#but that was at the start of my playthrough so maybe i'll try the others now that i have more skill

[my-current-obsession]

I have officially beaten FE Engage! Overall it’s a great game. I really enjoyed the gameplay this time, though a few chapters and paralogues were pretty frustrating. This was definitely the hardest FE game I’ve played (although ironically I found the final battle to be fairly easy), and mostly that’s a good thing. The extra challenge made it more satisfying when I came up with winning strategies. The story and characters were pretty good too! I definitely think this game has gotten unwarranted hate. Anyway, since I previously made a tier list showing my perception of the characters as units, here are some actual stats from the ending showing how right (or wrong) I was:

There was a 3-way tie for who made MVP the most between Alear, Yunaka, and somewhat to my surprise, Alcryst. They each were MVP 4 times. Clanne, Celine, and Alfred were right behind them, each being MVP 3 times.

Alear was unsurprisingly the fighter with the most battles (199) and wins (123). The benefits of being locked into EVERY story & paralogue chapter, I suppose. Her most used Emblem was Sigurd.

I talked at length about how good my Alfred was in the other post, and his stats back it up. He had the 2nd most battles (180) and tied for 3rd on wins (92). Most used emblem was Ike.

Similarly, Yunaka, who I thought might have the most battles and/or kills, had 166 battles and 92 wins. She was great, just not able to outdo Alear’s protag privilege or Alfred seeing a lot of action through Ike. She used Lyn most.

Alcryst had 150 battles and a whopping 107 wins. The boy killed. A lot. His most used emblem was Leif since I appreciated being able to switch weapons and fight back if attacked up close as well as potential Luna procs on Quadruple Hit.

I seriously undervalued how much use I got out of Clanne. He was 5th for both battles (127) and wins (89). Even though he’d fallen off by the end due to subpar magic attack, he did pretty well in early and mid game. His most used emblem was Micaiah.

As for other notable fighters, Citrinne, Diamant, Fogado, Rosado, and Kagetsu each had 100+ battles and 60+ kills. Everyone else either only achieved one of those feats, or neither. So these 5 finish out the “top ten” for my units, I guess.

I maintain that Hortensia is an MVP in her own right as a healer, but tragically the game doesn’t track that so her stats are poor since she didn’t fight much. Seadall was also essential to my team.

Finally one last fun statistic - the EMBLEM that achieved MVP the most was Sigurd. He contributed to 7 wins. I guess it’s not surprising considering he was the “most used” Emblem for 3 of my heavy hitters - Alear, Kagetsu, and Rosado.

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than grapes

Started replaying Celeste yesterday and I just beat it today. I think I'm better at it now, probably partially thanks to Ultrakill giving me practiced with fast-paced action

[danielnelsen]

current dilemma with my dai solo nightmare run:

im taking advantage of the golden nug so, since im still near the start of the game, i have strong enough armour to block pretty much any physical damage. mages (and demons) are still extremely dangerous and can kill me very quickly.

so...do i do in hushed whispers or champions of the just? i feel like in hushed whispers would be unbelievably difficult because of the mages, but if i do champions of the just then i'll be fighting a lot more mages for the rest of the game.

however, i'll be able to get better gear and abilities later, so i'll probably be better able to deal with mages later than i am now. plus, physical enemies will get stronger and my armour won't be as over-leveled so they'll be hurting me too.

im leaning towards doing champions of the just, but im genuinely asking for any thoughts anyone might have here.

[actualaster]

By the way, I finally cleaned up my tags a tiny bit lol, and now have a page specifically for my liveblogs of my gaming stuff.

Since I do replay or re-visit games I never finished sometimes, you can use that to find all the related tags that I was able to remember/find and blacklist anything you don't wanna see me babble about.

That said, I'm also trying to use a catch-all "kage plays games" tag in addition to specific tags for different games/series so if you just never wanna see me ramble about any of the games I'm playing just blacklist that entirely.

(For spoiler purposes, I do mark spoilers on individual posts. I'm not gonna, like, exhaustively go back and edit everything from years ago that might have some spoilers but the general format I try to use these days is "quick summary of what to expect up top, then a cut with the spoilers, as well as spoiler tags on the post itself".)

[i keep remembering/finding other ones so this may grow even if i'm not playing anything i'm talking about lol]

[revalition]

OCT 4 - DRAMA

Play the actor. Lie and detect lies.

the composition of this one is gross but that's what this is all about - making something not great really fast every day and posting it anyway haha.

also if anyone recognizes what the middle one is from I'll give you a hundred bucks (Lie)

as usual, nerding out under the cut

drama drama drama drama

starting with this one because I literally just slap these in here in whatever order I come across them in. There's no rhyme or reason to it. I probably searched on "I" because I like seeing skills talk about themselves haha

at least he's trying to stop you...

Drama nicknames!!

the council!! I refer to my personal skills as the council sometimes haha, drama my love.

drama will break you out of the loop if all the others fail you!

ty drama, you poor thing. who is 'us'? Harry's the only one there, so is he referring to them and the other skills? harry and the multitudes that are drama? you go ahead and protect all of you from the fear honey

ily drama, they react sooo dramatically to being rejected

drama! nooo. what is there to say? these are different highly expensive ceramic boots???

drama! no!

I'm not certain what chain of events leads to Kim inspecting the boots later, but this is too funny

drama. please. honey.

he's so bad. an excellent lie detector, a fantastic liar, but also a compulsive liar!

At least sometimes he urges you to lie for good too.

drama ily. even if a wall of text is my idea of entertainment. i peruse fayde for fun, drama would die

dramaaa

I just love the wording of this one, it's so funny.

this one's right after limbic system tells you it's time to wake up. it's a bit melancholy...

you tell her drama, tell her about your and harry's many heads.

Sometimes he uses I, sometimes we. The other skills always refer to drama singularly (he, this one, etc.). I'm never quite sure if I should use him or them...

dddrama

denial, denial, denial...! but ty for trying

random but this is the maximum number of ssss... used by drama. 10 in a row!

