#hi followerbase!

[randy-jade-4ever]

do you guys think an ask abelbunny blog would go hard or nah?

[definitelyjunehomestuck]

"we can always tell" motherfuckers when they see a teenage boy, a teenage girl, a black woman, and a bearded man in pink;

[laviaceae]

your art has spiked my interest haha what’s tower of hanoi and how/where do i play it?

OKAY.

TOWER OF HANOI IS THE BEST GAME YOU ABSOLUTELY, 110% GUARANTEE NO REFUNDS, HAVE NEVER HEARD OF.

LET ME EXPLAIN.

(also known as: i win at all times ever and im glad my tawahano propaganda pays off, HAH!)

----------

Have you ever heard of... END ROLL? Walking On A Star Unknown? Farethere City? These are all relatively niche RPGMaker 2000 games made by a Japanese game creator known as Segawa (せがわ), with END ROLL being the most popular among Western Fans (you might see the main character, Russell, in some fanart with OMORI or Yume Nikki characters for example)!

In fact, for followers of mine who are In Stars and Time fans, END ROLL was credited as one of the inspirations for that game!

TOWER of HANOI is another game made by Segawa, one released in November of 2020, and one of the final games they've made in RPG2K (so they've got an absolute mastery of the engine).

I'll be in part directing this post towards ISAT fans since that makes up the majority of my followerbase on Tumblr, so there may be ISAT spoilers (including Two Hats/Act 6 Secret spoilers) up ahead! There will also be mild TOWER of HANOI spoilers required to explain the game's premise. Proceed at your own risk.

Section One: So, what is TOWER of HANOI all about?

TOWER of HANOI is a narrative-driven RPG with multiple endings (2 'true endings', 3 'bad endings') set in a futuristic, post-post-World-War-Five society. The game mostly takes place within the TOWER, a hyper-realistic virtual reality simulation currently undergoing playtests that was built to be able to rehabilitate HANOI (androids that look and sound and feel emotions like humans do) who have dangerous levels of mental instability.

The stability of a HANOI is measured through their Stress Level, a numerical representation of that HANOI's mental state. HANOI are generally considered by society to be more of technology or property than people (like your computer or your phone would be), and as such have no rights and are often mistreated by humans. More than 50% of HANOI hate their human employers.

In order to combat the dangerous upward trend of HANOI Stress Levels (caused by their mistreatment), the TOWER was created. In it, HANOI are expected to fight and defeat virtual enemies that approximate humans in order to destress through violence. Upon a successful completion, HANOI are to be returned to their human employers.

Because the TOWER is currently undergoing testing, groups of HANOI are accompanied through the TOWER by a human "Inspector" who is expected to report any bugs or issues they encounter during their playtest.

You play as one of those human Inspectors; Inspector No.102, Coral Brown.

(this is my art! you may have seen him in my ISAT au as taking the place of Siffrin).

He's 33 years old, kind, calm, and soft as a marshmallow. He's also a human being who believes in the rights and wellbeing of HANOI, and sympathises with their suffering. As a child, he was raised by a HANOI instead of his parents, which may have contributed to his feelings towards them.

Over the course of the game and as you progress through the TOWER you'll get to meet and intimately know the ten HANOI under Coral's care with Fire Emblem-esque Support events depending on how many times you bring each of them to battle. These can be between Coral and the HANOI, or the HANOI between eachother. (There are more than 100 of these such events to collect in total!)

TOWER of HANOI's characters are both charming and tragic. They each have incredibly well-realised personalities, backstories, and relationships both with the Inspector taking care of them and eachother. It's easy to imagine day-to-day interactions in Headquarters (your hub area) between them all.

You have Adams, a HANOI built for missionary work and who's Stress Level is the lowest out of all ten (and actually below the 'dangerous' stress threshold)! He's silly and mischevious and adores spicy food. Despite this, he's here at the TOWER because he doesn't believe in God, despite that being an important part of his 'role' in the world. When did he stop believing in God, and why? What is his relationship with the people at the Church that took care of him?

Or Mira, a Childcare HANOI that reminds Coral of the HANOI that looked after him as a child. She loves children, but has to constantly grapple with the fact that she can't have any and that any children she takes care of will eventually, inevitably leave her. How will she and Coral resolve the fact that they both remind eachother of someone they knew in the past? How will she interact with the other HANOI?

