#even considering that. the by the numbers base game story for it is also fun and clever since they may have had their hand forced on what

[pigeonliker420]

whenever i go looking into help or random talk about bg3 i keep seeing people like comparing it to dragon age either in expectations or selling points and bro. ghirl. its not dragon age. its baldurs gate

[arolesbianism]

Vibrates. Normal. I'm normal. I'm so normal.

[puckinghischier]

Tattoos Together

Nico Hischier x fem!reader

summary: based off of the song tattoos together by lauv

notes: this idea was way better in my head, but i still think it’s cute and turned out alright. i’m obsessed with this song and knew i just had to write a nico fic based off of it asap. also, i know the timeline is all over the place bc nico is captain in this, and holtzy and dawson are here, but it technically takes place after jack’s rookie season. the beauty of fiction is that literally nothing is real, so let’s just all pretend everything is normal and chronologically correct 😊. hope you enjoy!! :)

[2.7k]

~

Summer was your favorite season for a number of reasons. First of all, you loved the warm weather. Being able to sit outside and soak up the sunshine was something your body desperately craved during the bitter New Jersey winter. You also loved the overall happiness of the general population that seemed to radiate during the summer months. Your favorite reason, however, was the fact that your best friend was always available to do whatever you wanted him to, because hockey isn’t played in the summer.

You hated that the Devils didn’t make the playoffs this year. You were as devastated as they were during that last game of the season, but you can’t lie and say you weren’t also ecstatic. You knew, the moment they lost the game that eliminated them from any sort of play off position, you were going to get a summer full of sun and fun at the lake house.

You had decided to take the warm season off from any internships or courses, not wanting anything to come in-between you and nearly four, uninterrupted months with your boys at the lake. You had decided to transfer to a college in Jersey so you could spend more time with Jack, not so you could stay in a strange city while all of your friends go to your favorite place on earth.

This year was especially exciting, considering Jack had convinced a group of his teammates to join in on the summer antics. Your anticipation for the warmer weather to arrive was only heightened once you learned a certain hockey captain would also be in attendance at the lake house.

You had been drawn to Nico from the first moment you met him after Jack’s rookie debut. Jack was so eager to introduce the two of you. He had made quick friends with the Swiss player after his arrival in the garden state and he wanted nothing more than his oldest and newest friend to meet one another and hit it off. Nico gave short, but kind, responses when Jack called you over to speak to him outside of the locker room; you assumed he was just tired and wanted to get home, but once you had seen him leaning against the wall in a crowded bar a few hours later, you made it your mission to make a friend out of the quiet hockey player.

You found yourself enjoying his conversation a little too much, basically neglecting Jack on his big night. The two of you talked about anything and everything. Nico had been in the middle of a story about his siblings back home when you suddenly realized the danger you were in. You hadn’t even been around this man for more than a few hours, and you could feel yourself falling for him. His kind eyes, the deep dimples when he smiled, and the care and attention he showed every single person that came up to congratulate him on the win, while also never failing to listen to your stories and stay engaged in the conversation with you, was making you spiral in the best way.

You knew you couldn’t go there, though. He was a big shot hockey captain, and you were only here for school. With the team’s busy schedule, you didn’t know when you would see him again. As soon as the light feeling in your chest had appeared, you forced it to make its exit. You couldn’t fall for him. You wouldn’t let yourself fall for him.

Over the next few months, however, you found yourself in Nico’s presence more often than not. Any team event that Jack dragged you to, you always found your way to where Nico was, striking up innocent, friendly conversation. If you were attending a home game at the Prudential Center, you were always cheering for Nico anytime he made a particularly important or skillful play. When he would come over to yours and Jack’s shared apartment, you always had some excuse for needing to be in the kitchen when they were, or passing through the living room and then planting yourself on the couch between the two ‘out of boredom’.

Nico wasn’t making it easy for you, either. Anytime the captain would score on the ice, it was you he was pointing towards during his celebration (or sending a text to ask if you were watching as soon as he was in the locker room for intermission, if it was an away game). If he had plans with Jack he would always send you a message, inviting you to tag along. Nico had even memorized your class schedule and your coffee order, bringing you your caffeine fix on lecture mornings when he would pick Jack up for morning skate. You found yourself talking to Nico almost more than you spoke to Jack, finding it harder and harder to keep your promise to yourself.

Jack could sense the underlying feelings you had for his captain, being able to pick up on all of your tells from the many years of friendship. He saw the way your gaze would immediately start sweeping any room you entered until it settled on Nico. He pretended not to notice the way you would always come out of your room on the mornings Nico was coming by before practice, hair and make-up already done, sitting in the kitchen to ‘work on homework’ before your lectures. He noticed when you bought his captain’s jersey, alternating between the 13 and 86 jerseys every other game. He noticed the way you would instantly perk up at the mention of Nico’s name in any conversation.

Jack also noticed the way Nico tried, and failed, to hide the feelings he had for you, as well. He noticed the way Nico would skate out for warm-ups and look around the glass until he saw you, waiting a few minutes before he made his way over to the glass where you were standing, pretending to be surprised when he turned around and found you behind him. Jack noticed the way Nico suddenly wanted to always come over to his apartment instead of Jack going to what the team refers to as the ‘captain’s quarters’. He noticed the way Nico would always come back with your favorite cocktail in hand anytime you were with them on a night out.

The back and forth between you and Nico continued for months, neither one of you ever taking the next step to admit feelings for one another. Jack wished the two of you would just get it over with at this point, the inevitable apparent to everyone but yourselves. So, when Jack opened the lake house invitation to Nico, Alex, and Dawson this summer, he can’t lie and say he didn’t have some ulterior motives.

Now, as you and Nico walked ahead of everyone else, lost in your own little world, he knew he made the right decision.

You had just eaten dinner, Jack having made reservations at a local seafood place he was dying to take everyone to, when you announced you wanted ice cream. You had suggested the small ice cream shop a short walk from the restaurant, wanting to stay out in the small lake town a little bit longer. You had sat next to Nico at dinner, staying in your own conversation most of the meal, being brought into the larger conversation happening around you only if either of your names were mentioned. The conversation followed the two of you outside, talking about his upcoming trip home.

“So, when are you leaving this utopia?” You asked him, shoulders bumping as you walked on the sidewalk beside him, a car driving by, causing your sundress to ruffle and flow in the passing wind.

“Not until the end of the month. Why? Can’t wait to get rid of me?” he responds with a playful smile, putting his hand on your back, pushing you over to the inside of the sidewalk, placing himself closest to the active road beside of you.

“Not even close,” you link your pinky with his, a habit you’ve gotten into anytime you’re walking beside him. “Dreading the day, actually. This is your first summer here, and you don’t even get to experience the best part!”

“I thought the best part was that you were here?” he references the statement you made when trying to convince him to make the trip to Michigan for the summer.

“Well, the next best part,” you respond, waving off his words. “You’re going to miss the boat parade on the Fourth of July!”

“A…boat parade?” Nico questions.

“Yes! A boat parade! Everyone decorates their boats and then drives them around the lake. Everyone here goes crazy for it. People don’t spare a single expense when it comes to boat decorations. One family even paid those statue street performers to play Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty on their boat one year,” you explain, earning a laugh from Nico.

“Why do I have the feeling you would have done that if you thought of it first?” he asks in-between chuckles.

“Because I would’ve! I was so mad that I didn’t even think of it. The only year we haven’t won it. Well, other than the years we haven’t been able to make it up here,” you shrug, thinking of all the time you’ve missed out on in the past few years.

“Well, you’ll have to come up with something even crazier this year. To make up for all the lost time,” Nico squeezes your pinkies closer together, knowing how much you hate the summers you can’t come here. “Look, you could go get a tattoo of the American flag, or something. Decorate your body, not just your boat. Really commemorate the summer,” he points to the tattoo shop you’re walking past, laughing at the craziness of the idea.

Maybe it was the heat finally getting to you. Maybe it was all the lake water you had swallowed the past few weeks. Or maybe it was the build-up of the months worth of feelings you’ve had for the man in front of you, but something in you made you say “Let’s go do it.”

“What?” Nico stopped in his tracks, looking over at you like you had three heads.

“I said let’s do it,” you said again, a serious look on your face.

“As in let’s go let you get a tattoo of the American Flag?” he asked again, confirming the idea forming in your brain.

“Yes. Well, I mean no. But yes,” you start, letting go of his pinky you were still holding on to. “I mean, let’s go get tattoos to commemorate the summer, like you said.”

“Like…right now?”

“Yes, right now. Why not? It’ll be fun. At the very least it’ll be a story to tell one day,” you try to convince him, acting as if this isn’t the most out of character thing you could suggest.

“I mean, what would we even get?” Nico asks, the word ‘no’ never coming out of his mouth.

“I don’t know, whatever you want. It doesn’t have to be anything big. Or anywhere where everyone will see it. It can just be something we know we have, y’know?” you continue to try to convince him.

“Hey! Why’d you two stop? The ice cream shop is another block down.” Jack asks as the rest of the group approaches the two of you.

“Y/N is trying to convince me to go get a tattoo with her right now,” Nico tells everyone, earning a collection of shocked faces.

“You two? Getting matching tattoos?” Dawson asks, looking between the two of you.

“They don’t have to be completely matching. Just something to make us think of this moment. This summer,” you explain. “We could all get one, actually. As a group!”

“You’re out of your mind if you think any of us are getting tattoos right now,” Jack speaks up, not scared to call you out on your stupid ideas.

“I don’t think it’s that crazy of an idea. It could be fun,” Nico surprises everyone.

“Cap, are you serious? You’re thinking about going and getting a tattoo right now?” Alex questions.

“I’ve been thinking about getting another one for awhile now, so why not right now? Like she said, it’s a good summer memory, Holtzy” Nico shrugs, sounding like he’s made up his mind.

“Of course you would agree to get a matching tattoo with her. You guys are practically attached at the hip anyways,” Dawson says, causing both you and Nico to flush a light shade of pink. “You guys go have your fun, get matching tattoos, but we’ll be eating ice cream, loving the taste of no regrets,” Dawson gives up the fight.

“Just…don’t get each other’s names on your foreheads,” Jack says, shaking his head as he walks away.

Dawson and Alex follow Jack, grumbling about how they can’t believe you’re actually going to do this. Alex slides in a “at least ask her on a date first, cap” as he walks away, Nico praying you didn’t hear the comment.

You turn towards Nico, holding your hand out. “You ready?”

He takes your hand, letting you pull him into the tattoo shop’s open door. “Let’s go get tattoos together.”

An hour later, you and Nico walked out with two fresh wounds on your ankles.

