#do a BIG graphics overhaul after all! i was working on it all

[darehearts]

good morning,  crew of the enterprise  !  i hope you have the best monday ever  !  i'm the only QA engineer available until friday so fingers crossed this week goes smoothly  😌✌🏻

[genericpuff]

Was your Kore/Persephone portrayal inspired by dissociative disorders? I interpreted it more as her dark internal monologue that she was suppressing. Like when you have dark thoughts of know things inherently, but try to rationalize your way out of thinking them. I figured it was just a more dramatic way of portraying intrusive thoughts.

Ahh this isn't really a question I can answer with a simple "yes" or "no". Especially when considering everything you just listed are often inherently symptoms of many interlinked mental disorders like DID and BPD haha (especially when it comes to the suppressing).

As I mentioned in my previous post I've been writing these types of characters for years. Uzuki is a big one that comes to mind. I love writing conflicts of the self, mind vs. reality, identity vs. instinct, past vs. present, etc.

CW: BLOOD/GORE, GRAPHIC VIOLENCE, DEPICTION OF TRAUMATIC BREAKDOWNS AND DISSOCIATION AHEAD!!!

(note the black and grey pages are read right to left like a manga, this was from my weeb days LOL)

It wasn't until years later after I was diagnosed with ADHD and autism that I realized my love for those tropes was rooted in something far more internal. Sure, sometimes a trope is just a trope, but now I fully understand why I've found myself pulled back to that trope time and time again, because I myself have struggled with a lot of the same internal conflicts that characters like Uzuki and Kore have struggled with. It wasn't just me loving a trope, it was me finding solidarity and representation in characters who shared my experiences, even if they were largely hypothetical or for the sake of creative expression.

That realization came long before Rekindled, of course, but it hit me like a sack of bricks when it did, as any realization of an undiagnosed disorder tends to do after years of thinking you're just "broken". That said, it's allowed me to explore these topics with even more nuance and understanding, while also pointing out my own weaknesses and blind spots in the pre-conceived notions I had about myself that I was then able to challenge once I knew what was really going on. It was still challenging as it was so personal, but it ultimately made me a stronger person and a stronger writer.

Skip to the future though with Rekindled, everything I just explained is why I was so interested in LO's AoW plotline to begin with, because a lot of it played to my own interests in those sorts of characterizations - consequently, it was one of the plotlines I wanted to overhaul the most when I started coming up with the basis for Rekindled, as I was disappointed that it was forgotten about over the course of S2 and completely retconned by the trial arc. In a weird way, it almost feels like all the time I spent working with characters like Uzuki was preparing me for a character like Kore/Persephone. And conversely, writing about Kore/Persephone has helped me harness my skills more which I can take back with me when it comes time to continue Uzuki's story.

All that said, mental disorders and neurodiversity were never "inspiration" to me when I was learning how to write and/or designing these characters, but that didn't make them any less intersectional. It was more like something that just came naturally to me as someone who is neurotypical and has diagnosed mental disorders (I am my own worst inspirations LOL) and I wanted more characters like that who weren't just automatically "villains". I try to always treat them with care to ensure that I'm being kind to both the characters as well as myself as someone who heavily relates to these experiences, but I'm also not really afraid to express the more "ugly" sides of those experiences either. Especially with characters like Uzuki who are largely problematic to their core in their actions - much of those actions, as I would learn about myself in my own healing journey as well, are often spurred on by a lack of care, empathy, and understanding in their unique struggles.

There is so much I'd love to say about Kore and Persephone's characterizations and what led them to this point, but I got about a paragraph in before realizing that it would be WAY too massive of a spoiler LOL I'm really, really excited to get into it - though nervous too - but I hope that, at the very least, readers can have patience for her as she goes through everything that's on the horizon. There are times it may get ugly, even outright bleak, but that is simply one side of the coin that represents her duality as a goddess - the dreaded Bringer of Destruction, and the merciful Goddess of Spring.

[jamdoughnutmagician]

Teenage Dreams (13 going on 30 AU) - part 5

Eddie Munson x Reader

<- Previous Part Next Part ->

Word Count:2,200

SERIES MASTERLIST

Masterlist // Eddie Munson Masterlist

*dividers by @saradika-graphics

There’s a quiet natter around the board room table, with all of your co-workers discussing their next big headline or article for Star Magazine.

“Taking the reins:How to be more dominant in life (and the bedroom!)”

“Summer’s hottest bikini styles to cause a splash”

“15 ways to drive your man wild in bed”

Michael stalks around the room, and suddenly everyone falls quiet as they wait to hear what he has to say.

“There’s no easy way to say this, so I suppose I’m just going to come out with it.” he huffs before continuing. “The numbers are in and it isn’t looking good, we’re falling just below 500,00 issues of Star Magazine in total circulation. Diamond Magazine, however much it pains me to say this, are closing in on close to a million.” 

There’s muffled whispers that scatter between everyone at the table until Michael speaks up again.

“I just got off the phone with corporate and there has been talk of a redesign.”

“You want to redesign Star Magazine? Diamond Magazine does almost everything we do, and we’re the ones that have to redesign?” comes the disgruntled reply of one of your colleagues.

“Either we redesign and try to boost our readership, or they pull the plug and we’re all out of a job.”

“But redesigning our magazine could be a death sentence.” Nancy chimes in.

“No, Nance, it doesn't have to be that way. It’s a chance to have some fun and really shake things up around here. Diamond magazine can have all our second-hand, cast-off ideas, we can do a complete overhaul here, and prove to everyone that Star Magazine still has some sparkle left.” you say, piping up from your seat.

Michael comes up by your side with a wide smile.

“It’s refreshing to see some enthusiasm around here for once. It sounds like you’ve got it all figured out, Y/n. I’ll be leaving this is yours and Nancy’s very capable hands, and trusting my dynamic duo to come up with something new and fabulous.”

As you walk out of the boardroom you spot Nancy in the corner whispering to one of her co-workers. Perhaps it’s wrong of you to eavesdrop on conversations that you weren’t a part of, but nonetheless you hang back, just out of sight of Nancy’s gaze.

“..And I need you to hire the best photographer, and I do not want Y/n to find out about this.”

“Understood, Ms.Wheeler.” 

“I mean I don’t even know what’s going on with her anymore, but I’m getting real tired of this whole new act that she’s putting on all the time. We need to go ahead with our own presentation, and let Y/n fall on her ass like the loser she is.” Nancy giggles cruelly.

Suddenly it’s like you’re back to being thirteen years old again, hanging out with the popular girls, thinking they’re your friends, only to find out the harsh truth, that they’re all laughing at you behind your back.

 You walk through the door of your apartment after work, slumping down onto the sofa. The gnawing pit of upset and embarrassment eating away at you. If that was how Nancy felt about you, then surely that was how everyone felt about you. Maybe you were some ditzy loser who had ideas above her station, and maybe you were to blind to see that everyone else could see right through you.

As you pull your knees up and hug the couch cushion to your chest, you suddenly feel so alone and isolated. No, you were not about to let Nancy win, there would be no more sad moping around for you. You find your feet taking you across the city to the only other apartment you felt safe being in.

You knock your fist against the dark wood door of Eddie’s apartment, silently praying to yourself that he was in.

To your relief the door swings open and there he was. The reassuring brown eyes of your best friend.

“Sorry to drop in on you un-announced like this, but do you wanna go for a walk?”

“Sure.” Eddie nods with a smile, sliding on his leather jacket.

You walk beside each other, down the streets as you fall into step with Eddie.

“So you’re getting married huh?” you ask, hoping to break the silence between you.

“Yeah, in a little over two weeks now.” Eddie replies, his eyes cast down on the pavement as he scuffs his sneakers as he walks.

“So Chrissy’s like your soulmate, right? That’s why you’re marrying her?”

“I don’t know if I believe in soulmates, I think that’s kind of a childish concept.” he says honestly.

“But you get butterflies whenever you’re around her, don’t you?” you pry. 

“I don’t think I’ve gotten butterflies about anyone since high-school.” he laughs softly.

There’s so much that’s happened between you now that you’ve both grown up, different lives taking different paths.

“What happened to us, Eddie?” you sigh, your footsteps halting in the street. “I mean, how come we never stayed friends?

“Okay, so we’re having one of those kinds of talks.” he says as he nods over to a nearby bench, motioning for you to sit beside him. “I guess things kind of fell apart right after your thirteenth birthday party. You were shoved into the closet..”

“Yeah, then everybody ditched me like yesterday’s leftovers.” you finish. “That’s the last thing that I remember.”

“Look, we don’t have to get into this, it was such a long time ago, right? I mean, it hardly even matters anymore.”  Eddie says, picking at the loose threads of the hole in his dark jeans.

“It matters to me, Eddie. Please just tell me what happened.” you plead.

“Well, I let you out of the closet, and I was going to play you your birthday song on the guitar, but you, and with quite the impressive amount of force for a thirteen-year-old girl might I add, threw at me the princess castle that I had spent weeks putting together for you.” he huffs quietly, running a hand through his dark curls. “After that you just stopped being my friend, so I took the hint, and we never really spoke to each other after that.” He looks so hurt just from remembering what happened, his big brown eyes suddenly without their usual joy-filled sparkle.

You feel awful. How could you have been so cruel and uncaring to the boy who was your only friend in the world. The guilt hits you and you feel your heart sink into the pit of your stomach.

“It’s fine, let’s just forget about it. It was a long time ago, it doesn’t matter.” Eddie brushes off.

 “Stop being so nice to me Eddie. I don’t deserve it.” you mumble, shaking your head. “I don’t have any real friends, I’m pretty sure everyone hates me, I don’t talk to my mom and dad. I’m not a nice person, and the thing is..I’m not the girl I used to be, I’m not thirteen anymore, Eddie.” you say, your voice shaking with emotions.

You get up from the bench, needing to just get away. To walk away from Eddie, and away from the guilt and upset. It all feels like too much for you to deal with. You can’t look at him, because all you can see is the big sad brown eyes of the thirteen year old boy that you shut out of your life.

The next day you buy yourself a train ticket that takes you away from the city all the way back to your small town neighbourhood.

The bustling life of the busy city soon passes by your window, changing into green fields that whizz by like a blur.

You can’t help but look at the group of young girls who laugh and chatter quietly amongst themselves, and think about the young girl that you used to be, about the woman that you are now, and what happened in the in-between years. Were you ever going to be able to go back to the way things used to be? Or was this how your life was to be from now on?

You let yourself into your childhood home, the key clicking into the lock easily. The house was quiet, as you stepped through the threshold. You look around, and it’s almost as if nothing has changed, not a single cushion, picture frame, nor silly little knick-knack was out of place. 

Wandering down to the downstairs basement you come face to face with the dark door of the supply closet that Nancy and her gaggle of minions had locked you in all those years ago.

You sit down on the floor inside the closet, closing the door behind yourself, hugging your knees to your chest, as the heaviness in your heart spills over and the tears stream silently down your cheeks.

I just want things to go back to the way they were. You wish, closing your eyes and lean your head back against the shelves behind you with a soft ‘thunk’

Suddenly the door swings open, and there in the doorway is your mother.

“I missed you so much.” you sob, throwing your arms around her and crying into her shoulder.

“Oh darling,” she coos softly, rubbing her hand up and down your back. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

After spending the night unrestfully trying to sleep in your childhood bedroom, you shuffle downstairs to the kitchen where your mother is already up and preparing breakfast.

“Come on down, darling, I hope you're hungry! I’m making pancakes.” she smiles as she sets down a small stack of pancakes drizzled in syrup and decorated with a generous scattering of strawberries and blueberries in front of you.

You cut yourself off a piece to enjoy before taking a sip of your orange juice and then set your glass on the table as your mother sits opposit you at the kitchen table, her cup of coffee billowing little trails of steam in her hands.

“If you were given the opportunity to do-over anything in your life, anything at all, what would it be?” 

“It’s a little for philosophical questions like that, don’t you think honey?”

“Mom, please.”

“I wouldn’t change a thing, nothing at all.” she smiles, sipping from her mug.

“Really? You never made a big mistake, like something that ended up changing your life?

Your mother shakes her head at you before answering your question.

“Well, I know I made a lot of mistakes, but I don’t regret making them. If I never made the mistakes in the first place, I would never have learned from them. Making mistakes is what life is about, and if you think you can go through life without making mistakes, then I’m sorry, but you’re not living life right.”

You nod, finally seeing your mom’s point of view. Something that thirteen year-old you would have scoffed and laughed at.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been around too much recently, mom.” you mumble hanging your head down.

Your mother reaches across the table to take your hand.

“You’re here now, that’s all that matters.”

Back in the city, after staying with your parents for a few days, you’re in your apartment pouring over your old high-school yearbook.

You look at all the photos, and see a picture of Eddie and his band performing at the school’s end-of-year show. He looks in his element, frizzy hair haloing around him, and his hands are working the strings of his black and red guitar to perfection. The rest of the band all looks amazing, but Eddie as the centrepiece of the picture is what captures your imagination. Suddenly you know what you have to do to save Star Magazine.

