moon. She knows exactly where it came from. She doesn't know where her core is anymore, though.

Time for the Submerged Superstructure.

Most of Moon's remains are underwater, now infested with kelp, water lizards, and scavengers. But you can swim down, down, down into the creaking metal, the shrieking waters. Let it swallow you whole.

Eventually, you will reach her Heart. Place the Rarefraction Cell inside, and you're washed away.

You are washed to the top, and descend down to find her where you left her-- but renewed with new life.

She'll contact Pebbles one last time. Happy ending, right?

Not yet.

SAINT

THE TRUE TRIPLE AFFIRMATIVE

Saint may seem peaceful at first-- Fragile and unable to throw spears, fluffy to fight the cold seeping into the world-- but they are arguably the scariest one out there!

The world is ending: Iterators have gone silent, and the world's being blanketed in snow. You're up above it all-- so your first instinct is to go east. To Pebbles.

But he's gone.

Descend, and you'll only find a heap of scrap metal: The Silent Construct. His remains.

You're collecting Echoes.

On the way, you talk to Moon. She tells you about the state of the world. How it's dying. That she might be the only one left.

The world is passing into a new era: one that doesn't need them.

At maximum Karma, Saint becomes something unique.

You gain the ability to ascend anything.

You can go back.

You probably are going to ascend Moon. Only a mercy, right?

Return to the silent superstructure, and find that Pebbles remains. He's still holding that pearl. The music is scratchy. Distorted.

How long has he been here?

However long it was, it was enough to pick off all his neurons. And despite this, he's not even granted the mercy of an ending; he can barely even think or speak. It's cold out here, and you can't imagine it'd be kind to leave him here alone. He has to go, too.

And with that, you descend to the depths.

RUBICON

The Void Sea doesn't have anything for you. In fact, you will only discover yourself in a hellish world where it seems to be flipped upside down, and the remains of the old civilizations that are probably familiar by now are succumbing to the void.

You're burned if you touch the void fluid. You must fly to avoid it.

So you go. You ascend many things that are either trying to kill you or keeping you locked out of other paths.

And finally, at the end, you go up, and ascend.

You swim up. The slugcat tree is here, but it's not what you're looking for.

You drop by a chamber-- one containing the two ascended iterators.

They're free, and finally together. Once you ascend, you can see the future and the past in a cycle.

They look at you, and it's not a circle. It's an endless spiral into entropy. Your future goes on forever.

But you keep ascending.

It's not long before the Void Worm finds you. It offers you ascension, a reprieve.

And you kill it.

You're trapped in the cycle forever. An echo, ever recurring.

And it continues on.

🎉CONGRATS!

you are now a rain world expert. consider yourself lore'd. feel free to look at the critters and beasts on the Miraheze Wiki. (thank you miraheze this is so much better than fandom wikis. we love you)

[threestripeslider]

okay i got this comment on the new OMO chapter a while ago and i was positively GIDDY at the question since im such a fan of nifty worldbuilding!! idk yet if this will ever come up in the fic in detail so im just gonna smack it on here bc i have several ideas!!

How do Yokai and Mutants differentiate from eachother?

in my mind, i believe yokais have a way easier time when it comes to picking out mutants because there are several factors that they can use to their advantage;

1. Scent Mutants, especially when mixed with some sort of human DNA, tend to smell a lot more human than Yokais. obviously, it gets a little trickier when mutants don’t have any sort of human DNA, which brings us to;

2. Awareness Mutants with no human DNA tend to more animalistic and instinctual, not unlike the mythical creatures in the Hidden City – even if a yokai cant correctly dub them a mutant, they will write them off as a mythical creature, so it’s usually a simple 50/50 on them.

3. Social Behaviors the best and most obvious way to spot a mutant for a yokai is how they behave in a typical yokai social setting – obviously, having been previously human or similar, mutants tend to flounder a lot in their new environment, unfamiliar with specific customs or basic social etiquette in yokai culture. by no means are they malicious, but mutants are pretty clumsy at first, which makes them easy to spot in the crowd.

4. Non-Mystic this one’s a little more unreliable but can be a way to spot a mutant; in general, mutants typically have little to no mystic abilities. i believe most yokais have some sort of mystic ability to different degrees, but mutants do not. however, there can be outliers, such as the turtles, but their mystics is also a point of contention since it isnt really “yokai” mystics but more of a generational human mystics ability. however, it still gets categorized as mystics so they remain the outliers of this, which is why this route of detection isnt always 100% reliable.

on the flipside of it all, the poor mutants arent really that adept at differentiating who’s mutant and who’s not – i think only with time they start to take note of the little differences, but generally speaking it’s a little harder for them to immediately spot a fellow mutant.