I was highly offended in my first playthrough when I got this. I got it fast too (though not as fast as the sorry cop...) And I had 1 INT so I had barely heard from Drama! I was like, what's with this guy? I'm not boring >:(

drama's comments on kim are very important to me. I also have a rather dry sense of humour and cast off things I don't understand as joke. at least drama gets it.

also the things I would give to have someone whisper 'that's sarcasm, sire' to me. im not sure i invested my irl skill points in the right stats :,(

Like, I've got skills in my head and they can't even decode social interactions for me? cmon guys

Also! had some fun running the different language versions of Drama's name through google translate. It's hard to know how accurate the translations are but they are diverse! Acting, drama (ofc), art of drama, dramaturgy, mysterious (???), dramatic arts, acting arts, theatre, showmanship. I like it... gives a little more insight into what Drama's skill represents. Because he is so much more than *just* drama, and at the same time, drama is an umbrella that includes everything he's good at. hmm.

Another random fact: Drama calls you sire 91 times! (and my liege 16 times). And Harry only once, when you fail karaoke...

Other things I keep track of: he says sorry only twice! never says fuck. and only damages your morale on one occasion. These things are oddly important to me and I want to place them in a spreadsheet. Maybe I want to sort by most apologetic skill okay? Skill that swears most. Skill that calls you by your name most. I'm so normal about these guys.

[monstersandmaw]

First time romancing Astarion, and I'm all aboard the ace-spec interpretation of Astarion that I've seen floating around. As someone who's ace, I definitely resonated with him in this scene anyway. That hug reaction from Astarion. Oof.

And the fact that if you also romance Halsin, one of the dialogue options Astarion can give you is to say something like: 'it's not because... we haven't... in a while... is it?'... My heart cracked painfully at that, I'm not going to lie. I have spoken almost exactly that sentence before, worrying that just kissing and physical affection is not enough for someone who's not ace. To have that validated by Astarion was really special for me.

(aka, I really didn't get to know Astarion very well in my first playthrough because he didn't approve of my absolute doormat of a Tav (Kaerlyn the drow) and I didn't spend much time with him, but now with my sassy monk...? I get it. I totally get why you all love Astarion so much).

EDIT: additional dialogue from Raphael talking about Cazador indicates that it might be linked to vampirism (my own headcanon for vampires anyway is they can't get aroused without having fed recently, not just BG3 vamps, but in general)

[some poly-ace-astarion thoughts under the cut too]

I'm not 100% convinced that Astarion is really ok with the consensual poly situation in-game, because he famously doesn't say what he actually wants and is the king of manipulating others, especially in sexual situations (e.g. what Cazador sent him out to do, and how). I'm not sure if I'll reload a save and just have Halsin as a friend...

The dialogue when you check in with Astarion before the Halsin scene is... strained? Odd??? Maybe it's just me over-analysing it. He sounded strained though - his tone high pitched and more grandiose than he'd been in previous cut-scenes, where he was more softly-spoken. It sounded more like early-game Astarion to me...

Also, my dialogue options may have been totally randomised the next time I approached Astarion after a steamy night with Halsin, but they sounded kind of strained there too, and I got the 'I can never say no to you' one, which set my ace people-pleaser alarm bells ringing...

As someone who's poly-romantic but asexual, I can project/imagine here that Astarion has come to care for Tav a lot (more than he ever expected, for sure), and he genuinely wants Tav to be happy. He trusts Tav enough to know that Tav respects his autonomy and right to decide things for himself, and values Astarion for who he is, so Astarion is intellectually/conceptually happy for Tav to get something from Halsin that Astarion is not providing (sex), but perhaps emotionally that additional fact and dynamic is harder to deal with.

That could totally be me projecting though, because that's how I'd react if my husband (not ace) and I (ace) were in that situation (we've discussed it between us, actually XD). Feelings of guilt and inadequacy around sex itself are apparently very common with us ace folks, even in very healthy and happy relationships.

Anyway, that turned into a ramble I didn't intend on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I'm not looking to start any discourse about this though. If you don't see Astarion that way, or had a different experience and interpretation, that's all totally valid and I'm not trying to invalidate it in anyway.

[galedekarios]

Hey! You're my go-to blog when it comes to Gale. I love your meta about him, your insight and your knowledge of his character. This being said, I'd like to know your opinion of this line in his romance:

“To know you love me for the man I am, and not the magic I command... None have loved me so purely before.”

Do you think he's talking about romantic love here? Because his mother and Tara clearly love him for the person he is, too. Or are his insecurities and the idea of himself so strong that he can't see this? Thank you in advance, have a great evening!

thank you so much! 🖤

personally, i do think that he does mean this in a romantic context.

HOWEVER, having said that, i do think there are different insecurities woven into his perception of relationships that venture outside of his worth due to magic, and into his worth as a person who is in need of help and support - yet considering the core of why that is, they are also connected.

what i mean by that is that there are moments in particular that make me believe he feels a burden to people, because he is in need of help and - from his perception - makes others 'work' to help him, he asks a "sacrifice" of people (needing magical artefact so he consume the weave inside to stabilise the netherese orb) that is so great in his eyes that he feels the need to convince them that said sacrifice is worth the "investment".

i realise this is sort of going in two directions, but i don't think i can answer this differently so i hope you'll bear with me for a bit:

i'll try to look at the relationships you mentioned in your ask separately to illustrate what exactly i mean.

