#god i want a new mystery dungeon game so bad

[dragonskxn]

Pokeymans @gunslinginnhogtyin

[utilitycaster]

In thinking about the new information we've recently learned about the gods of Exandria, I started thinking about epic fantasy novels. The thing is, Exandria's deity lore is not actually terribly unique. This isn't a bad thing! But the idea of an idyllic age when gods were not just powerful but present and united; the fall of one (or many) gods and an ensuing devastation this causes; and the gods subsequently withdrawing or diminishing is a very, very common one in fantasy (and, to be totally honest, world religion). Similarly, the idea of a much more advanced age that has since passed into distant memory is also an extremely common trope. I think it's less common to have both of these tropes working in tandem though certainly not unheard of (hello, Wheel of Time), and the nature of the storytelling method in effect here means that the fallen advanced civilization is more thoroughly developed in the worldbuilding than it is in many other stories, but none of this is a wildly new concept.

I want to talk about genre, medium, and actual play, which is sort of both and sort of neither. I think people talking about actual play tend to mash all three of these things together when they really shouldn't.

(this is a long one so it's under a cut to not wreck your dash)

The genre of Critical Role's main campaigns is heroic fantasy, which I know I've covered in the past, and of epic scale. This is honestly pretty typical of D&D. NADDPod (especially Bahumia) and TAZ Balance and Graduation are also arguably within this same broad genre, just more comedic and looser with aspects of the worldbuilding.

Despite the fact that Brennan is very well-versed in fantasy novels, D20's main deal is that it's not classic heroic fantasy. I think this is actually a bigger factor in why people prefer CR to D20 than many people think. The shorter length is definitely another factor (though that too feels almost related - the critically acclaimed indie comic run to Critical Role's series of doorstopper novels) but Dimension 20, while it comments on classic heroic fantasy with Fantasy High and Escape from the Bloodkeep, only ever dips into anything actually approaching that genre with the Game of Thrones-inspired low fantasy seasons and, funnily enough, with the Dungeons and Drag Queens miniseries. Otherwise, it's telling school stories, urban fantasy, space operas, heists, murder mysteries, comedies of manners, and action-adventure. Similarly, TAZ Steeplechase and Amnesty very much aren't of this genre. Critical Role meanwhile touches on supernatural horror with Candela Obscura.

Actual Play is a means of telling a story, and typically the system at least puts in place the general expectations of what can be done within the improv. Some systems (such as Candela Obscura or Blades in the Dark) set a particular genre; others, like D&D, favor one but permit a good degree of flexibility. Actual Play is not really the same as genre, as discussed above; D20 genre hops quite readily, as does The Adventure Zone, even while using the same TTRPG systems.

Finally, there's medium. This one is easy. Critical Role and D20 are filmed shows (though are available as podcasts); so is, to give a non-Actual Play example, The Bear. NADDPod and TAZ are podcasts. So are (for example) The Silt Verses and Midst.

The reason I've outlined all of the above is to say that I think people tend to assume simply being actual play is somehow closer than sharing genre. This is also to an extent true for longform fiction podcasts (though it is less true for TV and books). I think this has led to an influx of fans of actual play (and, tbh, podcasts) who aren't familiar with the genres within which actual play shows are working.

I do not say this to gatekeep (though honestly, gatekeeping is both not inherently bad and also, not possible in this context). It's more of an exploration of what I think may be a reason why, particularly in the Critical Role fandom, it feels some of the Campaign 3 opinions feel somewhat half-baked.

You can be a fan of heroic fantasy and enjoy actual play but not actually be terribly into actual play that isn't heroic fantasy. I think some people who loved Critical Role Campaign 1 but nothing after that and no other actual play fit into that category. I think Campaign 1's fandom was, indeed, heavily skewed towards fans of fantasy and fans of D&D (as a venue to roleplay one's own fantasy story and as a game itself heavily shaped by heroic fantasy fiction) more so than anything else. If you like, say, The Kingkiller Chronicles or the Stormlight Archives or the Wheel of Time or Lord of the Rings? You might like Critical Role.

By 2018, and definitely by 2019-2020, the landscape had changed, and the attitude was much more one of "if you like this actual play, you'll like this one" which is actually...nowhere near as true, in my mind, as recommendations based on genre. I think this is also when people started folding in "longform speculative fiction podcasts in general" which to be honest was already an issue with the medium of longform fiction podcasts. Wolf 359, The Silt Verses, Midst, The Penumbra Podcast, and any season of NADDPod are all longform, plot-based speculative fiction podcasts with queer representation, but that doesn't actually mean someone who likes one will like another. (Also? Queer rep? Gets treated like podcasts or actual play, to be honest. It's extremely possible to love only one of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, The Woods All Black, and The Priory of the Orange Tree despite all of these being novels with queer relationships, yet a lot of the time Queer Rep is treated as a genre, an "if you like this, you'll like that!")

I think it is true that there are people who enjoy actual play on a fairly general level (myself included), and with podcasts especially I think there are people who enjoy fiction delivered in this manner and people who have some difficulty with it. But I think there's a tendency to push people who like one actual play towards other actual play when they may be more interested in longform audio fiction, scripted or not; or might be inclined towards a particular genre. To go back to the examples I've given, someone who likes Candela Obscura might find The Silt Verses and The Woods All Black more appealing than, for example, Fantasy High, despite that also being filmed actual play, because the latter two are also supernatural horror with exploration of class.

Because actual play, in its weird not a medium, not a genre, but kind of both space is, well, in between spaces, it gets treated as the most specific element of works of fiction when that's not always true. The consequences, therefore, end up being twofold. You get people who come to AP series because they liked another one that doesn't actually have a ton in common, and it ends up hit or miss (this is one of my theories why the D20 fandom can be extremely weird about Critical Role; because it was pushed on them when it's really not what they're into, which is neither their nor CR's fault); and you get people coming to specific actual plays and enjoying them without much familiarity with their genres, which I think is behind some of the weirder C3 takes since C3 is arguably the first campaign that truly began after Actual Play began to be treated as a genre.

[ashes-in-a-jar]

In my head, you’re a Magnus Archives blog. I mean, I know you obviously listen to other things, but In my mind it’s things like Welcome to Nightvale, Malevolent, Hello from the Hallowoods, The Sheridan Tapes, things like that, horror and supernatural.

So I had to do a double-take when I saw a Dungeons and Daddies post from you, I really didn’t know you listened to it. Then I see you reblog a Fawx and Stallion post, and now I’m just wondering how many podcasts you’ve listened to that I’ve also listened to.

Hahaha yes this blog has been mainly for tma stuff for years now, I still feel like I'm new to the fandom but honestly I've been here through a lot of it since the beginning of season 5

Buuuuut in the past few months I've stopped going into the tma tag regularly and been feeling a little detached from it, at least as opposed to before. My listen to tmagp has been way less interactive and I hardly reblog content anymore (which is something I like doing but because of various bad experiences on the internet recently I have yet to recover from I feel safer posting my own original posts rather than reblogging)

And that freed up a space in my mind to realize I've actually been listening to a lot of podcasts besides tma and it's honestly a shame not to talk about them more with others

I do listen to a lot of horror fantasy supernatural and science fiction podcasts! I also love a lot of dnd and ttrpg podcasts, I also love everything dropout and wish I could get into critical role but it's so big I don't think I'll manage it

I put under the cut a (quite long) list of the podcasts I have listened to and/or have notifications turned on

Anyone following me, you're welcome to send me an ask about one of them if you like them as well or want to hear about them!

I also put a list of podcasts on my to listen to list. Feel free to drop a recommendation for which them to listen to first!