Do only Yokai wear Cloaking Devices?

yes and no. generally, cloaking spells and devices are a lot more wide-spread within the yokai community than the mutants, only because it happens to be a yokai invention. that, and they can be rather expensive, depending where you get it from, who made it and the strength of the spell/device. that’s why it’s usually safe to assume 98% of the time the person wearing some mystic cloaking device is a yokai of some kind. mutants arent really aware such things exist until they’ve lived under the yokai for a while and hear about it. and while they arent super accessible, mutants can get their hands on them too if they wish to do so.

Do Yokai view Mutants differently?

that varies from person to person. generally speaking, mutants arent being discriminated against in the Hidden City, however some yokai can be rather distrustful at first since mutants used to be human, especially yokai who initially were born from human effects (eg. curses and other spirits). the non-human mutants tend to be just like their regular creatures so they’re usually seen as a mundane headache when they tip over some poor yokai’s trashcan again. many mutants tend to seek refuge in the Hidden City as they no longer believe they fit in with their human kin Topside, so a good chunk of the Hidden City’s population are mutants – its safe to assume that there are also mutant-yokai offspring popping up.

so yeah!! here are my worldbuilding ideas that i’ve been thinking about!! honestly i cant wait to write about the Hidden City in general bc i just LOVE the concept of it so much OAAAAA

[kozykricket]

PL Z-A rough thoughts

okayokay ill write some of my thoughts on PLZA, though this is very unorganized. and not even touching on the title really... besides Z and A being like. end and beginning. future and past.

so at first i assumed it'd be in the FUTURE instead of past (as did everyone) cus yknow, the blueprint style being all neon glowy... and also scarlet n violet setting up the idea of past present and future (though honestly i think ih ave more to write on how terapagos was kinda shafted and i really wanted more on imagination-born-creatures or timelines tbh, or even just more on what terastalizing even is) anyways, i mean. they're both hexagon related... zygarde n terapagos right, uh. what point in time will it be? well, with the amount of evidence ive seen for it being in the past, id say it makes far more sense to take place in the past. HOWEVER heres my crazy game theory: it'll take place in both. theres no way this will come true, but imagine: you are in the future or present of kalos, and lumiose city has ended up devastating the ecosystem, causing zygarde to be pissed because yknow, its whole thing is protecting threats to the ecosystem. and . balance and such so then you travel back in time to FIX the urban planning. you get yoinked to when lumiose city was being built into what it is in the modern day, and ... heres where it gets to Unlikely territory. the gameplay loop would consist of you hopping back and forth, seeing how your time in the past changing peoples minds and suggesting different more eco friendly designs for the redevelopment of the city... effects the future of the city! realistically though itll just be "you go in the past to stop zygarde from getting pissed. but because this is a game and there needs to be a threat, zygarde gets pissed anyway" either way itll definitely be like. surely itll be about "welp, the people designing the city got a bit overambitious and too human-centric, rather than a nice balance of humans and pokemon in mind... but, im genuinely really glad we're gonna get a game where zygarde can shine (and where kalos can shine) because they both got HEAVILY shafted (x2 and y2 canceled, presumably to make way for sun and moon for the 25th anniversary. or to be less predictable) so yknow zygarde just got slapped into alola for no reason really

and i think... the balance of people and pokemon living together in the early days of pokemon society is. obviously something that will tie into the ecosystem ofc

its. all very interesting

im curious what role zygarde will ultimately play though, because like. i thought giratina or arceus would be the main big thing in PLA, and didnt expect arceus to just kinda be guiding you

so i suppose zygarde could end up just being a Guide and you're helping it regain its power or basically filling its role...

id much prefer if we got to see zygarde doing its job, though. in a scary way.

really also wondering how xerneas or yveltal may fit in, considering life and death

my biggest reasoning for thinking we'll visit different time periods of lumiose is ... well, that the game takes place "entirely in lumiose city"

so yeah uhhh anything else im forgetting

honestly i cant really word what im tryna say about how the XYZ legends will fit into the story and what roles they'll play, but i essentially kinda hope it isnt too much of a repeat of PLA. i think zygarde shouldnt be a postgame activity, but rather at the Main Climax of the story. kinda bummed that you just get to choose dialga or palkia mysteriously being angry as the big climax in PLA

[cat-appreciator]

In the past I’ve done some rambling about halflings/gnomes and pondered what sort of mounts goblins would ride.

