#but now i'm gonna replay the og game

[artsycloudysleepy]

a game i loved from years back got a sequel. played it and i didn't like it at all. but my main issue with it?

they. took. away. the. option. to. pet. the. dog.

i am beyond angy >:(

[iscratchdoors]

man. rw downpour makes me so sad. im one of those ppl that just didn't really enjoy what i played of it and now it's kinda ruined the game for me. i know i can just turn it off and play ol vanilla rw just fine but i feel like i'm missing out on smth the fandom is excited about and i just cannot. feel that excitement. i had fun playing gourmand then artificer totally soured me on the whole thing and now going back to the whole dlc feels more like a chore than an adventure

[sholangagaga]

What do you think happened to Glamrock Bonnie, using all of your info that you gathered through the game? your analysis on Bonnie's disappearance was really indepth

I was putting off this ask for a while because I wanted to properly gather my thoughts (and I wanted to replay Ruin like another 2 or 3 times just to make sure I got all the lore I could) but I think I have a grasp on what I want to say

BTW, Spoilers under the cut per usual, also, this theory is going by the premise of Ruin's ending. I'll reference my previous theory as well. This is also a carry over of this post.

Now, I had said in that previous post that the three Dufflebag notes told a patchy and incomplete story. Because to me, they do. But in order to decipher the story they tell, you need to think about what was happening in the Pizzaplex during that timeframe. (there's also a couple more Dufflebag notes that help the story as well, I totally forgot to put them in my earlier post)

as I said before, Bonnie and Monty were already co-existing at this point. Bonnie was the bassist, and Monty was just an animatronic with his own attraction (like how Foxy is the animatronic at the theatre and Sun/Moon/Eclipse are the animatronic for the Daycare)

Now I'm gonna preface all of this theory and information with the fact that I do not believe Monty killed/attacked Bonnie.

I simply don't.

I know what the OG Security Breach story wants us to assume, but from a logical standpoint, it simply makes no sense.

Now, let's go through this chronologically. There will be some conjecture here using the information we've seen outright, so please don't strangle me if this doesn't necessarily match canon or what-not.

First, Bonnie was the original bassist of the band. Alongside Freddy, Roxy, and Chica, they were the original cast. (I don't know why Foxy wasn't part of the original band. Maybe he WAS, long before Roxy took over, or maybe they decided Foxy would be better in the theatre/child area since prior incarnations of Foxy weren't considered bandmates, they were simply side attractions for kids)

I think it's pretty safe to say that Monty was enamored with Bonnie in some regard. At the very least, he looked up to him. In the Gator Golf attraction that shows you Monty's rise to fame, you see Monty playing something akin to a bass or a banjo all alone in his swamp. He was a One Man Band, as they say.

I think his One Man Jug Band probably played in the Gator Golf, maybe he had his own little party bookings there judging by how popular his attraction is. (Like how Roxanne's parties can be booked at Roxy Raceway/Glamrock Salon or Freddy's parties can be booked at the Atrium and main stage)

At some point, Monty became acutely aware of the main band and the stardom they enjoyed. Of course he did, they were the main focus of the Pizzaplex, and the main band had their own greenrooms along Rockstar Row, the FNAF equivalent to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, if we had to compare it to something in the real world.

It seems very obvious that Monty looked up to Bonnie. Bonnie, who shared the same instrument as him, who probably was friendly to him and maybe gave him some pointers on how to refine his playing.

You can see Monty looking up towards the band, but his gaze is localized on the star and Bonnie. Bonnie is also the only one looking at Monty. I think that, at least at this point, they were on good terms in some regard.

Now, for what happened to Bonnie. When we look at Bonnie's body, you can see that he was apparently clawed open and parts of his endoskeleton and machinery was removed and taken away.

You might be thinking, "Well, he got clawed open. So that means that Monty did it, of course."

and You'd be wrong.

If you recall, Monty got his claws in order to play the bass. Now why would he need to play bass if the band was still full and there was no need to replace Bonnie since he was still active? This is mentioned in the note MONTY UPGRADE

MAINT LOG: MONTY - Montgomery's Claw upgrades allow him to play the bass. Following performances, he mostly uses them to cause damage. The fence repairs are getting costly.

So, whoever clawed up Bonnie couldn't have been Monty. And if Monty had clawed up Bonnie, why did he rip out his hardware when he'd have no need for it?

Now what exactly happened to Bonnie can be tracked through his last night active in the Pizzaplex. Seen in the notice MISSING, we are able to see Bonnie's final movements.

SECURITY REPORT - 12:24AM - Bonnie is seen leaving his green room in Rockstar Row heading East towards the atrium. 2:40AM - Bonnie enters the East Arcade. 4:12AM - Bonnie enters Monty Golf.

Now I went into deep analysis of this in my post explaining how Bonnie is considered missing in canon, so I'll summarize it here.

Bonnie spent 3 hours and 48 minutes following a specific path in the Pizzaplex only to disappear after entering the Monty Gator Golf attraction. It took him 2hr16mins to enter the Fazcade from Rockstar Row, and then 1hr32mins to get to Monty Golf.

There's no reason it should have taken Bonnie so long to move from Point A to B. So there must've been something that he was doing during that long walk.

So my theory is that Bonnie was already injured when he exited his green room and started his journey towards the Fazcade.

My reasoning for this is mostly because of how long it took Bonnie to get to the Fazcade, but also because it doesn't make sense for him to take the path he did in the first place in the middle of the night.

I believe Bonnie sustained his injury and then left his greenroom to find help or someone to help get him to Parts and Service. He trudged his way to the Fazarcade and then went towards Monty Golf. And then something happened in Monty Golf that must've fully incapacitated Bonnie, making it so that he was unable to leave. And then at some point, he was abandoned at the back of the Bonnie Bowl and left to rot.

Now, as for what attacked him, I'm a bit up in the air about it since I don't know what exactly is the true canon-line for the game. I've heard some people imply the Burntrap and Blob ending was deemed noncanon and instead the ending of Ruin involving the Mimic IS the true ending. That confused me because the Mimic didn't appear at all in SB (as far as I recall, and I poured over that game pretty intensely) and in the Ruin ending, you see the area where the final battle against Burntrap took place. (And this isn't even touching on what exactly Malhare/M.X.E.S is, I'm assuming hes some remnant of Glitchtrap?)

