#been a while since i used this tag...

[phoenix-is-the-hottest-thing]

It could just be bias, however I did like Kiana and Mei's interactions in chapter 32 as their time wholesomely bonding when they connected their minds felt really deserved after they both had suffered for 15 chapters. It made me feel genuinely happy to see them holding hands. I feel like while Kiana would accept her immediately even after she committed literal war crimes, as I think Kiana came to understand and respect her decision over time, however I felt it was unrealistic how Bronya accepted Mei despite her joining World Serpent. I think it would have been really personal to Bronya because World Serpent did a lot of the same shit Anti-Entropy did with trying to blow up an entire city in order to awaken a herrscher. I honestly did not like how they did Bronya during and after the moon arc with having her superglued to Kiana and Mei for no other reason than nostalgia baiting. Also with Mei becoming the Herrscher of Origin, it felt like Elysia straight up groomed and brainwashed Mei during Elysium Everlasting with how often she bothered Mei with compliments and how Mei somehow grew from finding Elysia annoying to being head over heels for her just because she 'died' as well as how it showed in chapter 34 that Elysia uploaded herself into Mei's brain which could lead to a Sirin type of situation if the writers could commit to Elysia having even the slightest flaw. What do you think am I reaching?

You're totally entitled to your feelings on the reunion (it WAS meant to make the players feel fuzzy!) and mm personally neutral on Bronya accepting Mei back and sticking with them, I think it's believable because she was very close to Mei. Remember when she blew up her brainchip?

Talking about brainchips, Elysia didn't upload herself in Mei's brain or anything. Mei got the signets voluntarily, and who showed up was dependent on who Mei wanted to see. Could've been Kalpas lmao. If you're gonna blame anyone, blame Kevin for getting Mei into ER.

So yeah, you are reaching on Elysia. I'm honestly not sure how to unpack "groomed and brainwashed Mei during Elysium Everlasting with how often she bothered Mei with compliments and how Mei somehow grew from finding Elysia annoying to being head over heels for her just because she 'died'" but I'll give it a try?

First off, Mei's way too old to be groomed by the time she meets Ely, she's in her 20s. She is not a child? The relevant definition of grooming is:

To attempt to gain the trust of a minor with the intention of luring them into a sexual relationship.

So let's hold our horses a bit. You may be looking for the word "manipulate", which, fine whatever, but it's not grooming. Mobius manipulates Mei too, Elysia's not special (and significantly less murdery) and she isn't doing it to "lure her into a sexual relationship". She is very open about being attracted to Mei('s horns), no luring is happening here. Try to think of why you find an adult woman openly flirting with another adult woman so predatory you'd compare it to pedophilia? Sounds like something to, uh, unpack.

Second off, while Elysia compliments Mei all the time, she never touches her horns without permission. That's why she's asking so much! The horn touching embarrasses Mei, and she's even more embarrassed about people learning she let Elysia touch them, but they are touched with her consent. Elysia asks again afterwards, but Mei says no, and she doesn't touch the horns again when rejected, it just becomes a running gag that she wants to.

TLDR Ely's an insistant flirt to Mei's more bashful ways, which one can find annoying, but not a molester. (Mei agrees to touch her elf ears as well, so the attraction may not be all that one-sided, either.)

Third off, Elysia is gone during most of Elysium Everlasting. Mei's shift in attitude towards Elysia occurs around chapter 3 of Elysian Realm's story, and is especially notable in the Pristine Memory dialogues that were added for it. For example:

Elysia: With that said, I’ll present you with this book! But don’t take my efforts for granted! Elysia: Isn’t it wonderful? I asked a bunch of people to help me out! Mei: The long credits on the blurb definitely shows… Mei: It’s exquisite alright, each page is a recreation of a scene, faithful enough to evoke vivid memories… Wait, Elysia, have you been wanting to… Elysia: Mm-hmm♪ Mei: …Thank you, I’ll cherish it. Elysia: Is this real? Mei has finally opened up to me! Elysia: If so, can I touch your… My, that was a joke, don’t run♪

(Excerpt from Pristine Memory 10) (Read all Flame-chaser texts here)

Originally suspicious and hostile, Mei warms up to Elysia over time, she spends months in the Realm. By the time Elysium Everlasting starts, she still finds Elysia a lot to deal with, but she trusts Elysia doesn't want to hurt her, and they are friends.