Tonight Im returning to halflings/gnomes, because I’m bored and what else am I going to do at 11pm?

The first line in Cat’s Guide to Halflings and/or Gnomes is that halflings and gnomes are the same species. They’re obviously the same species. They occupy the exact same niche, there’s no reason for them to be different species in any setting which features both! They’re different cultures of the same species. Halflings are rural and on relaxants, gnomes are urban and on uppers.

I think I prefer “gnomes” more generally; “halflings” in fantasy media are literally hobbits with the serial numbers filed off. If hobbits/halflings/gnomes are synonymous, I’d rather use the generic term without the baggage.

(Note to self: widespread use of entheogens in gnomish religion? One could take this a step further and have gnomes actually reliant on certain secret herbs and spices to make their brains work right, but I’m not sure how much I like that idea. It fits more into the “cool alien worldbuilding�� box than the “riffing on fantasy worldbuilding” box.)

The traditional gnomish pointy hat may indicate that gnomish society puts more value on that outward symbol of cultural identity than their rural cousins do? Or possibly it’s just useful when living in a city full of bigjobs, like those flags you sometimes see on wheelchairs. My, you’re a tall one! Now get outta the way, a gnome is coming through.

I decided (in my previous post on gnomes) that gnomes are basically neotenous elves subject to island dwarfism, which slots better into your basic fantasy world than my previous idea, which was that gnomes are literal space aliens stuck in fantasyland, trying to uplift society into something which can repair their orbiting generation ship so they can leave again. It’s a neat idea, but it foundered on the Scylla of “how alien can I make gnomes before they don’t look cute” and the Charybdis of “sci-fi and magic together requires a double helping of the suspension of disbelief sauce”. I still like “stranded spacer society has a long-term plan to make it back to orbit” as a concept, but I think it’s best set aside for another time.

One thing I do think gnomes need is some sort of fantasy mount. Both because I like little guys riding on critters and because riding a critter literally elevates gnomes a bit amongst the bigjobs. Plus it’s a fun worldbuilding element to have their culture put a high value on animal handling.

When I pondered goblins I did a poll, and a brilliant reader suggested the perfect solution that goblins ride giant rats. Which is an excellent solution! So I thought I’d put out another poll, see what you all thought.

I’m unlikely to go with the Sabertooth Deathpanther idea, the idea of a cute little gnome riding about on a terrifying murder machine just amuses me. Back when I played World of Warcraft I wanted a giant crab mount for my gnome but similarly the only thing crabs have got going for them is surrealist whimsy.

[a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire]

I re-read my post about chapters 22-30 and I realized that theres so much I just fully forgot to mention, mostly relating to the inner circle so heres a quick summary of my thoughts about each ic member now that Im about halfway through the book and have spent some time with them. To briefly recap my previous thoughts, I think their group dynamic is insanely uncomfortable because of how apparent their hierarchy is and also none of them seem to actually like each other all that much

Amren

I dont dislike her in the sense that I dont dislike her personality or the basic concept of her character, but I do hate that shes in the inner circle at all. Like, whats this eldritch creature trapped in a body thats not her own doing hanging out with all these boring people ass people FOR 500 YEARS dude, if I had to spend 500 years with Rhysand I would destroy the entire night court regardless of whether or not I had Amren-levels of power. Like, why on earth would she be satisfied playing second fiddle to Rhysand and living in an APARTMENT in his stupid °•~City of Starlight~•° when shes supposed to be like a billion years old and a thousand times more powerful than him. I feel like itd be interesting to explore that but I know that we really dont from watching cari can read's summaries, so she just ends up being a character thats supposed to be interesting because shes so mysterious but is actually so shrouded in intrigue that it turns around and she just becomes boring again

Mor

When I first met her I said that something about her bothered me but I couldnt put my finger on what it was, but that I still kinda liked her because she atleast annoyed Rhysand. She really hasnt annoyed Rhys in any way since her and Feyres first meeting so I like her less because of that and also because shes mostly just boring to me at the moment. I think another reason why I dont particularly like her is that she feels so intrinsically tied to the misogyny of this world that just suddenly materialized in this book and its really annoying, I would like to avoid that subplot as much as possible. She basically just exists to give Feyre a female friend at the Night Court and to show her that you can totally girlboss your way out of a misogynistic system! But you cant dismantle the system because uhhhhhhhh. change is like a glacier because its slow