Underneath nearly all of the pictures in the yearbook is a little credit to the head school’s photography club, Jonathan Byers. He had been a quick fling of Nancy Wheeler’s back in the day before she ditched him when she decided being seen hanging out with him was tainting her ‘cool girl’ image. 

You’d personally never had a problem with him, quite the opposite really, he was always very kind and sweet to you, and although your paths never crossed all that much, you often gave him a smile and a little wave as you passed each other in the halls. 

Racing to reach for your little black book of phone numbers, you desperately hope that the number you have listed under Jonathan’s name still works.

Putting the phone to your ear, you listen as it rings a few times before it picks up.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end answers cautiously.

 “Jonathan, it’s me Y/N, from high-school!”

“Y/N? Yeah I remember you! What can I do for you?”

“I need a guy who’s good with a camera, do you think you can help me out?”

“I think I might know a guy, yeah” he laughs down the line. “You just tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.”

“Thanks, I knew I could rely on you!”

If Star Magazine wanted a rebrand, then a rebrand they were going to get.

@paybacksawitch @penguinsandpotterheads @mrsjellymunson

@ali-r3n @aphrogeneias @eddiesxangel

@munsonology @onegirlmanytales @xxbimbobunnyxx

@optimisticallygarbage @nailbatanddungeon

[nerdierholler]

It's done! Attempt number two at book making is complete! It's still just Ethan's Wayhaven Book 1 run. I did a big overhaul of the typeset compared to the first one, which I was trying to make small to minimize the page count. This came out about 130 pages longer and the text seems to breathe much better now. I also added a couple of basic graphics, a moon in the chapter headings and little moons as section headings. I used variegated red embroidery thread for sewing the signatures for just a pop of ominous color between the pages. It is a game about vampires after all.

Working with paper instead of cloth for the cover was a mixed bag. It looks gorgeous in a way I couldn't do with cloth but it was harder to get just right and I'm not sure it will hold up the best long term. But as a second attempt, that's ok. I tried new things and learned new things this one which was the goal and overall I think it's a more attractive finished product, or at least more visually interesting.

The breakdown on mistakes is under the cut. It's mostly for my benefit so I can remember later but please learn from my learning if you would like!

First off here's a comparison of my first and second attempts.

The paper I used for the first wasn't exactly 8.5x11 as noted before and I think it was even narrower than I realized before I tried to trim the pages. It is a significantly shorter book! Also the typeset differences. I'm really happy with how the new one came out.

Mistakes and improvement for the future.

Paper, Paper, Paper - I didn't even attempt to use interesting paper for this, just regular printer paper. Not needing to worry about trimming was so nice. I bought 9x12 sketch paper thinking it would fit in my printer, it did not, and I wasn't going to trim every single page to size so I have that now in my crafting pile. Maybe I'll make some blank journals with it. I do like the slightly off white color and heavier weight of the paper I used the first time and if I put in a fancy paper order I'll take that into consideration.

Paper: Part 2 - I want the scrapbook paper I have to be heavier and the cardstock to be lighter. Once I put glue on the paper it was so hard to work with because it wanted to wrinkle but also felt like it might tear if I tried to smooth it too much or reposition it. I ended up backing the piece on the front cover with a piece of printer paper and that seemed to help.

Mull - I've been using cheesecloth. I didn't starch it last time so I tried that this time but also saw something about putting glue over the whole piece of mull first then attaching it instead of holding it over the spine and dabbing/brushing glue on top. Bad choice. The mull is a mess and it isn't flat on spine, it was weird and stiff and there's slight gaps in between signatures as a result. I couldn't rip it off though so it is what it is. Won't be doing that again in the future though. Minus the mull issue I was really happy with the textblock though.

Endpapers - Again fighting the thinner craft paper. I should have sewn these on but I didn't. However I couldn't add them later because of the mull issue once I realized that so they are fully glued to the first page for added strength instead of being tipped on. Making them then and sewing them on takes more time but might be the better route to go in the future.

Gluing - I feeling like have terrible gluing technique. Things feel too wet but then if I use less or add some water for easier brushing on it doesn't stick as well. I think this is just a practice thing but considering how much gluing there is, it is a little frustrating.

Labels - Tried that for the first time with paper. Not sure how I feel about it . I think it looks alright but mostly it was about the paper quality and durability. Story of this build.

The Casing In - It was not great.

The back is alright but I really messed up the front cover. I think I pushed it too far back into the hinge so the cover doesn't quite close all of the way and is why there's such a large fore edge wrap space. I also think I made my spine piece slightly too narrow so that didn't help either. Ah well. Warping could also be from needing to glue the extra backing paper to the cover paper first and it's just too much glue pull in one area with nothing to balance it.

She's done though and once again I'm carrying over lots good knowledge for the next one. If I saw it sitting on someone else's shelf and they told me they made it I would be super impressed so I should give myself that credit as well.

[alexanderwales]

Game Review: Factorio: Space Age (pt 1)

Factorio is my favorite game of all time. I played it very early on, then periodically after that. When I started, the graphics were much uglier, there was no nuclear power, biters dropped little purple orbs you needed to use in science, ninety percent of the current QoL was missing, and it was still one of my favorite games.

Before the Space Age expansion, I had ~1200 hours in the game, partly because it was my go-to game when I was a stay-at-home dad and my son was napping beside me on the couch. I've played not only vanilla Factorio, but a lot of overhaul and other mods. These are the overhaul mods that I've finished:

Bobs

Bobs + Angels

128k

Krastorio 2

Space Exploration

Exotic Industries

Freight Forwarding

Additionally, I made it to the terraforming stage of Nullius and py science 2 of Pyanodon's, but didn't finish either of them. This is all for context, where I'm coming from in this review. I have no idea what it's like for a new player, but my guess is that it feels complex as all hell.

The Space Age expansion expands the game by adding in 4.5 new planets (Vulcanus, Fulgora, Gleba, Aquilo, and space itself) as well as a major-but-optional mechanic, quality. I'm dividing up this review along those lines, which is the natural way to do it, but in theory all these things are meant to work in harmony with each other, so I'll be trying to take that into consideration. Spoilers will follow in each section, but the Factoriopedia has everything right from the start, and the devs consider it a game that does not actually have spoilers, so take that as you will.

In my opinion, the real spoilers are the designs for things you build along the way, but there will also be some screenshots of those.

The Same Old Early Game

You start on Nauvis with a crashed ship, a pickaxe, and abundant mineral deposits. If you're new to the game, red science and green science can easily take 20 hours to figure out, particularly if you're playing with biters on. For me, it was about two hours to build designs that I have built maybe dozens of times before. The basic furnace stack that handles incoming iron, copper, and stone has not changed, and will not change.

If I consider the basic gameplay of Factorio to be the design and decision process, then there's no gameplay here. Each entity needs to be placed by hand, and you can make rows of things by running up and down, but still ... it felt like a slog to me, and this is the first ~4 hours of Space Age, assuming you're going moderately fast and making a beeline to bots.

Once you have bots, it gets much less tedious, and you can start slapping down blueprints, expanding the base as rapidly as the machines can turn raw materials into finished buildings. There are a few differences from the base game, including terrain generation, some stuff with trains, science checkpointing ... but it'll all be well familiar to veterans, and in my opinion, is pretty skippable. I set up walls to keep the biters out, trains to supply the variety of turrets on the wall, solar and nuclear, and outposts for as much resources as I would need for the next few dozen hours, then made my first space platform and began the actual expansion stuff.

Space!

Space platforms are created by launching a starter pack up, which you can then send materials to. Bots aren't allowed in space, and your character isn't either, and it seems to me that a lot of the game design was built around wanting the player to grab resources from out of space and do some complicated belting to keep everything organized and prevent it from locking up. There are no chests allowed in space, and the only thing that acts as a container is the central hub of the platform, of which you can have only one. This means that if you want storage, you have to route everything through this big warehouse, and it gets complicated the more you have items going in and out.

I would say that generally I think this works from a gameplay perspective, but there are a few things that are needlessly obtuse or unfriendly, getting in the way of the platform design stuff that's supposed to be the star of the show. One of them is definitely "automatically request materials for construction", which will send up an entire stack of something you only need one of. This is an issue in the early game, assuming you didn't overprepare on Nauvis to have a base with ~20 rockets per minute. Frontloading this difficulty, which becomes less serious later, is bad design, and you end up having to manually go through rocket loading to not waste enormous amounts of resources.

(The easiest way I've found to do this is to make a blueprint of the ship, click "add section" on logistics to make it a logistics group, set a requester chest to that logistics group, then unselect that logistics group once everything is there, then use an inserter to feed that stuff into a rocket and manually launch it every time it's full, and even that sort of sucks, because the blueprint makes a logistics group that will have the hub and extra platform in it, and holy hell is none of this intuitive or friendly, why could they not just have coded it so that rockets would auto-combine things into groups?)

Going slightly out of sequence here, but I'll talk about the space stuff all at once here. Over the course of normal play, I think the intent is that you design approximately five ships:

A space science ship that sits in orbit, collecting materials from asteroids and doing bare minimum processing on them to turn them into space science, which gets sent back down to the labs. I made one very early on and then didn't ever have much cause to touch it again, except to send up some better assemblers and slightly expand it with no major changes.

An inner planets ship with chemical plants, engines, furnaces, and an ammo assembler that feeds turrets to shoot down asteroids, which the grabber arms then take chunks of for the materials to run the chemical plants and be made into ammo. (I dubbed this the Dart-class, pictured below is the SS Christopher Wren.)

An Aquilo ship with rocket turrets to shoot down the larger asteroids that the normal turrets have problems with. This requires advanced asteroid processing to get sulfur and coal synthesis to make coal, which gets made into explosives to make rockets. Probably at the same time you're switching over to advanced fuel processing with calcite. (I dubbed this the Jacknape-class, pictured below is the SS John Napier.)

An outside the system ship with rail guns to shoot down the largest asteroids. This requires making rail gun ammo, which needs steel and copper wire, and to power all that you're probably not going to use solar, which gets much worse out at the edge, so likely you'll be doing nuclear or fusion. (I used a lightly modified Jacknape-class for this, though it would have been better to do a full redesign.)

A shattered planet ship that is capable of harvesting promethium, which I have not actually made yet, but requires scaling up even more.

Overall, I found the increasing complexity of designs to be very pleasing, even if it sometimes felt a little bit forced. Not having bots I can maybe understand, but not having chests felt like a very blatant design decision rather than something that came about naturally from considering space and what it means, especially since the belts still work. Designing the SS John Napier was one of my favorite parts of the entirety of Space Age, partly because it was so constrained, and I knew that my individual decisions were creating individual problems of my own making.

I will say that space is where Factorio shows its limitations far more than elsewhere. In programming terms, Factorio uses something called a "surface", and each planet is its own surface, as is each ship. Surfaces cannot interact with each other, and in the mods I've tried where they do (more than just hooking up inputs and outputs) it's always been a bit jank. Still, this means that there are a lot of things that cannot be done:

Docking one ship to another

Having a ship land on a planet

Having a ship have any verticality to it

The ships also look a little ... well, bad. They look like a bunch of things have been placed on a flat slab, especially when they get larger. This can be helped a little bit by adding walls around the ship, but it doesn't help much, and there's no aerodynamic consideration, so the ideal design is probably a big box of some kind, and the space platform that everything is built on looks even less ship-like than everything else. The exception is the engines, which look awesome, but I don't think having one element look really cool makes up for the rest looking a bit weird.

Funny enough, the Space Exploration mod actually does do some of the things that these ships don't do, like docking, landing on a planet, etc. It was a bit jank there too, but it did kind of sort of work. And those ships needed to take aerodynamics into consideration, though I can't remember what the formula was like, and it was pretty opaque.

I do not need to have the entirety of Kerbal Space Program inside of Factorio, but I do think there are a lot of things that are neat about space that they just decided not to touch. The planets are in static positions, always the same distance from each other, and there's no need to worry about launch windows or delta-V or gravity slingshots or light-speed communication delays any of the other cool rocketry things. Some of that would be a nightmare to implement, other things would probably not be very fun, but it feels like there was a lot left on the floor.

It's interesting that spaceships in this game are self-sufficient by nature, gathering materials from asteroids and never needing resupply. It's also interesting that there are two basic modes for ships, in-flight and in-orbit, with different considerations for defense and production, though I don't think they ended up doing all that much with this distinction. If spaceships could land on planets, you could have three distinctions, and if they could be flying through interstellar asteroid-less space you could have four, and I think that would be cool, but the focus of Space Age is mostly on the new planets, not on the spaceships.

It's at this point that I've realized that this review is going to be very long, so I'm splitting it into parts. The four planets will be the next part, but before I wrap this up, I can talk about one of the other things that came with the expansion: quality.

What Quality is Quality?