After playing Ruin (and using Ruin as the main plotline) I have two theories of what attacked Bonnie.

Bonnie was attacked by the Mimic (who does have huge, sharp claws) in an effort to either build on itself or repair itself, and then maybe followed or lured him across the Pizzaplex towards Monty Golf. And then it fully shattered him there, maybe using the Hurricane Bucket that was mentioned in the Monty Mischief notice. Then in an effort to hide the "body" and be able to take it apart without technicians or FazEnt getting in the way, the Mimic brought Bonnie so the back of the Bonnie Bowl and further removed his endo and parts.

My other theory is that Bonnie injured himself. Remember, Monty didn't have claw upgrades by that point so he couldn't have been the one to claw open Bonnie. But you know who DID have claw upgrades? Bonnie.

I think in some way, Mimic or some glitch entity (maybe Malhare/M.X.E.S) got into Bonnie's head in an attempt to lure him somewhere secluded so they could harvest him for parts, but Bonnie fought the conditioning much like Freddy had and ripped himself apart to get these strange voices/entities out of him. And then he wandered the Pizzaplex presumably looking for help before he was finished off in the Monty Golf and brought to Bonnie Bowl to be harvested.

This would explain Bonnie's injuries, why the Mimic (or Burntrap if you want to go that route) looks so brand new and put together, and also why Bonnie apparently disappeared without a trace.

BONUS

There's another notice in the Dufflebags that seemingly adds more to Bonnie's fate, Understudy

MANAGEMENT REPORT - With Bonnie out of commission, we are making Monty the new bass player. Parts and Service has already done the proper adjustments. This could be a good thing. Monty could be even more popular than Bonnie.

This notice apparently takes place before the notice Re-Theme since it takes place DIRECTLY before Monty gets established as the new bass player in the aftermath of Bonnie's disappearance/shattering. However, Bonnie being "out of commission" doesn't allude to anything about his actual fate. It must be that Bonnie disappeared suddenly, and in an effort to smooth things over and re-complete the band, they pushed Monty into the role. As we know, repairing and fixing an animatronic is not a hard thing to do. There's no way Bonnie would be so destroyed that it'd be impossible to put him back together, and from what we saw of Bonnie's condition, it was certainly bad but it's not like he was completely turned to ash or destroyed and unrepairable. They could have repaired him if they got a hold of his body. But it was apparent they didn't, and they had no idea where it was. So instead of rebuilding/remaking an entirely new shell and endo from scratch, they simply grabbed the next best thing and put him into the role.

Which explains why Monty seems to openly use Bonnie's old props, like his glasses and his bass. Monty never had a problem with Bonnie, he idolized him. And after his idol disappeared, he took his place and used his props to allow Bonnie to live vicariously through him. Not to mention how maybe Monty feels responsible for Bonnie's disappearance since it happened in his own attraction, but if Monty was the one who hurt Bonnie then I sincerely doubt the other animatronics would be okay with him taking his place and using his props. Especially Freddy, who was the closest to Bonnie.

[loveislandthegame]

thoughts on todays volume! in case you are unaware, android users got to play the volume very early, while ios users were given a late release. lmao. (i have both ios & android, but my phone is old & i didn’t want to add “slideshow frame rate” to a game that’s already glitchy af) somehow i managed to escape the horde of unmarked spoilers 🙏🏽

first off, felicity is stunning !!! i'm surprised she had an actual sprite rather than getting the zeph & cassius treatment . if she's not coming back that's such a waste of a really cool & pretty design

friend is really generous, jin . i get OG LI is trying to be nice or whatever but be so fr 😭 the only thing that sienna has been is a boring antagonist, she’s not shown not one single ounce of personality besides being delulu and coming at MC sideways (and it’s mainly because FB now struggles with writing multi-faceted characters…which is why they have AI allegations in the first place…)

speaking of delulu : theo , girl... how many times do i gotta tell you i'm all in on claudia unless they actually let us be poly at the end

MC somehow came out unscathed in movie night, plot armor for the win ! the guys pull MC for a chat before the boy's choice recoupling. the pit in my stomach when i read that.

theo flirts again, but this time our responses are flirty, rude af, or "you should focus on claudia." i didn't want to pick any of these but i picked the flirty one because at first i thought it could be "jokingly" said. interestingly enough, he says something among the lines of how he didn't expect MC to be interested in him because she's with claudia . i didn't want that to bite me in the ass later so i just replayed and picked the rude option (so it seems that it's "canon" for theo & claud to simultaneously crush on MC? at least if she's bi/pan etc.)

i saw this coming but still, this has to be a joke … 😭😭😭😭😭

there’s like what, three volumes left ? unless FB decides to drag this out with a “season 8.5,” this should’ve been a players choice recoupling (hell, it technically could've still been boys choice, with MC getting first pick for winning the heart rate challenge, or because she was selected by the viewers, literally anything lol)

it'd be one thing if OG LI was like, "i chose you because i wanted to keep you safe . even if we're not meant to be, i still care for you, i want you have a chance with the one you want," blah blah blah, but FB never lets us be in a friendship couple, he's just gonna keep pining for MC ... moving on

i forgot to screenshot the first part but it was basically claudia fantasizing about her and MC living in a huge house like the villa, MC was like "how are we gonna afford that"

my MC is a musician, so cuteee

i...what ? 😬 genuinely , what . i read this like 5 times and i still don't understand. unfortunately he did couple up with me, that's why i'm forced to hang out with claudia in the damn shower instead of being out in the open with her . somebody get this grandma to bed

i kinda love the cowgirl outfit. it's terrible, but i love it in a kitschy way . also i just kinda went with it because the mermaid outfit was clipping through MC's braids (as you can see the hat has some weird layering issue, but it's the lesser of two evils)

claudia's outfit wasn't paywalled, and i didn't get the gem option to give jin the viking outfit so he came out looking like this lmfaooooooo

okayyyyyy cowboy carter!

logan arrived way too late imo. again, unless FB plans on extending the season (or he's not romanceable ?) people who get with him are gonna get less time than oliver, angie, youcef romancers. you know how little time that is ???

as for the whole hazel and liam thing ... horrible. , she really deserves better, like me 💋 

[rebelrayne]

okay but how are we expected to go to casa after THAT HAMISH SCENE? he’s so upset with himself and loves us 😭

do you think he’s going to switch in casa since it looks like it’s over with natasha?