Also, shes obviously meant to parallel Ianthe, like shes supposed to be the better version of her, but I cant even imagine her and Feyre making out sloppy style toxic yuri edition so I cant really see her as any kind of improvement. sorry

Cassian

One of my least favourite character types is Fratbro But You Put Him In A Fantasy Setting so Im not the biggest fan of this guy ngl. The one redeeming quality he has is that hes very obviously crushing on all of his friends bisexual style, especially Rhys and Azriel. Its almost a little sad but mostly its just very funny. Like whyd you wanna take their clothes at the illyrian camps so badly huh? You like seeing pretty boys squirm around naked?

Unfortunately, I know that hes gonna end up with Nesta and that hes not even gonna treat her well, my guy is gonna go from being gay because he likes men to being gay because he hates women and I am not looking forward to it

Speaking of Nessian, a lot of sjm critical anti nessian people say that Nesta and Cassian used to be so good and so genuinely romantic in ACOWAR and that their relationship got completely ruined in ACOSF and. I mean, granted they dont ever talk about Cassian behaviour towards Nesta during the meeting at her house in ACOMAF but I hated the way he was just so angry at her on Feyre's behalf when she wasnt even that mad herself, she just felt weird and bad. Of course, I havent read ACOWAR yet and I might change my mind in the future but right now, I'll just say it doesnt surprise me that Cassian would laugh at Nesta falling down the stairs

Azriel

My favourite guy!!! Out of this bunch I mean. My favourite guy in the entire ACOTAR series is probably Lucien, but if we're just talking about the jokers from the Night Court, then this guy is my favorite

I really wasnt expecting much from him, I thought he would have absolutely no personality from what Ive heard other people say about him, but hes basically exactly what I want in an edgy traumatized shadow boi. Ive talked about this before but I really dislike Rhysand and part of that is that I normally really like the archetype of the tortured edgy love interest with shadow powers but he makes it so goddamn annoying by being so flirty and cocky I just want to see him dead. But Azriel is quiet so he doesnt bothr me and also theres some intrigue about his backstory and the extend of his powes but he feels like a solid enough character that he doesnt become boring to me like Amren

I will say though, theres something particularly uncomfortable about watching anyone from the inner circle interact with him and vice versa, I think its because he seems like he doesnt actually like them more than anything else. Ive said this in a previous post, I think Cassian wants to be in a relationship good friends with him and he seems to think they have some good sunshine guy/grumpy guy banter going on but to me it just seems like Azriel genuinely dislikes him. And then he obviously doesnt trust Amren and I feel like hes in love with Mor and has been for a really long time but doesnt actually like her, I honestly feel like hes just sticking by Rhysand because he feels like he owes him and because it gives him an excuse to be close to his crush

Yknow, that I think about it maybe thats why I like him so much. I dont like the Inner Circle, he doesnt like the Inner Circle, thats a relatable king right there

[logictoinsanity]

Recently read The Silence by Tim Lebbon and it was great, found out there was a movie and watched it and now I'm subjecting the Internet void to

My Thoughts on The Silence (2019) (6.5/10):

-(TLDR: I enjoyed it, but if I hadn't read the book it'd be much less interesting

TLDR of the move: if youve seen a quiet place, very similar creature, blind and hunts via hearing, reminiscent of like, piranhas combined with bats. parents, young son, deaf daughter and moms mom are trying to survive)

- Casting is all good except for Huw they fucked up (actor did a good job, just don't think he has the right vibe and its not /just/ because he's bald)

- Jude and Ally are great, Otis is a Rottweiler and I can't remember if that's book accurate (definitely not how I pictured him, I pictured a mutt that vaguely resembles a dark grey Irish wolfhound, but not as ridiculously large). but he's so so cute (I hid during The Scene™ so I have no clue how they handled it, but maybe next time I can just think about the dog actor having a really fun time)

- Not a fan of the change of setting, I understand that the problem had to move faster than the book, but they could've still kept the UK and Moldova, I feel like this would be more important to me if I was British tho tbh, im sure theres aspects of the characters in the book that got messed up when they turned american that i didnt notice. Probably cheaper to film in the USA tho.

