#except of backgrounds which are game screenshots

[bluekaddis]

I was positively surprised to see the Warden and the Inquisitor’s cameos in DA: Absolution. Good to see they are doing well 😊❤

[moonwoodhollow]

2k follower gift: Casa de Tedeji 22 - a cc lot by moonwoodhollow It’s finally time for one of my favourite buildings I have done in a while; Casa de Tedeji 22! Casa de Tedeji 22 is a mostly unfurnished residential lot that is best placed in Ciudad Enamorada. This lot was inspired by the film Roma, and I hope you'll find it as charming as I do! This building consists of three different houses, and you could either have just one family living there, or you could fill all three houses with families and watch the drama unfold. Either way, I hope you have fun with this lot & thank you again, for 2k followers!

More screenshots, info + download link under the cut!

Building background

As someone who's never been to Mexico, I still wanted to create a somewhat realistic building for Ciudad Enamorada that perfectly fits into the world.

The house that I first thought of, was the 'main' house in which most of the plot of the film Roma by Alfonso Cuarón took place. Even though I watched the film some time ago I often kept thinking back to the house and the architecture of Mexico City in the 70s. So I looked up the filming locations and found out that the house actually still exists, you can read about more here and here if you're interested.

While building I obviously changed a few things from the original structure, because I did not want to recreate the house entirely, as I didn't have too many inside-the-house photos, so I went to googlemaps and got inspired by the neighbouring houses and that's how this building or these three buildings came to be!

So what do you get?

Case de Tedeji 22 is a 30x20 residential build best placed in Ciudad Enamorada on the Mansión de la Pasión lot. It probably could also work on other lots, but it looks best on that one. The lot is unfurnished, meaning I only added the outdoor decor but kept the houses completely unfurnished except for flooring and wallpaper + a floorplan for each house.

house one: 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a fenced-in garden

house two: 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a balcony, courtyard

house three: 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (1 ensuite), rooftop space

If you own For Rent, you could change the lot type to residential rental, but obviously, even without that pack, you could play with up to 8 sims/three families on this lot.

Uses items from the following packs: I will update this, once I hop back into game, but I own almost all packs.

Download: Google Drive(195 MB) | Also up on the gallery: aeromantica (but you’ll need the cc files from the Drive folder!)

Is the CC included? Yes.

A BIG THANK YOU to all the CC-creators, without their creations, I wouldn’t have been able to build this!

TOU: Please don’t claim as your own or put behind paywalls etc. If you find any issues (wrong/missing files, etc.) please let me know + tag me if you’ll use the building, I’d love to see it in your games.

If you like what I do and want to show your appreciation, I have a ko-fi!

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Dazai Osamu and the Dark Era: the visual novel (a fan project)

On a whim, I've decided to finally just publicly release this project that I've had laying around for two years at this point, for Dazai's birthday today. It was originally made for my very dear friend @letmereachforthestars , when I first introduced her to the series and wanted her to be able to read my favorite BSD light novel in an easier-to-read format. You need a computer to be able to play. The details and links are under the cut:

If you've never played a visual novel before, it's basically a novel in the form of a video game. Text will appear line by line, one a time on the screen, and it will be accompanied by relevant background visuals, music, and sound effects, to make the reading experience more immersive, and more stimulating than just reading from a book. Some visual novels have actual gameplay elements to them, and some are just books and nothing else (oftentimes dating sims/choose-your-own-adventure novels), the latter of which this is. If you've played the mobile game Bungou Tales/Mayoi, the story sections of that game are basically mini visual novels.

This game was made with screenshots and music from the anime, sound effects from the anime and Bungou Tales and free sound effect online sources, as well as graphics and fonts and other assets from Bungou Tales and other official BSD art (particularly the official anime soundtrack cd covers). The script is taken entirely from the official Yen Press translation of Dark Era, with the exception of about two or three iconic lines that I used different translations of because I felt like they had more impact. Additionally, at the very, very end, I added on the original ending scene from the Dark Era stage play and wrote a few fanfic lines of my own to accompany it you can tell because they are very cringe and don't match Asagiri's writing style.

Before playing the game, there are a few very important things to keep in mind; PLEASE read all this:

I am not a professional in the slightest. I took some coding classes in high school, and have some photoshop skills (when it comes to the design elements of the menus), but for the most part the former wasn't much help here; this was my very first time ever using the Renpy engine, and I made this entirely from scratch. I used my knowledge of playing other visual novels to emulate the kinds of effects and timing that is typical for these games, and I think it turned out pretty well all things considered, but it's still very amateur. This is most evident in the sound effects. The sound effects have no volume consistency between them, and some of them, particularly the gun/battle sfx, can come on very suddenly and be loud. I highly, HIGHLY encourage going into the settings and turning down the sound effects volume (the music should be fine), so that you're not startled by certain sounds when they happen, and for a lengthy time. I wouldn't blame you if you decide to turn the sfx off entirely if's too distracting, honestly 🫠 I am no expert in sound files equalizing and making sound files loop seamlessly, so this was by far the most tedious and frustrating part of the process of making this for me. Hopefully it doesn't ruin the game or break immersion too much if you decide to leave them on (I hope you do, for the rain and clock sounds at least, but again I wouldn't blame you if you can't).

Dark Era is the most faithful light novel adaptation in the anime, but there are still a handful of scenes, mostly fight scenes, that got shaved down significantly. Because of this, there are numerous occasions where I had to simply linger on a black screen or the same screenshot for a long period of time, while tons and tons of narration happens, because there's simply nothing I can show to accompany said narration. This is not ideal, but unfortunately I didn't have much else of a choice in those instances, so I hope it's not too distracting. There are also a few instances of straight-up inconsistencies between the novel and the anime (ex. the fight between Oda and Akutagawa happens in the woods in the novel, but in the anime it's still right outside the art museum), so sometimes what you're reading won't quite match the screenshots I use. Fortunately it's never anything major, but it does happen.

There will sometimes be long, unchanging black screens. Don't worry, the game isn't broken; just wait long enough and it will continue.

Sometimes, a character will get cut off when speaking, and when that happens the dialogue will auto-force to the next line. If you didn't get a chance to see what was said before, check the text backlog/history (in the menu or the H key).

Last but not least, this game was made with the default text speed in mind. Meaning, that when it comes to certain specific scenes, the mood/tone of them, made up of the timing of music, transitions, sound effects, etc, all of it was arranged around the speed at which things progress when using the default text speed. I completely understand if you can't, but if at all possible, please try not to change the text to go too much faster or slower, especially faster, because certain scenes will lose a lot of impact otherwise. If you already know Dark Era, you probably have an idea of some of the scenes I'm referring to. At the very least, during the more high-stakes/intense scenes, please try to play through those all at once without stopping, for the greatest impact based on how I designed the game, and only pause/quit during the slower scenes. There are specific moments that I'm really proud of how they came out, and I'd like for them to have the maximum impact that I intended :') (also note that if you make the text appear instantly, the cut-off dialogue mentioned above simply will not appear at all, and you won't even know to look back for them, so please refrain from making the text instant at the very least)

Ignore the cringe sappy final message

...I think that's everything. With all that out of the way, here are the links for both PC and Mac:

Download the PC version

Download the Mac version

This was a passion project for me for a good many months back in 2022. It started out just as a gift for my friend, but in the end I was really satisfied with how it turned out, despite how tedious and frustrating it was to work on. I've been hesitant to share it with the fandom for all this time because I kinda doubt anyone would really be interested in something like this especially since it's not stormbringer or beast, but someone on discord who tried it told me that I should share it, so here it is. I'm sharing it not just because I'm proud of my work, but because Dark Era is a truly amazing light novel — underrated, in my opinion (yes, I said what I said) — and far better than the anime adaptation, as good as that is, and I want more people to read it. If reading the books is hard for you and you've never read Dark Era before, if I can help just one more person to read it with this, I'll be happy, and consider my job done. 💖

I so desperately want to make more of these visual novels for the other light novels, but sadly, some of them simply aren't possible thanks to how many scenes are missing from the anime, like with Entrance Exam in particular. I've also been waiting with vain, thin hope that Bungou Tales will eventually reach seasons 3 and 4, so I can use their Fifteen and Untold Origins title screens like I did here, if those ever exist. However, I'm also held back thinking about certain scenes that would require some redrawing/drawing additional details to match what's written in the novels. If anyone has any ideas on things I could do to possibly get around these issues, or just thoughts in general about how the other light novels might be tackled, or if you're an artist who can recreate the anime's style and takes commissions/knows someone who does, I'd absolutely love to hear from you! As well as any advice/help on how I can smooth out/improve this project here!

Anyway, sorry for the long wall of text. Thank you for reading all this, if you did, and if you do try the game, please let me know your thoughts; I crave any and all feedback. 💙✨

[vyxated]

[ReShade 5.1+] Hide CAS UI & More

Unlike build mode & live mode, there's no shortcut to hide CAS UI, which is much needed for taking screenshots with Reshade. With this ShaderToggler add-on (made by Frans Bouma/Otis_inf), you can easily hide the UI! This guide will cover how to install the add-on and showcase its features.

If you find this useful, do share the word around! All I ask is that you link back here if you want to share outside of tumblr :-)

📌 UPDATE 19/09/2024: updated both DX9 and DX11 files to fix the hide CAS BG & mirror toggles. Please redownload.

How it works:

One of the features of this add-on is the ability to toggle on/off in-game shaders: UI, geometry, post-processing effects, and more (not reshade shaders). You do that by putting certain shaders together into a group which you can then toggle on/off. This is quite useful for CAS shots as you can't hide the UI when you use ReShade/GShade (unlike build/live mode where you can simply press tab). 

This add-on is made by Frans Bouma/Otis_inf so huge credit to him as without this add-on this wouldn’t be possible.

Keep in mind that this add-on doesn’t prevent shaders (bloom/dof/mxao) from affecting the UI, it just hides the UI shader from view. This, along with a shader like ChromaKey/DepthAlpha that allows for transparent backgrounds, makes a great duo! No more cropping to exclude the arrows and editing out the background manually 🙌 (unfortunately alpha hair suffers a bit from it.)

What you’ll get by the end of this post:

A ShaderToggler.ini file that will hide CAS UI elements with the option to either leave the sim/trait icons and trait selections intact for posing your sims, or hide everything except for your sim. Great for taking close-up shots.

There'll also be a toggle to hide infant pillow in CAS, hide CAS BGs & mirrors, and hide camera UI when your sim is taking a selfie/picture in-game.