Then Elysia dies just before revealing her deepest secret to her, just before giving Mei what she came for, she disappears at the pinnacle of the trust they've built all this time.

Seems very understandable to me that Mei is terribly shocked and upset that her friend died, especially since more people die afterwards (her accusatory voice at Vill-V after Pardo dies haunts me), so much so that she's much softer when she gets Elysia back for a few minutes.

You don't appreciate what you have until it's gone. You don't realize how attached you are to your annoying friend until they're murdered. You don't cherish your time with your loved ones quite as much as when you're about to never see them again.

Mind you, I did NOT like the last couple acts of Elysium Everlasting. I fucking hated them so much I didn't get HoHe! But you know why I didn't like them?

I thought Mei would insist on saving Elysia. She refused to let Kiana sacrifice herself, and Kiana refused to let Hua sacrifice herself, but suddenly it was fine for Elysia to go off and die heroically? Uh?

Not to mention I kind of felt like the way Elysia was written in EE wasn't really her, because Elysia had always been hiding sadness underneath her flirting and positivity, but that's a whole other can of worms.

So yeah you reaching, maybe because it's been such a long time that you've kind of warped the canon through the Elysia-dislike filter? Look inside yourself whether you have a bias and reread the source material.

[dreamsy990]

you know i used to think it was weird how sora and roxas have such different personalities for supposedly being 'the same person' but after playing a few games i sort of realized that they do have similar personalities, because roxas acts how sora does when he's under extreme stress.

compare roxas to sora in, say, kh1. that's where a lot of peoples idea of sora's personality comes from. sora is generally very upbeat and optimistic in that game. not very similar to roxas, right?

but let's switch the game and talk about a game where sora is ABSOLUTELY GOING THROUGH IT. chain of memories.

sora's resting state is melancholy in com. he only ever cheers up in short bursts, usually when he's joking around with friends. just like roxas.

he's quick to anger, and tends to lash out at the organization members. best example of this is when larxene makes him 'remember' namine, and he swings at her repeatedly, even after she's gone. he only stops when jiminy is able to snap him out of it.

you know what scene that resembles?

sora, while a bit more on the angry side and less sad, continues to act like this in kh2 when he's in stressful situations. (he also has a tendancy to insult people which, while it's not very related to the point, is very funny and sora saying 'gonna cry?' to xigbar is great.) i cant comment any further than that about kh2 off the top of my head.

so, roxas acts like sora does when he's stressed, right? but why is roxas always acting like that? to which i say, he isnt!

he only ever acts like that when he's also in fucked up and stressful situations, which happens to be a CONSTANT in his life. but when he's hanging out with axel and xion, a decidedly NOT stressful situation, he's a lot more like sora. he's teasing his friends and insulting his coworkers and joking around and acting like a normal kid. not really important, but unless i misremembered some sora lines which is VERY possible, both roxas and sora respond to friendly insults with "oh thanks!" a lot. just a funny little detail that felt relevant.

the biggest differences between roxas and sora boil down to environment and... i dont know how to put it besides volume? roxas is very quiet and tends to keep most of his thoughts to himself, while sora is very loud and expressive in comparison.

there is one other huge difference i noticed, which is less character based and more story. sora wanted to get off destiny islands and explore with his friends, but roxas just wanted routine. sora wants adventure, and roxas wants things to stay the same, for days where he gets off work and eats ice cream with his friends to last forever, to keep having conversations about nothing and watching the sunset. roxas wants normalcy, sora wants excitement. it's just interesting seeing their contrast.

not sure if this is very well said or anything i just wanted to talk about my boys

[ontosgold]

future vision

[stuckinapril]

I genuinely love not having a crush like I’m not over here feeling physically sick over some mid guy being dry to me I’m literally chilling

[bumblebeebats]

Must scifi be "good"? Is it not enough to watch David Tennant and Catherine Tate run about, yelling? and also a nonbinary transwoman is there?