- Obviously lacks all of the incredible build up and suspense of the entire first quarter of the book, with Ally seeing the cave on TV and slowly watching it become a bigger and bigger thing, which is one of my favorite things about the book

- Note from ~25 minutes in- better than a quiet place because it starts from the beginning, although I've heard the quiet place 2 provides a lot more context, maybe it's a ouija situation

- FUCKING HATE THAT THEY CHANGED 'HE WANTS ALLY FOR HER SIGN LANGUAGE AND SEES HER AS A FUCKED UP SAVIOR' INTO 'THE GIRL IS FERTILE' THATS SO FUCKING STUPID WHY WOULD THEY VALUE FERTILITY AT ALL WHEN BABIES ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO HUSH AS A PRE ESTABLISHED FACT THATS JUST GROSS PERVERSION FOR THE SAKE OF SHOCK VALUE INSTEAD OF WHAT ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE FOR THE PLOT

- They also fucked up the order of events with the hushed attacking the house, which fucks up the relevance of the grandmas sacrifice, since they just grabbed Ally again right after

- They also didn't include the smile from grandma to Ally which would've been so so easy to include and imo was a good moment.

- I liked Jude stabbing the guy, can't remember if that was in the book. also didn't like that it was three kidnappers instead of one really big guy who ignored like, a knife wound and being punched repeatedly

- Overall very similar to how I feel about THG movie, although this movie is worse than THG generally, so the concept is amplified. fun to watch because I know the deeper parts, decent basic genre movie, but doesn't have nearly the substance, meaning, or craftsmanship as the book.

- Really wish the beginning had slightly more time to show the doubt the world had when the vesp infestation first started. I think like two or three weeks passed between the Moldova cave incident and the vesps crossing the British channel in the book. There also wasn't time to show all the ways people tried to fight back, the military burning cities while blasting off fireworks, releasing toxic gases, etc. But I think specifically the doubt that was surrounding the vesp infestation in its early stages is a very important part of what makes the book so effective, it shows how people will ignore the things they cant handle, the cognitive dissonance we all have about whats happening in far away countries, it could never happen to us etc

- Really wish Glenn got more screen time and character development, especially in relation to the doubt, but I understand why he didn't. He's the madge of this film (not as bad tho, they did their best with him and the time they had I think)

- Feel pretty much the same about the ending, I get they needed a satisfying conclusion since they knew the odds of a sequel were slim, and the original ending would've been to frustrating for a more general audience.

- Personally though, I would've written it closer to the original, but they make it to the house in Scotland, and there's vague hints about the refuge (and maybe a more solid conclusion on rob somehow) so its like, there's a little open endedness and if they really wanted to do a sequel they could, but its still satisfying and more follows the original storyline. Especially since they totally cut out the plot line of huw and his parents weird relationship and his weird feelings about Scotland.

- Still enjoyed it more than quiet place, though tbf I don't remember that movie very well, I was high as fuck during both movies, and I haven't seen the sequel

- Huws brother and sister, Allys best friend and the lake house woman's machete are all absent, along with the prime Minister announcements (although I guess itd be the president) which I really enjoyed since the governments response is a key component to how a society reacts to catastrophy, which I think is a solid bit of the point of the book

- Basically I want a five hour long extended version that's just a little more book accurate and has slightly better pacing and casting. Just like The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson, and every other book to movie adaptation I've ever seen

[vialae]

Past DU ask: 55, 63 and 80 about Kaidos?

55. Did the gazette ever print an article about them (or their deeds), what's the headline and what did they feel about it?

Most likely when he was younger and much less skilled, in that limbo between killing his adoptive family and being taken into the Temple of Bhaal, something was probably printed. I think I briefly mentioned it in that fic I did from Sceleritas' POV (Know That I Love You Most) that there were rumours around the Lower City of 'a creature with eyes that burned as hot as Avernus' killing animals and people.

From that little bit, I feel that Baldur's Mouth Gazette would probably do one of those articles of 'who is this ghost lurking in the shadows??? how much do we know about this monster???' just for it to end in them not knowing really anything at all about him.

Within the moment, Kai was probably freaking out about too many other things to even read a newspaper and ultimately would have been unaware he was turning into an urban legend. However, Sceleritas Fel easily could have little cutouts of the articles and then show them to Kai later on in a 'look how you started out so young!! oh im so proud of you!! type thing. And then at that point, he likely would just be frustrated he was ever so sloppy to let something like these articles even have a chance to come about.

