#honestly makes for a much more interesting game mechanic

[kittycatcarla]

i've been playing botw this winter break but i've put myself some totk ost while im studying and damn it's making me want to drop botw and start a similar semi-challenge run in totk instead

[racke7]

I looked up DOS2 fanfic a few days ago, and it was... understandably sparse.

And it made me think about DOS2 from a world-building perspective (instead of the gameplay loop and railroad that usually pisses me off). And it occurred to me that it's... kind of hollow?

When you first play DOS2 it feels like the world is huge, but looking into it a bit? I-... I think it's smaller than Skyrim. As in, by a fuckton.

Skyrim isn't exactly a "small" game, so I'm not going to condemn DOS2 for this, but it feels like it presents itself as this immense open world, and then it railroads you into following a very specific path that makes you play 90+% of the map.

In comparison, Skyrim lets you have access to basically the entire map from the get-go, but in doing so makes it largely irrelevant to engage with like 80% of the content. So it doesn't initially feel bigger.

It's just that when replay-value enters the conversation? DOS2 will do the same thing again, and Skyrim lets you keep deciding which parts of the 20% of the content you're engaging with.

But that just circles back to gameplay again, so let's drop that.

What about the world?

Some people have the ability to use "source".

Voidwoken (monsters) are attracted to source.

In order to stop voidwoken attacks, the Magisters are gathering up source-users and blocking their access to source.

Their chosen dumping-ground for these source-users is a remote island with a ruined fort on it (called Fort Joy).

The Paladins don't entirely see eye-to-eye with the Magisters and their methods, but answer to the same government (Human).

There's an empire ruled by Lizards, which deals heavily in the slave-trade.

There's a kingdom ruled by Dwarfs, which has fallen into tyranny (because the queen is a bitch).

There used to be a country for the Elves, but it's been ravaged by Death Fog (Humans did this).

Death Fog is an instant-killing gas that's being produced and weaponized, mostly by Humans (?).

Elves eat people, because they gain the memories of those they eat, so this is part of how they remember each other.

Undead exists, but are generally reviled, despite seemingly being perfectly capable of reason.

Demons exist, and they're not nice.

This is... pretty much all of the basics? It's not entirely hollow, but it's not really all that interesting either.

As the game goes on, we also learn that:

The gods are power-hungry dick-heads who messed with something they shouldn't have (causing the voidwoken to exist).

The best way to get more source is to eat souls.

The voidwoken have a King, and he hates the gods a lot.

Undead can make a contract with the King to not-die permanently, but he's not a forgiving employer.

There exist some people who did horrible things in order to experiment with source.

Every single one of the races have a "take over the whole world"-plot going for them.

The Lizards wants to "become dragons" and use their might to lay waste to their enemies.

The Dwarfs wants to kill people with Death Fog (the queen is a bitch).

The Elves wants to absorb everyone with their cannibalism until all things belong to the Mother Tree.

The Humans are performing source-experiments (where they're going, they won't need Death Fog).

So, basically everyone is a dick-head. A few people are trying to "do good" in this miserable world, but the divides are deep and the scars are festering.

Now, writing about a "we're the strongest so we conquer everyone else"-plot sounds... boring. It's the kind of stories we usually see from really deranged isekai-bullshit, and it's not fun there either.

That leaves "we try to fix the racism of an entire world"-plots which feel incredibly overambitious (and belittling of actual struggles with this in the real world). Or "we ignore all of that stuff and focus on something more palatable"-plots.

Which basically means that "adventure" gets cut, because nothing in the setting really has adventurers. And the protagonists are mainly focused on murdering everything getting in their way on their path to ascend to godhood. Which justifies a lot of horrible shit, but is also kind of a boring story unless you lean into the horrors of it all, which sounds depressing.

And if you refuse to write any of those plots, all you're really left with is romance. And maybe a bit of non-romantic relationship-fics as well.

... And that's incredibly boring, because DOS2 feels like it should have an incredible world to dive into and expand upon with fics. And by all accounts? It kind of doesn't.

[withahappyrefrain]

"For someone who hates me, you're not pulling away."

Feels like this was MADE for Jake!

"You gotta be fucking kidding me," you muttered, praying your sunglasses would conceal what you were really looking at.

It seemed like a higher being was out to personally spite you. Because not only were you being forced to spend the whole day with the guy you hated,

He looked fucking hot without a shirt.

Of course he did. It wouldn't be fair if he had a physical flaw, the universe had decided it so.

It was supposed to be a bonding experience, pilots versus mechanics. Why was beyond you, considering you actually liked everyone in your current squadron.

Well, except one pilot. A blonde pilot. A cocky pilot. A pilot who thought the sun rose for them personally to shine a light on their ass. A pilot who had become the bane of your existence.

"Hey Rosie!" You ignored the nickname (all because you wore a fucking red bandana) he insists on calling you, turning to your coworkers instead.

"Your not so secret admirer has arrived," your coworker Nicole giggled.

"Please don't remind me. I already have a headache from him and the game hasn't even started," your index fingers rubbed your temples in a vain effort to soothe the dull ache that came from Jake Seresin.

"Well don't look now but he's coming your way," and with that Nicole walked away, no doubt to go flirt with Bob.

"Hey Rosie, looking pretty good," he pushed his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, making it clear he was looking at you.

"You're going to get burnt with all that baby oil, Seresin," you stared at your phone, not wanting to make eye contact. Or to look at his broad chest.

"Aww, you care about me." He was close. Too close. You could see the hair on his broad chest.

"The same way one cares about a dying mosquito," you took a step away, hoping it would deter him.

Jake has the audacity to chuckle, "You're funny Rosie. Why don't we make this game a little more interesting?"

You raised your eyebrows in mocked surprise, "You're actually going to show good sportsmanship? I'm impressed Seresin, miracles really do come true!"

If your comebacks deter him, he doesn't show it, which is honestly the worst part. No matter what you say, it doesn't drive him away. No, it has the opposite effect, encouraging him to continue to try and interact with you!

Fucking Seresin.

"Nah, but God, you're real cute Rosie," he has that stupid smirk on his face, the one you hate so much. His perfectly white teeth are showing as he oozes Hollywood charm. It's the smirk that makes you briefly consider continuing to chat.

"What do you want Seresin?" You grumble, looking down at the sand. The warmth you felt washing all over your body was clearly the sun, nothing (or no one) else.

"Why don't we make a bet?"

"What are you, twelve?"

Again, he chuckled, as if he found your remarks amusing rather than insulting, "C'mon Rosie, there must be something you want."

"For you to leave me alone." If you had looked up from kicking the sand, you would have seen the assured look on his face fall, his brows knitted together in worry, the corners of his lips turning downward.

But you didn't, giving him time to remask, "Alright Rosie, if y'all win, I'll leave ya alone."

The offer made your head shot up, "And if your team wins?"

His grin widens, "You know me Rosie, I'm a simple man." Lies. "There's not too much I want, just one thing really."

"Just name it Seresin."