[your-fave-is-being-blended]

Woe. Blender be upon you.

He's gone now.

[aegis-vamp]

Lilia in Riddle's dorm uniform edit

[hinamie]

doodles

[ffc1cb]

happy to announce i’ve finally lost it and spent a considerable amount of time making a dragon age inquisition mod that lets your inquisitor use they/them pronouns. if there’s anyone out there besides me who wants to use it, here it is on nexus.

detailed description and personal commentary under the cut

update: as of 3.05 (may 3rd), the mod has been uploaded to nexus. see download link above for any future updates.

this is a mod for frosty mod manager 1.0.6.1. you MUST install the bioware localization plugin for it to work, otherwise the game won’t start. on fmm 1.0.6.2, the plugin is already built in, so you don’t need to worry;

this mod is a simple overhaul of the game’s base text; no changes were made to the actual voice lines. this mod also does not affect default romance flags (just like in vanilla game, you can only romance sera with a "female" inquisitor (or dorian with "male"), but the mod should, hypothetically, be compatible with other mods that edit romance flags);

you can install it at any point of the game. starting a new playthrough is not necessary;

works for all races and with all available dlcs;

along with the pronouns change, this mod changes all gendered words used to refer to the inquisitor to be gender neutral, i.e man / woman have been replaced with person or contextual variants. my lord / my lady and other similar titles have been replaced with messere (on the basis of this reddit thread);

some of the dialogue could've been mistakenly changed, since context was not always easy to parse. if you try this mod out, i’d greatly appreciate any help with pointing out my mistakes (blackwall’s romance in particular has given me the most trouble); additionally, i might have missed some lines in the codexes, since i skimmed through them very briefly.

i’ve no previous modding experience, so i went with the easiest option and, like i mentioned above, brute forced it and made a complete overhaul of the base game text as opposed to a pickable option i’d like it to be. ideally i’d love for this mod to be bundled together with this other one that switches pc pronouns (which was a partial inspiration for this mod). if anyone here has any knowledge on whether this is something that could be done, please hmu.

also, since in order to make this mod i had to read through the entire game text (it was torturous. not gonna lie) i collected some of my personal favorite bits and pieces along the way. if anyone’s curious, you can look at them here. there’s surprisingly many developers’ notes in there.

ps: this mod is free to use for all so this is not at all necessary, but if anyone is feeling generous, i have a tip jar.

[mary-kasexual]

hi *throws this at you and runs headfirst into a lamppost*

[mp100days]

099 - ONE DAY LEFT !!!

[sparklingpax]

good afternoon

[thefreshprinceofjunes]

Do you remember before? We stood facing each other on opposite sides of that door. Now we stand side-by-side. Let's go home together this time.

[peridots-pixiwolf]

[Start ID. A redraw of the official icons of the ten named slugcats from Rain World, arranged in two rows: Survivor, Monk, Hunter, Nightcat, and Gourmand in the first, Artificer, Rivulet, Spearmaster, Saint and Enot/Inv in the second. Each is drawn in roughly the same pose as in the original art and fitted with speculative interpretations of their biology, and the second image is a “dead” version of this. For example, all ten have slug-like rhinophores in place of ears, cuttlefish-like colorful eyes with strangely-shaped pupils, cephalopod-like beak "teeth", expressive barbels or oral tentacles at the corners of mouths, spiny radulas, and the frilly mantle fringes of sea slugs, though otherwise their faces are squishy, simple and mammalian-shaped.