Both of your tattoos were so small you truly had to look for them to notice them. You had ended up getting tattoos that were technically matching, but could have meaning on their own, too. The artist had laid out a bunch of stencils she had ready to go, letting you pick from the pile which ones you wanted. You had found a small heart with devil horns, pointing it out to Nico and jokingly suggested he get it to show his Devils heritage. At almost the exact same time, his eyes landed on a small heart with a halo over it, his eyes lighting up.

He had agreed to get the devil one only if you got the matching angel one. So, twenty minutes later, the stencils were placed and you both sat on the table as two different artists tattooed you simultaneously.

The rest of your small group teased the two of you about it for the rest of the summer. After Nico left at the end of that month, the conversation shifted from teasing about the tattoos, to teasing about when the two of you were finally going to admit your feelings to each other. You waved off their words, sticking to your explanation of you two being just friends, but they didn’t let you forget that, in their words, you ‘basically branded’ their captain.

When Nico arrived home, Nina immediately clocked the small tattoo on her brother’s leg, questioning him about it. He told her it was just a last-minute decision, something to do after the season was over, not wanting to hear any nagging about how irresponsible it was that he let a girl he was even dating talk him into getting a matching tattoo. But, when Nina saw your Instagram post at the end of the summer, the very last picture showcasing a small, familiar looking angel tattoo, she barged into Nico’s bedroom, demanding answers.

“Nico, you better explain to me what the hell is going on here, because last time we spoke you hadn’t even told her you have feelings for her yet,” Nina interrogated Nico in their native language.

“Yeah…well that hasn’t really changed. Just…haven’t found the chance yet,” he avoids talking about the tattoo, choosing to talk about the other half of her question.

“Well after this, what the hell are you waiting for?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. What if she doesn’t feel the same way? What if she moves back home after she graduates next year and just leaves me behind?” Nico voices his fears to his older sister.

“Nico, she asked you to get matching tattoos. There’s no way she doesn’t feel the same way as you. I haven’t even fully met the girl, only having talked to her on your facetime calls, and I can see that she’s head over heels for you,” Nina encourages Nico, causing a warm feeling in his chest at his sister’s words.

“Well, when you put it that way…” Nico trails off, thinking about the events of this summer in full. “You know what, you’re right. As soon as I get home, I’m telling her. What’s the harm? And if she doesn’t have feelings for me, well, at least we’ll always have tattoos together.”

[ragnarlothcat]

I know I’m a chronic overthinker but I’ve been in the same fandom for three years or so now and I was reflecting that writing seemed so much easier when I first started out. Just looking at my output since 2021 shows a clear trend: I’ve been writing much less and it’s been taking me way longer.

I figured that I’d gotten a little burned out and that three years is a long time to focus solely on the same two guys making out and that there’s a limit to the number of situations I can put them in before I start to get bored. But I don’t think that’s quite my problem because even now, a million years later, I have ideas for dozens of fics and AUs that would be interesting to explore or funny to write.

No, it’s that I’ve let the larger fandom overwhelm me and it’s left me constantly second-guessing my writing. And I don’t mean that I’ve gotten nasty comments or asks, because I haven’t! All the other fans have been consistently wonderful and fun people with really valuable insights. And it’s not that I’ve been obsessing over stats or comments or worrying about going against popular headcanons. I mean, I’m just as excited as anyone else to see an AO3 email in my inbox but I’m also perfectly happy posting niche fics for an audience of me and my three weirdest friends.

It’s more that after so long engaging with other fans and other fics and the general meta, I’ve ended up writing too self-consciously. I’ve read so many interpretations of canon events, analyses of characterization and comparisons between fiction and real-world politics over the years, and I’ve enjoyed them because I genuinely care about these stories and these characters! I like seeing what everyone else thinks and then considering their points of view, no matter how bewildering they might seem at first.

But now it feels like I’m writing almost defensively, like I have to justify every choice I’m making based on this enormous and contradictory body of information. Three years ago I’d have written a scene in a few thousand words and moved on to the next plot point with my momentum intact. Now I’m constantly wringing my hands over things like physical details (I guess he’s not exactly a redhead) or broader social implications (is this trope misogynistic?) or finicky logistics (these locations are too far apart for this scene to make sense) or controversial character nuance (does writing this guy as a kind, doting husband make me an abuse apologist???) and the result is that I’m paralyzed with indecision and a ridiculous need to support everything I write with a lot of context that isn’t especially fun to write or, I suspect, especially fun to read.

I’m aware that this problem is entirely in my own head and that no one has asked me for any of this. And it’s not that all those questions aren’t interesting and important things to contemplate. But I miss the days of sitting down at my laptop and going “wouldn’t it be funny if these dorks played a video game together?” and then writing exactly that.

I don’t know. Were my fics better three years ago? I kind of doubt it. I’ve looked back at some of them and if nothing else I now have a better grasp of what tense I’m supposed to be using. But I definitely had more fun writing those older stories, which maybe feels more important.

[kinki-cami]

Nah because i would FLORISH being an independent in affini society

Like first off, im not isolated immediately that brings me up by like 45% like i can go see that forest, hang out with the (hopefully not going to bite me or give me rabies) animals pet some squirrels say hi to the hummingbirds, i can go into public and walk around, id honestly probably start skipping bc thats what ive imagined so far considering i wouldnt be as depressed as i am now

Secondly, FULL customization of what i wear just be able to look how i want without fear, probably wear my denim look but with some extra like, an ACTUAL denim skirt that looks nice, maybe makeup if i was feeling up to it

Thirdly, just exploration. This is pretty much the miscellaneous second of this post. Because theres probably no money (i assume i need to do more research) before i get to that i fuckin love research i would know every fuckin affini custom by year 5, anyway because of presumeably no money, fake shop at the mall bc hell yeah fuckin love the mall its like a mini city, youd go in like you were going to the mall and like fake "check out" with like a fake credit card or something and yahh fun but also id just like go get coffee, possibly some matcha, skip around town wearing heels WITH my denim outfit, looking all fuckin cute, go see the plants (not affini like houseplants like mint) fuck id grow some bleeding hearts, some mint, make sure to pick up plant food, bc even tho i CAN do it in the hab unit, its more fun leaving to pick stuff up, it gives you a sense of accomplishment like "yahhhh i did something today 🥰 (its a crime theres no 'fist pump' emoji, i swear there are more useless emojis than practical ones)" and because i wouldnt be in one location for 6+ hours a day (excluding sleep) i would have time to do things that i WANNA do, like finish that pokemon book that im only on kakuna out of pecharunt. And i could drink my coffee/tea and go to the game store and play magic with peoples or pokemon, i could go play some dnd, write my damn books, skip around in heels bc skipping is happy but i wanna wear heels soo yahhhh

Yeah i may occassionally get harrassed but like if im polite and express boundries im sure theyll leave me alone or at least relatively along

By the way im going based off of the two stories ive read so far aight, so if this is very biased aight. Too bad i need to read more. But also like, i can express myself two 2 stories ok? Like a girl can fantasize anyway back my fantasy

Eventually id want an affini to adopt me but like, god id be pretty happy without drugs theyd need to actively make my life miserable to make me want the drugs, like, damn. Also with the number of times im cursing in this post any and all affini rp blogs are gonna be like "stop fucking cursing little indie" and to be fair i dont like cursing at people the only time i do is when im expressing myself or am pissed off i never call anyone curse words because its mean and i dont like being mean 🥺

Uhh and i think thats all my thoughts god i had Sadistic glee read the bonus chapters of hdg a bit ago anyway gotta gp finish those, then go finish the other one that im halfway through then go read more, if anyone has any not emotionally wrecking stories feel free to send them via asks or something like i dont wanna see characters despairing but i dont mind seeing their personality erased, as long as the struggle isnt super visible or is minimal

[skyeslittlecorner]

Time passage on Earth and in Hell

Hello!

Today I come to you with a little thought experiment and I don't know yet what will come of it, but I wanted to share it with you anyway. These are not serious calculations, just a curiosity based on the information we have. (Also, one insignificant spoiler for ch5).

Let's see what the difference is between time in Hell and time on Earth!

Here are those bits of information:

1. The last time we know Solomon was seen was 311 hellish years ago.

2. Solomon lived in Hell for over a century (in hellish years, also). If he lived for two centuries or more, it would probably be reffered differently, so let's assume that he lived between 100 (the least) and 150 (the most, because 151 will be rounded to less than two centuries) years in hell itself.

3. The game was released in 2023, we don't know what the current year is in the game, so let's assume the release year is the year we, a Descendant of Solomon, are yeeted to hell.

4. It is assumed that King Solomon ruled Israel around 970-931 BCE.

Source: Wikipedia

Now that we have the numbers, it's time for math. Gusion, close your eyes, heresy will happen. For us, the best solution is the smallest time difference, so we are taking the most convenient numbers.

Let's assume that the last time Solomon was seen was just before his disappearance (this will extend the time of his stay in hell and reduce the difference between hellish and earthly years). Then these 311 years, when we add his 150 years of life, will give us a total of 461 years.

This means that Solomon appeared in Hell 461 years ago.

Now we count Earth years. Solomon had already been king for some time when he summoned Satan. He doesn't look old enough to be taken at the end of his reign, so (also very generously, we want to reduce this number as much as possible) let's assume it was midway through his reign. This gives us ~951 BCE. Add this to the current years, and voila!

2,974 years passed between Solomon's disappearance and our coming to Hell.

This roughly matches the information about Solomon on wikia.

Source: WHB Wiki

Now we just need to calculate the ratio.

2974 / 461 = 6,451, we can round it up to ~6,5 years.

One (1) year in Hell would be 6 years and 6 months on Earth.

Considering how often the symbolism of 6 appears, it wouldn't surprise me. Especially since some time difference is likely, because during all events the devils react like "ah, yes, humans should celebrate something now", as if these holiday dates were not so obvious to them.

Do I believe this difference is the real one? No. Although I would like to. That would add flavor.

It is possible that there will not even be any time difference, or it will be so slight that we will barely notice it. Reason? Minhyeok.

Even if MC returns to him after a year spent in Hell (which is not much, considering how much have to be done there), it will be a long time for him. If the MC's goal is to come back to him at the end, he can't be an old grandpa.

I wonder if I have missed any information, if so, please let me know! I tried to pick up what I could, but it's not easy to fly through the story when what you're looking for are so small bits and pieces of information. Again, just think of it as a little curiosity. Hope you had fun!

[yukidragon]

Sunny Day Jack - Infection AU Headcanons

Hey, have you seen the resurgence of the MLP creepypastas with infection AUs on twitter? I stumbled across this trend, and it gave me an itch to create an apocalyptic AU, but with characters who are already intended for an adult audience.

Yes, it’s another Something’s Wrong with Sunny Day Jack AU, and a very horror-themed one to boot. Yes, I also know that it’s pretty funny that this comes right after this super sugary sweet short story about Jack pleading for more cuddle time with his sunshine, doesn’t it?

