#he literally orchestrates it he finds out where she is and when she'll be alone and he makes it happen

[weepynymph]

lol my dad walked in as we were watching the scene where dean comes over and tels rory things 'aren't working out with lindsay' and then kisses her and he watches and says 'he's sort of a monster isn't he?' 😂😂😂

[starlight-phantom]

No problem! 🫡

Yeah, honestly I think the main reason I don't have that much of a problem with the camera is because a large majority of games I played growing up had janky cameras so I've just kinda grown immune to them.

Okie dokie! The level it's in is Aquatic Mine. The item lets you swim underwater without needing to ever go up for air which trust me, in the final level, will be extremely helpful. To get it you're gonna have to brave and just go for it. You'll need to set the water level to 3 and when you see a kinda box thing with 'CAUTION' and pictures of ghosts on it, you're gonna need to dive down there and go through some small rooms. Literally just go straight and you'll get there. But be quick because it's underwater; getting back to the main area will be fine because now you have no air limit.

Yeah, I can understand why they're divisive but I think they add a nice change of pace to the game. Like, hey, that was a pretty intense level, let's chill out in this spooky halloween mountain now. And yeah, Knuckles is a great character when he's written well! That's why I hated that the 2010s wrote him as 'dumb muscle guy' because no??? That ain't him??? He's gullible, yes, but that's because he grew up alone on a floating island. He's smart, he just needs to become a better judge of character.

And yeah! The VAs of this era are great! I don't talk about them a lot because the sound mixing of their games is bad so nine times outta ten I can't hear them, but when I can hear them, they're great! Especially Shadow and Rouge! Also, lil fun fact: in Adventure 2 and Heroes, Rouge was voiced by Lani Minella who also voiced Maya Amano in the PS1 release of Persona 2 Eternal Punishment. If I had a nickel for every time Lani Minella voiced a character who's outfit featured love hearts on their chest, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird that happened twice.

Yeah, I always grind lives in games from this era. I'd much rather start from a checkpoint just before I got stuck than get sent back to the menu, go back to story mode and then have to start the whole level over again. Ngl, I am glad getting sent back to the main menu isn't really a thing games do anymore 'cause that shit sucked.

The chao garden is so cute and chill and I love it so much. If you love petting, I think you'll happy to learn that if you pick a chao and then hold the stick to the side, you can gently rock them in your arms. Another lil fun fact: the series' current sound director, Tomoya Ohtani, y'know the guy who does all the cool orchestral rock anthems, yeah the first song he composed for the series was the chao race music. He also composed Knuckles' stage themes.

Oh no! I had a similar thing happen to me where I was trying to move an egg and whole I was jumping, I accidentally pressed the action button, which when you're in the air, the action is throw. So I accidentally threw the egg into a wall and that made the chao hatch and I felt so guilty... Oh, also! If you take a chao to the kindergarten and go into the fortune teller's room, you can name them. But what you have to do to name them yourself is let the fortune teller suggest a name, say no and then when she asks if you'd like to hear a different name, say no again and then she'll ask if you want to name them yourself. But ngl, some of her suggestions are funny as hell.

The animals can change your Chao's stats and give them some attributes of that animal. For example, if you give a chao a cheetah, they'll gain ears and a tail and they'll learn to wash their face like a lil kitty. All the animals have different things they give to the chao so just find the ones you think are cute! 🥰

Also, the battery things are called chaos drives and they boost your chaos stats depending on the colour:

Yellow - Swim

Green - Run

Purple - Fly

Red - Power

It makes it a lot easier when you're trying to level up certain stats. My sister and I tend to play Prison Lane when we're gathering stuff for chao because it's easy and you get a lot of chaos drives.

And again, no problem! Just give me a minute to get a link to that website, I'm on mobile and it's difficult to do two things at once on this thing. I'll edit it in once I get it.

EDIT: I found it, the site's called Chao Island. Just make sure you check the stuff for SA2B since that's pretty much always the version that's ported to modern consoles.

