#don't try to save your game on THIS frog

[captainuranium543]

Fairy tail headcannon a nobody wanted at all😊

- most of the dragon slayers+erza eat bugs regularly and it's gross AF to everyone

-Natsu because he grew up in the woods and they were like the number one abundant source of food, same for Wendy but she stopped for a while because Carla told her it was nasty (as soon as she joined the fairy tail guild she reverted so incredibly fast)

-gajeel pretends to thinks it's gross but secretly he really likes the taste he just doesn't wanna have that in common with natsu

- erza and Erik because in the evil slave tower where everyone was starving if you found a bug you ate it before anyone else could grab it from you.

- sting did not do that growing up but started when natsu told him it was good, he does not agree but does it anyway so natsu thinks he's cool

- rogue only tried it a couple times because frosch wanted to try it to be more like a frog and rogue is nothing if not supportive

- laxus grew up normal and thinks all of them are disgusting

- Lucy has the WORST financial skills. Legit they are awful. Everyone thinks she's always broke cuz of the tpd (team property damage) constantly making them lose their reward to repair bills but (while that is a factor) when Lucy sees smth cute that would look great in her apartment she just cannot help herself. Lucy will be so careful trying to save her money then she'll see a new set of stationary and goes "haha rent what rent"

- the hand me down game at fairy tail was fucking insane when they where kids. For levy and lisanna basically everything they owned had been passed down like 6 times already

- that red shirt natsu wore in the flashbacks? Before him it was erza's, and before her it was canas, and before her it was laxus.

- gray wears almost exclusively white jackets because jackets are expensive and if he loses them he would rather they be easy to spot so he can find them again rather then have to buy a new one

- sometimes people will invite erza places for the scary dog privilege when they dont want to be bothered by strangers. Erza has no idea thats the reason she just thought people really liked walking with her through rough parts of town in the middle of the night.

- Carla and lilly have insane beef, for no damn reason. Like both of them are fairly polite so neither will say it openly but every conversation between the two is the most passive aggressive petty insult battle you could imagine

- freed, levy, Lucy and later jellal have a book club where they all meet up and talk about whatever they're reading and play Scrabble and talk a lot of shit about their annoying ass friends.

- happy sometimes comes but he is under no circumstances allowed to bring natsu(he knows what he did)

- when erza met seigrain/jellal in the magic counsel she first tried to attack him, when that proved to be a bad idea she later started specifically destroying stuff under his jurisdiction to make sure he had to deal with as much paperwork as possible

- for her modelling, Mira used to use a very light spray of holy water to remove body hair because it burns it off💀

- wendy romeo and chelia are actually best friends like they are constantly hanging out together just to go do stuff

- erza and Erik hate each other for no reason at all. Like over that year that she worked with crime sorciere they where ALWAYS BEEFING. Every time they were near each other erza was thinking insults she knew he could hear and Erik was fighting for his life not to strangle her to death.

When erza became sclass she used to sit on the 5th step of the stairs because Mira wasn't allowed on those stairs yet and it really pissed her off. She was like, just barely out of reach, so Mira would stand at the bottom the stairs yelling death threats at her and erza would be like "whattt I'm not doing anything I don't even know what your talking about in literally just sitting what are you so mad about"

- when Warren invented cellphones, despite all of them looking like modern smartphones, freed somehow managed to get one that looked exactly like a Blackberry and refuses to get a different one

- Mira used to cut her siblings hair and because she didn't know any good haircuts yet her 2 options where 1- bald or 2- bowl cut. Hence lisannas horrifying cut as a child

[hamliet]

the notion that bnha is pro authoritarianism or social hierarchies is nonsensical not to mention acting like being pro cop is bad

Err... BNHA is pretty pro-authoritarian. I actually find it pretty disturbing. And that's even if the story turns out with the League alive at the end.

As for being pro-cop--cops are human individuals, yes. But people have in recent years in multiple countries (including Japan, by the way) protested against cops being used as tools to maintain social hierarchies wherein people who are not part of that hierarchy suffer for daring to want to be treated as human beings. When I say I'm anti-cop, I'm not saying I hate anyone on the basis of being a cop. But I am saying that the ways in which the police force are used in many countries does societal harm. Critical thinking, yo.

Honestly I feel like this whole story (BNHA) and fans reactions throughout (especially when compared to other stories) demonstrate how people are not using critical thinking. And that can have real world consequences, though it doesn't have to.

I just find it weird that people are okay with a story where the ruling class is always right and always wins. Like... how have they not? I mean, even stories that end up suggesting the ruling class isn't entirely wrong or show flaws in rebellions generally don't go hard on the authoritarianism. But Horikoshi... is doing this.

The whole thing is so weird to me personally, too, because Horikoshi's wishy-washy framing and switches in coding generally seem to be the result of him caring, deeply, what his audience thinks and feels. Too much, really, but it also seems like he genuinely doesn't want to hurt people. Except this ending--even if Tenko does reappear as New Character and saves the League--is the exact opposite. (If Tenko doesn't reappear, then everything I'm about to say is multiplied by a thousand.)

It's catering to mean-spiritedness, and while I do understand fiction isn't reality, the side he's catering to now is making the argument that fictional crimes are real crimes and thus must meet real penalties.

I can play this game too.

If people are gonna make those arguments, I'm going to say they're the problem and the reason we have wars, genocides, assaults, and more.

If you ever want a cycle of violence/abuse to stop, someone has to accept that they've taken the last punch. Not keep going until the other side is WIPED OUT.

If you equate justice with equalizing losses, then you are enacting Dazai from BSD's statement on justice: justice is a weapon. You can never heal by it.

If you want to heal, you have to stop fighting and bandage wounds. And maybe you are too injured to do the bandaging. That's okay. But someone else can, and if you try to stop them on the premise of "but no one bandaged my wounds" you're a bitter person who makes the world a worser place.

If you say a tragedy is the story, sure. But you have to set up tragedies from the start. See, Attack on Titan, which's ending I love. It began with someone crying and an ominous message to the future. You don't set up your first chapter with "this is the story of how I become the greatest hero!" spend 200+ chapters criticizing hero society and have the hero fail at the goal he'd been repeating for 200 chapters in the end and join hero society and still think you wrote a story that delivered in what you promised. You failed.

Either you wrote a tragedy and are trying to pass it off as a happy story (see how well that works usually) or your understanding of a happy story is pretty much just fascist propaganda. And yes, BNHA does have fascist themes at this point. Way more than AoT ever did. But they have smiles and cute frog girls so it's not nearly as dangerous, right? (sarcastic).

The thing is, this is where the lack of critical thinking comes in. While I've seen people talk a bit about how BNHA seems like copaganda, it's taking things much, much further than other stories usually do and into territory where I'm frankly disturbed.

Yes, BNHA started out as a clever critique of hero society and of the very idea it's now seeming to uphold: that the human instinct (which is universal in real life to) to idolize people leads to a lack of humanity for those who do not have those traits we idolize, whether their fault or not, and for people to become villains in response. But not only has it failed to deliver on this premise by upholding society (hey, Naruto and to a degree Tokyo Ghoul also failed to completely change society), it's gone so far as to endorse what it previously criticized.

It's more akin to Game of Thrones Season 8 upholding racism, sexism, and classism, than it is to Naruto or Tokyo Ghoul. GoT ended with a joke about prioritizing brothels being open, as if the misogyny was actually a good thing and not what caused a lot of the problems. There's no critical lens here. It's just like "hey, there was no point in struggling. Monarchies that abuse women, rah rah, let's go!"

BNHA seems to be going a similar route. Deku's murder of Shigaraki, Ochaco's crying over Toga, the way Shouto reaches out to Touya--it's sad, but not framed as something the audience should see as a wrong done on behalf of heroes. In fact, the heroes are not criticized at all. Frickin' Edgeshot, whom no one cares about, is fine. All of them are fine. Their statuses are generally fine, too, except maybe Enji's and even then he's not like going to face the fate of the League and die alone. His family still supports him. Hawks is completely fine and framed positively. His regret over Twice is pure lipservice. Deku really did just need to kill Shigaraki, and all his "I want to save" spiel, much like Ochaco's, is for naught. He just needed to learn to grow up and get in line.

Even if Tenko comes back, and even if Deku like... somehow knew this would happen via vestiges or whatnot (let's be real, he will if this is the case), and the message is just that society isn't ready to move forward, but at least they can live, then... I don't know, y'all. That's still depressing. I don't see how Deku is a hero for that, much less the greatest number one hero. He decided to be a hero at the cost of his own integrity, and if this was a gritty story about the realistic struggle of living in a capitalistic society where ethics are always compromised that would make sense, but... it's not. Even until the final battle, the characters were endorsing idealism.

At the very least, Horikoshi didn't deliver on his promise in the first chapter. At the very worst, he's endorsing fascist ideals.

Like, I'm sorry, but "kill this person for the good of society," the violent upholding of oppressive societal hierarchies, the importance of being a cop hero and the way the military hero brutalities are worshipped, the way heroes are lauded and everyone who doesn't get in line with this is punished, went from being criticized to being endorsed. Those are all central elements of fascism.

The little guy deserves to lose, but, but Deku is the little guy, so it can't be! Except it can be. Because it's actually pretty common irl even to trot out examples of people like Candace Owens to be like "hey, you can't possibly say Republicans are racist!"

And don't you dare say "but Japanese culture makes it unreasonable to expect a non retributive justice!" The Japanese people are not a monolith. Not to mention... Naruto, Bungou Stray Dogs, Monster, Hunter x Hunter, Yu Yu Hakusho, Mawaru Penguindrum, Oshi no Ko, Dragon Ball, Attack on Titan, and Tokyo Ghoul all say hi.

I hated the TG ending, and still hate it, but I'm not going to say that it upheld the CCG as right all along because it didn't. BNHA thus far is doing that with hero society. And even if the answer is for the League be revived and to leave society or whatever, then how can we be happy Deku is a part of this society? How can we root for him, or his classmates? Is he going to work from the inside to change it? Why wasn't that emphasized beforehand as a theme or struggle?

tl;dr Horikoshi has cooked his story no matter what he does now, and I don't think it's salvageable. Either way it has themes that are disturbing especially considering real world events across the globe, and that people should be more aware of instead of focusing solely on stories that have fascism and monsters in them but don't uphold it.

[luveline]

radio cure | steve harrington

an unhappy you meets steve harrington and his merry band of dorks. he shows you that some things are worth sticking around for.

5k words, fem!reader she/her used, tw mentioned/implied suicidal ideation please don’t read if that’s going to have a negative impact on you (no graphic imagery. but reader is passively suicidal and dealing with the other factors of that), robin steve + eddie chaotic trio, friends to lovers, multipart, swearing, friendly teasing, sarcasm, artist!steve, 90s au

.•° ✿ °•.

You're twenty two when you decide to kill yourself.

It's a warm day. The sun shines like a flower bud unfurling, a faint hint of golden yellow masked by cloud cover. You're savouring the brief moment of blessed cool as you walk around Lover's Lake, your ipod in one hand, headphones around your neck.

The flowing pants you're wearing help mitigate the heat around your legs, an itching, slick thing. Warmth feels like oil on your skin. You tip your head back and smell the grass, the lake water, the dry mud under your feet. You're thinking it's as nice a day as you're going to get this week, and you're forlorn, because it doesn't make one drop of difference.

You look up at the blue sky, squinting against the light, and you think it to yourself resolutely. This is going to be my last year. When your savings run out you're giving up.

It doesn't feel conclusive. It doesn't feel scary. It's just a decision.

You walk over dry grass until you reach the short pier on the leftmost side of the lake and sit down. You pull your headphones over your ears and bite your lip when the music isn't loud enough. The dock is rough. You're uncomfortable immediately. You want to go home, but you pull out your little craft sketchbook made of yellow paper and a pencil you've sharpened with a pen knife, staring out across the lake for something to strike you. A duck. A goose. Anything at all.

The thing is, you don't want to draw. You aren't some master, though you try, and you aren't a natural talent… You try sometimes. Nothing seems right. Most people have a style, charm, but you could draw a picture perfect copy of the day in front of you and still feel the lack; you have no idea what it is that makes other people's art beautiful, and that's the problem.

It doesn't matter. You put the sketchbook away. You have nobody to impress but yourself, and besides — you're not the first person in the world to feel uninspired. Thousands of people must feel it everyday, and they aren't throwing any pity parties. You peel off your cardigan, ball it up, and lay down with the fabric behind your head. You can hear the soft pant of a dog across the way, the happy chattering of a Frisbee game. Under the dock, little bodies thwack the planks, tiny green frogs that occasionally hop in the grass nearby.

You press your arm against your stomach and you fall asleep not long after that, your ipod playing music a few feet away.

—

Steve Harrington doesn't know why he stops to look at you. You're just a girl enjoying the summer sun, and he doesn't mean to be a creep. But you've left your stuff laying in small hills around you and your body's lax. You're asleep.

He kneels down next to you. Enough room to swing away if you try to stab him for perving. He isn't perving, he reasons. He wants to check if you're okay.

He tilts his ear toward you and holds his breath.

You're snoring.

Good, he thinks, crawling back to the far side of the dock, at least two feet between you. You're sleeping.