1. from what little we do know about morena, nearly every time she is mentioned it's made clear that she truly and unequivocally loves gale, and i do believe gale is aware that she loves him, too - and really, truly just for him.

we have these two convos with tara that highlight how that love (both are from gale's origin playthrough):

Tara the Tressym: Well, if it isn't my favourite fellow himself. Gale: How are things back in Waterdeep? Tara the Tressym: More or less the same - though news of some mad faction calling themselves 'Absolutists' is starting to trickle in. Tara the Tressym: I told your mother not to worry. That if they were anything to worry about, Baldur's Gate would handle things quick-sharp. Keep them from spreading their tendrils north. She still wants to know when she'll see you again, sir. I avoid giving any answers. But she misses you. Gale: I miss her too. Tara the Tressym: I'll tell her. With my Cat Flap of Displacement, I can afford the occasional visit. I'd bring you along, if I could. Perhaps some day. - Gale: I can't risk putting her in danger. Tara the Tressym: I know that, but she doesn't. She'd keel over if she knew just how you'd tried to manipulate the Weave. Or maybe she'd just say something like, 'My Gale always was one to make the impossible possible.' Oh, but she adores you.

and this one from act ii:

Gale: Will you love me when I'm a mind flayer? Tara the Tressym: Depends. Are mind flayers warm-blooded? If so, my prize napping spot on your lap won't be compromised. In which case, I suppose we could find an accord. And, of course, your mother would still think you a prince, no matter how many tentacles you had. And with a nautiloid, you may even manage to visit her more often.

from the one tiny snippet (that is still bugged) in which gale mentions his mother to the player character, he seems quite assured in that love his mother has for him as well:

Player: So your last name is Dekarios? Gale: It is. Courtesy of my mother, the inimitable, dare I say it sometimes unavoidable, Morena Dekarios. It's been so long since I've used it. 'Gale Dekarios' cut a poor figure next to the wizard prowess of 'Gale of Waterdeep'. [...] - Player: Doesn't your matter mind? Gale: Oh, she's happy if I'm happy. Morena couldn't care one jot what I call myself. Tara's the real stickler for using it. Has done since I summoned her. I'd prefer you not follow her exmaple, if that's all the same to you. 'Gale' is more than sufficient.

she's happy if he's happy.

i think the only thing that detrimental to the relationship with his mother is the orb, the shame he feels over what has happened and fearing he may put her in danger. which, sadly, is a valid concern to have. these fears aren't only echoed in the conversations with tara. we have this bit from the same conversation as well:

Player: You’re right. Just 'Gale’ is better. Gale: I agree. And on the plus side, if I get myself into any truly cataclysmic straits during the remainder of our journey, my family name will go untarnished.

his family name will go untarnished and with that, his mother's name.

this is more speculative, but in another meta i mentioned that i do believe that gale's father left the family at some point, abandoning morena and gale. his father also is not mentioned in the letter from elminster in god!gale's ending:

this could of course be meaningless and his father simply may not have been there at this point in time, but i think this overall goes with the theme of an absent father and it may have brought gale and morena even closer.

2. tara herself doesn't let gale doubt her love him when the game allows her to be there.

she is extremely quick to try and beat any and all self-deprecating remarks gale may make. she is aghast at mystra's demands to the point of saying that she is considering picking up a crossbow to "put the gods" out of "our business." she's always been there for him, and she always will be. she's his longest friend and companion, as well as colleague.

i've picked a another example here to illustrate what i mean:

this very sadly appears to be cut content (tara was supposed to be there for a companion gale as well), but:

Gale: You seem to have fared well enough without me, Tara. You look positively prosperous. Gale: Or should I say, positively proser-puss! Ha! Tara the Tressym: No, you should not say that ever again. Gale: Apologies! Couldn't help myself. Tara the Tressym: True enough. That's why I came looking - to help, if I could. Gale: I have not failed to notice. I truly do not deserve such loyal companionship. Tara the Tressym: Yes, you do.

unfortunately, like i said, tara as gale's familiar and companion was cut from the final version of the game, so while we do know that gale is aware of all that tara has done for him (considering the conversation from the tiefling party, helping him through his isolation, finding out what his condition needs to be treated, getting magical artefacts for him, etc.), we have act iii companion gale saying this:

Gale: Tara remains as wilfull as ever, but I'm glad you've finally made her acquaintance. Given the length of my time away, I feared she might have given up on me. I should have known better - she'd never do such a thing.

while this is not gale thinking tara doesn't love him for who he is, it is very much gale thinking that tara may have given up on him because of their time apart.

there are definitely insecurities lurking there in the vein of "i cost her so much effort and so much work, so maybe now that i've been away for so long, she's finally had enough."

it's very sad to see.

3. when gale talks about previous lovers he has this to say:

Player: Gale, am I the first... mortal being you've been with? Gale: What a question... Gale: No, you are not the first. Though you are the first since my relationship with Mystra came to its ignominous end. Gale: When the true danger posed by my condition became apparent, I had no choice but to sequester myself away from civilised society. A reclusive wizard - who'd have thought? Gale: After so long with Mystra, I have to say the pleasures of mortal love are much sweeter than I remember. Though perhaps that's simply because it's with you.

this tells us that he must have had at least one lover before. yet, and that is where the quote in your ask is from, he also says this:

Player: What does our relationship mean to you? Gale: You must know, our relationship is the brightest spot in our otherwise bleak endeavour. Gale: To know you love me for the man I am, and not the magic I command... None have loved me so purely before. Gale: You are everything to me, and yet our relationship is only a nascent fraction of what it will become. You give me hope, and I've not had that in some time.

i think we can extrapolate from that that not only his relationship with mystra made him feel these insecurities, but that the relationships he had previous may have also fed into this perception of his worth as a romantic partner is tied to his magical abilities.

it's not hard to imagine: waterdeep is very much a city of intrigue. gale was not only a graduate of blackstaff academy, but a powerful archwizard and a chosen of mystra.

4. lastly, i want to talk a bit more about what i said in the beginning and when i talked about tara and companion!gale: that gale feels he is a burden / an investment.

it's already reflected a bit in the way that he believes his relationship with tara has deteriorated in act iii simply because of the distance between them now that he has been away from waterdeep for a prolonged amount of time.

the first time you can get a sense for this aspect of gale is when you agree right away to help him with his condition. there's a prolonged amount of silence and it's clear on his face that he didn't expect you to agree so quickly and without needing to be persuaded.