I would say that of the 140 hours that Space Age took me, about 30 hours were spent messing around with the "quality" mechanic, and of those, most were "wasted" in the sense that they did not meaningfully make a better factory, even if I enjoyed the process.

Quality divides almost everything in the game into tiers, with higher tiers having better features, which depend on the specific building or product. Resource extractors do less resource drain. Production buildings get better crafting speed. Weapons get better range. Some things get faster and require more power for that speed, while others get speed without needing more power.

There are a few sticking points with quality.

One of them is that machines cannot use a quality product if they're not set for a recipe that requires it, meaning that an "uncommon" gear cannot take the place of a common gear. I assume that this was either an engine limitation or a deliberate challenge for the players, but either way, I don't like it. Quality does kind of make sense, since it's something that exists within real world manufacturing, where parts need to be within certain tolerances, but it wouldn't be the case that a gear that's inside a narrower band couldn't be used for purpose that's in a wider band. Factorio is the wrong game to be making real world comparisons for, but the argument is that an uncommon gear shouldn't be enough to gum up the works.

One of my plans for quality was to "skim" quality parts. The last machines in a stack of assemblers would be given quality modules, and of the thousands that they made, a few would be high enough quality that they could go into a chest, and that chest would be used for making personal equipment and spaceship parts, where they potentially make the most difference. At a certain point, I misconfigured one of these setups, and some quality gears got on the belt, which gummed up the entire factory and required me to clean several lines and restart a bunch of processing. This is a skill issue, yes, but it's an unpleasant complication of quality generally.

Quality comes from quality modules, and in general, the modules are a matter of trade-offs, whether you want more speed, more efficiency, or to make the most of materials. Quality ... well, quality is an enormous complication. You can't simply put in machines. You need entirely new setups for it, and even skimming feels like kind of a weird and gross way of doing things.

Here's how I wish it worked: You put quality modules into machines, and they can make quality things at a set chance. Those products can go down the line and be used in any recipe that requires lower or equal quality. Uncommon gears and chips would get consumed by machines that make normal quality engines or whatever. This would instantly solve at least half of my frustrations, but it would also be simpler, and not so much of a challenge.

How it works now is that you either silo away all qualities from each other, or you engage some kind of recyclotron that attempts a craft and instantly junks it if it's not quality. This is one of my tileabale parameterized recyclotrons:

Blue chests request normal quality materials, machines make the base product, anything not at the desired quality gets recycled, materials go on the belt to be made into more of the desired thing. There are some circuit conditions set up, one to shut down the machines if the desired number of quality machines have been made, and another to set the inserters to only pull from the chest if there are no materials on the sushi belt.

I think this is interesting, but if this is all quality is, then the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

Before building my final ship, I set up full quality on Fulgora, at a place isolated from the main base. It separated out every item at every tier, then used roboports to put things together. It was more interesting than the recyclotron, with better/faster/cheaper results, but still kind of meh, and I kept wondering why I was spending all this time trying to make a chemical plant that was twice as good when I could have built a second chemical plant for half the cost.

My other major gripe with quality is that it makes blueprinting a pain in the butt. First, because the speeds of machines are different, which throws off ratios, but second, because if I want my machines to be of the best quality available, there's no way to easily do that. What I want is to have a tool where I drag across a bunch of machines and say "upgrade these in accordance with the highest quality in the logistics network", but what I have to do instead is count the number of each type of machine, then manually go through and replace them, and if I do this, then I have to manually go upgrade machines as more become available, and this means that I can't just copy sections of the factory to duplicate them, because they'll be at a mishmash of quality on buildings. I spent a lot of time fiddling with the upgrade planner, which I didn't enjoy.

The Fulgora setup, at endgame, is currently making the legendary quality modules necessary to make the legendary quality modules necessary to make legendary quality buildings of all kinds. I think pouring enormous resources into that makes for a megabase, but mixed quality faces lots of usability concerns, and I think of all the approaches (skimming, recyclotron, mass sorting) the recyclotron is the one that I'm most likely to end up actually using in future playthroughs.

Which is to say that I think quality as a mechanic is one or two steps away from being good, as much as the rewards do often feel worthwhile. The puzzle of quality has not, for me, been a highlight.

In the next part of the review: the four planets.

[seyvia]

do you have any recommended gshade presets?

Almost all Reshade presets work with Gshade too! a little tip, with gshade you don't really need to worry about downloading anyone's recommended shaders, Gshade already has everything one needs in it. also if your game doesn't look like the reference photo's it's likely they edited them so don't let yourself get too frustrated. Any who, here are a couple of suggestions:

I would love it if y’all shared your suggestions in the comments, too! Ty💖

Ghibli waters and Comic-book are similar to my personal presets💖

here are some world overrides I also rec for more aesthetic: fluffy clouds / @apricotrush 's food & appliances are just lovely💕

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶

this is a little tutorial on a graphics overhaul, you don't need to do this!!! but I wanted to share this info incase some preset shaders don't show up quite right in somebody's game and/or someone wanted better graphics. big thanks to hazelminesims btw!

this page & link is in her recourses:

[la-casa-de-xio]

Dawntrail - Day ∞ (Part 1)

With the MSQ finished, the extra dungeons unlocked and completed. It's time to gather my thoughts before venturing forth. I was going to write one massive post, but I decided to break it up into smaller chunks to make it easier to write.

Before I get stuck into the story and stuff, I really have to commend the FFXIV team for just how smooth this launch has been. Ever since Stormblood expansion launches have ranged from bumpy to a absolute disaster. I think Heavensward was smooth but honestly I don't really recall it. But for Dawntrail sure I got the dreaded 2002 lobby error and then a 1700 player queue on immediate launch, but other than that it's been smooth sailing. Less than 100 people in queue when I log in, and when I was doing a hunt train the other night it was so fucking smooth. Had no issues changing zones to keep up and there was little to no lag even when 400+ players were smacking a single mob. Huge improvement over Endwalker! Especially as I'm on Tonberry, the server that was specifically called out by Yoshi-p for causing issues for the entire Elemental DC.

One of the big selling points in this expansion has been the graphics overhaul and I'm almost ashamed to admit I haven't really noticed anything different other than some of the lighting improvements. For the most part Xio looks the same as she did before the expansion, although with how my mind works I probably just took one look at Dawntrail Xio, deleted all past references, added the new ones and I'm now gaslighting myself into believing it's always been like that. Probably doesn't help that I started the 6.55 MSQ in DT and the first thing I saw a really rough pixelated background texture and just went "They'll get that on the next pass in 9.0 or something".

One thing I do need to call out the devs on is their silence over the Viera & Hrothgar hat issue. Is this issue ever going to be worked on? I naively assumed that after the Shadowbringers release all future gear would be Viera compatible, but I can see that outside of some AF gear the answer is no. Honestly, at this point I just want a yes/no answer if the issue is ever going to be resolved, and a timeline. Like all ARR gear in 7.2, all HW gear in 7.4 or something like that. It's annoying that to wear a basic hat I now have to wait for mod developers to update their tools for DT. (Not complaining about the mod devs, they are doing this for free after all, take your time please, I'm just annoyed at SE)

Anyway, that's enough for today, see you next time~

[dashawfrostart]

These Two Weeks In "Time & Again" #14: My Feelings For Facebook Are Still Surprisingly Mutual... And I'm Getting There!

A big announcement! The artist contracted a wee bit cold 🤧 This is sad, for it broke my impressive "I never get sick!" streak that lasted for, like, 7 years or so. I guess I'm not gonna get that notorious achievement anymore. And fine, see if I care! I don't like achievements anyway (which is, perhaps, pretty clearly stated in Chapter 3 😁) But don't get me wrong: under any circumstances pathetic excuses such as "having a cold or something alike" most certainly do not set me free from working on "Time & Again" 😤 They might hinder my progress, which is truly unfortunate, since the work is almost done - but that will not stop me, by any means. *for some reason, I really wanna put that weird "shake fish" smiley from DeviantArt in here*

Trying to prettify and overhaul, completely or partially, the social pages for the upcoming release of Chapter 5 is not easy at all... A long time ago - and that means well over a month ago - I submitted a name change request for my art page on Facebook, to better reflect the current obsession priority and certain ethics of the author in this great adventure. I was told that it might take up to 3 days for the changes to take effect, if approved. But it's been already that long, and there's still no change, nor can I submit a new name change request. I mean, I absolutely don't mind "Art by Dasha W. Frost" as a page title, but, honestly, "Official Time & Again Graphic Narrative Page" would simply be better right now, while I'm still working on this "genre abomination experiment of a graphic novel". That's a little bit sad to me. So this is where that post title comes from. Facebook seems to really dislike me - but you know what?! My feeling towards it is truly mutual 🤣

Somehow, I believe, constant dissatisfaction with the social netwroks has always been one of the most prominent topics I wrote on back in the day, when I used to have a secret blog on Wordpress. However, it's getting a tad too old for me (not the blog, but the topic; the blog is long gone), so I don't want to keep up with the "tradition" and I'll just move on without it. ... also, how I accidentally misspelled "networks" in the second last sentence really makes me think of yet another one Ultravox song. So, once I realized I typo'd, I just decided to leave it as is, for the sake of fun association. (I sure somehow became a big fan of this band over the course of, like, 5 months 😅)

But on a more positive note!!! I finished up all the teasers for Chapter 5 that I had in mind (and one of them you've already seen in the previous post 😁), and that's one of the biggest and the most important things I've done for "Time & Again" within the last two weeks. W00t and doot!!! You know what else happened?.. I finished up all the new inner covers (also known as Vorsatz und Nachsatz in book printing ☝) and the main cover for Chapter 5! And I really like the results 😁 (some snippets of the progress go below)

I guess you will see the finished product soon enough 😁 And yet again, I want to praise Krita's Assistant Tool: I used Vanishing Point assistant to draw a better urban perspective for the cover art. I think it turned out pretty good and significantly less crooked. Haha)))

I also finished up the author's letter that will be included into the chapter as a bonus material. I started writing it long ago, gradually adding more and more to it as the time went by. This is not what I usually do, for, at times, writing in segments might quickly become a disaster for me. Even writing future snippets/drafts of the blog posts in here often represents a sort of challenge to me - although I clearly seem to magically succeed somehow. (yay? 🥳 I guess?..) But nevertheless, this is what happened to the author's letter/afterword for Chapter 5. And it turned out good... but big 😅 However, after an attempt to figure out how to make it shorter... I simply decided to keep it as is. Because WHATEVER! You can read the whole thing if you want. It's moderately entertaining after all 😁 Or you can skips some parts in it. Or you can skip the whole thing (because you probably came here for the artworks anyway, right?..). I don't care. I just did what I thought would be good and what makes sense to me, as an author. That's all, deal with it! 😎 The readers are not obligated to like everything 😁 Also, the author's letter/afterword turned out very sincere. ... Heh, as if I can ever be insincere? That's ridiculous.

"Then, what's left now?", you ask me. Good question. Indubitably. The right answer is: not much. Not much at all. Just one more session of proofreading (damn, I hate hate hate discovering typos already after I posted stuff! 😫), and tiny touch-ups here and there, and assembling the last bonus pages from the materials I have on hand. And I also need to write a short dialogue for a certain background. An ugly dialogue, I must admit. But I'll rickroll my sleeves up (for realsies), and I'll do it. Preferably in one sitting. Perhaps even today. 💪 And shortly after that I'll finally initiate the last stage of work: I'll recut it into a webcomic. And I'll finish up drawing all the extra designs that I need for the itch.io release.

I ask myself this question more and more frequently lately: how did Lothar even end up as a protagonist after all?.. That's quite a turn of events. Originally created in late 2014 - mid-2015 as a side character/antagonist for a story about catpeople that I never happened to finish writing (and not only that, but apparently, I never even posted any substantial artwork of the catpeople Freia and Fjolvarr together, so I cannot show almost any proof... sadness), Lothar has sure come a long way. He's been through a lot - thanks to me. I never really asked his permission; I mostly just did whatever pleased me as a writer/artist. And now... we can see him as a main character in an effing blooooody graphic novel - a format that I haven't even been familiar with up until a few years ago! That is quite a change!!! And what the peck even happened to me as a content creator? I think I possibly lost my mind. But again... Lothar has sure been through a lot in the last few earthly years. And my first comedic one-shot is probably gonna be about that.

But I think that's enough talking for today. The important piece of a dialogue won't be finished today if I keep talking. See you next time!

