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rineedagger · 7 months ago

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Some things I've learned this pasts twenty six years

Do NOT alter your form and size to fit into somebody's ribcage. Authenticity is the ground for a healthy environment.

Authenticity can't exist without self-criticism and sticking to your core values.

A peaceful solitude is just as important as a nutritious companionship.

We aren't born knowing, not even of our own self. Wisdom is the fruit of life-long learning, therefore, making mistakes is the key to be and do better (this reminds me of the famously quote "Do not be sorry, be better" from Kratos lol).

Doubting, asking questions, is the concrete to build a fulfilling life.

Remaining the same does not imply to be more stable nor having a healthier life.

Easy and good are not synonyms.

Enough with the label bullshit and the blaming. It isn't about been or not been normal/right, your life/truth is yours only. Do not try to make sense of it using somebody else's eyes.

Medical checking is important. Nobody likes going to the doctor nor feeling sick (and yes, I am talking about going to the therapist and psychiatrist as well). It is part of been human and you will never be alone in the process.

Cooking life actively and over a low heat, is vital to have an appetizing full of flavour meal.

I'm never going to feel ready nor good enough.

Life isn't right nor makes sense. Do not try looking for the missing leg, you'll lose yourself in the process.

Communication is important, but not all communication matters. It has to be direct, understandable and, overall, precised. Overcommunication is as bad as the total absence of it, if not more painful.

Accepting and respecting are not the same thing. One is mandatory while the other, even important, isn't indispensable.

In order to live and not survive, you have to accept your own vulnerability and fragility.

Drinking water is always the good choice.

There will never be enough strawberries to satisfy the craving.

Whoever loves you today may not love you tomorrow, and that's okay.

There isn't such thing as good and bad emotions, rather comfortable and uncomfortable ones. And we must feel them all.

Setting boundaries with yourself and your surrounding is vital to be certain that, whoever remains by your side, is because they actively want you and love you, since there are parts of your self that are not negotiable. If not, you will always be the coach, the therapist, the mother, the sister, the helper, the clown, the mad one, the weirdo, the mysterious one, the thug, the whore, etc., but never you. Consequently, these means an assured expiry date plus food poisoning (I don't know why I'm comparing so much with food...maybe it's because I didn't eat strawberries for a while).

Social media has become a demanding, violent and sick place, filled with expectations, constant stimulation, manipulated or sensational information, rule-following, triggers, distortions and the possibility of been reachable to people that you don't need in your life. It is okay if you can't live in it. Also, if you're the reactive kind, set boundaries immediately with how you manage your social media and your exposure and be firm with it (believe me, I couldn't stand seen someone hating my friend on social media and saying lie after lie after lie...it was REALLY consuming and it leaded to impulsive and shameful acts).

If you are the one that overthinks or re-read texts after a fight, delete them.

Having life-long or very long friendships does not mean that you should cope with every mistreatment.

Do not remain by somebody else's side only because you pity them. Pityness and no compassion is vile.

The same with egotistical interests. The other person is a whole living being aside of yourself, if you put your own interests and greeds as the motivation of that relationship or over it, is vile.

The world is not trying to punish you for any mistake you've done nor for any joy you've experienced. That is, indeed, the process of living.

Boredom is a freaking gift, and a pleasure indeed.

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beigetiger · 18 days ago

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Kind of a continuation of this post, but I want to talk about fascism in Skulduggery Pleasant and how it’s handled, especially since it’s so relevant to our world at the moment (escapism through books? Never!) and because my interest has been captured by the way that this series clearly lays out impacting factors, where everything comes from, how it gets worse, and so on. Lot of stuff to handle, and I’m actually going to try and organize this beforehand instead of just vomiting words into my phone. I’ll also give you all the text cut of mercy.

I might have mentioned this before, but phase 2 (and by the looks of it, phase 3) depict and focus on fascism within their societies. There are several examples of this in phase 2 alone.

For example, Mevolent is introduced back in Kingdom of the Wicked, but the reality of living in a society ruled by him is most properly shown in Seasons of War. His society seems almost perfect for the sorcerers that live within it, but that’s only because those who didn’t fit the mold perfectly were killed. He has thought police and is personally able to track what his subjects are thinking about. And, of course, the Leibniz sorcerers dehumanize, oppress, and enslave their mortals because it’s all they’ve ever been taught to do. This particular flavour of society is probably least reflected in our current society of all the examples that I’m going to talk about, so I’m not too stressed about this one.

There’s also Martin Flanery, the very unsubtle stand-in for Trump. I’m mid about him as a character, but I think the series did a good job showcasing the difference between Creed, who’s calm and calculated and takes advantage of his follower’s rage, and Flanery, who feels and acts upon his rage just as much as any of his followers, while also showing that Flanery is still a threat. His lack of calculation doesn’t make him an easier opponent to defeat, it just makes him more of a wild card. And his soldiers are very much a reflection of this as well. Flanery’s soldiers use Splashes to become stronger but often have roid rage as a result, and they constantly get into fights and kill each other, causing incredible collateral damage in the process. The cops who worked under Creed, on the other hand, tended to be a lot colder, sneakier, and all-around more strategic, reflecting the climate that they’re thriving in. This isn’t just limited to Flanery, but this series also does a really good job at depicting the sheer idolization that these literal fascists are regarded with by their subjects and how it effects others.

But enough of that, I’m now going to talk about the whole reason I decided to write this stupid thing: Roarhaven and sorcerer culture as a whole.

Roarhaven post LSoDM has a whole bunch of factors impacting it and it’s social development, but one of the more major ones is sorcerers finally being given a place to be themselves and develop their own culture as opposed to just adopting whatever the mortals are currently doing. Sorcerers didn’t really have much of an individual culture for hundreds and hundreds of years because they intentionally repressed themselves so that mortals wouldn’t find out about them and possibly try to fight them. There was some slight amount of culture in places like when Roarhaven was a tiny village or those streets that are entirely owned by sorcerers, but those places were often bitter and in poverty in order to make themselves go under the radar, and so would only have offered comfort to certain kinds of sorcerers who just want others that they feel understand them.

But although the Sanctuaries may agree that silence and repression of diversity is the correct way to go about their lives, it’s extremely clear that there are many sorcerers who disagree with that (see Mevolent and his followers) and it’s clear that the Sanctuaries never bothered to stamp these disagreers out entirely as Mevolent did to his, only punishing them if they tried to reveal themselves to the mortals. This left these people alive to spread their ideologies to others.

And as I said earlier, the war that covered nearly the entire planet and was somehow kept from mortals for hundreds of years is also a huge factor for sorcerers. Between that and the inter-Sanctuary war, nearly the entire sorcerer population is a war veteran who was stood witness to or even committed absolutely sickening acts that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. They have nearly nothing resembling actual functional therapy and PTSD is probably incredibly common among the population. The Corrival kids, the ones too young to have been in war, have had to grow up in these environments and being raised by these people, and we see so clearly in phase 2 just how much generational trauma impacts people and ruins uncountable numbers of lives. Sorcerers also pretty much never die of old age. A select few of them live to be old, yes, but even they always die violently. There is no peaceful or happy ending for sorcerers, their lives are dark from the beginning through to the end, even to the point where the knowledge that they’re going to die acts as a comfort instead of a curse.

The sorcerers have also watched mortals commit countless genocides and acts of horrific discrimination and destruction and have been unable to do anything about it due to this idea enforced by their governments that they cannot interfere with the affairs of mortals, and that the mortals must simply learn to be better on their own. Hell, a lot of sorcerers have probably been directly impacted by these genocides, and their friends were probably tormented by the fact that they could do nothing about it. And due to their lack of culture and overall opportunity to do these things over the years because of the war, many of the sorcerers (especially the students who weren’t soldiers) start to feel just a little too good about themselves and their people, pointing out that they’ve never done things like that while failing to realize that the reason they’ve never really done that is because they’ve never been given an opportunity to do so.

And of course in modern times, there are issues like climate change, impending war, and increasing discrimination that sorcerers still aren’t allowed to do anything about despite living in the same world and still being impacted by, leading to a sort of “I wonder if things would be better if we were in charge”, as discussed often by Corrival kids and sometimes the Sanctuary workers. They’ve all heard of Dimension X of course, but those who don’t straight up agree with what Mevolent was doing either justify the thought by claiming that they’ve seen his mistakes and could do it better (introspection, anyone?) or, in the case of people like Valkyrie, just shake off the thought and tell themselves that it would never work out in practice.

