#but even still. its just names and sprites so we're all good

[fallenclan]

pigeontooth!!!! I love himb. love this animale. the pigeontooth. love how he graduated at ten moons old just like his dad but he has the compassionate trait, the complete opposite of his dad's bloodthirsty trait... also his name is so cool!!! love the -tooth suffix :333

can we see his relationship stats if possible?

-🦝

pigeontooth!!! some minor spoilers in his relationships, but nothing i couldn't censor <3

[dipplin-daycare]

Blog Info...

Hello and welcome to our age(d)re + pet(d)re blog. Take a good look and feel free get comfortable 'cause we're all about comfy things! Though this blog is still new we're looking forward to posting original content and interacting with the community. One day we might even open requests, who knows... And, of course, feel free to shoot us an ask! Our ask box is always open

Tagging System...

#🍎-❝by leaf❞🍃 ...for leaf's posts #🍎-❝by blu❞🌧️ ... for blu' posts #🍎-❝by rosa❞🌸 ... for rosa's posts #🍎-❝text❞💬 ... for text based posts #🍎-❝edits❞📸 ... for icons and edits #🍎-❝boards❞✏️ ... for agere moodboards #🍎-❝reblogs❞🔁 ... for reblogs

Do not interact...

Kink or NSFW accounts, ageplay and variants, pedo/zoos + supporters, any kind of bigot (incl. TERFs and transmeds), discourse and/or politic centric blogs, anti-recovery (incl. pro-ana pro-sh), anti-agere/petre, anti-therian !Interacting includes linking and reblogging posts!

.... about us under the cut!

About us...

Starting with the basics... We're three brazilian young adults and we all love pokemon We're also a T4T polycule and been together for around a year at this point(and we're not looking for romantic relationships here), we all have some background with the agere community and agree that we prefer to not be a part of any specific community and just treat regression as an individual thing (non-community)

I'm Leaf! I'm 21 and go by they/them. I'm a caregiver and care for both my partners whom I love very much <3. That aside, I'm a leafeon therian and sometimes I pet regress to a fox or cat Even though I'm not an age regressor I still deal with a fair amount of anxiety, OCD, dissociation and I'm neurodivergent Currently majoring pedadogy and I dream of working as a educator or school counselor, I have a fair amount of knowledge on sociology and neuropsychology as well. I'm also a pokemon fanatic, shiny hunter, and I love everything nintendo (Splatoon and Kirby are my other favorite franchises), roguelike and metroidvania games and TTRPGs. I enjoy collecting stuff and I'm very fond of lizards (snakes included!) My favorite pokemon is leafeon (and hydrapple) and I'd be a grass type trainer/gym leader

I'm Rosabella, Rosa for short! I'm 20 and my pronouns are she/they/fae I'm a flip, that is, sometimes I'm my partner Blu's caregiver and sometimes my other partner Leaf is my caregiver! My little age is around 4-8, I started regressing recently and so far I love the idea of getting to live the ideal childhood I've never had. I'm a puppy regressor too, a pomski to be more specific I'm a DID system and switch between using we/us and I/me, I'm also autistic+ADHD and HoH. Because of that I'm very invested in disabled and Deaf/HoH rights activism I love pokémon (duh) Scarlet/Violet have been my favorite games so far! I also like Animal Crossing, nostalgic toys, The Owl House, Amphibia, Adventure Time, OTGW, and similar cartoons. And I love anything magical girls!! My favorite pokémon is the hatenna evolution line and I'd be a psychic type gym leader!

I'm Blu, I'm 20 years old and go by he/they and occasionally it/its I'm a regressor and my two primaries act as my caregivers. My regressed age fluctuates from a little toddler to an edgy teen. I also heavily relate to birds, am a bird regressor and a swablu therian(that's where my name came from lol) I have OSDD1a, though I strictly refer to myself as singular person (I/me), I'm also autistic and physically disabled Majoring geography and specializing in meteorology, loooove storm spotting and retro videogames (my partners might disagree on that but I think the best pokemon games are the early ones + spin offs). Be sure that I know and have played the most obscure nintendo and sonic spin-offs My favorite pokemon is obviously swablu/altaria (murkrow is a close second) and I'd be a flying type trainer. That's it.

dipplin sprite by RetroNC

[benis-chillin]

A Mania Hater's quick thoughts on Sonic Superstars

Hello, I'm Benis, and I hate Sonic Mania.

If you want my detailed reasons why, refer to this video.

If you just want a quick version, though, here's some bullet points:

It feels inauthentic to the Classics in general, from the physics to the "story."

Said story is poorly told, even for the style of Classic Sonic, and doesn't really make any sense in places.

It fetishizes 3&K to the point where it copies elements of its level design without consideration of how they ACTUALLY worked, or DIDN'T work and should've been omitted in some cases(two boss battles per zone is bad no matter what you tell me)

Most bosses are incredibly pedantic and annoying.

The visuals are Sonic Colors Ultimate levels of bloom for sprites, with some places being so shiny that it feels like everything is made out of marble and balloons.

And overall, the game just acts like there were no Sonic games made outside of the 4 main Genesis games, even though THOSE games had some ideas that would've been neat to see in a more faithful Classic game.

So, did Superstars exceed expectations? Or did I end up buying Mania 2 after all?

The Story

In Sonic Superstars, shit happens.

Okay, to be more detailed, Eggman recruits Fang the Hunter, a character whose only interesting trait is that Sega forgot he existed for a bit there, to hunt down a bunch of giant animals on the Northstar Islands, to power Badnik Bosses that…Imma be real here, he's powered with regular animals before, so idk why he's bothering with all this.

To help him, Fang recruits this armored character named Trip the Sungazer, who is apparently the guardian of the Northstar Islands, so why did she agree to capture animals, exactly?

I mean, in 3&K, Knuckles was tricked by Eggman saying that Sonic was evil and seeking the emeralds. This made sense, as you could then conceive that Knuckles somehow missed Eggman putting animals into Badniks, and just went along with his ideas to trap this "evildoer" in his eyes(even ignoring manual lore). But here? Why did she agree to this?

Anyway, in a very jankily animated cutscene(the 2D animated cutscenes are just very weirdly drawn and animated in this game, I'm sorry), we see Sonic and Tails approaching in the Tornado, and other cutscenes depict Knuckles and Amy joining the fun if you start with them. And so, we're off to the races!

Along our journey, we find the 7 Chaos Emeralds with new powers unlocked by the islands(though I think we had to learn that through Bumblekast or a Twitter Takeover), and Trip is convinced by the power of friendship to strip off her armor and use the emeralds to become a dragon in order to defeat Fang in a cutscene.

Then we eventually end up in space to defeat a final Eggman robot, Trip has an entire journey in hard mode to do that all over again with Fang, and we then have to seal a dragon away with barely any build-up.

So yeah, the story is not good.

It's quite clear that a TON of lore was made, but never received any explanation(not even in that manual you have to basically seek out), thus leaving us with a shell of a story. To be fair to it, what I'm GUESSING was supposed to make up the story makes sense outside of the aforementioned Trip questions, but how am I supposed to get into the world of a game if that world isn't given what I need to draw me into it? On top of that, it robs Trip of her opportunity to make a strong impression. I played her whole campaign, and I still don't really care about her that much, while characters like Knuckles hooked me in before I even played as them. Okay, she's shy. That's nice. What else is there to her besides that and a charming design?

The Visuals

I like them…In theory.

You see, to me, polygons are Sonic's true form. Even back in the Genesis days, they were always trying effects that bent the traditional 2D perspective, to the point where a central design point on the 3&K sprite is them attempting to make him more 3-dimensional. Dimps finally achieved this with the Rush and Sonic 4 duologies, along with Sonic Colors and Generations on DS and 3DS respectively. IDK if Rivals got close, but cool on them if they did. And while Superstars does this stuff fairly minimally, it is nice to see.