He sits down, knees up, hands between his thighs, and looks out across the lake. The sun shines high as the clouds shift to reveal it in full force, a burning yolk. It kisses every bit of green foliage it can find, dappled sunlight everywhere he looks. Steve is out today to draw whatever beauty he can find, and the light across the water riding the rippled waves of ducklings and brave human swimmers seems nice enough. He peers out of the corner of his eye at you, deems you still sleeping, and takes the pocket sized sketchbook out of his denim jeans.

His pencil is a stub folded between the pages. He lays down graphite in big sweeping lines, more focused on the impressions of shape than the specifics. It's hard to see a coloured world in black and white values. Steve isn't great — he's been drawing for two years now, and that feels like both a lifetime and a flicker. Every day he learns something new about making art, and every day he looks back and feels embarrassed at what he made before. The start of his sketchbooks make him cringe. This one is a mixture of pride and tepid reluctance.

Being bad at something is a stepping stone at getting better. Not every drawing he makes is good, but hopefully it's teaching his brain to be better. He doesn't know what he believes about art but he likes to draw, and he has gotten better.

The point isn't in being good, he'd told Robin. I just need something to do. Before I go crazy doing nothing. 

He draws the lake. He loves the way it comes into being. Ten minutes can turn grey splotches into trees, and bluegrass, and the heat rising off of the water. He draws a duck when it swims really close, though he has to abandon it when it swims away, leaving a half formed lovecraftian creature to haunt the page. He draws the dock, and his shoes, and your shoes, and your hand curled weakly next to your ipod. He draws your wrist, though he stops quickly.

He looks at your sleeping face.

Steve thinks you don't look like anyone he's ever seen before. He notes your lashes, your brows, and your nose. The sun emphasises the fine hairs across your cheek, and the texture beneath them.

He wants to draw your face, but he thinks drawing your hand and your shoes might have been too much without permission. He lets you sleep for a while, and then when he realises the heat is making him dizzy, he can't leave you there to bake.

He rips a sheet of paper out of his sketchbook and shoves the small book back into his pocket. The dock groans as he stands, and he casts a shadow over your face and upper torso.

"Hey," he says.

You flinch awake.

"Don't panic," he says, which is something a pervert might say, so he amends, "don't freak out, I'm just worried you're gonna cook your brains. I didn't want you to get sick."

You sit up. You look kinda cooked already, blinking and disoriented.

"You okay?"

You don't look up. "Yeah, I'm okay. Thank you for waking me up."

"Yeah, sure. Here."

He holds out the drawing of your hand. He doesn't think it's good, doesn't want you to see it, but he already did it. Giving it to you will ease his guilty conscience.

It's unlike Steve to bail, but he bails. Your fingers are barely brushing the paper when he's wiping his palms on his thighs and stepping away.

"Bye," he says, uncertain. "Try not to fall asleep again!"

—

It's not so weird. Sure, he'd made your fingers skinnier than they really are, and he made your shoelaces look like spaghetti, but they're good drawings.

You're trying to read a book in the corner of Benny's when he finds you a second time. He hovers, and you're not cool, you aren't, you're working with what you've got. Not many people skills.

“Hi,” he says.

"They were good drawings," you say, in lieu of your own hello, thumbing at the pages of your book all full of jumpy nerves.

"Thank you, I'm… new to it. My best friend, she's– she's actually nicer than she should be about them, I can't lie. I was going to say she thinks I should be banned from picking up a pencil, because I wanted to make you laugh, but. She's nice when it matters."

You can't keep looking down, it wouldn't be polite. You dog ear your paperback and let it lie against the tabletop, greasy to touch but you doubt it'll make a difference. The book is old and had cost you 50 cents at Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler's yard sale.

He's tall. Hair falls around his face and curls gently against his cheeks, a sandy brown. He's wearing a hat. He hadn't been wearing one the day he'd given you his drawings, but you can understand why he needs it. The sun is an inescapable force: sun stroke has half the town down for the count. The whole reason that you're in Benny's is because it's air-conditioned and shady.

"Do you want to come and eat with me and my friends?"

You say no automatically. "No, that's okay. I don't wanna," —you don't know what to say, so your voice hikes up awkwardly— "impose."

"You don't have to, but if you want to, you're not imposing." He twists at the waist and nods to a booth across the room, where a boy and girl sit. When they see you seeing them they look away. "Sorry, they're dorks. There's usually more of us, but Jon's in work and Nancy's in Emerson, so…" He seizes up.

You wonder why people are so afraid of being awkward. It terrifies you, to think one day you'll fuck up and be awkward and the other person will remember it and laugh, but looking at him now, you can't see why it matters. It actually makes you feel better, knowing he's worried too.

"I only brought enough for the milkshake," you say.

"I'll get you something."

"That's– no, that's okay."

He hesitates. "You'd be doing me a favour. I love them, really, but I can't stand it when they're together, they bully me."

It would probably be worse to reject his offer and sit here lonely while they laugh and talk. You'll worry they're talking about you.

"Okay," you mumble, picking up your book and your milkshake.

He grins at you and you follow him through the diner. It's not busy today, but there's still feet to fall over and backpack straps to tread on, so you watch the floor.

"My name is Steve, by the way."

You tell him your own name, which brings another quick smile to his face. He slows as he approaches the booth of his friends and beckons for you to slide into the empty side before following you in.

"Guys, this is– Eddie, what the fuck is that? We said no gross shit at the table."

"This, my friend," Eddie says, words rolling around his mouth grandly, "is a monster."

It's a little man made of coffee stirrers, sporks, and chewing gum seams. It's kind of gross, but it's cute. Grossly cute and cutely gross.

"We're about to eat."

"You're stepping on his artistic licence," says the girl, her voice distinctly pretty and a tiny bit hoarse.

"Disgusting," Steve says.

You shift on the leather chair underneath you and anxiety pulses in the bottom of your stomach. They're ignoring you, but not really. Both have lifted their eyes to look at you, and, in sync, they smile. The girl's smile is startling, lip gloss lips and white teeth. Eddie's is softer, less happy and more reassuring.

"I'm Eddie," Eddie says, though you'd figured it out. "That's Robin. Do you think my monster is gross in the gross way or gross in the sick way?"

"He's cute," you admit to thinking. "But the gum…"

"I didn't have any glue."

"Steve told us about his drawings. If he's holding you hostage right now, blink three times, okay?" Robin jokes.

Eddie and Robin lean their shoulders together and start a bit where they count your blinks. There's murmurings about shelters and how they can definitely throat punch Steve hard enough to make him mute. You're stunned at being the object of a joke and don't know how to react, feeling like you've been whacked and now there's cartoon birds flying around your head and they can all see them.

Steve grabs the menus out of the rack and slaps one down in front of everybody. "Alright, team. You know the drill. Last person to choose what they want has to buy drinks." He spares you a glance. "Except you. She's on me because hostages don't pay for themselves."

"I would make such a pretty hostage," Eddie says.

He is pretty, in fairness. Dark curls thick with baby hairs frizzed up in the summer heat frame a pale face. He has big brown eyes.

“And talented,” Robin adds, poking the gum man until he falls flat on his face. The head pops off and Eddie shrieks, not loudly but with a passionate upset about him that makes you laugh.

Steve leans over. “Please choose quickly so I don’t have to pay for Robin's lemonade addiction. No pressure.”

“I’ll just have what you have.”

“With a coke?”

“Sure.”

“Robin?” he asks.

“I want a cheeseburger with a lemonade and then, if you will, another lemonade.”

She dumps her menu in Eddie’s lap, who looks up from his decapitated figure with a look of defeat.

“Wh- hey, she cheated. She hurt my dude.”

“Rules are rules.”

Eddie sulks and accepts everybody’s money. He slinks up to the window like an annoyed cat. After he’s placed the order, he looks back to the table and flips the bird covertly.

“So, how old are you?” Robin asks.

“Twenty two.”

“How’s that?” she asks sympathetically.

“Robin.” Steve chides. “She’s twenty so she thinks she’s a baby.”

“I am a baby. This is my first year not being a teen, which means it’s my first year as an adult. I’m one.”

“We have this argument a lot,” Steve says, though not with any bravado. Simple explanation, his voice soft and warm. “When being an adult actually begins. It’s not the adult part that even matters, it’s the not having rules that fucks people up. Look at Eddie. He’s been out of school for a year and he’s been arrested three times.”

You frown, not because his getting arrested would bother you (depending on the charge), but because you’re surprised, and surprise is quick to appear as anger on your face. His shirt and rockstar rings, his nice smile, his gum man — you’d assumed he was a huge nerd. His arrests are a surprise.

“What for?” you ask, before you can remind yourself that invasive questions are rude.

“Once for indecent exposure– completely accidental. Once for trespassing, and the last time was because he chained himself to a tree outside of Tawny’s bar. They weren’t cutting the tree down,” Steve says. “He, and I quote, wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

“Don’t give away my RAP sheet when I’m not here,” Eddie says, placing a tray of drinks on the table carefully. Three cokes and two lemonades.

“It’s not a RAP sheet if you don’t actually get in trouble. They let him off ‘cause they know his uncle. And also ‘cause it’s Hawkins.” Robin slides her slice of lemon between her teeth, shepherding her two lemonades as far away from everybody as she can, looking extremely hedgy. “I’s a bitch sheet.”

Eddie feigns for her second lemon slice and snickers when Robin defends it, elbowing him hard in the ribs.

“I paid for it!” he says through laughs.

Your hands start to shake. You hide them under the lip of the table but it’s no use. Soon your legs are shaking, your arms, all of you. They’re minute tremors, both invisible and impossible to ignore. You glue a smile to your face and try to calm down. You’re overwhelmed and you don’t know why — this isn’t a new feeling. You are not the first person to feel this feeling.

Then why does it feel like it?

Sometimes, everything gets so scary so quickly, and you sit there wondering why it isn’t scary for everybody else, and you wonder why they can’t see it on your face how scared you are, and they must see it? They must know you’re fucked.

You’re shot with thoughts. These people, you could be friends. All you have to do is make a good impression. But how should you go about that? How do you talk? What do you say?

“I draw too,” you say, hands clamped between your knees.

Steve’s eyebrows do this little dance. It’s adorable, and it makes you want to be his friend most of all.

“You do?”

“I do. I’m not good, I mean. I used to be better. I’m out of practice.”

“I draw,” Eddie says.

“Yeah?”

He nods. “Jonathan, too. God, you should see his shit. And he’s an even better photographer. But I draw shitty zine comics. And Robin does the typesetting for me.”

“Oh, wow,” you say genuinely.

“Nancy writes,” Robin says. “So we’re, like, a jerk circle of artists. She’s good, too.”

“She’s good,” Eddie imitates fondly. “I bet she is. Robin’s gonna be a great writer as well, once she gets all these private Nancy lessons.”

Steve puts a hand up and Eddie promptly shuts up. He takes a big, sheepish slurp of coke and you feel like you’ve said something wrong though you barely said anything at all, sipping at your own coke.

“What are you reading?” Robin asks.

You slide the book toward her so she can see for herself. “The Sea, The Sea,” you tell her. “It’s about, uh,” —you’ve only managed to read the first thirty pages, and that’s after reading the first ten five times straight— “this guy named Charles, he’s unique. He’s uh, annoying.”

“You know, Nancy used to have a book that looked just like that,” Steve says.

You laugh weakly. “It must be popular. I got it at a yard sale.”

“Can I open it?” Robin asks.

“Of course. It’s already pretty beat up, I don’t think there’s anything you could do—“

Robin opens the book with one hand, thumb and pinky fingertip pressed to either side, and tries to take a sip of her drink without looking, tipping her glass of lemonade straight into the pages of The Sea, The Sea. What doesn’t get soaked up by your book rushes down the length of the table and into her lap.

Steve reaches across the table to grab up the glass, but the damage is already done. Your lips part. Eddie gawps, throwing a hand over his slack-jawed face.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she says, looking at you with wide eyes. “I have the worst case of butterfingers ever, I’m sorry.”

It’s as if she can’t believe she did it. You fluster when you realise they’re all waiting for your reaction.

“It’s okay!” you say, as loud as you’ve ever spoken in public.

“You can be mad,” Steve assures you.

“No, it was an accident. I’m not mad, it cost fifty cents, and it was totally garbage anyway. I’m really not mad.”

Eddie stuffs napkins under the table and Robin shivers uncontrollably, dishing ice cubes from her lap and the seat. Steve, laughing now, says, “God dammit, Robs,” sounding like she might be the most golden person on the planet.

—

Steve works his hat over your hair the best that he can. “There. Now you won’t die from heat stroke.”

You bring both hands to the hat to encourage it down onto your head. “Steve,” you say, sounding unsure on how to continue.

“It’s on loan.”

You nod and look out over the lake, where Eddie stands at the edge of the dock. "It's getting way too fucking cold for this," he complains, in swim shorts and a shirt, gazing in distrust at the lake’s shimmering surface.

Lake is kind. It is technically a lake, but also technically a really, very pathetic lake that feeds from a pathetic tributary. If you stationed Steve on one side and you the other, he would strain to hear you talking. Likely infected with brain eating amoeba or tadpoles or leeches. Slimy things. It’s less disgusting than Lover’s Lake, a condom cesspit, so that’s a plus.

You aren’t looking any more eager about jumping in than you had been, thighs naked and kissed by the hem of an oversized, black t-shirt. It’s wrinkled. Steve kind of loves it.