"A kiss."

He couldn't be serious. He was.

But your crew had prepared for this game. Nicole would certainly be able to distract Bob, was the dagger's dark horse. You felt good about your chances.

So you shook on it.

Which is how two hours later, you ended up in the parking lot, pressing Jake against his stupid Jeep Wrangler, your lips on his, hands tangled in his stupidly soft hair.

"For someone who claims they hate me, you're not pulling away," He murmurs, victory written smugly across his face.

"Shut up and kiss me Seresin."

"Anything for you Rosie."

[harzilla]

Honestly can I admit I've been sitting on writing a full God!Yuu fic? I keep trying to turn game mechanics into God skills. I just wanna throw this out there. Sorta a ficlet? It's mostly my kind of stream of thoughts.

Imagine the guys are absolutely clueless that the "magicless" human is a god. Like a trickster god and whatever little thing that follows their amusement and they notice a weird little blip of magic one day and decides to follow where it leads.

they immediately shift into a vessel that fits the world and when Grim busts open the coffin the god realizes it's his magic they noticed. Oh? Interesting....

The dark mirror can't read their soul because the mirror is tuned into the souls of those born in Twisted Wonderland. The body? Yes. Their actual being? No. So for the first time the mirror calls a colorless empty soul since it's creation.

The god soon realizes they're in a school of humanoid mages and they can sense the different flows of magic from everybody. Allowing them to be able easily analyze what kind of magic it is, ties into the world/nature(aero, water, fire) and emotions(void/light)the self.

Our God realizes that things could get boring fast if they push their powers around and they decide to handicap themselves by only using intentional power to prevent somebody from dying. They're not particularly interested in seeing a bunch of kids die. Mortal lives are fleeting but full of fascinating things.

It turns out that Twisted Wonderland is very interesting if you're willing to see where things lead. But, they can still interfere if they do it within the limitations of a magicless mortal, right?

They also can also pick up on the emotions of mortals and the drips of blot they see are literal buildup of negative emotions starting to manifest in a physical world, very nasty little thing. But only they can see it at this point. They stick by Ace and Deuce because they know that the two will lead them to Riddle. The only one dripping blot at this point within their line of sense. They work with Ace and Deuce, so it's only natural they follow because they helped make the tart, right? They know they can only allow the overblot to happen because they limited their powers but the rancid magic wafting off Riddle makes them unhappy. Diving into Riddle's mind they gently pull through his memories and pull the threads of his thoughts in the right direction. Weakening the link to the overblot and allows Riddle's own mind to push forward and ask the question he needed to hear. This Allows Riddle to hit a breakthrough the overwhelmingly destructive negative feelings. It severes the link to the overblot completely, killing the overblot and allowing Riddle to live.

Riddle awakens and now our God slips back into the magicless human act. They know something is off and they're going to follow along because they want to see just what is causing the world to flow in the direction it's going.

The sticker system is them giving the guys blessing. Our God likes interesting things and the entire rewardable cast is their kind of fun. These stickers kind of create a pavlova effect where they feel positive energy/feelings when around the prefect. The emotions trigger the blessings they received that it boosts their magic. Thus the higher the friendship the higher the magic output

Honey? Candies? All the treats? More blessings. Increased lessons is the god blessing them with more lessons by tweaking the flow of time. They can't perceive the change unless the god wants them to.

They enjoy learning new things about everybody and seeing their progress. They like studying the different dynamics between everybody and are always curious about what's running through their head. A bunch of hormonal teenagers with way to much power at their fingertips always attracts trouble. But also they find them all endearing in their own weird ways.

Of course our god sometimes creates it's own trouble, oh my it seems the tsums felt the gods power somehow and they showed up at specifically Ramshackle? oh my how odd? The God permits it because, well it's interesting and the tsums are harmless if not as chaotic as their counterparts. Just the right kind of mischief they're looking for. Of course maybe our god might have felt a tiny bit bored, saw this adorable magical creatures by staring out into the infinite void of space, magic, and existence and was all "Visit this world please? 🥺"

I just have so many ideas for this I honestly feel like I should try to make a long fic of this idea. But I just want you to think about the absolute crisis all of them go through when they're revealed to be a god that has just let the guys do everything that has happened throughout the entire plot and events because they're amused?

But oh what fun they can have now! Now that they can mess with the guys openly. Only the ones they permit can tell anything is happening.

Pay backs fun now isn't it?

[thydungeongal]

Are there any horror ttrpgs you’d reccomend? I’m fairly new in ttrpgs, and I wanna try out some stuff that isn’t just pathfinder or d&d and horror has been calling me

I wouldn't recommend horror RPGs because they're scary

But serious answer: I haven't played a lot of straight horror RPGs, but one of my fondest gaming moments involves playing the Delta Green scenario Music from a Darkened Room in my late teens. Having since re-examined the scenario I can now see that our GM was actually doing a lot of the heavy lifting, because while the scenario is actually extremely atmospheric and a good haunted house scenario, as an investigation and mystery it largely falls flat because of something of a lack of good mystery structure and issues with the system of Delta Green itself.

But I have since run the scenario in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy by @anim-ttrpgs and it honestly feels like the best way to run it, because Eureka actually has good systemic support for investigative gameplay while also having the mechanical heft to carry the horror elements. If what you want in a horror scenario is "a bunch of regular people getting in too deep into a supernatural mystery," I heartily recommend Eureka.

Mothership is another indie horror RPG I would recommend: it's sci-fi horror in the style of Alien, Dead Space, and Event Horizon, and I think it does a great job of emulating that genre. It is a very straightforward d100 roll under engine with a few interesting twists, and it does a lot with a little. Very much the sort of game to run for your friends where you describe their characters getting killed by spooky space ghosts inside an abandoned space hulk.

However, there's an underrated horror RPG out there: Dungeons & Dragons. Specifically the older editions of the game.

As @cavegirlpoems has also stated, old-school D&D almost plays like a survival horror game: it's largely a game about survival while navigating a hostile space, trying to make use of what little resources are available. If you want fantasy horror you can do a lot worse than just having your friends create a bunch of level 1 characters and putting them inside a dungeon, with the objective being to escape the dungeon. (For an urban fantasy twist on that: run it in Cavegirl's urban fantasy old-school D&D-inspired Esoteric Enterprises.)

Now to move away from the trad games and into the avant garde: Dread is a game that I have wanted to play for a long time. It is a horror game that specifically seeks to emulate the plot beats and structure of a slasher or creature feature through the use of a Jenga tower. Instead of a randomizer like dice or cards the game uses a Jenga set and pulling blocks out of the tower to simulate the danger that characters find themselves in, meaning that as the tower gets more unstable the more tension there is, and with the tower falling meaning character death (followed by the tower being reassembled) to emulate the tension and release of a horror film. It sounds seriously fun and I would love to try it.