Cream-colored Survivor and yellow Monk both share triangular, bicolored spots matching their eyes (which are tan and brown, and two shades of blue, respectively), small, bumpy fringes, and relatively neutral looks on their faces. Defensive-looking Hunter is mostly a dull orange-pink, though their blobby fringe is a more violent red and their back is purple and marred with lumps. Nightcat is navy blue and flecked with dots of yellow and teal, their rolled rhinophores are a lighter blue, and their shading fractures into stars in some places. Gourmand is almost uniformly tan, their wide, very ruffly white mantle fringe bordered by a spray of white spots, and their beak sticks out from either corner of their smile. Primarily red Artificer, snarling, has yellow markings of multiple sorts, a prominent yellow dewlap and their characteristic dark scar taking out a chunk of its face. Rivulet is a darker blue than usual, with long barbels, red gills and rings, countershading, and a cheerful expression, sticking out their radula. Spearmaster is purple with orange accents, eyes and spots, a large fringe and spines down their back. Saint’s green caryophyllidia are marked by small, yellow diamonds, and their long, thin radula extends far below them. Enot is decorated with mottled red stripes, blue patches, yellow stars, and an uneven and almost cartoonish imitation of blush, though generally the same deep blue as Nightcat, a passive or almost slightly smug look on their face and their rolled rhinophores out to either side.

In the second image, nine of the slugcats’ eyes are crossed out, indicating that these are death icons. They look fairly the same, with mostly expression differences. Survivor is caught in the beginning of a threat display, a karma flower sprouts from Monk’s side, Hunter is burdened with overgrowing, purple and blue rot, Nightcat’s rhinophores are pinned back, and Gourmand looks mildly disheartened. For the final row, Artificer bites its radula between small plumes of smoke, Rivulet drops their expression, Spearmaster looks very startled, Saint looks almost entirely the same besides half-open eyes and their markings greater in number, and Enot grins confusedly. End ID]

If you'll excuse the unusually lengthy ID: the arena meme introduced by @pansear-doodles at long last after a nearly year-long wip status (or, rather, finished a month ago today to honor my own first time playing it!)

Design notes and shout-outs under cut! :]

The following people are some of those who’ve inspired my designs most since I started this eight months ago (or just inspired me to get a little weirder with slugcat biology), among many others for sure, and I thank them for it–but this is simply to bring attention to artists I find cool, and in no way an obligation to interact or anything :]

> @saturncoyote , @carpsoup , @charseraph , @gallusgalluss , @bitsbug , @dopscratch , and @0hmanit (and a special mention to dddeerbo and hunterlonglegs, who’ve since deactivated)!

Survivor: Surprisingly the hardest to pin down the colors for, since nothing with its sibling's palette seemed to match up right (I did have to add in a little blue somewhere for Monk, the beginning of making it clear how much I’m simply going based off of vibes for the colors of scug innards). I consider them, Monk and Gourmand to be part of the same gene pool of slugcats, and even possibly the same colony even if the latter isn't really related, so took a bit of Gourmand's coloring and fit them in with their inspiration: Goniobranchus verrieri. They serve as a bit of an introduction to my ideas of scug traits (i find it really fun how many people have thought to add so many silly sluglike fixtures of biology completely independent of me, buuut here I’m mostly talking about species variation), and like in-game they’re pretty average! They, Monk and Hunter have a couple scars sourced from a piece of Joar's concept art that I'm failing to find, those across the bridge of the nose, under the eyes, and across the rhinophores, respectively, and my Survivor interpretation features many on the back of the neck, as a result of survived lizard bites.