"Just jump in, you big babies," Robin says.

She'd already jumped in, screamed at the cold, and now languishes in the chest height water in front of the small fishing dock with a smug smile on her face. "Not you," she says to you. Steve rolls his eyes.

You shake your head, hair slipping out of the hat. You sigh as you pull it off and readjust the sizing band.

"I guess I am being a baby,” you say to him quietly. “The sun’s been out all day, how cold can it be?” You’re not feeling confident. It seeps into your voice, to which Steve lends a placating smile.

"Really fucking cold."

"Eddie, shut up. Y/N, it's fine. You'll like it."

“I really don’t think she’ll like it.”

Steve doesn’t either, but he wants you to feel included, and less tense. Distract you from whatever it is that’s giving you such a big case of the frownies, and prove he and his friends aren’t just book-ruining hooligans.

Eddie finally jumps in over Robin’s head, disappearing into the not quite blue water with a cut-off curse. He appears again a few seconds later, black hair slicked to his face, neck and shoulders, wiping the water from his eyes as he splutters and giggles boyishly.

“Shit, Stevie,” he says. “Not that cold after all.”

“You don’t have to jump in, you can just ease off the dock, if that’s better,” Steve says.

“Frogspawn,” you murmur.

Steve does a bunch of flexing, throws in a jumping jack for good measure. “Alright,” he says, holding out his hand. “Let’s go.”

You shake your head gently.

Steve doesn’t wanna embarrass you further, or insist when you really don’t want to, so he nods and smiles and takes a running jump into the lake. Robin and Eddie both swear and dart away as his body collides with the surface of the water, and he sinks like a well-practised stone to near enough the lake bed, feet gracing slippery pond weed and things he’d rather not think about. The air shatters out of his lungs and the water, despite the summer sun, is cold. It feels amazing — he hadn’t realised how warm he was until the temperature abruptly shifted.

He rushes back up to the surface and shakes his hair out like a dog, water running down his face and shoulders in fast thick rivulets. He peels his eyes open and turns to find you still hesitating on the dock. Robin splashes at Steve in retaliation for his hair splatters and Eddie laughs evilly as he joins in.

“Come on!” he begs you. “I told you, they bully me! I need back up!”

You toss his hat on the dock. The jump you take into the lake is timid but enough to miss the frogspawn and not break your legs, a cold splash of water and you’re there. Luckily, your presence has Robin and Eddie both stopping in their cruel tracks, and you don’t have to save Steve after all.

Your happy laughter is stunning.

"It's so cold!" you squeal, water in your eyelashes.

Eddie takes one of your hands and together the four of your tread into deeper water.

"Now that all who can be present are present," he says, falling into his dungeon master drawl, "it's time we commence the The Tournament. Swimmers, take your stations."

Everyone falls into line. You don't know what you're falling into line for, raising your timid voice to ask, "What's the game?"

"The game is me and you dunk the ever-loving out of dumb and dumber," he says.

"Hey, what?" Robin asks. "How come you get her? She's a total wild card, she might win the game all by herself."

"Or she might really suck. We don't know, and so in the interest of fairness, I propose she swims with me." Eddie's wet sleeve sticks to your skin as he nudges you. "But you don't suck, do you?"

"Um…"

"Attagirl. On your marks, get set, go!"

You spend an hour like that. Steve and Co, they're stupid, but they aren't stupid stupid. The Tournament is a series of chasing and dunking (stupid but fun) wherein you get to throw yourself on the shoulders of the person you're chasing and submerge them (stupid again). You can't hold them down, though, they aren't trying to drown one another. Much.

The sun regretfully starts to set. If it's anything like the last few days, that means it's likely near 10PM, and they're all working tomorrow.

"Do you have work tomorrow?" Steve asks in concern, after he's heaved himself up onto one of the huge stones on the opposite side of the lake.

Cattails obscure you from view on your own stone. Across the lake, your possessions lay thankfully unscathed on the dock. Robin sits as close as she can to Steve on his rock, kicking water at Eddie every time he tries to approach.

"You fucking rat," he fumes, mouth full of lake water.

"I'm not really working right now,” you say.

"Do you need a job?" Eddie asks. "They're hiring— Harrington, restrain your creature! They're hiring at the Palace Arcade, aren't they?"

Steve nods voraciously. "Yeah! Hey, we can get you an interview no problem, they probably won't even ask you that many questions. I mean, Keith worked there."

"Don't be mean about Keith," Robin says, though she doesn't really like him. He thinks it's akin to defending your deadbeat older brother.

"I don't know, I think even a couple of questions might be too many," you worry.

"How come?"

You pull the fluff off of a cat tail, and it explodes in your hands. Steve yanks one down to do the same, watching the fibres float across the lake's disturbed surface with a cool breeze. Robin shivers beside him, sensitive to the cold in her wet clothes, the adrenaline of swimming and almost but not really dying wearing off.

"I'm bad at stuff like that."

"I don't think anyone's good at interviews at our age," Eddie says, nose wrinkled as cat tail floats toward him. "We're, like, babies."

"I always feel like I'm really old," you confess. You look down at your naked knees. "Like I wasted all the good years already."

"What, school?"

"And the four years since," you say.

Steve gets it, in a way. His high school years sucked, and he'd maybe thought he'd get out of Hawkins on a track or swim scholarship, basketball — anything. But he's here still, and at first that hadn't been what he wanted. Sure, he'd expected it, but in different ways.

Steve pushes back the cattails to see you clearly. "I didn't even get any real good years until just now," he says, as kindly as he can.

"I failed senior year twice," Eddie speaks up, "I kinda thought I was wasting my life too, but if I didn't, I wouldn't even know Robin, and she's, like, my best friend."

He throws his hands over his face before Steve can kick a huge wave of lake water into his eyes. "Get your own," Steve fumes. He's not really mad.

"Yeah, these are the good years," Robin says, "probably. I never had guys fighting over me in high school." She laughs and tucks her wet hair behind her ears, her freckled cheeks pale in the oranging light of the sunset.

You hold your hands out for Eddie and he finally climbs onto one of the rocks. From this side of the lake, you can watch the sun set behind the silhouettes of Hawkins town a half mile away. It dips slowly down, meandering almost, a pearl sinking through layers of raspberry pink and orange and, as Steve holds his breath, that sudden flash of electric green.

"I'm blind," Eddie mumbles, falling back into the rocks and grass.

"Shit, that was cool." Robin stands up and stretches. "I'm so cold I'm gonna die right here. Steve, do you still have a blanket in your car?"

Steve looks over at you again. You look shell-shocked, not quite awed. He doesn't know what emotion you're feeling, only that you're feeling it, eyes wide and set across the lake at the darkened sky, lights from the buildings like stars shimmering in your pupils.

He stands up and offers his hand to you. When you take it, he pulls you up without hesitation, not a flicker of doubt or an ounce of struggle.

"I'll get you that interview," he says, questioning, soft. If you want it. 

Your fingers linger in his palm.

"Yeah, okay. Thank you."

"Come on!" Robin says, taking your other hand and tugging without apology, barefoot over the asphalt path surrounding the lake. "Before the gnats come out."

"We might see fireflies if we stick around," Eddie says.

They bicker. Steve lets go of your hand and you and Robin walk just ahead, your head bobbing between his two arguing friends like you're watching a quickfire tennis match.

You turn to the side and hide a smile. Steve sees it, and he figures it's a start.

"Munson," he hollers, "how about you stay and watch the fireflies and you tell us all about it? Me and the girls aren't gonna freeze out here so you can get back in touch with nature."

It's a bad joke, but it works. "Fuck you, Harrington. The ladies wanna see the lightning bugs, don't you?"

"I can't remember the last time I saw them," you say.

"Then we have to stay," Eddie says smugly.

You all crowd the back of Steve's car, the heaters on but not doing a lot, the blanket stretched over Robin's shoulders. She tucks it behind your back, and you all look out to the night and scout for bugs.

"There," you whisper, pointing.

Green dots of light rise from the dry grass like tiny lanterns, a handful at a time.

"Jonathan's gonna be sad he missed this," Robin murmurs.

You try to count them all. Four voices whispering bets into the night air, though the real number isn't possible to calculate. "Winner gets a new paperback on Robin," Eddie jokes, swiftly quietened by a barrage of elbows to his side.

They let you win.

[luna-loveboop]

It's all "links meet aus" and "zeldas meet aus", but where's my "companions meet aus"?

I wanna see midna bash fi and navis heads together for annoying her

I mean can you imagine the sheer chaos of all the Zelda companions meeting and going on a journey together? They're all companions/guides! One of thems a talking hat for hylias sake how are they supposed to take initiative?

I think it'd be like Lu where they all just meet up, but can you imagine the chain just somehow finds out this happened (and twilight is just like guys I am so sorry about midna) (but they're also really oddly touched that all their friends met each other too)

Pretty sure midna would be the sort of leader, since the last time she was in a foreign world she just found the nearest dude and started ordering him around. By like halfway through twilight princess she was literally asking LINK to accompany her to get what she needed.

But like. 90% of the group would be fairies. Which can't heal. One is a talking hat who just needs a head? He can't go on midnas cause she throws him off with her magic hair, poor ezlo is just trying to keep up.

They also have these weird green shadows who come around? They don't talk, but there's a rock, a fish, a bird, and a lady who just appear and stab things and shoot wind water fire and lightning.

Also midnas really confused why wolf link just shows up and kills things every now and then (from botw amibo)

Fi is the one who can talk to Hylia and awaken memories and get guidance and information or whatever, but she only does this by ballerina dancing and the others are always pissed at her anyways "WE DONT KNOW WHAT BATTERIES ARE OR A WII REMOTE WILL YOU PLEASE GO BACK IN SWORD FORM ALREADY" "I detect there is a 90% chance you need a key to open this door" "wow. Your perception is unparalleled fi."

Also there's a boat. A boat. Who is also good at taking charging since he's a king, which causes some friction between him and midna, since she has to grab him by her hair to move him half the time.

And with the fairies. Again. They all offer advice mainly. And with the fairies a lot of their main role is speaking and getting attention and pitching in? They come on an intersection and there's a chorus of bells all shouting the same directions. Ezlo is trying to cover the kings ears from his place on the boats head

Also there's this ghost/spirit of Zelda that everyone just feels REALLY strong loyalty to. But she's just like this kid who wants her body back?! They try to protect her but she can turn into a purple knight and stab things so there's that. I think there's also some animal companions from ooa/oos so.

Side quests are nonexistent they don't care about a village or gathering frogs for a kid they are there to save the world on a mission linear plot it is

And it's interesting because you have so many of them who just vanish and then appear to give loud advice. All at once. And the fighting skills basically fall to those weird green shadows that shoot various elements and fight and randomly disappear. Midna and spirit Zelda can fight, and Fi can too (kind of like how she fights as a sword in hyrule warriors). Also up to you if midna is drop dead gorgeous or devilish imp.

By the end they find whatever enemy so they can go back and midna is so pissed by this point that she hears the word "batteries" from Fi and goes full on fused shadow and just obliterates the jerk

***I have not played all the games so do not know or understand all of the companions and probably got some stuff wrong

Bonus: there is a child in a village named Link who does not have the spirit of the hero. He is stalked for three days until Fi decides his vibes are off and they all stop telling him he's the chosen one

[unlikablefemaleprotagonist]

i don't really want to get too logical about it, but perhaps another "above the table" reason for this battle not being centered around getting redemption for the ratgrinders is because this is a show meant for public consumption and "persuade your enemies to desert their cause and join you" was literally the trick of the final combat for the last intrepid heroes season. maybe there was an implicit understanding among the cast that the same gimmick would be perceived by some as being repetitive

and honestly?? i think the neverafter team had a helluva lot better shot converting the princesses to their side than any of the bad kids had in this battle. key members of the squad (okay, not tim, rip his conversation with rapunzel) made inroads with the princesses through good faith interaction with many of them earlier in the season. elodie and mira were the easiest gets because of elodie's history with gerard and mira's lack of true devotion to the cause, but ylfa had a genuine SHOT with la bete and pinocchio got very close with cinderella (who i think may have come over anyway once her allies were down, if i remember right?)

but there isn't a single ratgrinder they have that kind of relationship with. they've been pretty out-and-out hostile, despite moments such as adaine saving ruben from disintegrate and kristen offering maryanne gifts. maaaaybe you could make an argument for ruben and wanda, but brennan pointed out that once wanda showed up with his enemies and ATTACKED ruben's friends, it was over. oisin seemed like a potential option earlier in the season, but then he pulled the rug out from under adaine and tried to murder the entire student body via nepotism. there was no friendly relationship left to capitalize on after that. and maryanne has been characterized as having such an impenetrable mental wall that it's hard to guess where's she's at, even for the other ratgrinders.

plus, there's the whole basic conceit that the ratgrinders' minds are not completely their own. their agency has been traded away to a nameless god of rage. who's to say any persuasion check could overcome that? honestly, i think if it was a realistic play, brennan would have encouraged the players to try it, like he explicitly did for neverafter, laying out a mechanic for it. maybe we'd know more if kristen hadn't gotten a nat 1 on her buddy insight check, but i think that was the moment that any diplomatic level to this combat went out the window, because the dice dictated that kristen couldn't see buddy in there, and to willfully push ahead with that line of thinking would have been close to meta-gaming. they are playing characters as faithfully as possible, and those characters are stressed-out kids! they don't have the same emotional maturity of a 32-year-old divorced frog prince who really wants to be amicable with his ex-wife

[thewertsearch]

There is something familiar about this.