-------------

Podcasts I'm caught up on (the lists are long so it's alphabetical without "the")

Ongoing podcasts

The Amelia project

Ask your father

A voice from darkness

Black box

Brimstone valley mall

Camlann

The cellar letters

Death by dying

Derelict

Eeler's choice

Ethics town

Fawx and stallion

Hello from the Hallowoods

The hundred handed

Levian

Lost terminal

The Magnus protocol

Malevolent

Midnight burger

The mistholme museum of mystery morbidity and mortality

Neon inkwell

New years day

Not quite dead

Old gods of Appalachia

The penumbra podcast

The program

Red valley

The Sheridan Tapes

The silt verses

The sound museum

Super suits

Tell no tales

Tiny terrors

Traveling light

Unseen

The vesta clinic

Victoriocity

The white vault

Completed podcasts

Absolutely no adventures

Archive 81

Borrasca

The bright sessions

Camp here and there

Descendants

Give me away

I am in eskew

Monstrous agonies

Parkdale haunt

The Magnus archives

Re: dracula

The secret of st kilda

Spirit box radio

Steal the stars

Time:bombs

We know none

Wolf 359

Wooden overcoats

Ttrpgs

The adventure zone

Campaign skyjacks

Chapter and multiverse

Dark dice

Dice shame

Dimension 20 (not a podcast but I listen to it like one)

Dungeons and daddies

Not another d&d podcast

Rusty Quill gaming

Worlds beyond number

Podcast on my listen next list:

The Alexandria archives

Alice isn't dead

Ars paradoxica

Believer

The Black tapes

Blackwood

The box

The bridge

Carrier

Counterbalance

The cryptid keeper

Darkest night

The darkroom

The dark tome

The deca tapes

The deep vault

Dreamboy (this one is nsfw so it makes me nervous lol)

Duggan Hill

The earth collective

Either

The far meridian

The fountain road files

The glass canon

Jar of rebuke

Kings fall am (I started but heard not great things about it)

Knifepoint horror

Kollok 1991

Less is morgue

The leviathan chronicles

Liberty

Limetown

The lost cat

Mabel

Maeltopia

Marscorp

Mirrors

Mockery manor

Next stop

The no sleep podcast

The orphans

The Orpheus protocol

Out of place

Paired

Palimpsest

The phone booth

Point mystic

Pseudopod

Rabbits

The right left game

Shadows at the door

Spines

Stellar firma

The storage papers

Stories from among the stars

Super ordinary

Superstition

Tanis

Tides

Unwell

Vast horizon

Victoria's lift

Video palace

Welcome to night Vale (I listen to this one very sporadically lol)

We're alive

Within the wires

Woe begone (I started but got stuck on episode 20ish but want to continue)

Wrong station

Ttrpgs

BomBARDded

Critical role (it's sooo long tho)

Dames and dragons

Dragon friends

Join the party

The lucky die

Queens of adventure

Realms of pearl and glory

Rude tales of magic

Skyjacks courier call

Three black halflings

[symphonic-scream]

I'm still working out details for the P5 D&D au, so I'm just gonna lay out what I have and if anyone has any ideas, let me know

Their DM is Morgana, and the other Phantom Thieves are the players.

Goro isn't a player at first, since the character he ends up playing was supposed to be the big bad. However, that changes, and Morgana asks him to fill in and play as a player for that character later on

I. Only have three characters worked out. The rest are just, race and class

Akira is playing "Joker", a mysterious Eladrin Rogue with a haunted past, who lurks in the shadows and wants to become a folk legend, like the takes told to scare children into obeying. He's also horny

Ryuji is playing a half-orc Barbarian

Ann is playing a human Sorcerer

Yusuke is playing a drow Warlock

Makoto is playing "Just", an outcast tiefling monk looking for a place to belong, without having to accept torment or compromise their morals. Her character uses varied pronouns

Haru is playing "Ulyssa Noir", a former noble half-elf Paladin who discovered the dark deeds of her family, and left to atone for their evils, pledging herself to a just and good god, planning to return one day to convince her family to seek salvation

Futaba is playing a Tabaxi Artificer

Sumire is playing a halfling Ranger

And, Goro eventually takes up the role of an Aasimar Blood Hunter

I'm down for ideas of names and shit, I'm just having fun, this all sparked from my recent love of Dungeon Meshi so, aha, yeah

-

But! The plot of the au outside of the campaign is pretty mellow. Morgana and Akira are brothers, Akira adopted him so he wouldn't be in their foster home without him, and they live with Ann and Ryuji. Haru is Morgana's tutor and Tea buddy, and who introduces the young nerd to D&D. Akira invites the other players to the table, having met them all during chance encounters and such

So, everyone but Morgana and Haru are new to the game. Akira knows a bit, and uses it to torment his lil brother.

Anyways. Yeah

[mfantasyworld]

I think i need to say something before the New Year's Eve. Eeehhh, Hi, i'm not dead (yet), and i was really depressed about many personal aspects in my life, and that inclued my artistic and writing skills... So, i really didn't do anything. Again.

And i abandoned this art account for waaay too long. What a shame.

But anyway, i believe i need to say that i have been doing some art there and there, when i wasn't studying or bed rooting or watching Project Zomboid Gameplays(God tier game between!) and i'm gonna show some of the arts i have been doing along the year and explain their context.

Although i was Really proud of this first drawing, i confess that i was kinda scared to post it. ALL my account was about Megaman X and my rewrite about the story of the game, and i really wanted to focus on it... So i shelved this Arcanine/Growlithe drawing. She's an oc i made for a Pokémon Mystery Dungeon original story, leader of a Explorer Team called Team Roar and oh boy, she HAS angry issues! Many, many angry issues! She was trained by a Gardevoir, her adoptive mother, and she turned this little furball into a Beast.

Next drawing is a Garchomp with albinism. Also a part of the Mystery Dungeon story i made. He's just the owner of the town's restaurant and has the biggest beef with a Jinx, they're both rivals since childhood and they continue to be enemies for life. (Don't ship them, they're both married to other characters, LOL.) (They hate each other and it's not the enemies to lovers type.)

The last pokemon related character is the story protagonist! He's a Type:Null and his partner is a Rattata! (I never saw someone doing a Type:Null for a Explorer fiction... It's normaly: Eevee, Eevee, Eevee, maybe one of the starters— I mean, there's no problem in that, you use the pokemon that fits the most with your protagonist personality, of course! But i wanted something different, and how i wanted this story to be about Arceus missing and the legendaries are fighting with each other to see who's gonna rule in God's place, and the world is suffering the consequences of this war, i believe a Type:Null would fill the protagonist place perfectly!) (As for the Rattata, if i did a Legendary, i needed someone not Op and simple, lol! But she's important. Believe me. But i don't want to talk about this now because i already said Too much about this story.)

Ok, next category.

Is someone here familiar with the brazilian Megaman comic, “As Novas Aventuras de Megaman"? (Yeah, finaly something National!!! Amazonia, Soccer and Carnaval let's GOOOOOOO BRASILLL!!!! )

Ok, now on a serious note. This comic is hot garbage. It's bad. But i recommend it, just to laugh at it for shits and giggles. As a long term brazilian fan of the series, i can't help but smile about the fact that the protagonists were traveling in Brazil, killing corrupted politicians in São Paulo, facing cangaceiros in Ceará and going to Minas Gerais to fight Aliens in the last volume, it was amazing! And having the writers Mary Sue wanting to kill Megaman in his own story so she could be the protagonist was the cheery on this whole shit cake. It was so bad that i loved it. And Roll having basicaly Astro Boy backstory but extremly Edgy was... Something.

Of course, i need to say this, although i really liked some aspects of the story, i don't like the objectification of Roll. I hate it. I DESPISE every Second of it. I like the ideia of her changing clothes, i loved the ideia of her having something more going on with her, and for me, she was more entertaining than Rock in this comic, which let's go?? Roll finaly having the spot light??

But oh my GOD. THIS WHOLE “ROMANCE" BETWEEN HER AND X, HOLY SHIT, I WANTED TO PULL THE SKIN OF MY FACE EVERY TIME X WAS ACTING LIKE A FUCKING WEIRDO WITH HER.

I HATED HER BEIGN SEXUALIZED EVERYTIME. BE MORE RESPECTFUL WITH HER, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK??

Anyway, now, let me show what i have been doing related to this comic.

Yeah, redesigns! It still looks like garbage, but i can finaly get those designs out my system.

I still need to draw X though—

Anyway, context! Roll is the protagonist of the story, and she's been searching her father's lab for ages, looking after his Magnum opus. (That she still has no ideia what it could be, but she knows it's something that Willy can't have.) She's her team mechanic and leader, she's normaly the one that does the negotiations and the talking when it's needed to avoid a fight.

Bass is there with her, they're allies here and really Close Friends.