Gale: Thank you. I see my trust in you was not misplaced! Gale: I'm sure we won't have to look very far to find what I need: Faerûn overflows with magic-infused treasure. Gale: As do our packs, as a matter of fact. We've such an item already in our possession, primed for the moment the need arises. Gale: I know the allure magic artefacts hold. I understand their value and their power. All this to say: I understand the sacrifice I ask of you.

Player: No. If you aren't willing to tell me the truth, I'm not helping you. Gale: I understand that I'm asking for a lot, but I can't tell you everything.

he makes sure to thank the player deeply every time they do give him an artefact, bowing to them, citing their "boundless kindness" and it's also why he is also quick to reassure them that there will be an upside for them, making this "sacrifice" for his sake.

gale's power and knowledge and skills as a wizard.

he is useful and he can make himself useful.

your "investment" in him now will be "worth" the return later.

in conclusion, i hope now it's clearer why i felt like i had to bring these two things together. i believe they are clearly interwoven with each other.

also sorry for rambling! this got away from me a bit. 🖤

[acciomjolnir]

Hey friends.

I'm out of steam.

Whatever energy I might have had for the HP fandom is gone. Between Baldur's Gate 3 eating my brain and Dragon Age: The Veilguard coming on Halloween, my OG fandoms are popping off. I can't muster up any writing mojo for anything Potterversey, and honestly, I've been having a very hard time continuing on in the Potterverse as a whole while JKR has been making international headlines oppressing trans people with her money in the UK and casting aspersions on successful Olympians because she's scared of brown people just as much as she's scared of trans people. The "I don't give her my money" angle doesn't really work when she has more money than God and uses it to perpetuate oppression and hate.

So I've hidden my WIPs, and I'm leaving my completed works locked to AO3 users only, and I'm going ahead and calling the game for now. AccioMjolnir is inherently tied to this universe. The jargon is in the handle. But I don't want my other fandom works attached to it.

Is this a retirement or just a hiatus? I can't tell you.

What I CAN tell you is that I have 500 little Dragon Age plot bunnies and another 500 Baldur's Gate plot bunnies, multiple playthroughs in each, and a barrelful of hype for what's about to drop on me.

(and none for Harry Potter, byeeeeee)

Anyway, I know I can't control what fandom does, but I can at least state my wishes for my works while I toddle back to Bag End and assume a new, non-wizarding ao3 handle for non-HP works. I'll start from scratch, sure. But I don't mind. It's kind of freeing.

Do not pick up where I left off on an unfinished work. Whether I come back to it in a week, a month, a year, or never, I do not give permission for continuations/completions. These are my stories. Write your own.

Do not involve my works in anything that involves exchanging money, and do not silo it off into walled gardens. Fandom should be free. My work is on AO3. There is no need for petty tyrants to hoard the epub in their facebook groups. There is no need for you to hold a hardbound copy in your hands. I wrote it because there was a story I wanted to read that I didn't see out there yet. And then I shared it because I thought maybe someone else would want to see it. That's really all.

Register for AO3. Get yourself a login if you don't have one. People out there have invites. Fanfiction authors do all of this for free. Hours of writing, editing, planning, shooting from the hip, writing half drunk or high, whatever we do, we're doing it in our own time for the joy of it. We're sharing our love of this fandom with you. Please, please drop us a thank you now and then. We give stories because we love them, and we love to share them.

Last but not least, love each other, be kind to each other. We're all humans at our computers, and most of us are trying our best. Ask yourself if it's really worth it to get into a beef with some other human at some other computer. Usually the answer is no.

See y'all in Faerûn. Or maybe in Thedas. And I'll still be around on Discord, so if you see me, say hello.

[punishedcrow]

OKAY YALL MAJOR RESIDENT LOVER SPOILERS HERE IM THEORIZING

So far I've done the Cassandra, Donna and Bela routes. This order is important. I've started with Cassandra because I continued on my demo save and so far everything seemed normal with some hints of mystery here and there, but I didn't get too much out of the romance objective and yes I save scummed a lot so I know a little about Cassandra's bad ending, but haven't gone fully through with it, I've just had the scene with her where she's all creepy.

I knew I'd have to solve mysteries, but in a game where you start over and over again, how would the secrets I found matter? THATS WHERE DONNA'S PLAYTHROUGH COMES IN. AGAIN, MAJOR SPOILERS!!!

So her route was full of secrets I didn't pry on. I save scummed a couple times, but since I loved Donna so much, I didn't even go too much further to know what happened on the bad choices. Only on her playthrough, characters star mentioning "rounds" and "next time" and Donna talks about not letting this happen again. MC is really important to Mother Miranda and the whole purpose of the game is for you to find out why. I've found some stuff at Cassandra's playthrough by sneaking in the third floor, but that didn't give me much clues. On Donnas route I've looked at some stuff and went back to a save when she absolutely hated it, but it didn't trigger a "secret found" prompt.

Donna knows about Miranda's plans and her capabilities, but she seems to have some power too bc Miranda didn't pressure her as much as you'd think. Like she straight up fucking turns of Bela's heart with magic (I told you there's spoilers) as punishment, but she's just "boogey woogey imma scare you" with Donna. What is Donna capable of? I need to know, maybe on another playthrough with her where I snoop around and try as many options as possible? I need to know, specially because she knows.

And this is why the developers of this game are geniuses bc Dona FUCKING REMEMBERS MC. At Bela's playthrough, when you go to her flower shop, she blushes when greeting you. Donna does NOT act like that at first glance on her playthrough. And it happened right after, on this order. WHY THE HELL WOULD SHE ACT LIKE THAT IF SHE DIDN'T REMEMBER??? And it explains a lot why she was so jealous and possessive on her route. She knew she'd be seeing you with a bunch of other people over and over until eventually you came back to her (?). And also, even though Cassandra is flirty with everyone, she flirted with MC a lot at Donna's playthrough, when I still had a couple of Cassandra's saves registered. And at Bela's route, when I met Donna, I still had a couple of saves from the second playthrough. But none from Cassandra, since it had all been overwritten already and she didn't flirt with MC at all on Bela's playthrough, without her saves.