There is something to be said of them possibly using old models from a known bigot(I don't care about this personally, since it was apparently paid work, but maybe would've been wise to add some distance on those main characters), but otherwise I'm cool with them going in this style. The only cost seems to be any sense of identity for the Northstar Islands, which could be any damn place in the Sonic universe. They're rendered well enough, even on Switch, but they're a bit generic.

Though speaking of Switch, very glitchy, this game. I'll link a playlist with a bunch of the ones I captured, but a notable one is the fact that Trip's nose is permanently black on my title screen. Weird.

The Gameplay.

Aight, here's the big one: How does it play?

It plays fine. Better than Mania, for sure, but it ain't perfect.

Sonic has his usual spindash and spin jump, along with the drop dash ability that Mania introduced, but other games actually use better. Nobody's momentum is exactly 1-to-1 with the Genesis days, but it only really comes up in boss battles. However, he ended up being the least used character for my first playthrough, which is quite unusual for me in a Classic Sonic game, so make of that what you will.

Tails is his usual 2D self, which works, but I REALLY wish they've bring his SA1 elevation controls over. That would come so handy…Probably the character I played the most while I was emerald hunting.

Controversial opinion, but this is probably the best 2D Knuckles I've played in an official game. I still think we need his SA2 glide controls in 2D for it to be REALLY good, but this ain't half bad. Glide was a lot smoother than 3&K and Mania, so it was a lot more enjoyable to use(Though I still didn't favor him that much).

Amy is perfectly good, but her hammer only really comes in handy for her designated level.

Trip is fun to play as, too, and I like that her abilities feel tailored to the hard mode she inhabits. Her abilities are kinda OP, which tailors them to said hard mode for the most part. I think a drop dash would've really completed her moveset overall, but this is perfectly acceptable.

And since I almost forgot to note them, the specials stages are fairly alright, but some are way more difficult than they should be, and I wish they did that thing where finding one after you've got all of the Emeralds gives you 50 rings. That always came in handy.

As for the levels themselves…They're fine, I guess? Not quite at Sonic 4 levels of forgettable, but not quite at Advance quality. Tbh, I'm just glad they're original levels using various old themes instead of us like, literally going back to Green Hill again.

There are a lot more instant deaths and bottomless pits than you'd think, but this is mostly negated by the wise decision to not include a lives system, so these little hiccups get a BIT more grace. Heck, one of them indirectly uses the Sandopolis light switch gimmick in a new context that actually fits the zone they put it in! Take THAT one, Mania!

I'm not a fan of their numbering not be even, with some zones having as many as 3 acts, or as little as 1, but overall, a decent showing, and having Trip's story as a bit of a hard mode was kinda fun…

Until you get to those final few bosses.

Okay, so now we get to the part of the review where y'all can call me a lil' bitch, because I did not actually finish Trip's story, or this game as a whole. Why?

BECAUSE OF SOME OF THESE FUCKING BOSSES!

Starting with the second match against Fang, all of the final bosses for each zone get REALLY long, boring, and cheap. The bosses up until this point were engaging, but simple, like Sonic 2's bosses, but then this sudden difficulty spike happens. You have these long, tedious sections where just NOTHING happens while you wait until you can hit a boss with more hit points than they need, rings are very weirdly doled out, and every hit is hard to do without getting hit yourself, which can often result in death from a one-hit kill. And with many of these offering no way to go Super beforehand, that is a MAJOR problem.

Additionally, they have FAR too many one-hit kills, no matter how many rings you stock up on, and THERE ARE NO CHECKPOINTS BETWEEN SECTIONS, meaning if you die during one of the MANY easy kill windows, you have to start ALL OVER AGAIN, which is extra frustrating on Switch, where my cartridge copy has load times longer than my PS3 copy of Sonic 06. They're pure padding since the developers didn't have enough budget to make it worth $60, and it doesn't even help that much!

These bosses COULD work with less hit points, a few more rings, and some damn checkpoints so I don't have to keep on doing the same parts over and over again from an incredibly cheap hit that I can't avoid, but as is, they are downright shameful, and the reason I am, for the moment, not finishing this game. I have had enough of the developers wasting my time.

So if this game had a sequel, would I buy it? Maybe. But the developers would need to get a grip on certain things(ban one-hit kills and bottomless pits from that office), but I feel like a sequel could REALLY shine. If the story was told more competently, if the levels just had a bit more to them, and they tell Jun Senoue to aim for the SA1 sound style instead of whatever the hell he thinks the Genesis sounded like, we could have a real hit on our hands.

But for the moment, we return to the dream, my friends.

P.S. In terms of objective timeline, I place this during the original 1991-1997 time frame before the Generations time split. Kinda have to if elements of them are going to appear elsewhere. Mania is still contained to its hell dimension in Objective Canon Zone, so the creator's statements about timeline are being ignored. My fanfictions will place it in the split timeline after Mania for now since I plan to do some in-universe adjustments later, though.

6/10

[freuleinanna]

op i'm so sorry for intrudung but i just couldn't resist writing this, they're such chilDREN!! hope you don't mind 💛

The whole day, she says but a few words to him. He's victorious, and she congratulates him so dryly the sounds are crunching on her teeth. He's the youngest member of the Institute to man his own research mission to the greath North, and she behaves like he's going to what, London, for a can of shoe black? Honestly, that woman.

Marisa disappears entirely after all toasts are said, and although fellow colleagues are still clapping him on the shoulder and shaking his hand here and there, Asriel can't ignore the sting. He thought she'd be happy for him. Instead, all he gets from Marisa is the silent treatment and a whole lot of disinterest.

Wallowing in his wounded pride, Asriel is standing in a room full of people absently nodding to whatever someone is saying, and frowns at a glimpse of Marisa through the terrace door. She's walking away, to the gardens. Can't leave without her husband, but will stop at nothing to avoid him, it seems. None of his success matters as much as he thought it would when he imagined her reaction and support.

For goodness' sake, he's wearing a stupid tux just to impress her, and she couldn't care less.

When the event is closing to an end, Asriel almost leaves, thinking: that'll show her. A childish thought, really. Oh, you're avoiding me? I'll avoid you better.

Luckily, his soul is much better in reading subtle messages between unspoken lines.

'Aren't you forgetting something?' she comes to stand in his way as he makes for the main entrance. 'Someone?'

'We're going home, Stelmaria. Long journey ahead.'

'Asriel.' Just like that: Asriel. She has a habit of calling his name in a manner that feels at the same time patronizing, warning, and slightly done with him.

He tries to keep walking, but Stelmaria weaves herself around his legs and persists until Asriel almost falls. She even grumbles a bit, and gives him the gentlest cautionary bite on the hand, refusing to let him forward.

'Oh, what?!' he snaps, barely keeping his balance.

'Go talk to her.'

'She clearly doesn't want to be talked with.'

'Doesn't she?' the leopard tilts her head with such patience, it's almost like she's this wise ethereal being knowing all the secrets of the universe but never sharing any of them. That's another thing she does, looking at him like he's a cub or something, ignorant to the world and in need of being taught the basic rules.

'If she did want to talk,' Asriel grumbles moodily, 'she wouldn't have disappeared.'

'You're leaving in a few days.'

'Exactly! It might be the last chance...'

'Oh, you idiot!' Stelmaria growls and whisks her tail in irritation, surprising Asriel with an explosive emotion so unlike her. Then adds, quietly, with the utmost patience again, 'My idiot. She just learned we'll be leaving in a few days, no idea when to return. How do you think that makes her feel?'

'I– oh.'

His face changes with realization. Stelmaria nods.

'Oh, indeed. Go say goodbye like a decent person, because I'll bite your fingers off if you hurt that girl. She likes us,' the leopard glances over at the terrace door, a pensive expression on her face. 'Maybe even more.'

'More? What more?' he asks quickly, leaning forward.

'Do you really need me to spell it out for you?'

Already grinning, Asriel shakes his head and turns heel. A few more handshakes along the way, but now he pays even less attention. He listens impatiently, and taps shoulders saying he's gotta run, and all the way, he can't wipe a happy smile off his face.