And how sorcerers view mortals, even the supposedly good sorcerers, is also an important thing to consider here. There are, of course, sorcerers like Nefarian who have a cartoon villain view on mortals and think of them as little more than cattle, but there are more nuanced ways of thinking about mortals that are still not actually that great. In HBL, Ghastly talks about how he’s worse than mortals because he’s been given this gift that elevates him to some status above them, and yet also chooses to compete in wars for seemingly no end. And that’s the thing, this way that he subtly thinks of mortals as simple creatures who don’t understand the glory of the world as he does, who’s actions are understandable because how could they ever know better?

I also think that Valkyrie’s perception of mortals is fascinating because of how we get to see it evolves over time. When Val is fourteen or so, she actively rejects the term “mortal” because she sees it as dehumanizing and elevating of the sorcerers to a higher status. But as she grows older and becomes more attached to sorcerer society as opposed to mortal society, she stops complaining about the term and begins to adopt that mindset that so many other sorcerers have of almost being a shepherd. Instead of protecting mortals for the sake of keeping other people safe, it sometimes feels more like a duty to keeping the livestock alive more than anything else, and she actively refers to mortals as bumbling fools who get themselves killed unnecessarily in HBL.

Now, this is where Roarhaven as a city actually starts to come into play. After all, it lends sorcerers an entire city away from the prying eyes of mortals, and there’s nothing that actually makes them go back to interact with them. They can just live in the city forever and have all the resources they need. But spending so long away from and never interacting with the mortals they’re supposed to protect leads to disconnection with them from the sorcerers. The sorcerers see their city as cleaner, nicer, more organized, and overall better than anything the mortals could possibly create. Sorcerers live longer lives, are more open-minded, are stronger and capable of doing more, and so they must be better than those foolish mortals who become more close-minded as they get older.

And of course the Sanctuary is supposed to disagree with this sentiment (emphasis on supposed), but it doesn’t really matter because the Faceless Ones worshipers who have been saying this for hundreds of years and haven’t been stamped out by the government get to spread this idea around to their fellow citizens, who refuse to go back and actually reconnect with the mortals. It’s like how fast transphobia spreads among those who don’t actually know any trans people; the lack of ability to disprove the information and ideas you are being given causes them to become real to you.

And now for the children, who have less life experience and even less memories of mortals than the adults do. The students are easy to leave imprints on, and we’ve already seen how even the best intentioned kids express some anti-mortal sentiments. They know that their world is dying and it’s the mortals faults. They’ve grown up in this world being told over and over that they are better and wiser than mortals, and have been taught by their parents and by each other to view mortals as mayflies. Nothing more than insects. Even people like Omen wondered if maybe things would be better if they simply took over. Quietly took the world off the mortal government’s hands and into their own, where their everlasting wisdom can lead them to a better future. Because the kids don’t remember what the war was like, and it leads them to be disconnected from their parents. And that leads them to find affirmation among each other instead, at a boarding school where they almost never see their families and where even the teachers will indulge in anti-mortal sentiments. It’s such an easy rabbit hole for them to fall into, especially since Roarhaven hasn’t developed any sort of system to keep the kids up to date with the world and politics outside of Roarhaven, and so they just learn from each other.

And the reason that Roarhaven’s government isn’t able to do much about the children turning towards fascism is because the government kind of sucks. They have this idea that they don’t need things like lawyers because they have mind-readers and lawyers are a measly mortal invention while failing to consider the fact that lawyers exist to make sure that rights are being followed. Except that I’m not actually sure that the sorcerers have anything like rights outside of loosely following what mortals have, since police brutality seems incredibly common and the cops seem allowed to just do whatever they please. They also have nothing like a democratic system and their top governors can be easily put under influence by someone with money (e.g. China and Damocles).

There’s definitely more I could say to point this out, but I think it’s already clear enough (hell, it’s even discussed in the series itself) that the Sanctuary’s current government system is corrupt, outdated, and leaves room for dictators and fascists to take over and for the people to continue harming each other with no end in sight and needs to be replaced with something that would allow sorcerers as a whole to grow from the trauma that has brought them ruin for hundreds of years and maybe even finally help to create a better world for everyone.

#hey where’s that meme from its always sunny with that guy and the conspiracy board #I am so sorry for writing this lmao #not checked for spelling I’ll do it later #surely this could have been worded better in some places. so sorry if I say something stupid by accident #skulduggery pleasant #i am once again skulduggeryposting #me? NORMAL?? who’s that #I need to check how many words this is #TWO THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED SIXTY WORDS YOU GUYS #I AM SO. FUCKING. NORMAL

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zoroara · 1 year ago

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So I was thinking about the Varia, and them calling out their attacks, Because most of them…. don't do that. or at least not often.

I don't know about the anime because my god am i not going through to check that that's so many episodes to watch.

But in the manga there is a total of ONE time when Squalo actually calls out one of his moves himself (in fact in the manga we actually learn all his move names from his team mates because he sure as hell doesn't say them once. In the manga this is the only reason we know they even HAVE names.) Which is when he is coordinating a team attack with Bel, Levi, and Lussuria against Enma.

And at that point means he may only name them for specifically for strategic methods so his team mates know what he's doing so they don't end up maiming each other.

This is also something to be noted to be shared with Lussuria, with his only named attack being in that one group attack with Enma.

Meanwhile Levi and Xanxus are the exception to the "We mostly don't do that" as they do this the most frequently out of all of the Varia.

Levi does so at almost every opportunity. But then again, you look at most of his named moves and it kind of makes sense. If you accidentally walked into the area where he was doing any of those attacks, you may end up completely fried. But he does so with moves that will generally not be helpful to his team mates to know, perhaps it being way too much of a habit at this point for him not to do that with just about everything or the fact that he's almost always vying for attention. Which is likely to his deficit but it's not uncommon for Levi to shoot himself in the foot.

Xanxus makes sense more sense with this knowledge as if you aren't fucking prepared to run you may as well be dust, however his use of them are fairly inconsistent, meaning he doesn't actually care so much about who actually knows what he's doing. Though the use of the names almost feels like it's a promise of death when they are used. Like "you know what's coming and there is NOTHING you can do about it." he typically only calls them out before what will be a direct hit, so it's almost like he waits until he's certain there were will be an almost 100% shot of him actually hitting the attack to choose if he's actually going to call it out.

Someone who probably SHOULD use the name of his attacks is Bel, due to just how much it controls the field, and would be so easy to shred his team mates, but out of laziness/apathy simply doesn't. The only time he calls it out beforehand is also when he's coordinating attacks. Either with Levi in future arc, or when they were attacking Enma. It seems though the actual names of his attacks otherwise, like with Mink's attack that shows up after preformed are actually only flavour text for our sake and not something he actually says, unlike the others who we get their named attacks through someone or themself saying them.

Mammon is interesting, because the vast majority of their attacks have no names even during their battle the most they call out is "Illusion!", which you think would probably be very very bad for the Varia since illusions affect so very much around them. Until you remember, none of them gave a shit about the illusions they were seeing, that knowing that it's an illusion is probably all they actually need. However when they get their curse unbroken it's much more consistent, taking time to make sure even their team mates know that they're also in danger of Mirage V. Though it's likely more that the ones like Oroborus fall into a more similar vein of them purposely trying to add flare to attacks now that they're at full power and are fighting against someone they kind of feel like they NEED to overshadow.

Now if only Fran actually fought.

This is very much partial speculation of intention due to frequency so, you know how it is. I just think these are kind of interesting things, especially when I notice a lot of people when writing Squalo usually have him call out the attack names himself.

#khr #khr analysis #khr headcanons #varia

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advent-if · 1 month ago

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I time ago I asked about the powers customization. Now I realized I could also ask about the appearance customization you have in mind.

I expect the classic skin tone, hair color, eye color and hair length and texture. But will you include more? As in: height, body type, facial hair, piercings, tattoos, etc?

I think it's fine if you don't include some of the latter. Height is often not too relevant (although I like to play with very tall MC's who tower over everyone, but are also incredibly kind and friendly), but maybe it could have some effect on certain fights. I think I the forgotten one has one single choice where success relies on picking a combat option that matches the height of the MC.

Body type is an interesting case. For instance, I would assume a more athletic body type by default on most MC's. However, more can be done on that regard. After all, a superhero can be muscular and buff, or it can be lithe and graceful. And a more overweight superhero can be fun too, as is not what most people would expect. Of course, other than flavour text, body types could easily be turned into minor stats. For example, a buff or debuff to strength or speed depending on body mass (muscular and fat characters being slower but stronger, while thinner and graceful characters being weaker but faster). Of course, it's up to you if you decide to make body types customizable, and if they will affect any stats you may be planning to use for the game. I think the stats ideas applies to height also.