There's also Nanashi, a cheaply-made HANOI for miscellaneous chores who's trust and care for humanity has been completely shattered due to his ties with the mafia. He wasn't even important enough to be given a name until Coral gives him one upon their first meeting in the TOWER. He hates humans, hates Coral, and refuses to trust him, instead convincing himself that Coral is merely faking his kindness to get him to let his guard down just to use him like all humans he's ever known have done. Will Coral eventually be given Nanashi's trust? What will he do once he leaves the TOWER, and has to be sent back to the mafia where he came from?

Finally there's Kimon Noroi, a HANOI who resembles a child that fulfils a very special purpose. Noroi is what's known as a Yorimashi (憑坐), and uses her body to allow spirits to occupy it and commune with the living. She's seen how terrible humans can be because of the spirits she's seen and can come across as a bit standoffish (though she's really just as much of a menace as Adams is), and definitely, definitely, definitely doesn't miss the Priest at the shrine she lived in before coming to the TOWER at all! How will she interact with Adams, both having people they miss back at home? How will she interact with Mira, who's like a mother figure to her in this place?

As you progress, you can find the answers to all of these questions, as well as the identities of the six other HANOI I've not even mentioned here- all as well-written and interesting as these four.

However, the HANOI aren't the only faction in the game to worry about.

The very NPCs and enemies you'll be fighting along the way are coming to life, gaining sentience, and realising they want something more in their existence than eternally repeating dialogue chains and fetch quests and death in battle.

The head of this 'rebellion' of 0s and 1s, a computer virus named Shunya, acts as the main antagonist for the majority of the game, but even she isn't... 'evil'. She has her own found family, a group of bugged enemies she's befriended along her journey, all of whom want her to realise her dream of "melting" down the TOWER and returning all of the 0s and 1s inside to their base state of not thinking, not feeling, and not being in eternal pain.

Should you fight these people, if their emotions really are real, and defeat them without caring about their plight? Is it right to, to disregard the thoughts and feelings of 0s and 1s for the sake of the wellbeing of the HANOI Coral's grown so attached to? Should you follow the 'role' you've been given, or disregard it and create your own?

TOWER of HANOI excellently tackles the dichotomy of themes between 'roles' in societies and the 'dreams' people have, and nowhere is this more apparent than Coral Brown himself. Throughout the game, there will be multiple events and opportunities in order to control Coral's own Stress Level, and how he feels towards both the side of HANOI and the side of 0s and 1s he's stuck between. Lower his stress and he'll side with the HANOI and enjoy his job, and at higher stresses he'll begin to hate it, being unable to eat or sleep as he starts feeling awful for the 0s and 1s he spends his time killing in the TOWER....

These branch into the two main 'True Routes' of the game, depending on your Stress Level... but I shall leave the specific nature of those to discover in your own playthroughs. :)

If you've enjoyed ISAT, there's a good chance you'll enjoy TOWER of HANOI. Not only is one of the creator's previous games an inspiration for ISAT, they share a lot of similarities in their characters. Coral and Siffrin are very similar as protagonists, and as for others...

(Loop artwork credit to Insertdisc5 from In Stars and Time)

I could write a whole essay on how these two are so painfully similar and would kill eachother on sight. Maybe I will one day. Who knows. Me when I have a guide character lacking half of a face that has Fucking Issues TM stemming from intense jealousy and shares some visual similarity with our main character. Just look at them. This is the sole reason for the twohats warning. Just look at them.

Section Two: Wow, that's so cool and awesome Mx Lav! How do I play TOWER of HANOI?

You can check out the official website here, and the official downloads page here! I'd recommend following the instructions on this website to get the game working faster (because RPG2K is a pain in the ass on modern systems).

...

...Oh? It's all in Japanese? ...Well-

Section Three: --WAIT WHY IS IT ALL IN JAPANESE??

Yes, that's TOWER of HANOI's One (Big) Thing. The one thing you have to look past in order to actually play the game; it's all in Japanese, and an English translation will never be made (unless Segawa-san lifts the translation ban).

However, you don't actually need to know Japanese to play the game. I sure don't! And all of the other English-speaking fans I know that have played this game don't either.