He hurries down the terrace stairs and into the garden that flows, in its turn, into a natural pastoral scene. Hesitates to call Marisa by name for fear of attracting attention. Looks around. There are guests here, and the help, too, and then he sees a glimpse of Marisa's dress far ahead, near the lake, and rushes there (his rushing being a very spritely walk, but he can hardly restrain himself from running).

He's out of breath when he finds Marisa on the bench regarding the water, her daemon hunting for snails in the shallows.

'Is everything over?' she asks, nodding to the house where the celebration took place. Asriel didn't notice it before, but her eyebrows are tensed, and her eyes are much less indifferent than he thought them to be all day. They aren't indifferent at all, actually.

He can't keep a grin off his face realizing that his daemon was right.

'Yes, it's over,' he says and squints at Marisa against the sun washing them in golden light. 'Stelmaria made me come here to say goodbye to you before I leave.'

'Oh, she did?' Marisa draws a little back. 'Well, she's much less cruel than you.'

'Are you sad I'm leaving?'

In such a way Asriel asks this, that she can't be mad at him. A boyish triumph, an affection, pride – and damn if he isn't the most handsome Marisa has ever seen him. Her answer, however, is serious, because the matter is.

'Every fiber of me hates being here without you.'

Asriel contemplates her reply for a bit. Looks down – Stelmaria is pushing him, bumping her head at his leg in what seems like utter impatience. He grins at his daemon. Marisa is watching the silent exchange, feeling in her heart what this is leading to.

'I'll come back for you, you know,' Asriel finally says, because they are out in the open, in perfect view for anyone who looks, and he cannot risk saying I love you.

'I know,' she replies, for the exact same reason.

The sun keeps shining at them, and from the house, it looks merely as if they are talking, and the hero of the day is being courteous entertaining his guest. But then, from the house, you could never see the smiles of absolute happiness as the golden sunbeams get soaked in confessions that leave their silly, in-love mouths disguised as literally anything else and making their conversations really sound as constant, uninterrupted strings of I-love-you's.

Young Masriel au > in which Asriel is leaving for the north indefinitely and Stelmaria makes him say goodbye to Marisa before he goes.

[alchemil-studio]

Norvale Devlog #1

Hello! we’re Alchemilla studios and we’re here to present to you our very first devlog for Norvale!

Alchemilla Studios

First things first, we want to introduce to you Alchemilla studios and how we came to be.

We’re currently just a two-person team, consisting of Mari and nana, and a few years back we thought of making a visual novel and actually had an idea for a really big concept. However, we thought that it would be too much time and effort for beginners like ourselves, so we put that vn idea at the side and thought of making a simple one first and that led to Norvale.

While coming up with the name for our group, we thought using a flower's name based on its meaning would help encompass the type of content we want to make. The floriography for Alchemilla means "a comforting love", which felt like a good fit for us since we mainly want to create simple, easygoing content for people to enjoy while they relax and unwind after a stressful day. We might throw in a little angst here and there (lol), but for the most part, we want to try and create things that give people a sense of comfort in the midst of their busy lives.

As for the medium of our projects, we're currently focusing on visual novels and are interested in creating webnovels as well. We're still figuring things out but we hope to branch out into more mediums in the future!

Norvale

1. Concept

We came up with the plot for Norvale on a whim really lol

I (nana) thought to make a cute little story about someone that visited their childhood home again and relived the memories they had with a friend and a promise they made. The story went through a lot of changes and ideas to the point Mari had no idea what the story was even about anymore, before we decided on the current plot of Norvale.

The core idea was always to have a simple story since this is the first time making a visual novel for both of us. We’re the only two people working on it so we didn’t want to add too many elements and get overwhelmed.

As for how we came up with the name Norvale…it was a name we picked from a list of generated town names lol

2. Development

Story and Characters

Like we mentioned before, we wanted to keep the story simple and straightforward. As such, we broke the main story into 3 places that the player can visit. Where they go will be based on which item is chosen: the Marble, the Candy Wrapper or the Button.

Each place visited has a different character(s) the player gets to interact with. All the characters that you’ll run into are people the player character, Morgan has spent time with as a child.

※ Only the Candy Wrapper route is available in the demo.

Character Design

In line with keeping things simple for Norvale, the characters are also fairly simple in design! I was initially going to add shading and highlights to the sprite art but I quite like how the flat base colors look so I left it like that. It also personally makes it faster to deal with any adjustments or changes required when I don't have to worry about shading and highlighting an area over again lol

Background Art

Backgrounds were probably the biggest difficulty art wise since I've never really drawn them before. And the few that I did draw in the past...weren't very good lol

So I'm probably the most surprised by how decent they turned out 😂

There's still lots of room for improvement but I've learned a lot from drawing the bgs in the demo so please look forward to (hopefully) better looking backgrounds from now on (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

UI design

We sort of had a general concept to use a scrapbook/journal design for the UI. Since the premise of the story was for Morgan (player character) to reminisce about their time in their childhood town. So a scrapbook and journal type of design was what we envisioned. 

It's still quite a simple design as we're still getting used to designing UI (tools and techniques) for visual novels 😅

I mostly used photoshop and figma. I used figma to design some of the components while I used photoshop to lay them out and other design/color customization.

I'm still figuring out the best tools for me, so hopefully I'll get better.

Ren'py Dev

Developing on Ren’py was relatively easy to pick up, however other customizations, I (mari) needed to figure out and research online, especially for some features that nana wanted to implement, but had to push back to the full version as I didn’t know how to do them in time for the demo release.

But I definitely learned alot in developing vns on Ren’py, and hopefully I get to do more UI and feature dev to fully customize our future projects.

3. Demo

We released our demo in time for SuNoFes 2022, as we thought it would be a good place to get feedback as well as place a deadline on ourselves, since we both just went on our own pace when developing the assets.

We definitely went through alot of trial and error with the art, sprites and development on ren’py, but we were figuring it out our vision for the game as we went along. 

We’re still figuring out a proper workflow for the both of us, as well as the practices other visual novel groups do for their projects. If you have any suggestions, we’re open to them! hehe

Moving Forward

Current Progress In Norvale Post-Demo:

We recently finished finalizing the story for the Craft Store and are currently working on character designs for the characters that will be present in it.

Further Improvements After the Demo Release:

We've received feedback on the demo from players via our satisfaction survey and will be improving the game based on that. We also plan to rework certain assets we felt could be polished a bit more, namely the backgrounds and UI design.

The start screen will definitely be changed! As we plan to use an art CG for it, do look forward to it!

We also had issues with implementing sound into the demo, so we're looking into that as well and hopefully be able to add sfx and music into the game.

And that's it for our first devlog! We hope you could follow us along this journey as Alchemilla Studios and for Norvale!

Please do check out the demo of Norvale on itch.io as well!

Links

Carrd: Alchemilla Studios

Twitter: @Alchemil_Studio

Instagram: @Alchemil_Studio

Itch.io: Alchemilla Studios

[cloudninetonine]

Hello me again. Still trying to fight off sleep issues so I present to you: more Courage, Koridai, and Sprite headcannons. They're kinda long sorry.

____________________________________________

Koridai and Courage alternate nicknames were a little hard for me to figure out since we know so little ab them from the source material, however I have come up with something.

Thought process: The chain's alt nicknames (I'll call them ANNs for simplicity) have been around their occupation before or during their journeys - Champion/Smithy, Sailor/Captain - or have been to do with experience (such as age like 'Old Man', or amount of adventures like 'Veteran').

For Courage, it was a little more to do with after his journey. He becomes Wisdom's partner, which would make him Prince Consort. Hence forth, I propose to you all the ANN: 'Prince'. (Also fits with the design I gave him a bit).

Koridai's ANN was a lot trickier. From the little we get of his actual background from the CD-i games' cutscenes, we only really discover that he's got some relation to the royal family to be so close with King Harkinian (who also shares the name w Courage's King fun fact), Princess Zelda, Impa etc. We know literally nothing about Link. So I improvised a little backstory for him to solve this. If anyone has any better ideas, please voice them to the public, I was struggling.