What I can deduce from the story I've seen so far is that the only Dimitrescu kid that has a hint of what's happening at this school is Bela, since she's been fucking cursed by Miranda. Donna knows because she's Miranda's "daughter" and Alcina's sister, who also knows about all the cult shit. But I cannot confirm if their remembrance is truly coded in the game. It probably is, because that is the point of this doki doki literature club time loop plotline. Like of course that's the plot line, come on, that's what's most fun about it.

Miranda wants something from MC, so imma leave her for last.

I've also noticed that Angie has been drinking more and more, specially on the third playthrough, after Donna, who's her aunt/mother. It almost felt like she was depressed everything was happening again and Donna would be depressed again (not the case apparently), so she got depressed too.

My game plan now is Dani, Angie, Alcina and Miranda. Let's see how this goes. After all that I'll mess around with Donna's route and others to see some bad endings with the creepy sprites like Cassandra covered in blood and zombie Bela killing my ass, that truly caught me off guard btw.

Oh and I'm really loving this game. The descriptions, the way it's written, it's all so well thought out to me. It's sensible, it's relatable, it's honestly quite captivating tbh. I love all those women and I don't feel like any of them are my super favorites, but maybe Donna bc I've always loved the character since I played RE Village. They're all so different and interesting that I like them all in different ways.

Honestly, I have no conclusion for this, but I know MC is important for some kind of ritual Miranda's cult is doing. What could it be? How does it connect to the time loop?

[toptophat]

Top Hat's thoughts on the FNAF movie (Spoilers)

I thoroughly enjoyed it! Smiled throughout the whole thing

As a FNAF fan, seeing some key moments from the games as well as acknowledging the fandom (e.g Game theory's MatPat and The Living Tombstone's iconic song at the credits) made my jaw drop

FNAF veterans such as Dawko enjoyed it so that made me optimistic

The animatronics were replicated perfectly and the entire set for the restaurant is just too beautiful

Scenes such as the break-in, while not exactly scary, were still intense enough to keep me invested

Unpopular opinion - I kinda liked the pillow fort scene, it was cheesy but it could be seen as the animatronics trying to gain Abby's trust to lure her to be stuffed into a suit. Also I'm jealous, i wanna make a pillow fort with them 😭

And here's where I'll address (some of) the main critiques people gave to the movie (references: anything in the media that would link to this in a way)

"The movie wasn't scary at all, it should've been gory"

Yeah, I agree, even though I got shocked a couple of times (like the balloon boy gag) it wasn't really terrifying

But honestly, after watching countless "playthroughs" as a kid, you start to realise... The games were never that scary in the first place

To be honest, the only thing scary about it was actually some areas in the fandom (you know who you are..)

I'm aware that FNAF was never for kids, no matter how many elsagate vids were made on it. So it would make sense for it to have blood and gore. It definitely would've made scenes like the spring lock scene more traumatising to look back at

You know what else was expected to be more adult oriented? Cuphead's Netflix adaptation. While I understand that both of these beloved franchises could've been adapted to be more adult, it can also be noted that the Cuphead show is actually accepted by the fandom as while it did have a rocky start with S1, it showed that the writers were testing the waters to try something new, and by S2, they had a better idea of what they wanted, and a lot of people fell in love with it. While it would've definitely been cool to see more gore, it wouldn't improve the movie automatically

"The movie doesn't follow the original lore"

While, yes, it would've been cool to see all theories confirmed by Scott himself during the film, it's also good to remember this: they're called "adaptations" for a reason

Many popular franchises, when adapted to the big/small screen can experience changes in the known story and lore as a way to bring this fresh new start and perspective, they never aim to continue or tell the story again when it wasn't necessary in the first place (*cough cough* Lion King 2019). Last time I checked: Luigi wasn't the one who gets kidnapped by Bowser (SMB23), Cuphead never lost the right to his soul due to a carnival game (TCS), The Echidnas never had beef with freaking owls over the master emerald (The Sonic movies)

Let's be honest here, Scott may have made FNAF, but all the popular fan theories wrote the story, so everything is kinda messy. Maybe this was Scott's chance to rewrite everything, to start over and stray away from the messy lore that others made, MatPat seemed to be cool with it, he was even in the damn movie!

While, there have been times when repeating the same story makes it stale and repetitive (Disney), Changing important elements of the story (Also Disney) can make it unfaithful and pointless, so I understand that.

The changes that were made in this movie were interesting, making Vanessa, Afton's daughter could add more impact on the whole Vanny thing as she's been around this horrible man her whole life. Not making Mike, Abby and Garrett, Afton's children doesn't really deepen the personal connection and conflict between Mike and Afton so it'll be interesting to see how that one goes especially with Circus Baby now that Abby has no real connection to Afton other than that one encounter

Also I heard from one review that the movies take more inspiration from the books, but I don't have enough knowledge on the books to elaborate on that argument

Unless there's some weird twist, which is highly unlikely, I'd love to see how they develop these newly established dynamics if there are sequels being planned (pls make more, I need to see how this goes)

Besides, like I said, often, the first movies, seasons etc are there to experiment, it has the potential to improve in each new installment. For example, JJBA, it took until around parts 3-4 for Araki to have a better idea of what he wanted it to be.

Conclusion

That's about all I really have to say. I understand that many had high expectations going in and, who wouldn't? It shows we value ourselves and that we want to experience things that are worth our time. People are not obligated to love everything and don't have to agree with everything I said. I personally found the movie to be enjoyable and worth my time, and, while i know it lacked in some aspects, who knows?, as it progresses, opinions could change and if we get more of the revamped FNAF, then, we could see if it changed for the better or for the worse. And while first impressions do matter, it won't always be the same impression moving forward (for people who liked and didn't like the movie)

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk!