// ReShade/GShade requirement:

For Reshade users: tested on Reshade 5.8.0 (w/ full add-on support), but it should be compatible with ReShade 5.1+.

For GShade users: 

To check if your GShade supports add-ons: check the ReShade version it's based on in the shader notification at startup, similar to the menu here (GShade x.x based on ReShade x.x). You can also check in the reshade panel and see if there's a menu for add-ons.

📂 DOWNLOAD .ini file:

SimFileShare / Google Drive

🆕 DX9 & DX11 support

ShaderToggler.ini : DX9 version

ShaderToggler_DX11.ini : DX11 version

// Installation:

First, make sure that you have the correct ReShade with full add-on support!

Grab the add-on from this github release. For non-legacy players, grab _v121.zip. For legacy players, grab _x86_101.zip

Extract the ShaderToggler.addon file into the game’s \Bin folder where your TS4.exe/TS4_64.exe is (where you had also installed ReShade/GShade).

Still in the \Bin folder, drop the ShaderToggler.ini file you downloaded. You’ll end up with both ShaderToggler.addon and ShaderToggler.ini in the same folder as TS4.exe/Reshade.ini.

The .ini file should be named ShaderToggler.ini for the add-on to recognize it and the toggle groups to show up. If you downloaded the DX11 version, remove the _DX11 suffix.

If you’re a GShade user: there’s a folder called gshade-addons; this is where you should place the ShaderToggler.addon file. Just move the add-on from the \Bin folder to the folder mentioned and you’re good. If this doesn't work, keep it in the \Bin folder.

Open up your game. If you see the add-on & list of toggle groups in the Add-ons tab, then you’ve successfully installed the add-on & settings! Restart if needed.

// Shortcuts (Updated):

Toggle main CAS UI (traits & trait selections excluded): Ctrl+ ]

Toggle sim/trait icons & trait selections: Ctrl + [

Toggle pillow for infants: Ctrl + ; (semicolon)

Toggle camera UI when sim is taking pic/selfie: Ctrl+ ' (apostrophe)

Toggle CAS BG mesh: Alt + ]

Toggle mirrors: Alt + [

Previews:

in CAS:

Hide CAS BG & mirror reflections:

in Live mode (for Camera):

note: you can use the hide pillow toggle to hide the phone object.

🆕 in Build/Buy mode, use caps lock to hide the lot outlines:

// FAQ

Issue: add-on works, but the list of toggle groups doesn't show up.

This is likely caused by my config (.ini) file not being installed correctly. Put the .ini file where the TS4.exe file is, which is under the /Bin folder.

Issue: Add-on failed to load with error code 193.

This is caused by downloading the incorrect addon file. If you're a non-legacy (x64) player and downloaded the x86 addon file, you will encounter the error. Download the right version (_v121.zip) and that should fix the error.

Issue: everything shows up & are installed correctly, but the toggle groups don't have any effect/hide the UI.

This issue only happens if you installed Reshade/Gshade and selected Vulkan/DXVK. You need to select DirectX 9 or DirectX 11 instead for it to work.

tagging @thefoxburyinstitute :-)

[teeny-tiny-revenge]

It's home cinema manufacturing time! 🏴‍☠️ Gonna put my pirate show on my shelf! (I'm doing an Arts and Crafts Project and I'm making it everyone's problem.)

After seeing how much they cost, I abandoned the idea of getting a Blu-ray writer for now. For the time being, good old DVDs is what it's going to be! My TV is old and not very big, so DVD resolution is gonna be fine.

It's been ages since I last burned a DVD. For the full experience, I'm gonna create nice menus and pretty sleeves for the boxes. Graphic design is my passion! Um.

Well. First needed to find a program to do stuff with. I'm a Linux guy, so I'm using Devede. (Which is free, btw. In case someone else wants to do a low cost spot of putting pirate show on the shelf.)

DVDs fit a maximum of 120 minutes of video. So, four episodes, I thought. But after a quick attempt, the program refused to do more than three (maybe because of the menu also taking up space, and four episodes cutting pretty close to the 120 min mark?). Anyway, three episodes per disc it is. It's a pretty nice runtime for watching the entire disc, IMO. An hour and a half, and then you can return to reality to realise you should probably eat something, or go to bed because it's midnight.

OFMD with its current two seasons has a total of eighteen episodes, which is divisible by three. You get the following setup:

Disc 1: Pilot, A Damned Man, The Gentleman Pirate - That's pretty good, Stede's introduction to piracy all on one disc!

Disc 2: Discomfort in a Married State, The Best Revenge is Dressing Well, The Art of Fuckery - All bangers. Great to watch together, our boys meet and shenanigans happen!

Disc 3: This is Happening, We Gull Way Back, Act of Grace - Many romantic moments, lots of great scenes, shit hits the fan at the end there. Alright!

Disc 4: Wherever you go, there you are, Impossible Birds, Red Flags - ... Pain and angst! What have I done!?! The disc of horrors. Gotta make sure to have tissues at hand when I watch this. But hey, it also has messy bun Ed! Small mercies.

Disc 5: The Innkeeper, Fun and Games, The Curse of the Seafaring Life. - Another disc with all winners. I love all these episodes so much! (You can watch this disc to recover from the trauma of the previous one!) But seriously, this one slaps.

Disc 6: Calypso's Birthday, Man on Fire, Mermen - Great combination again. Season finale! Love and excitement!

... Honestly, except for the psychological damage of putting all the most painful episodes together, this is coming out pretty cool. Says a lot about how good the show is. I actually really love all the episodes (yes even the painful angsty episodes of massive depression). Thinking about this little project really reminded me how much I love this entire show.

So, we got a tracklist, now menus, then we can burn this stuff!

I did the menu backgrounds in GIMP. Realised I have a big folder full of screenshots I took myself, screenshots someone else took and posted on Tumblr, official promo pics for the show, and I have no idea anymore where most of them are from, because I named the files according to what's on them. Which is useful for when you want to find pics (Need a picture of cursed suit Stede? I have files named that, easy peasy!), but not so great if you wanted to give credit to whoever took a given pic you used. (It's probably @sherlockig or @ofmd-ann or @blakbonnet. Please feel credited, your beautiful screens and gifs brighten my day, and some of them are now probably part of my DVD menus. Shrunk down and cropped, but, yeah.)

I originally wanted to structure my menus as having the title of an episode, then some pics from it, then the next episode, then pics from that, and so forth, but I couldn't convince the program to give me the necessary padding between the menu items, so I ended up just putting the episode images below the menu. Still like it.

Anyway, DVD menus can also play sound! Behold a crappy video of my beautiful creation (provided entirely for sound):

It plays Gnossienne N°5!

More crappy pics of my other disc menus:

Gonna make them some nice sleeves next. Some day. Gotta make sure they all work properly first. So. I'll be on my sofa, watching my DVDs. With menus! (Edit: here are!)

[carigm]

MORE INSANE THINGS ABOUT THE VR GAME

Vecna tries to get into all of the boys’ minds but he’s unsuccessful except with Will.

He tries to taunt Mike by saying to him that it’s his fault that El is gone but this gets blocked out by Mike’s happy place/memory and it’s of him playing D&D. There’s a rainbow dice basically wiping Vecna away in that sequence lmao…and you also hear Will’s voice. (Some people have already posted about it in the tag so I won’t add pics).

The part about the happy place/memory thing is super interesting because the writers decided to make Lucas’ happy place a memory of him and Max at the movies, even tho atp in the story they have not met. It’s set pre S2….which makes you wonder why they couldn’t make Mike’s happiest memory be one with El…

Another insane sequence is the moment where Will breaks out of Vecna’s vision…Will got a nosebleed in the real world and Mike is wiping the blood off his nose, and Will focuses on this to get out of Vecna’s hold and walk into that moment, just like Max did in S4. There’s a few interesting moments of dialogue from that sequence because as this is happening Vecna keeps taunting Will in the background. Lemme share some interesting screenshots.

The first is this quote from Vecna saying that through Will he will get into his friends’ minds…with Mike being heavily focused on….

This one is just crazy…Vecna saying “you’ll finally matter to someone, Will” and Mike’s all up on the screen lol

And this one is the most insane one imo. It’s the end of the sequence with Will coming back to himself, and Vecna is bothered that his friends (cough Mike) brought him back. At the same time he says “you are alone” Mike is asking him if he’s okay, basically proving Vecna wrong.

And that’s what he’s always been for Will, he’s always pulling him out of all his episodes, has always been his light.

I really don’t think Vecna is anticipating queer love to save the day but….lol

One last thing I want to mention if that even tho the game takes place pre S2, the characters are wearing clothes from all seasons, Lucas is able to see Max in a memory before he’s even met her, and Mike literally says to Will at one point “you look like a time traveller”

So I think time fuckery is basically a given in S5, be it inter dimensional time travel or whatever people wanna call it lol.

As for the canonicity of the game, they consulted Paul Dichter, who was a co-writer on a few episodes, including Will the Wise and Dear Billy. Make of that what you will.

[tellmeallaboutit]

knock knock (Raphael x F!Player)

Chapter 2, In Which You Meet A Tall Dark Stranger 

Chapter 1

SUMMARY: Careful which mods you install for BG3. Did you read the terms and conditions carefully?

TAGS: meta romance, psychological horror, smut, the character is the player, Raphael is after you, you wanted him, you invited him to our world, he accepted your invitation

RATING: explicit

AO3

Chapter 2

The next day, during your lunch break, you made another attempt to persuade Raphael to take his clothes off. The clock struck noon; your private laptop was on the right side of your desk, while your work laptop was on the left, Teams open and your mouse ready to show signs of activity from time to time.

The sun was shining through the wide open window, children playing outside. Idyllic. Nothing sinister could be happening in broad daylight with those happy sounds in the background. The horror movies told you so. Except for Midsommar.

Well, screw Midsommar, then. This isn’t Sweden.

"All right, I'm going to set some ground rules here," you said to the loading screen. "I can be as creepy as I want to be to you, because you're just a bunch of pixels, but you can't do anything creepy to me, because I'm a human being. Got that? Good."

The sound of your voice made you feel braver.

As you heard the familiar sinister 'you-let-the-villain-win-bad-player' music in the background, you covered your eyes with your hands and peered through splayed fingers.

Then he appeared. Just as you had wished. Perfectly naked, with a stereotypical video game six-pack and just the right amount of body hair. The orange lighting made his skin glow, and his flaccid penis, like that of the game's generic male model, vanished from sight as he strode closer.