Essentially, Koridai is from a family of important merchants who control the travel of goods in the kingdom, making them quite close to the Royal family so they can import and export resources across the land, and change trading routes. So basically, my boy comes from status. He got his sword and shield not from the castle, but from his auntie who is the head of the family. She took one listen to the prophecy and gave him this sword and shield made of high-quality metals with that enchantment Hyrule has on his. Might even go a step further and place the games in the timeline by saying it IS Hyrule's sword idk. Anyways all this to say what if we give the ANN 'Trader' or 'Merchant' to Koridai.

Also if we're giving Sprite an ANN, it would be obvious to name her 'Fairy' but that's like nicknaming one of the Chain 'Hylian'. So since she doesn't have a job and basically no prior experience, I encourage you to choose from 'Trickster' if she's more on the mischievous side, or 'Clematis' which is a type of flower I used in her design.

(Fun fact, struggled so much w Koridai, I debated on whether or not to suggest 'Mirror' after the one he gets trapped in in Wand of Gamelon. I decided against it) __________________________________________ Ages are fun! And is also a great way of showing dynamics, personality, and explain any downright tomfoolery. So we're doing that with Koridai, Courage, and Sprite.

Imo, Sprite would rather beat Courage with a stick than admit her age, so its largely unknown. But, since she's fae and (from my research) they live to ab 500-600, I'd estimate she's around 250 years old.

Courage, the absolute fool, is about 14. Generally bc it explains why he's so cringey and stupid, but I feel like he'd be ashamed of it upon hearing that people younger than him have achieved much greater (ie, Wind, Time, Legend, Hyrule etc). He's prob real self conscious ab it so sometimes exaggerates his behaviour to make the Chain think he's younger than he is. Maybe he's even lied about it.

Koridai I'd put at squarely 16 or 17. He's been on essentially 3 adventures by now, 2 where he's needed rescuing, so there's prob a year at least between them. He's cringey but in the way that nightcore kids used to be seen by people in 2010s iykwim. Basically just a whole lot of self esteem issues and helplessness packed into one bundle and hidden away with a cocky attitude and cringey behaviour.

____________________________________________

Again sorry for the length, I seriously can't do anything else atm so I'm hoping writing this kind of stuff will help me get to sleep.

It's okay babes don't worry about it! Whatever helps!

OKAY BUT NOT THE NIGHT ORE GIVING ME FLASHBACKS BABES.

Also loving this headcanons, love your iterations of them so much! (Especially the nicknames, got me thinking of what I should nickname them for my own stories- oh well, I'll give myself time.)

[hasgudagudadoneanythingwrong]

Hey hey, so, this blog's run by the Prisms Collective, a plural system with a bunch of Fate introjects. What that means is explained over in this post, but TL;DR: A bunch of people, one brain, and that includes a bunch of copy/pasted canon-divergent versions of various F/GO Servants, too. How that works is kind of explained over there, but basically it just happens, whether we like it or not. Cool, anyway.

While just existing is pretty great on its own, it's also fun as hell answering questions and just chatting a bunch, so we've put together a handy-dandy guide for you to help ease things along! Give it a read, even if ya don't chat much. Gives a good idea what you're lookin' at here.

Inbox Logistics:

Not every ask will get a sprite comic for it, even if you're lookin' for one. We get a lot of burnout/fatigue, so we're running on an "if we feel like it" basis to keep things afloat currently. These things take up to an hour to make sometimes, so we might just cut it short or answer over text, instead.

Asks might sit in the inbox for a hot minute sometimes, too. Don't worry, we don't forget about any of 'em, we're just running a juggling act between said burnout/fatigue and people not always being too close to front, either. We'll get around to 'em one way or another eventually, though.

Preferences:

While the occasional hypothetical's chill, we're really not a headcanon blog at all. We tend to look at most headcanons like "so true...??" while headcanon requests just kind of feel like there's an expected answer we gotta live up to, regardless of how we might actually respond. Just kinda puts a lot of pressure to live up to canon, when that kind of stifles the whole uh, being our own people thing, ya know?

Otherwise, don't worry 'bout asking any uncomfy questions or anything, we're all super open about basically everything. Full permission to ask all the questions ya want about what our thoughts are on canon stuff, what interests we got, our opinions on each other, if we like your recommendations, what it's like being in a system, literally whatever.

We're all just here to have a good time, so as long as you're chill about stuff, we're chill too.

About us:

We all fall under the name "Prisms Collective," though Az is usually the one running the blog itself. They're the host, and also taken the role of Master for most the Servants here, too. There's other people here too though as a heads up, you just won't see 'em as common.

There's actually not too many Servants here, compared to canon at least. It's pretty much just limited to the GUDAGUDA cast and a few stragglers, and even then we don't quite got everybody. No Mash or daVinky even, it's that small.

Basically, just consider us to basically be a handful of Servants camping out by the boiler room with no regard to literally any plot. Just us, the inbox, and whatever the hell's outside of here I guess. There's some non-Fate and IRL stuff here too on occasion, but not too often besides Az.

While it might be a bit unusual of an arrangement, that's a price we'll pay to be open and honest about shit, so we'll still take it.

In any case, we don't (actually) bite, so hey, stop by, have some fun. No need to worry about appearances here, we're just happy to hang out with whoever stops by a while.

Thanks for the read, -Berserker Nobu

[autumnblogs]

Day 10: I think the true purpose of this game is to see how many qualifiers we can get to precede the word "self" and still understand what we're talking about

https://homestuck.com/story/1642

I don’t think anyone has said much about Calsprite. There’s not much to be said. I’m pretty sure, based on the Juju rules, that this Lil Cal probably doesn’t count as the real one - supposedly, any version of a Juju from a Doomed Timeline doesn’t count as the real thing? In any case, it’s a very mild comfort that this being isn’t a source of even more power for the already arbitrarily powerful Lord English.

Another thing that I think is interesting to note is that Dave’s use of iPhone technology marks him, in my opinion, as a poseur. While I am by no means advocating against buying from Microsoft’s competitors, but Mac vs. PC is one of those parts of my childhood, and as an actual IT Professional I’ve learned more than a little about the way that they brand themselves and the history of Apple’s struggle for market share - Apple doesn’t advertise its products as computing alternatives, or as productivity software, or whatever - Apple sells a lifestyle. Apple products are styled as the sexier, more cerebral, more artistic, more individualistic alternative to Microsoft’s products, a computer not for the Office Drone but for... well, the Hipster. Hipsters have stopped really being a thing, or at least, nobody calls themselves that any more.

Like the vast majority of subcultures, I suspect the hipster subculture has kind of been swallowed by time, its symbols expropriated by Capitalism, its center hollowed out and its aesthetics packaged for mass production, as the cynical and jaded approach to popular culture of the hipster, along with its more enthusiastic counterpart “the geek” (actually pretty well personified by John!) became more mainstream - both stereotypes are probably a part of Homestuck’s general commentary on fandom. Fandom is something I think Homestuck talks about, but I don’t think it’s something Homestuck is about in quite the same way that it’s about, say, Narratives, or Reproduction.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/1643

While Homestuck has been a story that involves some time loops, Act 4 is where it really gets off the ground as an actual Time Travel story. The thing about Time Travel stories, like the thing about Cosmic Horror Stories, is that once a story starts having Time Travel, or Cosmic Horrors in it, it’s that genre forever. This is why DND, for example, is part of a cosmic horror story, because something like 20 years ago, an adventure writer decided that there should be the Far Realm, and now it casts its sticky pall over the rest of the game’s setting.

Homestuck sidesteps this issue largely by involving all of the genres that do this to a story, and just kind of blending them all together into a genre-busting stew. Homestuck is a superhero story. Homestuck is a creation story. Homestuck is a theogony. Homestuck is a cosmic horror story. Homestuck is a time travel story. And so on and so on.

https://homestuck.com/story/1657

And so began one of the greatest partnerships in the history of Paradox Space.