(I also thought about the possibility of having an 'Intimidation' stat, or similar. Which would depend on how big MC is, plus another factors. I think One Knight Stand has this feature).

I'm also curious if you have considered the customization of the hero costume. I do guess it would be different based on the background. A hero without powers has different needs than one with, after all. Or maybe you are planning something more akin to what Fallen Hero does with the villain suit? In the sense that it has like 4 appearance types, and some specializations when it comes to combat. Instead of something more in detail, like Unsupervised, I think, where you can choose colors, and symbols, and basically customize the costume from top to bottom (I think it was Unsupervised, although I played the demo a long while ago, so I may be remembering wrong).

Sorry for the length of this ask. All of the stats ideas are mostly me writing what I'm thinking, and not asking for them. I don't even really consider them to be a suggestion, more of sharing ideas. I guess. I just thought it made sense to conflate those with the original purpose of asking about appearance customization.

Have a nice day!

i find that personalisation is such an important part of ifs so i'm going quite deep into it, not just general physical characteristics but also finer details like those you mentioned!

regarding height and body type, my plan is to allow a base level of customisation that would be slightly altered in cases of MCs with powers. on top of your base customisation there's an added bodily effect of your chosen power, e.g. super strength as a power would cause MCs to have bulkier and more toned muscles than other people of the same chosen body type. i want for players to be able to play with the kind of MC they want and for it to "make sense" at the same time!

as of now gameplay is largely strategy based, so choosing the right options that play to your strengths is the way to win a battle! successful choices are based more so on MC's powers/abilities (for orphan route MCs, the features you embed in your suit) rather than your body type. for each battle a health stat comes into play, and the amount of damage you incur for a given opposing move is also dependent on this to some extent.

buffs and debuffs would come into play for situations where your given superpower proves to be a(n) advantage/disadvantage. going back to super-strength MCs, they'd have a natural debuff in situations where agility and speed is required, so to succeed they would have to find ways to get around that. training level also plays a role in success! the main mantra is: play to your strengths and work around your weaknesses.

your hero costume is definitely customisable lol it's a big part of developing your identity as a hero. the better you get the more features you can implement into your suit. for the orphan route the player's choices as to what features to embed in the suit are what decide your abilities.

hope that cleared stuff up!

#asks #gameplay #advent if

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strixcattus · 1 month ago

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Stuff about the narrator, stuff about the narrator...

There's this moment with Snowdrake's mum in the true lab "you laugh and keep laughing, it's so funny you can't stop, tears run down your face", so it seems that laughing off or laughing at bad things might be a habit, especially since apart from the puns, other topics for jokes include

Cain's deathbed ("If you laid down here, you might never get up")

A child who "slept in the soil" (though the other "dirty jokes" you can get here are two children playing in a muddy flower garden and a child who ate pie with their hands...so those were nicer, at least)

Frisk's imminent death, multiple times (like a wry joke about each bomb with Mettaton or checking the forcefields)

"Smells like nightshade and bleach" (when fighting whimsalot, is that a joke even?)

"If you're cuter, monsters won't hit you as hard" (explains why accessories raise defence but it's terrible phrasing. In the demo it was just "monsters will be reluctant to hit you" much better)

Putting 5 punch cards in a box will result in Frisk making a smiley face with them, and then when you take one out and say "HaPPineSs Is fLEetinG" because they're a loser edgelord

Serious mode

In certain battles, the jokey item names will be removed and the flavour text will get silent. This happens only three times, when Tori stops attacking and starts saying she can't save even a single child, during the entire duration of the Asgore fight and during Asriel's breakdown (and of course the rest of Asriel's fight is not in serious mode, when they're calling out the attack names, the tone there is excited and childish and playful)

Oh, and Asriel's phonecall, when the narrator says "it's a voice you have never heard before", the line comes out slow, double spaced like the narrator's shocked to hear him. Due to fun value events, you can get a random call from Alphys before you meet her but that doesn't prompt the same reaction, so maybe it's not an "unfamiliar" voice that does it?

When fighting Asgore, after like the third time trying to talk, the narrator will say "seems like talking won't do any more good" every time, except for the 9th time where the line is "seems all you can do is FIGHT", it changes back on the 10th time.

"statistics determine everything about you. Everything you are is but a slave to these tiny numbers." From the demo handbook, numbers, statistics, get everything to the highest it can go, yeah...

Remember me talking about the humans save files, yeah? Well, the first one, the empty one, it jumps into action during Frisk's run and while it still never resets, the file autosaves at certain points.

Seeing as the narrator isn't omniscient, some things they know start to stick out, like knowing where Cain died or "It's a family photo. Everyone is smiling." We saw what looked like a photo with them, didn't we? everyone else was smiling but Cain had their face covered in flowers...

In hard mode, Tori actually makes snail pie and Frisk makes a face but narry still thinks it smells wonderful, this is just funny because the narrator describes snail pie as an acquired taste (as in something you grow to like through eating it over and over) and Tori sure makes a lot of them

The narrator really does like Undyne calling her "the heroine who never gives up" and being generally rather gushy and complimentary (To the point where it almost comes across as mean to Frisk, unlike MK, they know full well that Frisk is Undyne's target, know Frisk can hear them and still gush about Undyne constantly, harsh). It's almost like Undyne is their favourite monster or their idol in the same way Papyrus's is Asriel, in life, Asriel didn't want to kill anyone even as they struck at him, and Papyrus never kills Frisk (he's the only one who fights and doesn't kill, even Tori can if you're not careful).

And well... Undyne is more like...Cain? The one willing, even happy, to kill six humans for the sake of monsterkind's freedom. Running a child through with a spear, poisoning oneself with a plant that makes you vomit blood, not for the faint of heart but someone has to make hard choices, right?

Sometimes the Narrator can be pretty bitter and angry, acting as if the pacifist route will amount to nothing worthwhile, "you gave the cheapest gift of all... friendship", they say Frisk's offers of friendship are cheap and worthless lip service, "try as you might, you continue to be yourself" they initially think Frisk staying themselves is a bad thing. They once open a book to the exact page that shows humans in the worst light possible, "here's a random page" when it's normally "you open to the middle" "fearful of further attacks, we retreated", they don't like Frisk, (someone made a graph of the way Narrator treats Frisk over time, they fling a lot of insults in the ruins). They don't like Frisk, they don't like humans in general, that's why they like Undyne!

The coffin was empty, right? So where are they buried?... Well it is a custom to put the remains of a monster on/near their favourite thing so their essence can live on there, and Tori deliberately planted a patch of Cain's favourite flowers (she has seeds in a drawer, remember?) in the ruins where we first fall? Are they buried there? Did poor Frisk fall on the misanthropic child's grave, Frisk sure has enough determination to revive a ghost, don't they? And the right colour soul?

And of course, saving the lost souls seems to take knowing them personally? Sharing good memories? But Frisk doesn't know Asriel and has no good memories to speak of, so how is he saved? ...Well, we do see someone's memories every time we die or fall unconscious right? Maybe they can help?

It's the first human isn't it

I've just gotten back to the story of the first human in my current run and I feel like it makes more sense that Asriel ended up in a flower given that he died in the garden and his dust was scattered there. So if the human was buried under the flowers we fall onto at the start of the game...

Why the hatred of humans, though, then? Just because of what happened to Asriel?

#I feel like I've missed half of these points of narration...#I didn't often use the [Check] action because I was too busy trying to not die #but even some of the others...#what do you mean there's a photo

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tripleyeeet · 5 months ago

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001

SUMMARY: While hanging out with Satoru, Hitomi "runs into" an old friend. PAIRING: Nanami Kento/Sato Hitomi (OC) WARNINGS: Nothing really. Unless you count Satoru being a little shit disturber. A/N: It's been approx. eight years since I've posted anything. So, please go easy on me. I'm a little rusty. :') Also Kiko credits go to @gunslingerorchid because she's bound to properly pop up in this fic again.

MASTERLIST / SOUNDTRACK

“So, I got an interesting phone call last night.”

Before Hitomi even looks up, she can feel the smirk spreading across Satoru’s lips. His never-ending need to inherit a sense of mischief wherever he goes flickering through the air —forcing her to look up, completely unimpressed and already well aware this conversation is headed nowhere.