The reason why he's here is because they have a common goal. He doesn't have the Fortenium anymore, lost it against a fight with Zero and basicaly is in a quest to destroy Zero and Willy's scheme. (He used to be Forte, but changed his name sometime after Roll became his ally.)

(He also has another name, Slasher, and it's a disguise name he uses when they can't trust their real identity with third parties. If you don't know why the name Slasher, it's because the comic calls him like this for some reason, lol.)

(Anyway, i didn't draw him, but i will talk about X. He's still a little piece of shit, but at least he doesn't like his sister in the GROSS WAY like in the original.

Let's just say they didn't wait the 30 years for the tests and it shows...

X has the mentality of a 14-16 years old, and when he start to win power, he became a manece, and this forces Roll and Bass to keep a close eye in his shenanigans.)

Feel free to ask about the rewrite by the way! I'm not taking it so serious like other projects i have, after all, this rewrite is just a high effort shitpost by the end of the day, Lol!

I believe that's it. I have other drawings too, some FNAF related and original work, but they're so bad that i will not put here, lol.

Have a nice new year, folks!

Hope next year i have more to share!

[illiellialli]

intro post

hello tumblr!! (evil intent)

i am ellie/artemis/sam/will/brett (call me whichever) - any pronouns ✅ - girlboy boygirl monstrosity - 16 (17 very soon.. evil) - america - i speak english and pretty okay spanish (no sabo kid..) - capricorn, intp (i dont believe in any of this crap but it's fun to put) DNI criteria: - racist, homophobic/transphobic, sexist, zoo, pdfiles, sympathizers to any of these groups - stupid and annoying people. - people who are allergic to joy and whimsy 😡😡 - other than that idgaf i'm chill with you if you're chill with me as you are about to see, i fucking love consuming media. haha watch me make a long list of my hypie interests nobody is actually reading through below (im probably missing a lot of stuff too there's just so much stuff i like 😭😭)

interests: - music: depeche mode, the cure, chappell roan, mitski, doja cat, crystal castles, childish gambino, the last dinner party, boy harsher, big thief, millionaires, femtanyl, she wants revenge, tyler the creator, new order, glass animals, gorillaz, siouxsie and the banshees, sisters of mercy, type o negative, nirvana, hole, nine inch nails, cannons, ethel cain, lady gaga, tlc, the smashing pumpkins - tv shows: hannibal, supernatural, interview with the vampire, what we do in the shadows, the walking dead, friends, the office, house md, the vampire diaries, lost, yellow jackets, criminal minds, stranger things, outer banks, breaking bad, daredevil, dexter, good omens, fleabag, midnight mass, izombie, true detective, alice in borderlands - cartoons/anime: arcane, madoka magica, attack on titan, arcane, tmnt, lego ninjago, inside job, the simpsons, gravity falls, disenchantment, the owl house, kipo and the wonderbeasts, she-ra, voltron, villainous, scooby doo, xmen 97, adventure time, smiling friends, tawog, winx, over the garden wall, scott pilgrim, naruto, the hollow, atla, the dragon prince, nana, neon genesis evangelion, death note, chainsaw man, inuyasha, cowboy bebop, mlp, bleach, beastars, trigun, rwby, bna, dungeon meshi, soul eater, cyberpunk edgerunners, ergo proxy, ghost in the shell, saiki k, assassination classroom, hellsing, devilman crybaby, black butler, fullmetal alchemist, sweet tooth - movies: silence of the lambs, spiderverse, fight club, breakfast club, inception, 500 days of summer, mysterious skin, brokeback mountain, ladybird, 10 things i hate about you, nope, literally anything studio ghibli, everything everywhere all at once, suzume, perfect blue, xmen, deadpool (and wolverine), mad max, requiem for a dream, good will hunting, pulp fiction, kill bill, fantastic mr fox, isle of dogs, mean girls, clueless, the matrix, blade runner, dead poets society, edward scissorhands, corpse bride, donnie darko, heathers, lisa frankenstein, saw, reanimator, zootopia, bad guys, turning red - games: roblox, minecraft, splatoon, the witcher, red dead redemption, mouthwashing, life is strange, until dawn, days gone, the last of us, those stupid lego games, borderlands, elden ring, god of war, still wakes the deep, resident evil, silent hill, destiny, twd telltale, bloodborne, amnesia, fear and hunger, disco elysium, stanley parable, yume nikke, omori, genshin, honkai star rail, call of duty, stray, portal, little nightmares, baldur's gate, fallout, half life, halo, doom, death stranding, persona, fnaf, skyrim, lollipop chainsaw, cry of fear, final fantasy, project sekai, muse dash, detroit: become human, ddlc, undertale/deltarune, ultrakill, batim - literature: harry potter, THE RAVEN CYCLE/THE DREAMER TRILOGY, the outsiders, catcher in the rye, murder your employer, the iliad, the odyssey, the hunger games, the unwind dystology, the secret history, pride and prejudice, romeo and juliet, the tragedy of julius caesar, the great gatsby, percy jackson, interview with the vampire - other random things: homestuck (yikes), schoolbus graveyard, reality tv, documentaries, mythology (specifically greek, roman, and slavic), religion, cults, true crime (I'M NOT ONE OF *THOSE* FREAKS I PROMISE), american history (specifically early colonization, civil war & reconstruction, wwII), art history, furries (not a furry but i fw them heavy), therians (not a therian but i fw them heavy), shifters (cool af), biology, anatomy, medical, psychology, criminology, architecture, sewing, alternative subcultures (specifically goth), baking, youtube, animation memes, animatics, pinterest, writing, art :3 as you can see. i basically like everything except musicals and math

I LOVE WRITING!! I LOVE DRAWING!! I LOVE LORE!! I LOVE WORLDBUILDING!! I LOVE CREATING!! - I will definitely be posting a lot of my writing projects, art, and ocs! some projects I will be posting about :3 (nobody is even gonna know what half of ts means LMFAOO) (all of these stories are really corny) enjoy my confusing synopsisesisies Bite the Hand That Feeds You: Follows a ragtag crew of bounty hunters as they navigate Somniare's unforgiving lands. The crew's leader, Damian, begins to question his identity and experience strange symptoms after a high-stakes mission brings them to a Dead Zone. Things begin to shift as the presence of animalum increases, the Rot spreads, and war overtakes hybrid West Somniare. LOST: A liminal space hotel horror about a girl who runs away after being framed for a murder she did not commit. After walking along the side of a deserted highway for hours on end, she comes across a bright hotel. With nowhere to go, she enters and quickly realizes something is off as the smiley-masked staff attend to her. Inner Circle: “Angel” is the son of two high ranking members of a Scientology-esque cult. He attends an over-glorified rich kid private school sponsored by this “Church” and he’s fairly popular. An all around pleasure-to-have-in-class, student-council-president, academic weapon. He is closest with his friends, Heloise and Samson. But they bring disgrace, and now there is blood on Angel’s hands. Found dead in his dorm bathroom, he ends up in Purgatory where he meets a demon boy who is not what he seems.  and a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot, LOT more stories, ideas, and ocs I have lmfaoo! you can really tell i read too many ya novels and watched too much tv and had too much time to think as a kid

ANYWAYS!! Please feel free to interact as we probably have something in common!! I will likely just be posting stuff about my own projects and stuff about my interests!!

tears in my jayvik eyes

[katyspersonal]

you‘ve probably discussed this, I might have missed it. what do you think laurence’s motivations/goals were for everything he did? would you say he’s morally grey? had good or bad intentions?

I would not be surprised if I already discussed it and forgot myself! I am talking about Bloodborne SO much that I end up not remembering what I've discussed already :') I do think that he is morally grey; his most prevalent intentions were good ones, but I think he had some "badness" about him, mostly in the form of wanting to become the new ruling power in Yharnam! Okay I'll go bit by bit.. or try to.

THE biggest clue I have towards his good intentions is the fact that the holy blood is... well, a thing that heals. Not only we can witness it in the game first by using blood vials, but people do address it, verbally! However, I think the evolution and protection bit is really important here, if not MORE important.