hi anon!

omg i love this pixel man. like literally served tom divorce papers because it's hamish or bust now. i'm honestly pleasantly surprised by fusebox's arc with him. i figured it was the route they were going though, especially when you first meet him and he's blushing like 'i have a good thing going with natasha'. if you replay, you'll see he has the embarrassed expression when he says that-like he's not really sold on it but says it anyway.

as far as hamish switching, i think he's playing the gary/bobby role right now. i would be pretty surprised if he did switch. i think the game itself is heavily focused on jude/lyle/henri/chen so my prediction is that whoever is kat's partner will switch. depending on your choices, your partner may also switch

and i'd actually really like that twist.

imagine if it's all dependent on who you're flirting with, too??? i think the person least likely to twist is hamish whether that's because of natasha or mc (his speech is either talking about mc or a girl on the outside) but hey, fusebox is gonna do what fusebox is gonna do. i also think that kat's partner is most likely to switch.

either way, fusebox has finally made a season i feel invested in-that hasn't happened since s4. yes, s6 was fun but there seems to be branching and so much interaction (plus i get to say i'm an og hamish stan)

[alitgblog]

volume XI thoughts

I did in fact have access to this on Tuesday and started to play but then got distracted and didn't finish until like 2am when I couldn't sleep anyway (this was a mistake I was so tired at work)

movie night!!! And fun movie night titles!! ofc MC doesn't get her own custom one bc everyone's got different names but my MC is named Maya and with how things have been going I'm pretending her movie title is Messy Messy Maya 🤭

Emel and Oakley both being unfaithful in casa but finding (forcing?) their way back to each other and forgiving each other feels very much like something in the show so I appreciate that storyline tbh

Felicity is too beautiful of a sprite to waste as a Casa girl that only shows up for movie night.

Sienna going "I don't care if it's egotistical, pick my movies" because no one else is gonna care to pick hers 😬😬 id feel bad for her if she wasn't so mean

Hari and Hazel are so cute together but it seems like it's gonna die out soon 🥲 Like I see why if Hazel is panicking and Hari isn't the most reassuring guy and also not completely over MC but aghhh he's gonna fumble Hazel to LIAM. Hazel, not LIAM plsss

Absolutely awful that Liam is so funny bc he's such a piece of shit (awful in the best way, like he's so Messy Mitch from LI UK s10 coded and while I don't like him I appreciate the fun he brings). Saw someone suggest that he could be a late game LI and if he evolves and changes, sure, but a lot is gonna need to happen, otherwise give him a last minute jokey option like Hamish.

I think the thing stopping me from going full in on this Claudia route is she keeps going back to Theo, and not like she has to be pursuing MC 100% for me to pick her but I'm just getting mixed signals with her trying to save her relationship with Theo when they clearly aren't into each other anymore but there are plenty other people around.

Not on a Theo route and haven't talked to him but ngl his little video clip was cute like I almost jumped ship to be messy but nahh. I wonder how that's like if you're actually pursuing him though like does it feel like pay off or shock or reassurance or anything.

very nice they had Jin spell it out to Sienna in front of everyone. like kind of mean, but if it was gonna happen at any time, Movie night is definitely the time to do it.

Like even MC's movie clip playing, first of all was just if she slept with someone in casa I think (which, it's fair enough considering the game's limitations but I was missing all the other times she hoed around). So for my MC it was with Claudia, and Claudia barely has a response to it. And so I'm kinda just going towards the character actively pursuing and paying attention at this moment and it's Jin.

I guess MC was honest to Jin so he didn't mind the movie night thank God but also I want to replay to see the drama unfold. but in my head for some reason he'd be shocked it was Claudia bc she didn't say anything and like it'd be one thing if it was someone she just met like Max who she's been friendzoning ever since but another thing for it to be her best friend in the Villa. but alas, that is a large amount of branching and coding and dialogue to write so I'll let it slide.

a recoupling so soon after?? it's not like the season feels too rushed, but like I mentioned before, the pack in so many things in each volume you don't get much of a chance to chill out with the characters and pretend it's a vacation for your character lol

the problem with me playing early is I'm so curious how everyone else's game went. like is it only your OG LI or Casa Boy that can pick you?? And the chat you have with your partner after, does that lock your route because after this I feel there was a little bit less attention on MC from the other LI's (which I don't mind, so they can have their own stories now, but I wanna knowwww)

Shower scene, Sienna throwing another fit one last time for good measure

But now MC is back with Jin and they have all the cutesy interactions again yay

And then we have no rest in the morning, just straight into a DAYTIME heart rate challenge??? I just think this challenge should always happen at night idk

I forked over the gems for the cowgirl outfit (partly bc the mermaid dress was awful and bc my MC has red hair so I wasn't gonna make her dress like Ariel) but i wish there was a costume that was free instead of just your partywear dress? Like it can be a shitty costume but I understand people not wanting to pay gems for one outfit for one night of the game.

Hazel's outfit though 🥵

Such a minor detail, but I do love that despite her being so awful to MC, that Sienna canonically is a very conservative dresser. like we all see her churchy outfits. and I think maybe she's a little insecure about her body and stuff. that being said, the dialogue she has when she's in costume about feeling confident, and her costume isn't super revealing, and the girls being shocked at her dance, is all very good to have. like it's nice to have that type of character around and the fact that she's also the villain rn? she contains multitudes (or I'm reading into it too hard 😂)

mentioned briefly before but Hazel and Liam??? tf??

And now Claudia and Bea flirting with each other? Okayyy I mean my fingers are crossed so here's hoping they find each other if not MC. and they have a lot in common but feel like different characters so like pls let them be together (I say this as someone every few months posting about how it shouldve been Cora and Angie not friendzoned Oliver and Angie in the s4 finale)

ok but his entrance feels so overshadowed by other things going on though like I feel like he didn't get a chance to really bombshell to the point where I think he should've been introduced next volume instead. like have him have a normal bombshell entrance with dates or smth, then maybe when they're all chilling the next day and getting to know him someone brings up he missed heart rate challenge and they suggest he dances for the characters he's most interested in, if we really wanted to get his messy entrance in.