“What do you mean interesting?” she asks anyway, watching him merely shrug his shoulders. Prompting her to roll her eyes and reach into the bag of candy resting on the bench between them. “You can’t just say that and not elaborate, man.”

Popping the candy into her mouth, she feels it click against her teeth, making her cringe just as Satoru snorts and reaches for one of his own. “Sure I can.”

“I mean you could.”

He raises a brow. “Or?”

“Or you could —oh, I don’t know— not be a jerk and just tell me.”

Smiling back, she tentatively bites down on the sweet, feeling part of it crack against her molars before it’s inevitably ground into nothing but sugary dust. Its flavour doing little to rid the sour taste of Satoru’s continued antics.

“What’d be the fun in that though?”

All she does is scoff and avert her gaze, choosing instead to survey the park that they’re in, to distract herself. Knowing all too well if she gives in to his demands she’s bound to be stuck there for hours repeatedly guessing the answer until he relents.

It’s what always happens when he’s got information. Especially the kind that’s either valuable or embarrassing. And considering Hitomi doesn’t care much for the former, she unfortunately assumes it’s the latter.

“Shoko told me about that curse you took on yesterday.”

Her eyes don’t meet his when she speaks. Instead, they scan the length of the pathway in front of them to survey the bodies that pass. Pinpointing certain ones with feigned interest to pass the time until Satoru releases a sigh.

“Hardest one I’ve had in a long time.”

He sounds overly satisfied. The tone of his voice nonchalant despite the topic, which makes Hitomi frown and relent, giving his face a once over —watching the way it curls to reveal the most gratified expression she’s certain she’s ever seen.

“You brag about it to Kiko?”

He’s shoving her before she can even think to smirk. His palm heavy against her shoulder as he jostles her to the left. “No, I bragged about it to everyone.”

“But you bragged to her first, yeah?”

He doesn’t respond, which Hitomi knows means she’s won. A feeling of satisfaction spreading across her own lips as she pops another candy into her mouth. Allowing herself to savour it a bit more than the last as she triumphantly crosses her arms over her chest.

At which point, there’s nothing but silence. Aside from the busy background noise of the park, neither she nor Satoru speak on account of the fact that they’re apparently fighting now. The petty war amongst them blooming to life as he pulls out his phone and furiously begins to text. His fingers gliding across the screen until he suddenly stops and looks over.

“You hungry?”

Almost immediately she’s skeptical of the switch-up, specifically due to the calmness in his features and how the obvious irritation at her comment has somehow disappeared at the drop of a hat. There’s a part of her that knows whatever he’s planning is retaliatory. But regardless, she ends up agreeing to it. Choosing to ride the waves rather than fight them as he pockets the bag of candy before standing to stretch.

“There’s this cafe a couple blocks back,” he suggests. Then, he proceeds to talk the entire way there, rattling off an endless sea of details about his aforementioned exorcism. Explaining all the various tips and tricks he uses to distract and strike —things she already knows how to do but listens to anyway, hoping that her good behaviour will aid her through whatever torment he’s more than likely plotting in his head.

Because sometimes Satoru can be merciful. If you have the pride to give him exactly what he wants, there have been occasions where he’s been known to double back. Or at least, to lessen the blow, which Hitomi hopes is the case for her as they enter the cafe, settling at the back of the line. Both of them curiously glancing around the building in search of a table.

Because, like always, the place is jam-packed. Every table appearing completely occupied by all the various groups huddling amongst one another with coffee and snacks. All of them lost in their own little words just like her and Satoru as he asks what she wants.

“A latte, I think,” she muses then, lazily glancing up at the board to see all the usual menu items —wondering maybe if she should switch things up before deciding against it.

“Want a croissant or something?”

As he starts to pull out his wallet they take a couple of steps forward, following the flow of the line as searches for his debit card, inevitably signalling that it’s on him when he finds it.

“Maybe just a cookie,” she decides, watching him nod out of the corner of her eye.

She can feel him plotting. Regardless of how relaxed he seems, she can feel that familiar voice of reason at the back of her mind telling her that something’s up. And that, whatever it is, it’s coming, so be prepared.

“What kind?”

“Oatmeal chocolate.”

He scrunches up his face in disgust before they get to the till and he orders, reciting hers first before getting himself something she doesn’t quite hear because she’s too busy scanning the cafe again. Narrowing her eyes to search through the sea of bodies, wondering what exactly it is that he’s planning.

Because truthfully, Satoru’s a creative guy. The kind of person who can enact a good solid dose of revenge with little prep time. Which is why she’s being so cautious as she follows him towards the handoff plane; her fingers nervously playing with the strap of her crossbody bag. Her mind racing through plot after wicked plot until he’s handing her her cup of coffee and leading them toward the patio outside.

“Surprised they’ve got room for us.”

He says it like a snide remark —like he’s already amping up the mockery as they both sit down across from each other, staring with cautious eyes. Both of them refusing to look the other way as they simultaneously take a sip of their drinks.

“Seems awfully convenient, huh?”

“I know, it’s crazy.” He lets out a chuckle and readjusts his position in the chair, allowing his body to appear more relaxed. “Guess we got lucky.”

She knows luck’s got nothing to do with it, but she nods anyway. Then, she mirrors his position by slouching in her chair. Allowing her spine to settle even though she can feel her muscles growing stiffer by the second. The anticipation of whatever he’s planning weighing down her mind as she tries to think of what it could be.

Right out of the gate, she assumes it’s related to the phone call. Considering he wouldn’t have mentioned it if it wasn’t important, she begins to mentally list off potential callers. Names she wouldn’t initially think to jump to until the sound of a heavy sigh behind her makes her jump.

“Nanami!”

Suddenly, a rush of discomfort hits her stomach. As Satoru jumps to his feet, practically tripping over the chair to her right, she can’t help but feel a bit sick. Almost dizzy as she follows her friend’s movement —watching the way his body practically ploughs into the chest of a much different-looking Kento to the one she was once familiar with.

“Should’ve known it wouldn’t be just us.”

His voice is just as low and unemotional as she remembers it, causing her to turn away and reach for her cup to take a much-needed sip. All while trying her best not to let his comment get to her as Satoru laughs and starts to throw together some bullshit story about how he’d run into Hitomi here.

Which stupidly, she doesn’t comment on. Or rather, can’t, thanks to the paralyzing sensation of Kento’s presence and how even just the thought of making eye contact makes her want to rip off her own skin.

“Figured you two might want to catch up so I invited her to join.”

Despite the tension, Kento still manages to hum. Low and slow before he gives into Satoru’s wordless demands by sitting down next to her, offering her a questionable look that she continues to ignore. Unable to move thanks to the realization that he’s here, sitting right next to her after losing contact. Staring at her behind foreign shades that cover his menacingly familiar eyes.

“So, have you talked to Yaga yet?”

As soon as Satoru speaks, Hitomi glances between them. Her head rapidly moving, wondering what exactly Yaga has to do with this.

“I had a meeting with him this morning.”

“And?” Satoru smiles at Kento, but his eyes flicker over to Hitomi, taking in the confused expression that continues to develop across her face. Relishing in the way her eyes angrily narrow and her lips begin to part, wanting desperately to speak.

“I start training tomorrow.”

“Training?”

Before she can stop herself, she’s glaring at Kento. Every feature of her face twisting to resemble something bordering on annoyance and betrayal. The unfortunate mixture of feelings prompting Kento to let out a huff and nod —refusing to speak.

“Yeah, didn’t I tell you? Nanami’s back in the game.”

She wants to strangle her friend as she watches him clap Kento on the back. Even more so when he proceeds to explain the aforementioned phone call from last night.

“Salaryman over here got a taste of the action again and decided to come back,” he says, watching as Kento then proceeds to roll his eyes and cross his arms over his chest. A response that Hitomi knows is his way of silently telling to him to shut the fuck up.

Considering it’s pretty similar to what she usually does too, she can tell then that there’s more to it than Satoru’s letting on. The details of his rather hefty life decision continuing to remain in the dark as they sit together, stirring in silence as they glance at one another.

Which quickly becomes borderline unbearable. Especially when Hitomi realizes just how curious her eyes can be. Their desire to glance at Kento and his new look becoming more of an issue the longer they sit.

At which point she realizes that it’s been nearly four years since she’s seen him. Meaning, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he looks like an entirely new person. With his well-groomed hair and fancy, new suit, it’s obvious that he’s changed —developed in a way she’s bound to be unfamiliar with. And yet, she can’t help but gawk regardless, watching him straighten his back beneath the tan and blue fabric. Focusing on the shift in his position as he turns his head to look at Satoru, exposing the sharpened line of his jaw.