WV isn't familiar with Bec's symbol, so it's something else about this situation that's jogging his memory.

Perhaps it's the decapitation of the Frog Temple, which is becoming something of a pattern in the Sburb sessions we've seen. Could it have a deeper meaning?

You have not inspected your treasure in years. You have spent ages guarding it without understanding its purpose.

You saw it in action, though!

Are you saying that you don't know what it does, or that you don't know what it's for?

Its only purpose you have understood has been to remind you of things you have taken care to forget.

I can think of two ways to read this.

WV genuinely doesn't understand how the Ring works. As far as he's concerned, it's a dangerous weapon that slaughtered his allies, and nothing more. He's never used it, because he has no interest in weapons of mass destruction - and therefore, its true abilities are unknown to him.

WV knows exactly how the Ring works, but still refuses to use it, even to save his own life. Sure, it can turn him into a demigod - but doing so would turn him into the same monster that ruined everything on the Battlefield. His refusal to use or even acknowledge the Ring is a principled stance against a device he perceives as evil.

Jade's final kernel is turning the chessboard into a fractal.

The game is probably trying to stack four or more dimensions into 3D space, so it make sense that we'd get something screwy.

[weirdmageddon]

long mediation on jade and dave’s relationship - part 2

part 1 is here

this part is essentially about dave and jade’s personalities, their basic dynamic, and how it works. and addressing some things ive seen said about dave in moments that people remove from context because they dont weigh these contexts and prior ones. if you want a post that goes into dave’s attitude towards jade (conclusion: he cares about her a lot) here it is

part 2: switcheroo + misconceptions about dave's role in dave and jade's relationship

something interesting i realized while writing this is the thing about grimbark jade is that she is no nonsense when her normal self is all about nonsense and entertaining silly things because she can see the merit in them. in fact she is always having a chuckle caused by dave's sense of humor and im sure dave got used to interacting with jade like that so wtf with grimbark jade

EB: so i think i have to get TG to use his copy to save her! EB: but that jackass won't shut up and stop rapping and stuff. GG: hahaha GG: he is so silly! (p.293)

TG: snows a big chilly carpet of nobody gives a shit TG: like old man winter spread around his nasty mayonnaise and turned the landscape into his personal asshole sandwich GG: eww dave no TG: when i look around all i see is the miles of unharnessed snowmen im just too damn cool to build GG: no this is so lame GG: i am hearing an insane and stupid guy say stupid idiot things while wearing dumb sunglasses for lame morons! TG: whoa jade with the fucking haymaker TG: i need to go look for my teeth on the canvas as soon as shit stops spinning and there stops being like ten of you GG: heheheh GG: why dont we play in the snow later (p.3024)

GG: i cant get over how tiny this thing is! GG: its so cute GG: so the baby frogs show up on this pad here? GA: Yes GG: i cant wait to try it GA: What Are You Laughing At There GG: oh GG: lol GG: dave just has a lot of funny stuff to say about all this GA: What Is He Saying GG: oh you know, a bunch of silly stuff GG: theres too much to copy/paste! GA: Hmm GG: here ill save it all to a file and send it to you -- gardenGnostic [GG] sent grimAuxiliatrix [GA] the file "daveisafunnyguy.txt" -- GA: Okay Im Laughing Pretty Hard At All That GG: hahaha (p.3312)

JADE: *snicker* JOHN: what? JADE: nothing JOHN: is someone messaging you through the game? JADE: hehe JOHN: who is it? JADE: pffff! JOHN: dammit, jade... JADE: its davesprite, hes playing too JOHN: oh. JOHN: don't tell him any of our strategies. he is the enemy! JADE: we have strategies? JOHN: um... JOHN: ok, first, tell him we have strategies. then, don't tell him them. JADE: hahahahahahaha JOHN: oh god. JOHN: what is it now? JADE: did you know... JADE: davesprite is a funny guy? JOHN: meh, he's alright i guess. JOHN: i give most of his jokes a passing grade. sometimes as high as a solid b+! JADE: i just told him you said that JADE: davesprite says to tell you "youre basically welcome for being born 14 years ago and 1 year ago you ungrateful douche" JOHN: oh, like him taking credit for my existence isn't so old by now! (p.4732)

in a way i feel like their roles parallel dave and jade in the earlier acts from homestuck, but inverted (and twisted/not as nice cause grimbark jade is under nefarious influences)

dave approaches the world from a highly pragmatic position. his ego (in the purely psychoanalytical sense) that he holds himself to, shows to the world, and what he tends to reason through is one that’s about relaxed competence. he’s critical of unreasonable actions and takes it upon himself to guide others into being more efficient in practical, realistic ways. he sees that jade struggles in these initially but she readily accepts his help, which is more than glad to provide.

this doesn’t say anything bad about jade harley. this doesn’t make her stupid, or in need the saving from a knight in shining armor nor does it make dave condescending towards her. it’s information that he is able to provide and that she appreciates and trusts his assistance with while she sees through the things that she prioritizes like helping others with matters of hidden opportunities / the big picture and interpersonal needs which are completely out of dave’s league, something he highly respects but doesnt feel its his greatest asset towards other people like jade does. jade is very into science and gadgetry, but remember that she relies heavily on her sharp intuition rather than straight up pragmatism like dave would. jade really is exceptional and multitalented but she doesn’t know how she does the things she does half the time!

(p.790)

even though dave acknowledges this it doesn’t really bother him

TG: hey TG: oh TG: youre asleep again arent you TG: or do you even know if you are TG: i still dont know how that works TG: its like nothing means anything TG: its so cool getting hella chumped by your coquettish damn riddles all the time TG: i dont know why i believe anything you say im like the grand marshal of gross chumpage (p.829)

GG: i want to tell him happy birthday and ask him about his birthday package! TG: oh yeah TG: i was being sort of cagey and told him to check the mail cause i was wondering if mine came yet GG: i think it did! TG: yeah? GG: and i think mine came too TG: so uh TG: i guess you want to know if he likes it or something? GG: no!!!!!!! GG: he will not open it GG: he will lose it!!! TG: oh TG: uh TG: wow sorry to hear that i guess? GG: no its good actually! GG: because he will find it again later when he really needs it GG: which of course is why i sent it in the first place! TG: see like TG: i never get how you know these things GG: i dont know GG: i just know that i know! TG: hmm alright (p.382)

TT: Jade is connected with you? TT: Where did she get the discs? TG: i dont know how does she do any of the loopy batshit nonsense she does (p.1401)

but because she’s gotten by on intuition and her dreams for most things, she’s not as adapted to the rationale behind actions. dave can sense her struggling and wants to help because it’s basically his mission for everyone, not just jade. but that’s the information that jade is glad to be led by and continues to unconsciously prompt him with. she encourages his practical ways and doesn’t tell him to fuck off or just straight up ignore his advice which dave interprets as his strengths being needed by someone else

GG: dave! GG: are you busy? GG: i dont have much time! GG: i am about to make my entry item, and its a little confusing GG: i think the more players we add, the trickier they are to... um...... GG: activate! GG: like yours was GG: i figured we could brainstorm about it, while john fusses with the kernel GG: helloooooo? TG: nak nak nak GG: :o (p.2907)

TG: yeah honestly i figured wed have to do something like this TG: so i guess here we are doing it GG: doing what?? TG: well youre my server player remember GG: yes TG: i need you to deploy something first TG: in my apartment TG: in a few hours ill go back there and we can continue this GG: oh jeez, a few hours???? -- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] -- -- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] -- TG: yeah TG: as in a few seconds TG: im back at my place now GG: fastest hours :o TG: yeah TG: now TG: deploy the intellibeam laserstation GG: but that costs so much grist!!! TG: no it costs practically nothing TG: check out how much ive got GG: omg... GG: what does this thing do? TG: its mostly pretty stupid and useless TG: but itll come in handy here TG: it reads captcha codes GG: on the back of cards? TG: yeah GG: but GG: we can already read those! TG: some are too garbled and complicated TG: the human eye cant decipher them TG: needs sophisticated scanning technology TG: and artificial intelligence to figure it out GG: hmm GG: but isnt the whole point of captchas that only humans can read them? GG: and not robots??? TG: yeah well TG: thats why this is so dumb (p.3025 / 3026)

TG: thisll be the disc i use for your connection TG: while the original will stay bound to roses connection GG: so you will be the server for BOTH us ladies??? GG: you just keep getting smoother, i cant handle all this smoothness TG: well technically TG: i will be your server TG: and past me will stay as roses server TG: which is to say present me will TG: the one in the black suit GG: ohh... GG: i guess that makes sense TG: he can keep managing her for a while TG: until she sorta checks out soon and becomes totally useless TG: then he can start hopping around time like i did TG: make a ton of money and stuff TG: eventually become me TG: and become your server player GG: ok i think i understand that! TG: yeah see its not hard to get the hang of TG: in the meantime ill kind of loiter around this timeframe to help you out for a while GG: yessss thanks dave <3

TG: im just going to cut right to the chase and upgrade your alchemiter so you can avoid a lot of bullshit TG: ill give you some codes and you can punch cards and slip em into jumper blocks GG: yaaaaaaaaaaaay! (p.3030 - 3032)

jade has strengths that dave has weaknesses in too, which dave himself points out!!!

TG: ok so TG: the egg is now in a nest made of shitty swords and soft puppet ass TG: please advise GG: i think your sprite wants to hatch it! GG: awww TG: do you think thatll take more than four hours GG: hmm... GG: i dont know it looks like its pretty warm where you are TG: its hot as the sizzle side of the steak GG: maybe not too long then???? GG: i guess we'll find out! TG: maybe i should try to get it back TG: and put it in the microwave GG: :( (p.1507)

dave assumed the egg needed to be heated to break and allow him to enter the game, so his course of action is to go up there and get it himself and use whatever means are at his disposal. that is a logical, straightforward thing to do. he doesnt rely on uncertainty and blind trust that things will just work out when he has the ability to take action in a way that makes sense; that’s jade’s thing. but it turns out jade’s intuition for how to solve dave’s entry puzzle was right! it was actually a test of patience. he later says this to jade

GG: you guys are all so much better than me, i feel sooooo lame TG: we all start out somewhere TG: remember how i was scrambling up that tower to get that egg like an idiot TG: what the hell was i doing TG: i was like goddamn pooh bear in a tree reaching up his fat fuckin pooh paw for some mother fuckin honey GG: heehee TG: so even though im awesome now at one point i was plausibly likened to an autistic stuffed animal TG: and you even knew what to do TG: you told me how it worked all christopher robinning my ignorant ass about that egg TG: but i was all like IM A LITTLE BLACK RAIN CLOUD BITCH WATCH ME CLIMB TG: so maybe youre startin out with more sense than me GG: maaaybe GG: :) (p.3025)

hes pretty much like jade's hypeman but in his own sort of lowkey way and is actually sweetly reassuring to her. this includes davesprite btw

GG: those stupid things are impossible to kill :( TG: no you can kill them TG: youll get better dont worry (p.3024)

GG: hmmmm... GG: i dont know if i get that but ok! TG: well yeah TG: my thing is time yours is space TG: pretty different things TG: you GET things about space i dont TG: or you will GG: i will? TG: yup (p.3024)

DAVESPRITE: as a sprite im supposed to help him with his quest JADESPRITE: oh yeah JADESPRITE: im supposed to help jade too, but...... JADESPRITE: *sniffle* DAVESPRITE: shes doing alright dont worry about it JADESPRITE: ok, ill try... JADESPRITE: shes a lot more brave than me i think JADESPRITE: she brought me back thinking i could help her and all i did was disappoint her and everyone else JADESPRITE: you came back as a sprite and youre managing to do important things... JADESPRITE: but i just feel so scared and helpless DAVESPRITE: sounds like you came back because jade made the decision for you DAVESPRITE: i made the decision to come back myself maybe itd be different if you had the same chance JADESPRITE: i dont know if i would have if i had the chance JADESPRITE: but i would like to not feel so useless to everybody DAVESPRITE: i think everyones on top of this DAVESPRITE: theres not much for us to do anymore (p.3927)

DAVESPRITE: so jade must have done something right DAVESPRITE: to wake her up and get the forge going DAVESPRITE: dont know what she did though JADESPRITE: probably something amazing JADESPRITE: she is still working so hard to help everyone JADESPRITE: i guess i used to be that way... JADESPRITE: but ive completely forgotten how DAVESPRITE: are you sure (p.3945)