Two unfortunate things are true in my mind: Logan is very attractive (at least when he's got the hat on) and also he looks like Liam ��

depending on how this goes my MC may be hoeing around one last time

cliffhanger being the challenge results is lame

am i,,,, actually excited to replay this season 🫣

[wolfinshipclothing]

GTA San Andreas Poll!

Alright folks, i've been replaying my favorite GTA game, San Andreas, for the 10nth time. And for the 10nth time, i find the tension between CJ and Sweet to be fascinating and complex one. So, I wanna know you guys opinions.

BEFORE VOTING: check out my analysis of CJ under the cut before voting.

Now, let's take a good look at CJ's Pros and Cons.

Pros

*With one call from Sweet, he left his life in Liberty City (and his mob boss) to come back to SA.

*Once he saw his family and how fucked up the hood was, he decided to stay, even when everybody was giving him shit and asking him to leave.

*He did everything, and i mean EVERYTHING he could to help his family/homies.

*He befriended Cesar, which ultimately lead to Kendl being safe and put CJ on the path to hunt down Smoke and Tenpenny.

*He seemed to have learnt his lesson after what happened to Brian, and now, he wants to do everything he can to ensure his family is safe.

*He took out a drug cartel almost by himself.

*He worked for Torino, one of the (funniest) scariest character in the franchise, doing impossible and near suicidal missions, just to keep Sweet safe in jail. Eventually, CJ's work is the reason why Sweet is freed.

*Unlike Sweet, who listen to nobody, CJ is open to feedback. He welcomes advice from everyone (Cesar, Woozie, Kendl, The Truth...), and that grants him the upper hand and a few good allies.

*Except for a few moments, CJ treats his friends and family with respect. And when he'd wronged them, he apologizes.

*Overall, he seems to be unprejudiced, except against agents of the law (which is, like, understandable...). He befriends black people, latinos, chinese, white folks, and pretty much everyone that treats him right, gets treated right.

*He's a shareholder in a CASINO. And this is after ROBBING a rival casino, which is after he TAKES OUT THE THREE MAFIA FAMILIES that owned that Casino. Oh, and the robbery? Its an optional mission, that CJ planned 90%, and that he executed full James Bond style.

*He's your go-to man. For like... ANYTHING. You need something done? CJ will do it, even if it seems impossible. Granted, yes, this comes with being a GTA protagonist, but even by those standards, the shit he'd managed to pull off is mind-blowing.

*Look, this is a GTA game. CJ is a gangbanger. Of course he's gonna be violent. BUT, compared to other protagonists (Tommy Vercetti), he uses his wit, gadgets and stealth to solve problems more often than with just straight up murdering everyone on sight.

*Take a look at the wider picture: in his five years absence, the hood had got from bad to worse. The families are beefing, the Ballas and the cops are working to turn everyone into baseheads, and there's only three GS' OG still active: Sweet, Ryder and Big Smoke (those two being moles). In a few weeks, he turned GS into a force work reckoning. In fact, the only reason they failed into culling the Ballas was because Smoke and Ryder snitched on them. And after CJ was thrown into the Badlands, does he give up? NO. He works with a psycopath woman and earns money by all means necessary to get a strong foothold in San Fierro. Does he stop there? NO. He buys property, earns money, becomes chummy with the Triads and takes out a drug cartel. Does he stops there? NO! He allies himself with a MIB to work towards Sweet freedom. Does he stops there? NO!! He helps to rise up a Casino and runs out THREE mafia gangs out of the city. DOES HE STOPS THERE? NO!!!!! HE recovers Madd Dogg crib to use as base of operation to wait for Sweet. And when Sweet gets out of jail and calls CJ out and demands he helps with the hood, what does CJ do? Exactly that, taking down Smoke's yay operation and Officer Tenpenny, Pulasky and Hernandez. All in the span of a few months. Say whatever you want about CJ, but he is NO BUSTER.

*He reassures Sweet that "whatever's mine is yours". And he means it. In the previous game, everything Tommy did was for himself. Everything CJ did was for the Johnson Empire. For his family.

*HE FLEW WITH A JETPACK! Come on. This alone should put you on his side.

Cons

*We don't know the details, but we know that he let his little brother Brian die. In itself, that sucks. But the twist of the knife is that after Brian died, CJ ran away to the other end of the country, and from what we gather, he didn't write, call or visited his family in FIVE YEARS. AND THE WORSE PART is that CJ's mom apparently got sick through that time and Kendl was still going to school, so Sweet had to man up... And CJ was not there to help him.

*Let's be honest: CJ doesn't have much of a care for the hood. He cares about his family, yes, and he wants to be accepted, but everything he does for Grove Street is just so his homies and Sweet would take him back.

*In his own words, he "tries not to pay much attention". And it shows. Literally, CJ is your go-to guy, which is good but also bad. Damn, he made Madd Dogg life a living Hell by stealing his rhyme book and, oh yeah, KILLING HIS MANAGER! A man that did nothing wrong except saying that Jeff-OG LOC rapping was "whack" (which is true). CJ saves MD life later on and becomes his manager... but he never comes clean about what he did to MD. Thats pretty cold.

*He complains. A LOT. Its mentioned several times by several characters: whenever things are slightly off, CJ whines about it. Special mention goes to when Cataline gaves him the garage in Doherty as pink slip. He throws a tantrum to the ages just because the place is a bit of a fixer-upper.

*Related to the above, Kendl calls him out about how CJ always "wanted something out of nothing", meaning CJ wanted to be respected but didn't want to put much effort into it.

*Honestly? He's a bit of a slacker. Until he reaches Las Venturas, he'd shown little leadership material. And the few good calls he had (buying ZERO's shop, buying the car dealership), were someone else's idea.

*Its fair to say that, even after becoming rich in Las Venturas, he still remains humble, and still wants to work to get Sweet out of jail. Its also fair to say that he's so dazzled by the success they had that he couldn't care less about the hood. Damn, the man saw his childhood home being used as a base spot and he didn't give a damn. That's cold.

*Through all the final act, he struggles with his new found responsibilities with his business against the responsibilities with his brother and his hood.

*To be honest, its debatable if he took out Smoke and Tenpenny out of desire to help the hood or because it was personal for him.

*He goes as far as accusing the hood (and by extension GS and Sweet) as "holding him up". Kind of a high horse you have there...