[thewatercolours]

@cygnascrimbles, that's a great question, and there's no one right answer. I'll give you my two cents. :-)

tl;dr: I'd heartily suggest starting with Chapter One: A Knight to Remember from King's Quest (2015) because it's the game of my heart and is intended as a starting point. But many people would suggest King's Quest I ('84) because it was the very first, or King's Quest V ('90) or VI ('93) because they are often hailed as the best the older, original series has to offer.

So if the thing that's stoking your interest in King's Quest is my blog, what you're seeing is the King's Quest game released by The Odd Gentlemen starting in 2015.

It's a reboot of the 80's/90's original games, but it requires no previous knowledge to play and is a fresh story. You play as Graham, who starts off as young lad dreaming of adventure and glory, and ends up having to unexpectedly take the throne he had planned on serving. Over the course of five chapters, you navigate the story of his life from those eager teen days straight through to old age, telling bedtimes stories to his grandchildren. It's a charming, quirky game with plenty of heart, a really gorgeous fairytale world of all hand-painted textures (they literally printed out the shapes for all the textures they needed, painted them with paint brushes, and then scanned them in to render in the game world! At least, as I understand it?), with a great sense of humour and some delightful characters. Graham himself is such a loveable dork in this version of the story, too,

But I do have to give a caveat. This game, delightful as it is, is also seriously flawed. It was released episodically, and there were complications in the dev process as it went on, so the earlier entries are much stronger than the later ones. Some parts of it are kind of stupid, there are times when it drops the ball on storytelling principles and characterization, and some wonderfully over ambitious ideas were just that - overly ambitious - and never got paid off story-wise.

But I love it anyway.

So my suggestion? Chapter One: A Knight to Remember (2015) is a free download, so I'd heartily say, "Try it out and see if you like it!" Most people think it's the best one of the reboot - it's a gorgeous, lighthearted story somewhat in the spirit of The Princess Bride (homages galore, and Wallace Shawn who played Vizzini features as one of the main cast.) It's a tale about a tournament, and a dragon's eye, and new friendships. It's self-contained if you want to stop there, and it's just full of joy and puzzles and a couple of surprisingly moving moments. If you want more after that, maybe check out a little of a playthrough of Chapter Two, which is also great but has very different atmosphere, and judge if it's something you want to shell out a shiny gold coin for.

All that being said, there's a sizable portion of the population who would suggest going back to King's Quest I (1984), which is where it all started and which turned forty yesterday! It was a huge mover and shaker in video game history back in its day. It's about Graham's attempts to recover the kingdom's three stolen treasures.

Others would suggest starting with King's Quest V (Graham journeys to rescue his family from a wizard) or VI (Graham's son Alexander quests to rescue a princess in a tower. ) They were made in the nineties and many players consider them to be King's Quest at its best (VI especially is generally beloved.)

You might find you enjoy these games much more than the reboot, but since I'm not as knowledgeable about the older games, I doubt I am the person to do them justice. If they intrigue you, you might want to do your own research or chat with someone who really loves them!

Anyhow, I don't want to talk your ear off. Thanks for asking, and let me know if I can be helpful any which way.

*whispers* ... and go download Chapter One: A Knight to Remember. It's free. You might like it. It's here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/345390/Kings_Quest/

[sentientstump]

I have a question about your team Canada animatic, how did you decided which clips you were gonna animate? Did any get cut from your original plans?

This is such an interesting question, although I forgot most of my train of thought when creating that animatic 😭😭

Let's try to rember something:

So i took almost every series they have made. I didn't get Ruins of the Mindcrackers 1 and 2 because i haven't watched it yet, Drobnovian Knights montage was kind of small so i think i skipped it, i don't remember clipping Captive Minecraft 4, + Starblight and Final Paradox didnt exist, didnt know about their Don't Starve playthrough (although even if i did i think I would've chosen not to think about it, bc its a different game)

So with the basis of 8? series i decided to get the audio somehow. And tbh i have found a much better way to get audio now but 2 years ago it was: get a recording app, watch the entire video and if a funny moment happens that seems feasible to animate then you go and tap the "record" button (back then it didnt have a "start now" option so you had to wait 5 or 3 seconds for the recording to start), wait for the good moment to stop it and then look for another clip to take. I don't actually know the numbers anymore, it was probably in my twitter somewhere, or maybe I'm misremembering things... 😭

i don't remember throwing any particular clips, although it might have happened at some points. I do remember the times when i had to look for an additional clip (for the inbetween quick lines)

man, that must've been tedious, what was i doing LOL

i might have been like: "oh, this clip seems very difficult to animate, I'll force through it" wow! what a good strategy! 🙆🏻

here's some other stats i did when finishing it! I'm so glad i did these, thank goodness. I tried to store the frame images in a computer storage, but every time i look inside it doesn't have anything... So all of them are lost. In ibisPaintX, in Alight Motion, in phone gallery too. These images is all i have now

hopefully this answered the question somewhat!👍🏼 if something is still kinda unexplained i can try to go into even more detail, although i do need direction LOL

[starrysharks]

ive sent like 20 asks to you atp but i really love ur art soooo so so so much like ur like my biggest inspiration fr like seriously i could blab all day abt how much i love your art and your arts almost singlehandedly motivated me to start working on shape language more bc i think thats like the key part of your art (to me at least) and youre like the true embodiment of "same face syndrome fears me" but like fr because all your ocs are so distinct and unique

do you have any tips on creating unique silhouettes / just general character design tips?? also id love to hear abt how your use of shapes and shape language evolved over time if ur fine sharing that!!

ok this is literally the sweetest ask ever like first off thank you so much ;_; i'm glad i was able 2 inspire you!!!