[sansaorgana]

would benny be a girl dad or a boy dad?

either way I can see him getting teaching his child (let's say 5 year old) how to ride a bike because they want to be just like their dad but benny knows the dangers of a motorcycle and the heart attack it would give his wife (reader) so they just settled on a regular bike.

what about girl dad benny who's daughter has a pink bicycle with a little flower wicker basket in the front

hi! 😌 honestly, I don't know. I can imagine him as a girl dad and a boy dad equally, although I assume he didn't have a good father growing up, so being a boy dad could terrify him a little... anyway, dad!Benny is apparently something I really enjoy writing because I loved every moment of it 🥰 before someone points it out – yes, he's drinking beer & smoking cigarettes with the kid around and yes, his wife (the Reader) is the one responsible for cooking and cleaning around the house (she has a job, too) – it's the 70s, okay? 🤷🏻‍♀️

I had to close my requests for now because I got so many 🙏🏻

The garage where Benny worked as a mechanic was closed every Sunday but the store where you worked part-time was open every day of the week and sometimes they were asking you to show up on the weekends – especially when one of your co-workers was sick – but you didn’t mind it that much since they were paying more for working on Sunday. Today they wanted you for only one six hour long shift anyway so you would handle that with no problem.

In the morning, you prepared breakfast for everybody and went upstairs to change into your work clothes and to put light makeup on. When you went downstairs, Benny and Rosie were sitting on the couch together and watching cartoons. Your five years old daughter was curled up and rested her head on Benny’s chest as they both laughed at something silly.

“I’m leavin’,” you announced but they didn’t even turn around to look at you. You sighed. “I’m leavin’,” you repeated as you leaned in to give Benny a kiss on the cheek. Then you gave one to your daughter. “Don’t let her watch TV for too long,” you furrowed your brows at your husband. “I’m gonna bring dinner with me but you can make sandwiches,” you reminded him.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Benny mumbled.

“Be careful, mummy!” Rosie waved her hand at you and you waved back with a wide smile before leaving the house.

When the door behind you closed, Rosie moved even closer to her daddy as she sighed.

“Daddy?” She looked up.

“Hm?” Benny asked as he put his arm around her and caressed her back.

“But I want to watch cartoons all day long,” she pouted and Benny chuckled before looking down at her face.

“Yeah, I know, baby, but they don’t show ‘em all day long,” he pointed out.

“What are we gonna do then?” Rosie whined.

“Dunno,” Benny shrugged his arms. “Whatever you want.”

“Whatever?” Rosie’s eyes sparkled and Benny nodded – unsurely, though. “Can I colour your tattoos?” She made puppy eyes at him.

“Yeah,” Benny sighed but with a loving smile.

Rosie clapped her hands, forgetting the cartoon on the TV immediately. She kissed Benny’s cheek and scrunched her nose at the itchy feeling of his facial hair before she jumped out of the couch but then, she froze.

“Wait, do you go to work tomorrow, daddy?” She asked, concerned. Benny nodded at that. “Well, maybe then no colouring…”

“It’s fine,” Benny chuckled. 

They had learnt already that one shower was not enough to get those marker pens out of his skin.

“I don’t mind it, baby,” he assured her and she smiled again, widely. Then she ran upstairs to her room for the set of marker pens that you had given her for her birthday.

Benny changed the channel on TV since Rosie wasn’t interested in watching cartoons anymore. He switched to some football game and went to the kitchen to grab a beer. You would usually scold him for starting so early but you weren’t home.

When he went back to the living room, Rosie was already taking out the marker pens out of the box. Benny sat down on the couch and opened the can of beer with a wink.

“Don’t tell mummy ‘bout it, huh?” He chuckled and Rosie pretended to zip her mouth. “Good girl,” he patted her head and focused on the game on TV.

Rosie sat next to him and took one of his arms to colour the tattoos. She was trying to do a good job with it and not to cross over the lines. She was so focused on that task that she stuck out her tongue a little and her brows furrowed.

“You know what tattoo is my favourite, daddy?” She asked suddenly.

Benny, who had been lost in the game, immediately focused on his daughter’s question instead.

“Which one, dollie?” He asked.

“The rose, of course!” Rosie giggled. “It’s for me!” She exclaimed proudly and picked up a pink marker pen to fill in her favourite tattoo with her favourite colour.

“Um…,” Benny looked at her, concerned, and her hand froze in the air. “Could you… Choose a different colour perhaps? I’ve told you already I don’t want no pink on me,” he reminded her and Rosie sighed.

She looked down and started to look for a different marker pen.

“Why don’t you like pink, daddy?” Rosie asked.

“It’s not that I don’t like it. But it’s for girls,” Benny explained as he took a sip of his beer. “Men don’t wear pink.”

“Elvis had a pink cadillac!” Rosie pointed out. “And you have a tattoo of a rose. It’s girly, too,” she added and picked up a green marker pen.

“Okay, alright,” Benny sighed, giving up. “Paint it pink, I don’t care,” he shrugged his arms.

“Really?” Rosie looked up with widened eyes and a big grin.

“Yeah. If someone says something, I’m gonna remind ‘em who’s the boss around,” he laughed and Rosie squealed out of happiness before changing the maker pen for the pink one again.

“You’re the best, daddy!” She hugged him before starting to colour the rose tattoo.

Benny smiled to himself and went back to watching the game on TV. Those words coming from his daughter meant more than anything else to him.

When the game was over, Benny was already covered in colourful drawings. Rosie not only had coloured his already existing tattoos but also added a few new ones – for example a ginger cat she really wanted to own. She had no idea you and Benny planned to adopt one for Christmas as a surprise.

“My second favourite tattoo is this one,” she pointed with her little finger at a heart with a ribbon on it. And on the ribbon there was your name. “The one for mummy.”

“Your favourites are my favourites, too,” Benny smiled at her and opened his arms. Rosie crawled upon his lap and hugged her daddy tight. “You hungry, baby?” He asked and placed a kiss on the top of her head.

“Nah,” Rosie shook her head and scrunched her nose. “Can we play outside?”

“Sure. What you wanna do?” Benny patted her back.

“I want you to show me on the motorbike,” Rosie looked up with a pleading look. Benny laughed at that.

“No way.”

“But daddy…” Rosie whined.

“Rose, your mother’s gonna kill me,” Benny told her.

“She won’t find out!” Rosie promised.

Benny contemplated it for a moment but eventually agreed with a sigh. Rosie left his lap and ran outside and Benny stood up and went to the garage. He opened the door first and saw Rosie already waiting on the driveway while she kept dancing around happily.

He glanced at his Harley with a hint of melancholy. It was not like he wasn’t driving it at all anymore but these days his motorbike rides were rare. Next to the Harley there was his car parked and that vehicle was simply more useful when you had a family and a kid.

His good, old Harley. Benny patted it lovingly. He was grateful to you that you had not wanted him to sell it. Even when you had been kinda broke and needed money for the house. You had told him it would be fine without selling it. You knew the importance of this motorbike for him. And you knew how much it would devastate your husband if he had to sell it.