Also of note is that Terezi compares Dave to fire here, not the first or the last bit of symbolism linking him to that element. It’s pretty strongly linked, in general, with The Hero, in kind of the same way that the color Red, and the Sword is in these sorts of things.

Dave fits the Classic Hero Archetype a lot better in a lot of ways than John does, and Bro has been training him for that role since birth. On a much larger scale, Lord English has decreed from his position as the overlord of Paradox Space that Dave is the Hero who should defeat him.

https://homestuck.com/story/1663

Friendship proves once again to be one of the most powerful forces in the universe, changing John’s direction, and steering him away from disaster.

https://homestuck.com/story/1667

Not much to say about this conversation, but the transition between Karkat’s explanation of the Veil and the beginning of [S]Jack: Ascend is smooth as fuck.

https://homestuck.com/story/1670

Our very first self-indulgent author self-insert; the Fourth Wall is explicitly identified as a Fenestrated Plane. 1 Point for the Narrative Contrivance hypothesis.

https://homestuck.com/story/1692

Dave actually does care immensely. Not only does he spend a ton of his time being overshadowed by cooler more powerful men like Bro, and John, now Dave even has to spend his time being overshadowed by cooler versions of himself - and that goes in both directions - both Davesprite and Dave seem to think that the other is the more real, more cool Dave!

https://homestuck.com/story/1710

As a Light Player, Rose is preoccupied with Meaning. She sees it everywhere, and she certainly sees where it is not (at least when she is not Miserable with a capital M). Meaning and Value - Fortune - is not intrinsic to this item, but it is instead bestowed upon it by the fact that Rose loves it, and by the work that Rose put into it. The Rabbit is a labor of love and a treasured belonging, and the Love in the Rabbit is the Light that the Seer Sees.

https://homestuck.com/story/1714

I’m pretty sure that John and Kanaya only talk to each other about twice in all of Homestuck, which is a bit of a shame! John and Karkat are really a lot more alike each other than either of them is comfortable admitting (which I think is probably why Dave is attracted to Karkat). By the transitive law of friendship, it seems to me that John and Kanaya would probably be pretty good friends. On the subject of the other diagonal line in the quadrangle of friendship, I wonder if Rose and Karkat talk to each other pretty much ever?

https://homestuck.com/story/1715

The clear indication here is a parallel between Dave and Sollux, but like a lot of things that probably didn’t go as intended with the Trolls, nothing much ends up materializing from it. I suppose that by fucking off to do nothing for the rest of the adventure, Sollux gets to live Dave’s dream for him, so there’s that.

https://homestuck.com/story/1720

Adorable. This is one of the happiest little moments in the comic.

So often, characters are cut off from one another by moments. They just miss each other, or literally can’t understand each other because of supernatural shenanigans, or can’t communicate with each other on screen because of the way that communication can’t happen unmediated in Homestuck.

And even when they can talk to each other, often the awkwardness and pain of communicating with other people, of trying to get them to understand you the way you actually are, instead of only seeing you one certain way, is too great, and communication proves impossible.

But here, Rose and Dave don’t need words to hang out.

They shut up and jam.

(It’s also incredibly sweet that Rose‘s actual in-person esteem of Dave is so great that she cannot restrain her own thought process. For all her joshing, she really does think Dave is cool.)

https://homestuck.com/story/1722

Also incredibly sweet that Rose’s first order of business as soon as they’re done playing around is to destroy that goddamn puppet.

https://homestuck.com/story/1754

Just missed him.

https://homestuck.com/story/1775

I wish not to contemplate the implication that Homestuck Sprite Mode Legs are actually wafer thin.

https://homestuck.com/story/1812

Nearly as soon as Rose has awoken and absorbed herself from the Doomed Timeline, she gets down to business alchemizing a lot of dangerous and powerful artifacts in preparation to fuck shit up. I’ve never thought about it much before, but I think it’s not hard to say that the memories she absorbed from the other timeline cause Rose to embrace her more reckless and less charitable side. She comments on her own dangerous pursuit of power, and then immediately ignores that train of thought.

https://homestuck.com/story/1836

Dave sure is fixated on bottoms.

https://homestuck.com/story/1852

Note to self. Come back to this.

So far, the only thing of note is the number 12, a portent related to the victors of Homestuck, if only coincidentally.

https://homestuck.com/story/1857

Dave’s sincerity senses are tingling. Maybe it’s an instinct since he and Roxy are pretty similar people, maybe it’s just because Dave himself is not nearly as insincere as he wants to be.

Dave’s anxiety about being watched is also probably best exemplified by his insistence on hiding his eyes behind glasses.

https://homestuck.com/story/1887

Adorable!

I wonder if Andrew already had the sprite designs for these squirts, and their names picked out at this time.

The hair and accessories are certainly correct.

https://homestuck.com/story/1895

Before I get too much further into this sequence, I’d like to pause and take a second to just appreciate this prose. The style is captivating.

The shipping pun is also pretty good.

https://homestuck.com/story/1903

BladeKindEyeWear has already done a pretty good job explaining what the Ultimate Riddle is, so I won’t belabor it too much more than he has here. The Ultimate Riddle itself is, “What Will You Do?” And the answer to it is, “Do What You Will.”

Do What You Will isn’t just the inscription on AURYN, it’s also an extremely old phrase intended for spiritual enlightenment, historically first formulated by Saint Augustine in his Sermon On Love, where he puts it thusly, “Love, and Do What You Will.” The Love that Augustine is talking about is not Romantic Love or even familial love, but Universal Unconditional Love - goodwill toward everyone and everything, to have one’s Heart’s Desire be that everyone should flourish and be happy.

Another formulation, the Wiccan Rede is, “An It Harm None, Do What Ye Will,” perhaps a more detached, declaration. In either case, the Will here is not talking about merely chasing simple wants, but an invitation to follow one’s true will, not to respond to simple passions, but to take voluntary action in accordance with who one is as a person.

https://homestuck.com/story/1905

threatening.............

https://homestuck.com/story/1922

Jake Harley begins a life of serial abandonment.

https://homestuck.com/story/1930

I really should have brought this up first when Rose and Davesprite went back into time, but this is about the time Homestuck starts to get lousy with all kinds of alternate selves, Dream Selves, Doomed Selves, and so on and so on, and from a narrative frame of reference, they’re actually all literally the same guy - the actions of one version of a character inform us about all versions of that character.

More on that later.

https://homestuck.com/story/1931

More Roleplaying. John has a wild imagine spot.

https://homestuck.com/story/1934

Dave stares at the blood on his hands, and contemplates his death for a long time.

https://homestuck.com/story/1936

Some immediate foreshadowing in here. Jade, I’m pretty sure, is one of the few people in Tavros’ life who shows him some genuine unconditional friendliness, so it’s no wonder that he latches onto her.

The way he does is still pretty creepy though.

https://homestuck.com/story/1940

As long as I’m mostly focusing on the emotional dimension of Homestuck, the two major emotional beats in this Flash are the Sovereign Slayer slaughtering WV’s army, revealing the source of his self-loathing and trauma, and the death of Jade’s Dream Self.

The death of her Dream Self is not nearly the beginning of Jade’s Trauma Conga Line, but it’s definitely the first in the chain of events that leads her to finally snap out of her learned helplessness and blind optimism, and to start taking her fate into her own hands. She’s been so sure of her destiny up to this point, and now things are finally starting to get out of hand.

Also, I choose to believe that the bizarre Squiddles interlude is the first moment that the Dark Gods make contact with Jade’s psyche. They know she’s about to die, and they’re starting to communicate with her.

Anyway, that’s all for today.

Yesterday’s cough turned out to be post-viral infection, since I had Covid the week of the 11th, so for now this is Cam signing off, Medicated, and Not Alone.

[staytiny-angel]

Safe Haven 4/?