What can I say? Sometimes I like to explore the horror side along with the romantic side of Sunny Day Jack.

Content Warnings: This post is going to get pretty graphic at times due to its central focus on body horror and biological infections. There will also be elements of psychological horror, violence, murder, yandere obsession, occult practices, acts of terrorism, and all the other warnings that apply to the main game. Also, one or more of our favorite characters might meet with an unfortunate fate. I’ll see if I can offset all the horror somewhat with some sweet and spicy stuff as well, since we all know Jack isn’t going to let a little lot of blood stop him from filling his sunshine with lots and lots of love.

Minors DNI!

It took me a while to consider how I wanted to go about the infection itself. Sure, I could stick with the tried and true zombie formula, but there’s way too many games that just tack on zombies as DLC without adding anything unique that ties to the original setting. It gets kind of repetitive after a while. I wanted something a little more interesting, perhaps a little more supernatural.

Then I remembered that there are times when Jack starts looking suspiciously like a zombie himself, especially when his bony finger is exposed. However, nowhere is his undead putrefaction clearer, than this heartbreaking picture posted on the SnaccPop Patreon. Even just the publicly posted teaser picture from twitter shows us that his body is rotting like a corpse.

Credit to Sauce for their gorgeous art. Remember, don’t share anything that’s posted privately for members only on the patreon. If you want to see the full picture in all its glorious heartache for yourself, why not consider joining to check it out? You’ll not only get access to exclusive art, but also audio dramas and many other delightful things. You’ll also be supporting the team and helping them to continue working on the games and other projects that give us so many fun stories to explore and enjoy.

The Diseased Lamb

The apocalypse I’ve crafted for this AU is more heavily based on the Sunshine in Hell continuity than the game itself, and it references a number of my previous headcanons. As such, I’ll be sticking with my version of the MC, Alice, for this AU, but I hope my ramble can inspire you with ideas for how to run your own MC through an apocalyptic scenario with the SDJ characters.

The horror of this AU, as it does with the game, all starts with the tape, or rather the incident that it recorded back in 1984, changing both it and the man who was murdered on that day into something no longer human.

LambsWork Productions is such a suspicious company, particularly with that name that feels like it’s implying that it’s creating sacrifices. It wasn’t just meant in a figurative sense, as the entertainment industry is full of cults. A homeless drifter picked up off the street would make for a perfect sacrifice for some profane ritual. No one would come looking for him, and those who knew him when he died could be silenced with an NDA… if they didn’t die as well, of course.

Joseph Cullman, who used the name of James Haberdae when taking the role of Sunny Day Jack, was just one of these poor souls that Lambswork sacrificed. He and so many others were to give, and give, and give so much of themselves, far more than they ever imagined that they would. They were drawn in deeper, convinced to participate in things that they didn’t quite understand, that felt not quite right, but… they could lose it all. They’ve already come so far, done so much. It’s a sunk-cost fallacy.

LambsWork Productions was a company up to some shady business, with connections to other not quite so savory business partners. They slipped subtle propaganda into their various shows aimed at so many different audiences. The 80’s was an era rife for turning kids shows into a 30 minute long television commercial at its most blatant. Much like how the Flintstones pushed cigarettes on kids in our world, and got their own line of multivitamins, even wholesome mascots could be used to push agendas, even unwittingly. (There’s a good Film Theory that talks about propaganda in the media if you’re interested in more about this topic.) The SunnyTime Crew weren’t just selling branded merch like cream pies, dolls, and lunchboxes, they were endorsing other unrelated products such as pharmaceuticals.

The incident of 1984 brought it all to an abrupt end. Maybe in the game’s universe it was an intentional thing, a sacrifice to accomplish something supernatural. Maybe it wasn’t part of a massive conspiracy, just a sudden murder that interrupted plans already in place that had unexpected consequences. Maybe the company was just shitty and had nothing to do with Jack being trapped in the tape for 40 years.

In this universe, it wasn’t an intentional machanation of LambsWork Productions, but the unforeseen results of so many it played a part in.

While I suspect Jack died of gunshot wounds in the game, as I mentioned in previous theories here and here, in this universe, it was the result of a terrorist attack. The SunnyTime Crew were mascots used to push a product that had… unfortunate results. People got sick, suffered horrible side-effects, even died. There were even rumors that a sickness was manufactured in a lab just so that particular product could be sold to cure it. Naturally, the actions of companies associated with LambsWork wasn’t the fault of the actors, but the SunnyTime Crew had inadvertently become the face of the brand. In the eyes of people resentful of a soulless company that victimized them, anyone who worked with them was seen as guilty.

For actors at LambsWork Productions, their days were long and started early. Often, they had to rely on the coffee, donuts, and other snacks in the breakroom instead of a proper meal.

No one realized the food and water had been spiked. Everyone was already pushing themselves hard, often forced to do their job and put on a bright smile for the public even when they were exhausted or sick. If they felt the urge to sneeze or cough, they had better hold it in until the cameras weren’t rolling.

Unfortunately, tried as he might, Jack couldn’t stop himself from coughing up blood in the middle of filming.

Although tempting, this isn’t the start of a zombie outbreak. It’s a deadly illness to be sure, but not one the terrorists intended to infect the children. This was to send a message to the company as well as serve as revenge to see these shiny “innocent” stars bleed and suffer like others had because of corporate greed.

Though it would be horrifying and tragic if this was a zombie outbreak and the SunnyTime Crew were the patient zeros. Mary would rush from the audience to her starlight’s side, holding onto him tight while yelling at someone to call an ambulance… Joseph moans out one final “Sunshine…” before an unnatural hunger overtakes him, and he tears out her throat with his teeth.

A temptingly dark image, but maybe we can save a zombie specific AU for another time. For this infection AU, things are a little bit more complicated than that, and a bit more sad. Joseph didn’t know what was happening to him, just that he was in pain. He had a terrible chill that burned his insides, his eyes growing watery with a red tint, and he couldn’t stop coughing. He didn’t even notice the blood at first leaking from his mouth and eyes until he heard the screams of the audience.

Mary ran to Joseph’s side as he collapsed to the floor. He tried to turn away from the audience to spare the children the sight, but wound up vomiting up blood all over the colorful studio set.

He wasn’t the only one, unfortunately. The rest of the SunnyTime Crew, even guest stars and members of the stagehands were unwell, but not nearly as bad as Joseph. As the star of the show, the terrorists wanted to make a statement with the gruesome death of Sunny Day Jack. They didn’t want someone as strong and healthy looking as him to survive, so he was especially targeted by tainted food and drink. Even his medication, makeup, and cigarettes were tampered with.

Mary tried her best to help Joseph. She was used to being sick. She helped make sure he wouldn’t choke on his own blood and did what she could to keep him breathing until the ambulance came, but his death came swift and gruesome. He died in her arms while she was still performing CPR on him, bathed in his blood and her tears, as the cameras continued to record their last “kiss.”

Mary died later in the hospital, just like in the regular universe, but much sooner, as she became infected as well. Although the illness wasn’t airborne, it could be transferred by bodily fluids. Though the terrorists only meant to target certain people for one specific incident, microorganisms can’t be simply shut off once they’re set loose.

The terrorists had wanted to make a statement using the very illness that they claimed was manufactured by isolating an especially dangerous strain in a lab and unleashing it publicly. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect they were going for. The exact events of that day were covered up, including the message that they were trying to send.  Instead, the negative side-effects that the original product resulted in were blamed on this new more deadly strain of the infection, and the pharmaceutical company eventually came up with a cure for that too… but not without more casualties.

Many of the terrorists did get arrested and quietly charged with domestic terrorism. In the end, the company they went to such extremes to expose for their crimes became the hero, and all they accomplished was giving them a villain to escape their own misdeeds.

Quietly, LambsWork Productions buried the SunnyTime Crew show and all traces of its memory to escape any bad press. It moved on to new shows, and new partnerships with the pharmaceutical company in the future, though the higher ups never used any of their characters to overtly endorse any unrelated brands again.

In the modern day, the illness that may have been created in a lab, but was made so much more deadly by terrorism is mostly a non-issue with the standard vaccines people get as they grow up. Few people think about it at all. The outbreak incident was a blip in history, with the show never being mentioned at all in association with it.

40 Years Later

The timeline of events plays out mostly the same from here, though perhaps with a few less survivors from the incident of 1984 in the modern day. Though it might not matter when the second incident unfolds.

In many supernatural stories where someone is unjustly murdered, the way they died plays a part in how their revival affects the world… or in this case infects.

The apocalypse started when a VHS tape was played, and Alice became patient zero.

Jack didn’t mean for it to happen. He only wanted to help his sunshine. She was already sick when he appeared. Not only was she suffering from chronic illness like in the regular universe, but she had caught the modern day version of the very infection that had killed both of them in the past. It was treatable in the present, and she was vaccinated, so she was just isolated at home with nothing to do but heal and distract herself from feeling so miserable and alone.

In this case, the curious and compelling VHS tape Alice bought from the thrift store became far more of a distraction than she could have ever imagined.

Jack appeared when Alice was at her most vulnerable and took care of her. The longer they spent together, the better she felt. Her symptoms faded, and his company was surprisingly comfortable, familiar. It was almost nostalgic, like someone had taken care of her like he did long ago…

Alice wasn’t cured, she was asymptomatic. The infection had been altered supernaturally to make her better, but it became something else, something beyond the capabilities of modern medicine. Its change was influenced by Jack’s fears - his fear of the cold, sleepless hell he had been damned to, the fear of the decades loneliness and the endless cycle of pain, and most of all the fear of losing his sunshine.

Understandably, a patient zero is the last person you want working in the food service industry. Worse, a heatwave had struck Texas, sending a lot of customers to Yogurtopia for a cold and tasty treat. Having to deal with so many people distracted Alice from Jack and left him feeling a little lonely… and increasingly afraid that all of these people might make her forget him.

Symptoms

Unlike the infection 40+ years prior, this supernatural affliction spread slowly, the vector not from body fluids but being in the infected’s presence, seeing and hearing them in close proximity. Touching them directly spread it so much faster. In the initial stages it led to nightmares, an increasing sense of paranoia, and a cold prickling pain not unlike the staticy feeling one got after a part of their body fell to sleep, especially focused on the face and hands. This feeling would steadily spread to other parts of the body as the infection got worse.

The progression led to hallucinations, voices that whispered one’s own deepest fears, which led to an increase in depression. The infected grew to have difficulty sleeping, but when they did they only experienced nightmares. The only thing that alleviated symptoms was physical touch with another person that they felt affection/desire towards, but this in turn would spread the infection.

The psychological effects worsened as symptoms progressed, creating an increased sense of paranoia that they were being haunted, but also that this entity was erasing their existence from everyone who knew them, which led to fears about being alone and forgotten. In a sense, the virus was turning people into yanderes, desperate for human connection.