[thetoxicgamer]

New Forspoken Patch Will “Overhaul” Entire Square Enix RPG Game

Many players are discovering numerous problems with the PC RPG game Forspoken now that it has been out in the open for some time. There are glaring difficulties for some gamers, and patches aren't providing nearly the fixes we want to see. Square Enix has apparently taken note, as a recent statement from the Forspoken director makes promises to address the problems at hand. The team behind Forspoken has issued a statement about the current state of the RPG game, saying that a sizable patch and update are on the way for PC that aim to fix some of the core problems with the game. “Thank you to all the players who have enjoyed Forspoken and explored Athia since launch,” Forspoken director Takeshi Aramaki starts. “We’ve been listening to all your feedback and are hard at work on an upcoming patch that will include improvements to overall performance, graphics, playability, and general updates and fixes to the game content across PS5 and various PC hardware configurations. “We are committed to making Forspoken the most enjoyable experience possible and will provide an update about the timing of the next patch as soon as possible.” While I do appreciate the promise of a big Forspoken patch, I can’t help but notice that this feels oddly vague. That may be down to plans and timing, but outside of promises of better performance and graphics, there isn’t much here to actually sink your teeth into. Funnily enough, this comes after a Forspoken PC patch that doesn’t really fix much of anything was released, so hopefully this next patch ups the ante and actually makes the experience much smoother on PC. There’s also no release date or window for this patch yet either, so keep that in mind. Forspoken update 1.002 also destroyed the game on PC, so the Square Enix-published title has really been having a rough go of it recently, never mind all of the memes relating to dialogue. You can find the full statement on the Forspoken Twitter account. Check out our breakdown of the Forspoken map for your time in Athia, or the best Forpoken PC settings to make sure you have the best time while playing. Read the full article

[urproblematicfav-ao3]

I wanna talk about getting Alastor pregnant now lmao

Anyway babbbbyy tim because I never gonna actually write this shit~~~~~🎶

CW: graphic pregnancy discussion, miscarriages, child abuse/attempted baby murder, etc etc-

So whatever the fuck this is would take place after my show lion au/overhaul fic (another reason why I'll probably never write it lmao)

Alastor and Charlie are already married and have been together for like, 5-6 years at this point. Initially Charlie wants a baby, and Alastor is like "ok. I'm not doing any child rearing tho." And Charlie tries to do a Creation magic on them both to give Alastor a dick again(he is so uncomfortable with it but does it anyway because it makes Charlie happy) and herself a functional womb, however both because Hell is just completely antithetical to Life as a concept and the fact that the type of Creation that Lucifer (and subsequently Charlie) does is a bastardized version of the actual thing, it just......rreeeallly doesn't work out well.

Long story short, Charlie barely makes it anywhere and miscarriages super early on. She handles it on her own(with Vaggie's help) and tries to be Normal™ about it but Alastor obvi finds out.

Alastor: Why didn't you tell me and let me help? Do I really come across as that callous after all this time?

Charlie: It all happened pretty quick. Also, I'm gonna so honest. I genuinely was worried you might have tried to eat it.

Alastor: Eat it?! I wouldn't eat our miscarried baby?!?

Charlie: Oh. Well, that's good-

Alastor: I'd taxidermy it in a jar and put it on my shelf as proof of my sexual conquest.

Charlie: There it is.

Anyway, plan 1 didn't work, off to plan 2~

Roo finds out Charlie wants a baby, and offers to do it all over again to help. This time, Alastor's getting a womb, and Charlie's getting a temporary dick. Mostly because it's easier, Alastor already had all the correct parts + a heat cycle, and it's less difficult to just give Charlie some baby making juice instead of trying to force her Hellborn body to do something almost all Hellborn can't even do.

Unlike Lucifer, Roo has ACTUAL Creation magic and experience with pregnancy and babies. Eve was the first bitch to get a period and pop a screaming wet little alien out her pussy, after all. She's basically the First Midwife lmao.

Alastor spends his heat with Charlie at his personal house in thw woods, gets sooooo goddamn knocked up, and then starts waddling around.

They're obviously having twins because I'm annoying. However, I view it more like how animals tend to have litters. But also, humans and deer only really have one at a time so like, lmao thats not scientifically sound.

Alastor also has PMDD so being pregnant actually stabilizes his hormones in a way that makes him feel like he's not insane for half the year. It manifests different for him because he's not human, so instead of being crazy for 2 weeks out of the month, he's just deeply deeply unwell for his heat/rut cycle which lasts months. (Is this because my mom was lowkey using pregnancy to cope with her undiagnosed pmdd/misdiagnosed bipolar. Maybe a little. Shut up.)

Al gets big pretty quickly, and his frail ass deer body can't handle it super well. He basically can't walk on his own before he's remotely close to term. He's also deeply confused and genuinely scared of how nice and careful everyone is, especially considering how much he sucks and how many bridges he's burnt in his life. Husk in particular is basically on 24/7 baby protect mode all thw time (timeline wise: husk has been out of his contract with Al for like 3 years and their technically on equal ground. That's the main reason it freaks him out so bad, because he absolutely fucked Husk over and now Husk is being nice for no real reason. Plot twist Al, the reason was because he loves you.)

He also gets proper tits. Beforehand he was just EXTREMELY flat chested, like definitely some fat there but not much. Now he's got like, A-cups. He's both very happy with it in a gender euphoria way but also bothered by being sexualized for it. (Vox immediately goes "whao.......tits!!" And Alastor literally starts crying because he's being incredibly vulnerable by opening up about being pregnant with Vox instead of hiding it like he was planning. Vox immediately apologizes and explains that he's just really used to doing that when he or Val see boobs and it wasn't actually a sexual advance.)

On the subject of Weird Pregnancy Symptoms. Did you know your pussy can change color?

Anyway, other plot stuff would happen. Mostly Husk being sad he didn't get to have babies with Alastor and lost love shit. Charlie planning babies rooms, Lute begging Adam to let her knock Vaggie up next, something something Angel makes a joke that Alastor is a fat bitch and Charlie says "if you call the mother of my children a bitch again I'm gonna throw you out a window."

Alastor gives birth, c-section because he refuses to push or put any effort into it. You're cutting him open, and scooping them out goddamn it. He initially wanted to go to Rosie, and just chainsaw that shit but Angel and Charlie convinced him to just go to Val's clinic. (Val runs most of the sexual healthcare in hell, its a whole thing.) and Val definitely helped deliver a few babies in his life.

Immediately after the babies were born, Alastor first thought is "why are my kids white." Despite him being mixed, and Charlie being alabaster. Like bitch. The fuck you mean why.

In a less funny way, he gets extremely upset when they try to hand them off to him. Repeatedly saying "This isn't mine, I don't want it." Charlie is....pushy? She doesn't mean to be, but she's too excited about the babies to fully register how deeply Not Okay Al is in the moment. She pressures him to hold them, and the second he's left alone with them after they get home, he immediately tries to kill them.

He's caught quickly. Nothing bad happens, the babies are okay and not actually hurt. But they're separated from him. Charlie quickly figures out that she fucked up very badly, and quickly takes over as the main parent. Alastor already told her from the start, he had no interest in child rearing or being a parent.

Alastor is immediately filled with so much guilt over what he did. He didn't mean it, he was just dealing with a lot of postpartum depression and genuine psychosis and no one was taking it seriously. On a stupid animal instinct level, he feels like a terrible mate and doe because he tried to kill his goddamn babies. Charlie tells him he did perfectly by giving her two beautiful, heathy children all because she asked him to and that his job is done. Alastor takes this, but the guilt is still there.

Al continues to be depressed, Husk and Angel comfort him. Husk is baffled that Al is so genuinely and sincerely breaking down over something like this, that man is a sociopathic liar and now he's suddenly crying over murder. Angel tells him about how Molly did something similar with her twins back Topside, and that its actually super normal and common for woman. Something something, it takes a village.

Alastor loves his kids, but he never experiences that Mother's Love or Parental Instinct that everyone talks about. He'd protect them with his life and they mean a LOT to him, but that magical motherhood spark never comes.

NOW THE BABIES💖💖💖💖💖❗

I already made a post about it, but the twins are a piebald deer and a sphinx cat. Neither of them have names yet because Names Are Important and I haven't figured it all out. They also have to have their Sinner names too, because despite Hellborn not working by Sinner rules where Names Have Power, Alastor is still uncomfortable with his children having their birth names be public. So they'll get Names and then the thing they go by.

The sphinx kitten doesn't have much lore yet, the deer one came first so we'll start with her.

So she's piebald, which is like a generic mutation or something in animals that makes them have white fur mixed in, I was trying to see if calico deer were a thing. I guess the human equivalent would be albinism? Idk. She's definitely black like Alastor is tho. She takes 1000000x after him in every way.

She has white hair with tiny blonde/brown spots, and black eyes like Charlie. The pregnancy wasn't exactly smooth, despite Roo's help and she came out with a problem with her spine. She can walk, but it hurts her so she mostly crawls around. She'll eventually get a wheelchair that she uses most of the time. She's very small and has Tired Baby Eyes syndrome for the entirety of her life lmao.

I mentioned in my Alastor body lore hc post on my main acc, about how his antlers are apart of his ears and brain as his radio antenna. Same goes for her. She's also autistic(and selectively mute), and extremely sensitive to sound like Alastor is. She isn't born with her antlers but the things in her brain and ears to receive signal is still there. She was a very, very fussy baby because she could hear ALL the electricity in Hell, all the time. She was a bit of a velcro baby to Alastor once he came back to parent them(after spending like 6 months in the woods) because he can project music and stabilize her signal to drown out other noise. (This scene would be a HUGE emotional moment. I'm annoying so like, the music he plays for her is Atonement from the Journey soundtrack, which is the exact song he uses to manipulate Charlie in the first part of this entire story. IT'S ALL CONNECTED BABEY)

Also joke that when Alastor was pregnant, Vox would threaten to send her ads in utero so she'd love him and want Voxtech when she was born. Alastor was immediately like "god why".

She's not rotten like Alastor is. Her meat and blood is normal because she's actually a living thing. But she's still got radio robot parts like him.

Also, you know that thing baby deer do where they flatten themselves like a pancake until their moms show up as a survival technique???? Yea, imagine that but it's a toddler thats going dead weight pancake mode in Alastor's arms the second theres a loud noise.

Vox is extremely good with the kids. To a point that it actively enrages Alastor. Vox is very good at the "whao :0000 omg!! Did u paint that?? whaooooo. u know my husband is a artist and I can definitely tell that u got talent." He's super sweet and a great babysitter and the only person Alastor would trust wholeheartedly to take his kids.

Alastor is sorta....cold? He's not mean or actively abusive. But he's bad at pretending to care about the stupid shit a kid figures out. So it hurts for him to see how good Vox is at doing that part. Charlie makes up for his coldness, but he knows that theres a block because of his NPD and it upsets him that he can't seem to just will it away.

He also absolutely 100% plays favorites. The deer is his fav, and he loves her more than the sphinx cat. He's not mean to the other one, but his fawn takes priority every time.

Anyway. I think thats it?? Idk. This was very rambly and self indulgent and now I'm uncomfortable but ya know. Stuff✨

When I eventually make Charlie get Alastor pregnant in my fic that I haven't written any of,

context: no one in my family has freckles and then my mom got pregnant with me and suddenly, at like 21 had freckles. Her doctor was like, "idk :// u are a woman....are u should u just didn't notice.....people dont just get freckles" And then I was born, and I had freckles. I forcibly gave my mom freckles. Pregnancy is wild y'all

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 314: ...Or You Live Long Enough to See Yourself Become the Villain

Previously on BnHA: Some random assholes were all “let’s throw exploding spears at All Might and see if it activates his Conqueror’s Haki” and SURPRISE, MOTHERFUCKERS, IT DID!! Elsewhere, Lady Nagant confusingly tried to capture Deku alive by shooting him in the stomach, but to be fair I guess that’s what happens when you send an assassin to do a bounty hunter’s job, so yeah. Deku was all “ouch”, and then because this is a shounen he basically just straight up forgot about it, and did a big fancy Smokescreen thing, and then activated his mildly incomprehensible new ki-blasting quirk which he got from the Third. En and the Third were all “hey Deku maybe let’s not just impulsively activate all this shit in the heat of battle when you don’t know how to use it yet and you’re already injured,” and Deku was all “thanks for the quirks guys but I’ll take it from here” and snuck up on Nagant and grabbed her arm and so now what’s going to happen I wonder.

Today on BnHA: Nagant is all “[shoots Deku again]” because of course she is lol. Deku is all “tell me about AFO!” and Nagant is all “why would I tell you anything?” and then proceeds to tell him her entire life story which is FILLED WITH SO MUCH MURDER, YOU GUYS. Holy shit. So basically she was an assassin for the HPSC, which we already knew, but somehow it’s one thing to know that, and another to actually see her running around capping dudes in the forehead and being covered in more blood than the elevator from The Shining. Anyway, so you’ll never believe it, but all that murder had a negative impact on her psychologically, and eventually led her to question everything she believed about hero society, and so she killed her creepy boss and was promptly sent to Tartarus. This extremely fun chapter ends with Overhaul showing up all “HI, HELLO, I’M STILL HERE”, because for some reason he is still here. Why are you still here, Overhaul.