There are three main ways to accomplish this, but I'll only discuss two here:

Sugoi Translator or similar translators. Sugoi Translator (or Sugoi Toolkit) is a machine translation tool that automatically grabs and translates the text in game you're looking at. The translations themselves make a good amount of sense, too! It's a little difficult to set up, but once you've calibrated it once you never have to worry about it again. This is definitely easiest if you want to read all of the dialogue in the game, including flavourtext (as yes, all 10 HANOI and Coral have unique flavourtext for every item in the game...), but is only available for free on the 15th and 16th each month and is otherwise only available to download on the creator's Patreon.

Google Lens. The easier, plug-and-translate method of the two. Simply download the Google Lens app and point it at the text on the screen, it'll read and translate it for you. The translations here are a little goofier (and sometimes, depending on your phone camera quality or lighting conditions, can be difficult for the app to pick up), but it's easy to complete a playthrough with just this tool alone.

If you can't get past this game's One Big Thing, I get it. It's a hard game to sell to people precisely for this reason. I'm at least glad you've read this far down into the post to get to this point and have showed interest in the game. And now you now about a game you didn't before, and you also have an itty bitty bit of context for all the non-ISAT stuff I post here. But this game has had me in a chokehold for the past two years and I promise that, if you can get through it, it's extremely worth it.

If you have the time and you're willing to try, please do! I love this game with all my heart and it's such a shame that most Western fans will never have easy access to it. I shill this game with all my heart, for realsies.

Section Four: Trigger/Content Warnings

If you've played a Segawa game before, you knew this section was coming. Segawa-san's games often tackle heavy or dark themes, and TOWER of HANOI isn't an exception. I'll add a list of content warnings here just so you aren't surprised by anything.

Suicide, both on and off screen

Self-harm, on-screen through dialogue

Themes of terminal illness, on screen

Hospitals (on screen, a majority of one of the game's dungeons takes place in one)

Death (on-screen)

Abuse (off-screen, but portrayed through dialogue)

Child harm/death (mentioned)

Kidnapping/Child kidnapping (mentioned)

Horror elements (no chase sequences, one jumpscare through an optional and hard-to-find sidequest)

Sexual Assault/Abuse (Not on-screen but talked about extensively, can avoided if you avoid Melitica/Merrytika's dialogue)

Mishandling of discussions surrounding gender identity (this character's identity is shown generally throughout the game to be a positive/supported thing, but some dialogue and design choices are quite ignorant/transphobic- though not maliciously. This can be avoided if you avoid Kathy/Cameron's dialogue)

There is also a substantial amount of screenshake employed near the end of the game. This list is from memory and limited from the amount of dialogue I've personally seen/translated, so it's probably not fully comprehensive. But it is thorough.

Section Five: Conclusion

oof... You've made it to the end! This took me the better part of a day to write, and I'm glad I finally got to advertise my favourite game on main. I hope... any of this makes sense, and that you enjoy! Even if you decide TOWER of HANOI isn't right for you, you at least know a little more about something you didn't before. Thank you so much for getting to the end, and I wish you the best!

[bullshit-tqia]

hi, i hope trans-androgyne's army doesnt go after you too heavily. they are notorious for sending their followerbase after folks, especially people who dont agree with their politics. they spread lies about people and let their girlfriend abuse people so that they can say it "wasnt them".

i was in their server for a while before i left due to my own triggers, they allow MAP shit and support no-contact p*dos. they allow white folks to shit talk poc trans men and be racist, all because they support trans women. i have screenshots and have been in the works with other ex members for a few weeks to make a larger scale post. please be careful. (please dont feel like you have to post this, either.)

As I’ve said before, I’m taking this with a grain of salt.

I honestly doubt they “allow MAP shit” or “no-contact pedophiles.” That is wayyyy too out there for me to automatically believe is true. There has to be something you’re leaving out. I’ll need screenshots to believe that. Same with the racism, that’s too crazy for me to automatically believe.

I’ve also had contact with @trans-androgyne in the past and have a little swarm of their followers in the notes so I’m not going to be surprised if it happens again. I don’t care, this happens online all the time. This is what rabid followers do, I bet in the past, at least once, this has escalated to a point where trans-androgyne had to tell their followers to stop. But a lot of people don’t listen, because they get really upset when you insult their favorite tumblr user. Parasocial af.