There is a large possibility that beasts started becoming a problem even without the scholars messing with the dungeons! Yharnam stands on the "tombs of gods" that are related to the civilizations that actually messed with the blood first, Suspicious Beggar being unlike any other beast but a Loran one could mean that he inherited beasthood rather than developed it... even the very first Caryll Rune was the howling of the beast, and it is paired with the rune that points out beasthood is inherent for humanity:

We are talking about the setting where magic and aliens are real and where there were "first people" (Pthumerians) who caused irrevercible damage on the mortals in general, so the concerns could be real! My personal headcanon is that concerns over beasthood started to come up because meanwhile Kos was washed on the shore, thus abandoning her own concealment of the Eldrich Horrors; she was like Rom, since Sea and Lake runes refer to the barrier both. 🤔

But, yes, notice that Clawmark refers to the inherent thirst for blood within human nature, whereas Simon sarcastically refers to Healing Church's ministration as "beast cleansing", and Amelia's prayer goes like this:

(Sorry for always ripping excerpts from retranslation document ( x ), I am just incapable of working without it after discovering plenty of mistranslations fsdjhfdhs)

We can get a picture that the point of blood ministration is basically, 'The beastly nature within humans craves blood so it is better to satisfy it with some, but if you are not careful about it, you will just keep wanting more and more blood uncontrollably and become a beast anyways'! That's why people should fear the blood... yet, at the same time, seek it. Just in moderation. I would not say that it is a bad plan, but believing that religious agenda and presenting what were the stakes would be enough to keep people's will power strong is... strangely optimistic? Again, Laurence was a smart person, but he had more faith in humanity than, say, Willem or Micolash.

And at the end, besides healing properties and protection from the curse of beasts (that, again, might be inflicted on humanity genetically in this setting all history concidered), there is evolution factor too! There is a very important bit about Sedative:

Byrgenwerth people started to investigate Eldrich Horrors as soon as they returned from Isz, and also after massacre of Fishing Hamlet! I already talked about how Frenzy is relevant to bloodlust, hunt and Oedon here ( x ) and here ( x ), so it is still tied to 'feed your inner beast some blood so it doesn't rip you from inside'! But also, what could be observed directly was, 'if you peer into cosmic horrors too much you go insane and fucking die'. And ALSO:

Willem, and Byrgenwerth in general, pursued the Insight / Eyes Inside and cosmos as the means to improve the humanity:

So, like... it became plain that whereas the researchers could go insane and die from witnessing too much, they could also... NOT do that, and simply study mysteries of the universe normally - all they needed to do is to sip some blood sometimes! I actually can envision Willem, as well as Choir and Mensis that continue his ideas (albeit twisted) to believe that the "weakest must go"! That if someone died during research - it is a tool for the scientists coming after them, and if someone could not handle it then maybe they were not worthy! Meanwhile, I think initially Laurence disagreed with that and thought it would be better to just sip some blood when it gets hard, and evolution without the blood would simple have too much of a body count, with the "survivors" having lost their humanity (figurally OR literally)!

+ This is also an important observation in my version of lore and timeline, in which Healing Church and Byrgenwerth were one at first and Willem was the 'pope', so they were doing both blood ministration and research for eyes (most notable in Adeline's arc), and later Laurence elbowed Willem away to have more control over his own thing 🤔 This is not the most popular theory but the one I am satisfied with the most, I explained it here: ( x )! (fun fact: creator of that one BB fan manga centered on Lady Maria had that interpretation too! xD I feel validated.)

So yeah, in the conclusion, Laurence had plenty of reasons to put his faith in the blood! Healing, protection and evolution. But whereas the next most influential person (Willem) insisted that it was the worst idea ever, other people who LIKED the blood (Cainhurst nobles) apparently were doing it "wrong". They reveled in blood thirst and curse, whether truthfully or that was the prejuduice. Knowing Soulsborne settings, it was both. There must be the reason Lady Maria distasted it, okay? Maybe Fauxsefka too, if you believe she was one of the OG ones and not taken from Cainhurst as a child. Laurence needed to assert the blood healing, but also to have it as the good thing! A thing that connects you with the gods, whereas protecting and advancing your humanity, not corrupting it!

So, he needed to replace the oligarchy (Cainhurst), but to also not let someone else rise instead! Though I still could write it down as good intentions too, albeit twisted - Laurence could not TRUST someone else to act for the betterment of humanity, as well as to have courage to do sacrifices and morally burdening decisions. He was somewhat arrogant but he had the reasons to be, as a genuinely smart person. In his eyes? Micolash and Rom maybe were "smarter", but at the same time so detached from humanity that he could tell in the end they'd forsaken it, by their own will or unintentionally. And wasn't he right? Well, wasn't he?? Micolash is "You are too stupid to make such decisions" (derogatory), but Laurence is "You are too stupid to make such decisions" (affectionate)! Caryll was his equal intellectually but Laurence could tell he lacked the 'courage' and risk-taking streak (by being unwilling to mess with the blood, first of all). Willem was certainly smart, but not only avoided the blood like Caryll, but Laurence could tell he was prone to "gatekeeping". In Laurence's eyes, the 'peasants' deserved a chance for evolution too (and this is some contrast with his teenage "Sorry hun, I don't speak poor uwu" years xD Character development!).

________________________

Anyways, thank you for this ask very much! I LOVE talking about Laurence, he raised in amongst my favourite characters since recent times.. and also discussing the depth and complexity of his character is just what I need x) Yeah, sadly enough, he was not much better in terms of great sacrifices for his goals and machiavelism than Willem or other scholars he looked down on. But, Laurence believed that when HE did that it was different, because at least his ways were 'productive' xd In his opinion, I mean.

The concept of Laurence who was just evil and selfish asshole that wanted power and religious-ish control over everything does nothing to me :pensive: But, I do think that whereas ensuring his power and theocratical control was a necessity, he could still enjoy what he got even a little! I don't see it as corruption arc from nice and good person to a deranged asshole, but rather from a person with clear ambitious goals and comprehension of what it will cost to... well, a person horrified of the cosmic insight and gods that once guided him and getting obsessed with blood in the exact same way he warned others not to.

[aeondeug]

Games that encourage loop based gameplay via death are interesting. Ones like Nethack or Sil I feel very little about. I'm mostly there for mechanical purposes. But the ones I find most interesting are those that end up saying something thematically and narratively via the loop. Dark Souls is probably one of the most talked about and well known cases now. Wherein the only real failure state your stubborn undead ass has is to give up. And giving up is "hollowing". It gives a sort of somberness to runs you never finished and serves as ample encouragement to just keep going. Because you can't give up. You can't be lost to madness and memory loss. You need to keep going. Darkest Dungeon is another one that comes up, though not in the form of you, the player, dying but in the form of your hired work dying. Initially you might be attached to them. Worried for them. Over time you grow less attached. Your fondness for individual characters is often less about any genuine care for them and more a care for what they bring you financially. And what they will cost you financially. By the end of my time with the game I was actively resentful of them at times. Oh no you decided to have a panic attack and fucking died boo hoo. Now I have to train and fund a replacement. Fear and Hunger's loop I have been thinking about. Especially with the implications of godhood and delving too deep. The first time I saved the Girl from her cage I did so because I felt genuinely bad for her. I was doing a good thing, a kind thing. Something selfless. She's a cute little girl am I supposed to just leave her there? But the next few times I got the Girl I was more concerned about her mechanical worth to me. At worst she can take hits for me. At best she will be a powerful mage who will save me from death dealing blows. The Girl is being let out less because I am feeling bad for her and more because she is useful to me in my quest to go deeper. And then there's her other forms of worth. I could just want to get an ending that doesn't require her and if I want that or am willing to alter my goal to that I can use her as a form of currency. The Girl isn't just a useful tool in battle but something I can trade for other things I deem more useful to me. But she's still a little girl. She gets happy when I give her the doll and the dagger. The emotional reality of her being a little girl is dulled though because I have knowledge and I need more. Finally there is her worth in the endings. If I want to see those I need the Girl. Not to fight for me or to be traded away, but to transform her and reveal the full extent of the Dungeon's mysteries. And it's horrifying. But are you just not going to do that? After everything you've done to get that far? After all you've heard about becoming a real god? And given the nature of how time works in Ma'habre and the loop that the New Gods are trapped in that feels rather purposeful. I've ended up complacent with throwing myself and other people into a meat grinder just to learn a tad bit more. This also makes me curious about how the sequel handles it given its Majora's Mask inspiration.