There were visual hallucinations as well, which started as shadows and colors at the corners of their eyes, an entity constantly stalking them. As the infection progressed the hallucinations became more vivid, turning into distorted inhuman figures with protruding bones coming from rotting strips of skin, and other such horrific images.

The infected changed physically too. Their blood took on a strange blue tinge to it and a hint of green. The colors became more prominently distinct and clearly unnatural in later stages of infection, creating an RGB effect as it leaked from the wounds, eyes, and mouth. Between the discomfort underneath the skin and psychological paranoia, patients usually scratched themselves until they bled, especially around the face and hands. Some even clawed their own eyes out to escape the horrific hallucinations.

The infection didn’t affect everyone the same. For some the symptoms progressed faster, and for some they had fewer symptoms. There were even some that claimed that they recovered from the infection.

There was some truth to the rumors. Being infected by close proximity sight/sound of the infected had a cumulative effect on symptoms, but it faded when not in their presence. Unfortunately, physical contact makes the infection spread far worse than sight or sound. It’s thought that maybe if they’re kept in isolation away from other infected they might recover, but this makes their symptoms of paranoia and desperation for human contact worse, leading to them harming themselves or others in their need to alleviate the symptoms.

The problem was that the infection couldn’t be detected until the blood’s color started to change, well after a person would be a danger to themselves and others. Despite lockdowns and stay at home orders, it spread beyond the city, beyond Texas, and even went international. People infected couldn’t handle being isolated alone as the infection progressed. Forcing them only made it worse.

Violence broke out, from infected people driven mad by paranoia and those desperately trying to escape being infected. The more an infected person was wounded, the more of that unnatural blood spilled in the later stages, the more they changed into something that became no longer human.

Some of the infected had their bodies warped, their proportions stretching and contorting until they were almost cartoonish, elongated, torn, and bloody. They were so desperate for company, and many infected clung to one another, flesh merging together until no one could tell where one person ended and the other began. These amalgamations were dangerous and violent, paranoid of being pried apart and some parts wanting to bring others important to them into the amalgam.

While there was hope of recovery for those infected in earlier stages, once they were warped to such a degree, there was no saving them.

Patient “Zero”

The first public case of this infection reaching its unnatural stages that gave it the nickname of the Color Plague was the incident with one Nick Herraras. The name of the infection might change later if I come up with a better term for it, but we’ll go with Color Plague for now.

Poor Nick was found on the streets, covered with what initially was mistaken for paint, only to be later identified as tainted blood. Some thought he was patient zero, driven to a crazed and desperate state as he wandered the streets, babbling incoherently about “sunshine” and “him.”

On the same night there had been a call to the police that reported a break-in at an apartment building where a woman lived alone. When colorful blood was found at the scene of the break-in, it was quickly deduced that Nick had been the culprit behind it. Alice King, the victim, reported that she had been asleep at the time, but she managed to scare the intruder off with her gun, which led to him being found wandering the streets.

The truth was… a bit different than Alice told the police.

The day had been a stressful one. Aside from the long shift, a regular customer at her job had been acting… strange lately. Nick had come to see Alice with increasing frequency, even lingering until closing hours.

It all started off innocently enough for Nick, just a harmless crush that turned into a serious case of lovesickness. Alice had been such a sweet breath of fresh air from his stressful life as an online celebrity, and despite the paranoia and hallucinations that affected him, he fixated on her. It got worse after his hands touched hers when taking his order from her. Her warm touch alleviated his slowly worsening symptoms like nothing else could. He became obsessed with her even as the hallucinations terrorized him to stay away.

Nick needed her.

Alice picked up on the way Nick kept staring at her even when she was taking care of other customers. It made her grow increasingly nervous, especially when Jack voiced his concerns about both Nick and the dangers of other people in general. Many of the regulars were starting to act strange and shifty as well.

Despite the voices warning Nick away, he approached Alice. He got in too close and rambled a bit about how he noticed that she didn’t ever go home with anyone. Did she have a boyfriend? He was exhausted and disheveled at the time, his wild eyes occasionally darting away to chase shadows before fixing back on Alice. He didn’t even give her a chance to answer, rambling on about how he had been watching her for weeks now, and he had seen her posts online. He saw her give that kid who spilled his yogurt a free replacement last week, and she helped an elderly man find his misplaced car keys. That was so kind of her. Her art was so pretty and her online profile said she was single, so she was, wasn’t she?

The cold got worse and Nick had to touch her, he needed it. Alice tried pulling away politely, but his increasingly desperate grabs for her caused her to panic. In a desperate bid to keep a hold on her, he dug his fingers into her wrists, hard, until a large gloved hand that seemed to appear out of nowhere wrenched his away.

It was the first time Jack had touched anyone besides his sunshine, and it was so cold. It sent Nick into fits, clawing at his hands where Jack had touched him, the hallucinations getting worse. The sight terrifying Alice.

Nick hadn’t been alone during that incident. James Harrison had been worried about his friend’s increasingly strange behavior. He tried to talk sense into Nick when he started acting increasingly erratic. When Nick grabbed onto Alice, James helped pry Nick off her, but he felt a terrible cold that made his hands itch when he succeeded.

James managed to calm Nick out of his fit, after a little while. He apologized to Alice for the scene, trying to smooth things over so that she wouldn’t call the cops. In the arms of his friend, Nick managed to start calming down and start coming back to himself. He was comforted by the warmth of someone he cared for and who cared about him. With everyone shaken, James escorted Nick home.

When in the company of his friend, feeling that warmth of connection, Nick was okay. But that night when he was home alone after he had reassured James over and over that he was just tired, he needed sleep, and that he would see a doctor tomorrow… his mind went back to Alice.

The hallucinations were so much worse, eating away at Nick. Only Alice could make them go away for good, he was sure of it. He even knew where she lived. He also knew how to pick locks, how to be quiet. If he just saw her alone without anyone around, he could make her see just how much he needed her, how much he wanted to get to know her, love her. His thoughts about her had deteriorated from an innocent crush into a sick obsession that he believed must be true love.

The plan did work, to a point. Nick managed to break in without alerting others in the apartment complex or waking Alice up. He just never expected that she wouldn’t be alone in her apartment.

In a sense, what happened to Nick ties into my past theory that he (and the other love interests) were all yanderes. It might have been debunked, but it can be something fun to play with in a universe where there’s an infection that turns people into monstrous yanderes.

After the incident with Nick at Yogurtopia, Alice was pretty shaken up. She felt paranoid going home that night. Fortunately she had Jack to watch out for her. It was only because of his reassurance and comfort that she was able to get any sleep that night.

Jack was also the only reason why Nick didn’t get his hands on Alice again that night.

Sunny Day Jack isn’t a violent person, or at least he has convinced himself that he isn’t, but he isn’t going to let anyone hurt or take away his sunshine. No matter what it takes.

Alice woke up to Nick’s hysterical screaming. She burst out of bed in time to see him fleeing from the apartment. She also saw Jack looming in the dark like a terrifying sentinel, something otherworldly and dangerous. The moment Jack sensed her fear though, he was back to normal, soft and reassuring. He told her someone broke into the apartment, but he managed to scare them off… somehow. When Alice asked about the blood, Jack told her (truthfully) that Nick was already bleeding when he snuck in. In fact, he started hurting himself before he ran away. She wondered if Jack lied to not scare her with the fact that he was capable of violence despite his kid-friendly persona, but later the next day she heard from the police that the wounds were in fact self-inflicted.

After all, Jack doesn’t need to get his own hands dirty when he can have Nick take care of it for him.

Word of the infection spreads, along with the infection itself. Alice refused to allow her family to come visit her after she told them about the break-in, when she feared that she might be infected as well due to her close proximity to Nick and him bleeding all over her home. She was examined by doctors, but when they didn’t find anything, she was sent home with instructions to self-isolate and monitor herself for any potential symptoms that might appear.

Once more, Alice was isolated in her home with only Jack for company. He cleaned up the mess for her so she wouldn’t have to look at the blood, and helped reinforce her door so that no one could break in as easily again… but the news made it clear that the world was becoming an even more dangerous place.

A Lonely Apocalypse

As one might expect, an infection that spreads by sight and sound spreads quickly, especially when it makes people desperate to reach out and touch others, spreading it even faster. Quarantine zones were broken easily, and chaos descended across the entire world. Infrastructures fell apart in the chaos, such as electricity, internet, and plumbing. Infected people broke into homes to find others to join them. Civilization collapsed.

Alice lost contact with her family when the internet and phone lines went down. Last she heard was that they were in isolation and they were all fine. Mercifully, no one was showing symptoms. Barbie had left her apartment and returned to their family home before travel became dangerous. The King family could watch out for one another, but Alice worried about them and her friends dearly.

Shaun, being more trope savvy about zombie apocalypses did decently well for himself despite the circumstances. He managed to escape being infected and has been able to isolate with Olivia and a few other survivors. Animals, mercifully, seem to be immune to the infection, so MoonPie is safe in his care as well. He’s slowly breaking down the “rules” of the infection in order to understand it and why some people are affected more strongly than others. He, like so many others, wants to figure out where it comes from and if it can be stopped. He is also pretty damn sure that this infection is something supernatural, so science alone can’t explain it, let alone put a stop to it.

Shaun and Alice communicated via internet and phone before both went down, so they knew that the other was safe until that point. Because Alice was suspected of being infected, she couldn’t join him and the other survivors. By this point she had a strong suspicion that she was an asymptomatic carrier of the infection.

But it was fine. Alice didn’t need to join up with survivors anyway. She had Jack to protect her. Shaun didn’t know who this Jack was, never having seen him in person. It stung to know that he was Alice’s new boyfriend, but he managed to joke that he was looking forward to meeting Jack “when all this craziness is over.”

The joke came out even more strained due to very real fears that might never happen.

When Ian first heard about the infection back in Texas, he wanted to take a flight back immediately and check up on Alice. However, by that time the city had been put under lockdown. Without any word about Alice, he grew increasingly worried about her, since she was already dealing with a chronic illness. When he heard through a mutual acquaintance that she might be infected, he was racked with guilt for leaving her, blaming himself. This wouldn’t have happened if he never left for college.

A lot of things never would have happened if he hadn’t left.

Alice picked up the phone for Ian once. Though it was hard on her, she was relieved that he was safe. When he wanted to see her, she told him under no uncertain terms not to. It was only when she outright told him that she was infected that he stopped begging her to change her mind.

The news shocked Ian, horrified him. He broke down, babbling apologies, and Alice told him it was fine. She forgave him for cheating and told him to not feel guilty about that anymore. He should focus on staying safe and not worry about her anymore. He needed to focus on taking care of himself now.