“Come here,” Benny waved at Rosie and she ran up to him, excitedly. “You can sit on it,” he told her but her smile dropped.

“No, daddy! I want to ride it! And outside, not inside the garage!” Rosie insisted and Benny sighed.

“Do you have to be so stubborn?”

“Yeah! I’m your daughter!” Rosie pointed out with a grin. “And mummy’s, too! You’re both stubborn as a pair of mules!”

“Rosie…” Benny scolded her as he gave her an unpleasant look.

“What? That’s what you are like whenever you’re fighting!” Rosie rolled her eyes.

“Alright, alright,” Benny gave up already. “Move away now,” he told her and she took a few steps back to watch in awe as he jumped onto the motorbike and started it with an aggressive kick. He kept looking behind to make sure she wouldn’t suddenly jump ahead and get hurt.

Benny drove outside to stop on the driveway and beckoned Rosie over. She followed him, curiously.

“You have to hold me very, very tight, you hear me?” Benny explained as he was helping her to sit behind him. He already regretted his decision to agree to this madness.

“I hear you, daddy!” Rosie promised and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“I’m not gonna drive fast and we’re only gonna be riding up and down the street once. Don’t ask for more,” Benny told her.

“Okay!” She exclaimed happily.

Benny took a deep breath in and left the driveway to enter the street – slowly and carefully. He ended up driving with one hand as he kept his other one on Rosie, just in case her grip turned out to be not strong enough.

“I love it already, daddy!” He heard her giggle and that sound was like honey being poured onto his heart.

When they made one round, she asked for another and then another and another. Benny just couldn’t say no.

You left the bus with a takeout dinner still warm in the bag you were carrying. The day was nice and sunny so you weren’t hurrying to go back home. Your walk was slow and steady as you admired the trees and the sky and the sound of children playing in the background.

After a while, you furrowed your brows at the sound that was oddly familiar. No, it could not be… It could not be the sound of the engine of Benny’s motorbike, could it?!

You picked up your pace and when you finally approached your street, you froze at the sight of Benny driving his motorbike with a cigarette hanging from his lips as he was laughing. Rosie was sitting behind him and giggling while her legs were swinging in the air. You got dizzy at the sight.

Yeah, Benny was driving very slow and he was keeping one of his hands on Rosie just in case… But still, it was dangerous.

“Benjamin Cross!” You yelled and they both froze at the sight of you as their eyes widened in fear. It was nearly funny how much they looked alike at the moment – a father and daughter indeed.

Benny stopped the engine immediately and you could see his face got a shade paler. He mumbled something to Rosie and she jumped out of the motorbike before running towards you to give you a hug.

“Mummy!” She greeted you with a smile. “I made daddy show me how to ride a bike!”

“I could see that,” you smiled fakely at her and then gave Benny a deadly look. He was slowly driving back towards the house and inside the opened garage.

You took Rosie by her hand and dragged her behind you as you followed your irresponsible husband.

“Don’t be angry, mummy!” Rosie started as she felt your annoyance. “We were careful,” she assured you. “And it was not like daddy wanted to! I had to convince him!” 

You didn’t answer and just waited outside the house as Benny parked his motorbike and closed the garage door before joining you awkwardly. He was avoiding looking into your eyes.

“You been driving around with a little kid in the back, risking your lives, while the garage door was open all this time?” You asked him and he looked down.

You sighed and squeezed Rosie’s hand tighter before going inside the house. Benny put out his cigarette on the ground and followed you.

You let go of Rosie’s hand and went to the living room to be able to get inside the kitchen where you wanted to put the takeaway dinner but then you spotted a mess in the living room.

“What is that?!” You gasped at the sight of the marker pens scattered everywhere. And on the coffee table there were two empty cans of beer.

You turned around, even more angry than before. Both Benny and Rosie looked down.

“Rosie, put the marker pens inside the box and take them upstairs to your room where their place is,” you told your daughter. “And wash your hands before dinner.”

“Yes, mummy,” she sighed and rushed to do what she was told to.

To Benny, however, you didn’t speak a word. You just gave him a dirty look and went to the kitchen to unpack the dinner.

He followed you with the empty cans of beer and threw them inside the trashcan before washing his hands in the kitchen sink. They were dirty from the grease.

“You’re fucking irresponsible,” you scolded him, trying to keep your voice low.

“I am not, we were careful,” Benny tried to explain himself but you ignored him.

“And the beer… Jesus, Benny. I’ve been telling you not to drink before noon at least, yeah? You think I’m gonna tolerate you drinking that shit right after breakfast?” You shook your head.

“I don’t do that every day,” Benny reminded you and looked at you like a beaten dog.

You tried to keep an angry face on for a moment longer before finally cracking a smile and opening your arms to give him a hug.

“Benny, baby,” you kissed his cheek and caressed his hair as he wrapped his arms around you. “I nearly had a heart attack back there, seeing Rosie on that goddamn bike.”

“Sorry ‘bout that, but she kept convicin’ me and I wanted to make her happy,” he explained and you sighed. Then you smiled, noticing the colours on his tattoos.

“Just don’t do that again, please,” you pleaded as you moved away to cup his face and look into his pretty baby blue eyes. “If something happened to either of you… I’d go crazy, Benny.”

“I know,” Benny cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”

Rosie ran inside the kitchen that very moment and she hugged your waist.

“Mummy, don’t be angry at daddy, it’s my fault!” She tried to defend him. It was adorable. You caressed her hair.

“No, baby. Daddy’s an adult so it was his fault. But it’s okay now,” you assured her. “That won’t happen again, just so you know. No more riding a motorbike,” you told her and she pouted but didn’t try to fight you.

“Show me your hands, baby,” Benny looked down and Rosie showed him. They were still quite dirty from some marker pens and some grease. Benny chuckled at that and shook his head. “Come on, we gotta clean them better,” he picked her up to help her access the kitchen sink as she began to scrub her hands under the stream of warm water with the help of the dishwashing liquid and you focused on dividing dinner into portions.

On the next day you weren’t working and you allowed Rosie to skip kindergarten. When you were at home, there was no point in sending her there and you enjoyed spending time with your daughter. She was helping you to clean the house since you couldn’t do that on the previous day due to your shift at the store.

Around five, you were preparing the dinner with the help of Rosie while listening to the songs on the radio and singing along together when you heard Benny’s car parking on the driveway. You looked out of the window and waved at him. He waved back and Rosie squealed excitedly, leaving all the vegetables she was supposed to chop behind as she ran outside the house.

You shook your head with a chuckle and wiped your hands in your apron before walking outside as well to see Rosie jumping into her daddy’s arms. Benny hugged her and patted her back.

“I got somethin’ for ya, baby,” he told her. “Your own bike,” he added and your heart skipped a beat.

“What?” You crossed your arms and approached them two. Rosie was excitedly clapping her hands and you put your hand on her shoulder. “You being serious, Benny?”

“Just wait and see,” Benny chuckled and opened the trunk of the car before taking something out of it.