63. The sweet sweet smell of gore, we've all heard about it. But is it really sweet to them? Or does it just smell like metal and rot?

I'm sure Bhaal would have put something in a Bhaalspawn to hardwire them to like the smell of blood.

Kaidos wouldn't be any different, with or without the insanely sensitive sense of smell I gave him lol. I feel like he would like it, but then he is covered in it so much he becomes immune to the smell and forgets what it's actually like.

I also take from that one bit in the colony under Moonrise where if you take Astarion to Durge's smashed up pod, he can recognise the smell of the blood being your own specific 'bouquet'. I feel like Kai could do that too, and he would especially like the smell of, say, well fed nobility (and gortash). They eat rich meats, and bread without fillers added to them, and so they probably smell like an absolute treat to Kai when split open.

80. What went through your head when you crafted these little Durge doll, dear creator? Are they a self inserted of sorts or as far removed from you as possible?

When I first decided to make a Durge, I already knew the spoiler about them being Bhaalspawn. So I went into it with mainly just the image of a guy who could do all those horrible things, but just with the brute force of his bare fists. So not only did I want a monk, but I also wanted a guy that just really looked the part of being evil and strong. I went with a tiefling not only because obviously they are very cool but also the vanilla face that I use for Kai?? SO gorgeous and handsome. Every time I see another person using that same head I feel like that wojak of the guy pointing.

But Kaidos is nothing at all like me (thankfully lol). But me making big strong scary tiefling came first, then all the extra personality parts of him beyond canonical durge traits came second after I properly got to learn the origin story.

I guess it's just very lucky that I really loved my first durge this much (and I genuinely can't see myself ever making another at this point) and accidentally got colour schemes that fit the theming of the Bhaalist cutscenes.

[kylejsugarman]

omg please write more about Jane and Baby *puppy eyes*

dude u know i need zero prompting to talk more about my silly little au's.....im going to try to keep this light because yk. jane. but shes initially dubious about renting out her place to jesse because a) well look at him and b) she didnt exactly move out to live her cool independent 20s life just to end up neighbors with a baby. he insists that she's quiet ("u can ask like. well she doesnt really know anyone. u can ask me, shes super quiet") and he has the money and its better than renting to a weird old guy, so she agrees. baby is a good neutral topic for them to discuss whenever they cross paths and even though jane's never really been big on kids, she thinks baby's a cutie and its fun to use her as a tool for teasing jesse (jane accepting the month's rent voice: now baby, did u make sure he counted it out correctly this time?). as they get closer, jane is more and more endeared to baby not just because she's a little creature, but because she makes jesse drop all pretenses and act completely genuine. hes his truest self around her. she'll pretend like she doesn't enjoy babysitting and will tell jesse that she should be paid at Least minimum wage if she's going to be his landlord AND his childcare service, but she usually drops the joke quickly (jesse takes a lot of what she says Way too seriously and sometimes he seems weirdly distressed about having to leave. for his "job". which jane knows isnt a conventional job but what good does it do to challenge him on that now) because she likes baby. its funny to dress her up and paint her itty bitty little nails and surprise jesse with his daughter's New Look when he comes back home. jane especially enjoys carrying baby around either of their places and pointing out things that they can Admire and Study together. sure its just a sink faucet, but what does baby know about sinks?? or water?? or resource distribution in a moderately sized city??? its gotta be blowing her little mind. they can spend 45 minutes just staring into the mirror together and pondering reality. agony anguish sobbing torture follows obviously, but when they finally get the money from walt, jane says that it can finally be just them. just the three of them. and no one can tell them what to do.

[paldean-ranger-brandy]

💛 for the lgbtq asks!

- @withoutatrace-pkmn

💛 who was/is your number 1 supporter in your journey to self discovery?

Hmmm I guess that would probably be Joel, my base leader when I was in Fall City AND my new boss here in Paldea. I was going through that journey right when I was stationed in Fall City, and I was like. Not chill about it lmao. I'd bust in through the window once a week like "HEY why did you let me think I was ace I'm obviously a lesbian" or "IM NOT A WOMAN ANYMORE". I was very dramatic about trying out new labels, and he took it so in stride every time. Which is great because I looked up to him a lot, and I think if he was overly excited about a label I was trying out I would have hesitated to try out something else.

The only opinion on my labels he ever offered was basically "Brandy, you are not a human woman you are a forest creature." Which is so true and remains my view on my gender to this day.