This was a final message from Alice to find closure with Ian and sincerely wish him happiness in spite of everything. What happened between them still hurt her, but in the wake of an apocalypse it was a more distant pain, smaller in the face of far more immediate threats. She also had Jack to support and comfort her. She had his love to heal her wounded heart and keep her safe. She felt stronger thanks to Jack in spite of everything.

Despite Alice’s attempts to alleviate Ian of guilt, his guilt only grew worse. He felt like he had to do something. Alice ended the call after telling him definitively to forget about her and not call her again, but how could he after everything they’ve been through? After how badly he failed her? He tried calling her back, but she finally blocked his number.

The guilt and his feelings for Alice ate Ian alive. It made him determined to get back to her and make things right, quarantine or no quarantine.

Even if that meant he got infected too. At least then they would always be together… like they should have been all along.

So Ian is trying to find Alice while avoiding the infected. It’s almost certain that he’ll fail the latter, but perhaps not the former… though what state he’d be in when he finally finds Alice might be something far more horrific than the boy she used to know and love.

Building a Life Together While the World Falls Apart

Although the world is crumbling down around them, Jack is getting stronger. He’s become more solid, stronger, and others can see him now. He can defend his sunshine from the infected, and he’s actually very good at it. Somehow he always manages to find a way to chase them off.

While for the most part Jack comes away unscathed from such encounters, sometimes he gets a little scratched up, which results in Alice fussing over him. He’ll never admit it, but he gets a little careless sometimes just to be spoiled by his sunshine. He knows it’s naughty of him, and he really doesn’t want to worry her, but it feels so good to be cared for so sweetly. He always asks her to kiss his boo-boos better, which leads to kissing other places as well.

Alice knows perfectly well that the aching Jack feels in his cock isn’t from any injury he took, but she’ll still kiss it until he feels allll better anyway~ He makes sure to make her feel very good as well in return.

Given how stressful things are and how isolated survivors have become, sex is a pretty obvious way to pass the time. Jack takes every excuse he can to seduce Alice, as long as the place they’re staying in is secured. He’s not going to be reckless with her safety. The infection might not affect her, but the infected are another story. He doesn’t care if anyone sees them (and really he’d enjoy showing off how much his sunshine loves him), but an infected isn’t simply going to sit back and appreciate the show.

Whenever Jack catches Alice worrying about her friends and family, he makes sure to redirect her focus on him as much as possible. He’s very good at distracting her with his love, placing kisses all over her body between sweet words of comfort and praise. She’s doing so well handling everything. She’s so strong, so kind, and so beautiful. She doesn’t have to handle it alone. He’s right here for her. He’ll always be with her, forever, and he loves her so, so much, more than anyone in the world.

It’s for the best that it’s just the two of them now. Even if Alice is infected, Jack is either immune or asymptomatic too, so it’s perfectly safe with just the two of them. He doesn’t have to worry about losing her to the infection, and she doesn’t have to worry about accidentally infecting him like she would her friends or family. They’ll be safe as long as they stay away and stay together, just like they’re doing now. Jack promises to make sure that neither of them will ever have to feel lonely ever again.

At present, the pair managed to secure an abandoned house. Well, mansion. Only the best for his sunshine, Jack said. Sure it took a lot of work fixing it up and cleaning up the messes, but as long as they’re together, they can handle anything life throws at them. They can face the world together, just the two of them.

After securing the place against invasions from infected or survivors taking advantage of the chaos, they managed to fix the place up to be rather cozy. They’ve secured a fair amount of supplies, and even started growing food both on the grounds and in a greenhouse. Alice knew a lot of tricks for how to grow plants effectively thanks to her mother’s expertise in the subject, and Jack handled much of the grunt work thanks to his strength.

It was kind of nice at times, like they were in their own little world. They could almost forget the outside world… if not for the occasional screams and wailing in the distance.

Despite the circumstances, and the occasional conflict, life in the mansion was actually pretty good for Jack and Alice. With animals being immune, they even got some pets in the form of dogs, cats, chickens, and even a couple rabbits. The animals also weren’t a threat to steal away his sunshine, so Jack was able to open his heart to them and love them as well, which helped to balance him emotionally a little.

That isn’t to say that it’s not hard on the two of them psychologically. Alice had to shoot people, infected and not, in order to survive. Jack wanted to handle all threats that came their way, but the infected had numbers on their side. Even supernatural powers have their limits, and this virus that he unknowingly started has gone far, far out of his control. He couldn’t stop it even if he tried.

That isn’t to say that Jack wouldn’t be the key to stopping it somehow. Someone just needs to put the pieces together and figure out the cause of the infection, then maybe they can figure out a way to stop it once and for all.

I think I’ll wrap things up on that note. I hope you enjoyed this ramble of supernatural biological horror. Let me know if you want to hear more about this or any other AU or story I’ve made. Thanks for reading!

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur @kurokrisps

[vikenticomeshome]

A Compilation of Official Cyberchase Polls (part 1/?)

Hello all,

While I was digging around in the Wayback Machine for old versions of the Cyberchase website, I was able to dig up some old polls that they put out for Earthlies. There are a few distinct eras of polls that evolved as the website evolved.

The first format features Dr. Marbles and some bar-graph based machine. I was only able to get two of them to load from this area, though the Wayback machine suggests that there are more archived.

The earliest archived instance that I could find was from February 2, 2002.

Who is your favorite Cyberkid?

Inez

Jackie

Matt

Here's one from June 21, 2002.

Why do you think Hacker is so mean?

His hardware is buggy

He's a cyborg

Nobody loves him

He was just born that way

Ouch. This was from the days of the "How It All Started" webcomics, where The Hacker decided to conquer Cyberspace shortly after his birth. So, of course, this poll wasn't going to be sympathetic or nuanced.

This format was changed when the site was updated to use flash. Here's the earliest version that I could load from this era. It was from January 19, 2009.

What is your favorite breakfast?

a) Eggs b) Pancakes c) Oatmeal d) Cereal

We got this one May 8, 2009.

What will you give your mom for Mother's Day?

a) A card and flowers b) Breakfast in bed c) A homemade gift d) Write a poem or story for her

I haven't found a way to access the poll results from the first two eras. The third era of polls claims that 368 different questions were asked. Many of the poll questions have been archived, though not all of them have the answers archived. Here are a few of my favorites.

This one is labelled poll #1, so I suppose it was the first one that they asked. They started off with a bang.

If Hacker accidentally left his wig at your house, what would you do?

a) Throw it in the trash b) Let your pet play with it c) Mail it back to him d) Wear it to school

My first question would be "How on earth did he get into my house?"

This one actually has preserved results.

Throw it in the trash: 125,483 votes 50% Let your pet play with it: 65,779 votes, 26% Mail it back to him: 27,690 votes, 11% Wear it to school: 34,341 votes, 14% Total 253,293 votes, 101% I am amazed that over 250,000 votes were cast. I don't know whether the site had a way to stop people from voting multiple times, however.

Here's poll #166.

Why does Hacker want to rule Cyberspace? a) He needs lots of attention b) He has no hobbies c) He thinks it would be cool d) He likes to be the boss

Unfortunately, this one doesn't appear to have its results preserved.

Here's poll #90.

What's your favorite Jackie show?

a) EcoHaven CSE b) And They Counted Happily Ever c) A Day at the Spa d) Eureeka e) Problem Solving in Shangri-La

The phrasing is interesting on this one. Would you consider these to be "Jackie shows" specifically? The kids all contribute to the problem solutions. I could see an argument for the Shangri-La episode, since she goes away from the others and discovers the poison numbers to win the game of Nim.

EcoHaven CSE: 1,516 votes, 13% And They Counted Happily Ever: 1,595 votes, 12% A Day at the Spa: 5,522 votes, 42% Eureeka: 1,493 votes, 11% Problem Solving in Shangri-La: 2,893 votes, 22% Total: 13,019 votes, 100%

Okay, here's one more.

Should Hacker ever win an episode? a) yes b) no c) only 1 episode!! d) never!! This one is fun to think about. A lot of fans love the shocking ending to the first part of Snelfu Snafu, where The Hacker takes over Cyberspace. Alot of fans also love the Transformatron Arc. While the kids were able to save some Cybersites during that arc, the episodes ended with The Hacker slipping away with another part to his infernal machine.

Unfortunately, this is another one where the results weren't archived.

I may post more of these later. I may even turn some of them into Tumblr polls.

[homestuckreplay]

she seems like a pretty regular girl to me!

(page 651-663)

9/17/2009 Wheel Spin: Captchalogue Lore Verdict: ????????

9/18/2009 Wheel Spin: Parent Bad :( Verdict: Well I’d take Dad over Big Imp any day and I think John would agree.

9/19/2009 Wheel Spin: being silly :3c Verdict: John, Mid-Ogre Ambush: 'haha where are my trick handcuffs?'

3 days’ worth of pages here because work has been eating me alive and time to write about Homestuck has been tragically limited. I will keep this so so short and focus only on what’s really important.

Currently, John is facing down two adversaries. One is the Crude Ogres, the physical challenge, and the other is GG, the mental challenge. I am delighted to learn that these higher level enemies are called ogres so that I can stop referring to them as Big Imp.

‘Hanging from the tree is your TIRE SWING. In a kid's yard, a tree without a tire swing is like a proper gentleman without a monocle. That is to say, HE CAN HARDLY BE CONSIDERED A TERRIBLY PROPER GENTLEMAN AT ALL.’ This is from page 27 (!!) and now on page 663, one of the ogres has stolen the swing and equipped tireswingkind. I guess any semblance of this still being John’s yard and John’s house is gone. The other ogre has taken Sassacre’s, while the imps have plundered the magic chest. I guess I’m thinking about how everything in John’s home that means something to him is now being used to hurt him, how he doesn’t get a place of respite or even a safe place to keep his possessions, which only highlights the need for the captchalogue system – for John and as a part of the story.

I’m so excited about Dark Kingdom Politics based on how the small imps are scared of the big imps. Thinking of them as chess pieces, it would not be correct to say that pawns are scared of rooks and bishops, as in chess no piece can threaten another piece of the same color. But seeing them as soldiers from a ‘kingdom entrenched in darkness’ (p.424) engaged in a war against the light, this fear does make sense, suggesting a more complex social order and NPCs with an inner life and a motivation beyond ‘grab object and attack.’

With that in mind, ‘You stop being the imp because that was stupid’ (p.657) is too hasty, I think that command giver was onto something. Your name is PAWN #413. As was previously mentioned you are AN IMP. A number of your SIBLINGS are scattered around this house. You have a variety of INTERESTS. You have a passion for SILLY HATS. etc. I am being silly but I really would like to get their perspective, especially if it complicates the binary of light and darkness in ways that might affect John’s choices further in the game.