Just wanted to thank you again for the Sonic Adventure 2 recommendation, I started playing again and I'm having so much fun!

I just started the second Knuckles stage and I wanna say I never expected the Tails mission to be the most fun but running through the military base in his plane mech was so so much fun. And Tails' VA is super cute too!

And I think I'm getting a hang of the controls. Knuckles is still the most difficult for me to control though so would you have any tips? Or just general tips for the game itself? If you don't mind me asking of course 👉👈

Oh and the Chao garden is so cute I love it so much...

Hey, no problem! It is one of my most beloved games from my childhood so of course I'm gonna recommend it to people!

Hell yeah! A lot of people really don't like the other playstyles but I personally enjoy all three of them. And I get what you mean, there's just something so satisfying about booking it through the levels and shooting everything in sight. Also, little tip for the mech stages: hold down the shoot button and wiggle the stick to lock onto more enemies at once then release the shoot button, you'll get a way higher score from it.

And yes! I love Tails' voice in this game! In this era, Tails was voiced by a different person in pretty much every game because they got young boys to voice him and then in between games, they'd hit puberty and couldn't do the voice anymore. But my personal favourite is the SA2 voice, he does a really, really good job and if my memory serves me right, he's the little brother of the guy who voiced Tails in SA1.

Yeah, the treasure hunting levels are the most hated levels in the game... Again, I personally love them and they're my sister's favourite levels, but they can be a little annoying at times, especially because some levels, mostly Rouge's, have some caveats to them.

My biggest piece of advice is don't even worry about your ranking for the first try, just investigate the areas and familiarise yourself with the big landmarks and stuff around them so that when you read the hints, you have a better idea of where to search, especially since you only get three hints per item. Also, try getting into more open areas and spinning the camera when searching your surroundings cause it tends to freak out in smaller areas. Honestly, your biggest enemy in the treasure hunting stages is the camera, so I think once you figure it out and get the jankiness to work for you, you'll be golden. Also also, Knuckles has an optional power up item in the level Aquatic Mine that can make searching certain areas a lot easier, I could tell you were to find it if you're interested.

Also, for general tips - 1) go back to levels you find easy and collect loads of rings to just grind for loads of lives so you don't have to start back at the menu so often, 2) a lot of the platforming you just need to go for it, if you wimp out, you'll probably fail so just say 'fuck it' and go for it, 3) literally just get the camera in a headlock and force it to work for you, the camera is one of the worst things in this game. That's everything I can think of off the top of my head but if there's anything else you need help with, don't hesitate to ask.

Also, there's four levels in particular that are very annoying so I would be happy to give tips in advance if you'd like them, but since only one of them is in the Hero story, I'll give it to you now: Eternal Engine - hold back on your shooting. Shooting everything in sight will only get you killed.

Yes!! I love love love the chao garden and so does everyone else! It's why we've been begging for another one since 2001 but Sega's a little bitch and keeps ignoring us!!! But the Chao garden is actually surprisingly deep with what you can do with your chao, and I didn't learn that until a few years ago because I didn't have internet as a kid, there's even an entire website dedicated to it! I could give you a link if you're interested, but honestly for when you're beginning, just messing around and doing what you want and loving your chao is enough.

I really didn't mean to write this much, this just what this game does to me... 😅

[spicycreativity]

Fanfic Appreciation Week Day 7: A Place Where I Can Breathe

Yes, folks, I'm appreciating my own darn fanfic for the final day of Fanfic Appreciation Week because I worked really hard on it and it was a labor of love for/with one of my QPPs, my roommate, the man who got me into Sanders Sides: @\cadeorade-powercade (That's him in the aesthetic board)

Allow me to present the director's commentary for A Place Where I Can Breathe:

Content Warnings: All content warnings mentioned in the fic apply.

Chapter 1: I actually wrote this fairly late in the game. It's meant to serve as a prologue and orient the viewer in the universe, s opposed to staring on Chapter 2, which just throws the viewer in without context. I think it was a good choice, as it also allowed me to introduce the concept of the Sides having power focuses early on.