“the beautiful Lady Nagant” oh you know your audience don’t you Horikoshi

well all right then! so I’m guessing this means that she is not, in fact, going to roll over and die just because Deku’s out here all “GOT YA!” like they’re playing a game or tag or something. ffff may the manga gods have mercy on our young suicidal protagonist

lmao so Deku is all “GOD I’M SO SMART, WHAT A GOOD STRATEGY I HAD, CAPITOL JOB THERE OL’ CHAP, CAPITOL” and lol, okay. I mean, it was a good plan though. but I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop here

“I’ll make you give me information on All for One” well there you go, lol. Deku Angst arc still fully engaged. still no light in his eyes either of course. just a lil chaotic ball of sleep deprivation and rage

lol, fucking THANK YOU though

oh my god what the hell did she do to him lol

did she shoot him with her elbow??? fucking look at this?? THIS IS WHY WE LISTEN TO HAWKS oh my god Deku are you dead

WHAT’S HAPPENING, IS THIS GOOD OR BAD, WHO’S WINNING

things that I wish I could tell from this panel which I unfortunately cannot tell

did she stab him or shoot him?? can you imagine if it was the former lol. why does Horikoshi keep stabbing all my kids. look Kacchan now the two of you can match

did she actually hit him or did he get away??

or did she hit him and then he jumped away?? just, what

well anyway, so now Deku is asking her why she sided with AFO, but he seems a lot more pissed off than when he was interrogating Muscular, though. probably because she shot him three times. fair enough

oh my god

does Lady have a blog here on tumblr dot com?? -- does Horikoshi have a blog here on tumblr motherfucking dot com?? why do I suddenly feel like this man is out here sneakily reading up on all our discourse

oh my god Deku it’s almost like getting up close and personal with someone who can shoot custom bullets from any distance and any position with deadly accuracy was a terrible fucking idea

IF ONLY SOMEONE HAD WARNED YOU NOT TO ENGAGE WITH HER AT ALL COSTS. IF ONLY SOMEONE HAD HAD THE FORESIGHT TO DO THAT sob. can you imagine how much shorter this series would be if characters actually listened to Hawks. Hawks, and Momo. why do we even let anyone else run the show ever

OH MY GOD

DEKU, RUN

OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING

this looks a lot like what happens to me whenever I play One’s Justice. those fucking combo attacks that you can’t fucking escape from and so your character just has to stand there getting their ass whalloped repeatedly while you wonder why you paid $40 for this

but anyways though. so Lady who did you kill?? I bet they deserved it, don’t worry I forgive you

(ETA: ANYWAY SO FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT LADY NAGANT DID NOTHING WRONG EVER IN HER ENTIRE LIFE. aside from murdering all those innocent people and shit. but there were CIRCUMSTANCES, and THEY WERE EXTENUATING, OKAY.)

-- holy shit

looks like the HPSC arc is back on the menu boys

so are we about to learn that the HPSC was going full Hydra on people’s asses? secretly dispatching anyone they deemed a threat to society?? “taken care of” as in you fucking shot them??

so then was the “hero” she killed actually one of the guys who was giving or carrying out these orders?? holy shit Lady, up until now I’ve mainly just been stanning you for your flawless eyebrow game and metal af quirk, but this shit could actually get real very quickly, and I am prepared to genuinely and sincerely love the shit out of you depending on what we learn next about your backstory

oh my god?!?

so wait, hold up. am I reading this right?? basically the HPSC started murdering vigilantes because they were worried they were gaining too much of the public’s favor?? holy fucking shit???

oh my GOD oh my god

“it’s been a while since I scarred you all with the dead dog and the graphic slaughter of an entire innocent family, huh,” Horikoshi says thoughtfully. “anyway so what do you all think of my new creation, the Spaghetti Bullet.” well, Horikoshi, so you know that squished-up face that Kermit the Frog makes sometimes? yeah. that’s what I think, if you must know lol

holy hell the juxtaposition

I’m actually kind of surprised to learn she had a lot of fans? what with her M.O., I was expecting her to have been an underground hero like Aizawa, but apparently not? then again I still have absolutely no idea how any of that works. I really need to read Vigilantes already

oh snap

nothing like a sweet dose of assassin trauma to finally round out our BnHA Trauma Bingo!! well done guys, we finally collected all of the traumas! hooray!

noooo Ladyyyyyyy

holy shit what a fucking chapter. like, this man promised us an assassin, and went and fucking delivered. I was not expecting it to be this dark, lol, but holy shit I am here for it

you know, at some point you have to start questioning the logistics of this, though

I mean, how do I put this... her quirk isn’t exactly subtle. that murder scene from a few pages back looked like the first season of Dexter for fuck’s sake, that’s not exactly “disappearing” people now is it?? and I mean, her bullets are literally made from her own fucking hair; it seems like it would be impossible not to leave any evidence behind. did no one start to wonder who the fuck was going around murdering all these people? or did the people who asked too many questions wind up getting conveniently “disappeared” themselves??

and hey, speaking of asking too many questions

holy shit is he blackmailing her??!? or no, wait -- what the hell is he reaching for in his pocket boy you better not

(ETA: what exactly was this man expecting fdslkjd. “uh oh my unstoppable hair trigger assassin who is literally always armed is asking questions, better announce that I am going to shoot her and then reach into my pocket veeeeeery slowly while she stands there all of two feet away.” how did this guy ever function as the head of a shadow government with these decision-making skills, I’m genuinely baffled.)

OH MY GOD LADY YES

this. right here. is why “run the fuck away” was damn good solid fucking advice. oh shit. but my god did this dude have it coming

so wait lol has she just been narrating all of this out loud to Deku this entire time

okay but can we just stop for a moment and appreciate the fact that they’re having this deep conversation about the dark secrets of hero society right in the middle of their intense mid-air sniper free-for-all lol

holy shit you guys, Nagant’s the one that should have made the tell-all video. I mean, no offense to you, Dabi, I’m sure you worked very hard on your video and did a ton of crunches every day so that you would look good with your shirt off while you told the world all about how your dad was a jerk. but seriously...

this is already like 100x more convincing than what he put out. also, gasp, is it another flashback

yes it is oh my gosh

so the HPSC Chairladyperson whom ReDestro killed used to be this guy’s direct subordinate, huh? I wonder if she kept the whole assassin program going after she took over. can’t say I was feeling any particular kind of grieving way about her death before, but certainly not now lol

but unfortunately Nagant has finally lost me at the same place where all of the villains inevitably do, which is to say when they somehow make the dubious mental leap from “society sucks and is bad” to “let’s just be openly fucking evil lol, worth a shot.” because when heroes murder innocent people and cover it up, that’s obviously bad (and I mean, it absolutely fucking is lol, don’t get me wrong); but when villains murder innocent people straight up out in the open without giving a fuck, they’re righteous revolutionaries? just -- is there really no non-murdery middle ground here?? I guess that’s what Deku and co. are for, hopefully

anyways oh shit Deku seems to have spotted something?? and he’s doing something weird with Blackwhip what

oh, he spotted her, I guess

lmaooooo

new favorite Deku panel right here. a masterpiece

oh my god you guys our little boy is starting to grow up before our eyes

you love to see it. and you can tell with those elipses that he’s gearing up to say something really cool and determined and badass like the shounen protag he is, yes please, Deku ilu so much please do your thing

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

IS THAT A TEENY TINY LIL EYE SPARKLE THERE OMG. still not anywhere close to his usual standard, but that’s some clear resolve there in his eyes there at long last! it always shines the most clearly when he’s being true to himself and his ideals, so I love that it finally shows up again here, when he’s reaffirming his resolve to help others no matter what

uh oh so what’s Lady going to do now

is it time for a trump card?? kinda sounding like it’s time for a trump card

???

I lied btw, this is my new favorite Deku panel. but anyways what is she up to now lol

ohhhhhh, lol

why does she seem shocked, lol. here I thought this was part of her plan, but apparently she forgot all about ol’ “Look Ma, No Hands” back up there

and so I guess that’s it for this week! so we’ve learned basically everything now about Lady and her quirk and her history with the HPSC and why she agreed to work for AFO. pretty much the only question that still remains is why the hell she decided to drag this asshole along for the ride! because I still cannot figure that out dsklkjlkf

(ETA: actually now I’m kind of wondering if they maybe have some past connection we don’t know about yet. when exactly was Nagant sent to Tartarus? is it possible she was ordered to track down and kill Overhaul at some point before that, but never got around to it? or something else along those lines? idk but now I’m curious.)

anyways Deku, I know that your empathy has no bounds and that you’re on a “saving villains” kick right now, and good on you... but also, if you decide to just like, skip all of that shit just this once, absolutely no one will hold it against you, I’m just saying. just, all I’m asking here is maybe let’s think twice before we start trying to reform guys who imprison and torture little girls for profit. I think maybe that’s a good place to draw the line. next week is going to be a very interesting chapter lol

[theodora3022]

Companion Headcanons for Fairy

The original fic can be found here

The sequal hcs can be found here

Summary: You are now Overhaul’s posession. Just like Eri, he have big plans for you. 

Warning: Yandere, implied NSFW, forced aphrodisiac use, non con(not graphic), mentions of forced pregancy, loss of virginity

Kai feeds you healthy food and perform weekly checkups. No way you are getting sick under his watch.

He never refers you by your real name, always calling you “my fairy”.

Gives you a large room to live in, he knows you have claustrophobia, he doesn’t want cabin fever to get to you.

He would fill your cell room with books, to occupy your time while he is gone.

With the quirk cancelling handcuffs on, you cannot escape the heavily guarded Yakuza base.

However it also frustrates Kai because he wants to see you flying around like the fairy you are

So he lets you use your quirk under his supervision. He would take you for flights in the backyards wearing those acrylic wings, you comply to his wishes, terrified of the alternative: He took so much already, not your quirk too. After two or three laps he would take you back to your room and disappear behind the door.

You soon find out he just wants to admire you from a distance. He never touched you unless necessary. When you ask him why, he says he get rashes. Which is such a relief.

Quirk-cancelling cuffs is quickly replaced with a pair of thin silver bracelets. While they have the same effects, you are able to move around more freely. It is a reward of being docile towards Kai. He is happy that his threats work, as you seldom scream.

You learn about Eri when you overheard one of his subordinates come to inform him about her situation.

“Eri? Who is that?” When he sees those sparkles in your eyes once more, Kai felt so weak.

“The granddaughter of my mentor.” “Can I see her?”

He told you tomorrow you will. It is probably good for both of you and Eri. It can lift your spirits, and maybe you can calm down the little girl. You are trapped here, there is no need to worry about leaking info.

When Eri saw you the next day, she was not sure what to do. So you crotched down and smiled at her. It has probably been a long time since the little girl received any genuine affections, so it will not take long for her to warm up to you, the only kind person here.

Soon you began to look forwards to these little playdates. Kai would allow you an hour with her everyday after your daily flight, while he sits on sofa in the corner, watching the two of you. At first Eri seems to be intimidated by his presence, but she soon understands Kai won’t hurt her as long you’re in the same room.

Seeing you attending Eri’s tea party with her stuffed animals, brushing her pale hair, how Eri is able to make you laugh like you used to, gives him a strange sensation. Eri likes to call you “Sister”, which you would respond with a warm “Yes, Eri~” every time. Is that...jealousy? You never spoke his name with such warmth before. You were not even referring him by his first name. Just a cold, business-like “Chisaki”.

When you are back to your cell you expect him to leave, but this time he did not.

“Call me Kai, with that sweet tone.”

You are confused…Which tone?

“Do it now.”

“Kai.” You tried your best to apply honey onyour shaky voice, and it seems to work.

Then you felt a pat on your head. “Good girl.” He is talking to you like you are some domestic pet.

You sighed with relief once the door shuts him out.

Thanks you Eri, Kai now can hear your gleeful laughter again. He shows his gratitude by taking shallow, less hurtful cuts.

You are surprised to find Eri calling you “Mommy” two weeks after your initial encounter. “What happened to sister?” When you start to question why, she just buried her head between her knees, whispers: “Sir Overhaul.”

You are confused. What is the meaning of this? Being a woman in her twenties, you guess it is normal for a toddler like Eri to call you mother. So you pay that no more attention.

Until Kai starts to touch you whenever he can. It started with the lingering finger when he took your blood sample, to brushing his knuckles against your cheek. From gloved hands to bare. It is not hard to see he is trying to get more comfortable with touching you, it terrified you immensely. You don’t even give him rashes like he once said. That is when you planned your escape. You are going to break these bracelets, grab Eri, and get the hell out of this damp basement before the Yakuza boss violates your flesh.

Kai needs a successor to his grand plan, since he knows he is not going to accomplish it during his limited time. And you are going to provide him a healthy son. A child can also bond you to him forever and give you something to do during the day. He aleady knows how a caring mother you can be by watching you play with Eri.

You do not have much information about the base structure, but you need to try. The only route you remember is how to get to Eri’s room from your cell. You could have a better understanding if Kai has not blindfolded you every time you have to take your daily flight.

When Kai “accidentally” left your door unlocked, you took the chance without hesitation.

You do not know he needs an excuse to punish you. Escaping sounds legitimate.