But the real star of these ogre pages is the visuals. The ogres are comically big, to the point where it’s hard to get a scale of how big in comparison to John. Seeing John’s house from a bunch of different vantage points, and then seeing a single toe curling in through the window or a hand slamming down from the roof as imps react in terror. I really enjoy quickly flicking through all these different angles of the house. I think this section would be cool as an animation too, like a faster paced version of the one on page 250 – I don’t know which version I’d like better but it’d be fun to compare.

The Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff on page 663 suggests we’ll cut back to Dave now, who, like John, is preparing for a dangerous rooftop encounter. Goodbye for now John <3

On page 651 we are treated to the LONG AWAITED GARDENGNOSTIC REVEAL!!!! We just get her silhouette (and pronouns, on the next page) so while I think the spikes on her head are just messy hair, it could also be a fun hat. This is a low bar to clear I’ll admit, but so much media has a lot more male characters than female, so I do appreciate Homestuck keeping things more balanced among the leads.

John’s dreams are represented in clouds. The two other places we’ve seen clouds are above John’s house before he was transported to the Medium (for example, p.82) and surrounding Skaia as it is described by Nannasprite (p.422-423). So it’s kind of like John is able to see all the way to Skaia in his dreams, and he sees his dad, a birthday cake, a box of Gushers, a harlequin emblem, Slimer, Harry Anderson, and finally his friend gardenGnostic. We then get a quick flash through the Sburb installation screen, a pumpkin, and a spirograph, as John suddenly wakes. Seeing the installation screen is especially wild – it’s like Sburb is reloading in his mind as he wakes.

Getting the GG sighting almost felt like a ‘be careful what you wish for’ moment, because John’s conversation with her on page 652 is the most frustrating thing I’ve ever read. If someone tried to message me like this I would block them. In past conversations GG has seemed mysterious, now she’s just obnoxious, and I don’t know if she’s reacting to John saying she ‘seems like a pretty regular girl’ and is trying to prove him wrong, or if there’s another reason.

For example, there are definite inconsistencies in how she talks about the meteor that might have been near her house, and possibly other things too. In the first Pesterlog we see between GG and John (p.169) she says ‘GG: there was a loud noise outside my house!! GG: it sounded like an explosion!!!!’ and also asks John what Sburb is, and if he got her package. On page 293, GG reports back and says that she ‘went to investigate the explosion’ and confirms that it was a meteor, describing it as ‘pretty big’ while not being allowed to get too close.

Then things start getting weird. On page 382, GG tells Dave about her present for John, saying that ‘GG: he will not open it GG: he will lose it!!!’ Based on timezones this conversation takes place 49 minutes before the earlier one with John. On page 442, GG gives Rose the tip about Sburb’s ability to resurrect Jaspers the cat, although does not mention Sburb by name.

Both of these stand out, but have plausible explanations. But what really tests the limits of possibility is this new conversation on page 652, in which GG says she ‘was confused’ about the meteor, ‘fell asleep for a while’ and ‘lost track of time’, that the meteor is ‘hard to explain’ but she ‘know[s] what it is now’ and strangest of all, ‘and now i know everythings going to be ok!!!’

????????

So originally I was wondering if GG might be two people, twins perhaps, one who has a psychic connection with a god or other powerful entity and one who doesn’t. That doesn’t explain how an explosion (that could be confused for a meteor) could prophesize good fortune, though. What might explain it is a UFO crash, manned by aliens who were somehow able to share some knowledge with GG. Given John’s movies, it is about time we got some aliens in this story. Honestly I’m pretty lost and don’t have a solid theory that explains everything even after sitting on it for a few days, but Rose and Dave are right. There’s something weird going on with this girl.

[arzuera]

Who Wrote That?!

Hello! This is a Host and Player's guide on how to play 'Who Wrote That?!', a writing game for all ages! What is 'Who Wrote That?'? It's a game played with a minimum of 4 players or more. The players submit excerpts based on a prompt to the host and then have to guess who wrote what when the host releases them later. Whoever has the most points at the end is the winner!

Rules for Players

If there is one, please read the 'Do Not' list that any host gives you. This ensures that everyone has fun and no one is secluded because someone wrote something that triggered them.

2. Write an excerpt based on the prompt in the given timeframe. If you need an extension, ask the Host! More than likely, they will work with you. After all, the more the merrier.

3. Try to keep to the word limit, if there is one. Writing too much could out you just as much as writing too little. If you feel that your excerpt may be too long or too short, ask the Host if you may need to edit.

4. HAVE FUN! You can keep any writing that is too long and post it later or even continue the story if you wish! Odds are the plotbunnies will have made themselves home anyway :D

How to Host

Hosting is just as fun as playing! You get to read all the lovely juicy fun words and then see everyone gush and lament on the excerpts and their choices between submissions! The Host is the person/people who organize the rounds and keep track of the points. They also are the ones who post the excerpts for the players to read during guessing time and post the reveals round by round after voting is closed. It can seem daunting but it's a lot of fun!

There are two ways to play: A long game and a short game.

On average, a long game is considered a word limit of 1k or higher with a short game being about one paragraph or 300-400 words. Your game length will vary on the number of players and how long the excerpts are.

First, as the Host, pick or come up with a prompt. Try and find one or make it, open-ended so that the authors can really make the prompt their own! For example:

Danny gets trapped in a spellbook. He binds himself to whoever touches him next. The only way to release the bind is by either freeing Danny or doing so many things the book says (which the book is blank and Danny can control what is in it). Shenanigans

Also here is the Tumblr post source: Prompt Source

This is the first game we played! Its short but vague enough for the players to go off on their own interpretations.

Second, figure out the timeframe that works as best for you as it does with everyone else. Unfortunately due to timezones, you may not be able to have everyone online for the live voting or reveals. But that can be remedied a bit by giving time for people to be there.

A long game normally goes Tuesday-Friday for prompt submissions, Saturday is dedicated to voting, and Sunday will be the reveal!

Short games can do the same as above but maybe at hour intervals instead. 2-3 hours for submissions, an hour for voting, then reveal! Third, once you have your prompt and time frame, now it's time to let players know! Make a post or @ your friends so that they can play!

Fourth, collect all of the submissions in a Google doc and then organize the submissions by round order. That way you aren't digging for a prompt through Discord messages or google docs. It's all ready to go!

Fifth, when you have all of your submissions, it's time to make a Google form! Make an assessment and create as many questions as there are rounds with the players' names as the answers. Make sure to turn off 'shuffle option order'

Because this will move all the answers around and that is unnecessarily confusing.

Next go to settings and make it a quiz! But turn the other options off

Turning off missed questions, correct answers and point values makes it so the players don't see what they got after they submit their answers. They won't know until you reveal it all at the end! Now all you have to do is wait for voting time!

Sixth, Now it's time for the players to vote and they get to gush over what they are reading while chaos begins. Post the excerpts at hour intervals to give the players a chance to discuss among themselves. This is where they will try to throw the other off the scent of their work or try sus out the author. It's a lot of fun to watch :3

Lastly, reveals. Once voting is done, you can go into the Google form and see how everyone did! Calculate the points and figure out if you have a winner! When you have the points calculated, release the results of Who Wrote That one round at a time. Reveal who the author of that excerpt was along with who all got it right! Continue this by giving some time between results so the players can tease each other until all of the reveals are done and you announce the winner!

Congrats! You just hosted a game of Who Wrote That?! ! :3

Disclaimer: Google docs is mainly mentioned because most of the games have been running via co-hosting. With google docs, we can share the excerpts that both of us have gotten easily to one another. However, if you are hosting on your own, then any doc program should work just fine.

[autisticlancemcclain]

Keith doesn’t regret leaving for the Blades. Or at least not that he lets himself admit.

He does, however, miss his family. Quite an awful lot, actually. And he doesn’t get to talk to them often, not with his wacky schedule and the near impossibility of transmitting signal at the Blade base, so usually he just misses them quietly, lying in his bunk or looking out a pod window before a mission and fantasising about the things he’ll say when he gets to talk to them again. How he might get to talk to Hunk and Pidge about their latest projects, mock Shiro for anything he can think of until the man gets his twitching eyebrow of rage, geek out with Allura about cool weaponry and fighting manoeuvres, attempt to follow along to one of Coran’s long winded stories.

And Lance. He thinks about talking to Lance a lot. More than what could technically be considered normal, he supposes, but he’s convinced himself that Lance is thinking about him, too, so they’re even. Lance must, after all. Keith knows he has to plan responses to their arguments in his head if he wants to win. And unfortunately Lance had gotten really good at winning arguments in the months they were leading together, so it’s only logical that he must plan them out.

(Sometimes, when he’s feeling particularly lonely, he even allows himself to think about the softer conversations he could have with Lance, away from all the teasing and banter they usually have. He thinks back to the times where they sat quietly at the observation deck together, whispering secrets back and forth, and hopes that they’ll be able to have that again, too. But mostly he thinks about ways to tease Lance until he gets all flustered and scowly, and then about ways to make him smile again. Keith will never admit it under pain of death, but he’s endlessly grateful for the stupid little rivalry Lance cooked up. It’s the most fun Keith’s ever had socialising with another person, including times when he teamed up with Adam to make Shiro lose it as quickly as possible. There’s just something about Lance that makes Keith want to rile him up with every ounce of effort he has in his body.)

He doesn’t spend all his time thinking about his team, though. A lot of it, sure, but he can focus if he really tries. Besides, Blade missions are so batshit crazy that he’s forced to keep his head in the game when he’s in the midst of things. There’s nothing like a goddamn bazooka being aimed at your head to throw your ass into gear, that’s for damn certain. Plus, every mission he completes is one step closer to ending this stupid war so he can go home already.

There’s also the fact that he’s directly helping to liberate thousands of people oppressed by Zarkon’s – Haggar’s? Lotor’s? Well, probably not Lotor because he’s their ally now, but it’s somebody’s – empire, obviously. That’s good for motivation.

But, still – when Kolivan tells him that the Blade he’d originally assigned to team up with Keith for his next mission had to be reassigned somewhere else and there was no one else available to go with him on a mission to some Empire ship placed near a black hole, Keith jumps at the opportunity to call his team and get their help. He spends the two hours it takes to establish a connection with Voltron thinking about how he’s going to ask for Lance’s help without asking, all suave and teasing. He settles on playing it cool, casual, as if he would appreciate Lance’s help, sure, but it’s not really necessary.

Heh. Maybe if he plays his cards right, Lance will be the one asking him. That would land Keith a couple points for sure.

Keith scrambles into a cool, unbothered position as the team blinks into focus on the holoscreen. He has to bite back a smirk.

“Hey, guys.”

“Keith!”

“Good to see you’re not dead, loser.”

“Number Four! It’s wonderful to hear your voice!”

“Hello, Keith. I’m glad to see you well.”

“Hey, kiddo.”