JADESPRITE: it reminds me of when i died JADESPRITE: and i was trying to wake john up JADESPRITE: i was scared then too JADESPRITE: but i didnt let the fear stop me from trying to save him DAVESPRITE: what would you want to do DAVESPRITE: if you werent scared JADESPRITE: i have no idea JADESPRITE: i guess try to help JADESPRITE: what is there to do? DAVESPRITE: well DAVESPRITE: i was going to bring this sword to dave JADESPRITE: oh noo JADESPRITE: does that mean youre going to leave? DAVESPRITE: no DAVESPRITE: i was gonna say DAVESPRITE: im not in any shape for more adventuring DAVESPRITE: i figure this is probably my last stop JADESPRITE: :( DAVESPRITE: but maybe this is a way you can help JADESPRITE: you mean... JADESPRITE: that i should give him the sword? DAVESPRITE: if you want JADESPRITE: but i dont want to leave you here either DAVESPRITE: maybe you dont have to actually go anywhere DAVESPRITE: you oughta have a lot of special powers remember DAVESPRITE: because of ascending to doghood JADESPRITE: oh yeah! DAVESPRITE: try doing your spacey thing DAVESPRITE: i mean not to sound condescending or anything but its got to be like borderline omnipotence pretty much DAVESPRITE: just put your mind to it (p.3946)

knowing all of this about dave and jade’s personalities and how they work together, i’ve see people get on dave’s case about making jade slap herself in the face after she put the dead bird into his kernelsprite while he was preoccupied with taking a leak

dave freaks the hell out when he realizes she’s asleep; he needs to wake her up because she needs to help him get into the game while requires pragmatism and reasonable actions so that he’s not crushed to death by an imminent meteor. or falling plumbing fixtures. the goal wasn’t to show her who’s in control or whatever or to be mean (do people seriously think he would do that to be mean to her just to slap a girl?) it was strictly to wake her up since he has no means of influencing that besides getting creative

while asleep, jade doesn’t think logically and certainty not to the extent dave needs her to be right now. she’s scattered lalalalala and can forget about limitations or consequences in the real world and also has a short memory span while dreaming: e.g. “4 hours until what?” and she put something into the kernelsprite right after dave asked her not to because she forgor </3 and jade does acknowledge this about her dreaming self btw

GG: i mean, i only talked to you when i was asleep! i am kind of different when im dreaming... GG: i forget things, and at times im not totally sure whats real GG: dont you remember thats what its like to dream on prospit? (p.3056)

dave literally says “we need to wake you up youre not very logical like this” and he does apologize about making her dreambot wake-up slap her

i also see people say that dave thought of jade as helpless and he needs to be the hero and that's why "davejade is not good actually"

TG: but ok i mean isnt that what heroes should be doing TG: working to take down the bad guy without a whole lot of this fuckin grandiloquence and these huge sweeping plans that got nothin to do with fighting him TG: like always biding our time and tiptoeing around the unbeatable god boss TG: johns too nice to get mad TG: rose spends all her time calculating TG: too focused on machiavellian ploys of sabotage to try anything drastic TG: jade is TG: i dont even know TG: probably more a liability if she got it in her head to take him down TG: if anything id bet she just needs protection GC: WH4T 4R3 YOU S4Y1NG H3R3 D4V3, 1N TH1S CONV3RS4T1ON TH4T 1S ST1LL B31NG 4BOUT YOU TG: im just wondering TG: when does someone actually step up TG: jacks got shit to pay for (p.3703)

this minor thread gets followed up on in the pesterlog where jade contacts dave and eventually she concludes jack needs to be stopped and dave's like ... "oh shit" in his head. "oh shit" as in jade's got Game good for her go jade, "oh shit" as in she's going to be ripe for the stabbing cause the idea is in her head now, and "oh shit" as in this moment is the seed of why im going to have to rehearse jade accidentally killing me over and over and i cant tell her about it. due to this he is always fated to die in the alpha timeline both standing up to jack and to protect jade. it's woven into his story. but he was wrong about everyone else also! which i dont see brought up when that quote is used? rose does something drastic (pilots the moon into the furthest ring) and john gets mad (on the ship) and jade is the opposite of needing protection (she’s the only one jack won’t stab and also she ends up so fucking OP she has to be basically written out of act 6) so it's less a thing about jade specifically but to show that in hindsight dave was wrong about ALL his friends. which is an interesting discussion to be had about him in itself, but not now. this is the most sane and well-thought out interpretation of it ive seen

"In general, though, I think Dave has a tendency not uncommon to [thirteen] year olds (or… humans in general, if we’re being honest here) to cast everyone else as a player in his own story and characterize them in ways that fit what he wants. There’s the famous chunk where he says John never gets angry, Rose will never stop scheming long enough to take action, and Jade’s a liability, only to be proven wrong in every count. That fits his understanding of these people and his ideal relationship with them - friend, actor, protector, the one in the group who can be the hero." "Yes, I think Dave probably saw Jade as the most supportive and least judgmental friend. I’m not sure if that impacted his incorrect judgment of her since that’s kind of a pattern for him in general, but I guess it could’ve."

and also putting this solely on dave is kind of ... ehhhhh? because john says the same thing about jade but i don't see anyone getting on his case for it.

CG: SHE AND DAVE RAN INTO JACK, WHICH I'M SURE HE MUST HAVE SAW COMING BECAUSE I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYONE EXPLOIT TIME TRAVEL SO SHAMELESSLY AS HIM, NOT EVEN ARADIA. CG: SO SHE AND DAVE FOUGHT WITH HIM A WHILE, AND LONG STORY SHORT, HE DIED. EB: what!!! CG: BUT IT'S FINE, I GUESS THAT WAS HIS PLAN, LIKE SOME BIZARRE USELESS LAST STAND, EVEN IF HE DIDN'T TELL JADE WHO WAS PRETTY FREAKED OUT UNTIL I TALKED HER THROUGH IT. CG: JADE SAYS SHE HAS THIS FIGURED OUT, AND I DON'T HAVE TIME TO DO MUCH BUT TRUST HER. CG: THE POINT IS, SHE'S ALL BOOKED UP, AND ALL TOO MORTAL. SO SHE WON'T BE DELIVERING THE BOMB, AND NEITHER WILL YOU. EB: ok, well what about this. EB: since she is mortal, and i am not (sort of), and i don't need to do the scratch for a while, can i go help her? EB: maybe she could use some protection? maybe that is what dave was just trying to do, when he temporarily died. EB: remember, jack is still on the loose! he has killed rose and dave once, and me twice. CG: NO NO NO NO NO NO. CG: SWEET BLEEDING JEGUS, EGBERT, YOU KEEP BRAGGING ABOUT YOUR IMMORTALITY, AND THEN BRAINLESSLY ANNOUNCE PLANS TO GO OFF AND DO SOMETHING HEROIC! YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE THE SHORTEST LIFESPAN OF ANY IMMORTAL IN HISTORY. EB: sorry. :( CG: BESIDES, IT'S A TOTAL NON ISSUE. JACK WOULDN'T HESITATE TO STAB YOU AGAIN, BUT HE WON'T HURT JADE FOR SOME REASON. CG: IF ANYTHING, YOU COULD USE HER PROTECTION. (p.3869 / 3871)

and also keep in mind dave does absolutely change his perception about jade's strength??

DAVE: youll probably annihilate me worse than my bro used to DAVE: dont you have all of your dogs insane powers and like DAVE: god tier space powers on top of all that DAVE: how exactly am i supposed to compete with that (p.6384)

DAVE: gotta keep em napping DAVE: especially jade im sure you know what kind of crooked ass baloneyfuck powers she got DAVE: cant let her turn those against us (p.7485)

so back to grimbark jade and the switching of these roles, dave doesn’t entirely lose his pragmatic bent. that’s still the way he thinks about stuff through but his time on the meteor has softened him and allowed him to become more reflective on big-picture things such as his role in everything

ironically this is the exact reason for his clash with grimbark jade is because she’s trying really hard to make him do stuff and it’s stuff that he’s not going to budge on because he doesn’t think it’s practical

JADE: why not? JADE: our empress can hardly have a knight with such rusty combat skills in her service DAVE: will you cut it out with the evil jade baloney DAVE: im not going to fight you DAVE: my rooftop dueling days are OVER JADE: en garde! DAVE: ugh DAVE: even if we just went balls out jackass BANANAS with our swords here i mean realistically how much appreciable advancement in my battle skills would even result from that DAVE: are you actually thinking this through or just going through the vaguely nefarious motions that come with the territory of being evildog!jade JADE: im gonna go through the vaguely nefarious motions of kicking your ass in a minute if you dont put up your dukes!!! DAVE: yeah you probably will DAVE: youll probably annihilate me worse than my bro used to DAVE: dont you have all of your dogs insane powers and like DAVE: god tier space powers on top of all that DAVE: how exactly am i supposed to compete with that JADE: by using your time trickery! JADE: come on dave do your timey thing JADE: get creative, make lots of copies of yourself or something... outsmart me! DAVE: no! JADE: yes!!! DAVE: ok here i go JADE: !!!!! DAVE: wait DAVE: nah JADE: grrr JADE: dave, just try a little time travel to get this fight started JADE: see look, one of your time doubles is surely predestined to come from a few minutes in the future and appear behind me for a surprise attack, riiiight about... JADE: now! JADE: ... JADE: no wait JADE: riiiiiiiiiight... JADE: ... JADE: ... JADE: NOW! JADE: .... JADE: ..... JADE: dave why is your future self being such a wet blanket DAVE: i told you DAVE: im not time traveling DAVE: i think im giving it up for good actually (p.6384)

one thing floral mentions in her post is that dave is pushing jade for answers about her failed relationship with davesprite

DAVE: why are you dragging that guy into this DAVE: what happened with you and him anyway JADE: none of your business >:p DAVE: it kind of is DAVE: hes bird me DAVE: that clearly means i have a right to know JADE: that doesnt make any sense! DAVE: you said he had issues DAVE: what issues JADE: augh! JADE: forget i mentioned it DAVE: was he talking shit about me the whole time or something DAVE: i know he resents me for being the real dave JADE: dont say that, you arent the real dave! JADE: well you are, but phrasing it like that is so mean! JADE: hes just as real as you, and when you imply he isnt you sound like a jerk!!! DAVE: man i knew it DAVE: i knew he was poisoning your view of me all those years DAVE: and i wasnt there to say anything or defend against his slander so now of course you think im a neurotic douche (p.6386)

and while it is true nobody is obligated to share the details of their relationship, there is a LOT of evidence to believe dave was asking because he wants to be a good person and, to me his words here, and his past and future actions relative to this point, show that he’s not as messed up of a person as grimbark jade is making him out to be. let’s dive into it. think on this: why does dave care so much what jade thinks about him? he started getting “neurotic” halfway through the conversation once jade brought up her feelings about him

JADE: THE ONLY REASON I THINK YOURE A NEUROTIC DOUCHE IS BECAUSE YOURE ACTING LIKE ONE NOW!!! DAVE: yeah but i only started acting like a neurotic douche like half way through this conversation DAVE: you clearly had an axe to grind with me from the start and i want to know why DAVE: what did i ever do to deserve this shit from you JADE: YOU BROKE MY HEART!!!!!! DAVE: what DAVE: i did DAVE: when (p.6386)

he’s genuinely so lost because he hadn’t had contact with any extension of jade in 3 years. alpha timeline dave has been sensitive towards jade for basically forever and especially now that he’s had time to grow up. he is not going to allow any version of himself hurt jade, and thats why hes asking so many questions to her about the nature of the relationship and what happened

JADE: ok not you JADE: davesprite did JADE: BUT YOURE BASICALLY THE SAME GUY! DAVE: whoa no way DAVE: thats such an unfair characterization we are completely different dudes JADE: you just said you had a right to know what happened between us because, and i quote, "hes bird me" DAVE: no i know DAVE: i was playing the "hes bird me" card because it was convenient to whatever it was i was saying at the time DAVE: i forget what point i was making when i said that JADE: *growl* DAVE: but thats not the point im making now DAVE: he and me are just DAVE: crazy different yo DAVE: hes got fuckin wings!!! DAVE: he also presumably takes a dump and lays eggs out of the same ghostly hole DAVE: ... DAVE: ew man whyd i have to go there JADE: *SNARL* DAVE: ok if he broke up with you or whatever that was because of his dumb bird issues not my issues DAVE: theres no way i would have done that to you (p.6386)

what dave means to say by “hes bird me because it was convenient to say at the time but it doesnt apply to this circumstance” is exactly what i was getting at in part 1 of this series of posts. yes, they are the same people at their very foundation, different reflections of a single character, but up to a point. there’s a gray area of whether or not we can call dave and davesprite the same person. in terms of this conflict though, dave should be regarded as a separate individual because of their diverging history up to that point and adolescent-teenage growth in different environments and under different circumstances. even if dave doesn't know what hes trying to say

he wants to know what this alternate version of himself did to hurt jade so much. even if grimbark jade really is bringing dave into some shit he had nothing to do with.

see the thing is, to me dave could have easily handled being accused a lot worse and say something like “youre overreacting” or something. that wouldve been dickish. but he doesn’t, he never does. he really seems to be more motivated by like, “woah what?? whats his problem? are these about issues i still have and dont know they were hurting jade or are they uniquely davesprite’s?”

like, this isn’t a joke to him even if his main form of communication through humor to lighten the mood (jade loves dave’s silliness dont forget all the times she’s giggled because dave was “so silly” and “hes a funny guy”). immediately after rescuing the mayor from eviljade’s lava kick, he was going to give davesprite a piece of his mind and this shows he is sincerely concerned about what an alternate version of himself did to break jade’s heart. he REALLY fuckin wants closure on it because he cares about her feelings so much

i don’t see this other side covered in floral’s post, but evildog jade here is Also pushing dave to do something that he is uncomfortable with as well, which is to use time travel.