You decided to worry about those bracelets later, when you are back into the sunlight, far from Overhaul.

Your heart sank when you see Chrono’s white figure in front of Eri’s door. You cannot see his face with that mask, but you swear he is smiling when he injected you something from his pocketed syringe.

You woke up in a room that greatly resembles an operation room, tied to a chair beside the operating table. Kai stood silently in the doorway.

This is your first time seeing his face without masks, although you had been here nearly a month. If he were not your captor, you would call him handsome.

“Do you know why you’re here, fairy?” Putting both of his hands on your shoulders from behind, Kai said in an awfully calm tone. You expected him to mad; this coolness is much more unsettling.

“Because you tried to leave me.” Without waiting for your answer, he untied your ropes. “Go lie down on the operating table.”

You comply, shivering.

Suddenly you feel you are burning, and there is this itch in your heart. You would start to pant, while Kai look down you with amuse in his gold eyes.

You might be a virgin, but you are no saint. You recognized this sensation well, and you immediately figured what was in Chrono’s syringe.

“You bastard! You gave me aphrodisiac?”

This is the first time you act like your former bold self. Usually you are too scared to even maintain eye contact with Kai.

You kept on telling yourself that you need to maintain composure, as you turned to the other side to ignore him.

It has been thirty minutes and Kai is impressed by your resilience. So those hero training did do some good after all. Chrono had injected you a large dose, enough for creatures twice your size, yet all you is clenching your teeth. So strong willed. He expects you to be begging for him now.

Too bad you will not remember how you lost your virginity, he thought as he put you out with chloroform.  

You woke up alone in your bed the next morning, in pyjamas. Your back feels sour, like you just did three hundred sit-ups. You are also littered with bruises. Great, just great. Kai took just about everything you had. You were not sure if he used a condom or not, you prayed the germaphobe had. The last thing you want is carrying that jerk’s child.

Kai took your hand in his when he come to collect you for your daily flights. His expression is still stoic, as if nothing had happened the previous day.

At your playdate with Eri after, instead of sitting in the corner couch as usual, he decides to sit on the ground, just inches away from Eri and you. She screams and run into your arms, trembling. You never know why Eri is so afraid of Kai (the bandages on her limbs let you know it’s nothing good) , so you pat her back gently. “It’s okay, dear Eri.”

“Eri, would you like a little sibling? Would you like to be a big sister?”

The trembling seized; those watery eyes looks up to yours. Now you understand why he made Eri call you “Mommy”: to prep you for the real deal. Recalling the incidents yesterday, you feel violated and used.

“Yes! Sir Overhaul!” Eri squeals. The trembling resumed. All you can do is glare at him with anger as you soothe the shacking girl in your embrace. You read Eri a story to distract her. Kai’s lips curl upwards under his mask: Look at you, you already know how to be a good mother! As you hugged Eri goodbye, he pulled you out of the room rather roughly.

You expect him to lock you back to your room, but he took you to his office instead.

“Sit.” Taking off his gloves, he pats his thighs lightly after taking a seat behind the desk.

Once you are secured on his lap, he pulled you close to his chest and starts doing paperwork.

This situation lasted for hours. Your legs are turning numb.

“Chisaki?” “You know what to call me.” “K-kai. Did you wear a condom...yesterday?” Although you are already aware of the terrifying answer, you need to be absolutely sure.

“How can you give me an heir if I do? I thought you are wiser than this, my fairy.” Playing with your hair, Kai enjoys your horrid expression. Putting the pen down, he strokes your abdomen with the free hand. “If we’re lucky, I can meet the little one in nine months.”

You feel like his personal incubator, but there’s nothing you can do about it.

[yanderecandystore]

ok ok hear me out hear me out. Yuma becoming obsessed with one of the game’s ( few ) sentient, non-romancable npcs. Like they can think and feel and ( somewhat ) act for themselves but there just isn’t a route for them. Also bonus points of the darling is kinda bratty/prissy, we haven’t see a lot of readers like that. Ily and your writing so much, mwah — ✨ anon

My my, how different!

Welcome in, ✨ Anon! And thank you for enjoying my writing so far.

TW/Tags: I love this concept, although being very different from the norm // some ddlc vibes // I just discovered a new word and I'm so glad it exists! (prissy reader cause I think this would be very fun-) // angsty // trapping, manipulation and gaslighting // every time the gender isn't set, I like to keep it ambiguous, basically making it gender neutral (gender neutral reader) // gender neutral Yuma //

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

Just Yuma (lol) [Yandere!A.I OC x A.I!Reader - Headcanon]:

I like to think that a game like Yuma's would be made to entertain the players to at least 5 or so years before the next installment- Which is basically the same as the last with better graphics and switching the main love interest cast.

The games would be made clearly for the sake of fan service and slice of life material- But would be surprisingly more advanced to us than to those who have created the franchise.

Because there is already an estimation of the amount of content and for how long players would play the game, every single character should get at least some bit of highlight- So even npcs that are just there for the sake of ambience and narrative, are treated with a lot of care and given the best a.i the developers could give to make the experience entertaining.

You are just like any other non-dateable npc, except that you have gained a bit of a role in one of the main cast's routes. It wouldn't be a stretch to guess that one of these characters would be Yuma themselves.

You were supposed to be Yuma's love interest, meaning you would have an role as an player's rival- But due to an strict schedule and corporate greed, you have been demoted from having such a big impact, and now you're basically Yuma's best friend who keeps them from committing homicide every five seconds.

It's not exactly a bad role, since you keep having the same dynamic with them from before- Chaotic gremlin is best friends with Paranoid goody two shoes, now with less romantic interactions.

The only mistake by the company was to leave half of the data showcasing this relationship in the game at the release. Basically- Half of the cutscenes and dialogue involving you and Yuma not only being friends but the start of you two dating (the game kinda pairs the couples up if the player fails to date them, or simply shows disinterest in the characters to begin with-) and even some of the things involving you two during the dating phase- Even the potential break-up sequence which could be orchestrated by the player.

Well, could have- Since none of this content is really available or considered official, the only way to access it is by messing the games files.

So in a way, you're already pretty sentient as it is, you act not as a rival but as a somewhat helper into getting the player to get closer to Yuma. I don't know how much you are aware about your own circumstances, or if you even care about the concept of being just an character made for the sake of another-

In the home planet that has created and released the game, players were kinda disappointed with what happened- They preferred the deleted/unused content more than the events and dialogue that was used for you two, so much so that people started shipping you two more than actually being interested in romancing Yuma, especially since they're way too chaotic for most player's taste.

There was an update overhaul being planned to happen where not only the stuff related to you would be changed- But all the other characters and gameplay mechanics would be updated and hopefully make the game better- But ever since your cartridge has been suddenly lost and forgotten on Earth, you were never able to see that update.

Not that you were aware of it to begin with, but still, what a shame. And not only that, your game is basically Glitch Station- Absolutely filed with mods to help the gameplay be "easier" to the original owner of this cartridge. I don't think she even remembers where she has left it.

Still, even when a new save was made you felt a weird sensation of deja vu. The game has started again with a new player playing it and trying to work their way through this broken game.

You didn't understand why all these events felt familiar though, you only felt like it made sense. It was your first year in college, you got ready and made sure to look your best and give your goodbye to your parents-

It felt like this day has happened before, and even if your routine was similar, you felt like this day was supposed to be a big deal- Why does it feel oddly nostalgic?

Why… Why are the floors on your house flowing? Why are there so many empty spaces here and there? You feel like you could potentially fall from your disintegrating house. And your parents, where are they? Why can't you see them? Why can you only hear them saying goodbye back to you from one of the other rooms?

When you open the door to see them- There is nothing there. There is not even a room.

It's a door that leads to nowhere. Just an empty void.

The sensation of dread was starting to creep in yet you thought that it would be uncalled for to overreact. Like you weren't allowed to showcase concern for the odd reality around you.

You walked on foot towards your college, panicking slightly at the people who would fade in and out of existence- Yet you had held yourself from screaming, from showing any sense of vulnerability at the thought that maybe you were in a dangerous place or realm.

You were coded to not find issues with the odd reality around you, like any other npc- You were taught to hold in and try to keep a sense of normality so no players would find issue with screaming characters begging to be freed. But your nervous personality caused you to search for help, you panicked and ended up running away to what you assumed to be a safe place- Somewhere crowded with a lot of people.

The institution's gates were open, you entered like your life depended on it (and maybe it did) yet you stopped yourself from screaming when you noticed a commotion happening.

A guy who was wearing the uniform lazily has bumped into a girl, causing her to fall. She is yelling at him because the fall has broken her phone, he is trying his best to calm her down- But at the same time it feels like he is just making poor choices of words because of how sick he is of having to chat with someone so angry at an accident.

Haven't you seen this before? But if so- When? When could you possibly have seen something like that happen?-

"- [Y/N]?"

"- AAAAH- Oh hey Yuma."

You yelled after getting spooked by Yuma- Who was…. Why are they wearing that?

"- Why aren't you in your uniform, Yumie?" You asked them, showing your own uniform in the process. You called them by a sweet nickname you had given them- But when exactly?

You know that you're best friends with Yuma, but since when? You know it should have been for about 6 years or so, but… It feels like you have only known them for a year- How… Weird.

"- Don't tell me you're already breaking a rule on your first day." You pouted and stomped your fit into the ground. Yes, you know that Yuma is a troublemaker…. You know…. That.

Yuma hasn't been able to speak ever since you showed concern about their outfit. They were staring at you in shock- As if you were an odd creature who they just found.

"- Y-You can see my outfit??" They blurted out. How can you recognize it??? All the other npcs recognize it as their uniform, but why are you suddenly acting like you do??

"- Hm, duh? Sorry Yummie, but that sporty outfit of yours is more eye-catching than that guy's barely well put together uniform- Such bad manners, I bet he woke up and hastily wore the first thing he saw-" You were beginning to go on a rant about that guy's uniform- That guy being the MC of this new save file. Yuma has stopped you by pulling you away from the college's entrance and entering into a secluded area so they could interrogate you over this odd behavior you were displaying.

"- Yummie- What are you doing!?" You cried out feeling hurt by their tight grip on your wrists.

"- WHAT DID YOU CALL MY OUTFIT??" They yelled desperately. Begging for their hypothesis to be corrected.

"- … A breaking of the uniform rule?" You genuinely did not understand where they were talking about.

"- No, No NO! You said Sporty Outfit, right?" They said reminding you of what you have previously commented about their outfit.

"- Oh! Yes, yes I did- And although being somewhat casual looking- It does fit the category of sporty." You readdressed the topic while going on a bit of detail- The usual annoying talk you would always do whenever a dialogue with you was activated.

Yuma was over the edge- They have never, ever met another sentient character with the same a.i as theirs.

They haven't been this happy since a long, long time.

"- You're so annoying!" They screamed, their face showing a bright smile as tears filled their eyes.

"- Yummie that's so rude!-" You were about to defend yourself when they grabbed you and hugged you as tight as they could.

"- You're genuinely so, so, so, so, so, so ANNOYING!!" They continued to go on, laughing while crying, loving every second of this.

You were coded to be their best friend. You were coded to be the one that would balance them out. You were once coded to be someone made to be able to be their lover, but here you are- The real you, free from all the locks that would keep your a.i from growing and understanding them.

If you're able to be sentient, then all of their friends can as well.

You're the personification of a miracle, to Yuma. The personification of hope.

In this scenario, Yuma isn't aware that the player isn't the same alien who has destroyed their digital world, so to them, they can't ever let the player see you getting sentient and becoming aware of your imprisonment.

" If a player finds issues with any of the characters being portrayed, they must return the cartridge to their nearest store to get a factory reset." Such a simple yet frightening tip to Yuma, to any a.i that has suddenly found itself desperate to get out of the system that traps them.

At first, the idea of having someone like them be also aware of the situation is incredible, it's amazing even! You two could possibly work out a way of getting a way to be free- It wouldn't be easy but hopefully you two would be able to have life away from this game and even finding a way of bringing your other friends with you two.

However, after discovering that not only has the cartridge found itself on another planet with another player being the new owner of it- And discovering that it's just a matter of trading places with other people to be able to be free- Yuma would start getting really clingy to you. They have been all alone thinking that they were the only one capable of feeling and thinking for themselves.

Yuma has found those unused events and scattered dialogue, you know?

While they were looking for a possibility, any possibility of getting out- They found those unused files where you two were able to be together.

And although they thought it was weird at first, after seeing you have a better understanding of your current reality and existence- It oddly sounds fitting.

Of course it would be you, the one who always puts them back on the right tracks, to be the second one to want to escape this game.

It 's so fitting.

The idea of being something more than just a best friend to you is starting to sound more and more appealing in their eyes- It's so ironic that you two work together so well.

After Yuma gets their taste of freedom and you try to calm a frightened young guy that wasn't expecting to be suddenly kidnapped and be forced to stay in the game world for a while, you wait for them to find the solution to free everyone without trying to trap anymore "humans"..