That something was a small pink bicycle with a little flower wicker basket in the front that made you gasp an oh as your heart fluttered at the sight. Rosie squealed and began to jump around out of happiness.

“Thank you, daddy, thank you, daddy, thank you!” She was repeating over and over.

Benny’s face lit up at the sight of her happiness. He opened his arms and she gave him a big hug again.

“We gotta make sure it’s good for ya, come here,” he put his hand on Rosie’s shoulder to walk her up to the bike. “Stand here,” he pointed at the ground next to the bike to adjust the height of the bike’s saddle. “Yeah, perfect,” he mumbled to himself. “I’m tired today, so I’m gonna park it right in the garage and we can try it out some other day, okay?”

“Yeah! I can wait!” Rosie nodded and then she turned around to look at you. “Mummy?”

“Yes, baby?”

“Are you angry that I have my own bike?” She bit on her lower lip and you chuckled before ruffling her hair.

“No, love. It’s just a bicycle and it’s very pretty. I’m very happy that you have it and that daddy will show you how to ride it, yeah?” You bopped her on the nose and her eyes sparkled. “Benny!” You shouted after him as he was inside the garage. “We’re going back inside. Dinner’s almost ready,” you told him and you took Rosie back inside.

You finished preparing everything and you put it inside the oven before letting Rosie go to her room to play for a while before the meat and vegetables would be ready. When she was upstairs, you joined Benny on the couch. He was watching TV as usual after work and you put your arm around him to play with his hair. He hummed at your touch while the muscles of his shoulders relaxed.

“That’s so sweet of you,” you told him and took his hand into your free one. He lazily turned his head around to look at you. “The bike and everything… You’re such a good daddy,” you whispered.

“Yeah, who would have thought, huh?” He chuckled and looked down.

“That’s not what I meant,” you squeezed his hand. “But… It had to cost a lot, that bike,” you swallowed thickly.

You loved your life with Benny and your little family. You were happy but it was no secret that money was something you often struggled with. 

“It’s fine,” Benny nodded. “I promise ya.”

“Well, okay then,” you sighed and lowered your head to put it on his shoulder. Benny caressed your back and kissed the top of your head. “I love you, Benny.”

“Love you, too, sweetheart,” he answered with a smile. “Thank you.”

“For what?” You furrowed your brows.

“For everything,” Benny shrugged his arms. “For saying yes and I do, for givin’ me Rosie, for savin’ my life.”

“I didn’t save your life, Benny,” you caressed his chest gently. “You saved your life on your own when you made your decision to settle down.”

It was something you two would never agree on. Benny kept insisting you were his saviour and you wanted him to finally realise that he could be a good man on his own as well and not only because of your love and presence or because of Rosie’s existence.

But what mattered the most in the end was that you loved each other and you were happy.

MASTERLIST || BENNY MASTERLIST

[thechocolatearmor]

OK OK OK OK OK people talk about sniper, or pyro, or medic being autistic right?

B u t

What if I told you all of them are?

Every single one.

Engineer? He's autistic. Soldier? Autistic. Frickin Spy?? Omgsh he's so autistic

So because my brain won't stop itching about this I'm going to write up a collection of all the evidence I have for why the TF2 mercenaries possess within their beings the big tism. By the time this is over y'all are going to be very sick of the word autism.

But IDC

So without further ado, let's go through each of these silly mercs one at a time:

Scout:

Alright, first up we got Scout. Scout I would consider to be AuDHD for multiple reasons

The ADHD is more obvious but like dude trust me he's autistic too

He's hyperactive, forgetful, gets distracted easily, kind of the basic stereotypical ADHD stuff you would notice immediately. He stims, he fidgets, he struggles in social situations, he's seen as over the top and a bit annoying, he talks a lot

Now a lot of these traits are things that are common for both autistics and adhders. But I wanna point out some things I notice about him that are autism specific

He has a special interest: It's Tom Jones. Honestly he probably has a special interest about baseball too

But I mean c'mon he's literally has a Tom Jones tattoo

You could argue this is just a hyperfixation but I bet it's been going on for a while

He also has "spikey" skills. Really good at stuff like drawing, dancing, sports, but he sucks at things like reading, math, etc

Mostly what makes me see him as autistic it's how he struggles in social situations. Bro doesn't know how to flirt unless he's got a bucket of chicken on hand

Soldier:

Honestly if anyone's autistic coded it's soldier

Special interest is all things American, especially if it relates to the military

Lots of autistic people wear certain items that remind them of something they like, usually disregarding things like how it looks or even whether or not it's comfortable. Soldier's helmet is way too big for him but he's almost always wearing it anyway

In meet the spy he does "hut hut hut" when he's doing down the stairs and it makes me so happy

He has no filter, he takes things really literally, he often sees suggestions as orders (teleporting bread anyone?)

Also when he says he's been doing nothing but teleport bread for 3 days it makes me think he must've been hyperfocused on that

I don't think he knows anything about volume control since he's yelling everything

What kind of neurotypical fights bears in Siberia while naked and covered in honey

He speaks his mind rather than beating around the bush

His helmet could also double as helping him avoid eye contact

Pyro:

Tell me they don't have aversion to like every texture besides their suit you can't

A lot of their animations are super stimmy

Pretty much nonspeaking

Has childish interests

Could also have schizophrenia? (I'm relatively uninformed about it tho so I might not be a good person to judge)

I bet half of their little mmph mmmph noises are audio stims

Special interest is fire

their stim is ARSON

Demo:

I headcanon him as AuDHD too

I mean tbf a lot of how he is is more related to alcoholism but shhh let me have this

But I mean he made friends with Soldier

Special interest in medieval weapons which would explain why he's crazy about swords?

Drinking could be an unhealthy coping mechanism/safe food

Probably also depressed with how he can never live up to his family's expectations

Infodumping about bombs in his introduction video

Honestly most of my "evidence" for him is just fanon but idc I like autistic Demoman

Heavy:

Whether or not him having a PhD in Russian literature is canon, some of his in game lines show him to be very poetic and thoughtful

The fact that he only has a few food items but always seems super happy to be eating them gives me safe food vibes

He sings and hums a lot, probably as a stim

He has the Resting Autism Face™

Special interest in his gun

A lot of his voice lines also just feel really stimmy to me, especially when he's doing the "YATATATATATA" thing

Not sure he has any volume control either

Seems to genuinely enjoy Medic's morbid stories, at least to a point

He really really really really really likes the song of the Volga boatmen in particular

He's the prettiest princess it's canon, you can't be a pretty princess without being autistic /j

He has a tiny bed for Sasha. HE HAS A TINY BED FOR SASHA

Heavy is often criticized as a class because guess gameplay is relatively simple and can become a little stale for a lot of people. Yet Heavy seems to have some of the most excited voice lines in the game. I feel like this emphasizes how much he thrives in routine, since he seemingly never gets bored of just doing his thing

Engie:

He has 11 phds

A lot of his voice lines also sound really stimmy to me. Either he's going YEEHAWW GIDDY UP or he's yelling DAMNIT DAGNABIT DANGIT DAGGIT NABBIT

Probably a lot of echolalia with that too

He humanizes his buildings and cares for them like a mother bird

Just listen to his genuinely heartbroken when his sentry gets taken down!