dave stopped time traveling so he wouldn’t “have to wonder all the time if i was taking a wrong turn and dooming everybody”, stating he was “never that cool with it” to rose back in act 5. around the same time when karkat talks to john, he says “TO MY KNOWLEDGE, HE DOESN'T TIME TRAVEL AFTER [FIGHTING JACK WITH JADE], AND HE AND ROSE STAY ON DERSE WAITING FOR THE BOMB UNTIL YOU START THE SCRATCH” which honestly makes me think that whole event was the nail in the coffin for dave on time traveling. seeing himself die fighting jack and knowing it was coming and he couldnt tell jade no matter how much he wanted to that her bullets were going to be the cause. this is the last straw for him regarding time traveling it affected him that much

remember the last lines of pesterlog jade had with dave before being separated? i mentioned it earlier--the one where jade decided jack needs to be stopped and they should “come up with a better plan than Rose’s suicide mission to stop him. Dave suggests the idea is futile, but lets her know she’d come to her own decision regardless, and he’d be available to talk later if needed” (from recap 3)

GG: well maybe im just being naive... GG: but a crazy suicide mission does not sound like the ideal solution to me! GG: are you suuuure we cant beat him? GG: i dont know if we should rule it out! TG: well TG: youre about to do what youre about to do TG: and im not going to tell you not to TG: i wont do the bullshit troll thing and tell you what youre going to do and then just dare you not to TG: while knowing damn well you will anyway TG: so ill just say TG: whats next is up to you TG: and if later you want to talk about it TG: im here GG: ok GG: thanks dave! (p.3204)

this was dave’s nice causality-free way of saying “youre going to end up killing me during the jack fight that winds up happening. i cant tell you that im going to die and that youre going to be the one to shoot me, because i know you wouldnt go through with it. that would drag us in a doomed timeline and we’d all die anyway, not just me. youre probably going to be freaked out when it happens since i can’t tell you this, so if you want to talk me about it later, ill be here for you”

which, first of all is, holy shit. he cares about her and her feelings so fucking much. and it’s nothing new

TT: What about why you went to fight Jack? TG: sure TG: i did that TG: because i wanted to TG: and because i was supposed to TT: Are you sure? TG: yeah i saw my future self fighting him so obviously that had to happen or else id be dead anyway TG: without even getting the satisfaction of standing up to him TT: So what about Jade? TG: what TT: You didn't tell her your expedition with her would result in your death, let alone one she'd inadvertently cause. TT: Or that she'd be stuck with the job of resuscitating you. Did you? TG: what am i really supposed to say TG: hey were gonna hunt frogs til you shoot me through the jack TG: then i die and youve got to make out with me TG: that kind of changes how the whole thing goes doesnt it TT: Not if you're "supposed to," right? TG: what does that even mean TT: I guess you're right. No reason to make an effort to empathize if doing so comes at the price of oblivion. TG: wtf TT: It must be comforting to have your ASPD tacitly supported by predestination. TG: aspd TT: Antisocial personality disorder. TG: oh no TG: this conversation just got bumrushed by a mudslide of fucking awful TT: It wasn't already awful, believing you might be dead? TG: you dont know anything TG: about what i was feeling or what happened on lofaf TG: you were all pavement faced and babbling your throefester speak and flipping off the shit with your own crazy deathwish thing why do you think you know what was going through my head TG: youre just assuming and throwing around psyche buzzwords like aspd complex disorder TG: im telling you if i said anything at all about it she probably doesnt even fire her gun once and all im doing is dragging her into a doomed timeline with me TT: I guess I'm learning to be impressed by your sense of obligation to inevitable misfortune. It's a strange case of inspiration through futility. TG: none of this is that big a deal TG: i just mentioned the basics to her TG: that id stop time traveling soon TG: break out of the loops TG: not have to wonder all the time if i was taking a wrong turn and dooming everybody TG: i was never that cool with this (p.3896)

dave got suddenly super fucking defensive about rose making assumptions about how he felt about fighting jack and knowing jade was going to inadvertently kill him, knowing damn well how jade reacts to seeing corpses (remember that time dave threw his slain body out the window so jade wouldnt see it because “it would probably freak her out”), and the fact that he couldn’t warn her to protect the alpha timeline and also protect both of them and everyone from falling into a doomed timeline. and he knew it was coming the whole time. he was right, rose didn’t know what was going through his head. but his defensiveness here means he had strong feelings about it. not only that but dave saying “whats next is up to you, and if later you want to talk about it, im here” shows the amount of trust he has towards her

we see him tell this to grimbark jade straight up his thought process for why he stopped time traveling. and it’s spot on with what i said. again, remember that this is the first conversation he has with jade after 3 years being separated

DAVE: but see with time travel DAVE: all the stuff about learning it so you dont have to use it is true DAVE: theres no good that can come of it DAVE: you can crunch the logic on the loops all you want DAVE: but all youre doing is painting yourself into a corner DAVE: creating inevitabilities you have to rehearse and enact or face death for yourself or everyone you know DAVE: and sometimes facing death is the very inevitability you have to rehearse DAVE: and then you wait and wait knowing its coming and knowing it has to happen DAVE: how do you think it made me feel when we were gathering up all those frogs DAVE: and i knew the whole time in a little while you would have to watch me get shot DAVE: but i couldnt say anything or it would mess it all up DAVE: all cause i thought it would be cool to be marty mcfuckin fly DAVE: but instead of shredding johnny b goode on guitar to get my parents to bang DAVE: my crowning performance was doing a funny dance while getting pumped full of lead JADE: ...... (p.6385)

and what fucking broke me yesterday was realizing after all this time, ironically it was DAVE who wound up being the one who had to talk to jade about it.

JADE: sorry dave, you lost me there after the part where i shot you DAVE: damn DAVE: ok lemme start over (p.6385)

“damn ok lemme start over” bro he really wants to open up to her about this thing he’s been stewing on for three years only for it to fall on deaf mind controlled ears. it’s so fucking sad

part 3 is cooking and it’s going to be about dave’s character growth post-meteor and what that means for dave and jade

[harlequinchaos]

Tears of the Kingdom tips for surviving the new economy and whatnot, under the cut (in case of spoilers)

Adventuring Tip: STEALTH IS YOUR FRIEND

Once you get to Kakariko Village you can buy the Stealth Suit (Highly recommend doing the connected sidequest to bring the cost of the shop down). This makes it so you can walk up to fish, bugs, and creatures without them running away (if you sprint they'll still run) this is AMAZING for collecting these things as everything seems way more sparse in totk. No more chasing frogs for you my friend.

Food Tip: Critical Meals

Cooking between 11:30pm-12:00pm on the night of a blood moon gives you:

+3 hearts recovered to your dish

+1 level to whatever effect is present in your dish

+5:00 duration to the effect

Rupee Tip: Go Spelunking!

One of the biggest features in totk are the new caves systems that are literally everywhere. Oftentimes you'll find ore deposits and rare ore deposits and find Amber, Opal, Rubies, Sapphires and Topazes. Sell them for cash (I recommend saving sapphires, see below). If you see a wall of breakable rocks, usually it will drop rusty claymores and rocks for you to make more crude hammers. But a bomb flower or zonai time bomb work too (DON'T BLOW YOURSELF UP). Additionally, a cave will be marked with a ✔️ once you kill the bubblfrog inside.

Battle tip: Ice is OP.

Frozen enemies take double damage from your next hit, so try to always have a Magic Rod/Scepter with a sapphire fused to it, fusing a sapphire to a regular weapon works as well, but you're not aiming to hit the enemy with the source of the ice. Freeze > pause and switch to your strongest weapon> hit the enemy > switch back to your ice weapon > repeat to stunlock the enemy, works on everything that isn't a Lynel or Boss. Using Ice Fruit or Blue Chuchu jelly works too, but stuff is more rare in this game.

Relatively Easy Rupees:

You'll need:

-Bow & arrows (the stronger the bow the better)

-Sheild (for sheild surfing)

-Cold Resistance Armor (to survive)

-Speedy Elixir (optional, but it'll REALLY help)

-Access to Snowfield Stable (Hebra Region)

What you're gonna be doing is big game hunting in the snowy field north of the stable. All winter animals are capable of dropping Raw Gourmet Meat which is the best quality, including moose, the bears and the wolves. Sheild surf to get around quicker and then go for headshots with a bow and just hunt the animals for their meat. You'll want the speedy Elixir because you have to be pretty quick between the meat dropping and freezing. Once it's frozen it counts as a meal, but you literally get hundreds of rupees by selling 5 Raw Gourmet Meats cooked together.

Item Management: Brightbloom Mushrooms are the new Apples:

Going off of the previous tip of exploring the cave systems, you'll find Brightbloom Mushrooms almost more than anything else. Eventually you'll want to stop collecting them, but they're the perfect source of quick food fodder. Just cook a bunch together for quick hearts (and the glow effect which is nice in caves).

Advanced Combat Tip: Muddlebuds

If you've been to The Depths, one of the native plants are the Muddlebuds. These make it so enemies will attack each other when thrown (or attached to an arrow). I recommend wearing the stealth gear, sneaking up to a pack or finding a vantage point, and hitting the strongest enemy in the group with a muddlebud arrow. It'll start to attack it's allies, allowing you to sit back and enjoy the show. Note: enemies will still target you if they see you (hence the stealth/vantage point)

These are just a few tips, feel free to add more, and try not to be too spoilery for people who haven't played or haven't gotten far yet!

[strayheartless]

To your Mountain Kid/Jungle Kid HC, I bet Zack and Cloud bond over not being such nErDs as AGS (affectionately).

Genesis' parents probably raised him on the classics, emphasizing education and achievement over everything.

Gillian was a whole Shinra scientist, and probably raised Angeal with all the knowledge she could provide, because education is often vital to escaping poverty. And because she's a nerd.

Sephiroth "Lab Experiment" Crescent...no further commentary needed.

Any funny scenes of ZC vs the AGS nerds?

❤️

Cloud and Zack Bond over superstitions that are somewhat similar between Gongaga and Nibelhiem. They find out that both Villiages have similar superstitions surrounding Shoes. In Gongaga its bad luck to put new Shoes on the table; while in Nibelhiem its Bad luck to leave shoe's on the table and extra bad luck if one of them falls off the table.

They also bond over the Cryptids that live in their respective woods, and AGS are forever horrified when Cloud goes into great detail about the Nibelhiem not-possom, which is infinatly more fucked up than anything they have ever heard. Zack then tells them about the Gongaga Frog man and its game over, no one can sleep.

Cloud once cussed Angeal out for stiring a pot anti clockwise. He then proceeded to tap every potato against the side board until Angeal saked him why and Cloud looked at him like he'd lost dang his mind as he replied "does Banora not have Potato mites??"... Angeal then goes on a three day Moogle rabbit hole to find out what the hell potato mites are and why Nibelhiem is effected by them so badly.

Cloud and Zack once had a fight with Sephiroth over the scientific likelyhood of world events being predicted by sparrow/parrot bones. It got so heated Zack (not Cloud) threw a lightning spell at his head. They are no longer allowed to apply science to country boy religious practices.

Cloud once slapped Genesis square in the face for rocking an empty rocking chair.

While on mission in Modaohiem during their first few weeks as mentor and student, Angeal started whistling in the dark, and Zack nearl had ten blue fits on him.

Angeal grew up never wasting food, but he has to sit and marvel at how far Cloud takes 'waste not, want not' as a mantra. It's round about the time that Cloud not only makes soup, but also makes fertiliser for Angeals plants that Angeal realises he knows nothing.

Sephiroth nearly lost his mind when he found out that both Zack and Cloud take their paychecks in hard cash and don't trust the banks. Like he legitimately couldn't fathom why they wouldn't have bank accounts, or debit cards.

Genesis thought he knew everything there was to know about ancient literature, But Cloud and Zack both know word of mouth Stories that he has NEVER heard before and has been told on pain of death that if he writes them down, no one will ever find his body.

Sephiroth is pretty no nonsense about most of the boys superstitions, but even he has to admit that when it comes to weather prediction on missions, Cloud is usually right.

There was one very memorable time in Nibelhiem, when They all got sent out for mushrooms for dinner, and Angeal 'plant expert' Hewely swore blind he knew the differences between mushrooms, only to have Cloud save him three seperate times from eating death caps.

Cloud once threw Salt in Sephiroths face after he heared he'd been down to the old train yard (you know the one with the ghosts).

Genesis met Claudia strife while on mission in Nibelhiem once and she thought he was a Cryptid trying to lure her into the woods. she slapped him. why do people keep slapping him?!

[blitzxiiru]

I just found you and I love your posts, if the like/reblog spree was any indication. I was looking through your blog at work and it gave me so much energy.