Your ears pricked up to listen to the scripted monologue you knew by heart, watching (waiting?) for any hiccups or new animations, the YouTube app on your phone playing the identical scene for comparison.

Everything happened exactly as it should, word for word, save for the speaker’s nudity.

All good. You breathed a sigh of relief and spread your fingers wider to admire Raphael a little better. 

Same as always. Handsome and charming and completely imaginary, which, now that you thought about it, was the biggest part of his charm. 

"Ta-ta... for now," Raphael's signature line echoed through the room.

"Bravo, Raphael," you praised the screen. "You've done nothing creepy. You have earned your title of Archdevil Supreme."

After waiting for a response that never came, you laughed off your silliness and shook your head. Your laptop was overheating, giving off a slight synthetic smell. Should have upgraded a long time ago. Just need to put enough money aside.

"OK, screenshots," you said. "I wanted to take some screenshots. Do you mind, Raphael? Can I have your consent? They’ll help recruit more followers for you, my liege."

Your phone vibrated. The FaceID gave you a preview of the Discord messages from Queen-of-the-Bored, one of the few Raphaelites you'd actually spoken to directly and felt like you kinda sorta knew.

queen-of-the-bored: ngl that was some really funny joke, we spent the whole night trying to recreate it :-D queen-of-the-bored: you sounded legit worried over that voice message tho haha you: it was legit. check the reddit thread queen-of-the-bored: which thread

Ok, let me google that for you. You typed in the same search words as yesterday, "Raphael naked mod April prank," clicked on the thread from yesterday, and skimmed through the comments.

“nah not joking there is this naked mod for teenage mutant ninja""

“all dongs appeared MASSIVE on April’s first”

Scrolling further, you realized that was not the correct Raphael - it's Raphael the Turtle, not Raphael the Devil. Why was there so much NSFW content about him? What did people see in turtles?

You quickly corrected your search to "Raphael BG3 naked mod April prank," but it didn’t bring back any relevant results. So, you changed it to "last twenty four hours" just to be thorough.

Didn’t help. Nothing. You were the only to be called a naughty little mouse. The special one.

queen-of-the-bored: which thread dude??? you: my bad it was the turtle queen-of-the-bored: ??? queen-of-the-bored: I am slowly getting worried about you haha

Next step? Contact the mod developer directly? What if they have no idea what you're talking about?

Then what? What were the alternative theories? You've been hacked and doxxed to madness for that one Twitter post that got people waving pitchforks at you? 

There you go, you were scared again. Daytime, sun shining and children playing outside, but there you were, alone in your flat, scared again.

You took a deep breath and looked at the screen. "All right, I understand, Mr Archdevil Supreme. No screenshots. I'll uninstall the mod and I apologise for my disrespectful behaviour."

You couldn't bear to see Raphael's face on the screen again so you hit ctrl alt delete instead of Escape and stared blankly at the Task Manager.

Next, you uninstalled the mod that had caused all this trouble. Then you went to Tumblr and removed the reblog of Raphael in a cat playsuit with the tag "my poor miau miau". Then you deleted your bookmarks on AO3. Your Twitter account was beyond repair, so you deleted it altogether.

None of these actions made you feel any better. You grabbed a quick cup of shrimp noodles, but eating it only made you feel worse. As you tasted the sodium on your tongue, you came to a realisation: what you needed was to go the fuck outside.

You had been stuck in your flat and home office since the start of the pandemic, chronically online. Online work, online colleagues, online friends, who was the last real person you saw, talked to and hugged?

Your mum, probably. 

Oh yes, no wonder you were going mad. You need to get out there and meet some real people. You opened Discord, quickly scrolled past the sketch of Tav giving Raphael head, and typed a message: you needed to touch grass.

queen-of-the-bored: well there is Comic-Con this weekend  you: this is NOT touching grass, this is burning it queen-of-the-bored: true you: besides not going alone queen-of-the-bored: maybe Raph will keep you company 😈 

What? Such a strange thing to say. Or was it? Who the hell was that behind the screen anyway? Apparently someone called Sammy from Ohio. Supposedly. Wasn’t she the one who recommended this mod?

She was.

Come on, you're just letting your paranoia get the best of you.

queen-of-the-bored: oh BTW I found THE hottest Raph smut  queen-of-the-bored: mind the tags it's so hot but soooooo fucked up queen-of-the-bored: just read it trust me thank me later

Who the hell were you, Sammy from Ohio, Korilla? You put the phone down and started pacing around your small flat. It was not much to pace around, only forty-two square meters. 

At least you rent a flat in a building with other people and not some house at the edge of the forest. Strangers live below you, above you and on either side of you. They don't know you and you don't know them... but they were there, just in case...

Just in case.

"You know what?" you said to your computer. "I need a break. I need to focus on my mental health. Self-care, Raphael. I'm not playing with you. For now".

The moment you finished speaking, your phone lit up again with another notification. This time it was an email. You made a mental note to start managing your notifications better.

Did you enjoy your Devil Dick © - Natural Red experience? We know you will be back for more 😈 Check out the new...

What the fuck? Oh no, no, click away and make a mental note to never order from Bad Dragon again with customer satisfaction emails like this. It's borderline harassment. You ordered from them ONCE, as a joke, just to see what ridges might feel like.

Not as good as the smut had promised you,

Private. Private stuff. Between you and your bed drawer. Between you and your browser. God, how much stuff you have in your browser history. You should have used incognito mode more often.

Would that have helped? 

"That was low, Raphael," you muttered. "Or is it Haarlep today?"

You glanced around your room before angling your computer screen towards the wall, then retrieved the Devil Dick © from its hideaway in your bedside drawer. Your fingers grazed over the silicon ridges as you swiftly stashed it away in a box beneath the bed.

"If you must know, it was too big for me. Flattered?"

Crawling out from under the dusty bed, you looked up and realized for the first time that anyone in the building could easily peep into the flat if they tried hard enough or cared enough to do so.

Enough is enough.

You need to hydrate, you need to eat some vegetables, you need to start jogging again and you definitely... you definitely need to go out and talk to some real people. Maybe it's time to get back on Bumble and try your luck again. Who knows, it might actually work this time.

He wouldn't like that.

Where did that thought just come from? He wouldn't like it, who the hell cares what some imaginary devil thinks.

Standing up straight, you pointed a finger at the screen in front of you.

"Raphael, just so we are clear, you and I: I really like you. I do PR for you every day for free. You don't have to scare me to get my attention. You should appreciate me and be nice to me. I'm the best agent you'll ever have.”

Having made your point, you put on your running shoes and AirPods. It brought back memories of all the times you had jogged through the nearby park. Afterwards you'd sit on the bench and eat an ice-cream, watching couples, happy and glowing, watching families with children, happy and stressed, watching people living their lives in a reality parallel to yours, and then you'd come home and go into a reality parallel to theirs.

The AirPods picked up right where they left off last time.

I want to hold you close, soft breasts, beating heart, as I whisper in your ear

I wanna fucking tear you apart

You removed the AirPods from your earlobes and exhaled. This wasn’t Raphael's fault. This is She Wants Revenge, you have listened to it a thousand times. You knew the lyrics, they hadn't changed. 

You can't even listen to music anymore. Pull yourself together. 

Get some vitamins from the pharmacy.

Touch some goddamn grass.

***

You stuck to your digital and physical diet until the weekend, and as a reward, nothing happened. No oddly timed emails, no strange messages, no random phone calls. Maybe it was your pitch talk or the vitamins you started taking, but either way, Raphael was on his best behavior, and so were you. 

No Tumblr, no AO3. Didn't even touch Steam. Got into a highbrow podcast about the Roman Empire.

You set a new personal record for days without 'self-indulgence', as Raphael would put it, although that wasn't really the intention. Something always seemed to interrupt - whether it was the loud hum of the fridge (which was always obnoxious) or the flickering light in the hallway (which had been broken for over a week). 

By Friday, you had finally finished the work projects you had been putting off for months. The job wasn't too bad, but it hadn't been any fun for years, if it ever had been. You did the bare minimum to get the paycheck and keep the job, and your employer kept the paycheck at the bare minimum to keep you. If there was anything else you could do, you would do something else.

Still, this was probably the most productive week you had in years. You scrubbed your flat from top to bottom twice and cleared your wardrobe of clothes that no longer fit.

You were proud of yourself.

Gradually your sense of security began to return. You tried not to dwell too much on the incident with the naughty little mouse; if you didn't think about it, it almost felt like it hadn't happened.

On Friday, you plucked up the courage to play BG3 again, wandered through Baldur's Gate, avoiding the House of Hope for the time being, had a few fights, played the graveyard scene with Astarion (daring, but a small part of you hoped it would make Raphael jealous enough to come out again), and shut it down. 

Nothing out of the ordinary.

You hadn't planned to go to Comic-Con. For one thing, it was on the other side of the city, in the business district of the convention centre, so it would take at least an hour to get there. Secondly, going alone just felt... weird.

It was not until Friday night that a little voice in your head started to whisper, "Why not? Maybe you'll meet some like-minded people”. Make some friends you can actually touch (not in a creepy way). 

It's a better chance than endlessly swiping on Bumble.

Maybe you'll meet...

Neil Newbon. If you can get past the hordes of fangirls. Andrew Wincott. No, Andrew Wincott wouldn't be there; you'd checked beforehand. To be honest, hearing his voice might have been too much for your psyche at that moment.

So you decided to go. You went, and it was as fun as you had imagined it would be - that is, hardly any. The convention hall was huge and crowded, rows and rows of stalls, crowds and crowds of people. Live panel discussions, cosplayers, flashing lights, bright colors, chatter, laughter, very loud, very lively.

Raphael wouldn't last a minute in that chaos.

"Hell is other people," you thought to yourself, quoting Sartre. If you ever met Raphael, you'd quote Sartre to him too. He must know that you read intelligent books and not just fanfiction. 

Some people might be comfortable going to events and eating alone in restaurants, but not you. It's even worse being the odd one out in a group of odd ones. How come all the others had someone to take along? Where did they find all those people in this godforsaken city?

You talked to a few people and a few people talked to you. Nothing really took off. Your mind was elsewhere, to be fair. You were looking for something in the crowd. 

Someone.

It was absurd, yes, but so was what happened this week with the mod. You had met a few Raphael cosplayers, three at least, but they were...