Monk: Their coloring is primarily based off the fact that I associate them with blue fruits, honestly, a bit because I was compelled to establish a familiarity with Rivulet, and lastly inspired by the spots of Goniobranchus kuniei (and geminus, less important to me as one of my characters is a kuniei instead, but more fitting). Between the yellow + blue and the circular marking in the center of their face, they’re meant to bear a little resemblance to an iterator that shares similarities with the characterization I’ve given them, and similar coding of her sibling can be seen on Survivor’s markings around the eyes. As both a “default” slugcat and one whose campaign I haven’t played, though, I can’t say I have much more to point out about em.

Hunter: The whole rot thing made for a really fun time drawing them, and while the color change on their back is a result of this, it’s also an excuse to relate them to Babakina festiva, arguably my favorite sea slug (mostly for sentimental purposes). And to Spearmaster, a fellow messenger slugcat, and it serves as a gradient between Hunter’s pink and the “traditional” color of Rot seen in the DLLs. Aside from their affliction, they’d actually be the plainest in terms of design, as they don’t have any patterns or quirks of body type, just the red + purple and strange lumps + possible malnutrition. I can’t remember if NSH had created them in particular or just...caught + released or something, but it probably wouldn’t be strange for a lab-grown slugcat to be simple like that.

Gourmand: Like the two above, they’re rather plain in terms of coloring and adaptation, and like the two above, I find that fun. I decided it would be nice to avert the “all slugcats being of the same body type, and Gourmand’s out of place as the exception” thing by just...adding more fat to all of them, really. I did want to emphasize their sheer bulk even so, both fat and muscular (not like I couldn’t have still gone further with it, of course, but slugcat anatomy can be a little obfuscating sometimes, and they were intended to look rather plush considering personal size headcanons and therefore the lack of proper gravity), and the thick and flounced mantle looked like a good addition, as per their sea slug Glossodoris hikuerensis. Unlike Survivor and Monk, I didn’t attempt to hold their resemblance to any particular other character (which means a little less to balance out the “default gene pool” thing), so those are all the design notes I have for em.

Artificer: The second slugcat I’ve ever played, or finished the campaign of, my favorite for at least a long time, and the first thing I did was give them yellow accents, the shape of which have troubled me slightly (not quite like the spots or stripes of the others). They’re both a little more appealing and more explosive-looking to me, and considering how early on I played Arti, actually present in some of my older art. It does give them a little resemblance to Saint (completely intentional, two slugcats with strange relations to karma), as well as the fact that its radula is green for familiarity with one of its children (at some point it was going to have all-green markings, even!). I’m generous with their scars, partly because it was fun to overemphasize the one on their face and partly because it does seem like a reckless slugcat, on top of the dangers of its explosive abilities–I’ll probably just keep adding more forever. Mostly-red sea slugs aren’t too common, but Hexabranchus sanguineus works for sure. The ridged, yellow dewlap can expand for combustion purposes, or something along those lines. Arti’s where I began experimenting with a lot of the mildly-offkilter features seen in my interpretation of slugcats, as they’ve once again been a favorite from the start.

Rivulet: I've obviously given other slugcats spots, deeply enjoy the bubbly-soda markings of other peoples' slugcats, and thought seal riv would be cute. Despite not too closely resembling it, they've been government-assigned Hypselodoris bennetti, for color reasons and for a couple sentimental ones. Originally, the colors of every scug were meant to match up with the custom colors I gave them at the beginning of their campaigns, (though Arti, Gourm and Spearmy are the only three who actually apply here, since I've only played through half the slugcats: I gave arti the yellow as mentioned above, gourm brown eyes and spearmy light pink spears, furthered by the outskirts pearl accompanying me and that palette all the way to moon. Tolerance training for eternity in hell cause I already knew about the maroon pearl quest). I initially gave them the colors of the bi flag for fun... but with the limited palette of this image, I was left without pink for a while and decided to see how they'd look in red. I then realized how they now wonderfully matched Moon, and besides, red's a sort of camouflage in deep water! As a side-note, the difference between their eyes and those of others always bothered me a little for anatomical purposes, and the cephalopod eyes were probably influenced by this!