Keith grins at them all, waiting for the inevitable “hey, Mullet,” that he’s sure is coming.

His smile falters when it stays silent. In fact, Lance barely even smiles in greeting, lifting his hand in a small wave from where he stands to the side – almost out of frame.

“It’s good to see you guys, too,” Keith says, shaking his head and trying not to feel too thrown off. It doesn’t matter that Lance didn’t call him Mullet. Keith doesn’t even like the stupid nickname. If anything, this is good.

“I’m assuming this is not a social call,” Lotor drawls after a beat of silence. He stands right next to Allura, maybe a half inch away from basically being on top of her.

Gross. When did that happen?

Trying not to let Lotor’s appearance as a whole sour his mood, Keith shifts a little to look at Lance, although he addresses the whole team.

“The Blade who was supposed to be doing a mission with me got reassigned, and there’s no one else free, so I could use some help.” He tilts his head to face Lance fully, smirk pulling the corner of his mouth.

He practiced. Lance’s lack of greeting may have thrown him off, but Keith is determined, here. He is going to win, and Lance’s mind games are not going to stop him.

“I figured my rival would be a decent enough replacement, since I’m out of options. You up for it, Lance?”

Keith had intended for it to be teasing. To ignite the spark of competition that always lay between them, get Lance rolling his eyes and challenging Keith right back, like they used to do in training. He’d looked forward to the flash of bright determination in Lance’s brown eyes, even, hoped to see his spine straighten and his eyebrows raise.

But to Keith’s horror, none of that happens. In fact instead of rising to the challenge, Lance seems to curl in on himself, hurt scowl twisting his features as his shoulders hunch forward. In contrast, each member of the team possibly howls in laughter, as if what Keith said was the funniest thing in the world, rather than a shameless and playful dig at his and Lance’s rivalry that would usually make them groan in exasperation.

“You sure you can settle for Lance?” Pidge taunts, and Keith is sure she’s only joking but it doesn’t sound like she is. Maybe it’s just been too long since Keith has talked to them, or maybe it’s because it sounds different through a screen, but Keith can’t hear any fondness in her voice. He can’t see it in the team’s laughter, either, in Hunk’s sniggering or Shiro’s chuckles. He doesn’t see it in the hand Allura presses to her face to hide her giggles, and he certainly doesn’t see it in Lotor’s smug grin.

Lance doesn’t see the humour either, shoving his clenched fists in his pockets and taking a small step away from the rest of the team. None of them seem to notice, too busy laughing to themselves.

“Lance – I didn’t mean – I was just –” Keith stammers, but Lance’s face has gone totally blank, emotionless.

“You are not out of options,” he says. “I’m sure Hunk or Shiro would be happy to accompany you.”

Keith feels his heart sink to his knees. Lance only talks so formally when he’s carefully choosing his words, distancing himself from whatever he really wants to say and speaking in carefully controlled monotone.

What the hell is going on?

“No, it’s probably best that you go,” Lotor dismisses, and who the hell died and made him the leader? “We have that training regime planned over the next few days.”

He doesn’t say it, but Keith hears what he means as clear as day – we can afford to be without you.

Lance hears it too, evident in the clench of his jaw and the pause before he speaks. The rest of the team doesn’t seem to notice, all teasing smiles and playful jabs.

“I hope that works for you, Keith.”

Keith is at a loss for words. It takes him a moment to realise that everyone is looking at him expectantly, waiting for his response.

“Yeah, that’s – that’s fine.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, and Keith knows it as soon as the words leave his lips – somehow Lance goes even colder, eyes duller, desperate hope that Keith didn’t realise Lance was holding on to fleeing his expression.

“– and it’ll be great to see you, even if it’s only to give you a quick hug before you two take off,” Shiro says brightly, and Keith blinks back into focus.

“Um – yeah, yeah. Sounds good. I’ll be there first thing tomorrow morning, I’ll send you the briefing after we hang up.” He bites his lip, chancing a quick look at Lance, who still stares forward blankly. “Let’s make the most of this, huh, Sharpshooter?”

It’s a transparent attempt at cheering Lance up. Keith can’t remember a single time when the nickname failed to make Lance smile.

It does nothing. The Cuban only nods once, then turns around and walks away.

Keith doesn’t listen to the rest of the team saying goodbye. He watches Lance’s retreating back as he walks through the bridge’s wide doors, and wonders what the hell was gone wrong in the months since he last saw his team.

[self-loving-vampire]

While on that topic, you might get the impression based on the agonophilia thing that I'm really into fighting games, but the truth is that I'm only into them in theory.

In practice the way they're actually played doesn't seem to match the actual rhythm and drama I like most of the time (if an average fighting game match was a fight scene in a story I wouldn't consider it "well written") and most importantly they don't play well with my disability in that they end up making my hands hurt after a while.

However, there's also a lot I like about them. For one, they often have really good character designs and the moves, playstyles, animations, and even idle stances of those characters tend to communicate a ton of personality very efficiently. I love that. I also like a lot of the more dramatic special moves and of course just spectating the characters getting beat up is nice.

So they can be a lot of fun to watch, but I'd only play them on an extremely casual level (like doing story modes on normal difficulty or something). I also don't think they quite make it as a vessel for dueling friends/partners/siblings for a number of reasons.

[titanrpg]

Hey, Lex, got a question. At some point in the last two decades, somebody in the indie space mentioned that it was all well and good to develop a system, but that what a lot of games lack is support, and that supplemental material like monster- or magic-folios or adventure modules or what have you. The argument was something to the effect that we have sort of a lot of one off, single page or even whole simulation systems, but once you have the base thing, there's not really much suggested to do with it, and while plenty of GMs and tables don't need help getting started, plenty do.

Is this anything, y'think? Do you have thoughts on the subject of supplemental material? Do you think it "helps" your ttrpgs, for whatever metric that... is measuring, lmao.

Hey! I've heard this here and there, and I'll share my thoughts as a relative newcomer (I'm around the 2.5 year mark of seriously making my own games).

I don't think it's a problem to have one-off games and barebones systems. In fact, make it as barebones as possible, and you have yourself an SRD essentially. We all know I love me an SRD.

That being said, the whole deal with Caltrop Core (my first SRD) was lowering the barrier to entry for people to start making games. If you can sufficiently lower a barrier, it'll be much easier for people to start. It goes for full TTRPGs as well. An ecosystem of support is the dream for any system, but the step I take before that is including materials in my game to help people get started.

Even though I don't consider myself the type of player who needs the extra help/content, I still like seeing a starter adventure or a table of ideas, as it helps me find where to start. Examples of play are also a big part of this. Wanderhome does a really nice job of this (is there anything this game doesn't do a really nice job of?).

Identifying the action you want someone to take and doing everything in your power to minimize the friction/number of steps between that person and the action -- that's digital marketing in a nutshell.

People mostly apply this thought process to sales, but it works for everything. When I'm finishing up a game, I'm concerned with one action in particular: someone actually playing my game.

As indie devs, it can often feel like no one actually plays our games. (Side note: I think it's worth making peace with this aspect of indie publishing. I make games because I like making games. If people play my stuff, great. If they don't, okay. I would have made this thing anyway.) If this is something you're worried about with a project, I believe the best thing to do is identify the type of supplemental material that will bridge the gap from reading the game to running/playing it. To me, that's what "helping" my TTRPG means. I often see quickstart one-pagers for medium sized games, and I think that's a really strong option.

You also do not have to have this supplemental materials ready when you first hit "Publish" on itch.io or wherever. For one of my own game jams, I wrote a minimum playable version (MPV, is that a thing?) of HEXFALL. Then later I went back and added a bunch of materials (new hex types, new maps, new examples, new story hooks) to help people get started as easily as possible. I pitched it as an expansion, and even came up with a cool dramatic subtitle which I always love doing.

It's really up to the designer and where they're at. If you're out here trying to build a publishing business, then I think this type of material should be included in your base game. Hobbyists should do whatever is most fun for them.

Thanks for the fun question! I hope I answered sufficiently!

[aratedfreyjablog]

So, an opinion on the email sent by PB in response to the collected concerns/questions that were sent (which can be read in part 1 (here) and part 2 (here).

The 3 main points that I found hopeful and had a positive view on were:

Ability to obtain 500+ (emphasis on "+") Solomon Seals PER MONTH for f2p <- This one was a big concern that many, including myself, had as it felt extremely paywalled when trying to obtain a character many would want only to realize they can't even participate during the chance-up period because they have to pay. To be able to obtain 500+ Solomon Seals without charge (as mentioned in the twt) is equivalent to getting a free 10-pull. Based on PB's response, it looks like the Seals for f2p players would be obtainable from grinding + login gifts which I personally perceive as grinding directly for keys. Though there are complaints already from hearing "more grinding" or "just 500 Solomon Seals", I think it's better compared to having to spend currency just to obtain another currency when the currency for solely spending in the shop can be used solely for resources

Consideration of exchanging characters to obtain L-grade characters <- Whoever brought this up as a point of discussion was smart. Since many of us are pulling multiple characters of various S, A+, A, and B characters, it would be nice to be able to exchange them for L-grades not just for pancakes with their tea leaves

To be able to choose the character we want after reaching 220 limited-gacha/pity <- I don't think this needs to be explained why I or anyone else are happy about this.

I still feel bitter about the Nightmare pass as it seems like PB is not going to reconsider more wiggle-room or opportunities for f2p to gain the rewards offered including Christmas Gabriel. For myself, personally, if the company had not introduced the concept of the Nightmare pass as a Christmas event, I wouldn't be as bitter. But, for many gaming companies, Christmas events are treated as more carrot over the stick (i.e., more rewards being evenly distributed and accessible towards all f2p and p2w players). And that wasn't the case with the Nightmare pass at all. Not going to lie though, the response PB had sent hurt my heart when reading about the working conditions the employees are going through to provide content to the players through the game. Only 2 breaks per month for the employees? CS managing ALL of the emails AND social media? That's insane. Small companies are SMALL companies, meaning there are a small amount of employees. I can only imagine the sheer stress these people have to not only produce content and developing the game but also sifting through and responding and addressing all of the issues. In addition, they acknowledge the flaws that have led towards the negative impact of the game and apologized multiple times in the email. Mind everyone, the email, itself, was 8 pages long. I don't know about everyone else, but if that's not considered as showing sincerity and honesty than... I don't know what is at this point. I can't imagine them making things up and say it as a reply in an email when knowing the LU/DKDK had such a small number of players which would make sense to have 50 players be p2w players... The story and lore is engaging and the battles are fun though sometimes it can get a bit tiring when being forced to play just to grind for resources rather than playing for fun. That as well as the other bugs that still needs to be addressed. However, it's not to the point to garner such negativity where complaints should be sent with a mix of entitlement and bigotry. And not just towards PB but also towards players who are simply expressing their enjoyment of the game. But, let's all look forward to the content that will be dropping in January including Chapter 5 and perhaps even a new L-grade character feat. the king of Paradise Lost!