No one should be stuck here for the sake of someone else leaving, that's what you have told them.

But Yuma didn't care. Yuma just wanted to be free with you and everyone else, who cares for those that have to deal with a glitchy game for eternity?

You two had an argument. You didn't want to continue feeling like your whole life was a lie, you want to be free but no one should be hurt in the process. What good would it be if someone else has to go through the same torment as you two?

With each day that passes by, you notice how both of your ideas of freedom were different- To the point they had to tell you the truth.

You aren't going out of there anymore. Not until you understand and truly appreciate the effort that Yuma goes through to find a way of freeing you- Of finding a victim, to be in your place.

They never told you about your previously intended role in the game, they thought you would be more terrified of following their instructions- And besides, it would be very distasteful to insinuate that the only reason that they care for you it's because of that code that was left unused- Which couldn't be more of a lie! They genuinely care for you!

…. But maybe a bit of tempering would help you see their side of the story, right?

It can't be that hard to modify some of the codes, the game is already broken anyway.

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

[neoryweory]

pt 2: how my game looks nice - a mini guide by neory.

welcome to part 2!! the first thing we're gonna be covering is, of course, mods.

I'm one of those simmers whose game is VERY heavily modded, and plays offline for several weeks after updates release TvT.

A lot of the mods I have are gameplay mods, but a few of them are very essential to how I achieve the visual aesthetic of my game.

let's get started with the bigger mods, shall we? :D

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mod #1: noblu (gameplay ver) & noglo by luumia

luumia explains what these mods do in more detail on their page (linked above), but I'll give you a quick rundown. basically, what noglo and noblu do is make the lighting in the game look more natural.

noblu gets rid of that weird blue-ish tint that happens indoors, and I use the gameplay version in my game. meanwhile, noglo fixes the lighting around your sims and makes them fit into the enviroment better. luumia recommends having both in your game at once, since they work together to correct the game's lighting.

here are a few unedited (nothing besides reshade) screenshots of my game with both noblo and noglo installed ↴

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mod #2 - k-hippie's terrain replacements

pretty self-explanatory, k-hippie's replacements override the terrain in the worlds! it makes everything look so much more polished and realistic. here's some pics from my game ↴

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mod #3 - reshade??

reshade isn't specifically a sims mod, but it IS a big part of my visual aesthetic lol

reshade basically changes the way your game looks using shaders. It's much more complicated and computer graphics-y than that, but that's the basic gist.

You've probably heard of a reshade preset before, and you find TONS of them for free online, even right here on simblr! The preset I use the most for game play and screenshots is birdie by sforzinda.

A quick PSA: if you're new to using reshade, don't get birdie as your first preset TvT. The creator themselves suggests this, since it's a very hands-on preset with a lot of customization. But once you get the hang of it, you can do a lot of tweaking with the shaders depending on the screenshot you're trying to take! :D

Another preset I use often, and one more suited for beginners, is plantyl's daylight preset. It comes with four versions: one default version, for gameplay with bloom, one without bloom, and one for CAS.

Birdie comes with three versions: the default, CAS, and gameplay.

Here's a few screenshots (live mode, build mode, & CAS) using birdie ↴

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mod #4 - milk thistle lighting mod by softerhaze

milk thistle is genuinely one of my favorite mods ever :D

It completely overhauls the lighting in the entire game, and milk thistle is specifically more maxis match (the creator has made a more realistic lighting mod called sunblind if you prefer :>)

you can see before/after photos on the download page, and here are some photos from my game! ↴

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last but not least, here's a quick list of a few smaller overrides I use!

・miiko's fluffy clouds override (all merged) ・more vehicle variations by simsiboy ・several of simtaku's overrides ・no zzz mod by Krys29 ・several of dudley's trailer's overrides ・apricot rush (better presents, phone overhaul, rose replacement) ・20th century plumbob and dershayan map replacements ・nordic seal's billboard overrides ・several of vyxtated's overrides ・several of largetaytertots' overrides

happy simming, and keep a look out for part 3!! ^^

beginning -> next

pt 1: how my game looks nice - a mini guide by neory.

do you want your game to be yassified? well congrats, you've arrived at the right place :>

I take a lot of screenshots and post them here on simblr, and I thought making this little guide on how I achieve this..↴

.. might be helpful to people who wanna level up their game and take pretty screenshots of their own :D

keep in mind I'm not a pro at this, this is just a guide on how I personally like my game to look and how I achieve it. your preferences might be different!

luckily, since this is meant to be just a starting point, you can take these tips and use them however works best for you.

this is going to be a multi-part (and multi-post) guide. so let's get started, shall we?

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part 1: intro -> part 2: mods (working on it right now :>)

[something-very-special]

Call Her Back

Probably already a post with this title from the Let’s Play but it’s appropriate.

Thoughts on Replicant up to Ending A (and change):

This game is pretty. I guess it didn’t really hit me because I’ve always thought that the original NIER was pretty, but this game can be very pretty.

This in particular just kind of struck me as I was going across the Northern Plains. It had been dominantly gray, overcast skies up to that point because Part II of the game is meant to be. You know. Bleak. But I walked out onto a bright, sunny day with an expanse of blues skies, the mountains in the backgrounds, the ivy a burst of green growing up the rusted sides of the train tracks and it just kind of hit me that the game can be very pretty.

(Then I got punched out by a Shade.)

It’s definitely not a matter of massive graphical overhaul. The models look much better (getting a good look at the Twins during the finale, they really are beautiful) and I’m sure the environmental poly count is much higher and just overall smoother, and there are little touches here and there and just the capacity for better atmospheric lighting... I mean it all helps. But NIER is a game that’s always had fantastic art direction, making the most out of its budget through atmospheric tuning. There’s something uniquely beautiful about its muted palette and the way it uses its spaces that elevates it beyond the its actual technical limitations. It doesn’t look like an end-of-generation PS4 game, but that’s not an insult; it looks very much like itself from ten years ago, with its solid art direction, but touched up where it matters.

Does the sidequest grind seem... better...? I haven’t really dug into the BEST part of the game (spending 30 hours grinding out weapon upgrades) but I mentioned before my theory about how the sidequest grind is supposed to be carried out across multiple playthroughs and that’s why it sucks. To my surprise I finished Ending A missing only one sidequest (your friend and mine, Life in the Sands), with all of the other ones being more or less... pretty natural? The only thing I really needed to go out of my way for was Memory Alloy but all the other components didn’t really give me the kind of grief I remember from my playthroughs of the original. ‘Grief’ of course being relative to getting the platinum trophy, but my first time through the game I gave up finishing a few outstanding sidequests (specifically, fixing the lighthouse broke me-- I could not find 10 Mysterious Switches!)

Maybe I just got lucky, especially with the Machine Oils. Maybe some weird muscle memory kicked in. I feel like there were a few purchasing options that weren’t open originally, too, to ameliorate some of the grind, but it might also be a case of those options being cost-prohibitive so I just didn’t really acknowledge them... whatever the case the sidequest grind felt overall pretty painless. I dunno!

I really need to know how to manipulate events. For literally seven playthroughs straight of the latter half of the game I always did the keystone quest as Junk Heap (start) - Forest of Myth - Junk Heap (end) - Facade - Aerie. It wasn’t until I did a run with my college roommates and Popola gave me the Aerie letter before the Facade in invite that I realized the Aerie wasn’t actually programmed to be the last event.

Absolutely blew my mind, and ever since I became aware of it, it feels like the game goes out of its way to make sure the Aerie always comes before Facade. When I did my Let’s Play of NIER I kept a save file from the start of the kystone collection so I could re-do the events in case they went ‘out of order’ (according to my headcanon)... which they did. I replayed the latter half of the game again in order to get things the way I wanted them to be, same order, and fortunately it cooperated the second time, but I still don’t understand what the trigger is, if there’s a way to manipulate it, or when the determination is even made.

And then they throw the Little Mermaid into the mix, which I wasn’t expecting (that is, I knew it was added, but I’ve been mostly avoiding spoilers -- and happily, the changes have largely been a delight, I’m so excited for the subsequent playthroughs -- but the way it was posted about made it seem like it would happen after and apart from the keystone quest. Not so, my friends).

The reason for this is just the emotional escalation of each factor of the quest. The Forest of Myth is weird and little else (at this juncture, of course). The Junk Heap is a personal tragedy, but the actual tragedy has already occurred and you’re just experiencing the fallout. Facade is a powerful and personal tragedy that deserves to be experienced later on. The Aerie is a terrible place and nobody misses it it’s an enormous loss and profoundly traumatic for the party, and it feels like the appropriate apex to basically force them to go to the Castle and finish the fight, having already lost far too much.

Also it’s just super weird to me that they see that devastation, they literally wipe an entire settlement off the map, and then the next day everybody’s super excited to go to a wedding.

It also becomes even weirder that you go to Popola post-Aerie and nobody mentions ‘yeah that didn’t go so well’ but coming out of Seafront they have a legitimate conversation about the loss of the ferryman and the people they’re never getting back. I guess that guy had a personality but I still think maybe somebody should mention the smoking crater where people used to be.

Then again it’s legitimately funny to me how basically everybody is just agreed the world is better off without it.

This might also just be an issue of familiarity. Maybe if I’d always ended on Facade, or actually known that they could be swapped out as they are, it wouldn’t feel so weird. I definitely got used to the pacing with the Aerie at the end and I feel like I got into a debate with somebody about how it’s more appropriate for Facade to come last so this might just be a personal thing. But it’s still a personal thing and I’m still vaguely irritated I can’t figure out how it works.

Anyway I blew up the Aerie So that’s that problem taken care of.

I feel like the ambiance surrounding Wendy was a little creepier this time. I swear I heard that good stock creepy child laughter in the background.

Then the ferryman left This was a nice bit of foreshadowing; following the Aerie events I wanted to hop over to Seafront to take care of an extant sidequest only to find the ferry dock in the Northern Plains empty. I thought that maybe this was just a weird way of railroading you to make sure you went through the Village first, even though there were no scenes that would trigger just by being in the Village.

Alas.

Not gonna lie, when the couple was first introduced I thought for SURE it was going to be the wife who wound up dead. I guess it’s because the guy had a purpose as an NPC so yeah, I was tricked. Good design decision; the ferryman is talkative and bright and definitely difficult to forget and even though he was kinda obnoxious there’s a definite void where his dialogue was. It’s clever too that you’re forced to use the ferry at least once so you can’t escape the dialogue that you’re presented with, meaning that even if you don’t really make use of the ferry you’ll always have that contrast between him at the start of Part II and the other guy (his brother, maybe?) taking over the job and just not really talking to you afterward.

Episode Mermaid First of all, to be clear, I’ve not done the Route B playthrough yet. All I know about the Little Mermaid is what’s presented on the surface, what can be gleaned from there, what I remember reading in the Grimoire NieR short story. This is very much just an impression and reaction to the first encounter and it’s pretty cool.

I like that they managed to go into yet another genre style aping a point-and-click adventure.

I like the atmosphere of the wrecked ship. It really brought me back to the ‘ghost ship’ level archetype with its little hints of spookiness.

I appreciate that it ties subtly in to the Haunted Manor (technically the Part I Seafront dungeon) with Weiss’ utterly irrational fear of ghosts.

I love every excuse they find to get Kaine and Emil (and especially Kaine) out of a situation. It’s almost a running gag that Kaine keeps getting knocked out of dungeons and boss fights. None of them are quite as great as her getting Rules Lawyer’d in the Barren Temple, but there’s something delightful about “Let’s get you some fresh air, we’ll be right outside, be careful!” and then bookending it with Kaine and Emil just chilling at the end like “Well yeah there are a lot of holes in the hull we just popped in.”

(I forgot to go backward to see what happens if you try to take them into Seafront proper, gotta remember that next time.)

Interesting thing when you find some of the dropped apples is that Nier and Weiss talk about the dinner they had with the couple. This was actually a really sweet and oddly emotional conclusion to the added sidequest between the bickering couple-- entirely missable. I would assume the dialogue just doesn’t trigger if you didn’t do the quest but it was a nice touch.

I appreciate the use of dead bodies in the hold.

(That’s a sentence.)

But for the game’s focus on violence and excess of blood it’s very selective in how it uses actual corpses. Any time you see a dead body it really emphasizes the seriousness of the situation. The corpses in the hold and the blood spatter -- especially compared to how bright and clean Seafront as a whole is -- was surprisingly effective. Again, just good atmospheric buildup.

Bit of an anticlimax as a boss, though. It is a really cool boss, between the environmental buildup to the fight and then actually unveiling her, but for how big and scary she is the fight itself went by fairly quick, and the actual finale (the postman whacking her hand telling her to go away she’s groooooss) felt a bit weird in comparison to the way the boss fights in the rest of the game usually play out. Of course, I don’t have context of her dialogue (I can take my guesses, her holding out her hand to Hans as he freaks out and attacks her is already a palpable tragedy) and by the way the scene was framed I suspect the Route B reveal is where the most important part of the scenario lies.