That’s how I feel with their girlfriend “abusing” people if someone disagreeing with their politics. That’s not abuse. That’s more like a partner supporting their partner in what they think is a crusade to defend their partner’s character. You don’t have to twist it around to make it seem vicious when it’s more pathetic than anything else.

It reminds me of this:

[your-perfect-love]

[ I dont know if I made it noticable or not. But perfect!milo is semi aware about 'players' and such. He knows that all of his followerbase are these 'players'. How they loved him through Eris ]

[ It's why he treats his asks like they were His Love.. because they are. And he somewhat knows that. ]

[ Still - he's the most happy with Eris. I haven't made him interact with them much.. because I'm a pussy at interacting. But eventually I'll think of something to send to them as our perfect boi :9 ]

[teethcritter]

i think my followerbase is about 40% su and 60% at and to both sides

watch the other show i promise theyre both so good

nnhchhfhh psst mutuals ill totally watch it with you also if you want

also just in general mutuals hi i like watching shows with friends ...alot

[toccata-i-voir]

As I stated before, you continue the harassment by giving people access to a blocked blog. Other posts can be labeled as defamatory libel.

https://www.prevnet.ca/cyberbullying/legal-consequences-cyberbullying

Even though I was just passing by, I cannot stay silent. Consider it a courtesy that I took the effort to contact you both.

If you read the page you sent me, you would note that the page states "It is most often treated as a crime if the libelous statement is directed against a person in authority and could seriously harm his or her reputation."

We are on Tumblr, which is a site where all of us are in the same layer of authority (though you could argue some users can exert power on others via large follower pool, but I have exactly 18 people behind my back. Hardly a large following and Bullet also lacks a huge followerbase as far as I know)

The second part deals with harm to reputation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but, has John Watson mod trademarked the character or the roleplay account? Is it their source of livelihood? Is that account connected to their irl person in any way? I'd argue no, in all cases. The same mod has the freedom to completely rehaul the entire blog, or create an entirely new one. Either action would be appropriate, given the recent split. Start anew with zero connection to the scandal that arose. I mean, outside of the follower userbase (which could be notified ahead of time about the move/change anyway) there's pretty much nothing to lose. The posts that contain cases and are effectively fanfics can be backed up elsewhere, like Ao3 (which imo should've been done anyway, it's not like you should expect people to dig through millions of posts for one case or use Tumblr's, often laughably bad, tag system)

[zombvibes]

hi krusie fans in my followerbase.

[fox-poke-fanatic]

//I'm not gonna do the same reblog thing here because Mare and Caleb mostly share the same followerbase but as long as I'm being nostalgic, its wild looking back on Caleb's old posts. He's come so far and yet he is still normal.

//Its also funny because a lot of people who I (and Caleb) am friends with have done serious reworks of their blogs but I've never had to retcon anything about Caleb as a result (except that one time I aged him up but that was just because I didn't want to roleplay four years of college in real time). He's still friends with more or less all of them with almost zero change on his end. Caleb is constant.

[helioshellion]

Wait what did the voice actor do?

"let and let ship" type of guy dating a proshipper, sent his thousands and thousands of followerbase after me when I was 17 because I made a "respect fl4ks pronouns for die" joke and he told me that trans people have to "live strategically". R/hack shipper lol. buddy-buddy Friends with those types of guys. also sounds annoying. Also once made a really nsfw joke to me once again at 17 about some non-sexual fanart I made for hinm??? it was like lorelei and tim hanging out and he was like "omg i wonder who tops and bottoms" like oh my god internet brainrot.