Rating: E

Pairings: Drew McIntyre/Becky Lynch, Eventually Drew McIntyre/Becky Lynch/Seth Rollins, Jon Moxley/Renee Young, Sasha Banks/Bayley/Charlotte Flair, Mandy Rose/Trent Seven, Jordan Devlin/Millie McKenzie, Ruby Riott/Liv Morgan

Warnings for this Chapter: mentions of violence

Chapter Summary: Drew and Becky get to know their new mate better while meeting members of his unorthodox family, Plans are made to rescue Roman from Heyman's evil clutches.

Taglist:

@hitory--chan @sethsevolution @finnsauroraborealis @the-beastslayers-queen @pikapuff316 @writinglionqueen @writtingrose

"SETHIE!" Seth hadn't even made it back to town before being tackled by a overly hyperactive blonde girl.

"I missed you too Liv" Seth groaned, slightly out of breath.

"You're lucky I'm here and not Rubes, she's very mad at ya"

Seth grimaced at the thought of seeing his older sister.

"Hey! Redhead!" Liv yelled at Becky. "Is this too basic" she gestured at her hair.

"Um-"

"You're right, too boring" Liv pulled out a compact mirror and smiled at it, Becky and Drew staring in shock as her hair turned bubblegum pink.

"How?" Drew asked Seth.

"Liv's a chaos fairy. Hyper 24/7, pranks everybody. C'mon brat" Liv squealed and hopped onto his back..

"Hey Livvie, Mom conjured my clothes..would you mind?" Seth asked his sister's girlfriend

Drew and Becky watched curiously as the unremarkable clothes Seth's mother had put on him morphed into dark-grey skinny jeans and a blood-red t-shirt.

"Hair too?" the fairy asked

"Yes please."

Seth shook his head and a quarter of it immediately went blond "There ya go Sethie! You look like you again, only bigger!" Liv giggles, patting the wolf on the head.

"Thanks Livvy" Seth grinned. "You're still small though"

"I'm still bigger than Millie!" Liv managed to kick Seth in the hip. "Good luck apologizing to everyone. Trent's mad because you made Tyler cry!"

"Tyler always cries!"

"Okay true, but you also made Mandy upset!"

"How long have you been away from home?" Becky asks

"I haven't lived in Haven in 8 years. I lost contact with everyone 18 months ago." Seth explained

"Dude the only reason we didn't completely lose it was because we still felt you through the pack bond" Liv tells him "We knew you weren't dead but...it was hard, anyway so why are you with the newbies?" Liv asked as they made their way to the main house.

"They're my mates." Seth said simply.

"Oooooh, Sethie's got two mates!" Liv said excitedly. Becky looking at her with caution. "I need to see Sarah, you are making me coffee later!" Liv hugged him and skipped off, Becky and Drew watching her.

"I've only heard of chaos fairies, she was...unique" Becky said.

"I need to remind Ceasero she's not allowed any caffeine" Seth said shaking his head

The three mates walked along the path back to the town in silence after Liv left. None of them really knowing what to say.

"So you guys have had this town for a long time?" Becky finally broke the increasingly uncomfortable tension

"My grandparents founded Haven. Grandfather...used to run a circus and all of the acts were different beings. When he retired, everyone just settled here. Haven was these old fairgrounds and some of the woods surrounding it."

"A Circus?" Drew exclaimed

"Grandfather was a warlock, especially skilled in persuasion and he figured it would be a way for him and his friends to not only use their abilities for profit, but to not have to hide as much. Normies will ignore most Supe shit if they think its a trick"

"Absolutely true, they're dense as hell" Becky replied.

"So, you knew Finn?" Seth asked.

"Sort of, his name was Prince back then, always wondered what happened, not surprised that vampires had something to do with it...when they helped save you. I can't believe I just said that" Becky facepalmed, remembering what Mox and Stephanie had said.

Seth smiled and shook his head "I know Haven is an odd case. Weird even amongst the weird. I mean, I'm the Wolf/Warlock hybrid that claims a Lion, a Witch, a Vampire Queen and a Vampire thats the vessel for a literal demon king for parents. Weird is kinda my thing"

"Do you remember that night?" Becky asked. Seth looked down, toying with his amulet before sitting down.

"A little. I remember being in a car with my mommy and daddy" Seth said in a faraway voice "The was a big flash of light and loud noise, and then I was flying through the woods. I had bite marks on the back of my neck. Knowing now what I know about my bio parents, I think my Mom shifted and was carrying me through the woods by the scruff of my neck."

Becky hesitantly reached over and touched the top of Seth's bowed head. Drew looking on silently. It seemed like his spitfire was already growing attached to the younger man, while Drew himself was more hesitant. Seth lived...by Drew's upbringing, an unnatural life. Haven was a lot to get used to and he'd had Becky to himself for so long.

"Do you think it's possible that your mom changed you?" Drew asked. "To protect you?"

"Could be I don't know" Seth pulled his hair. "I don't like thinking about it"

"Hey brat" A girl said, materializing next to the three. She was holding a coffee cup and had red lowlights and was so pale, Drew thought she could be a vampire.

"Hey, Ruby." Seth said quietly, "Guys this is one of my sisters."

"Yo." The girl greeted them easily and handed her brother the Chicago Bears to-go mug "One Double Chocolate Cappuccino, courtesy of Cesaro. Figured you could use it, heard you haven't had coffee in a year or so."

"No espresso?" Seth groaned.

"You know he puts too much in" Ruby said, "Besides I want to be able to sleep tonight. Your howling was obnoxious" she turned to Drew and Becky. "If either of you hurt my little brother, I will rip out your eyes and shove them down your throats"

"Ruby."

"What it's true. We lost you once, brat. Never again" She replied with a smile

"Did anyone mention that Seth is the baby?" Ruby asked

"Millie is younger then me thank you very much" Seth said rolling his eyes and taking a sip of his drink

"Millie hasn't been missing for 18 months, and gone for 7 and a half years before that. So excuse us if we're all a bit concerned about all this" she says waving a hand at Drew and Becky.

"Excuse me, who's Millie?" Becky asked.

"My baby cousin" Seth replied fondly. "She's my Uncle Shawn's kid"

"She's a fire siren, sneezes out fire like crazy" Ruby added, drinking her coffee.

"She doesn't have much in the way of control yet. So she sets shit on fire a lot...luckily her mate is a water sprite. Jordan is really great st putting out flare-ups" Seth explains "Please don't threaten my mates. Honestly, I'm a hot mess. I doubt they even want to be with me anyway"

"Nonsense" Ruby waved her hand. "Mates are mates always. Do you think I would have gotten with Liv by choice?" Seth chuckled and blushed when Becky smiled at him. " Does anyone know about Ro?" He asked.

Ruby's face fell. "Mom is working on a tracking spell, since you don't remember exactly where Heyman's compound is located. Dad is making her rest before she casts it though so that won't be done until tomorrow, the good this is that Heyman can only do his enslaving curse during the full moon...so we have 6 days to find Ro."

"Fuck" Seth pulled at his hair. "None of this would have happened if I hadn't ran away"

"Stop it" Drew said, gently pulling Seth's hands down.

Drew had sat there quietly listening to the exchange between Seth and his sister, trying to learn more about the odd man the fates had bound him and his firecracker to. From what he'd gathered so far Seth was well-loved by his mismatched pack and had been sorely missed while on his journey of self-discovery.

"Don't beat yourself up. You couldn't have known any of this would happen" Drew says softly, still holding Seth's hands in his larger ones. Seth's brother had been right. Seth did look amazingly...like a slightly smaller version of himself, less so now that part of his hair was platinum blonde.

"He's my big brother" Seth whimpered. "He doesn't even know I'm not mad at him anymore, if Paul's spell works on him, he'll be gone for good" Drew unknowingly wiped away a tear that had trailed down Seth's face.

Becky wrapped her arms around Seth's waist "That isn't going to happen, sweetheart. We are going to get your brother back and Heyman will pay for everything he's done to both of you." She says fiercely. To which Seth nodded but said nothing.

"Forgive me for asking but are you his sister from the witch side or vampire side?" Drew asked Ruby.