*It's not outright said, but Its obvious the reason Tenpenny was declared innocent was because of everything CJ did for him. Taking down witnesses? Killing reporters? Destroying evidence? All of that helped Tenpenny. CJ was being held by the balls, yes. But his actions led to Tenpenny being declared innocent, which in turn lead to the LS riots, which no doubt caused lot of material and human lives...

I was gonna write a list of Sweet pros and cons but it would be redundant.

So there you have it! Fell free to vote and comment!

[hatosaur]

How exactly did you come to love TLOU? I have my own special interests that just happened upon me, so I want to know about how it was for others. also, any other games that you like?

you've asked the golden question so strap in because this is gonna be LONG:

i first got into tlou through part 2! admittedly i didn't play the og first. i did own it at the time because it seemed like one of those games you just gotta play (and i was right) and yknow ellie's gay and i dug that, but at that point i hadn't played it but knew the plot through a cinematic compilation video.

i was intrigued by part 2, specifically because of the teaser at e3 where ellie and dina dance and kiss. though i didn't have a BURNING desire to have the game, me being down for anything gay pretty much what sealed my fate. so i bought the game and played it on my older brother's ps4.

and MAN, was i obsessed pretty much immediately. looking back, it was a fever dream, just me playing the game from the moment i woke up to the moment i went to bed, nonstop...until i reached the point where ellie leaves and i stopped playing, completely distraught, and ended up watching the ending on youtube.

i was pissed, conflicted, legit fell into a deep depression after knowing how the game ends. after that point, because as we all know the shitstorm over the game was not pretty, i lingered on both sides of the fanbase for a while. because as someone who went in for the gay and had to witness the gay be destroyed, i was hurt -- but i realized after seeing anti-tlou2 people talk about their (weird and irrational) reasons for hating the game that i didn't hate the game, i was just that. hurt.

but the game is meant to hurt. there's a reason for the hurt.

and once i looked past the hurt that i felt, i analyzed hardcore, discussed with people (this is the nicest environment to do so), ate up every single detail discovered, replayed, and then i was making art, obsessively so, writing fanfiction, and now it's been 3 years and those fictional fuckers still live in my brain to this day.

and of course, i dove into the og! i remember playing the game while my online lectures (because covid lol) played in the background.

tlou is fully my biggest hyperfixation/special interest to date. i went into how but here's more of the reasons behind it:

i've talked about this a ton before but i love that though tlou has a reputation of being a dark game and people tend to read it as being about "the darkness of humanity", it's really not about that, but love and what people will do for it, as well as seeking and obtaining a purpose, even in the world's darkest conditions.

i love that it's about found family, that joel can't help but love ellie, because at the end of the day, he's not really supposed to be the heartless person he wants to pretend he is, but he's supposed to be a DAD. i love that ellie, despite never knowing the feeling of a parent, loves joel right back. i love that despite disliking him at first, she warms to him so quickly and she wears him down with her stupid jokes and her endearing weirdness.

i love that the themes of love persist through the second game even as it drags the franchise to darker places. that these are the lengths that ellie will go to not to get abby, but for joel. i love that part 2 says, "hey these bitches unhealthy" and that despite love being their motivation (abby for her dad, ellie & tommy for joel, dina for ellie, lev for his mother), it shouldn't be driving them to those ends!!!!

.....anyway for your second question, i'm picky about games but some recurring favs are apex legends, minecraft, breath of the wild, stardew valley, life is strange (watched the playthru only but loved the story sm), tell me why, and i just started horizon zero dawn! the way things are going, i think i'll like it a lot :)

[annamarabella-grumble]

mass effect replay thoughts, episode 11

episode 1 / episode 2 / episode 3 / episode 4 / episode 5 / episode 6 / episode 7 / episode 8 / episode 9 / episode 10

haven't updated these in a while! we're almost at the end of mass effect 3 now lmao. thoughts on mass effect 2 for the meantime?

we killed mordin solus in cold blood; did the math and everything--i enjoy padok wiks' company a LOT more. christ, he's weird. i like him

i'm never fucking playing arrival again, i swear on wrex's bollocks. a tiny room and five pyros??? NO THANK YOU

speaking of, if grandpa hackett doesn't stop calling me on my damn bananaphone the minute i enter a system where he's committed another war crime....... THIS PHONE IS FOR BANANERGENCIES ONLY

during every playthrough of me2 i successfully repress the memory of that damn reaper skeleton. it punches me in the face every time

the amount of times during me2 that chat was like "oh yeah that's an old bug," including for bugs i'd not encountered on my own before???????

now what about mass effect 3?

meeting anderson again: I HEAR YOU'RE AN ADMIRAL NOW, FATHER! GOOD FOR YOU!

that lil pat of shep's tummy after months under house arrest. father pls (i love their dynamic so much)

as always, we're fetching garrus first, as is proper and correct. we're not romancing him in this one, and i love how so few of their lines actually change. they're not together, but they adore and rely on each other. there's no shepard without vakarian, ain't ever gonna change

you know whom i do not adore? kai leng. god, i hate that railroady flippy bitch

he's not scary, he's not even interesting, he's just a plot device. BORING

which reminds me (sob): shep's fully ready to jump thane's bones in the atrium of a hospital. down, girl

speaking of: we're in love with traynor now, she's delightful. we played sweaty chess

speaking of speaking of: every stream we have a ten-minute section where we talk about how literally everything about mass effect would be better if everyone was queer

yesterday we played omega dlc and my GOD. the belligerent sexual tension, cut it with a knife. bioware are cowards for not just letting aria and nyreen fuck nasty on the floor of any of the dozen elevators we were on. shep can watch, she'd like it

(if you also like it, listen to "temper temper" by black pistol fire)

the section with the adjutants prowling around in the dark is my favourite thing in the world, it's so well done

"ask the ghosts if honour matters" is a raw af line

i can't believe that mr vega asks if we can adopt that husk head and then it ends up in my cabin anyway

also can't believe how married messers vega and cortez are I LOVE THEM SO MUCH YOUR HONOUR

steeb :'((

i've been having a rough time and i think a hug from jimmy vega would fix me. just compress me, bro

LEGIOOOOON :'((((

oh my god when grunt does the thing and you think he's gone and then he comes stumbling out of the cave and collapses

love how shep is like A LIL HELP HERE and garrus comes swaggering up leisurely to collect his krogan son (we're not dating but we're definitely co-parenting)