Well, of course they weren't him. But they did a great job with the clothes and the hair and the make-up, and one had really great prosthetic horns, and you touched them and admired them and praised that particular Raphael for all his hard work in creating them.

They were real people, not video game characters that had come to life, and neither were you. You looked down at your jeans, at your thighs, and thought you should start jogging again, and felt even less comfortable in your own skin. 

Then Neil Newbon came along and things quickly became too chaotic for you.

You decided to take a break and walked down the street until you came across a cosy café - none of that generic chain stuff, but something that tried hard to be authentic with pretty flowers in the windows.

Sitting alone at a table for two, you looked down at your phone and opened the Discord chat because you came here to talk to some real people.

In the main chat, there was a heated debate about whether devils are allowed to torture mortals into signing contracts. Both sides presented arguments based on lore, edition contradictions, past precedents and personal conviction. 

A man's voice interrupted you as you typed your own very elaborated opinion of hellish law. "Excuse me, may I?" he asked, his words slightly muffled by the AirPods.

"Sure," you replied with practiced friendliness, not even looking up. That was always your default answer. It's not like you can say no to this kind of request anyway. 

People ask and do a lot of things out of politeness. That was precisely why you took the AirPods out of your ears.

The moment you lifted your eyes to meet the man's, you learned the true meaning of the word 'jumpscare'. Your body jerked upwards, the table shook and the coffee cup tumbled - narrowly missing Raphael.

Raphael. 

Not a man who looked like Raphael, not a man who was dressed like him - Raphael. 

You weren't sure if you made any sound or uttered any words. You probably yelped.

What you did do for sure was gawk.

His skin tone identical; hair slicked back just right; eyes uncannily accurate in hue and shape - down to every wrinkle. A perfectly realistic rendering. Not the uncanny valley type, no, perfectly believable. This is exactly what he would look like if he were real and swapped his fantasy clothes for a business suit.

So this is what it feels like to go completely insane.

Very banal, actually. You are having a psychotic breakdown and no one is even looking at you, except for an imaginary devil.

"Oh my, my apologies," Raphael said as he quickly grabbed napkins to mop up the spreading lake of coffee on the table. "I did not mean to scare you."

Oh, but he did, very much. You could not breathe, your chest encased in an iron brace of fear. It's you who needs to apologise, and apologise fast, and apologise a lot, and beg for mercy. Especially for liking the Twitter art of him being spit-roasted between Yurgir and Haarlep. 

If you only knew... you would never have clicked on it... absolutely never... all those posts you wrote... 

"Raphael?" you managed to squeak out. “I didn’t mean it, I swear.”

This must be how a deer feels in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

He looked at you, very sincere confusion etched across his handsome face. "Excuse me?"

You drew in a shaky breath, your nostrils flaring as you tried to catch a whiff of cherries under the aroma of fresh coffee, not caring how absurd you appeared. Yes? No? Or was that strawberry jam on his croissant? Have your senses gone haywire? Your mind certainly has.

"You're... you're here to cosplay Raphael?" 

The thought tumbled out of your mouth before it had time to fully form in your head. It was the only explanation that made sense... It didn't, but it made more sense than all the others put together.

Raphael moved closer, pulled up a chair and asked, amused: "I beg your pardon, I'm here to do what to whom?"

The voice. The voice was the same. Andrew Wincott's voice. The man had simply stolen his voice. Or had the man stolen it from him? The movements, the mannerisms, the facial expressions. This man could not be Raphael because...

Well, because this man was real. As real as you were. 

"Raphael," you explained. "From the video game. Are you here to cosplay... to play... Raphael?"

The man gave you a look as if questioning your sanity, and rightfully so. You were also sweating bullets - could he see the damp patches under your hoodie? You pressed your arms against your sides; wouldn't want him noticing.

"I'm hardly an actor," Raphael replied with a polite smile, "although there was a time in my youth when I entertained such ambitions."

He chuckled lightly and took a leisurely sip of his coffee. 

"I'm here to enjoy my espresso, nothing more. I... have never been particularly fond of..." he added with the disdain of a typical middle-aged man, "... video games.”

You had no response for that because Raphael wouldn't be into video games either; that much was believable.

"My office is across the street," he said, pointing towards the office complex opposite you. "Precisely there."

The golden sign on the building across from you, d'Avergni & Partners, told you nothing, except that Raphael had an office job and an office space and a desk and all the things that the devil shouldn’t have because the devil invented them to torture the others.

Raphael was dressed like he had just stepped out of a board meeting. A three-piece slate gray tailored suit, white shirt peeking out from underneath, silk tie and matching pocket square. Of all the modern Raphael AUs, you preferred the Professor one, you voted for it, you had Sucharide’s fic bookmarked. The Professor was more, ugh...

Safe.

As for you, you were wearing a hoodie with your university on it. A clean hoodie, but a hoodie nonetheless. What the hell else would you be wearing to Comic Con? You didn't do your hair. Well, putting it in a ponytail is not doing your hair. Why did you not do your hair? 

"I know, I know, you must be wondering why anyone would toil on a weekend," Raphael continued. That was the last thing you were wondering. "Alas, no rest for the wicked."

"Wicked?" you echoed. You looked at the people in the cafe, sure they were staring at the both of you, but they weren't.

"Oh," he chuckled lightly, "it's just an expression – 'No rest for the wicked.' You've never heard it before?"

"Of course I have," you said, momentarily embarrassed. "Never mind...sorry."

"You have nothing to apologise for," Raphael raised his eyebrows. "In fact, I should be the one to apologise for startling you. May I offer you another cup of... ah, what was that... cappuccino? After twelve? Tsk-tsk, young lady".

Not a single modern man could ever manage to say the words "tsk-tsk, young lady" as charmingly. That was Raphael.

"No bother, I can get one myself," you said quickly, about to stand up. 

He raised his hand slightly and put it down to halt your movement, and for a second you thought he was going to touch you, and if he had, if you had felt the skin of his skin, he would have felt more real and you would have died on the spot from a bursting heart.

"I have no doubt about that. But may I treat you? It would be my absolute pleasure”.

Pleasure. The way he said the word was straight obscene. You couldn't handle the word 'pleasure' coming from a man who had been responsible for more than half your orgasms in the last few months.

So in your daze, you mumbled: "Yeah. Yeah, sure."

Raphael stood up and walked over to the barista. She acknowledged him, so that's one point for him being real and you not hallucinating. Not only did she acknowledge him but she flashed him a goofy grin - clearly smitten.

Of course she is.

You have to take a picture of him. How do you take a picture of someone without their consent without being a total creep?

You don't. It's in the fucking definition; you can't. But you should. Maybe you'll open your camera roll and see someone completely different, and then you'll know it's time to call for mental health services.

Your phone was buzzing with messages, which you quickly swiped away and went straight to the camera. You took a picture of him from behind while he ordered you a coffee. The barista gave you a “fucking weirdo” look. 

Fuck you, you thought, you have no idea what I am going through right now. Then you switched to the camera roll and checked to see if the photo reflected what you saw.

A broad, fit back of a very attractive middle-aged man with lush brown hair, paying for coffee with cash.

You couldn't decide whether this made you feel better or worse.

When Raphael returned with your cup, you had something for him too. "This is the character I was talking about," you said, a screenshot of virtual Raphael ready on your screen.

Anyone who saw the screenshot would say, "Who motion-captured me?" 

Not Raphael. He barely glanced before shrugging and handing your phone back. "Hmm, I see some resemblance, I guess."

Resemblance? What fucking resemblance? There was no resemblance; he WAS Raphael! You were about to argue but he beat you to it: "Why? Were you hoping to meet this...Raphael?" 

His voice dropped an octave and he looked at you intently. He was flirting - openly, unashamedly.

"I...I was," you stammered out. "He's my favourite character."

Brilliant, brilliant line. Dear diary, today I wanted to meet Raphael, my favourite character from my favourite game. So much for quoting Sartre.

"Well now, I'm flattered," Raphael purred, causing you to wriggle uncomfortably in your seat. "I do bear some physical likeness."

That was a massive understatement. 

The man had a disarmingly charming smile. You tried to remember if Raphael had ever smiled like that in the game. It was mostly scowls and grins and smirks, but this kind of smile? You didn't think so. You caught a glimpse of yourself in his hazel eyes, and that was not Tav; that was you. Just you.

Not that you were unattractive or anything. Average. Maybe even a little pretty on a good day. You didn't like yourself very much. Then again, most people don't. That's how the beauty industry makes its money. 

You got your share of attention, some, nothing to brag about. Had two boyfriends, it didn't work out, you used to care, now you don't. Certainly never got any attention from men who looked like him.

Why should this man be interested in you, why? Ah, yes. Your soul. He probably wants your soul. Is it worth much at all? Is it worth coming all the way to Earth? You wanted to apologize to him for going through all this trouble just for you.

"So this event in the convention hall down the street..." he snapped his fingers as if trying to recall a forgotten name.

"Comic-Con 2024," you supplied. "It's huge in fandom culture. TV shows, video games, that sort of stuff.”

"Ah. Not my kind of entertainment - or my kind of audience, for that matter," Raphael said with a slightly raised eyebrow, eyeing the “Astarion approves” badge on your backpack.  "It does remind me of a deal I signed recently."

"Deal?" you asked in a weak voice. He nodded. "What deal? With who?"

"With who? No, I meant the Microsoft-Blizzard acquisition". 

Ah, that kind of deal. The words felt so reassuring, so real, the acquisition. Raphael would have no idea about these words. Raphael wouldn't say "Microsoft". You mean the real Raphael. What the hell is a 'real' Raphael again?

For the first time, you let go of a little tension. You took a first sip of your coffee and leaned back slightly in your chair. 

"Actually, I think these acquisitions are really harmful for the industry," you said. 

Why did you have to be so confrontational? You didn't have anything clever to say about such things, so you spoke the truth instead. Bad idea.

"How candid of you to say that. Well, I’ll be just as candid with you: I am indeed a villain." Raphael grinned. "I hope you can forgive me." 

There went your short-lived relaxation, which lasted less than a minute.  Raphael had just looked at you and said "I am a villain". Challenge him. Tell him it's him because, well, it's him. It can only be him. Tell him you know it's him, and then...

And then what?

"Everybody's got a job to do, I guess", you managed to utter the most generic phrase in existence.

"Isn't that so..." Raphael replied, pausing for a moment before finishing the sentence with your name.

You did not introduce yourself to him. You were sure of it. Absolutely sure. 