When playing Engie sometimes I find myself smacking stuff with my wrench even though I KNOW it's already level 3 and maxed and whatnot, or I KNOW I'm out of metal, just because I wanna hear the clang noise. So this point is just me projecting but I love the mental image of Engie giving his things a few extra whacks too

He sawed off his arm for his special interest

His whole monologue in meet the engineer is so autistic sounding to me

His dancing taunt also feels stimmy

He's always hunched over, implying irregular posture

He's a NERD—

Man of many talents including playing the guitar

Never takes those goggles off

How does he turn a stressful TF2 match into a (not so) relaxing tower defense game?

Medic:

I headcanon him as AuDHD too because he seems really scatterbrained and it feels like he's working on several things at once and always

He talks a LOT. definitely an infodumper

Either he's super stern or really giggly, there is no in between

He wears gloves in battle but not while doing surgery??? Does he just like organ textures??? Wacko

Special interest is obviously whatever the heck kinda of mad science he does

Here's a heavy medic headcanon I have: medic likes deep pressure hugs

Another special interest could be his birds

He's very spontaneous which makes me think AuDHD even more

Look how excited he gets when taking about the tumors in expiration date!

He got the organ stealing autism

Is it just me or does he fixate on baboon organs in particular???

Sniper:

I'm pretty sure all of you know why this man is autistic but I'm going to list some reasons here anyway

My main evidence tho are his Halloween voice lines: https://youtu.be/2WDljNAslys?si=JP25VOGGDWwwoCI7

Exhibit a, look how much he enjoys having an owl head

Exhibit b, lots of those voice lines make him sound really freakin' overstimulated

He probably wears the hat and shades for sensory reasons as well as because they look cool

Obviously the most socially reclusive of the mercs

I love his backstory where he learns he never felt like the other kids because he wasn't actually Australian, but what if he also didn't fit in with the other kids because he's autistic?

Also throwing rocks at people as a kid screams autism to me

No neurotypical would ever throw jars of his own piss at you either

I think he just wants to live in the woods somewhere and never come back to society and honestly that's based

I feel like he would be the type to bite his own arm when stressed (just like me fr 😭)

Extremely meticulous in following his own life rules (ie being professional and having standards, driving safely with the turn signal and everything)

Spy:

Ok just hear me out for this one

Smoking because stim reasons

He's literally and figuratively masking

He's very suave and probably really good with social things, but I feel like it looks like he's just practiced really hard, again MASKING

Who knows he might not even actually be French

Who collects photographic evidence for a ur mom joke

I see him as either being hypersensitive or hyper insensitive to pain depending on the day (his screams + "I do believe I'm on fire.")

Mad butterfly knife tricks as a stim? (Notice he couldn't help but fiddle with them even disguised as scout in meet the spy)

He sucks at dealing with relationships and that's one of the reasons he's a bad dad

He actually really cares about his team and you can see it especially in expiration date but he's not very good at expressing it

Do you think he wears the ski mask for sensory reasons too?

Probably has his suits tailored to not give him any sensory issues, which could be another reason he likes them so much

Believe me I could go on but I think this is enough to get my point across

THEY ARE ALL AUTISTIC >:00

[purplealmonds]

Continuing to fire on all cylinders to make this Sky 🤝Mononoke collab a reality! 🐲⚖️🌊

Process GIFs and artist commentary below the cut. ⬇️

Left: Process GIF Middle: Just the background, cos I really like how it looks! Right: Illustration without the collab logo

And here are my notes on my inspirations and references. There's a lot of 'em, so instead of embedding relevant images one by one I put them in a callout sheet! For accessibility, I also included transcript (with bonus ramblings) below each sheet.

Ofuda circle modeled in Google Sketchup 2017, then lightly transformed in Photoshop to flare out. I tried my best to hand-draw these, but it the results came out really clunky and stiff. I figured if Mononoke shamelessly utilizes 3D in their show, I can too!

Krill and sky kid composition roughly inspired by the Ayakashi DVD cover illustration. On the surface level, the krill's black-and-red color scheme mirrored that of the bake-neko. Not to mention, in the world of Sky, the krill would be the best fit of a mononoke-like entity. The red background is also a nod to the red skies seen during a shard eruption in Sky.

Sky kid gesture based on the Festival Spin Dancer's Tier 3 poses and the Medicine Seller's iconic pose in the Zakishiwarahi episode as inspiration. This was the idea which springboarded this illustration into existence. I wanted to do my take of the Medicine Seller's pose, but in a more dynamic manner: rotate the pose to a profile position and set the ofuda in a diagonal, flared out arrangement.

Cape inspired by tenbin design featured in the 2024 Mononoke movie. This one's an interesting one - I wanted the cape to be a stiff material that doesn't "flap" when in flight - similar to the Aurora wing capes. It ended up looking like a kite of sorts, which I'm not entirely opposed to! I haven't had the opportunity to showcase the back view of this cape design, but I envision it having some mechanical aspects to it - the "wing" which are flared out in this illustration fold in like moth wings, and a little bell is attached to the "tail" part and it jingles a little whenever the sky kid flaps!

Bandana is based on the Scaredy Cadet's hairstyle from the Season of Assembly. Mask design utilizes the 2023 Days of Style mask and the Nintendo Pack mask as bases. Pretty self-explanatory. I basically went onto the Sky wiki and found the cosmetics that most closely matched what I was looking for. Then if necessary, I went to the Office space to do photoshoots to get the appropriate camera angles for them all.

Seasonal pendant inspired by the classic Medicine Seller's necklace and the eye motif featured in the 2024 Mononoke movie. Possibly the only one-to-one homage to the classic Medicine Seller design here, but his garnet necklace was too good of a match to the seasonal pendant. A side tangent: does the new Medicine Seller possess a necklace, let alone a mirror? So far all the shots of him don't feature it. Fascinating.

Dark dragon krill anatomy references a custom figurine crafted by @/escaflowne_n07 on Twitter. Until I found this, I was honestly at a loss finding reference for this - be it on the internet or during in-game photoshoots. The lighting on the krill in-game focused on its menacing silhouette rather than its structure. And not to mention, getting a close-up shot almost always set off the dark creature's aggro. I have no idea how this guy found the references to put this model together - well done!

Mantas, elder constellations, and sun dog references murals in the Cave of Prophecy. Krill aside, the overall illustration was leaning a little too much towards Mononoke so I tried finding opportunities to insert more Sky into it. Added bonus is that now there's storytelling in the background: during a shard eruption, a giant krill rises from the frothing waves of dark water to hunt down a flock of mantas.

Clouds behind the sun dog reference the ones featuring heavily in the Umibozu episode. This illustration has a lot of ocean theming, so I figured this would be appropriate.