“So, was there an actual reason you called me down here?”

“Actual reason?” Placing a hand on his chest, Satoru offers a fake look of offence. Forcing back a smile as he furrows his brow. “Nanami, you wound me. I thought we were friends.”

“We haven’t spoke in four years,” he deadpans, prompting Satoru to scoff.

“Can’t a man just shoot an old pal a hangout text?”

“Not if there’s an obvious ulterior motive involved,” Hitomi comments, earning a slight glance of recognition from Kento that has her chest tightening.

“Ulterior motive? I—“ Satoru huffs and stands from his seat, slamming his palms dramatically against the table, causing some patrons nearby to look over with interest. “God, you two haven’t changed one bit. Still always ganging up on me.” Shaking his head, he then grabs his croissant and takes a bite, scolding them with his mouth half full. “It’s not fair.”

“No, what isn’t fair is you springing this unprompted reunion,” Kento comments. Then, he fully looks at Hitomi with tired eyes before clearing his throat. “Apologies, by the way. I didn’t—“

“It’s fine. I know you wouldn’t—”

“If I had known—“

“Nanami, it’s—“

Quickly, their voices meld together to create an inaudible mess. Neither one of them able to detect each other’s nervous ticks until Satoru’s loudly chuckling above them. The sound of his amusement cutting through their argument like a knife.

“Well, on that note I should probably head out,” he tells them, peering over his shades to flash a not-so-subtle wink before he vanishes without a trace, leaving them both to stare at the now empty space with pissed-off looks.

“I see he hasn’t changed.”

Despite the fog of fear that’s begun to envelop her senses, Hitomi snorts in response. Then, she raises her hands to her face to suppress an uncomfortable laugh, allowing herself to ruminate on her current situation. Realizing then just how surreal it feels to see him sitting so close —to hear his voice, despite the obvious annoyance at her unplanned presence and to see just how much the world has changed him during their time apart.

As stupid as it sounds, it makes her sort of happy. Even though it’s obvious he isn’t particularly fond of their impromptu reunion, she can’t deny how it makes her stomach flip. Or how, when she eventually drops her hands, noticing how he stares at her with a clenched jaw and narrowed eyes, all she can do is offer a tight-lipped grin. The kind you offer in discomforting solidarity when neither of you knows exactly how to feel or what to say.

Which she imagines is about where he's at too. Alongside her, he’s probably trying to wrack his brain for something sane to say. A sentence that’ll be polite and normal and not at all awkward, even though they’re already well past that point.

“Shoko’s the same too. If you’re wondering.”

As soon as she says it, Hitomi knows it’s an odd topic to bring up. Considering he probably doesn’t care all that much, it's more of a shot in the dark than anything. A reach for a common ground that they can both navigate.

“Gojo said she quit smoking.”

“About a year ago, yeah.”

After that, his pinched expression softens. The aggravated lines of his face becoming less defined as she watches him slump in his chair and discard the shades from his face to rub his eyes. Another wave of silence washing over them as she watches him proceed to process her words.

“Kiko hasn’t changed much either.”

Beneath the shade of his hands, she hears him hum, as if recognizing her words.

“And Yaga’s also still—“

“I should probably go.”

She feels her fingers twitch from under the table. The pain of his words rattling her system in ways she refuses to admit as she swallows hard —nodding in acknowledgement before forcing herself to accept that she may have come on too quickly. Considering Kento’s always been the reserved type —forever keeping his thoughts close to his chest, Hitomi’s well aware of the progression you have to take to earn his trust. Having done so in the past, she knows it's a slow climb. One that takes the kind of effort most wouldn't even consider exerting.

So, when he cuts her off without warning, she isn’t surprised. Nor does she make an effort to fight him as he begins to stand and readjust his coat. Or when he wordlessly stares down at her, taking in her face —how it’s probably aged during their time apart.

“It was nice to see you.”

“Regardless of the circumstances?”

Despite the continued tension, she can’t help but tease him, watching the way his lip quirks ever so slightly before evening out again.

“Yes.”

“Well then, it was nice to see you too,” she replies, tucking her arms across her chest. Feeling her heart rate quicken once he offers a nod and leaves, rushing through the sea of patio furniture until he’s down the street and out of sight.

#i apologize if you feel something #nanami kento #nanami kento fan fic #nanami kento x oc #nanami kento x original character #jjk fan fic #sum writes

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randomnameless · 4 months ago

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I have been playing Baten Kaitos EWLO for 3 days straight lol and...

Well, it has been a long time since I haven't played an old RPG !

We have NPCs!

And while some aren't relevant for sidequests and just exist for "flavour text" or stuff, well, they exist and of course add more meat to the environment! Farmer 55 who talks to famer 48 ? Sure they're talking about nonsense (going to the city to find a hubby!) but hey, at least they exist.

And when events happen with the plot, well, they react - in their way - they're not completely and utterly static!

Sure some of them are weird and cryptic as fuck (Mira!) but they feel like they're part of their setting/city they're in - i think it's also helped by the artistic/design choice for each island and area.

Also, special mention to the Diadem Knights (side)quest :

(Sidequest because you can theoretically let everyone die?)

Plot wise, a castle is assieged by the Empire in a surprise attack (hmm) and we have to help the knights protect their castle/defend themselves/protect their King.

And how to help them ? Well, you have spare knights in, somehow, your inventory, and have to support the ones fighting against the Empire, how? Well, when there are 2 knights fighting against 3 imperial soldiers, you have to add 1 knight from your inventory to make the numbers even, and the knights triumph over the imperials. And how to add knights to your "inventory"? Well you have to find the ones in the infirmary and motivate them (using their national flag!)

Sure, it's just a sidequest or a game mechanic, but damn if it, you know, just works getting the player involved with the current invasion and sense of urgency that comes with helping people defend their country from a surprise attack.

In the same vein, we had Triangle Strategy showcase in a small cutscene random yellow (Glenbrook) soldiers wondering why they were attacked, holding a line against red (Aesfrost) soldiers wanting to advance and march on their castle/city.

And because I didn't get the mechanics of this sidequest (tfw you suck lol) I let some knights die, and I'm pretty sure there is a house in the city where a person is waiting for a knight to return home (I think the knight was her son?) but well, since I kind of messed it up, when you return in this home she mourns his death.

But unlike a certain fandom and game in a franchise I still appreciate, no one blames the world, mechanics or the fish grilled over the oven for that knight's death, no, the people living in Diadem aren't written to be completely stupid and blame the aggressors, aka, the Empire (who also, apparently, wrote with markers over their lamp posts just to piss people off lol).

When you finally come in the Empire, well, you can talk - for a time - to the NPCs here and lo! They reveal they are imperialistic pieces of crap, because they think they're superior to the rest of the world and said rest of the world should bow to them - there's even a cutscene where a kid bumps in your party and insults you for making him lose his precious time.

Again, we're in a game who depicts each island/nation through their npcs : the empire is imperialistic? Well, they added NPCs to demonstrate that, it's not only hearsay - we go in the Empire, we talk to its people, we see them spit on us.

No false tea - but maybe Geldoblame was right and wanted to bring enlightment to the rest of the known world uwu - nope, not here.

People do shit, we see them do shit, and Geldoblame falls to his supposed demise after being turned in an eldritch abomination in a pit of lava.

Also, past events in backstories matter : we won't have, say, a character accepting being called a good girl and bonding over sweets with the daughter of the man who orchestrated the sack of her lands and the death of her people and siblings. Savyna's backstory involves murdering the people of Azha?

Watch as there is a cutscene about a kid running away from here, and how you're physically prevented from going in an area by some NPCs because she and Lyude (an imperial who was more or less exiled because he wasn't enough of an asshole) are in your party.

Kalas' is happy after being "finally complete"? Well, it was more or less foreshadowed in Balancoire, when we saw two NPCs talk shit about him because of his supposed "defect", aka only having one wing instead of having two.

Speaking about him...

Well, I watched my bro play the game on GC a long time ago lol, so I knew it, but you can see glimpses here and there about the twist, especially how Kalas himself seems to have more doubts or at least seems to regret his future course of actions, as the party learns more and more about the eldritch abomination he is supposed to release and the idea of betrayal - he is the one who is the most gung-ho about a possible mole in the party, he is seen doubting himself etc etc....