"Stephanie and Hunter, can't be around Finn and Violet, my blood is toxic and Bálor hates me" Ruby answered

"I only have one sibling from Finn and Violet and that's Jordan. He's the last of Finn's pre vampiric bloodline. His parents died when he was a baby, and an old woman from his clan brought him to Haven shortly after" Seth tells them.

"Is this the same Jordan that's your cousin's mate?" Becky asked. "Yeah, thought my uncle was gonna kill him, then Finn was gonna kill him" Seth shook his head.

"Haven is completely integrated? " Drew asked, he and Becky hadn't realized just how many different species of Supernatural inhabited the small town.

"Unless they can't be around each other for a physiological reason, yep" Ruby answered "One of our cousins is a sun sprite, and she glows with actual sunlight. So she can't be around Finn and Violet."

"No one gets turned away unless you give our father a reason to" Seth said, "The pack is a family"

[joytraveler]

11. Last Of Them All

This game once again features a well-drawn title screen, showing a house at night with warmly glowing windows, a treehouse in the front yard and a tricycle underneath it. The only instructions are "Press Start".

When Bea does so, a JRPG begins! The graphics are reminiscent of the original Dragon Quest, and the opening cinematic shows a family waking up. First there's a boy with red hair, who jumps out of bed and runs down the stairs. He's followed by a much smaller girl with pony tails, then two more boys. The last one to emerge from the bedroom is the character Bea controls.

"Hello! Hey! Hi! Hi! He- oh its me, good morninnng! Is this gonna be like.. Chrono Bound? Earth Trigger"

"First things first, I have to eat video game breakfast"

Glockroach: Bea speaking as someone with four siblings your life is gonna be hell now HNV: oh shit Bea you need to play Earthbound Beginnings after this

When you trot downstairs, the kids are all playing, tossing dolls around and making a mess of things. The red-haired boy-- apparently the eldest-- says, "Go get Mom and Dad for breakfast, I'll go get the paper."

Going back upstairs, the doorway to Mom and Dad's room is now open. Mom's sprite looks familiar, she has the same red hair as your big brother.

"Hi mo- MOM YOUR HEAD'S ON FIRE!"

Llord_Kuruku: Was mom up all night keeping bedbugs out of my bed? Love you mom! Baconnaise: That's all they do when we're asleep and now we know what ungrateful wretches we were

Once you wake up Mom, she goes down the stairs. Father stays in bed and mumbles "Go ask your mother", when you address him

He does, however, tell you your name-- apparently you're Zoku. "Shouldn't I be a big green soldier robot- oh Zoku, never mind!"

aroseahorseboy: yeah, you're a desktop popsicle maker, congrats.

"Okay I get all your breakfast then!" Bea holds down the "B" button and finds she can dash, neat! "GAH, NYOOM.. forgot I had my Nikes on, right?"

"And you can move in every direction, i don't feel like i'm on a grid like most of these"

As soon as Zoku hits the edge of the screen where the stairs lead from upstairs to downstairs, though, the screen goes black. There's a loud banging sound effect-- and a digitized woman's scream.

"DON'T-!!! What for!? Why??"

Glockroach: You tripped you clumsy idiot berd_snurglar: oh man i was worried they'd be dead when we found them but i'm glad we could be there

"Nobody's dead- are they?? Damn you game, are you LOADING on me?!" "How...dare you"

Finally, after that long black screen, the lower floor loads-- but different. The house is dark, it's night. The house has been even more torn apart than by five children; furniture smashed and scattered, windows broken, moonlight coming through.

Zoku is different too. Bea is now controlling an armored, gun-toting soldier in helmet and goggles, who is accompanied by two more. One of them gestures for him to follow, and he pauses and says, "I knew this looked familiar," before handing control back to Bea.

Baconnaise: So Earthbound grew up and it turned out all bad :( berd_snurglar: i really wish i hadn't voted for the pig kid on retrospect

"I assume we'll figure out more as we get further in, but hang in there guys, this could still be fun! Look, one guy is a robot! Or maybe he just has a cool helmet. I'd say this is like Metal Max but nobody knows what that is"

she tries walking around the area- the ruins of a town. she hasn't encountered any enemies yet, but there's nothing to find either.. it really does feel lonely.

When Bea reaches the rendezvous point, the soldiers rejoin Zoku for another briefing.

["You all know a save point when you see one. They're the cornerstone of what's left of our civilization. I need to tell you now: BEWARE. Some of the ones you'll be seeing up ahead are booby traps."]

Baconnaise: Heehee, booby

"Maybe this is just the kids playing in the backyard and its all in their imagination.. Hey let's play dystopian crapscape in the backyard, that's always a blast"

Glockroach: They're all Fallout nerds Llord_Kuruku: I like how save points aren't just something imaginary, they're a literal presence in the game

"He did say that.." The first one she sees makes her pause. Can she trust this old standby in this game? She goes for it.

[SAVE COMPLETE! YOU WILL RETURN FROM THIS SPACE.]

aroseahorseboy: bea that was a huge gamble you just took there

"All right, we're just gonna have to try to get as far as we can and save as little as possible, then. Looks like that's the name of the game!"

The journey through the town commences, with shattered buildings and rubble to navigate your way through-- and surprisingly frequent save points. What isn't frequent is enemies, or anything at all to fight; nothing appears on the screen but your fellow soldiers, and there don't seem to be random encounters.

"First I was excited.. then I was worried, then I was excited again and now I'm just booored" she finally groans. "It would have been nice to have game to go with this opening scene we just had, huh"

The only thing that seems to change is the number of save points-- at first we were seeing them every few screens, but now there's two and three per screen. Soon the screen starts to become a maze of save points to avoid!

Baconnaise: This IS the game bea, you're in save point hell

"Ugh, forge ahead, or quit this one, guys? I really think they just didn't finish this one because otherwise- No Bacon come on, nobody's that cruel.."

HNV: See if you can find one that's booby-trapped, I want to see what happens!

"Good idea, let's see what thats all about!" she steers her party right into the next column of save points she comes to!

[SAVE COMPLETE! YOU WILL RETURN FROM THIS SPACE.]

The whole row keeps saving her place... until the last one. This one causes Zoku to pixelate and disappear!

The black Continue/End screen appears.

"Well that was.. underwhelming?" she reflects on the game a moment. "Heh, the last one. I guess so. Weird."

aroseahorseboy: Bea these are weird but i honestly can't get enough of them Baconnaise: Me neither, keep doing them Don't question it just keep going til you get to the men

"Well, we're finishing this page anyway, it's been a pretty crazy session! I mean I knew it would but, wow. It's been great doing it with you guys though, I'm so happy I dont have to make the journey alone!"

Klickitat_Street: At least there'd be plenty of save points for you if you did! aroseahorseboy: we love you too now PLAY, ho ho ho