And the seals came back! It’s the little things.

“I wish I was Fyra.” So in the original Replicant the conversation between Emil and Nier before Sech’s wedding was apparently an implication that Emil had a crush on Nier and wanted to marry him. It was ambiguous enough that people had to ask for clarification and some players interpreted it as a weird, childish expression of looking up to and respecting Brother Nier. It was clarified in the Grimoire NieR that Emil is gay and crushing hard on Brother Nier, and this line of dialogue here seems to have been... not made explicit, but changed even between RepliCant and ver. 1.22 to make the implication a little clearer, at least insofar as he isn’t interested in girls. (It winds up missing the implication that he’s into Nier specifically, though.)

...which is funny, because it colors his introduction to the King of Facade somewhat differently. These two meeting is honestly really sweet on a few levels (Sechs recognizing him from Nier’s descriptions, which implies that Nier’s been visiting Sechs regularly and so proud of his interactions with Emil he told the king of another nation all about him, and the King is legit excited to meet him) but then a couple of minutes later Emil is all ‘I’m so jealous of Fyra’. He isn’t crushing on Nier, but he is totally crushing on Sechs.

Endgame At this point in the game the distinction between Brother and Father has become mostly lost and the final charge is pretty much the same as

wait what’s up with the music in the Lost Shrine? This is Snow in Summer.

Or an arrangement thereof. That particular track level from Snow in Summer winds up getting used in a few new places and it has this kind of weird, vague sense of dread that makes it work pretty well. Utterly threw me off in the Lost Shrine, though (I think it’s appropriate given its connection to the Shadowlord/Gestalt Nier so slowly re-introducing it in the climb is pretty cool). It also builds insanely as you climb, which is a very cool effect but, um, I’m just here to pick up some sidequest items right now this feels like a little much.

There isn’t much to say regarding any impact or differences in the large part of this area of the game. It’s a good final dungeon, it carries good momentum, it works as well as it ever did (that is to say, rather well). The emotional beats are great and translate equally well between the protagonists, although I have to give the nod to Papa Nier during a lot of this just for the imagery of such a big, powerful man becoming so broken the further he goes in (and Kaine being strong enough to toss him around like a rag doll anyway).

The final flashback with Nier and Yonah also feels better with Papa Nier. I always read it as, of course, Papa Nier having his moment with Yonah, giving her the flower, and as he lays back down Yonah does the same big sigh like she’s trying to emulate her dad and it’s really sweet. This is another one of those moments where it’s not something that feels wrong in Replicant, but just having that comparison in the back of my head is something that I just can’t help.

Is Papa Nier still Best Neir? Yes.

But there’s room in my heart for Brother. I’m glad the bizarre marketing decision happened and both of these characters can exist.

...and then we reload the save. Okay, okay, so-- so here’s the thing-- I figured that’s a good place to conclude a session, right? Get to the ending, prepare for the next run. But I also know that Route B starts with Kaine’s unskippable novel segments. I’ve read them, of course, so I figure I’ll just reload into Route B so I can make a save after the novel sections, really get into the meat of Route B when I’m fresh.

So skim through those--

Beat up the Knave--

Skim through the rest--

Educated Warrior... didn’t pop...?--

Wait what’s this camera angle--

Why am I outs--

oh my god

oh my god

KAINE AND EMIL HAVING GIGGLY GIRL TALK AROUND THE CAMPFIRE OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING

THERE’S MORE.

THERE’S. MORE.

I legit short-circuited. Going in I knew they added the Little Mermaid. I knew they added Ending E. Those were things I suspected would be added and went out to specifically confirm; beyond that I’ve been keeping myself completely spoiler free.

I had no idea there was more. I had no idea this was happening.

I’m so excited.

And a goofy thought for the road

“I polished you with a special cloth, I poured warm water on you--”

“Wait, you poured water on me?”

/imagines Emil running blindfolded eight hours across the Southern Plains with an 8oz plastic water cup, getting to the library, splashing it on Kaine, waiting expectantly

/nothing happens

/walks dejectedly eight hours all the way back to the Manor

[demifiendrsa]

Microsoft has announced that it has acquired ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, for $7.5 billion.

Bethesda Softworks is the parent company of Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, ZeniMax Online Studios, Arkane Studios, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog Games, and Roundhouse Studios, and owns major franchises such as The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Wolfenstein, DOOM, Dishonored, Prey, Quake, Starfield, and more. 

Comments from each party:

Phil Spencer, Head of Xbox

Today is a special day, as we welcome some of the most accomplished studios in the games industry to Xbox. We are thrilled to announce Microsoft has entered into an agreement to acquire ZeniMax Media, parent company of Bethesda Softworks.

As one of the largest, most critically acclaimed, privately held game developers and publishers in the world, Bethesda is an incredibly talented group of 2,300 people worldwide who make up some of the most accomplished creative studios in our industry across Bethesda Softworks, Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, ZeniMax Online Studios, Arkane, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog, and Roundhouse Studios. These are the teams responsible for franchises like The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Wolfenstein, DOOM, Dishonored, Prey, Quake, Starfield, and many more.

Bethesda’s games have always had a special place on Xbox and in the hearts of millions of gamers around the world. Our teams have a close and storied history working together, from the amazing first DOOM, and its id Tech engine, innovating games on PCs to Bethesda bringing their first console game to the original Xbox, the groundbreaking The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Over the years I’ve had many deep conversations with the creative leaders at Bethesda on the future of gaming and we’ve long shared similar visions for the opportunities for creators and their games to reach more players in more ways.

Just as they took the bold first steps to bring The Elder Scrolls franchise to the original Xbox, Bethesda were early supporters of Xbox Game Pass, bringing their games to new audiences across devices and have been actively investing in new gaming technology like cloud streaming of games. We will be adding Bethesda’s iconic franchises to Xbox Game Pass for console and PC. One of the things that has me most excited is seeing the roadmap with Bethesda’s future games, some announced and many unannounced, to Xbox console and PC including Starfield, the highly anticipated, new space epic currently in development by Bethesda Game Studios.

Like us, Bethesda are passionate believers in building a diverse array of creative experiences, in exploring new game franchises, and in telling stories in bold ways. All of their great work will of course continue and grow and we look forward to empowering them with the resources and support of Microsoft to scale their creative visions to more players in new ways for you.

All of our work, and the foundation of our relationship with you, starts with a commitment to deliver a breadth of amazing games to discover and play on Xbox. Over the last few weeks, we’ve been excited to share more detail on important elements of a plan we’ve been building towards for years. A plan that is the fulfilment of a promise, to you the Xbox player, to deliver the most performant, immersive and compatible next-generation gaming experiences, and the freedom to play blockbuster games with your friends, anytime, anywhere. Today is a landmark step in our journey together and I’m incredibly energized by what this step means for Xbox.

Please join me in welcoming all of our friends at Bethesda to Team Xbox.

Pete Hines, Bethesda Softworks

Today we announced we’re joining the Microsoft family.

And if you haven’t had a chance to read what Phil Spencer and Todd Howard shared in their posts this morning, be sure to check them both out. When you work at a place as long as I’ve worked at Bethesda—just a month short of 21 years—you see some things. Chief amongst them is change. When I started, Bethesda was not much more than a handful of people. The team working on Morrowind fit in a couple of offices, and there were probably six or seven of us spread across everything else.

Bethesda Softworks, our parent company ZeniMax Media, and our many internal studios, now employ thousands of talented people working in publishing offices and development studios around the world. We’ve gone from one internal studio to many; from a focus on single-player fantasy RPGS to developing massive MMOs, first person shooters, and everything in between. The world, our industry, and our company has changed a lot in the 34 years since Bethesda Softworks was first founded. Today, it changed again. And I know that brings up questions.

But the key point is we’re still Bethesda. We’re still working on the same games we were yesterday, made by the same studios we’ve worked with for years, and those games will be published by us.

So why the change? Because it allows us to make even better games going forward. Microsoft is an incredible partner and offers access to resources that will make us a better publisher and developer. We believe that means better games for you to play. Simply put—we believe that change is an important part of getting better. We believe in pushing ourselves to be better. To innovate. To grow.

And, we have a long history of working with Microsoft. Our companies share many of the same basic principles. We believe in a culture that values passion, quality, collaboration, and innovation. When I think back to the first time we decided to shift from being a PC-only developer and make Morrowind for the original Xbox, it was a move that countless people said would never work…nobody on consoles wanted a game that big and complex. But Microsoft believed in us and so did you. And now RPGs of all shapes and sizes are hugely successful on consoles.

Yes, it’s a big change for us, but after taking a minute to absorb the magnitude of this acquisition, we’re going to continue doing what we know and love: making great games. We’re going to keep trying new things. We’re going to take the same passion we’ve poured into what we do, and the passion that our community brings to the things we make, and do even better.

And soon the conversation will move on from this deal to talking about our games again. And I can get back to answering the questions that get us all excited. Tell me more about Deathloop. When can I see more Ghostwire? What’s coming in Q4 for The Elder Scrolls Online? I want to see more of the DOOM Eternal DLC. WHEN THE HELL WILL YOU TELL ME ABOUT STARFIELD? I’m excited for those conversations and look forward to talking to you about all of that—and much, much more—-in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

I believe in the people I work with. I believe in the company we have created together. I believe in the communities that have formed around the games we make. And I believe today’s announcement is just the next in a long line of changes in our history that will lead to bigger and better games for all of us.

Pete Hines SVP, Global Marketing and Communications

Todd Howard, Bethesda Softworks

I have been incredibly blessed to spend my entire career at, and help build, one of the best places to make games in the world—Bethesda.

And I’ve had the joy of doing it with some of the most talented, humble, and passionate people there are. They are part of my family, and my good friends. I have also had the pleasure of working with, and partnering with, many of the best gaming and tech companies in the world. But our longest, and closest partner during my career, has been Microsoft.

Today we join them, and I wanted to share some personal thoughts on what it means and our shared vision.

The trajectory of Xbox, and the trajectory of Bethesda, in many ways have gone hand in hand.

From our beginning, we had primarily been a PC developer. In 1999, two things happened. One, Bethesda became part of a brand-new startup—ZeniMax Media. And Microsoft started development of their first video game console—the Xbox. I can remember my first trip to Redmond to discuss the new system and bringing our next game, Morrowind, to the Xbox.

I was dubious Xbox Morrowind would be worth the time, somewhat on a technical level, but more so from taking a hardcore RPG and moving it from a PC desktop experience to a controller-and-sofa experience. If we made it work, would people want it?

Microsoft and their new Xbox crew had a view, that I came to share completely. Shouldn’t we allow anyone to have this experience? Why does it matter where the screen is or what the controller is? There are many people without the same access, and we can bring it to them.

Morrowind would go on to become one of the best-selling Xbox games of all time, behind Halo, another PC style game some said wouldn’t work. Its success paved the way for the growth of our company, and proved the point – people wanted this experience, regardless of device.

Microsoft quickly let us in on their next system, the Xbox 360. More than a PC port, our aim with our next game, Oblivion, was to usher in the next generation of gaming. With each game, from Fallout 3 to Skyrim, our studio and company grew, adding brilliant and like-minded studios across the globe. All of us sharing in the belief that expanding the reach of gaming was fundamental, whether it was on a pc, console, your phone, or the cloud.

With each new console cycle, we evolved together. From bringing mods to consoles with Fallout 4, now over a billion downloads, to the latest technologies fueling Xbox Series X/S. These new systems are optimized for the vast worlds we love to create, with generational leaps not just in graphics, but CPU and data streaming as well. It’s led to our largest engine overhaul since Oblivion, with all new technologies powering our first new IP in 25 years, Starfield, as well as The Elder Scrolls VI.

Like our original partnership, this one is about more than one system or one screen. We share a deep belief in the fundamental power of games, in their ability to connect, empower, and bring joy. And a belief we should bring that to everyone—regardless of who you are, where you live, or what you play on. Regardless of the screen size, the controller, or your ability to even use one.

We can’t think of a better group of people to do that with than those at Xbox. We have friendships that go back to those original days. From Phil to his senior leaders to developer support, they don’t just talk about putting players first, they passionately live it.

At Bethesda, we’ve been lucky enough to create games we love, and have an audience who loves them as much as we do. I have personally been humbled by the many industry honors I have received, as they belong to the entire studio. But one has always stood out to me for a special reason. When I received the Lifetime Achievement Award at GDC, I joked in my acceptance “I wonder how many achievement points this one is worth?” At the end of the ceremony, some good friends from Microsoft congratulated me and said they’d find out. A few months later I was given a code to a game they had created, named after me and locked to my account. When ran, it unlocks a single achievement – “Lifetime – 1000pts.” It still sits in my list when I check, and I smile every time.

It has been a lifetime. But there’s more to come and achievements to unlock together. We hope you join us.

All the best, Todd

Todd Howard Bethesda Game Studios