Nothing as hamfisted as a certain twist from another game, but it's nice to see and to spot the clues here and there that, well, he has an agenda that doesn't only revolve around avenging his grandpa and brother.

Given how the Switch version has the JP audio though, I noticed a blooper : Melodia, during the betrayal scene, calls Kalas in the jp audio "nii-san" but the script has her call him "my dear Kalas" - was Origins in preparation already and the devs really wanted to imply that Melodia is the daughter of the leads of BKO, who somehow, through a sidequest, help "create" Kalas?

Or does it relate to Kalas' creation, that happened before Melodia's, uh, "rebirth"?

IDK.

I'll make a post later on about the rest of the game (time to beat up monsters and use a mirror that'll totally work on Kalas to "free" him from the tainted influence!) but so far, from the cast, I'm really impressed with Gibari lol BK's take of the fisher bumpkin who's - totally not a former knight even if he is besties with the King - actually the one to impart wisdom and, in his way, try to refrain Kalas in the first chapters from acting too assholish really grew on me. Hell, it's Gibari who planned the rescue of his bro of a King, got a badass scene where he jumps (rather flies) in front of him to fight against the Imperials, and while it's obvious he's not adverse to using force, he's far from the "dumb muscle" archetype!

and he fucking kills monsters/eldritch abominations by bashing them with a paddle ffs

#rants #but a good one #is it rather a gushing then?#Baten Kaitos #BKEWLO #Xelha using the group's mascot to cast light magic and kill monsters is also hilarious #'kill them all meemai'#I couldn't help but compare with another game but hey #sure RPGs and T or SRPGS are sort of different #but what really striked me the most with BK is the variety and cast in general of randoms #they're here to tell you all about their world #no need for infodumps you have randoms instead #sure it's a text heavy game from the early 2000s #and some convos are long but hey #i always thought RPGs were novels in game form #and add to that the fun battle system that completely screws you at times but that's half of the fun #look a game where I don't mind grinding #griding for levels? No sir I grind to cook rice #no but seriously why all of the restore HP foods rot after a certain period of time #even riceballs rot #Oh and the music too #how can it be tedious to play and fight battles when you have good gameplay and good music #I didn't even mind Giacomo taking 15 minutes to fly back and forth between each attack #At this rate Gibari is going to become the MVP of this run #good for him he deserves it

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hikayeplays · 1 year ago

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Steam Next Fest October 2023

Alright let's see as many Demos as possible!

1. Ocelot Sunrise

A nice roguelite bullet hell with various levels (only one playable in the demo) and a sci fi scavengers story and a comics/borderlandesque aesthetic that makes the cutscenes very nice to look at. The background music is a bop too. Alas the controller controls are not completely implemented yet and quite clunky to use in a mixed way, however the power ups and the weapons seems really fun to play with.

7.5/10

Wishlisted

2. ASTRA: Knights of Veda

On first impact a bread and butter jrpg with all the pros and cons of the genre like huge bazongas! Regardless of which category you consider them in. The artstyle in game and in battle is expecially nice with this sort of "dress-up paper doll" look that sets it somewhat apart and the cutscene style for the evil faction and the dream realm is quite good. The controls are nice and intuitive enough although it needs a mouse to click on certain things like equipment. The voice acting is good enough? I'd say but the audio levels mixing leaves to be desired in some parts. Now the cons: it required to make an account even to play the demo and it has an obligatory post download 8 gb of additional content, there are "daily reward" and buyable cosmetics but most aggravating of all (for me) there are minutes of cutscenes every 5 minutes or so of gameplay.

5/10

Not for me

3. Estate Agent Simulator

The first bugged demo. The second prompt for the italian tutorial popped up with this half baked and definitely not italian way and had to restart the game in english

The gameplay itself is fine? For a game like this? Certainly not particularly nice nor particularly bad but the camera bobbing is atrocious, it gave me nausea after I cleaned the first house, the game was also completely silent. I'll add a +1 for the promise of a pettable dog

4/10

4. Lose CTRL

A surreal satirical you rage you lose puzzle game in which you play as Billy as he tries to climb the corporate ladder to reach a segway. The game mess with your controls and your mind in a mix between Get Over It and Brazil (1985). The split screen capabilities intrigue me although I wonder how it could work with keyboard and mouse controls. The general style is charming and distinctive but also amateurish and rough around the edges. To try, at least once.

7/10

Wishlisted

5. Leila

Leila is a chill and relaxing kinda lofi click and drag puzzle game that goes back the memory lane in a coming of age(?) Tale for a middle aged woman, the titular Leila. The puzzles shown have a nice variety between styles and difficulties, and they are certainly meant for someone looking to lubricate those neurons. The art and the background music are pretty nice and the voice acting is quite good too. If you like click and drag puzzles I feel that wishlisting this one (and always trying the demo before) maybe one of your best bets so far.

8/10

6. Tales from the Dancing Moon

An old-school-ish rpg inspired by runescape in which you run around doing errands for the townsfolk and at the same time try to unravel the mistery of your memory loss, the presence of a smartphone that you can use to take photos in game gives it a mild isekai flavour but not too strong based on what I've seen. The controls appear fluid enough and the sound design while not spectacular does it's job. The character creation menu is surprisingly in-depth for this kind of games.

6.5/10

Runescape wannabe

7. There's Always a Madman: Fight or Flight

A text based spy adventure in which you play as this super special agent and have to choose between different options both in action and dialogue. While the story itself seems nice the absence of any voice action or any background image besides some solid background color makes the experience hoverwelmingly boring as you are left to click repeatedly thru text.

3/10

I yawned

8. Rocket!

A mix between a shoot them up and a roguelite bullet hell heavily inspired by galaga and the classics. While the concept is nice and seems intriguing enough and I don't doubt it may end up garnering quite the cult following like many other niche games the controls are exceedingly hard and finicky, the spaceship appear to drift incontrollably with no apparent rhyme or reason.

4/10

9. Aureole: Wings of Hope

An incredibly fun and novelty platformer/dasher game where you follow the tale of two angels while you speed and dash and jump at full force thru obstacles in the shape of a bouncy halo. The mechanics are surprisingly simple and incredibly flexible at the same time, creating a gameplay that can be adjusted to your own needs, I appreciated particularly the ability to "freeze" while you charge a jump or a dash. Despite not being a platformer lover I absolutely adored this little demo to bits, so far the only that has left me truly wanting more.

9/10

Wishlisted

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narrachara-evidence-bracket · 1 year ago

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Round 2, poll 1

Vote for whichever you think is best!

Evidence/Propaganda under the cut:

Asriel's phonecall:

-The Narrator has an interesting reaction to Azzy's phonecall at the end of the true lab. It's a voice you have never heard before" like that. They seem to be in shock. Please, bear in mind, they don't have the same reaction to Alphys's voice even when she calls before Frisk ever meets her. It's specifically Asriel's voice that causes this dramatic reaction.

Flavour text in certain fights:

-you can try to tell a joke to… i think woshua and snowdrake’s mom? and it immediately gives you the most depressing ass unfunny joke you’ve ever heard before going “what? you didn’t say that?” this is one of the only places in the game where the narrator and frisk are obviously different, and while it doesn’t specifically say that the narrator is chara it certainly implies that the narrator is not an unbiased entity. narrachara from there is a much smaller leap of logic

#undertale #narrachara #poll #round 2 #asriel's phonecall #flavour text in certain fights

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vespersbelladonnakiss · 2 years ago

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Hollow Knight is great

but do you know what would make it even better? fishing. fishing makes every game better and you can fight me to the death on this. when Quirrel dies, he shows you a fishing rod that he found near the Blue Lake and, after leaving the room and coming back in again, you can find the fishing rod on the ground and pick it up. then, you get to re-explore the entire map, looking for fishing spots and when you catch fish, you log them in a fisherman's journal. and if you visit the Hunter, he gets really jealous that you now have another journal. like, c'mon man, how could u betray him like this? so then after you catch all the fish, you get a special boss which would either be an actual fight with the Hunter instead of the fake out you get when you finish the journal and/or a fight with a MASSIVE fish from the Blue Lake or a fight with Unn or something also maybe you could give some NPCs fish and they have cool flavour text about it. like, if you catch a fish in the Royal Waterways sewer water and you give it to Elderbug, he's just like "ew, i knew that city was horrible if they have fish like this." Or, you go visit Sheo and the Nailsmith and you guys have a little thing where you cook the fish together and it's really sweet, maybe with just a full on side quest of collecting ingredients from them. also, maybe there's some grubs who are scared of the Ghost but there's one fish they really like so the only way that it can convince them to go back to Grubfather is with a certain kind of fish. idk man i just really like fishing in video games

#hollow knight #hollow knight BUT WITH FISHING #no but i love fishing in video games so much #yeah sure i'm ignoring all of the enemies around me BUT I'M JUST VIBIN' MAN C'MON #isn't fishing in video games great?#think of all the silly little side quests #and the silly little flavour texts #*chef's kiss*#it would be beautiful #text

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waitingforwinterwinds · 2 years ago

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Game of Thrones - 66 BRAN VII (pages 705-715)

Bran and Rickon dream their father is dead. Maester Luwin plays catch up after dropping some World Lore.