I wanted to know what you would think of a tmnt/Undertale crossover. I don't know if you even like undertale, but I've been thinking about nonstop since I thought of it. Wether the boys have the game, or they're actually in the universe, I think it would be super cool.

hello!! welcome to my silly blog :) i’m glad my posts helped give you a little energy boost for work, i know how tiring working can be, take care of yourself!

oh man this brings me back to the ABSOLUTE GODDAMN HURRICANE amount of undertale aus back in the day. christ, there was so much and i genuinely couldn’t keep up. practically anything you could think of — like candy, space, swapped roles — there at LEAST one post about it that was mixed and matched with undertale. i left the fandom years ago though, it was getting super toxic atp and i stuck to looking at it from afar

to answer your question — if the boys were to have undertale, it was released in 2015, so they would’ve had the game when they were like 18?? donnie would be scrounging around in the sewers and stumbled upon some thrown away copy of it

raph would defo be the one to instantly start off killing everyone towards the genocide route. laughs maniacally while doing so, and everyone is concerned for his mental well-being

• “bRO WHY’D YOU KILL THE LITTLE FROG DUDE”

• “IT WAS LOOKING AT ME WRONG. IT WAS BEGGING ME TO JUST FUCKING KILL IT”

• “raph, we’re having a therapy session tomorrow.”

mikey would be the complete opposite of raph. he’d be the most pacifist and try to befriend everyone despite the monsters trying to kill him. he was devastated when he couldn’t save asriel. his favourite is undyne

• “KILL HER, MIKEY. KILL THE FISH AND CHEW ON HER BONES AND FLESH”

• “WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU NO???? I WANNA BE HER FRIEND!!”

• “mikey she is literally trying to murder you”

• “I DONT CARE WE CAN BE FRIENDS SHE REMINDS ME OF LEATHERHEAD”

donnie would be the one to try to actually try to get all the endings. doesn’t matter if he has to go genocide or pacifist or neutral, he’s going to get all the damn endings. he secretly enjoys doing the genocide route bc it was a challenge, nothing more! (totally)

• “donnie you’re hogging the game”

• “leave me alone leo i’m currently trying to get the true pacifist ending”

• “i don’t care donnie take a break you’ve been playing for 10 fucking hours”

leo would try his best to be pacifist, but in the end he got the neutral ending because he killed some monsters along the way. he swears it wasn’t his fault — the game activated his fight or flight

• “LEO NOOOOO WHY DID YOU KILL UNDYNE”

• “WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO, NOT FIGHT BACK???? SHE WAS ATTACKING ME”

• “i thought you were being pacifist”

• “I WAS. I WAS TRYING OKAY.”

[wirewitchviolet]

Observing an Infantalized 4chan Nazi

So recently I fell down a real serious rabbithole with a game that really puts your brain through the ringer. Nobody I know seems to want anything to do with it, so I wandered into some discord trying to find people to compare notes with and get my head around some more headache-y bits. It's not my community, I don't really know the vibe, I'm still feeling it out, but the other day someone new wandered in, and I dunno, I feel like a researcher lucking into an unexpected glimpse at a rare phenomenon in the field, or maybe like a vampire hunter stumbling onto someone who only just got bit and is having stomach pains because he tried to eat garlic bread. One of those.

See, I'm no stranger to watching nazis try to sneak into communities for nefarious purposes. It's always the same song and dance where they try real hard to come off like polite functional human beings, and casually ease into their talking points, and then their masks slip right off because if they could conduct themselves like rational empathetic human beings, they wouldn't have ended up as nazis. This here though isn't one of those. This is someone who seems to just have wandered in here for tips on how this weird game works, who doesn't have the wherewithal to even try to act like a normal person.

He's just attempting to ask questions about game mechanics, and it's spilling out as this weird mix of disgusting Nazi frog pictures, self-flagellation, slurs, and weird baby talk. I'm trying to find something that can be quoted in polite company and I just can't. Here's the closest I can manage, with apologies:

"I dont have enough weaponised autism to play this game LOL"

And when questioned on that phrasing- "I dont have the 4chan/pol weaponised Elon autism. I have the garden variety THE DUMB"

Both of these of course paired up with gross poorly drawn Pepes, one drooling, one... committing an act of self-harm. The vibe I'm getting off the entire server is this mix and disgust and confusion at this gross pathetic mess. There's some polite hinting that this isn't cool to maybe try and catch a mod's attention, and there's some effort being made to parse out the actual questions and answer them. Then there's a bunch of blubbering from the channer shocked at anyone being willing to engage with him.

Meanwhile of course I'm over here on the sidelines, just kinda simmering with rage and knowing better than to open my mouth, over just being in the presence of one of these creeps, all the casual hate speech, nazi symbols, and vile imagery, idol worship of deeply hateful and stupid people, the total lack of self-awareness, and, like the title says, just general disgust at the weird cocktail of learned helplessness and self-loathing simmering in that sort of environment has reduced what I assume is physically a fully capable of adult into.

But, I say through incredibly clenched teeth, I suppose this here really is sort of the ideal scenario for our rare specimen here. He's not SO far gone that he's completely given up on having actual interests and at least trying to make some kind of attempt at healthy interactions with people. Again, usually when I see a nazi in some discord, there is zero question that they are there for absolutely no purpose beyond trying to recruit/attack/spy on people. So theoretically, not completely beyond saving here. And he's getting a taste of how normal people interact, with a nice contrast against the nazi crap, and doing... yeah literally anything with his time but marrinating in hate. He just needs to stop metaphorically dropping his pants and taking a giant dump on the floor every time he enters a room and to talk like an actual damn adult and not some kind of racist giant baby.

So in this one very specific case, hey, glad to see it, here's hoping he slips away from the chan scene and focuses on games or whatever. But before anyone gets any ideas about running around redeeming nazis or anything, keep in mind the following things- I only see this as even potentially on the table here because this is a rare unicorn situation of someone who's clearly been cooking in a nazi stew long enough to lose all ability hold a conversation like a civilized person but not QUITE so long as to stop seeing other people as anything but potential targets or recruits, a window that tends to be so short I've maybe seen it one other time ever. Even under these rare ideal conditions, odds are pretty low this particular channer is going to actually withdraw from that scene in favor of say this random discord, not have some kind of relapse, not pose a clear threat or danger to anyone, and it's not like people who stop being slur-spewing nazis magically turn into decent people. Best case scenario's still going to be a fairly repellent right-wing creep, just you know, one who keeps quiet about it and lives a normal life instead of being some indoctrinated fanatical foot soldier actively antagonizing people.

[realcube]

RANDOM MATCHUPS

✦ for @s0dium

✦ tw: ramblings of a crazy person. also in no particular order.

fat gum — bnha

✦ his regular height is unknown but in his "fat" form he is 8'2" lol

✦ and when he is in his regular form, he has hella muscle (ex)

✦ also ofc his quirk involves eating so his love language is probably food too

✦ he is also kinda a comic relief character so ofc he is funny af and a sweetheart

✦ also his heart would literally melt if you supported his pro-heroing the same way you would for like a vb player s/o if you know what i mean??

✦ like buying his pro-hero merch and wearing his faces on shirts and stuff- he's be legit so flattered and flustered actually

✦ especially bc he's not like.. particularly famous (he's got a ranking of #58 in osaka 😬) so you being his number one supporter would mean the world to him

✦ omg and you guys could have a meet-cute where he saves you from villains !!

✦ or thieves trying to steal some anime merch you just bought 😤

bokuto kotaro — haikyuu!!

✦ i already mentioned this at the bottom of your hq matchup but you'd also suit bokuto sm

✦ he's tall + muscular

✦ and he's so silly so he could obviously make you laugh

✦ also the part about you having a golden doodle definitely would fly a lot better with bokuto than oikawa bc bokuto would be thriving playing with your doggy or watching you play with her , meanwhile oikawa would be silently jealous if you pay her more attention than him LOL

✦ however, perhaps bokuto is worse bc he will entertain and play with your dog so much and distract her from actually.. y'know.. doing her job

✦ you're like 'bo can i have my therapy dog pls i kinda need her' and he's like 'awww.. but i'm teaching her how to high five rn...'

✦ but omg you being his biggest supporter at matches would literally make him so happy, and he'd point to you in the crowd whenever he landed a spike

✦ so whenever you go to his games you need to be camera ready bc he keeps motioning to you and waving at you so their gonna keep zooming in on you in the crowd

kentaro kyoutani (mad dog) — haikyuu!!

✦ okay hear me out 👀 he's pretty tall and muscular

✦ and he can defo make you laugh with how wild and fierce he is

✦ plus he'd be chill with your dog bc he has one of his own and they could be best friends

✦ and if you ever want to do taekwondo sparring, he's the perfect guy to practise with ( no he doesn't know any martial arts but he's good at fighting so it comes naturally to him lol )

✦ the only thing is that .. he isn't kind, like, at all

✦ but you can fix him!! i believe in you!!

✦ he would be blushin n shi when he sees you in the stands at his sendai frogs games

✦ would not be as obvious about it as bokuto but with all the kyoutani merch you got on, all his teammates can tell you've come for him and they tease him about it

✦ (he's internally loving it tho)

✦ but also he's so gonna hold it against you .. if he ever sees you trying to leave the house, looking a bit too good, he's like 'what happened to that shirt with my face on it? why don't you wear that out? 🤔' bc he knows that despite how good you may look, no guy is gonna hit on you if they see his big scary mug on your chest LOL

makoto tachibana — free! iwatobi swim club

✦ pls excuse me it's been so long since i watched this show but

✦ makoto was criminally underrated and he defo deserves a sweet gal to cheer for him when he swims bc, being fr, i don't remember anyone doing so

✦ they were all about haru and rin iirc

✦ also he is the tall and muscular BLUEPRINT

✦ plus he's super kind

kineshi hairo — the disastrous life of saiki k

✦ he'd also be the biggest support of your taekwondo dream.. perhaps to a concerning extent

✦ like he's always offering to trains with you and go on morning runs together and getting you into the competitive spirit for the competitions (that he is going to persuade you into joining somehow with his inspirational speeches lol)

✦ he would also be down to go skating / snowball fight

✦ but if he manages to hit you with a snowball.. ouch

✦ lights knocked out unfortunately 😔

joe — sk8 the infinity

✦not sure what to say actually

✦ he's just a tall, muscular, funny and kind guy

✦ he probably doesn't like winter bc he skateboards and ice/snow makes the ground all slippy and dangerous

✦ so going on dates with you would give him something to look forward to

✦ he's kinda a player though so please keep an eye on that celluar device of his 🧐

gojo satoru — jjk

✦ purely based on appearance bc i've never seen jjk lol

✦ but i think aesthetically y'all compliment each other very well

✦ i think it's the contrast of the hair but also the similarities in the eyes

✦ also y'all are both model height so 🙌

✦ you + gojo are the fabled "two pretty bestfriends"

for @s0dium: haha this was super fun and such a nice idea !!!

[oddrobyn]

hi friend!! I've been losing it over your li and pen bestie art for the past few minutes I love them 🥺🥺🥺 do you mind telling us more about their dynamics? also I love dice and the commissioners!! would also love to know more about dice and wei <3333

OH MY GAAAHHHH IVE WAITED YEARS FOR THIS QUESTIONNNN

(Rubbing my little hands together) MEGA SPOILERS BELOW BTW IN CASE ANYONE HASNT FINISHED THE GAME

For quick context to anyone who might not know , Li is my builder Oc (first image) and Dice is my non builder NPC type oc who I like to imagine as a potential romancable character when someone else is playing as builder. But in my au where Li and Dice are in the same universe Dice is Li's older sister.

Starting with Li!!

Li and Pen has this sort of crazy friendship when you consider they are selectively mute and the way their personalities are pretty different. Pen is a loud and proud extrovert who can fill a room with his very presence when Li is really mousy and tends to keep to themselves all the while a really affectionate friend. This has given them a sort of platonic lovey-friendship where they're best friends who can say I love you and understand how deeply connected they are as bestie which makes Pen's betrayal /leaving for incarceration a hell of a lot more painful.

Li does have BPD and because Pen was their favorite person this was REALLY rough and there was a LOT of coping they had to deal with because losing the person their whole world revolved around totally destroyed what they had and they basically had to start from scratch socially. Sure they had other friends like Unsuur and Nia and Qi-- but what they had with Pen was so unique and so special that it was really difficult for them to let go despite knowing he's really frowned upon on Sandrock. It's really difficult for them to just "get with the program" and let go of him as easily as the game implies you do when he leaves and often times they get stuck in awkward spots where they have to talk to some of the people he hurt knowing how awkward it is for everyone when the attachment to their friend who turned out to be pretty evil still has a tight hold on them.

I like to think that they try to send letters to Pen secretly once in a while and hasn't gotten a response back for better or worse, but a given explanation is actually that Pen had been throwing them away as soon as he got them because he was scared he would open it and find that Li wanted to officially break off the friendship.

I think before I've compared them to the story of the Scorpion and the Frog, but their friendship is maybe a little more parasitic than that. Pen definitely had ulterior motives in picking to befriend the person who obviously struggled socially and would do anything to keep a friend around, but when they both started having something real the line between something fake and something so painfully real gets blurred and ultimately both of them are unable to let go of each other because of how close they were. They are truly doomed by the narrative I think oughh

AS FOR DICE !!!

I don't believe I've ever done a real deep dive explanation since I was still working out some of the details but I pretty much have something now.

She actually used to do average odd jobs around Highwind to save up money to put towards to her music career that was inspired by old world music she discovered and fell in love with (hahahahaha. Really funny to think stuff like Hannah Monatana and MarinaAndTheDiamonds would be considered old world in their universe) which led to her deciding she wanted to be a music star.