Spearmaster: Inspired as much as possible by @notyourfunnyman ’s wonderful spearmy: designed in a way that helps it fit in with scavengers, at least between the long sensory tentacles, big ruff, back spines and slightly thin/distended anatomy, a form of defensive mimicry. I always had annulate rhinophores in mind, for a little diversity sure, but mostly because the shape reminds me of radio antennae and communication towers (seems fitting for the comms array and being a messenger slugcat)! I started searching for a real-life slug to give them just by looking up their rhinophore shape...and was met immediately and coincidentally with annulate-topped nudibranchs that fit them more perfectly than I could've imagined: Flabellina and surrounding clades, I think Paraflabellina ischitana works very nicely. The orange was completely unplanned, but there wasn’t a place for light pink among the other slugcats’ palettes, and importantly it likens them to both Hunter and Seven Red Suns a little more.

Saint: I am very much a non-furred slugcat enjoyer, with respect to those who aren’t, so figuring out the only visibly furred slugcat was an interesting challenge. I’ve decided that they likely have other, milder adaptations for help in the cold, mainly just more efficient fat storage, and what looks vaguely like fur is instead a bunch of tubercles (called caryophillia, for the second reminder out of three). Their inspiration doesn’t have these, however, Miamira sinuata’s numerous yellow and blue spots (not to mention...whatever’s going on with that shape) and general effect of being the only really green nudibranch I could find were probably perfect for a strange green echo. Not pictured, but their beak-teeth are tiny and flat to make a surface for grinding soft food against with the lack of a functioning radula, which is tipped with a specialized spiny “grapple-hook” for better traction/grip (not to mention the numerous little teeth running down the whole thing).

(Best part of hiding this under a readmore means edits will be seen by all reblogs, I'm mostly sure, because I completely forgot to mention! The spots on their forehead are simple eyes. Their camera eyes appear closed in-game, I like to believe their complex eyesight is rather poor anyways or otherwise reason that they aren't seeing out of those, and while this was far from her REASON for attunement with the world, it does help compensate for mainly viewing it through a canvas of simple light and dark. This, and the fact that their swapped-out "fur" is not only to commit to a lack of hairs but contributes to sensory input!)

Nightcat/Enot: I guess you could say I found the “these two are technically the same person” compelling. (E.g. similar colors, both very strange and enigmatic, and Enot/Inv/Sofanthiel’s remark during the dating sim about getting removed from Arena Mode.) I doubt they’re the only two slugcats in their body, considering humans with DID tend to have more than a few (and I find it very funny that a slugcat bearing resemblance to Nightcat appears in Gourmand’s ending. They’re allowed in the colony and Enot isn’t </3), and I have to credit @faelingdraws ’s art for being what convinced me on it! Their design inspirations come down to trying to balance a few different ideas: making the patterns and palettes of both look oddly similar (special mention to the stars, since those are fun to draw), basing them off of Felimare sechurana and juliae respectively, using blocks of color with the same placement as in Enot’s official art, and specifically making Enot look...biologically reasonable and imperfect, whilst also clearly trying to imitate human displays of emotion (what with...the eyes and blush on that one piece of official art).

Lastly, here’s just a lineup with notes on body shape and size. Most of the nicknames (existing to give a little more space, that’s all) are obvious, and while I can’t remember why I shortened Nightcat to Nox, it is in honor of my friend by the same nickname :]

[luck-of-the-drawings]

so REVENGE, HUH? or justice, if that makes you feel better. it tastes the same when cooked just right. 'I REALLY WANTED A BROTHER.' such a shame to burn a bridge you so desperately wanted to keep, especially when it wasnt even you who started the fire. especially when you hope that not a single fragment of that bridge ever washes ashore.[MAY IT ROT FAR FROM MY SIGHTS] an unfortunate loss! atleast he has his friends.

[front-facing-pokemon]