"They don't fight very well," Bran said Dubiously. ... "For a certainty," Maester Luwin agreed with a deep sigh. (...) "Yet given time... Ser Rodrik has the truth of it, we need men to walk the walls. Your lord father took the cream of his guard to King's Landing, and your brother took the rest, along with all the likely lads for leagues around. Many will not come back to us, and we must needs find the men to take their place."

I like that GRRM addresses the consequences of these things, often in a fantasy series, it feels like there's just always more able bodied men ready to go, or there's a borrowed-from-a-friend-down-the-road army waiting in the wings.

"I dreamed about the crow again last night. The one with three eyes. He flew into my bedchamber and told me to come with him, so I did. We went down into the crypts. Father was there, and we talked. He was sad." "And why was that?" Luwin peered through his tube. "It was something to do about Jon, I think." The dream had been deeply disturbing, more so than any of the other crow dreams.

"Hi dad, what are you doing down here? You seem bummed, what's up?" "UwU I died and now I'll never be able to tell Jon that he's actually my nephew." "Bummer." "It's my only piece of unfinished business, I have no other children to be sad about." "Wait, what?" "Goodbye forever."

"- Your father is a prisoner of the queen in King's Landing. You will not find him in the crypts."

Oh no, Luwin doesn't know about the last chapter.

Bran could not remember the last time he had been down in the crypts. It had been before, for certain. When he was little, he used to play down here with Robb and Jon and his sisters.

Huh, he says that like they managed to get Sansa to go back down after Jon scared the heck out of her that one time in Arya's memory.

"Have a look at these," he said as he pulled the stopper and shook out a handful of shiny black arrowheads. Bran picked one up. "It's made of glass." Curious, Rickon drifted closer to peer over the table. "Dragonglass," Osha named it as she sat down beside Luwin, bandagings in hand. "Obsidian," Maester Luwin insisted, holding out his wounded arm. "Forged in the fires of the gods, far below the earth. The children of the forest hunted with that, thousands of years ago. The children worked no metal. (...) In place of swords, they carried blades of obsidian." "They still do."

Obsidian/Dragonglass = 🥛

I'm interested to hear 'forged in the fires of the gods, far below the earth' just from an elemental standpoint, knowing that it is one of the weaknesses of the Others. 'of the gods' to me, assigns obsidian not only a fire/earth combo, but also a divine aspect/attribute. It's probably just so much flavour text, but you know, interesting flavour text in context.

"- How long the children reigned here or where they came from, no man can know. "But some twelve thousand years ago, the First Men appeared from the east, crossing the Broken Arm of Dorne before it was broken. (...) The wars went on until the earth ran red with blood of men and children both, but more children then men, for men were bigger and stronger, and wood and stone and obsidian make a poor match for bronze. Finally, the wise of both races prevailed, and the chiefs and heroes of the First Men met the greenseers and wood dancers amidst the weirwood groves of a small island in the great lake called Gods Eye. "There they forged the Pact. (...) The Pact began four thousand years of friendship between men and children."

A good method to expo dump if you're gonna do it. Ooph but it gives me the shivers. All that history, and there's still more and further back. Ignorance and self defense, culture clash that tumbled straight into aggression and then... peace that couldn't last against new players.

Man, I sure hope that's not foreshadowing for anything. Two sides in conflict finally finding a stable truce, and then being pounded by a surprise third party who devastates at least one side in the pre-existing peace treaty. That sure would suck.

#a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #game of thrones #got #bran stark #a chapter a day reading

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hotdyke-hardstyle · 2 years ago

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okay I now have time to go through some (mostly positive!) thoughts and feelings about chapter 34! this is a bit of a long post, and spoilers ahead obviously. this covers part 1, and as each part is released i’ll reblog this post with more thoughts.

so of course I am so happy about the return of stages instead of open world. I love that it’s easier to take a break in between moments (although I wish they would bring back the quit/continue at the end of each stage instead of just throwing you into the next one. I like reading the flavour text for each stage).

i’m really happy about the text returning to a character-driven focus. it’s what i’ve stuck around for, and it was nice to finally get some thoughts from people about things, and I liked being able to understand what was going on.

I loved seeing the deep again. I don’t even care if it was just an excuse to reuse stage elements, I don’t care if they just needed an excuse to shoehorn in the cosmic juggernaut, I liked it.

the first thing that really grabbed my attention was tesla explaining the reversal of project stigma. the moment where she said they would need the power of finality, or at least would need to take it from kevin, I immediately thought that that was a much better way of bringing up the power of finality than the way that hare just said “kiana could become the hofin in order to destroy the cocoon”. tesla’s dialogue makes for much better motivation on behalf of the characters and also opens up a conversation about who should be taking on the power of finality, if anyone at all! because tesla doesn’t indicate a certain someone would be more suited to it, and why should we (as readers) or the main cast trust hare in this scenario? her plan may be to have kiana take on the power of finality and have it consume her for all anyone knows. (this presents the other issue of hare being an undeveloped/shoehorned character in terms of intent and purpose that I won’t go into here.)

second of all, I ADORED the look of the planet directory (? that’s what ai-chan called it I think) in theresa’s stage. it looked really interesting and new and cool! it’s the kind of thing people brought up when they complained about open world - the individual stages always seemed to have more interesting and complex environments and this new area seems super fun. I can only hope we’re revisiting it later on!

super stoked to see siegfried, actually! he’s one of the only men who deserve rights in honkai and I really liked his little banter with theresa. his entrance was a little underwhelming but I think that was more “realistic” considering his lack of genuine power in the realm. pretty short-lived section and I don’t really know what ai-chan added to the whole thing but it’s whatever.

back in st. freya I really liked the small glimpse of the trio’s original dynamics at the very beginning. it did kinda feel like coming home, and even though there should be some urgency, I appreciated the laid-back but productive energy.

onto the big moment, I guess. I am really happy that they didn’t fade to black and have dudu explain her life story to kiana off-camera before they went to save their dad. I also think that learning that kevin had siegfried trapped in the stigma space and then stole his power adds a lovely personal stake into kiana’s motivations for kicking kevin’s ass. I don’t think she’s exactly one for super cold-blooded revenge, but I think if she gets to lay into him while also saving the world, she would feel good about that.

now, I really liked the kaslana sisters fighting together, and I loved the cutscene. I would have appreciated some greater conflict in getting siegfried out of his little cage, but I didn’t find it anticlimatic at all. the family reunion was emotional and sweet and i’m not even mad that there was no huge gut-wrenching reveal between bianka and siegfried honestly. of course, he knew there were two daughters out there and it wasn’t like he had been present all of one’s life but not the other. I think they had fairly equal time with their dad, it’s only bianka who doesn’t remember that time, so I was happy with the equal treatment between them.

also, bianka calling on her (mother’s) power to wield the abyss flower made me think that I like the distinction between bianka and kiana as though one of them is more schariac and one of them is more kaslana. I suppose that’s not really a huge revelation but I like the implications and I hope they get to fight together as sisters going forward.

truthfully, I wondered if bianka was going to keep her identity a secret from both of them until after the big fight because she could see how kiana had that connection with siegfried that she was lacking, but i’m glad she didn’t. i’m glad that we’re addressing her place in the world, even slightly, because that’s an internal conflict she’s had her whole life.

finally, I also really liked the little dialogue at the end between bianka and kiana. I liked that bianka stood behind her chosen name, even though kiana wanted to share. it gave bianka the space to affirm that she is her own person who she has built through hard work and turmoil. I also liked that kiana had such respect for bianka in that moment! it feels like a great foundation for them to build on. and that is the type of writing that I have been sorely missing throughout the moon arc.

thank you mhy! i’m much happier after the start of this chapter and I hope it keeps up throughout.