for me if you look at my old art there's little to no focus on shape language cuz i wanted to express a 'pointy' animeish style. examples are from 2020, 2021 respectively

as you can see i did NOT flip my canvas and my art was samey as hell,,, but in 2021 i started going for softer colors and shapes rather than points and spikes and brighter shapes. but, if you were to look through all of my art from either era, you'd see it's identical cuz i didn't care for shape language. this went on for quite a while :,)

then i discovered worlds end club in late 2021 and everything changed !!! i watched playthroughs cuz i didn't have a means to play at the time, and decided on making my artstyle a blend of cartoony and animeish - which ended up in choosing more expensive silhouettes and faces in turn

honestly i'm too tired to actually chronicle my artstyle change so i'll just skip to late 2022 in this timeline, sorry 😭

so by now has my artstyle evolved into aomwthing super cool n expressive ? no actually i think my art got worse in late 2022

as you can see, my colors got super washed out and i didn't really take risks, i guess? but i was finally starting to come into my own in terms of artstyle and was finally acknowledging shape language a little bit.

very early 2023 is the same, so let's skip to the one thing that changed my artstyle - the big 8 lineups

suddenly everybody was like 'wow your shapes are so good!!!' this was because i had tried to challenge myself with character design in these drawings. so i tried to emphasise interesting shapes more - using a technique where i'd just take an interesting shape or line that corresponded with a character's personality and repeating it as much as i could across the design.

like this deep cut art, where i tried to 'dial up'their already exaggerated shapes and design aspects (such as making frye's pants sag more or changing up shiv's hair. big man is perfect and needs no changes)

but this journey is still not over because a few months ago i rewatched all of panty and stocking and watched clone high for the first time, and both of these shows emphasise shapes a LOT in their designs, and i picked those up. here's art from a few months ago - in short, i tried to find the 'focal point' of the design, something that set it apart from other designs with similar body types or clothing, and built around that, if it makes sense? here's some art that i think expresses that well

comparing the new quintet art to the old one, i think you can also see that i started to try and use different body shapes and shapes in general (such as clyde having a more triangular build ig) . and tumblr doesn't let me add more pictures so this is where the overview ends !

my advice is - watch and rewatch anything that might inspire you, because it has the ability to push you in the right direction. for technical tips, id say -

draw different body types and age ranges (often times same face syndrome is born from only drawing the same age range, usually 15-20 for most sufferers)

play around with style - do you want a more western inspired style or something more akin to modern anime ? maybe something entirely different! try drawing in different styles that you like and see which ones stick

research fashion if only a little bit - it can help understand visually pleasing silhouettes (such as the famous big jacket or big pants silhouettes)

speaking of big jacket or big pants, contrast is key !!! top or bottom heavy designs are an easy way to express personality and an expressive silhouette ig

ummm thaz it ithink. once again thank you for your kind words and remember to take advice from multiple artists im just one guy!! i hope anything in here helped or was at least interesting to read

[lady06reaper]

Oh! Maybe Weaponmaker!reader who works for Mafia leader Kenny? Like while Kenny's all dangerous and proper. Reader is all mechanic and also dangerous lol.

Like imagine one of those weapon makers you see on side quests during a playthrough game. Always wearing gloves and a mysterious cape only to be hella lot when they take it off 👀 - marshmellow

this reminds me of the merchant from RE4, like all dangerous and mysterious but in a sexy way

Mafia Leader!Kenny x Weapon Smith!Reader

Yall met when Kenny was first starting out in the mafia, you were an experienced weapons Smith who saw potential in kenny

but of course to keep the mystery you didn't show your face to kenny until he became the leader

but oh my you two were a fierce couple when it came to taking down other mafias

your weapons combined with his tactics

lord help whoever was in your path

but when you did show your face he was amazed, like how did that face make all those powerful weapons?

You were in his office he called The Den, where all business took place. He had called you in discuss the newest weapons you were able to get ahold of and modify to your advantages.

"The new semi auto shotties and extended pistol mags are here, but they need work which I can't do until I get that new steel alloy," you sat on his desk while he looked over your blue prints for your latest ideas.

"I'll have my men locate and obtain a shipment for you," he waved his hand and all of his men within The Den left, leaving you and Kenny. He wasn't intimidating to you, you saw him grow from nothing to having everything.

"Now onto more pressing matters my precious weapons smith," he folded his hands and leaned his chin on them to support his head. "I've known you since I was a weakling, and yet, I don't know you at all, why is that?" You gulped down the saliva that gathered in your mouth due to nervousness.

"I like my privacy sir, it's what keeps me in my status."

He hummed in understanding. "I understand that, but you've known me for awhile, I think it's time you return the favor of letting me to get to know you."

You sighed, your head dropped and you realized he was right. You stood up off the desk, and looked him in the eyes through your mask. Your hands shakily came up to your mask, you clicked the buttons on your ears to release the seel. The veil was lifted, and Kenny's eyes squinted as if he was upset with how you looked.

"Are you mad sir?"

"Quite the opposite, why hide such a face behind a mask?" He leaned back in his chair to take you all in. You couldn't tell if it was out of curiosity, or hunger.

"Well, with my mask on I'm the feared weapon smith, without it I'm my own person. I like to keep the two separate."

Kenny nodded in agreement, understanding why you would want to keep the two separate. You wanted your own life away from the mafia, if only Kenny could have that luxury.

"Come here," he patted his lap, you hesitated at first, but after the reassurance of him not going to bite you, you walked over and sat on his lap. "I want to get a good look at my right hand."

Kenny took your face between his palms and moved your head around to look at every nook and cranny your features had to offer. He paused with you facing him, his eyes drifted down to your lips, then back up to your orbs. He opened his mouth to ask permission, but before words came out you nodded yes, too scared to dive in first. Your lips met in a soft kiss, Kenny treated you like you were fragile considering this was new territory to him and you. You separated and looked at each other, his eyes were hooded from the kiss, you both panted trying catch your breaths. A smirk graced his face, which only means bad things, or so you thought.