[prince-of-liafail]

feared the worst when in my binging quinton reviews i saw some videos about "controversy" he was involved in, turns out he was just rinsing nazis out of his followerbase a few years back lmfao. good for him

[tera-starstorm]

i like to think yasuta has some kind of social media presence that he's had since before the challenge but obviously his once tiny friend-only followerbase grows heavily after he joins it and becomes champion and like. they offer him a PR agent at somepoint and he's just like... Naw. and continues to tweet shit like this with no caption or elaboration

[smp-live]

Even if the allegations turn out to be false Dream handled the situation so terribly, first calling people gullible for believing serious accusations of abuse and then practically laughing it off, barely apologizing before instead going and doing lore to take the focus off of the situation. I understand speaking rashly in the heat of the moment. I can somewhat sympathize. What I can’t excuse is clearly recognizing that he fucked up, not properly formulating an apology, and either not cancelling lore plans or making some. That shows understanding that we’re upset, and intent to brush it off, and a complete disregard for people rightfully concerned by the situation. The whole time he wasn’t acting like what is going on is serious. Even if it isn’t to him, because his friend being abusive is such an impossible concept in his mind, he needs to handle these things with an appropriate weight. And he should know this.

This is a pattern, at this point, of him handling situations poorly. And after over two years of content creation with a large-scale followerbase, I would have expected at least some growth in his reactions, by now. We’ve given him the benefit of the doubt time and time again, over countless scandals. If he hasn’t learned by this point that when something upsetting to him, personally, happens, he needs to get off of the internet until he schools his thoughts, it’s improbable that he will. He’s a grown adult, now, with millions of people watching him. It’s unacceptable behaviour from someone in such a spotlight.

Dream acted so irresponsibly and insensitively today, it’ll be impossible for me to enjoy his content in the future. Maybe even any content involving him. I know it’s the same for many of his fans, most more dedicated than myself. We’ll see what he says tomorrow, but after his immediate reaction was not to apologize, but to placate fans with something he knew they’d like - lore - any apology will ring hollow. And if the allegations are true, he absolutely needs to be deplatformed, as someone who willingly and knowingly gave an online presence to an abuser.

[memoryoflooping]

Playing a dangerous game with my followerbase where they have to guess "is harley tagging this post with his ocs or ecopportunityx characters"

[duckskool]

heres my take on the whole dream drama bc if i say anything on twitter other than "im tired of this fucking mess" ill get sent to hell and back:

i think he should be able to respond to anyone who talks shit directly to him. if you respond to a tweet, you should expect a reply. thats just how social media works. HOWEVER i also think he's being incredibly irresponsible, and i've listened to the drama space last night and i do agree that instead of responding to them publicly, he should subtweet them (as they've also made the point that if they're already sending him hate, they're probably stalking his page so they'll see it anyway), as he has a massive followerbase who are crazy fans. also i think his response in general is also very irresponsible as well.

i think for the sake of both his career and everyone's safety, he should probably apologize, acknowledge his mistakes, and change for the better. i do not think he's a bad person by any means; in fact, i think why he has become more rash and hasty over the past year is because he's probably under a lot of pressure. i do not think anyone could deal with the continous stream of hate and misinformation that he gets on the regular. this is what stands him out from other ccs like markiplier, jacksepticye, quackity, etc, is that he, no matter what he says, is always under attack. combined with the fact that he has a habit of not being able to take a breather before saying anything, this can stir up into a chaotic mess. of course, pressure is not an excuse, however, i feel like that's the reason.

i think what dream should do right now is apologize, clear up any misconceptions, and if he really wants to lash out at others because he can't control it (which i relate to, i have really bad anger issues as well), then he should resort to subtweeting instead of directly responding to them (as it solves both needs of needing to respond but also keeps people's safety in minds).

and i know he said he doesn't want a pr manager as he wants to be real and genuine, however i think being real and genuine comes with a price, as if this drama keeps continously happening, this can negatively impact his career and image. i think the best thing he can do is to get a pr manager, but also work with them so that he can maintain his realness but also save him a lot of backlash and hell, can even improve what people think of him.

i know i went on a longer tangent than i thought i would, but these are my genuine thoughts. feel free to rb

[brainrotmeta]

I don't get it. Jensen keeps saying Dean's straight, that Castiel is their brother and he's "useful" and angels can't have human concepts/emotions applies to them but they never care. They either ignore it or twist his words to mean something else. But Misha narrates a fanfic to shamelessly pander his followerbase into giving him more money in the future, and suddenly he's the only one who gets to speak on Dean? They really hate Jensen don't they?

I personally think they’re deeply in denial that one half of their otp is bronly. I keep seeing tags about how much Jensen hated the finale when he spoke openly about loving it after he’d thought about it and actually did it.

And it was him and Jared who upped the drama and emotions in their goodbye scene