[fatherentropy]

Entropy's guide to Final Fantasy XIV

Just a handy dandy little guide for no reason because you literally don't need a guide to play the game and be happy but I keep seeing misconceptions about it and they're driving me UP THE GODS BE DAMNED WALL so here we ARE

FINAL FANTASY XIV WAS ORIGINALLY RELEASED IN 2010

AND IT SUCKED

There's a ton of different series based on the absolute shenanigry that was involved in FFXIV 1.x but the important part is that most of the development team were either fired or moved to other departments and were replaced by the current Producer; Yoshi-P and his team. They tried rehabilitating the game as is but it became increasingly apparent they were going to have to do something drastic so they shut the game down and completely redid it. Keeping in mind that Square Enix was not doing well financially at the time, this means their budget was not very big and it shows from time to time.

2.x otherwise known as A Realm Reborn, is a completely redone base game. Over the past couple of years the devs have done a lot to improve the base game for longevity reasons but it's still kind of awkward and a bit of a slog. Be patient, dick around, honestly I do recommend playing around on the Free Trial unless you know you're going to be playing awhile because it isn't time gated so you can go at your own pace (You just can't exceed a certain level or quest at the end of the first expac; Heavensward, and you have a TON of content you can access despite being a trial.)

Still a lot of people just do not like ARR (or subsequently the expac Stormblood) and this brings me to my next point

2. THERE ARE "JUMP BOOSTS" SOLD IN THE STORE TO SKIP STORY AND CLASS LEVELS

If you're new to the game dO 👏 NOT 👏 FUCKING 👏 USE 👏THESE 👏!!! Even if you aren't interested in the story, the game is training you for the mechanics that come in later in the game.

You'll see it time and again where a WoW streamer or someone will come in and try FFXIV but they'll treat it like their old mmo and say it's a terrible game but you'll watch their streams and they're standing in twelve AOEs and refusing to do mechanics shouting about the healers being terrible. The game is SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED so that you have to do mechanics and not stand in shit. If you get one hit by a AoE Marker in end game every other person was trained to avoid from the beginning of the game, idk what you want them to do tbqh!!!

3. AT THE END OF THE DAY FFXIV IS A FINAL FANTASY GAME

The focus of this game is story and will always be story. Unlike western games that all decided cutscenes were bad for some reason, you will literally be inundated with them. Not all of them are voiced. That is a lot of reading. Pace yourself.

There are different story arcs (expansions) but the story of Final Fantasy XIV is one continuous story from beginning to end and it references past events all the time because it's still relevant. The devs try really hard to make sure old unexplained questions get addressed and their attention to detail is pretty great. We literally just had one of our mysteries of base game explained but also maybe with a tie in for future content.

FFXIV has been described as being one of the best single player MMO experiences and that's getting truer all the time. Devs are only a couple dungeons away from having made every single dungeon you are required to do for story available to complete using NPC teammates instead of real people.*

Our Raids have story and cutscenes. Our non required dungeons got story and cutscenes. If you're not interested in story you probably shouldn't be playing this game. We do have a raiding scene and FFXIV has probably one of the lowest entries into raiding so it's easy to get into but it's not going to be the WoW Raiding scene other people are used to.

Also stop complaining about the unskippable cutscenes that show up in very select dungeons. They are Like That™ because old players used to kick new players for trying to watch them because they're trying to speedrun. It's a thing we all gotta struggle through because of people without empathy.

If you don't have time for things to go bad, don't run that content.

*this doesn't include Trials which are big boss fights but when you realize NPCs can't do more than one (1) mechanic at a time you begin to realize why there's exactly one trial they can do in the entire goddamn game.

4. WESTERN AND ASIAN FANTASY ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS

I keep seeing people scoff at Asian fantasy because it's not what they're used to in fantasy like GoT or tES but idek why they're compared?? Final Fantasy is inspired by dungeons & dragons, sure, but it's also inspired by shit like

S T A R W A R S

I'm not even remotely joking about that. Once you realize that it becomes more apparent the more you look. 80s Star Wars was HUGE in Japan. As my sibling says, it's not really a Final Fantasy game unless you end up in space for some reason.

This is ofc not even mentioning that the values and cultural infuences of different European countries tend to be different from one another let alone fucking JAPAN at the other end of the world.

Some weird and wild shit happens in the game that you wouldn't see in your typical Western fantasy stories but to be quite honest some of the complaints I see against Asian anything is quite frankly Racist. (If you have had the notion that Asian things are just worse than Western stuff then I may have news for you!) I would just try and come at it thinking it's an entirely different genre than try and force it to be something it just isn't nor should be.

I might add more to this as the salt takes me but!! I've said my piece... for now.

[surachibee]

of myths and monsters based au stuff

Hey! So I’ve had a few people ask about this pit concept post over on Twitter and I thought It’d be easier to write a lot of stuff on here. Can’t believe I’m getting brainrot from a game that isn’t even canon but here we go!

To start, a good chunk of my omam related art is more of a weird reimagining of it than anything, so like redesigns/concepts/story tid-bits etc. are loosely based on the original. Just something for fun!

Little bit of a background, but this story takes place in an alternative timeline than the one Kid Icarus: Uprising takes place in. Here, instead of defeating Medusa (relatively) unscathed, Pit gets hurt. Bad. In a hurry to save Palutena as soon as possible, he was reckless, and attempted to use the Three Sacred Treasures (the wings of Pegasus, specifically) before he was deemed ready to weld them, and thus faced major injuries. Palutena out of concern doesn’t promote Pit to the captain of her guard, and post-nes he’s spent a few years recovering from the incident.

Now on to oMaM, Most of the beginning follows the original story. (Link to a page where you can find the story from one of oMaM’s manuals) Palutena has a dream about a mysterious invasion from the “Orcos” and calls upon Pit to go on a mission to prepare for the attack. (In the manual it’s implied/stated in the that he’s the captain of her guard, although for this AU I think I’d prefer if he was *training* to be that, along with preparing for the invasion. I think I’d have more fun having that as a motive to prove himself capable.)

Anyways, Pit’s journey starts out the same. First, he travels down into the Underworld on his first set of trials set out by Palutena to grow stronger and (properly) earn each of the Three Sacred Treasures this time. She’s his travel buddy, and helps him with the first few levels and up to the first dungeon, but from then on out he would need to face the last two dungeons alone.

Throughout this section more and more mysterious monsters start showing up. They’re not Underworld monsters, and they almost seem to be..not of this world. At one point there’s a level where Pit can’t communicate with Palutena, and here’s where he encounters a strange portal.

Curiosity killed the cat, and he cautiously enters the strange, new dimension. This is the Otherworld. A land where everything is out of order. It’s a dimension where the gods pretty much threw in everything they didn’t want to deal with. Strang new weapons, questionable enemies, and new faces.

One of these new companions is a resident of this world, who resides in a rather secluded home here. He introduces himself as Orcos, and he proves to be a helpful to Pit. Not only does he help him navigate through the new environment to find a way out, they actually get along decently well. Pit (with help from Orcos) finds a way back home, however, Pit unexpectedly returns to the Otherworld once he escapes. There’s so many cool items, amazing new things to see! Who wouldn’t wanna take that chance to get their hands on powerful stuff like that? Intrigued by his newfound interest, Orcos proposes an idea. There’s pieces of a..thing..in the Otherworld that Orcos needs, but unfortunately he can’t enter the dungeons where the parts are being held. Pit can. So, Pit and his strange new guide become unlikely friends.

and that’s pretty much it! For now. I’ll update this post whenever

[estelraca]

Get to know you better game! Answer the questions and tag 9 people you want to know better.

tagged by: @baratrongirl

last song I listened to: Technically "The Macarena", because I needed to get my twins to dance for twenty minutes for a school thing and I was getting desperate. =p They were at least awed that I had been alive when the Macarena first came out, and that it was part of my ice skating warm-up routine!