"How do you know my name?" you asked, half rising from your chair, raising your voice and quickly lowering it again. "I didn't tell you my name. How do you know it?"

Raphael gestured to your phone, which lay on the table screen between the two of you. Your work ID card was tucked away in its transparent case - something you hadn't needed for a while.

It had your first and last name on it.

"I saw it right before my eyes," he explained. "I thought it was a hint."

"It wasn't," you said.

"Oh, another faux pas on my part then," he said. "At this rate, I owe you something to make up for all my many transgressions. Perhaps dinner?"

You let out a nervous chuckle. One of your popular Tumblr posts had been an impassioned rant about how Raphael had promised a similar in-game offer but failed to deliver despite the many times you gave him the Crown.

"I seem to have absolutely terrified you, and that was not my intention. I insist on making it up to you. If you allow me, of course. I don't want to impose. Would you allow me to?"

He looked at you with the intensity of a man admiring a beautiful woman, his shoulders back and chin slightly up, trying to present himself from his best angle - something you've seen men do before, but rarely (if ever) to you. It was as if he could hang on every word that came out of your mouth, simply because he enjoyed watching your lips move. Raphael looked like he was in love, for Christ's sake.

Your cheeks grew warm. 

"Yes," you replied.

He kept silent for a bit, savouring your answer. 

"Splendid. Where might I collect you?"

It took you a moment to realise that he was asking for your address. Your personal address. Shouldn't he know it already, if he was Raphael? You replied as nonchalantly as possible:

"Why don't I give you my number and we can arrange to meet at the center?"

His expression darkened slightly; you've seen this look in the game before.

No, you shouldn't have said that. You wanted him to like you. 

Desperately.

"You don't trust me?" Raphael's voice dropped an octave or two, playful and just a little threatening.

You felt his breath on your face (cherries?) and the next second you stopped feeling your legs. The attraction that had been simmering inside you for months started boiling over.

Breathe. Pretend it's not Raphael. A man came up to you in a coffee shop and asked you if you trusted him in that kind of tone, leaning in like that. You know what the sensible thing to do would be - get up and walk away. And if it really was Raphael, get up and run away. 

You remained seated and stayed. 

"Just, ugh..." was all you managed to get out of the jumbled thoughts in your head; two coherent sentences so far into the conversation, and both of them made you sound like an absolute madwoman. 

Raphael laughed.

"Of course you don't trust me, that's only prudent, and you seem to be quite an intelligent young lady. But just so we are clear, you and I: you have nothing to fear from me. What is that number of yours?"

Quite an intelligent young lady, the words echoed in your mind and you remembered your naughty anonymous Tumblr confession: I would suck every last drop of cum out of him as long as he kept praising me.

God, everything you've read with him in the main role. Double penetration, double vaginal penetration, pet play... you weren't even into half of it. You hoped Raphael didn’t think you actually wanted him to do all of the things you read with you.

You just liked clicking on random links.

"Do you need something to write it down or...?" you asked hesitantly.

"I will remember," he said curtly. “I do not forget things easily”.

You realised that there was something far more frightening than anything that had happened before: that he wouldn't remember, that he would never call you, and that this conversation and this meeting would end there. 

So you carefully enunciated each number, then took a pen from your pocket and wrote it down on a napkin: it seemed romantic in the movies, but your handwriting and the coffee stain made it look like a secret message from the madhouse.

He grinned and tucked the napkin into the pocket of his suit.

He took the last sip of coffee and then took your hand in his. He touched you. His skin was warm and real and soft and everything you had ever imagined, his touch surprisingly tender. 

Your whole body responded to that tiny crumb of affection, viscerally. You hadn't realized how famished you were for a touch until that moment.

He lifted your hand to his lips and pressed them against yours. His lips were soft too, slightly damp from the coffee.

"I am looking forward to our rendezvous," Raphael murmured against your palm. "Ver much so."

Rendezvous.

In any other situation, a middle-aged man kissing your hand would be downright creepy. But this... this was a fever dream, an illusion, anything but reality. Because there was no way this madness could actually be happening to you.

Was it a bad thing? Was reality ever... this? So unpredictable? So exciting? 

You only snapped out of it when the door closed behind him, but you snapped out hard. You practically threw yourself at the next table, where a group of guys were sitting, their appearance screaming video games - backpacks and scruffy beards, Warhammer-emblazoned T-shirts. 

You grabbed one by the shoulder and hissed urgently: "Guys-guys-guys-guys." Your words came like rapid fire. "Tell me that guy doesn't look exactly like Raphael from Baldur's Gate? That one? On the street behind the window?" 

Damn, you sounded desperate.

"Ah, sorry, never played it," came the nonchalant reply before he turned back to his friends' conversation.

"Baldur's Gate," chimed in another, his face lighting up. "Amazing game. Looks like who?"

"Raphael," you said. "The devil."

The guy laughed, but didn't even look where you were pointing.

"Ah, the two-pump chump?"

You shot a quick glance at Raphael. His eyes met yours through the glass window, and they were cold now; his smile was gone. 

I didn't say that, you pleaded with him in your thoughts. That guy said that. That guy over there. I would never say that.

Your defence of his bed skills stretched from Reddit to Tumblr threads, you argued that Haarlep was slandering him, that Raphael was the best fuck there ever was and you personally vouched for that because you fucked him a thousand times in your head.

"Don't call him that, please," you whispered to the guy. He gave you a confused look when you pointed at Raphael again: "Look at him. The one staring at us. Does he look like him?

Is he real? Do you see him too?

"Ah yes," he admitted with a grin on his face, raising the cup of coffee to his lips, "he sort of does. Yes, he does! Well, I hope he doesn't...oh shit! FUCK!".

The guy's face contorted in pain as he clutched his mouth, jumping, cursing, tears streaming down his face. You could see the skin on his lips reddening and blistering.

"What the fuck?! It's fucking boiling! FUCK! "

The barista rushed over to him, spewing apologies as she tried to handle the situation. You took a step back and glanced at Raphael whose lips were moving subtly - two syllables that matched rhythmically: 'bye-bye' or maybe 'ciao-ciao'. 

It didn't have to be 'ta-ta'. He waved nonchalantly at you.

You waved back.

NEXT: Chapter 3, In Which Larian Introduces The Raphael Romance

[revalition]

OCT 15 - ENDURANCE Take the blows. Don’t let the world kill you.

Endurance!! I don't love him, but that's okay. He's just not as interesting to me as the others, and spearheads the fascist questline. that definitely does him no favours. but I do cherish all the skills nonetheless, including him

Quotes under the cut!

endurance fun facts from my spreadsheet:

- swear score of 8 - damages and heals an equal amount of morale - says "we" more than "I" (almost double) - Endurance says "sorry" just once, when you're about to die

the heart attack endurance quotes are really really sad. which makes them excellent. but it's too painful for me to look at and I want to be able to use these posts as references so they're being omitted!

anyway, endurance quotes!

endurance definitely directing the blame back up to the intellect group here haha

this is so funny to me. endurance begrudgingly letting you have both kim and dora in his hypothetical aerostatic

I wasn't sure if I should give this one to endurance or PT, but I really like it. lovingly adorn him in a ceramic shell

your stomach doing his job well

uhm, is that how it works honey?

what is wrong with this skill?? (so, so many things)

see, there's 'what's wrong with him' said with utmost affection, like when I look at electrochemistry. and then there's without the affection. that's the version endurance gets. sorry my guy

(if you have your badge he confirms it's not your birthday haha) just the idea of harry asking one of his own skills if it's his birthday...

this heartwarming dialogue about being sober! I'm pretty sure it's not implemented in the game but I love it all the same.

this is a godly endurance check for some reason?? (maybe it's a fail? I can't tell on Fayde...)

endurance no! they're all idiots...

hghh endurance ew

this is too funny. tutorial agent not you too...!

this is so totally not here just because volition said it (picking "wait, get who back?" immediately damages volition btw, poor bby) ultramarathon is such a funny nickname. fitting enough, I suppose.

endurance is so stupid...

also endurance compromised!

amazing. ty endurance. I'm sure that's making Harry feel better

alternate:

YOU - Oh my god, I'm going to die! ENDURANCE - Yeah, probably, one day. But not this very minute.

endurance knowing what a focal epileptic seizure is and where it's occurring and then just going i'unno when asked if it's dangerous... why is he like this.

also you're *probably* going to die one day? cmon buddy

instead of asking why, you can also say:

YOU - Don't you sass me. Get on with the story.

hehe. Zone of Irredeemable Catastrophe! :(

of course your gut does, it has to do with gary... savvy having no interest in it is wonderful

as always much love for this infra-materialism book shutting down everyone's methods of thinking (except inland's)

running reservoirs haha. extremely rare polite endurance

I *think* I understand what he's trying to say... Volition has it right. Sometimes you need to be unmade to heal.

stupid endurance...

seagull dialogue has to be in here cause it's awesome. the body remembers... (also endurance saying good boy??)

first endurance line is the antipassive (failure) and the second one is the success. I don't think he's super impressed...

this is so random, just in the middle of talking to klaasje on the first day. uhm good job endurance...

what a normal, straight thing to think! all the skills chiming in on the smoker is so funny to me

don it and live!!

I have two screenshot spots left so here are my WIPs :)

he's just in the background in the banner one (the second one). I think he came out pretty cool in the spring storm one though (first one)

that's it! endurance is my least favourite of the fys skills by a landslide. I'm very excited for the rest of them :)

[wildflowerdoeeyed]

𝑀𝑜𝓁𝓁𝓎 𝒪’𝓈𝒽𝑒𝒶

(the character overlook)

♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧⋆⭒˚｡⋆

these are all my opinions, totally open to the conversation about molly’s character also totally fine with people fact checking me, anyways i’m starting to fw o’shones

in the words of @krayzie-jelli the autism is autisming (don’t cancel me i have referrals to get tested 😔😔)

♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧⋆⭒˚｡⋆

small credit;

the red dead fan wiki

@/reaperqween on tik tok (for the almost ten minute tik tok about mollys outfits which i ate up)

^ her tumblr is @river-of-wine send some love yall want 💕

colour analysis & general observations

🪞💋🍓🌹🍰

colour theory is heavily used based on honor, the best example of this is dutch, he consistently wearing red, mostly on his back until guarma when the red is on the front, when dutch’s true intentions become more apparent, anyways onto molly.