ADAMS IS SO HAPPY HIS ENGINEER DAUGHTER TALI IS BACK

i love tali's character arc

WE CURED THE GENOPHAGE BITCHES

dalatrass can go and sulk for all eternity, don't give a shit. wrex did the right thing

oh lookie here, ashley magically isn't racist anymore! hate how there's no discussion of that in the game. the writers just quietly retconned that shit when it could've been a genuine example of growth--something the other members of the og crew all got lmao.

fuck cerberus

FUCK CERBERUS

can't wait to blow up all the reapers

[spainkitty]

I'm so embarrassed! I thought I had replied to your last ask and I didn't😳 I'm sorry!🙈

I hope you're feeling better. I remember recommending you cloud gaming for BG3 so I wonder if you gave that ago and if you did, if it works for you👀

I'm deep in BG3 brainrot🙈😅 I'm in my 4th pt right now lol. I have a stand-by pt of my monk tav in act 3 cause the kiss animation with Astarion with a tav with body type 1 (the smollest one lol) is broken since patch 4. And yes, I'm becoming the kind of person who romances Astarion with every single tav I make😂

I'm curious to see your tavs so please show me whenever you can👀

Here are mine in chronological order of my pts:

Iriel - seldarine drow sorcerer

(the 2nd pt I did was Astarion's origin so no tav)

Ceres - half-elf monk (on stand-by until Larian fixes the kiss animation with Astarion in act 3 lol)

Nephalem - high-elf necromancer (current pt)

And yes, they're all head over heels in love with Astarion🙈😍

I really hope you've got the chance to play BG3 further! If you have, please tell me about your tav(s) and what you think if the game so far👀

I... can't even remember what I sent you, but I gather it was about BG3 LOL I'm feeling much better. I haven't tried your cloud idea yet. I wanted to finish my Adaar run and I replayed DAO instead. Mainly because my friend said during our little Christmas break (we have 4ish days off for it and we're coworkers) he's getting it on his Xbox and I'm gonna go play it with him! Which means when the spiders come I can hide 🤣🤣 I DID make three "Tavs" before I gave up (and I'll be remaking one for the Xbox marathon).

All your Tavs (pts?? pcs??) look SO cool! I wasn't super pleased with how limited the faces were, but you did a great job making each unique. Silly Larian, fix the bug so Ceres can have a kiss! KISS KISS KISS! Oh, also, how is it playing a monk?? I had a tabaxi (cat person) monk in a campaign and she was so fun to rp, does it work out well in bg3?? I think Iriel's design in my favorite, though. I looove that half-buzz cut. Nephalem looks very suave and cool, too 😎

As for my girls, I'll show the few pics I got.

This is Karik, my Moon Circle Wildshaping half-elf Druid! And her dream guardian. I made her look like my current campaign's Tepin Pallis Cuautl Lozano, another Moon Circle Druid Wildshaper 🤭🤭🤭 I wanna romance Lae'zel, but I never met Wyll or Karlach, so... we'll see.

Then, there's Andry Cousland, my og Warden, Warrior-Archer human. I just wanted to see what she'd look like in BG3. Not bad🤔

Lastly, the one I'm going to remake for the Xbox and I'm super excited for it! I'm probably going to romance Gale, maybe... Anyway, meet:

Agnes, half-elf drow, Trickster Cleric of Tymora

(you can see where the computer started losing itself and her hair looks weird and pixel-y, but still cute 💖)

[tigirl-and-co]

20. A boss you think is really cool

Hmmm... that's an interesting one! I'm gonna answer with a few different bosses, bc 'cool' could mean a lot of different things

Cool design + concept: Blizzeta from Twilight Princess (her 2nd form also has what's probably my 2nd fave boss theme of all time)! I also like the in-story context for her boss battle so much! (spoilers for Twilight Princess) We know already that the mirror shards are a corrupting force, and earlier we see that the Goron Chief was corrupted by the Fused Shadows. But here we see, via freaky ass cutscene, a character we liked get corrupted in front of us- it's no longer a generic 'beat the bad guy' boss fight, it's a 'saving the innocent' battle with personal stakes! and the cutscene that initiates her battle? Iconic. Everyone in the fandom knew NOT. TAKE. MIRROR. I also have an attachment to her for very personal reasons haha. But yeah her design fucks hard, I wish the combat was as interesting as the rest of her schtick.

Cool (I admire them): Cynthia from pokemon gen 4 are u kidding me I wanted to be her SO BAD as a kid. She wiped the floor with me so many times. I made a sprite edit using her as a base when I was like 12 and used it for an avatar. If I can remember the name of my old forums I'll post it.

Cool as in 'has stuck with me': Honestly a lot of the OG Luigi's Mansion ghosts are cool bc they're like... just people, and it's real wild that the first boss of this nintendo game is somebody's dead mom. But Bogmire stands out for being kind of surprise creepy. I think about it a lot. What's its deal. Yeah it's the personification of the house's misery or whatever, but what does that MEAN. I was like 5 or 6, playing this game, and I go to a hidden graveyard and knock on a big cool gravestone and initiate this battle. For little me, it was the right mix of creepy but engaging. I was nervous but not terrified. I would buy a Bogmire plushie.

Cool as in 'I look forward to it when I play the game': The darknut minibosses from both Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Yeah the Wind Waker one isn't that tough now that I have a big grown up brain, but it's still neat, and WW Darknuts are my literal all time favourite enemies to fight in any game ever. I never pass up the chance.

The Twilight Princess one, though? Holy shit. I replayed the game like 2 years ago, and that bitch STILL kinda freaked me out! YEAH you can cheese him with the bomb arrows if ur a little bitch, but if you do a genuine bona fide sword fight? That shit's fun as hell. There's this unnameable dread when you first enter that room. You can feel in your BONES that that suit of armor is going to come to life and whoop your ass.

Cool as in most badass/dramatic: oh yeah it's gotta be the Wind Waker final battle. Everything about it RULES. (SPOILERS) You're having a desperate sword fight for your life, a 10 year old kid who left home a month ago vs an ancient warlock who was so powerful the gods themselves had to seal him away.