The last song I pulled up of my own volition was "Never Look Away" by Vienna Teng. I absolutely adore her music. Her song "Eric's Song" is still the best song for my spouse and I.

currently reading: So many things! I love reading. I am making my dogged way through the One Piece manga after the live action drove my headfirst into it (I had stayed away for thirty years!). I am almost done with "The Seven Moons of Maali Almaeda", which is brutal but fascinating, featuring a queer photographer in Sri Lanka in the 80s. Or rather featuring his ghost, since he's been brutally murdered by a government death squad. Fascinating and alternates between horrific and nice quiet human moments. And then I am also reading Aliette de Bodard's "The Tea Master and the Detective", for something lighter, featuring Watson as a living ship and Holmes as a traumatized female teacher who likes solving mysteries.

currently watching: Kingohger! I am really really bad about watching anything consistently, but Kingohger is absolutely beautiful sentai. I adore every single one of these kings, and they're fighting an evil God, and they're sowing hope and breaking cycles of generational trauma, and I just want them all to walk away happy despite their trauma. And since it's aimed at children, they probably will; one of the reasons I like kid's TV, I think, while reading some much darker stuff (see above).

currently obsessed with: I never really put down a fandom or an obsession, I just rotate through them. I still adore Ace Attorney and Les Mis. New obsessions include One Piece (criiiies but also Zoro was written for me), Apothecary Diaries, and Dungeon Meshi; we'll see what else snags me over the next little bit!

tagging: Anyone who wants to do it! I am really socially awkward and bad at figuring out who to tag but also I love getting tagged in these things. Thanks for the chance to answer!

[soul-dwelling]

I received a few asks related to the newest Zelda game, Tears of the Kingdom. 

Seeing as I haven’t played the game, and I have only read spoilers and a plot synopsis, nothing I say can be a very educated response to criticisms of the game. 

…Not that this will stop me from still saying something, but, you know, like I said, I haven’t played the game, so anything I say below will be uninformed, so, take this as you will. 

Spoilers for the game, and I will just copy and paste the asks I got below. 

Yeah the new Zelda story is bad on every level - from the themes, to originality, surface appeal, charachters, consistency, nostalgia-baiting, to its mystery and execution and redundancy and missed potential. Like for example it shows Zelda reapearing and doing questionable things. One thinks that maybe she has some motives, maybe her experience twisted her worldview or maybe her actions get misinterprated - but no its the most generic "just a puppet that looks like her by evil guy lol" obvious

Also the new Zelda can't decide if it just wants to ignore all the "lore" and focus on a self contained world or if it wants to bait people with names, terms and events that have significance for super-fans. Like "oh its about the imprisoning war, you 'member that! But actually it has nothing to do with it just randomly the same event lol!"

Maybe the worse thing about totk is how it just repeats the same theme and arc of the previous game but worse. Botw dealt with lose and grief and how one has to sacrifice and prevail for the future generations to rebuild a better tommorow - so totk does the same just with a ridicoulous time span and plot devices while introducing unecessary timetravel that just confuses why thing happend in that way and doesnt say anything new or leads to any new charachter introspection.

Also sad with how much missed potential it had - it seemed like Ganondorf looked like the ancient hero from 10k in the past (even had the same pose) and the whole theme with circles and reversing things and fusing could have lead to a reaximination about these eternal roles of good and bad, about reconsiliation, breaking the circle, fusing into a synthesis that leads to a revolution - but nah its generic good guys vs bad guys

Also its just stupid on a surface level - things like Space bunny alien super-god races founding hyrule (like its Naruto again, the whole Kaguya myth is geting overplayed...), turning into goody dragons is a major plotpoint that you cant take serious because how stupid it looks, weird things like romance between quasi-humans and literal rabbits on two legs, timetravel, generic artifacts and energy beams and undercooked worlds

Too ad to the weird relationship to if it wants to ignore lore or not - Botw was original in atleast with the whole divine beasts and sheikah tech backstory, while this game kinda ignores it even if it is a direct sequel while going back to rehashing Oot and Lbw while also making an unecesary new origin for Hyrule even though Skyward sword got just recently rereleased. If they didnt care about story they should just have some random new country or aliens or demons invade.

In Botw atleast the calamity was the consequence of the failures of the past, of the arogance of the king, of the strife between people, their hubris and overconfidence. People suffered consequences and made sacrifices while in Botw the good guys are perfect and just "lose" because of out of charachter stupidity for a moment and then just dont do anything for thousands of years and dont prepare. Also zeldas sacrificed gets reversed and she doesnt even remember experiencing all the time she spent

The execution of the story is bad too, with the four sages dungeons repeating the same thing just with a different voice actor as opposed to botw which was connected with links experience in the past and moving on from their lose. Also the new little story arcs either get imediatly resolved or are just things like "he was greedy because of brainwashing and imediatly turns good after that with no consequences!" Also finding memories out of order spoil twistd and feels rushed and disconected

Also it just all feels generic and boring - wow evil "Demon King" (is that even a thing, seems more like something from anime that doesnt fit an western localization), magic stones, super secret furrie aliens and flawless generic goodguys - with the only theme of connection not even really being that deep and just basically turning into "yeah helping and trusting each other is good I guess?"

Also it makes weird plotholes like two masterswords existing at the same time, the whole calamity ganon not meshing with the newn Ganon, things disapearing without explanation making some people think it retconed botw while it actually seems like its a closed loop, how it fits with the other games, if its repeating events or a new continuity or the real new origin and things actually repeat after that, etc

There’s a lot here, so I’m going to tackle as much as I can. 

The timeline stuff in this game doesn’t bother me--because I don’t understand anything about the timeline in Zelda anyway. 

That’s a dickish comment on my part, but it’s also pretty much why I never got into the games, and it’s a bit of an insult on my part towards the entire Zelda franchise, but also why “the timeline doesn’t make sense in Tears” wouldn’t dissuade me from playing the game--because I’m already going in thinking, “The timeline shit never makes sense in this franchise, why should I start caring about it now?” 

(I’m not asking for anyone to explain the timeline to me: I can go read explanations on my own.) 

So, if the timeline right now doesn’t make sense, I take that either as, “Well, it never made sense to me anyway, so I don’t care,” or “Oh, shit, if Zelda fans and experts are poking holes in the time travel details, this may not be as well thought out.” 

But as I said before, I don’t worry about story when it comes to video games--and on a related note, I don’t really care about whether the time travel rules make sense if the story is good enough. I appreciate that, the longer you enjoy something, the more you will criticize details in the lore that don’t make sense: that is valid, that is a sign of intense engagement with something you like, I would be a hypocrite to criticize someone doing that given what I’ve done with content I enjoy (I wouldn’t be writing about what works and doesn’t work in Soul Eater if I hadn’t engaged deeply with this work upon initial reading and watching). 

But even as I get criticizing those details, as I just said, if the story is good enough, and has its characters progress, and has a beginning, middle, and end, and doesn’t screw up the message it was trying to tell, I can ignore the mechanics not working. It’s science fiction or fantasy fiction enough: the science is what allows the fiction to persist, the fantasy is what allows the fiction to persist, if the science or the fantasy is sound enough for me to keep reading the story, I don’t care, it’s about believability, not realism. 

The twist about who this Zelda really is, from what I read of the plot summary, works for me on paper: it sounds cool to have an evil Zelda who is not real. Maybe the execution just doesn’t work--again, I haven’t played this game to see whether the payoff works. Granted, I do think, “And then the real Zelda turns into a dragon,” is a little too out-there. 

The nostalgia-baiting: using names, events, people, etc, from other parts of the franchise is not a bad thing--that sounds really cool, if the story works. It’s like how I think MCU films used to be: “Here’s a decent story, we make sure that story works--then we’ll name characters, places, etc, after stuff from the comics.” More recent MCU stuff should be great because it finally gets to just bring in stuff from the comics…and yet that stuff right now feels like the real deep cuts-baiting the audience, where name-dropping someone is a substitution for story and plot progression. 

(As an aside, this is probably why I soured so much on DuckTales 2017: that series felt much more like nostalgia-baiting that you’re describing, where I think parts of the story and characterization are not working--but, oh, look, here are references to the Disney Afternoon, that should shut up you 1980s/1990s kids and make you love this series. …No, it didn’t. Like, how do you fuck up Kit Cloudkicker that badly? How do you make Don Carnage so boring? Numerous references to original stuff from Darkwing Duck is where I start acting like I think you are about Zelda, where I just want to say, “That’s not what the original show was like,” or, at least with what they do with the two Darkwings in the show, how DuckTales 2017 really felt like it was positioning viewers who just didn’t like the show’s direction as being a hater and the equivalent of the homicidal Darkwing with the chainsaw--which, nah, that’s a pretty petty characterization of viewers who just aren’t a fan of how cynical and mean-spirited this iteration feels (when it comes to making Kit into somehow who just fails despite the talents already shown, that makes up a reason for him to be a sad adult, that makes Launchpad just the worst).)