🩰𓈒⋆⑅˚₊୨୧

COLTER

(i went quite quick through colter so im actually unsure how she is with dutch, but from what i remember she doted on him a whole ton, constantly staying at his side and at one point saying “dutch is all the company i need”)

💋though a lot of people relate the red in different characters with low honor i think the fabric, the pattern itself points back to her privileged past

💋the necks scarf being green, i feel like it doesn’t imply much at this point but as the game continues it implies way more

💋the rest of the outfit being blue means a lot to me, there’s never anytime molly oversteps or is aggressive to anyone (obviously except from the obvious with karen, i’ll go back to this later)

💋i’d like to note that she’s still doing her makeup freezing and starving in the mountains

🩰𓈒⋆⑅˚₊୨୧

HORSESHOE OUTLOOK & CLEMENTS POINT

(i honestly will end up mixing these up so i grouped them together)

(tbh my honest opinion is horseshoe is one of the best chapters based on the relationships in camp (tho sadie’s still going through it, you can’t have everything))

💋her first outfit has a good amount of blue in this outfit, her necklace has its first appearance with the red (i always got the vibe that dutch had gifted it to her as it’s more shiny than a lot of the metal in her outfits and it’s like a part of him)

💋she wears a thick belt with this outfit and the brass (?) seems worn, even coming from a wealthy background she holds onto clothes that look old and worn

💋she always wears white boots, she’s doesn’t have to do any work, and she’s not expected to do anything

💋the majority of the mornings in game, molly is constantly checking herself in a mirror

💋i’m going to be honest i hate this shirt

💋but i’d like to think this shawl has always been with her and that she holds it close to her

💋her outfit is quite shapeless, and i think that’s how she liked to dress personally

💋i would love to talk about this outfit

💋does this eat? yes, but i don’t think this was a honest choice for her

💋this outfit mirror mary-beth’s a lot, who seems to be dutch’s new interest

sorry for the bad quality i used my own screenshot for this

💋this outfit particularly ^

💋there’s now a lot of cleavage in her outfit and she’s dressing more akin to other girls in the camp

💋and the gold in her outfits bright, and with mirroring marybeth, I also think this mirrors dutch’s style, with more red and gold incorporated

🩰𓈒⋆⑅˚₊୨୧

💋her relationship with dutch is starting to crumble, i heard a voice line where she says that she loves him and he thanks her (?!) you wouldn’t see me again personally

💋but to contrast that there’s some scenes were dutch kisses her hands and they’re all giddy and cuddly, and they eventually dance when sean’s rescued from blackwater

💋she’s also not well received by a lot of the gang, we get the first glimpse of that when you take mary-beth, tilly and karen to valentiene and karen says that molly’s “too high and mighty” to come with them

💋she attempts a to interact with numerous members

💋she also attempts to talk to tilly, tilly quickly brushes her off as she’s working and molly isn’t attempting to help her

💋i also saw an encounter with dutch and molly where, he approaches, and honestly he could be covered in shit and molly would still look up to him like he’s a messiah. dutch says “should i compare thee to…” he quickly cuts himself off asking her what he should compare her with, even asking arthur if you pass by (he actually says that dutch could compare her to an idiot if she actually believes dutch cares about her)

💋 throughout clements point, dutch talks down to molly as if she’s a child and then will quickly back himself up by calling her dear (to which if arthur intervenes when she goes off at him, dutch says she’s just leaving and she’s stomps away)

💋when she approaches abigail about the subject of dutch, abigail tells her “dutch don’t love you, not in the way you want to be loved”, molly gets defensive saying that she doesn’t get what she’s talking about, to which abigail says she does (implying drunk john?) and molly stomps away

💋i think this is the first time molly actually goes a bit crazy about dutch, she calls him a degenerate liar and stomps off when dutch wont argue back and (i think) goes to sleep, he at least turns away from her

💋i think people who discredit mollys character (men) don’t realise that her and dutch’s relationship show early signs about how manipulative dutch can be, he dumbs down what she says then calls her dear, eventually he only calls her miss o’shea, which she obviously goes off at him for

💋adding onto this i’d love to talk about her character item request of a pocket mirror and her asking arthur if bad lucks a thing, i feel like this is meant to reflect how young she actually is, like how kieran still referred to his parents as ma and pa, and that she genuinely seems nervous asking arthur for a mirror and the superstition of a broken mirror giving bad luck (which i guess you could say she had

💋and i feel like her vanity that the gang and from an outsiders perspective that she’s self absorbed but i think she’s more conscious about how she looks, she doesn’t have to lift a finger and not having much to do around camp because everyone distances themselves from her (i’ll obviously elaborate more when i get to writing about shady bell) i think she’s left alone with a mirror, which i feel is more implied that she’s had for a long time, i’d say since childhood, you become more conscious the more you look at yourself and if your man seemed to be going for someone younger than you, you’d loose it too

(tl:dr - molly doesn’t deserve any hate, the girls that get it, get it, men don’t, im so ready to talk about chapter 4&6)

The poem

-

Uaibhreach

(the irish gaelic word which means “being proud and arrogant to the extent that it alienates & isolates you from those around you, leading to loneliness)

I was a girl - until your call

(i’m not going to annotate this everytime but the religion of this actually makes me feel like my hearts being ripped out)

Commanded me to cross the sea.

(she was driven out of ireland looking for freedom and adventure and she was enthralled by dutch’s charm, to be honest i always saw her “privileged upbringing” being her family owning a big farm, or in a big industry, a lot of irish people immigrated to canada after the potato famine, then crossed to america)

I've nothing left. I gave you all.

(i think she means this in, like, every sense)

My darling Liffey was so small.

Your land and love are vast and free.

(‘MERICA)

I was a girl until your call.

You stood so strong, and dark and tall.

You stole the heartbeat out of me.

I've nothing left. I gave you all.

Your lips enchant, your eyes enthrall,

Your empire is of ecstasy.

I was a girl until your call.

Your parasites and lackeys crawl,

(now do i think this is the gang or her fault that they don’t like her, i think its a mutual thing, they see her as a spoiled woman and she doesn’t help that opinion but i think she’s a young woman manipulated by an older guy, and that she thinks they’re all just jealous (which im sure she even says a few times)

Mocking a love they dare not see.

(going back to when she try’s to seek abigail’s help, or when she confronts karen later on and that she can’t see that he’s really not interested in her)

I've nothing left. I gave you all.

I sit in solitude and scrawl

These wretched words, and wait for thee.

I was a girl until your call.

I've nothing left. I gave you all.

[huganon]

hello! im sorry I left again for like a month? I think? My motivation completely went, sorry :’)

uh… the background is heavily based on the sneak peak with the sheeps >:) also no houses cause I can’t draw that..

I’m adding a keep reading because I don’t want you to suffer reading my next possibly LONG ramblings about the newsletter + sneak peak stuff.

RIGHT.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about it’s this!

‘1 Truth, 2 Lies

Want to know what will happen next in AVA? Well, I’ll tell you!

The only trick is that I like lying >:)

Only 1 of the following sentences is actually in the next AVA. It’s up to you guys to find out which one is the truth!

1- We learn about Purple’s origin

2- We see the Mercenaries interact for the first time

3- Victim builds a chicken coop.’

(yes I typed it out because I don’t have a screenshot :D)

Anyway, my ramblings and thoughts about this

Firstly, ‘We learn about Purple’s Origins’ is rather interesting. Because, well. Purple is from AVM not AVA. If this is the truth then:

-Well, we get to see Purple’s origins

-Purple might be in AVA

-MT might be in AVA

ALTHOUGH. We do have some sort of “evidence” that Purple might be in AVA. The short ‘Cherry Blossoms’ where there is a wanted poster of Chosen in the background while Purple is walking.

(do keep aware this could’ve just been another “hint” or something to AVA9(I think it’s AVA9? The Wanted Episode, y’know what I mean)

Secondly, ‘We see the Mercenaries interact for the first time’ This is simple. I do think that if this whole ‘1 truth, 2 lies’ thing is for real, then this would be the MOST likely one to be true. I don’t really have that much thoughts for this one, except if this episode is either entirely or partially about the backstory (either victim’s or Mercs) this would be most likely to be the truth.

(I may add to this if I get an idea,, Also please comment if you have a thought you’d like to share)

Thirdly, ‘Victim builds a chicken coop’ this personally is my favorite and it’s extremely interesting. Because well, WHY would this be an option..? Option 1 (Purp’s origin) and Option 2 (Merc’s 1st interaction) are something reasonable. But Option 3 (Vic builds a chicken coop) is really unexpected and peculiar. This option stands out.

Because I mean, we wouldn’t expect the villain(?) of AVA S3 to build a CHICKEN COOP of all things.

Personally, I would like this option to be true because.. victim building a chicken coop sounds funny and some what adorable(?) in a way. Maybe this is a backstory for Vic. I dunno.

if it’s not a backstory for Vic then I have no idea if this is even real.

The sheep in the sneak peak is telling me otherwise.. BECAUSE WHY WOULD THERE BE SHEEP IF VIC WASN’T IDK A FARMER-

(In this next part you can tell I was thinking random thoughts.. I was doing this while I was drawing so help :’) .)

Maybe this isn’t quite literally a ‘chicken coop’.

if we break these words up an search for different meanings of the words we come up with

‘Chicken’

‘A game in which the first person to lose their nerve and withdraw from a dangerous situation is the loser.’

Or

2. ‘withdraw from or fail in something through the lack of nerve.’

and

‘Coop’

‘a cage or small enclosure’

Or

2. ‘an organization, business, shop, or farm that is owned and managed by a group of people who also work in it.’

This whole ‘1 Truth, 2 Lies’ could be fake and all of it could just real.

I dunno anymore. What do you think?

Or it could quite literally be an actual chicken coop and I’m going crazy by saying it could mean something else.

Also.. next episode is in December according to the newsletter >:)

Okay bye!! Thanks for reading my probably useless ramblings and thoughts!

[soaps-mohawk]

CRCB Barracks: The Offices

And last but certainly not least, we have the office spaces. Price's Office, Ghost's office, and the spare office that Gaz and Soap use on occasion. Sorry some of these are awkward screenshots, it's hard to screenshot tiny spaces accurately lol. Again, most of it is base game except for the decorations and detailed stuff. I did use some unlockable content for the decorations so you might have to do some cheating for these.

First up the shared office space. Ignore the background I had to put the walls half up to get a good general shot from the doorway. The artwork on the walls is really just random lol it looked too bare.