"Let me get to know you better, strip."

[phoenixspencer]

Hello! I love your gifs! How do you make yours so clear and high quality/What's your process? <3

Hi!! Thank you so much!! I've never really had to explain out my process to anyone and I don't know how much detail you need, but I'll try my best and try to be as thorough as possible just in case!!

For my D:BH gifs, the process starts out with recording my own game play. I have a gaming computer that already had the GeForce Experience app downloaded, so I use that to record my game play. It records at 1920 × 1080p, 60 frames per second, so the files can get... rather large 😅 The video of my playthrough of the Russian Roulette chapter (~11 minutes long) was just under 4 GB. So its not light...

From there, I figure out what in particular I want to gif (for the timestamp roulette series, I let a random number generator figure out whereabouts I'm looking). Once I know that, I open up VLC and use it to isolate that particular shot + a little more on either end.

After I have the shot(s) I want to gif isolated, I open up Photoshop. I use "File" > "Import" > "Video Frames to Layers" and choose the video I want. You can do this straight from the video of your playthough, but I find that the shorter the video is, the easier it is to work with in this step. I trim my video more, to about a click or two outside of the specific shot I want. Like so:

From there I delete any extraneous frames from the "timeline" section that comes up.

Then is cropping: my go-to crop uses the "W x H x Resolution" option - I put 540 px in the first box, 300 px in the second and leave the third blank.

After that, I have an action in Photoshop that does the next steps for me (to make things quicker), but what it does is sets the frame rate (which will have to be done again after saving the gif because Photoshop hates everyone apparently), converts all the layers into a single object, and sharpens the gif. I've only been gif-ing for about a year and a half, and before that I had exactly zero experience with Photoshop at all, so all the numbers from these steps are still the same as the numbers I pulled from the tutorial I used when trying to figure everything out. For those, you can look at this absolutely AMAZING tutorial, by hayaosmiyazaki, specifically steps 7. gif speed and 8. sharpening.

From there, I start adjusting the colors. From what I've noticed, I seem to do a good bit less color adjustment than some, or maybe even most, other gif makers. It's honestly all about personal preference, so play around with it and find what you like! I personally like to stick as close as possible to the original colors, while still brightening the image up enough to make it clearer and more legible. So, for a majority of my gifs, I only apply an "Exposure" layer, a "Brightness/Contrast" layer, and a "Hue/Saturation" layer (from the "Layer" > "New Adjustment Layer" menu.) The numbers here change dependent upon the lighting in the shot.

For example, here's a before and after of this shot I just did so I could type this out and make sure I got every step 😅 For this one, I did Exposure +1.0 (no change to Offset or Gamma Correction), Brightness +20, Contrast +10, and Saturation +5 (no change to Hue or Lightness).

Once I'm satisfied with my coloring, I go to "File" > "Export" > "Save for Web (Legacy)". I watch the gif there to make sure it looks how I want, maybe go back and do a few tweaks to the coloring if I'm not quite happy, check the file size and then save it!

Tumblr's maximum file size is 10MB so if your gif is over that, you won't be able to use it on tumblr - in order to fix that, you may have to delete a few more frames. Or you can crop it to so there's less pixels in the "Save for Web" pop-up by changing the numbers in the "Image Size" section

And now, once I have my gif named and saved. I go back to "File" > "Open" and open up that gif. From there, I go to the little three lines icon in the top right corner of my "Timeline" section, click "Select All Frames" and then click the three dots on one of the frames and change the frame delay. For my DBH gifs, I do 0.02 seconds cause it looks best to me. Depending on how many frames per second your recording software does/what you personally like speed wise, this may be different for you. This is also different for gifs from live action or other media (for those, I prefer 0.05 seconds - it looks the most realistic to me.)

Then, I just save again, overriding the file from before I changed the speed, and voila! That's my process!

I hope this helps; if you have any more questions, my ask box is always open!! And again, thank you so so much 🥰 I'm so glad you like my gifs!!

[redphienix]

Think I might reset my current update run of VOTV and shift the settings around for once.

My last playthrough was all normal settings (I think funny was off though? Unfortunate.) and it was a fuckin' blast, buuuut I think maybe shifting things around would make a replay a nice slightly different experience :)

I could make it harder, but harder just means more busy work with hashes and less time to explore as time flows faster, that doesn't sound particularly fun.

More challenging? Sure- a bit, slightly. Maybe not "good" challenge but you'd be fighting your need bars a bit more and you might find it a higher incentive to just ignore signals (or just hashes) in favor of other money making methods since you'll be using so much of your limited time grabbing all the damn hashes- or maybe it's fine hell if I know.

But nah. I think I want to try making it easier and abusing "some but not all" of my old items via the mailbox. Sell-gun to sell rocks and mushrooms for early money to buy trash bags lmao

I didn't know what the raw difficulty setting did but apparently it's just the amount of hashes you need each day (if you bother) and the effective length of each day.

TBH?

I'd LOVE more time in my days (and nights). That sounds lovely.

And hashes are in a weird place. I /like/ them as an activity to push you outside during your first playthrough, but beyond that I just don't really care.

Like most players I got my kerfur omega (took me a long damn time but I did) and stopped doing them entirely.

I instead used that time to explore which was far more fun. But I LIKE busy work- I just happen to like signals, cleaning, decorating, and late night generator fixes far more than "sv.target etc, sv.hash go write down the hash, repeat 2 more times."

So I think when I start playing again I'll delete my save and start again.

Make it very easy for more time each day, MAYBE turn off fall damage so I can be sillier in my mobility, turn off spoilage for once so I can keep Kel in a damned gamer gremlin pile of snacks at the console instead of having a handful of foods in my fridge all the time.

IDK, sounds like a nice relaxing time until I run into one of those new events I've heard of that crashes the game

:)