You point out how you think Tears is repeating what Breath already did with themes, only it makes it worse by adding the time travel. Would Tears have been better if the time travel was held off until halfway through the game? If the big twist was that this was all time travel, would that work? 

I ask in part because I remember a commercial for what I think was one of the Zelda games, that was just one of the most effective commercials I saw--because of how creepy it was. It’s a first-person POV video, as you are walking through the castle, but once you reach the destination in that castle, the commercial announcer says you’re going to go through this entire game--and then have to repeat it all over again to get it right this time. Would that have worked better for Tears, where you feel a bigger connection to this story--then have everything about it ripped away from you when you have to travel back in time to do it again? 

I do think removing some great complexities about what Past!Ganondorf was up to feels like a missed opportunity. Then again, sometimes you just want your bad guys to be bad guys, not to keep giving them noble reasons or sympathetic back stories, just have them be cruel awful people that need to be stopped. This is probably also why I’m not too bothered by “yeah helping and trusting each other is good I guess”: yeah, sometimes you need a story that says it is good to help others, it is good to look for the good in others--but, as paradoxical as it may seem, there are just some bad people out there, and while obviously we can’t settle differences as you would in a game, or respond to evil as you would in a game, we do have an obligation to identify cruelty and do what we can to minimize its harm. 

It’s not like I don’t have my fair share of complaints about origin stories that just do not hold up: see my complaints about Fire Force, or I can go on a rant about the weird choices the various Sonic the Hedgehog comics have made for origin stories that no one asked for. 

I don’t want to criticize details about the origins or the romances of the aliens too much, if only because I find most designs in newer Zelda stuff to not be my taste. Zelda works best for me when the designs look like plants and animals from our world; some designs like the Zoras just don’t fit the setting for me. 

The various conflicting origin stories: isn’t Zelda as a franchise all about how nothing makes sense? Again, this is a series where it feels like there are so many timelines that having different origins feels less troublesome. In fact, that was what a post I read recently said: this is the _Legend_ of Zelda, so with each iteration, we are getting a different spin on that legend, because it is so far removed from the truth that we are just making up new legends, telling new tales of the same characters and themes, hence why so much stuff conflicts across different games. 

(Granted, just because this theory gives an explanation, and makes the title better suited, doesn’t negate the problem: just because you made up an excuse for inconsistencies doesn’t mean that the inconsistencies you created aren’t in themselves bad. At best, it is an opportunity for the game developers to say, “First, we are focused on gameplay and visuals, and we’ll alter the story to make those as effective as possible. And second, we are allowed to ignore continuity to fix what wasn’t working before.”) 

(And, granted, I’m also a Star Trek fan--and I remain livid how much newer Trek is just fucking up continuity and canon because “we wanted to do this instead.”)

I do think the ending of Tears just undoing what went wrong, with little obvious ramifications, is frustrating. At least show something that indicates that this experience affected Link in some real emotional way--and if you have to add a physical reminder to him for how that real emotional change will persist, then do that, too, for visual storytelling. 

“Demon King” is fine with me as phrasing: this is just the reality of trying to take the Japanese suffix -o and translating it as best as possible. 

I don’t know enough about the lore of the Master Sword: is it really a big problem to have two existing at the same time, or is there lore that it can’t happen? I mean, again, there are so many timeline shenanigans and multiple Ganons and multiple Links and multiple Zeldas that I am ready to just throw up my hands and say, “Sure, Master Swords for everyone.”

[gorematchala]

I've been playing a ton of shit and not talking about it but

Star Ocean 2nd Story (PS1) is already one of my favorite RPGs just like First Departure R was. I'm kinda leaning toward not liking Claude but its probably because I'm playing as Rena so I'm not getting his internal monologue. But based on his intro in the 2nd Story R demo and how he's acting about Dias I'm like youre kinda a dumbass huh. But not in the lovable heroic way Roddick was. But I think its fine if he kinda sucks, there's room for that

Umihara Kawase is another game that is like instantly on my favorites of all time list. I'm on stage 5 and I'm like okay top 3 SNES game. Could be top 1 but Hebereke and Star Ocean are on there too hehe. But its like a physics based grapple platformer and its so cool. I need to go look at the new one again even though its kinda uggy

I bought Mushihime-sama because I'm still trying to expand my shmup horizons but I haven't been on my Switch much because I'm playing Star Ocean 2 and Pokemon Ruby but from the 2 seconds I played it was really good

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days, I'm giving so much leniency because I want to like Xion and I wanna experience her story. So far I've only done the tutorial with Axel and its a DS game so I dont expect much from it in terms of performance or visuals or whatever, its fine. My problem and why I'm having to exercise patience is that the writing of that series is so frustrating. The idea of that game is flawed. The whole thing exists to make the organization seem lamer. Like the mysterious shadow guys that were a big threat in chain of memories and 2, those guys all get together for meetings where xemnas assigns them busy work and they groan and complain about it even though i always forget theyre supposed to be emotionless. Vexen doing the Nagatoro crazy eyes all the time doesnt come off as hollow to me. It just makes me mad because its like FF7 where it could be great but a man named Tetsuya Nomura was handed a pen and paper and now we're here. But I will do it for her

I played 20 minutes of Izuna Legend of the Unemployed Ninja and I basically did the intro and then died to the 3rd enemy in the first floor of the dungeon but that game shouldve been more popular. It's really good but unfortunately it released on the same system as Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. Izuna sucks so bad I love her. The first thing she does is go to a shrine that says "this gem keeps the gods from being mad at us do not touch" and shes like hehehe all for meeee. Then the inn keeper is like I'm charging you 300x the rent till you fix this and shes like "we cant afford that, I will pay it... with my life" and she takes out a matchlock pistol and puts it to her head, and the inn lady is like yeah alright do it, and then you hear a click noise and Izuna is like damn out of bullets. I was like this is an insane way to introduce this character but shes my fail girl and we're gonna solve this curse together

The other fun thing has been playing Dark Souls 1 with my brother alongside his co-op playthrough of Smellden Ring with his partner, cuz DS1 is a good game and Smellden Ring is so bad that he has fully admitted I was right when i was bitching like a year ago or whatever. Cuz he took faith this time and now that theyve hit the wall of Mohg and Malenia hes like why the fuck is everything in this fucking game INT. And I'm like yeah dude, idk!!! But then like, we just did Sen's Fortress in DS1 and that place is so mean and fucked up but I was having a chill time just walking through all the traps and snake men and kicking my feets under the desk. DS1 is fully relaxing to me just like Bloodborne and most of DS3. Next time we play is O&S though so I'll get back 2 u on that statement

[boobachu]

Seriously

I've given up on there being another great Sonic game ever again.

Honestly kinda given up on video games being above par, there's no money to be made in making a video game you're proud of, and people buy garbage so why try?

Like even tho Sonic Lost World was really good, it didn't have the spectacle, only Sonic was playable, the despair event horizon was spoiled by the bad writing. It's still just a mid game.

Honestly Black Knight was the last time there was spectacle, and good writing, but then that game didn't really have platforming. So the last great Sonic game was Sonic Heroes, which still is overshadowed by SA2's better story.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Gates to Infinity was the final time Pokemon really made anything good

Super mario bros. been dead longer than most of y'all been alive.

And new games? Wow Spider-man has the worst graphics ever and the good story is off-put by how way too fucking long it is.

God of War? ugly Call of Duty? ugly also I think a gatcha now? Fortnite? Barely functions. Splatoon 3? Barely functions.

I dunno, I guess if you want passion you gotta look at indies, but then like... they don't have the budget to do anything better than the early '90s.

That and I've never seen an indie game with action-adventure like I like it.

Aunno what I love about video games have been dead a while. I guess I should focus on the past and learn how to get good at Dead or Alive 2 and fucking kill that Jughead nosed freak.