Next up is Ghost's office. Pretty basic (as expected). He doesn't use it a lot (which is why we haven't really seen it in the fic yet) usually only before and after missions and deployments. (Agan, Soap painted the artwork for him). Like Price, he probably has more awards and such on the wall but those are hard to convey in the Sims.

And last but not least, Price's office. It's a bit more cramped in the Sims than I imagine it being in the fic. it's just a little more spacious. The couch of course has pillows and a blanket on it, as we know. Also yes, he does have a dog calendar. He thinks it's neat. Probably has more photos and awards on the wall, but alas those are hard to really convey in the Sims.

Masterlist of CRCB Barracks Screenshots

[the-interidiot]

MCSM REMAKE ANALYSIS

god I’m so UNWELLLLL ABOUT THIS‼️‼️‼️ /POS

I just wanna state beforehand the trailer looks AWESOME, I have some criticisms but I’m MOSTLY excited! I haven’t played the game in years though, so a lot of my info is pure memory and the power of hyperfixation . It MAY be inaccurate and if it is, I do genuinely want to be corrected!

[WARNING: LONG. I YAP A LOT BELOW CUT.]

Male!White Jessie is the poster child, which makes sense as he is the most recognizable. As much as I LOVE female Jessie sm, I definitely recognize M by first glance.

The animation looks MUCH nicer, though it’s not shown in this screenshot! It’s got a raised FPS from the original, and actually doesn’t have a ton of lighting errors anymore!

They’re adding newer blocks, which I like a lot - though it does lead to one of the first major criticisms I have. They need to TREAD CAREFUL with new stuff. The amethyst looks great, but I guarantee 90% of people are going to play/watch Block by Block for nostalgia, and an OVERLOAD of new stuff will take away from this.

PETRA!!!!! She looks COOL in this shot, and in general! The lighting is GREAT, and I appreciate her getting an action shot! The shadow is a little intense, but no complaints here.

Olivia and Eligard using redstone lights is a nice touch, and connects the characters well. :)

It also begs the question of if Olivia (in that screenshot) is pre-witherstorm or post-witherstorm, as she WAS always a Redstone engineer but she got a lot of her inspiration and materials from Redstone City.

THE CREW! This is a GREAT starting shot, though I will unfortunately tripe that I wish the shading was less heavy here. Lucas looks great, and I’m happy to see him! He was always one of my favorites. :)

Alex and Olivia having a conversation, while Jessie and Lucas just separately enjoy the situation. Lucas doesn’t look super pleased here, but he isn’t really happy for most of MC:SM, so…. (Free my boy, he needs therapy) /j

I can’t tell if Gabriel is going to die or not, unfortunately. This scene looks like just adoration for his hero, but it also reminds me of the choice to take Eligard or Magnus’s armor, which worries me. Gabriel dying doesn’t seem too likely though, as we see him in shots that take place presumably later.

I’m not sure, but I THINK the first place here is Mobcity! If it is, WOAH. It looks INSANE! (/POS) I loved Mobcity so much when I first played the game, and seeing it again made me giggle a little bit.

The second and third locations are clearly Redstone City (Redstonia? I don’t remember the name, sorry!) And Boomtown. I personally always chose Boomtown when I played, but I watched people play Redstone city! They both look nice, and the more terf-war style chaos of Boomtown looks nice - it almost looks like something Fallout reminiscent to me.

I have a FEW thoughts here. First - the obvious, I can’t tell what the drones are. I’m likely forgetting something story wise - but I can’t identity where they come from. BUT, the lights in the background look a lot like White Pumpkins mansion zoomed in, which excites me.

Except…. I don’t think those are from White Pumpkin.

THIS shot interested me the most of the whole trailer. Red arrows shooting in a snowy forest. This appears to be the same location as the previous shot, and initially I thought these arrows were from PAMA. But that doesn’t make sense, she’s in the desert.

These arrows look like ROMEO. Sure, it’s a possibility they’re the poison arrows from the Mansion, but they’re glowing too bright and in addition to the drones from the previous shot makes me think them to be The Admins.

So how is HE, HERE? And why was only one drone blue? (Also, keep in mind I DO know the difference between the drones and phantoms).

Speaking of PAMA. HOLY. JEBUS. /POS

This looks TERRIFYING. I love this shot because it’s nailing in a concept the original kind of failed at, that this robot is ENSLAVING EVERYONE. These people are drones - pawns to the perfect system. And some of the armor here is detailed, making me think some of them are named characters. I don’t remember if any named characters get taken over in the original, but probably.

The Temple! It FEELS big just with this shot, which amazes me. 10/10, no comments.

This is the one shot I took a while to identify. I first thought this was the Spleef area for some reason, then I thought it was the Mob Grinder due to the downward shot, but it seems to simply be the cart ride near the beginning of the game through the nether. (Which is a shame, because I would LOVE to see the mob grinder in the trailer!)

The Piglins concern me a little for the same reason as the amethyst, so I restate - PLEASE don’t rely on new stuff. This is justifiable, as Pigmen are gone, but just a quick warning.

I CANT tell who the person on the left is, but I have a few theories? This is a snow environment, so my brain thought is that it’s somebody from the White Pumpkin area. But it looks a lot like (from memory) Ivors ninja costume. I’m sure there’s an obvious answer one google search could tell me, but I’m dumb and don’t wanna google stuff.

It could also be an anti-PAMA person? I don’t remember that plot too well, but wasn’t there also a blue headset used to see through the red ones?

AND FINALLY. THE ONE. THE ONLY.

THE WITHERSTORMMMMMMMMM!!!!!

I have SO many good things to say, as well as a few criticisms, but they’re so small I’ll knock them out now. The roof doesn’t really look like it’s glass being shattered, it looks too thick. And the color contrast is a tad too high.

That’s it. The whole criticism. NOW, it’s so BIG. It feels consuming, like it’s not just eating its environment but also growing too fast for even the camera to catch up with. One of my hopes is that they don’t have as many full-body shots of the creature, because shots like THIS - where it’s so large you can’t even SEE THE END (no pun intended) amaze me. I love these shots.

Anyway this excites me very much and also gave me motivation to crawl my MC:MS oc’s from the grave and look at their dirty, cringy asses again. I might remake them TBH, those concepts were fire. 10 year old me COOKED.

[toskarin]

Do you have any good VN recommendations that have interesting or notable UIs? Most of the games I've played have stck with RenPy Standard or something similar where all the text is displayed through three-line bottom boxes one at a time.

hm... you didn't mention NVL style text, so just in case, I'll recommend that you try out Fate/stay night and Tsukihime (optionally Remake) if you haven't yet. those are what I'd consider to be very "core" VNs, and I'd feel negligent for not mentioning them if turned out you haven't played many games with that style of text yet

at the end of the day, the reason that ren'py looks like that is because most visual novels do (with a decreasing number of them being presented with fullscreen textboxes), so games that do things outside of that mould are notable for doing so

that aside! to answer your actual question, here's a couple text presentations I've personally found really charming

starting off strong by telling you I was fucking lying when I said this was a list of three games (I'm mentioning the Muv-Luv series first, rather than any individual game in it)

Muv-Luv sticks pretty close to the standard setup for horizontal textboxes, but you might notice that they're themed to look like anime subtitles. I've always been charmed by this, and it's probably the only mention here that actually warrants a screenshot just to clarify that it's actually a very visually distinct presentation

I'm not actually a Muv-Luv fan and the next game is one I personally enjoy more, but god, the presentation in Muv-Luv really is just so striking

Full Metal Daemon Muramasa features vertical text boxes, which isn't all that notable, except for the fact that these were retained in the translation (because characters use horizontal textboxes to indicate they're speaking english)

I actually really enjoy this style of presentation because it fills the space between two characters while also allowing for a wider background. when I'm looking for styles to steal for my own work, this one lingers in my head a lot

remember when I said I lied early on? I technically told you the truth when I said this was a list of three games. kind of. I'm mentioning one game and have to mention another game in the process. so this is a list of three games and one series.

of the two, Analogue: A Hate Story was definitely the game that seemed to occupy people's memories the longest into present day, but the presentation of Digital: A Love Story was much more striking to me. that being said, I'd be remiss not to mention them in a discussion on VNs that do interesting things with the UI

-

bonus round:

I haven't actually gotten around to CHAOS;HEAD yet, but I want to make an honourable mention of it either way because I really like the hard letterbox of the original release. from what I've seen, it doesn't seem to be present in CHAOS;HEAD NOAH, though

I can't recommend it or recommend against it, but I can say "that looks neat!"

[syaolaurant]

Hello hello, I love your work and was wondering if you'd be open to making a little breakdown of your art style?

It's really interesting to me and I love taking bits of different artists art style elements and incorporating them into my doodles to get better

Totally okay if you don't want to! 💜💜💜

Take care and have an amazing life 🤗💜☺️

Hello!! Thanks for asking 🤗 I'm not making a little breakdown of my art style I already WROTE A WHOLE ESSAY ABOUT IT!!

Sorry I exaggerated it a bit🥲🥲...

I was very happy to receive this ask, but at the same time I felt worried. Honestly, I didn’t know how to give you a relevant answer because  I don’t even think I have a consistent art style 🥲. Except for my usual chibi style which I feel most comfortable with, I feel my style constantly changes. So after going back to review my old paintings, I think my style is a combination of children's book illustrations and Japanese anime style. Many times I have received comments about my paintings looking like they are from children's books, and I agree haha, maybe because I mostly draw small characters in big settings and I usually use bright colors. 

My favorite artists:

My drawing style is mostly influenced by my all time favorite artists Heikala and Koyamori, I stumbled across their Insta accounts during my 1st year in college (that was 10 years ago) and from then my drawing style gradually took shape. I also admire Paulina Cassidy, mostly because I like her whimsical nature sprites theme. Recently I’ve been investing in Stephanie Law’s artwork, her coloring technique is so god-like that I hope one day I can reach that level…

Ideas and Inspirations:

Japanese anime/manga culture has had a great impact on my childhood. It was a dream come true for me to be able to pursue my college study in Japan. I think this journey greatly affected my current style. I draw lots of things from small doodles to funny comics. I'd describe my drawings as “silly and cute” since I love to make people laugh and I also live for the fluffs (Sometimes I drew angst too but it still turned out cute haha..). Aside from that,  I prefer making “storytelling” illustrations with colorful backgrounds. My favorite things to draw are tiny characters in big scenery, I like to create peaceful static moments that when looking at them help warm my heart and calm my mind. 