The Premise: Cade is a Virgil stan and he was getting frustrated looking for Virgil fic. He was finding a lot of stuff written without nuance by young authors, a sort of "by teenagers for teenagers" type deal. We are not teenagers, so we both have a hard time relating to that kind of teen angst fic, as we're not the target audience. So he asked me to write him a Virgil fic and we worked together to identify what plot he wanted, what the Mindscape looked like, and what quirks the Sides have. So a lot of this fic is quite gratuitous and self-indulgent

The Title: Lizzie McAlpine has a song called "Apple Pie" which includes the lyric "I've been running around trying to find a place where I can breathe." Apple Pie SCREAMS Moceit to me, and I had taken notice of the lyric and wanted to use it as the title for a Moceit fic. I didn't really have an idea beyond that, and when Cade asked me to write this fic, I realized it was actually perfect and summed up Virgil's inner struggle quite nicely. So cheers to "A Place Where I Can Breathe," the Moceit Fic That Wasn't

-Cade asked me specifically to include Virgil having a spider and I wrote nearly the whole fic without doing so, then had to go back and sprinkle some references in. I think I managed 2 total.

Chapter 2:

"Uh, how about I hold off on that until I actually see my room?" Virgil stared expectantly at Roman, who bounced on his toes. "Lead on, Macduff."

"That's not the line and you know it," Roman complained, but he turned to lead Virgil to his room. "It's ' lay on, Macduff,' and--"

-This fic was originally supposed to reach a climax with a confrontation between Remus and Roman, and "lay on, Macduff" would come back as a brick joke. Unfortunately, the original ending was a result of me getting tired and lazy, so I had to go back and fix it, and we lost the Roman-Remus confrontation.

It was hard for Virgil to not shudder at the sudden heat and weight on him. With his senses already open and taking in more information than his brain seemed to want to process, touch was an added stressor, more unwanted sensory input.

-Virgil being touch-averse is a direct shoutout to Cade, who is also touch-averse.

Roman had already transformed the living room: metallic streamers of purple and black stretched across the corners of the ceiling, and shiny balloons spelling out A-N-X-E-I-T-Y hovered above the TV.

-Upon first writing, Virgil had already given the upstairs crew his name, so the banner spelled out "VIRIGL" which is way funnier than "ANXEITY." But then his name reveal became a plot point so I had to go back and change it.

-Let! Virgil! Be! Mean!

-Virgil's line about hearing refrigerator noise when Roman talks is another shout-out to Cade, who has leveled that accusation at me

A small, cruel part of him protested at the idea that he would need special treatment and desperately wanted to throw it back in Patton's face. He wasn't a sweetheart, he wasn't a baby. He didn't need to crawl into a blanket fort with Dad just because he was a little stressed.

-Remus calls Janus "Janus Geminus" because I was tired and couldn't come up with a pun. "Geminus" is one of the Roman god Janus' epithets; another is "Pater" meaning "Father." That led to a conversation about Remus deliberately confusing Patton by calling Janus "Daddy," but I couldn't think of a clean way to fit the explanation into the narrative, so I stuck with "Geminus."

Chapter 3:

"There's nothing normal about that! " Roman stared in horror at the coffee massacre Virgil had orchestrated. What had once been a respectable (if not very tasty) cup of black coffee was now part of a 1:1 coffee to milk suspension, the liquid a tasteful shade of tan suitable for business casual trousers or a show-ready chihuahua.

-Cade is a certified Nightmare Man and came up with Virgil's horrifying coffee order after I asked him about it. Keep an eye out for Janus' equally horrifying coffee order later in the fic.

1) Shouts out the fact that Janus is canonically a Dostoevsky fan

Chapter 4:

Janus smiled at him. "Where reason fails, the Devil helps." He fussed with his gloves and straightened his capelet. "It's showtime."