[sunakore]

Bit of info for my main OCs :)

helloo. i might post a drabble later idk. but here is some info on my ocs! im working on worldbuilding, but its obviously not even close to being fleshed out yet. siiiiighs

(expect there to be either changes or updates on my characters. ill probably make a separate post on what they look like but there'll be no art) (i wish i had the motivation to art 💔)

Main OCs:

Nalani [he/they], 21

Icarus [he/him], 19

Santez [he/him], 19

Marelle [she/zir], 22

Aeloa [she/her], 19

Rene [they/he], 20

They're self-appointed demon hunters! Well...I don't know what they really hunt yet. just work with me here lmao. demons in this world are just any big bad creatures, and I'll probably find a name for them. They also do hunt titans, which also will eventually have a name...but titans are much more ancient and intelligent. and big. theyre big boys.

because i haven't touched on their abilities (which is very not obvious from my writing) in ANY of my drabbles...since ive been focused on character interactions and all, here they are. shoving them in your amazing face.

-Nalani can absorb and store cold temperatures in his blood, and then channel it back out in the form of ice. So, they can basically manipulate ice, even fucking bend it (awesome!!) in whatever shape he wants. He could remake the sphinx of giza on a good day. Because of his ability he can also withstand freezing temperatures like a boss. He can't store too much cold in his body, though, cause it can only tolerate so much.

-Icarus...has no ability. Deadass. No sudden awakening or aha! i secretly have an ability and you never knew it! No. None of that. i mean hes cool i guess...

-Santez has like...some kinetic absorption thing. he can absorb impact directed towards him and bounce it back. The more he uses it without break, the more weakened his ability will become. So rest = good, which is something he never does so yay.

-Marelle can warp the perception of someone, but she has to actually be aware of the knowledge ze's trying to warp, and has to emotionally resonate with how the person feels about said knowledge. She doesn't have high emotional intelligence, so. Yeah. If she overuses zir ability then she'll become emotionally drained.

-Aeloa can connect with creatures and influence them. She also can with demons, but that depends on their mental strength. Her ability usually only works on weak demons. Animals are naturally drawn to her because she's a disney princess in her own right. She can understand what animals she's connected with are feeling and saying.

-Rene is a shapeshifter, but not quite!!! They can only add on and modify characteristics and not change into a whole new form. He can't remove them, so if they give themself a bird leg then aaah you're stuck like that for a few hours buddy :D. Giving themself too many characteristics at once will temporarily destabilize his ability. So call it a mini shapeshifting ability. and no, they aren't a furry

im not gonna go over relationships since ill establish that in my writing. but heyyy heres some random info about the characters:

they all live together in a house they rented. they split the rent and everyone has to pitch in. usually they collect horns, fangs, or skins from 'demons' and sell it since they can be turned into valuable resources (usually for magic purposes, ill think about that later lol).

-their home is in a forest a few miles from a suburban hill. its also on a high hill above the city, so if you reach the edge of the forest then you can get a view of the city lights. my fantasy bro

-nalani's basically the parent of the house. he's the only one who knows how to cook and drive. he doesnt trust anybody behind the wheel. they tried to get the others to cook a meal and they cooked a fire. he makes them do chores tho

-everyone has their own rooms. marelle likes to sleep in the bathtub, for some reason. santez was banished to the basement cause he kept blasting music at 2 in the morning.

-rene drinks a lot. the legal age to drink is 18 at wherever the fuck they live, so dont worry about that.

-santez listens to lady gaga. and he also has a serious addiction to staying up until 72 hours.

-icarus is very skilled, which is how he keeps up with the others and their abilities. he's kind of the tech guy? he's really good with mechanics. he spends a lot of time working on tools for fighting and defense. and developing stupid pointless softwares. he also studies 'titans' and their old ass civilization from any artifacts he can find.

-aeloa likes drawing, but doesnt like showing people her artworks. she's very passionate when it comes to art, since it's something she loved as a kid. she draws yuri /j

-everyone likes chocolate. if someone has a chocolate cake that shit gonna get stolen like it's in a tom and jerry episode. everyone keeps their secret stashes. they also try to find each other's secret stashes. all the time.

-marelle's a NERDDD. she reads non-fiction and stuff, nerd!! ze might drop the most baffling word in the dictionary during a casual conversation. she's very intelligent, which makes zir bad at explaining things in a way that's simple for others. when icarus explains things he's just extremely vague and absurd in his wording and doesnt offer any context at all.