He won, btw. Like Ganondorf literally wins in WW. It takes KoRL stepping in to DROWN BOTH HIMSELF AND GANONDORF to prevent Ganondorf from getting his wish. So you're trapped in a room, water pouring in on all sides, against a man who... doesn't even hate you. He's just doing what must be done. He could have killed Zelda, but he doesn't. He puts his sword away and backhands her instead of running her through. He's 100% just playing out his destiny. You aren't the one who defeated him the first time, you're just some kid who was dragged into this by a ghost.

And when you kill him BY STABBING YOUR GODDAMN SWORD INTO HIS HEAD, he laughs quietly before delivering one of the most iconic lines in Zelda history. Like that whole battle, from opening cutscene to the final, is so intense. So fucking intense. I'm convinced they couldn't have gotten away with half the shit they do if the game wasn't so cutesy. Easy Teen rating.

Cool as in Best: WW Molgera is 10/10. The fight itself is fun and satisfying! Molgera has a KICK ASS design! It's a fantastic and mood-setting opening cutscene! The sound design on the boss is freaky in all the right ways! It's a UNIQUE boss battle! She's got the greatest boss battle theme in the whole goddamn series and I'll DIE on this hill! She was so scary I cried while watching my dad play when I was little, and once I got to her battle on my own I not only remembered her, it took me two days to work up the courage to face her, and I felt like an absolute fucking badass once I did! In that moment, I fell well and truly in love with video games. I was Link, a child facing down an ancient wyrm, terrified but pressing on.

Also, in the original GCN version of the game, the hitbox on her tongue doesn't go away when she starts flying, so you can hookshot it and force her back into the sand.

Thank you for the ask, doubly so if you actually read all of this haha <333

[babymorte]

Oh yeah get the comfort game thing. I still have Halo 2 to get through and keep getting sucked back into Minecraft lol. And the worst part is Halo used to be my comfort game. Maybe I'm just getting old 🤣

And making connections is a pain in the ass, my circle of friends is small enough I can count them on one hand and have fingers left over. I'm 41 and still don't know what the hell I'm doing lol. I know your not that old so you still have time to figure it out😊.

I'm not going to go into some long winded speech on how "you're better than them" or "It's going to be alright" or anything because honestly I'm just some dumbass with shitty social skills so my advice really isn't worth much. But I will say don't change who you are just to be the person they want, But do change if its something "you" really want or helps you.

Just from what I've seen of you on here you seem like a really nice and friendly person. And whether you're quirky, weird, or even a bitch😁 I hope you find people who like you just as you are and I guess the most important part of that is them not be assholes lol. Also if you learn any tricks on how to make friends that stick around please let me know 😂

But I will stop bugging you now and leave you with a gif of our cat attacking my arm lol

it’s wild how your game tastes can change when you age. usually I play the og resident evil remake or re3 remake but since putting my ps5 on the big tv and hardwiring my xbox for when i played halo I just dont play my ps5 as much anymore so I’m playing older games I haven’t played in a while and madness returns and timesplitters 2 are my go tos since I don’t get bored of them easily. I replayed the campaign for ts2 Sunday night and it only took me like 40min since I can play it with my eyes closed. I need to get back to halo3 as well I just went back to CE to try and do some achievement hunting but because im so bad at it im not really getting any of the achievements. Im sure I’ll get them eventually though since im at least somewhat comfortable with playing it.

ah yea you’ve got quite a few years on me but I am hopeful that when I do reach your age I won’t be as reserved or at the very least not care enough to be so whether or not I have a circle of my own. my circle is more of a line that stretches two inches in front of me. like I recently just learned that someone who often treats me terribly considers me to be one of their best and closest friends so that the sort of long lasting friendships that im pulled into. I didn’t really even consider us friends aside from by association if im being honest. but at the same time i get overwhelmed by people very easily so im not too bothered about whether or not I’ll be making new friends in the future. its really just not worth it at this point. but honestly the some of the most sound advice ive gotten. I don’t know if my dumb brain will let me follow it but i will try to take it to heart at the very least. im still the same person on the inside. that i cant change. but im not going to let just anyone see that side of me anymore. it’s not worth the trouble im constantly getting myself into. im sure I’ll sabotage myself even more by doing this but at the very least it will show who actually wants me as a person in a sense. at least thats my thought process behind it. it’s all just very confusing honestly but I’ll figure it out eventually im sure. I always do. im just gonna hold out hope anymore and whatever happens happens. for my own sake i cant be bothered anymore by this sort of thing. like an anon said yesterday im always in some sort of drama and im just honestly so sick of it. if I do figure out any tricks to get people to stay I’ll definitely help you out though…i hope you’ll do the same for me.

you’re definitely not bugging me in the slightest. your kitty is the absolute cutest though and looks like a proper snuggle bug.

[harleyshahas]

I hate hate HATE that I have to work this week and I won't be able to play Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth until Friday because I have been going INSANE all month for this game! Ib played Crisis Core, I saw Advent Children in theaters last week for a limited viewing event thing because my husband is amazing and caters to my hyper fixations when I'm going feral like this, I played Remake and Interglade, I'm on disc two of the OG game, I'm struggling to find a way to replay Dirge of Cerberus because for almost 12 years that was the only FF7 game I could play, and I really really want to play Rebirth so bad!!

I have so many theories I've been tossing around to my husband, who hated Remake at first and swore he wouldn't invest in anymore, but then Interglade came out and suddenly I had to play it too after telling myself I'd get around to it eventually, so I did and I enjoyed the hell out of it, and with all the lore I've soaked up over the years thru cultural osmosis and fanfiction, I have theories and thoughts I started spitballing them to my husband, and have since brought him back around to being excited for Rebirth too, and now the trick is gonna be How Do We Both Play This Game Without Possibly Spoiling Each Other?!?!?

[faint-kitten]

Updates About the Channel going into 2024....

So, someone bought me a 100hz Monitor (i'm running a 1080p 60) and a new Microphone which, HOPEFULLY will allow me to reduce some of the keyboard sounds allowing me to do more pc games without worrying about clickety clacking away. Given this generous offer I feel like I should try to get back to some kind of a regular schedule. Like I woke up at 5pm today (saturday) there's no reason I shouldn't have been able to play Rocket Racing, except I feel like Saturdays should be like an 11-9pm stream thing.