Rendering style of the background is lightly inspired by the 2007 Mononoke illustration. Mainly having a 2D inked style to contrast with the more polished render of the sky kid. Funnily enough, this was a tertiary inspiration, which lead to the discovery in the next point!

Dark water waves and sun dog composition heavily references Hokusai's "The Great Wave". The waves were modified to be bottle-green of the Golden Wasteland's dark waters. The sun dog is in the spot where Mt. Fuji is in the original composition. these were all hand-drawn by the way! I merely emulated the style of the source material. As a side note, I also borrowed the spotted sea spray rendering for the krill's red spotlight.

Background pattern taken from the ofuda design featured in the 2024 Mononoke movie poster. Mainly to add some gritty texture to the sky. I worked pretty hard to replicate this ofuda design as a high-res asset so I wanted to use it more!

[alan-without-the-an]

(I wanted to join in @quartztwst's No Yan Sim AU!! The idea's hilarious and ridiculous /pos and I saw an opportunity to draw Alan lookin' like a jock hehe)

Alan is the stereotypically cold, ruthless jock of the school. A loner whose only trusted companion is their own self and has no interest in making friends. They're silent, hostile and completely unapproachable... ...Right?

Image w/ just the art + additional info under the cut :3

General personality:-

Their quiet demeanour comes from their softspoken and reserved nature. More often than not, they can be found with their head in the clouds thinking about something... like cats! They can be awkward and they never make the first move to socialise, but they're more than happy to engage in conversation with someone!

They're TERRIBLE at photography and at handling a camera in general... that and the long, rambly nature of the club discussions completely demotivate them from participating.

(They're too awkward to say something about leaving to the other members however, so they're honestly just waiting for the day they get kicked out.)

They have insanely good memory despite the terrible attention span, however. They're on top of all of their sports meetings, knows exactly what classes they have to walk on autopilot to, and during quiet times when noone is around and they don't have anyone to socialise with, they pull out their sketchbook and draw the first thing that comes to their mind.

When sneaking a peek, the drawings may incite a bit of deja vu... doesn't this sketch look awfully familiar to something Quartz did earlier today...?

Game mechanics:-

Sometimes, subconciously, Alan draws things they remember seeing but didn't quite process due to how 'not present in the real world' they are. They might not even realise what they're drawing is from memory. If someone else finds this, it could potentially lead to a certain school detective connecting the dots. (Hippity hoppity, these pages are now my property)

When they're alone and not busy talking, Quartz can ask them to do 1v1 practice sessions with her! Having these practice sessions can increase her strength and some of her abilities (then maybe one day she can take on the tweels... and Shuu).

When they aren't loitering around or drawing, their next activity of choice is to bring out some cat kibble and go around the school in search of cats. Perhaps Quartz could ask her about these cat hangout spots or ask for some kibble to lure in some cats... which then lure in a wild Idia. (Could be used for distraction purposes or to take photos of him?)

Personal items:-

Flip phone: Technology is hard to figure out and what they've got still works! No point in fixing what ain't broke.

Satchel: Trusty ol' bag of holding! Its contents fluctuate often, but whatever's inside is usually necessary for the day. Losing this will result in quiet panic.

Sketchbook + excessive number of pens: Even just one sketchbook is hard to fill out in one's day-to-day life. Pens, however, can be used for almost any situation!

Cat kibble: For the kitties.

(Aaaand here's the artwork! Both with a clean bg and a transparent one :D This was a brain workout to think about, but I had so much fun trying to brainstorm ideas!!)

[thecoolerliauditore]

I need your thoughts on Martyn.

Jesus Christ in heaven where to start.

I was planning to write massive essay posts about each of the winners sooner or later, I guess Martyn can skip the queue. As a treat.

BAD traffic series martyn analysis post don't read. LONG POST

note: rules I'm operating by are to keep the analysis primarily traffic-based (although this one's kind of an exception because. mr watcher lore) and I'm not rewatching entire POVs so stuff might be wrong so on so forth

Why is he... Like that?

So before I even start talking about 3L I feel the need to address Martyn's background first because, not unlike alot of the other members of the cast, Martyn's previously established relationships from series like Evo have a significant impact on how he behaves.

This is kind of difficult for me to talk about because it breaks my "no material outside of the traffic series" rule for these essays specifically, but I think it's honestly just more fun incorporating Martyn's off-series lore drops and such into his character instead of leaving them out.

So here's the basis I work from -- Martyn is the most unreliable narrator in a full cast of them. His lore is his character's version of events, not an unbiased retelling.

Whether the Watchers exist and whether they're the same entities present in Evo doesn't matter all that much, since all we know is that they are very real to Martyn, at least. Taking the lore as Martyn's POV also helps iron out some of the more awkward creases it creates when viewing the series as a whole (e.g. Grian's involvement with the Watchers surely means he would reference them himself, yet he doesn't) and lays the groundwork for some really interesting things about Martyn himself when you try to put the dots together on how he arrived at these conclusions. I'll be referencing these as they come up chronologically.

So, without over complicating things, here are the rules I'm playing by when it comes to pre-3L Martyn:

Evo did really happen with the same people, however the exact details are muddy.

Martyn knew Jimmy prior to the games and the two already had some sort of personal connection going in.

We're not trusting a word out of his mouth. Especially if he says them on stream. But we are going to acknowledge what those words are.

With those parameters set, let's move on:

Third Life, and the guy who gets a little too into it

Like Grian, Martyn immediately acclimates to the game's survival-based mechanics. Martyn spends a good chunk of the first session of 3L seemingly aimless, but he makes observations and choices throughout that show he has survival at the back of his mind (e.g. him quickly establishing an alliance with Grian and Bigb while sneakily putting them in his debt through the diamonds he finds early -- even if this doesn't end up paying off to anything).

Unlike Grian however, Martyn less desperately clings onto a need for an edge to survive and seems almost comfortable in playing the game. A running theme for him throughout all the seasons will be that he seems to feel most comfortable when he has some amount of unspoken power over others, whether that be something as silly as testing the waters with his creeper soundboard or later when he starts playing 4D chess with himself in regard to his loyalties.

"Power" might be not exactly the right word for what Martyn yearns for, but it's the best word I can find to really describe it. He's always the one with a card up his sleeve or a plan B or, arguably most importantly, the one with control over the situation and responsibility over his own and others' wellbeing.

In my mind, at least, I think it might be a consequence of Martyn actually being quite sensitive in terms of relationships and having this very deep-seeded need to protect his loved ones from harm but lacking the emotional intelligence necessary to allow himself to be vulnerable about those feelings and communicate properly. So instead he finds some way to protect himself emotionally (usually overdramatic and makes him way worse) and treats everyone including himself with a level of un-seriousness that alleviates the tension for him.

If I were to dig deeper into this specific point I must say Martyn seems to have chosen to perform a very specific breed of masculinity, with his constant agonizing need to protect and lead while not having to confront his own perceived weaknesses, and alot of his insecurities and frustrations come from being denied that husband-y role to play.