[cryptofadventure]

🌻

new ask game send me a 🌻 and ill just tell you whatever the fuck i want

Ok so I'm a persona fan yeah?

I got into the series when 5 came out so naturally I played that first right????

....

How come I felt so fucking cheated when I played through Persona 4?

P4 has a better story, better humor execution, better relationships, better suspense, just better everything save for aesthetics (bc the concept of mysterious thieves and the use of symbolism got me in a chokehold). Dude I'm sorry but as much as I love the Phantom thieves their friendships weren't nearly as close as the Investigation Team and there were times where they were downright malicious to each other (and by that I usually mean Atlus trying to be """funny"" and shit on Ryuji in an uncalled for manner while Morgana is allowed to be a fucking massive creep).

Morgana is fucking disgusting and completely unlikeable and you cannot change my mind, Shido was a hallow villian that pales in comparison to Adachi, they fucked up how cool Akechi's character COULD HAVE BEEN for making him snitch on himself so fucking fast, Okumura's palace was complete dog shit, and Haru was completely robbed of a character from Mona having his little piss fit that literally added nothing to the story but a headache.

Teddie was so fucking loveable and silly I literally cannot understand why people hated him. Dude his ''''weird behavior''' he learned from Yosuke and Yukiko specifically and several of the first dungeons were promiscuous and this mfer has NEVER talked to another person before you expect him NOT to pick up on what he sees his friends doing??? And he never soley went after the girls he did this to EVERYBODY no one was safe from his weird flirting and that's what made it funny vs Mona who literally sexually harrasses a sexual harassment victim at any given moment that's supposed to be his friend and acts like a incel constantly. Him being the 'being of hope' and being this fucking disgusting and selfish is fucking laughable. Fuck that cat.

But moving on since I can literally complain about Mona's character for hours; Shido is weak as fuck. Bro Adachi had LAYERS like an onion bro. He was just a everyday guy and that's what made it fucked up; ANYONE could have fallen down that road. A perfect example is Yosuke; a kid down on his luck, treated like shit no matter how hard he tries, and is consumed by boredom. Had Yosuke's parents not loved him and had ne not met his friends he could have became an Adachi himself. Adachi does a good job at making you feel bad...to a degree. Like bro it sucks your parents didn't give a shit about you, it sucks you made a tiny mistake and got shipped out to the middle of nowhere, and it sucks your love life is non-existent but you ain't had to kill anybody lmao. Also you like him once he pulls the chad move of 'oh man is THAT what i used to sound like??? You're cringe, kill yourself.' to a actual god WHILE it's beating his ass.

In addition I'm so ass mad they removed the cut scenes that gave the Will Seeds has so much more story purpose. I think it's extremely important to see how the villians get to the way they are bc no one is just born fucking evil. They were all just normal people at some point that started tumbling down the wrong road. One I can easily talk about is Kaneshiro. Where I live, gang activity is rampant; you don't just choose that lifestyle. It's a lifestyle your pressured into, or you feel you have no choice, or you are influenced by your media/friends/family. It's hardly ever something you want to do (instagram mfers with guns and drugs that say they're about that life aren't. it's a front to look cool they'd die here in seconds). He was pushed around in a low income neighborhood presumably by other gangsters and he had no choice but to fall inline and when you see YOUR opportunity to be the big dog you take it because it's a dog eat dog world..but that still don't make you a sad beanie baby. You're still a monster for ruining other people's lives by repeating history.

Showing that would have made every villain so much stronger than what they are.

Having Akechi snitch on himself so fast and even without the pancake thing it was blaringly obvious he was a antagonist. How he hated them so passionately, even for his image, didn't make much for a surprise. Also going on about characters; Makoto's hate isn't deserved full stop. 'oH BuT She WantS To Be A pOlIce OffIcer She'S meAn TO TThe GrouP SHe'S a BoOtLiCkEr' shut the fuck up Stacey you on;t hate the police bc you think it's cool but if you were robbed you'd call for 911 before anyone else. Makoto's character was so painful; imagine you lose the parent you were so close to and never met the other and on top of that you have to watch your only sibling turn into a abusive, selfish monster that treats you like shit. And it doesn't stop there, because you're pressured to be the embodiment of the nerd emoji other students hate you and adults take advantage of you. Bro the principal literally went 'I'll destroy your college future if you don't figure out a case the police can't solve'. Bro WHAT.

Also Ryuji was done dirty, Kamoshida was also his villian not just Ann's. I don't care he was still assulted too; homie teased this kid about his drunk dad beating him in front of EVERYONE and broke his leg knowing FULL WELL he's not academically capable and can't go to college any other way that sports now he has to be uncertain about his future.

eh, where was I? I forgot. In short: Persona 4 handled everything better than 5 ever could and it makes me so sad bc 5 has such a good premise and aesthetic. It honestly makes me wanna re-write a good chunk of it and apply it to my P5 blog to satisfy the dweeb in me.

Oh bonus:

If you think Maruki is morally worse than Shido soley bc you're an Akechi simp I think your brain is smoother than a jar of fucking peanut butter and that you've the intelligence of a rock.

[hatepig]

This is all excellent advice, but I'd like to tack onto it about another pearl of wisdom I see tossed around casually: "If your players guess the bad guy early on, just switch the bad guy!"

Do not do this. It is the fastest way to make sure your players never pay attention to your foreshadowing or pre-planning ever again. Your players figure out your carefully plotted mystery? They spotted the master manipulator behind the threads by putting two and two together? Good! Success! You've written a cohesive plot that makes sense to an outside observer- More than that, you've got players who are engaged! They're paying attention, hanging on your words and taking notes. Keep at it, reward them for their cleverness, and have an enjoyable story about how the players unraveled the machinations of a Machiavellian schemer before they smote their ruin upon the mountainside.

Switching what is going on because your players are onto you can seem like its a good idea, but its a type of GM versus Player thinking. The GM thinks they must outwit the player, and has the tools to do so, being in control of the narrative. You're going to the town that's about to be attacked? Well now it's this other town. You figured out which room the bad guy was residing inside of in the dungeon? Different room, who cares about map layout! This can make players feel like their actions are pointless and the entire thing is on rails. Obviously they'll see the villain when you want them to and not a second before, so no point in actively looking.

A hostile GM will also 'forget' to mention things. They creatively don't list room details until asked, happen to not mention key NPC actions, and generally use their position as the omniscient narrator to obfuscate what's going on. The whole thing ultimately will come crashing down on you when the players don't have a clue with this hidden evil villain is. You've never mentioned them, or half of their actions ocurred off screen. They're a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere; you might as well staple two Gibbering Mouthers together and call it a day because your players will be that confused.

Versions of these ideas can work. Your players hopped off the planning you had done and now you're in some improvised territory, you're scrambling and they immediately catch on to your bad guy? No judgement on moving things around a little bit during planning for your next session: your players don't have hours of pondering working against them, they have the joke suggestion that the Paladin made about how the town doctor seems frankenstein-y. In the meantime between sessions, you've realized that all those clues you laid down can work, but the real Big Bad Evil Guy is the gravekeeper, who is manipulating this poor doctor into building an army of the damned while trying to resurrect their dead cousin or something.

Players who outsmart their GMs feel good. They don't feel good because their GM is stupid, they feel good because their attention and energy was rewarded. They get the villain in your whodunit? My god, the killer was here the whole time! Thank god you're every bit the brave investigators your character sheets say you are. GMs who accidentally outsmart their players get to enjoy interesting new story beats. Your players confidently arrested the maid on suspicion of murder most foul? Now you watch as the judge they saved presides over her execution, the player's satisfaction turning to horror as they rush into action!

Be a collaborator, not an adversary. Narrative based games want both sides to be invested in the narrative, and one side taking absolute control of it makes the other side back out.

There’s this bit of gamemastering advice I’ve seen going around about how if you’ve got some sort of mystery for the players to solve, like maybe a murder, or some political intrigue, or the identity of the source of the Dark Lord’s sinister power but also His one weakness, you should go with whatever conclusion they come to as the correct one.

I say thee nay! Coddle not your players! Let them be wrong! Let them chase red herrings and come to the wrong conclusions! Does your game hinge on them solving it? If so, why give them a mystery to solve in the first place?