Bdays :3

format is month/day

Nalani: 4/15

Icarus: 9/2

Santez: 1/18

Marelle: 12/23

Aeloa: 3/27

Rene: 2/7

okay thats all for now lol im working on a magic system and i either will post it...or start mentioning magic in my drabbles without making it an info dump somehow

[yanderetrash]

So i finished hollowbody

(( A preface to this is that i am a big fan of genuinely engaging with the media at its level. I mean that im not going to look for faults into something just for the sake of seeming superior, trying to understand what the author of the piece wants to put out and not coming in with my own preconceptions

An example would be people going super mad about deadloop because it was just too unserious. I never found this to be an issue because i was not coming in with any expectations (of a serious game) ))

Hollowbody is a short game and is set in england

The whole thing was created for the most part by one person

The game reads as a tribute to ps2 survival horror era (from personal experience i would say silent hill and resident evil) and the graphics are absolutely glorious in that aspect

The menus are just as clunky as the sh games ive played and i could never quite work the map but i am quite stupid with maps in general anyway

The music hits the spot in the sense that it sets the mood and is never out of place, i usually dont follow music outside the game (save for nier and silent hill) so no complaints here

The layout or the actual level map gives you this half life feeling of having complete freedom while at the same time corralling you to your next objective

The cyberpunk aesthetic of the (other world) is not very present and probably given time would have blended better with the overall retrofuturistic aesthetic present in most of the game

Story wise we follow mica as she tries to make her way through a quarantined english city trying to escape the horrors and find her girlfriend who went missing during a research mission on the shore of the quarantine zone

My play through was also accompanied by the wounded man who you can prevent from killing himself or not (i called him simon, for obvious reasons)

Aided by her comm guy, tax, we make our way to the metro system to try and meet the tracks out of the quarantine zone and back to our cyberpunk island

As you make your way through the dilapidated city you are hunted by mutant creatures and from time to time contacted via the telephone lines by this seemingly omniscient entity that appears to be toying with you while following your progress

Making it to the metro tunnels you get to a hole where our protagonist has the great idea of jumping in

The hole appears to be fleshy and alive, like a horrific organism and your trip inside culminates in finding your girlfriend, seemingly still alive but just barely, with severe injuries to her legs

After trying and failing to use your radio to contact the comm guy, the entity contacts you once again, offering its aid and actually delivering, however the underlying feeling is that something is not quite how it seems

After the comm guy arrives we cut back to our main character and her gf, with the latter looking obviously dead for a bit and the main character seemingly possessed by the entity

However the game is not over because simon pulled his weight, as we cut to him, tax and the mc on the beach, with simon trying to resuscitate the mc

Following this, we see the mc in an interrogation room. The corporation was quick to find and catch her and is inquiring into her adventure in the zone

As far as characters go, simon has little personality, tax is just a plot device just like the gf

There are a few bioshock-like moments where using your radio you can hear past conversations of the former residents as well as documents you can read, thus piecing together what happened in the city

The mc gets some backstory with the gf but is all minimal, honestly the only real character seems to be the voice (or mother as it calls itself) which of course is the fleshy growth but thats not all. The big bad corporation was attempting to halt aging using ai nanobots, and considering that the entity communicates to you through the phone line it appears to have full control of the electronics in the zone

I mean i have a soft spot for these things of course, the voice was definitely my favourite and really made the game for me. I like it when some omniscient thing checks with you from time to time and reflects on your progress, there is this codependency almost, moreso between you the player and it the in-game omniscience. The sense of control this game-thing has over your character with the understanding that the control is actually always in your hand as a player, but for the sake of immersion is ludically ceded to the game-thing. A puppet of a puppet so to speak. Really good, really kinky

The flesh assimilation thing reminds me a lot of the ai in soma but this one is not blankly driven by directives with no morality attached, but genuinely malevolent (which to be fair is not as scary but a lot more appealing)

I think no motive is always scarier than one motive and if i read it right and you dont save the guy, mother eventually gets out of the sea probably to try and infect everyone (24 yrs later)

Now why would the entity want this chick in particular? No reason honestly. Surely the entity was able to corrupt her car and find out enough about her (the name) if not from the gf

I think it was just a bit of past time for it really, just because it could. I personally dont believe anyone is special (hey especially in a cyberpunk story)

There is also a joke ending but man im not that good at dodging so i could never get that 👍