[wedadatef]

badassصلب، قوي Yea its you One and only Trademark yourself before someone steals you نعم لكنت واحدة والعلامات التجارية نفسك فقط قبل شخص يسرق لك hi!! how are you? good cool what's up? every thing is fine oh cool tell me what happened with you last time? ??? what? you said you will tell me tomorrow sorry i was updateing on twitter just forget it oh! it's okay so tell me againnnn tell u what just over it i don't know what are you talking about tell me why are you reacting that too narrow last time ?? when i asked you.you said you will tell me tomorrow i told you accept me like that u don't like it just scape this chat   you know you're the most innocent girl i know thats why i am talking to you too freely please don't hate haha i don't u force me to hate when i said just forget it just do it no we had a nice chat last time did i begged you for pictures?? did i forced you to do such forbidden things ? i just a want an open minded friend عليا و عليكي حياتي sorry send it wrong okay but please anwser me did i begged you for pictures?did i forced you to do such forbidden things ? i just a want an open minded friend a one female friend who can share everything with me and i can share everything with her that's it we can be friends then? talk all time about sadness and happiest everything but not about your bra size or talking from that u understanding me orr will you be in flirtationship with me?? More than best friend and less than relationship it will be fun nope no issues just share your feeling and thaughts with me and i will share mine with you what the point ? what's problem in that?? the point is you can tell me about your desires and your wishes and i will share mine with you okay ?? lol nuh no just said yes then i will ask you a question that you have to answer i don't how would you react if i asked that question you will think that i am illiterate or get dropped from college or a man with illness but it's very interesting question and think that muslim community has it's answer ????! answer me muslim community yeah you're muslim i know what do you mean about muslim community just said yes yes i am i just do get what u said okay ask me do you believe in spirit and super natural things? or paranormal stuff? yes u don't i believe in black magic too same.. i believe it but some people call me i am just faggot are u a muslim too no i belongs to Christianity what the f*** ??? what?? ok brother we are one muslim or Christian religion does not matter okay but why did you said What The Fuck ?? is there any problem talking to Christians?? What relationship between believed in ghosts and faggot no i called u a bro u think it's a broplem they think i am idiot no u don't no when i said i belongs to Christianity then you said WHAT THE FUCK i am asking you that is there any problem with me ? believe in spirit and super natural things? or paranormal Stov I think the spirits and the supernatural found in the Bible and the Qur'an because i am Christian no no no no no i have many friends even i love justin bieber sooooooooooooooo much and selena gomez and they are Christian yeah but now days humans think that science is god is it wrong okay k i don't like it when you said what the fuck okay have you ever heard of these things? about spirit and super natural things? اسم شبح ghost, shadow, bogey, sprite, phantom, apparition روح spirit, soul, life, essence, psyche, ghost خيال imagination, fantasy, fiction, silhouette, shadow, ghost طيف spectrum, shadow, ghost, vision, phantom, shade ظل shadow, shade, umbrage, umbra, ghost روح شريرة evil spirit, poltergeist, ghost, ghoul زور ghost, spectrum yep yes tell me About it my brother see 3 ghost You received a photo! Click and hold to viewreally?? when tell me from the beginning A deserted place for a long time was a mill for wheat just that yep yes tell me About it my brother see 3 ghost You received a photo! Click and hold to viewreally?? when tell me from the beginning A deserted place for a long time was a mill for wheat just that and? when did they see ghosts? Message failed to send: that what he said that what he said last year in march oh cool what are ghost doing? nothing just show off and disappears can i ask why did you ask me that? Coz you're muslim just that cuz i'm muslim yeah u didn't know whay?? There is a program on the radio about the true horror and the ring was inhabited for hotels, hotel inhabited all located in America, Canada, Italy You received a photo! Click and hold to view Mar 14, 2017, 11:16 PM i know that show are u arab for god sake no i am not an Arabic Guy hahahahahahhahaa cuz u say i know it i know that show not arabic that's an arab show on the radio no i think i watch other one then Ghost Hunters i watch that show and that's not even in arabic language https://youtu.be/1iZ5T8a4JGQ i know   Mar 14, 2017, 11:26 PM then?? why did you told me i am arabic? i feel oor u older man idk i'm not even usually awake by then by the way why u wake ? well idk couldnt sleep was feeling idk i I used to wake early from college then i wake up now what time is early for you? 5 am all the week i wake up at 5am WOW yes im travel to coolege and go home how long does it take to go to college? 2hour omg yeaah wow you are dedicated my name wedad nice talking to you Wedad! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT8F4TbX2t4 everything is possible ...but true love is impossible Hi Looking for a decent female for a friendly conversation Let's have a chat Clean chat only...! Can't even stand my own attitude sometimes, another person's is impossible! so please keep it simple... 15 مارس 01:28 ص What do you do?? I am a doctor i'm a student 4our year agriculture and biology college You live in Egypt? Good May i look at you? y? Maybe we can good friends Photo opened!it that debented on a pic? Nop or? Just wanted to see arab people You people look more cute aha good answer but not convince me I don't want to convince you so Why I convince you? I am not going to propose you send ur pic who told you i will agree if you going to propose me I know your response ? That's why I am not proposing lol ok send ur pic Photo expired Mar 14, 2017, 11:59 PM What are you doing now? Mar 15, 2017, 12:02 AM nothing How many members are in your family? You have boyfriend? nope 5 Why you don't have boyfriend? You look cute when i have a boyfriend he will be my husband not just a boyfriend That's good YUP You have fb?? We can chat there? no Thanx i have to go right now Going Where? we can talk later at night if u still online So late When you will be back baby? After how much time Mar 15, 2017, 1:01 AM ???? i am not an older man Mar 15, 2017, 12:46 AM hey!! Mar 15, 2017, 1:26 AM HII AGAIN hahaha so tell me more about ghosts i just believe it i don't know much to tell you ok tell me about yourself and your family my name wedad Wedad? ok have 5 members in my family what does that mean? yes it's my name if u wonder about meaning it's about love eachother and be kind and frieandly my baba passed by since 2012   that name is matched to your personality that my name meaning cool awww that's so bad RIP your Dad yes it so hard to lose most person u love most hardest if he is your father yeah it is i am so sorry and how many sisters do you have? 3 cool hey u ask me u didn't say anything about you i am only one in my fam mom dad have three cousin Kenita Raphile Kristen My real name David Johnesburg Love's to dance hate violence flirticious but good from heart 1m what? wait i'll be back oh okay back so did you read my bio? darkkness don't be afraid? haha yeah i was the most daring guy in college once i saved poor older guy from thugs got broke my ankle and get deep cut Wrist nearly half of my veins get ripped a man return from darkest nightmare you know i wanna be a muslim guy like hashashins heros from 1300 century i'm soo sorry wait i'll be back again okay hashashins؟ i can't read it yeah what is mean u such a hero save a man from bad things they are the ones who work in the dark to serve the light hahaha i want everyone to be happy and want to be there hero good are u here in this app all time online every time so that if i get died on one day my relatives and the ones who knows me wil tell everyone how they know me no just enjoying holidays after exams i wonder if i wanna talk to u again so where i can find you on chatous u can't be online again i will be u just said just enjoying holidays after exams ok give me your WhatsApp i don't have oh!! i will be there at this time daily i even don't have a phone mine was stolen last monday i told ya before give me your number oh yeah you told me once actually there is restriction ؟ for giving our phone number to other Muslim citizens sorry تناقض contradiction, conflict, discrepancy, inconsistency, ambivalence, opposition تكذيب denial, contradiction إنكار denial, negation, renunciation, refusal, disavowal, contradiction التناقض الكامل contradiction, polarity كلام مناقض لنفسه contradiction that rule was passed by that fucking idiot trump even in canada i don't know why the fuck this happens You received a photo! Click and hold to view Mar 14, 2017, 9:12 PM Prevent Muslims from entering the country do not take their phone numbers justin trudeau is a nice guy i don't know why did he accepted Trump's suggestion wait u was asking for my WhatsApp why contradiction yeah coz you want to be in contact with me? right i can't give you my number yup but u can give me yours that's the rule no i can't too forget it okay no problem so now we're in Flirtationship with me ? Message failed to send: NOPE NOPE just kidding HEHE and pulling your leg discreet حصيف, متحفظ, عاقل, حذر, حكيم, سري reserved محجوز, متحفظ, محتشم, كتوم, مفرد لغرض خاص, مدخر للمستقبل cautious حذر, متحفظ, محترس reticent كتوم, متحفظ, صموت, قليل الكلام, متكتم aloof متحفظ careful دقيق, حذر, شديد الحرص, معتن, يقظ, متحفظ secretive كتوم, متكتم, مكتوم, مفرز, متحفظ, إفرازي close قريب, أساسي, حميم, دقيق, ضم, متحفظ incommunicable متحفظ, متعذر إبلاغه wary حذر, محترس, متحفظ, يقظ incommunicative متحفظ uncommunicative صموت, متحفظ taciturn قليل الكلام, صموت, كتوم, متحفظ, سكيت self-contained متحفظ, متميز بضبط النفس, مستقل stand-offish متحفظ