When making game fanarts, I usually take screenshots as references for background and imagine how the character will act in that setting. I just do what I feel comfortable and use my own judgment for composition … which… sometimes results in weird perspectives (and you know what I’ve just discovered the rule of third recently 😅…). 

Characters:

When it comes to drawing characters, I honestly don't know how to explain my style. I think chibi is my most recognizable style, apart from that I usually draw characters in semi-chibi (is it the right way to call it??) or simple anime style. I don’t usually draw characters with dynamic poses or movements ( that’s why I still suck at anatomy and expression 😩😩). I think I’m shifting from anime to a more cartoon style since I kinda have same face problem and  I’m trying to practice face shapes.

I think my character drawing style is most influenced by Akihiko Yoshida (who is behind many FF/Nier/ bravely default concepts), as I always draw my characters with chubby round faces and dreamy eyes. I made an example of how I usually draw my characters below.

Technique: 

Watercolor technique is quite complex so I’ll explain how I always do my paintings in another sharing post. I’ve posted part 1 of my sharing here. Generally, I love using bright, saturated tones and black ink brush pen or color brush to paint line work. 

. I hope I could answer your question. I’m definitely no expert, all the things about art I've learn was self-taught but I'm happy to help anyway I can. 💕💕

And you 🫵🫵 yes you dear sweet anon! I wish you a happy life too!!!! 💕💕

[doubleddenden]

Okay I was just sharing a tweet I saw with my friends, right. Then I realized the background- one of the possible decorations you can set for the Blueberry Academy League Club Room, the Dark theme- could potentially be a hint towards ZA. So basically I saw a gold mine in a meme, so thanks for accidentally inspiring me :)

1. The "hag" meta is definitely in for vtubers, so that tracks for Iono lol, but 2 moving away from that, 2. Follow me into this rabbit hole and look here, friends

Besides Larry being beautiful and questioning his life, a lot of us saw the portrait and thought it could resemble Caitlin of the Unova Elite 4 and formerly princess of the Sinnoh/Johto Battle Castle- fitting since Blueberry Academy is off the coast of Unova in the case of Unova Elite 4. Some of you probably think this is old news- be patient, I'm going somewhere with this.

The resemblance is there, especially in the hair in gen 4, but the eyes are different and she's holding a Banette or Banette doll, a ghost type. It was dismissed by many to just be a creepy little girl.

Except, I think it might be a hint or teaser. And before anyone dismisses this. Take a look at these screenshots (from Nintendo Life via google)

A lot of people immediately turn to the painting of Uluru- aka the rock monolith found in Australia, and many tend to focus on that for Gen 10 hints- myself included, of course, I've wanted Pokemon Australia since I was 10. However, what if I told you that if a Z-A hint were a snake...

...It would have bitten you. That's Lumiose Tower in that one sketch, a cleverly hidden tree in a forest of brighter colored trees. There's other stuff there I wanna look at, but unfortunately the angle is purposely bad in Hassel's art room, so you can't focus on it.

So if we go back to the creepy girl in the portrait, knowing that Game Freak already planted a Z-A hint that tiny on that wall, we could possibly go a little nuts and say that maybe she's a character we meet in Z-A.

If that weren't enough- Banette has a Mega Evolution, introduced in XY. So yeah.

Anyway here's what I think: Caitlin has an ancestor that used to be royalty in Kalos, or more fittingly, part of the Lumiose Aristocracy in Z-A's fan proposed time frame of 1850s Rennovation of Paris, or so. Caitlin has psychic powers, fitting for a Psychic type user- but Ghost type trainers also have been known to exhibit supernatural abilities similar to Pokemon Psychics as well, and Caitlin is so powerful that she either had her butler run the Battle Castle for her or sleeps most of the time as an Elite 4 member to keep her powers in check. Perhaps her powers are passed down and a result of a family line of involvement with supernatural Pokemon.

The girl in the photo is either the first or just another of the family that has some kind of innate power or connection to Pokemon in this manner- in this case, ghost types.

Lumiose in XY is actually not that far from the haunted swamp and supposedly haunted house/tourist trap, so perhaps Caitlin's ancestors are losing power in the aristocracy at the time period but still retain some sway, and most importantly could be the proprieter of ghost Pokemon we'll need for the dex AND an "alpha" equivalent ghost type Pokemon.

Picture this: there's a haunted mansion to the north of Lumiose. There's some old documentation inside that will help with your goal of rebuilding Lumiose- but it's haunted. Like HAUNTED haunted. It's layout kinda large but manageable, like Luigi's Mansion in a way. Caitlin's ancestor- maybe of some partial relation to Shauntal as well- helps guide you through this mansion that's infested with ghost type Pokemon.

That's an idea anyway, which admittedly could be a stretch from just a couple of screenshots- but do keep in mind that Gamefreak hid Gmax Toxtricity in their Alolan office in Ultra Sun and Moon on a poster at a bad angle. Not to mention they probably had DeNA use Masters to tease at Volo with Cynthia's Giratina Sygna Suit. Plus the Kitakami Easter egg at Larry's own gym before SV DLC was even announced, or using the English word for Blueberry- a North American berry, instead of the Spanish words for Grape and Orange- to signify Blueberry Academy being off the coast of Unova/America.

Sometimes their hints are right in your face, sometimes cleverly hidden, sometimes it doesn't even register until it hits- so imo, I think I might be onto something here. At the very least, a haunted house in Pokemon is LONG overdue at this point- we haven't had a new one since Alola in gen 7, although that was a destroyed grocery store- the others we've had are repeats of Lavender Tower or Lost Tower and Old Chateau.

... WHICH, BTW, A chataeu... is French :) the Old Chateau- haunted by ghosts, in Sinnoh, where Caitlin was first introduced. Come to think of it, in Hisui, there isn't even a NEW Chateau yet.

So now I think it's a possibility that Caitlin's ancestors were the ones that built the Old Chateau, and possibly used blueprints from one in old Lumiose to build it in the freshly colonized lands of Sinnoh. Blueprints WE help find.

Or, as a lot of people who made it this far are probably SCREAMING at me right now- all of this is nothing and the little girl is just a generic little girl made to be creepy on purpose.

But we like to have fun here in DD's theory corner. And it'll be so hilarious if I got some of this right in the slightest.

[purity-town]

Ask responses below the cut! Digging into Andrew/Alalia's immortality, the doll, and the design of the town/region it's in.

Yeah!! (To both questions!)

Although the blog header image is a screenshot from one of my playthroughs, it’s just a random one that I thought would fit nice enough -- I haven’t actually built out any of the comic’s locations in-game. I can share a couple of rough thoughts I’ve had how it would look, though!

As far as Purity Town itself goes:

Purity Town is located in the forest/purity biome and has the background of the lake and snowy mountains.

The Tavernkeep, Merchant, Nurse, and Clothier have shops in the main part of town.

This center area is paved in stone (think Pelican Town from Stardew Valley) and has a slightly raised area (think like a fountain design) for the forest pylon.

Andrew lives out on the edge of town more in the woods, and a little ways past his home is a fenced overlook that looks down on everything.

The Zoologist also lives slightly outside of town with the Golfer, but in the opposite direction.

All of Purity Town is built in soft, rolling forested mountains/hills.

Most of the buildings are constructed from wood and brick, but with the exception of the tavern are painted different colors.

Since I’m on the subject -- as far as the general locations go, Purity Town itself is the largest settlement, but there are several other, smaller villages linked to it through the pylon network. NPCs generally live in their favored biome when applicable, with the exception of some of the hallow/cavern biome enjoyers living in Purity Town proper instead.

The snow biome village is located up in the snowy mountains visible from Purity Town, and an unnamed village is located by the sea.

The desert village is built around an oasis.

The jungle village is built around platforms elevated just above shallow pools of water. The area is surrounded by dense foliage from mahogany trees.

There’re currently no cavern or glowing mushroom villages/pylons.

Andrew is fully, 100% aware of the existence of the doll, and is roughly familiar with its limitations. He was present for its making, and though it’s since been lost to him, he has a general idea of what happened to it (being a powerful item that fell into the hands of a demon).

He’s not particularly happy about it, nor is he really in a position to try and get it back, but it’s been a number of years since the doll’s creation and he’s learned to live with it. At least the doll’s existence means Chris will be able to use it as a proxy, rather than Andrew having to be there in person; it provides a little mental separation for both of them.

For Alalia, she came into existence years before the Moon Lord first appeared, when the world was more wild and dangerous than the modern day. So I don’t think it’s out of the question that she died a couple times from assorted beasts and the likes, particularly while she was new and inexperienced. While a violent death is never fun, being a creation/aspect of Terraria likely made her resurrection experience itself less unpleasant than it otherwise would be, and upon being revived she was a bit shaken up but otherwise unharmed. She would have had other Dryads to comfort her, which helped -- they’re functionally immortal beings, and through their long lives most would have died and been revived at least a few times.

And then the Moon Lord appeared, and suddenly when they died, they didn’t come back. The world is different now, and no new Dryads have manifested since, though Terraria has recovered to a point where she can revive Alalia when necessary.

Andrew’s first death was accidental -- he didn’t know the ins and outs of how his whole “thing” worked, nor did he really understand how important he was that he’d be resurrected where few/no others were. I’m not totally sure when his first death would have been, but probably relatively early in his life -- his mother/mentor still being alive at that point, and him still living in his home village. Him still either assuming he’s entirely mortal, or slowly beginning to suspect unnatural longevity.

Resurrection is unpleasant at minimum, a natural consequence of one’s entire self being pulled back into the living world -- depending on the circumstances, the experience of being revived can be worse than dying proper. Though from an outside perspective, the affected simply appears and reawakens in their home some time after death.

I imagine Andrew didn’t even register what had happened at first; I don’t have any specific ideas for what killed him the first time, but upon waking up he very well could have dismissed everything as fever dreams associated with a near death experience. Assuming that someone had saved his life, only to learn he had truly, actually died. And then having to process all of the implications of that, and his own trauma, and deal with his family, etc…

Andrew has never been outright blasé towards his own deaths, and tries to avoid it where possible; outside of the obvious inconvenience/discomfort, he’s still a human (more or less) and isn’t above basic instinct. But he knows now that he’ll be resurrected, and in the case where it does come up, he brushes it off publicly as a consequence of him being a Guide. And when push comes to shove, he'd rather he be killed and resurrected if that can prevent someone who is mortal from dying in his place.