-I fucking love Crime and Punishment. Look at me. Look at me. I fucking love Crime and Punishment. Janus' quoting Raskolnikov serves multiple purposes:

2) Lampshades the fact that Roman just conveniently happened to be alone in the living room, because I didn't want to waste time getting him there. That makes me, the author, the Devil

3) Foreshadows the impending disaster. When Raskolnikov says this line it is because he had planned to commit axe murder. The axe he was planning to steal had been moved, but he finds another, different axe to use. Raskolnikov messes up the murder and ends up killing an innocent witness in addition to his intended target. Janus messes up his manipulation attempt and ends up murdering Roman's self esteem

-I was going to include a reference to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Remus' line "debauchery and vomit" was originally going to be "blood, love, and rhetoric") but I didn't because... Uh... Hm. Why didn't I do that. Maybe I just forgot about it???

-Roman is too stubborn to manipulate for long and that is a fact.

"I was pretty much done anyway," Remus said. "There's only so much debauchery and vomit you can fit into one story."

-Cade specifically ask me that nobody cry in this fic, but after I had Janus eviscerate Roman I knew he couldn't not cry a little. I kept it to a minimum because there's already a billion fucking fics about [literally any Side] crying on the shoulder of [literally any other Side] and it's really just not interesting to either of us.

-It didn't come up because it doesn't matter, but Thomas dreamed he was participating in the exact Dionysian orgy that took place in The Secret History because it's my fic and I said so.

Chapter 5:

He just sat back and watched and tugged at his hair while Janus spooned mound after mound of crisp white sugar into his mug and Virgil poured his customary eight fluid ounces of milk into his own mug.

-Cade strikes again. Virgil's coffee order is equal amounts milk to coffee; Janus' is equal parts sugar to coffee. He had asked me to include a scene where Roman catches Janus massacring his coffee and is appropriately horrified, but I uhh... Didn't write it. I still might include it as an omake someday.

-I imagine that Roman feels really strongly about dragons vs wyverns, and Remus just pretends to give a shit because he thinks it's funny to wind Roman up. Fortunately for me but unfortunately for my sense of realism in writing, I can't relate because I adore my sister and we get along perfectly almost 100% of the time.

"You shut us down every chance you get!" Remus said, baring his teeth. "How would you like it if your pens never wrote, hm? What would you do with all those thoughts in your head?"

-I do wish I had developed the concept of power focuses a bit more, established rules and such. Basically, Patton is always on the prowl for wrongthink and actively represses it, which in turn breaks or sabotages the Dark Sides' power focus.

Chapter 6: This chapter really should have been Janus and Roman but I was really tired and didn't want to bother with it. Plus, you know, Moceit. This chapter was meant to demonstrate how the characters would get along without Virgil nannying them. There's friction, but everyone is making a conscious, deliberate effort to get along because they love Virgil, and love is a series of choices you make.

I chose "Leo" as the answer for the answer to the crossword clue instead of "Virgo," because my other QPP is a Leo. She'll never read this fic, but I did it anyway because I love her. (Trivia: My sign is Virgo, so it was really a choice between shouting her out and shouting me out, and the last chapter is self-indulgent enough, thank you).

Chapter 7: I was gonna write a fic where all the Sides watched Cats the Musical because I was going through a phase. Then Cade requested this so I combined the two ideas. By this point I was fucking exhausted, and that's the only thing that saved you and the rest of the world from me writing the Sides riffing on the movie scene-by-scene. I could come up with snarky commentary for almost every, if not every single song from the movie.

Most notably, I cut a Patton-Remus interaction where Remus declares his love for Grizabella and Patton gets all staryy-eyed about Remus connecting with the idea of rising above rejection and being loved and accepted only for Remus to shoot him down and explain that he just likes that she got to die in a tire fire.

Other cut scenes include Janus quietly pretending not to go feral over Mister Mistoffelees, Patton full-on fucking sobbing over Grizabella and the kittens, and Logan experiencing a deep, soulful kinship with Munkustrap during Of The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollices (and henceforth introducing the phrase "like herding cats" into his regular vocabulary