#honkai impact #hi3 #kiana kaslana #bianka ataegina #siegfried kaslana #sapph's post #s/hi3 #s/hi3.txt #i'm not tagging this as spoilers since it's out on global but the read more is there #also how cool is it that i'm not complaining about something. big win for my followers today

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barbariccia · 1 year ago

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got asked to clarify some commentary i had on a certain something ramza says in the necrohol; slapping it here for posterity:

this was the original screenshot of the final entry in my live(ish?)blog of tactics, with the accompanying text:

I saw this and I wanted to raise you:

I have to wonder if Ramza’s dialogue here is a translation error, or just poorly worded. My own interpretation of this line was that people “earned” them in the sense that they had to fight tooth and nail for them; not because that is the single or correct way one is allowed their rights, but because the powers that be, who often strip away what is inherently owed for personal gain, make it the only method one is given, or “earns”, their rights — a consistent theme throughout the story. It doesn’t make sense for Ramza not to understand this by this point, he even acknowledges several times that this way is wrong, unless he suddenly took a lesson in character regression. Which! I’m not saying isn’t possible, but it doesn’t really add up to what’s come before, unless I’ve been misinterpreting or forgotten the context myself, which is absolutely possible, haha.

This is yet another reason why I tend to prefer the PSX translation over the overly flowery PSP version more often than not lol. I would definitely love to see a follow-up comparison of this particular line when you guys reach that point through the PSX version, if only to satisfy my own curiosity.

and, you know, completely fair! there’s a lot of bulletpoints that i never really elaborated on but sure had thoughts and feelings about, and a lot of them have to do with... well, this sort of theme. a lot of my notes straight up never made it into my entries at all! so, having said that, this was the response:

no, i agree to about the halfway mark - there were a lot of thoughts in my initial notes that plain didn't make it to the posts i made (and in the beginning were severely lacking, even), and i was writing them a couple days after experiencing them, so i was definitely losing some flavour as opposed to a full-scale liveblog. also i didn't want to split them up anymore than they already were (they were so long by the end........) and the more i yammered on the smaller that scrollwheel got hahah

ANYWAY i absolutely agree with you in that freedom is certainly something that's earned within the constraints of ivalice and given by those in the position of power. i suppose looking at it through my personal eyes changes the way i experience and absorb things? i don't think it's a case of ramza regressing as a character or forgetting whatever's happened around him, but he's a product of his own environment and experiences wwhich have shaped him in turn, and that leads to some interesting views like "rights are inherent to a person but you still need to fight for them" (mood) "you cannot trade for freedom, only take it by force" (also mood) and "because of these things you need to do to obtain freedom, it inherently has a value" and it's the last one that i... not take issue with, but makes me raise my eyebrows a bit? mostly cuz like, it's interesting to frame an abstract like "freedom" as something that can be obtained and has value, like a material object. and it's not even strictly wrong, i know that! my commentary i suppose overlooks the playing field of ivalice, where things aren't just given for free and for no reason.

i do also think it's... not hypocritical per se of ramza to espouse this, but freedom has never been something he's been particularly involved in. it's a little strange to see ramza start talking about freedom when that's never been his fight - initially as a beoulve he HAS his freedom that other people are dying for and doesn't understand the minutae of the brigade et al, which, he's a squire and a highborn, i'd be surprised if he DID - but then as he grows as a person he never loses that freedom to do... whatever he wants, really. sure, the church is hampering his movements, and he's branded a heretic, but it feels like a natural conclusion, and most importantly it doesn't stop ramza - he has no concept of living without freedom and continues the way he's always done, because he is a product of his experience and history! and that carries on to who he becomes, which is... less naive and more plain hopeful at face value, i suppose, willing to fight for his views and the chance to be heard... but like, idk, something about him talking about Things You Need To Fight For rings not hollow but a little strangely tasting when his hands are rated e for everyone and the reason he can do whatever he wants, i guess.

something also strange about the recipients of those words. it's in the necrohol talking to the remnants of the templars, yes? they're so entrenched in their views and they will never, ever change even on pain of death, so a good chunk of it also feels like... why are you trying to tell these men who are never going to change what to do? it's such a hopeless thing to even attempt because look where we are, what they're doing, ramza! they aren't going to listen to you and your hopeful ideals when their whole modus operandi is "i want to oppress people but like, a bit more"

so like, i don't think it's a translation error, i think it's just my interpretation and not wanting to drop a full miniessay in an already long post AND also probably not even thinking a lot of those thinks until literally right now

we have been going through the psx version slower when we get the chance and i haven't been making posts like this because i feel like it'd just be a rehash of stuff i've already said. i am also a product of "the first one i experience is The One and fuck all yall" haha (sweats in og vii) but like... something i've talked about with them a lot has been how the psx translation really strongly tastes like a mid-90s translation. that's not to say it's good or bad, just that as a longtime nerd there's been a lot of lines that i'm like. oh, i can see exactly why they've translated it that way, i can almost hear the og jp lines. we're only at the start of chapter 2 so i can't talk for like, the majority of the script, but there's been places where i've found it to be too simplistic or... 90s, for lack of a better term! it's a lot of fun as a linguistics nerd to compare the two and know the history around both of them abd i can see why people would prefer either/or, there's definitely arguments for and against, but i don't think the wotl version is too flowery, personally. here i go being a product of the one i saw first is favoured, lol.

tbh, and this is something i've mentioned like a million times to neeb during playthroughs, but i would love to have a third option and marry the two together and consolidate translations fully. i really, really think the high and flowery prose works for the ivalice setting - i guess xii was my first ivalice game (though i didn't experience it til like 10 years after it came out) so that'll be where that comes from - but i do think it works for the setting... but i think it would really, really benefit from dropping it in places, or demonstrating that the world isn't entirely as clearcut(?) as a single style of prose. but then i also wish the portraits were vastly different because they are SO similar so much of the time. for something presented as an excellent piece of, well, theatre! it doesn't actually stand out the way theatre does for visual ease. but that's a personal nitpick and i don't expect everyone to agree with that either haha

response:

I absolutely agree that the best case scenario would be the marry the simplicity and the prose, because both have value and each are superior in specific moments (the directness of “Blame yourself or God” will never not be iconic, while a lot of Ramza’s dialogue in WotL just feels more…him, etc; this is kinda subjective in of itself tho, I recognize). Not to mention how variety of that nature can only serve the world building better, I mean this is the game about classism for crying out loud, haha. But yeah, I’m definitely not so attached to the 90s translation that I won’t/can’t accept anything else. It’s more nuanced than that, as it so often is on the subject of localization.

Also for clarity, I def understand that a bullet point list isn’t gonna fully reflect your actual thoughts and opinions in full, and did not mean to imply any sense of ‘failure’ on your part, or that it was wrong interpretation outright. :0c My instinct after all was, “is this the failing of the localization?”

After reading what you have to say tho, no, it’s not a failure of the localization. I think it’s actually a failing of Chapter 4, and how it loses interest in Ramza being as a part of the political aspects of the story (for better and worse, I have a lot of mixed feelings about it myself) completely by, I wanna say, mid-Chapter 4? Chapter 4 also feels generally rushed and incomplete, despite also being long and packed with content, somehow. It’s possible Ramza’s dialogue is a holdover from events that never got to see the light of day, but I can’t prove that. I personally often leave Chapter 4 with the feeling that there were blanks spots, and I figure that must play a part in the occasional inconsistency. I will pose, though, that just because he isn’t a part of the politics and the freedom fighting, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have opinions or even a stance on it. He just…isn’t really allowed to be involved in it, because the story shifts gears for him in that regard from about Chapter 3 on.

That said, he absolutely has internalized things (cough propaganda cough) that will take more than a a handful of years to unpack, and he’s doing his best to make the most of what he knows, and doing well by others to the best of his limited capacity, in spite of that. But that naturally means things are gonna slip out sometimes that are a bit uhhh questionable. Tho, I’m not gonna pretend I was any better by his age, good intentions be damned; baby boy is barely in his early 20s by the end of the story, ain’t no way he’s gonna have it all that figured out, bless his dumb, idealistic heart

[ ... ] Tbh, the points you made about FFT’s question of “does Freedom have value? Should it? Is it not valueless by virtue of it being owed to all?” is gonna probably stick with me.

stares mournfully at my old textbooks on my shelf. i will not learn japanese just to retranslate tactics the way I Want It To Be. (or just sit through the two scripts and consolidate things until i like the finished product) i will not i will Not---

#mol plays fft

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