Things didn't go to plan however and although some of the story is pretty lost in the mud due to her shame and refusal to open up about it, her career failed as no one listened to the genre or didn't find it interesting enough. The embarrassment of being unable to achieve the dream she worked all her teen years towards made her incredibly depressed and she actually disappeared for a couple of years with no warning until she one day resurfaced as the bounty hunter/bodyguard/whatever she is today.

She claims to owe a lot of her being able to get back up onto her feet to Yan and Pen, who found her alone in the eufala after getting lost and set her up with a job as "Yan's Personal Bodyguard" as silly as it sounds. But it made him look cool and important, and gave her the money she needed to get back up on her feet so she took it.

She started traveling around the free cities to pick up more bounty jobs now that she had found another purpose in life (though some are pretty sure she's just take out a lot of pent up feelings on it). Even though she had become kind of a drifter all throughout the free cities, at some point, she and Yan started dating and it was about as insufferable of an experience as you'd imagine. The public sweet talk, the constant hand holding, the way that it's so obvious Yan is more interested in her than she Is in him... awful. Owen says his best paid night but worst social experiences come from their dates at the Blue Moon.

Of course, once Yan gets shipped off Dice reveals that she's relieved about his arrest because it was starting to get on her nerves and that she had been struggling to figure out a way to break up with him without a whole spectacle happening.

But just as soon as he's gone, Wei comes to town and she INSTANTLY falls for how much kinder he is. When you spend your whole life around questionable characters you sort of start to just accept that maybe everyone is only thinking of themselves; but Wei was different.

For once, Dice was the one chasing a love interest rather than being the one who was pursued, and as confusing as it might have been at first, eventually they both start connecting and their kind of opposite personalities start to find ways to compliment each other. Wei stops being suspicious that Dice might be acting on his brother's behalf and Dice starts to disappear from sandrock less often in order to spend more time with him.

Owen dreads Friday night dates a whole lot less now lol...

[porterdavis]

Who you gonna call?

It seems that fate and time have rendered one of the best Presidents the US has ever had unelectable for a second term. My fervent wish is that weren't so, but the parts of the debate the GQP will have on loop from now to November are excruciating.

The prospect of Trump getting back into power with his declared fascist intentions (just read a precis of Project 2025) is chilling. Perhaps it's too late to save American democracy -- all empires die and 250-odd years is a long run historically speaking. It could be the frog is well and truly boiled and we just don't realize it yet.

But we owe it to ourselves and our children to try to fight the darkness. If Biden can't right the ship in the next few weeks, well...drastic times require drastic actions. Perhaps only Obama can deliver the message forcefully enough to make Joe bow out.

Fairness would dictate that Kamala Harris be given the mantle, but that seems unlikely and imprudent. I like and respect her but she appears to lack the gravitas required. The Democrats probably need to buck tradition to get back in the game by going outside the normal channels.

I humbly nominate Tom Hanks. I don't know his politics but I would be astonished if he is a right-wing nutjob. He has enormous name recognition, he's been married to the same woman for decades without a whiff of scandal, he's well-spoken, and best of all -- he probably really, really doesn't want to be President. He would only have to do it for four years while the country regains its sanity and clears out the insurrectionists.

I welcome your suggestions for VP. For me, it's Hanks for President!

[ericaportfolio]

My Friendly Neighborhood Review

Hey Kids! Do you want a mascot horror game that's actually good? Do you want to shoot and watch puppets fly across the room in funny ways? Or do you want to play a game that breaks you to the point of ugly crying due to the messages about selfishness versus selflessness, the trauma of war, grief, depression, death, and depending on which ending you decide, make you feel miserable or hopeful? (Boy, what I wrote there got dark!) Then you should play My Friendly Neighborhood!!!

July 8, 1993, in a very unfriendly city where the citizens that were emotionally affected by the war that lasted for twenty years by watching it from their TV sets (An in-universe version of the Vietnam War in this game), an old studio's antenna starts up playing a canceled kids show that's the in-universe version of Sesame Street, My Friendly Neighborhood, over the news. You play as repair crewman Gordon O'Brian was forcibly sent by his employer, Sprocket Palm Property Management, and their clients, City Network Broadcasting Group, to shut down the antenna at the top of the abandoned studio's hotel. Failure to do so, Gordon, due to his terrible, mean, and rude behavior, would result in getting fired. Upon getting there, SURPRISE, The Puppets Are Alive That A Lot Of Them Want To Hug You To Death!!! Along the way, Ricky the Sock Puppet guides Gordon throughout the studio trying to convince him not to disconnect the antenna. Can Gordon survive the night at the studio as he tries to find a way up to the antenna? Or will Gordon be trapped in the studio forever?

Pros... There's a lot! I can list them all day! The game is a love letter to tv shows and movies made by the Jim Henson Company over the years. The shows and movies had different names to prevent copyright claims in the game's universe. The cute factor is that you'll get attached to Ricky the Sock Puppet. He's like if Scout Prime from Hello Puppets was similar to Kermit the Frog and doesn't curse. If you're thinking, wait Hello Puppets already did possess murder puppets, that seems repetitive! Actually, the puppets aren't possessed. I'm wondering if the creators are saving a twist for another game. (Please let it be Gordon, Ricky, and the Neighborhood characters versus the villains from the in-universe The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth movies after they fell for a trap they thought was a movie deal!) I won't dive into details in this review. Let's say you have to think on your own about what's really happening here. I think for a horror game to do that was refreshing. What you might have fun with in this game is the clever ideas and designs of the weapons you find, the Rolodex and the Novelist being two of them, and the puzzles you come across along the way. However, the best part of the game has to be the writing since it takes a survival horror game and turns it into a dark comedy that would make Mel Brooks proud. If you're a completionist and you finish the game, don't leave! There's More! There are 'secret tapes' scattered around the studio, and once you finish the game, they will unlock cheats and mods to create some interesting experiences the next time you play.

There aren't many cons to this game. Something was happening with the maps, but that was fixed, thankfully. If I have some things I have to nitpick, first, this game has a lot of backtracking to other levels that many would find annoying. However, you'll make discoveries along the way. Just get ready if the previous levels you have been through get harder as more puppets appear. Second, you need to be ready to conserve your ammunition. Once it's gone and used, it's GONE, and your left with the wrench. So plan ahead, or you're dead in the finale! For beginners, this game may take hours or days to beat unless you got the patience to win. As the game continues, some of the puzzles will get harder and leave you scratching your head for a while. There have also been some complaints that the game should be considered a horror game at times, even though there are terrifying moments. Especially in the climax and ending that would leave you shaking unless you wished for more from that. So the cute factor in the game may turn off some who want something darker than this. Yet, if you read carefully the files you collect, you'll discover where the true darkness lurks in this game.

I may need to warn you of potential spoilers to some trigger warnings of war, depression, and references to taking away your own life. In a game about fighting murder puppets, the game does a shockingly good job tackling war trauma not just for the victims and soldiers but also for the citizens back on the homefront, where many viewed the soldiers as villains and getting exposed to the war on their home televisions. Because of that, the citizens in the city were traumatized and depressed by it. Even one worker at the studio wrote about "going into the light". I got a theory as to what happened to them. Something I noticed at the beginning makes sense now when reading those notes.

So there are multiple endings in the game. One is the true ending. Whichever ending you get, get your tissues ready. You might cry ugly tears of joy. Overall, spending money on this game is worth it! Even if you don't have the money, watch your favorite Gaming YouTubers and watch the game as a movie experience. It's not perfect, but it's rightfully up there, along with that antenna. This game may not be for everyone, but if you're a fan of Resident Evil (which I should start watching more gameplay of the game series if able, to be honest), you grew up with Sesame Street and the Muppets, you're a big Jim Henson Company nerd, you like puppets, you're a fan of Hello Puppets and Welcome Home, and you love film noir, this game is for you. So get it while it's still on sale, grab a buddy or two, and get learning in your favorite friendly neighborhood!

I would give this game a 9/10 for Ricky being adorable and Gordon getting some needed sleep.

[citadelofswords]

i have to write an intro to this somehow. i don't know how to. all i got is that this is caro's fault. i've been thinking about this all day. i have so many more thoughts than made it into this thing and i might write more of it, but this gets across what i want it to. anyway yeah it's an interstitial infinity homestuck au sorry to my non-homestucks in the tag

four teenagers sit around a campfire on the ruined battlefield of a cosmic chessboard. three of them are wearing incredibly comfortable looking pajamas emblazoned with strange, unknowable symbols. the fourth is wearing what looks like a fuchsia tracksuit made of velvet. it looks equally as comfortable, but is notably much uglier than the pajamas are.

“i’m just saying,” says audrey, wearing a teal color that makes her look a little washed out. “it should be fundamentally impossible to lose it. it should be baked into the— the code that makes up the game.”

“maybe it’s a weird glitch?” suggests al, in a black and grey that suits him, but looks out of place on his body, as though he should always be dressed in color. “i know it was successful. i held it in my hands for a moment. it was perfect.”

“and sometime in between then and killing the black king, we lost it,” audrey says. “we lost an entire universe! how does that happen?!”

“you forget to cherish it,” says trish, in dark olive green. despite herself, audrey snorts a laugh.

shigeo, in the ugly fuchsia tracksuit, says, “do we have an idea of how to find it again?”

“no,” audrey says glumly. “i mean. maybe al can mess with paradox space or something?”

“it’s not here anymore,” al says. “it’s its own thing now. its own universe. it’s outside of here.”

“great, so we have nothing.” audrey flops backwards onto the ground and sighs.

“at least we went god tier before the reckoning!” al says brightly, before glancing at shigeo. “oh, right.”

“no, it’s okay,” shigeo says with a sigh. “i don’t know why it didn’t work either.”

“you’re just already too OP. if you went god tier it would just break the whole game,” audrey suggests.

there’s silence for a while, save the crackling of the campfire.

“so this is it,” trish says finally. “this is all there is for the rest of time.”

“it can’t be,” audrey says. “our genesis frog exists. we just have to figure out how to get to it.”

“if we go to the furthest ring, and speak to the horrorterrors maybe?” shigeo offers tentatively. “or i could sleep...”

“prospit’s gone, mob,” audrey reminds him. “and so is your dream self. even though your ascension didn’t take, you still merged. no, if we want to talk to those guys we’ll have to go ourselves.”

trish says, “i could try to reach out to them—,”

“no,” three voices say in unison, cutting her off.

“it’s a good thought!” al says. “but, uh...” he looks behind trish, where a still smoking crater shows the results of trish becoming her aspect. the edges are still dripping, as though the very ground has melted around her.

“yeah?” trish raises an eyebrow. “i have a better sense of how to do it now. it was a learning experience.”

“just stay for a second,” audrey says, tiredly. “give me a moment. i’m sure the pathway to the furthest ring will show itself if we just—,”

“you’re confusing mind with time again,” al mutters.

“sburb did that first!” audrey shouts, with no heat.

—

somewhere, a timer that has been steadily ticking for the last several thousand years finally reaches zero.

—

the conversation on the battlefield is interrupted by a strange fraymotif— gears rotating before being slashed in half. a fifth teenager appears from seemingly nowhere. he, too, is wearing a set of comfortable looking pajamas, but his are dark red, standing out against the grey of his skin. he looks disdainfully at the four humans in front of him.

“my part’s done,” he says. over his shoulder is slung a dark body, which he dumps on the ground in front of himself. “he’s your problem now. have fun.”

with those inexplicably cryptic words, he disappears again.

“what the fuck,” audrey says. shigeo gets up to creep closer to the body. al glances warily at him, but makes no move to stop him.

the figure groans and squints open one eye. it is, strangely-- an anthropomorphic hedgehog. he is unlike any of the beings that any of them have seen before. the eye flickers over al, trish, and audrey before settling on shigeo.

“boy,” he rasps, and shigeo flinches. “have you got any water?”

“i can get you some,” al pipes up, and scrambles to his feet to head for the river. he’s stopped in place by shigeo’s voice.

“you’re him,” he says. he meets the hedgehog’s gaze head-on. “the voice i was hearing in my head. it’s you.”

“what?” audrey says. “but— but i heard one too. and we met her— she was a prospitian.”

“no rules that say they have to be from the moons,” al tries, but trish stands up, her doom powers crackling ominously.

“who the hell are you?” she asks. “what do you want with us?”

“first,” says the hedgehog— the sojourning hellion, if shigeo is to be believed. “i would like some water. please. and then i will tell you what i know.”

it is then that they notice that he is, himself, wearing the pajamas that indicate that he is a god tier player.

—

your name is SHADOW the HEDGEHOG. you are a teenager. you played the game called sburb. it was supposed to be you and your best friend MARIA, but she was killed in the process of entering the incipisphere, and you were left alone. as a result your session became DEAD. it should have been impossible for you to win. you think impossible situations can go fuck themselves. when you reached the FORGE, however, you discovered that someone had already bred the GENESIS FROG before you could get there. being the only living creature left in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE, you have no idea how this could have happened. the only explanation that you have is that SOMEONE (POSSIBLY YOU) CAME BACK FROM THE FUTURE TO DO IT. and so you have set off through paradox space, crawling in and out of the maws of many a BILIOUS SLICK, in order to find the person who would, one day, return to your past and light your forge, thereby granting you access to the ULTIMATE REWARD. what will you do?