I know today I may or may not be going to visit my parents which will screw my sleep schedule so idk if we're going to do a new years stream? I have to reach Gold in Rocket Racing and I photoshopped a little car for a Rocket Racing Stream. I plan on doing that anyway so we might do that but idk what time. Might maybe throw some Scaredy Cats or Lucky_Bun's Bunalysis on in the background. Part of it is, I now have a semi-recurring audience and I'm trying to find days when EVERYONE is available to watch.

But moving forward, darkness II and Far Cry 5 are both games I've wanted to replay and they're on sale on Steam, and I've got 3 new games in my shopping cart on Gog (Hotline Miami, Tomb Raider Anniversarry (og game's remake), and Metro 2033 redux). I also got Deathloop and Rage 2 and Ghostwire Tokyo and I just got Outerworlds.

AND there's still Baulder's Gate 3. So I want to try and start streaming maybe Thursday, Friday, at night. Saturday during the Day. And maybe one or two streams during the week, where I can stream like, 11am to 2pm? Maybe? OR do like a Wed Stream?

Idk I feel like I've got more games and more stuff to play and no excuse not to do it. So I'm gonna try and get back on it this year.

[timbrrwolfe]

Just a little mainline Zelda game tier list. Figured I'd make it now for posterity as I intend to (eventually, at some point) play through more of the series, and I wanted to have a record of where stuff stood in my mind before playing. TL;DR I have a bias for both 2D zeldas and newer games in general. Longer explanations under the cut for anybody who wants to read my ramblings

The Oracles games are my favorites, with Ages being one of the first games I ever beat, especially without cheating (though I did use a game guide. Miss those things, honestly. Online walkthroughs just aren't the same). Breath of the Wild does a lot of things right but there are some things that very much annoy me (weapon degradation being the main issue that some of the other issues kind of have their roots in), but overall it's a pretty good time. Ignore that I'm technically about halfway through it and still want to finish it before Tears of the Kingdom comes out even though I don't expect to get that right away (because money). Link to the Past is the only other one I've actually played at length, and despite never finishing it, it was a pretty good time. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing that I played the GBA port. Just not quite as good as the others, though it's been a few years since I played it so maybe I'll replay it before I redo the tier list. TotK does look interesting, and while it still keeps the weapon degradation it's got some stuff to mitigate that (hopefully), so I'm definitely interested in getting it. Link Between Worlds is very much on my radar but that's gonna require me to pick up (ideally) a New 3DS/XL(LL) since my own 3DS XL broke years back and I missed it at the time. Minish Cap has been on my list for a while, and I even played a little bit of it but got distracted and haven't gone back to it. Still, I expect if I give it a proper chance I'll enjoy it, and I intend to do that some point soon. Link to the Past I also wanna get to, though I'm not sure which version I'll do. Maybe I'll get the Switch version and play through the OG first to see how it compares.

Windwaker honestly probably should be in the middle haven't played tier, on further reflection. I haven't played it but honestly I've seen a lot of it played so I don't think it would hold my attention to play through it myself. Also it seems like a refinement of OoT and MM which is both good and bad. Twilight Princess through Spirit Tracks I don't know a ton about but what I've seen of gameplay or heard about them haven't really appealed much to me. The Four Swords Adventures games I basically know nothing about, and Triforce Quest I know even less about.

It's a bit disingenuous to say I haven't played some of the games in the final tier, but I definitely haven't put much time into them. I gave OoT something like 20 minutes years after it's initial release but I think I missed the boat on how stunning it was to have huge 3D environments after years of smaller 2D games. So without that aspect of spectacle the gameplay didn't grab me much in the short time I spent with it. Maybe if I had played it alongside, for instance, Banjo Tooie, I'd feel differently about it (since I enjoy Banjo Tooie a lot despite being similar games outside of the tones and details) Majora's Mask is basically just more of Ocarina of Time, with a more sinister atmosphere. So, similar issues, with the added obstacle for me in that it's a game with a countdown, which give me hives. I've also seen at least parts of these games played so it's not like I have 0 idea what they're like. Having said that I'm not completely closed off to the idea of playing certain versions of the games. (Unofficial PC port of OoT, 3DS remakes of both) Zelda 2 I gave about 10 minutes, had no idea what i was supposed to be doing, and never went back to it. The OG is a similar story. Plus, as I said, I am very biased against older games in general. I don't play games to overcome difficulty (if it's fun I'll push through a challenge until I beat it but a lot of older games are hard without being fun. So.)

Just my personal thoughts on the series. I like certain kinds of things and not other things.

[absolutedisaster69]

Boys, I'm saying it: Diablo II Resurrected is scaled like shit.

Oh, I can just waltz on through THE ENTIRE GAME, defeat Diablo himself as a shitty specced summon necro BEFORE I'm even level 35, and then I get to Baal and I'm fucking TOAST. Like... The experience I'm gaining per kill makes me think that I'm actually the correct level, you know? And yet things are fucking IMPOSSIBLE because I can't even get a fucking hit on Baal, my minions can't get a hit, and he keeps fucking TELEPORTING and using that stupid doppelganger skill.

Like, I played the OG when it came out a million years ago, and I would get so mad when people would switch over to Diablo from WoW and assume that the game was unplayable on single player like... NO, it's NOT, it's built to be played ALONE or with people if that's what you want, but the fact that this Switch port is like so unbalanced, it just doesn't make any sense. If I'm not specced right or a bad player, how could I have gotten through the game so easily and so quickly? How could I have gotten to Baal without needing to replay ANY levels because they were so easy I just breezed through them? Diablo wasn't anywhere NEAR this hard, and like, he was the last boss originally!! I got the Ancients easily, I got all the previous bosses with NO trouble whatsoever, and then it's Baal and like, it's just impossible. HOW?!

The difficulty and experience ratio are so fucking uneven. If the game wants to be hard, REWARD me like it's hard! If the game isn't rewarding me with items OR experience that I should be getting at the Acts that I'm on, then don't make the GAMEPLAY reflect a need for those things! Right now I'm level 39 and it honestly just feels like I need to go back and redo everything to see if I can hit 45 and then try Baal again, and like... YOUR GAME SHOULD NOT BE BUILT LIKE THAT. I should be able to move through a linear game in a linear fashion! The original version did not require you to go back and repeat previously cleared Acts!

What did they dooooo????

Now I'm gonna have to roll a Druid or something to see if it's just the Necromancer that's fucked somehow, or if there's something seriously wrong with the game. Maybe they nerfed the minion spec and I didn't know? UGH.