[laguzmage]

hello. do you have any recommendations for ttrpgs that enable robust roleplay? my friends want to get back into dnd after not playing for a few years but i think it would be fun to branch out, espscially considering how they like to focus more on character & story than combat encounters. thanks in advance!

The best one for like, roleplay and storytelling IMO is probably Numenera, the game has this really really good system in which players have stat pools instead of numeric bonuses, that serves both as their health, and as a kind of Stamina bar that they can use to apply Effort to a task to make it easier.

So what this translates to is if you want your character to accomplish some physically or mentally arduous task, they can do it and there's a gameplay mechanic around like, "And Nemo the Glaive does indeed climb that wall, her muscles are ragged, her fingers are torn up and bleeding, she collapses to catch her breath" because it wasn't just a close roll, it was one in which you spent some of your Brawn/Speed to do so - in fact Numenera features this really smart thing where if you fail a roll, as long as the GM doesn't specifically say "yeah you can't try again", you can immediately reroll but you have to spend Effort. So that can even feed back into the story of like, "Nemo starts to climb but she slips, hits her side against the rock face, gulping up the air that just got pushed out of her lungs she tightens her grip with her one remaining hand and swings around to get more stable footing, and tries again"

It also features this really ingenious thing where the players always roll the dice - the players (almost) always roll a D20 - and what they have to roll is a target number based on what the GM says the task's difficulty is (1-10) - very rarely with math after the fact. So unlike say, 5E/Pathfinder/etc there's no "Whoops we got caught in the moment and forgot what half the mechanics and dice rolls are here", you know it's Always gonna be a D20 and it's Always gonna be what the dice says, without adding your stat bonus and your proficiency modifier and whoops you still have guidance I forgor so add a D4 and-

The other thing that I really like about Numenera (The other game I'm gonna recommend does this too), is it has a THICK rulebook (418 pages!!) that contains short stories, lore snippets, Numenera also specifically has these long segments about each nation and tribe in their map, their culture, cities, who each nation beefs with and why, all contained in the Core Rulebook so you can get a sense for the world without needing to find a bunch of supplementary text.

As an aside - you mention not wanting to just do combat. One other thing Numenera does that I really like is that it's bestiary features a wide list of creatures that have motivations and thoughts other then "Eat adventurer, roll initiative" - for example, one creature in it just wants to eat Numenera and gain their power, so players with sufficient observation skills and enough self control to not immediately attack can figure out it just wants to eat that weird cube in your pack, and you weren't planning to use it anyway, and resolve the encounter that way

Lorewise, Numenera is a setting in which civilization has risen and fallen something like 8 previous times, sometimes reaching the level of galactic spacetravel, sometimes reaching the point of being able to build Dyson Spheres and new worlds, and sometimes getting beyond even that. All contained on a feudal alt-earth with a fantasy flair to it. It kind of takes the "Sufficient enough technology is indistinguishable from magic" phrase and builds a whole setting based off of it. Players delve into ancient vaults, ruins, and ships, and its obvious its like, an ancient spaceship, a forgotten lab, and so on, but do the characters know that? The world is full of mysterious magical artifacts except the magical artifact is like, a vial of liquid that if poured on you hardens and becomes steel, a mysterious box and sphere and the sphere you can place somewhere, and view what the sphere sees from the box anywhere on the world, the one where they just straight up describe a sniper rifle as if its an esoteric staff,

This ask got kind of long so the other one, Shadowrun, is below the cut ⬇

The other one is, way more mechanically complex, but I'm a bit of an evangelist for it, is Shadowrun. I can't speak to how 6th edition is (I'm sorry Catalyst game labs I'm sorry I bought like 10 Shadowrun 5 sourcebooks and I'm not ready to let them go yet), but in 5th edition the game has this insane level of character customization to where I'd strongly recommend downloading a program to help you (Like Chummer5, I think some people back when I played it at a game store used Hero Forge somehow. I saw another one called OMAE) - point is, you're gonna be doing a lot of math making a Shadowrun character, and spending a lot of time juggling priority tables, weighing minor differences in stats for cars and commlinks, optimizing your starting perks and flaws, etc.

Once you get out of character customization though, all you're really rolling is an insane number of D6s and counting the ones that are 5 and 6 (The rulebook will call them Hits), based on a combination of your stat, the skill being rolled, and any specializations you have and gear bonuses you get. The game can get pretty complex if like, you're playing as a hacker and using the erratas that add new stuff for hackers, but a solid 80% of that is gonna be the GM doing the lifting, so they get the choice on how crazy they want to get with the rolling and rules.

So why would I say "Oh Shadowrun is good for that" if its way more number and dice crunchy then Numenera?

Well, the first reason is that Shadowrun has no character classes, there's a few stat caps based on if you're playing as an Elf or Troll or Orc or something instead of a human, but beyond that you can take your starting character and go anywhere with it. Don't like that bards in DnD still have a wide list of combat things they can do? Want to play someone with the charisma skills and they immediately eat SHIT the second that bouncer gets tired of them and goes to toss them in the street? Well you're in charge buddy! Want to make a wizard but instead of being smart, you want to be good at physical tasks so when spells don't cut it he pulls out his glock and starts casting bullet? You KNOW you can do that!! Hell, there's even things that can raise those aforementioned stat caps so that if you want to play as The Scholarly Troll you can do that

The other reason Shadowrun can be good for that is that the Shadowrun core rule book is *502* fuckin pages, and that's not all mechanics and tables and rules and example maps. Shadowrun 5's CRB (And every single errata) is full of short stories, forum style messages from people in universe discussing the merits (or demerits) of gear, setting the stage for the world and the megacorps that run it, and so on.

Lorewise, Shadowrun is set on earth - but specifically an earth where in 2012 magic returned, and violently. Dragons flew around and set stuff on fire, wizards and warlocks immediately awoke to their abilities, oftentimes without the ability to fully control them, the fae, and so on. Flash forward to the 2050s, all of that still exists, but now it's the cyberpunk future on top of it. Dragons run a couple of the big 10 megacorps. Your elf or orc ranger can get cybernetics, the spirit shaman can be the spirit shaman of the mysterious sewer sludge, and so on. Its the big classic cyberpunk setting that, well, isn't called Cyberpunk

[richea]

4 and 5 for the meme

Tales asks

4. Something you wish to see in future games

A lot of this I'll answer in #5 but to keep things positive I'll just list actual wants up here. Though for some reason my brain is only coming up with character concepts right now haha.

I'd like to see another female protagonist of course, but I want to emphasize here that I want her to feel... unique? Velvet took inspiration from Milla (I know they're very differently written but I'm talking about their base appeal here), which is fine but I'd like something different next time. (Mika exists too but her game is deader than dead...) I'd love to see a character akin to Meredy or Colette take control of the story.

I won't go into this too much on here but I would like to see more characters like Mark in Summoner's Lineage.

I also feel like we could always use more characters who are musicians; I adore Johnny and absolutely love how Tear was handled, and I need more of it! Rays Recollection had an idol character which was nice.

5. Something you hope never is used again in future games

Going to put this under the read more for anyone sensitive to criticism who might not want to see it. I will warn it's a bit strongly articulated.

Cooking/food jokes, especially when it comes to someone being bad at it. This one got old decades ago; the amount of cooking skits in Rays is almost mind-numbing and do not get me started on how it felt as if all of the "fun" skits in Arise were just about this.

I would like Tales to chill out on the "sex appeal" rage they've been on the past handful of titles. I've only heard good things about Luminaria's writing but I still haven't been able to stomach the designs enough to actually start on it, which is not good. I know the franchise has always had shades of this but it's been especially noticeable as of late, and it feels like a huge step backwards. I don't think I'll ever move on from hearing how Iwamoto pressured Inomata into designing Velvet, and my subsequent reaction when Kisara was revealed and my joy at her being a knight was immediately overridden by wondering why on earth her design had to be the way it is. It's just very wild to me when back in the day, Keele of all characters was considered one of the "hottest" Tales characters and he's designed in a way where you can't even see any part of his silhouette. I don't believe we need none of it, but I at least would like them to step back with it just a little bit.

Ufotable is a big one. I really, really do not like Ufotable's Tales work. I wrote two threads about this on Twitter (part 1, part 2). In a world where Wit was put on the mobile games, there's no reason to keep using Ufotable for mainline Tales games.

I think Ufotable was perfectly fine in the Symphonia OVA; after all, none of the anime adaptations sans the Vesperia movie were done by IG. But that's the thing―it being a spinoff media is one thing, but it being the main art in the mainline games is where I draw the line. Each Tales title has its own art identity (for instance, Phantasia's art looked different from Legendia's which looked different from Graces), but they all still tried to keep to the staple Tales style. Ufotable does not care about this. I also am just going to be honest when I say my mind registers Xillia and beyond as "different" from the games prior and it's in part because of Ufotable's art identity being so divorced from the prior art direction in the franchise. Xillia was one of the more early titles I got to, so it's not even like I had years and years of IG "bias" before playing it, I just felt like something was off when I played it. They are truly doing their own thing and it does impact how a number of fans view the games, whether a lot of people want to acknowledge this or not. For anyone on the fence or thinking I'm unreasonable or overthinking it: Production IG was literally hired by Inomata herself because they were the only animators who were capable of adapting her style correctly.

Meanwhile Wit has been putting out work that not only follows the "style" perfectly, but it's also some of the best art this franchise has ever seen, if not the best. I really, really want to see them take over for the mainline games, and I am hoping this is the angle they're going for now that we have no mobile games.

I also need series staples to come back: 2D art and victory quotes being my biggest. There is not a single part of me that can process how this was actually greenlit for Arise. The skit format doesn't bother me as much as it does for other people, but these things, I cannot bend on, because it's not stemming from "wanting to try something new" (which Tales does all the time and is how I view the skit format change), it stems from the producer wanting to make Tales appeal to literally everybody except its targeted demographic and removing the things that drew people to this franchise in the first place. I don't think a franchise branching out is bad, but when it actively makes tons of old fans, who have kept the franchise afloat for decades, start to collectively lose interest in the future of the franchise, it's not a good sign. Even if there are people who "don't care," there are people who do and will drop the franchise if the franchise stops doing all of the small things that made them love it in the first place, especially if there's no real reason to be removing said things.

...Anyway sorry I got a bit heated. I love this franchise to death, and Rays really restored a lot of lost faith I had after I wasn't super sure the franchise was going in the right direction for me in the mainline games (I know a lot of people love it but even Berseria something just didn't quite feel right to me), so I hope Bamco can take some notes from what went well in it and incorporate that in future titles. I know I did my part and did the survey they put out, asking for a number of the things I listed here.