His interactions with Jimmy early on in 3L portray this side of him quite plainly. After seeing Scott hit him around at Renchanting, Martyn gets Jimmy alone and asks him if he's okay but after Jimmy dodges the question, Martyn quickly becomes frustrated and starts acting very overdramatic (e.g. threatening to cut Jimmy off, "I can't look at you", so on) even as Jimmy keeps insisting they keep talking.

In my humble opinion, it's clear to me from how he speaks to Jimmy in this scene and further on, and from his referencing of their Evo relationship, that this is these two's established dynamic - the way Martyn dramatizes everything feels almost as if he were making a joke of it, teasing Jimmy, almost akin to how an older sibling or very old friend would act. It's possible that Martyn didn't expect Jimmy to take any of his threats seriously (although he definitely was laying on the pressure to try and get him to agree in the moment) and that's why he's so taken aback when Jimmy does act almost afraid of him from this point forward.

Not once does Martyn ever verbalize his own feelings regarding the matter. He never says that he's scared or worried for Jimmy, or even makes any sort of subjective judgment on Scott's character for hitting Jimmy in the first place. He makes it all about Jimmy, never communicating *why* he is doing what he's doing which ends up giving off the impression he thinks he knows what's best for him, which of course never communicates to Jimmy that Martyn cares for or loves him and ends up pushing him away as a result.

Speaking of Scott, despite Martyn clearly not approving of the way he treats Jimmy (judging from the aforementioned conversation and his later lore streams where he essentially calls Scott and Jimmy's marriage a sham), he does not ever act antagonistically towards Scott. Which I think is indicative of another key trait of Martyn's - an almost uncanny ability to push aside his own feelings at least momentarily for the sake of the game.

Martyn does not speak badly to or about Scott. He even explores the nether with him very early on and the two literally joke about trapping the Flower Valley and killing Jimmy together.

I think there's an understanding and perhaps a level of respect, on Martyn's end, towards Scott. One of the first observations he makes about Scott's base, after all, is its defensive location and Scott, like Martyn, values his own competency and likes to pretend he's more emotionally unattached to his partner than he really is (the parallels between Martyn/Ren and Scott/Jimmy are even somewhat lampshaded by Martyn himself when he refers to them as "my red" (Ren) and "your red" (Jimmy) later).

It seems that Martyn doesn't dislike anything innate to Scott's nature, and even has love for his manipulative traits. If it were anyone other than Jimmy Scott was hitting, I'd argue, Martyn wouldn't have raised a fuss about it. Not to mention, there's also a sense of "keeping your enemies closer" when it comes to these two, as both seem acutely aware the other is useful on their side and a threat anywhere else.

I'd argue despite the fact he's able to push his dislike towards Scott aside, he definitely still feels spiteful towards him, as he ends up hunting him down pretty mercilessly come the end of the series (after Jimmy dies too - so perhaps there was also a level there of feeling the need to put up with Scott beforehand as he was Jimmy's only ally, but now that Jimmy's gone there isn't any need to be friendly with Scott anymore.)

Now onto the heavy-hitter Martyn 3L relationship - his dynamic with Ren.

I'll be honest I think most treebark shippers have summed up their relationship way better than I could. You could probably go into the tag and see thirty eight analysis posts more indepth and accurate than mine. However I will say that one thing I see rarely mentioned is this very obviously being Martyn's first time meeting Ren (I'm talking about characters here but here is your acknowledgement this is definitely a result of this literally being the case for the CCs).

He's not used to Ren's mannerisms -- during their first meeting, Ren says his usual "ex-squeeze me" (instead of "excuse me") and Martyn responds "no thankyou, I'm married". Not to get too into it as this is The Martyn Post but Ren's POV would imply the same since he sees Martyn's name in chat and he immediately starts theorizing about what kind of player he is.

I think Ren essentially being a stranger to Martyn at the start of the series makes it easier for him to act manipulatively and keep him at arm's length, as well as be in denial about the whole emotional attachment thing. For so much of their alliance during 3L Martyn is acting, performing to match Ren's vibes, except he's not.

^this quote and the concept of freudian slips informs like 88% of my worldview, if anyone's wondering why I'm. like that.

"The Hand" is very much not how Martyn naturally acts or behaves, down to the change in speaking patterns. It's a persona that I think both Ren and Martyn never take too seriously or mistake for Martyn's authentic self, but it's also something Martyn uses to express his innermost feelings he disallows himself from usually. Yes it's all silly even in-universe but I think there's something special about how he constantly expresses his devotion as The Hand, even if he's doing it with a layer of irony. Plus, I think it says something that, jumping later in the timeline, his flashbacks in LimLife are much more true to the character of The Hand than Martyn himself.

This section is already long enough but I do have to mention Bigb, Grian and Scar or I'll explode.

Earlier on, I touched on Martyn giving Grian and Bigb diamond swords early and it being an attempt to leverage an alliance between them. This I admit might be a slight reach however the reason I say that is Martyn continues to pursue Bigb and Grian as allies throughout the season.

Bigb is cut and dry enough, he ends up floating around the outside of Dogwarts as a not-quite-member after the siege in which pretty much half the sever were antagonized by Grian and Scar. I'm probably not the person to thoroughly dissect Martyn/Bigb but there's something interesting there about how alot of people tend to have this general fondness towards Bigb and Martyn is no exception.

As for Grian, Martyn acknowledges that Grian is responsible for the siege, possible moreso than Scar, but keeps questioning how "gone" he is, worded as if he believes Scar is manipulating him. I've seen people compare this to how he acts towards Jimmy and Scott which I can definitely see the throughline. However, I think while both are an example of Martyn's protector/saviour complex, they are innately different due to Martyn's relationships with both the perceived victim and captor in each case.

Despite Grian also being an ex-Evo member, Martyn does not act towards him with the same familiarity he does with Jimmy. He also brings up Grian's welfare with Bigb and not Grian himself, with Bigb being the other person involved in their earlier established sword alliance. To me, it feels as if Martyn is more testing the waters for if he can still get Grian on his side than out of any genuine concern for Grian, although it is possible he's projecting some of those leftover feelings regarding Jimmy's situations onto Grian and Scar.

The other reason is, I think, Martyn might genuinely be afraid of Scar himself and villainizing him as a result. Everytime Scar shows up in Martyn's POV he's paired with tense music and sporadic editing that makes him appear more unhinged. Martyn has also said on tumblr he found Scar intimidating at the time, which is of course a dubiously canon source but I find it applicable enough.

It makes sense, too. When you compare Martyn's treatment of Scar vs his treatment of Scott. These are both people he has recognized as real threats and he assumes both are manipulating their respective partners, but while he remains friendly (at least outwardly) towards Scott he's constantly wary of Scar, drawing weapons on him pretty much on sight even before the siege.

I think Martyn fears Scar because he doesn't understand Scar. Scott is someone like him who he knows the inner workings of, or at least that's what he believes, so while he doesn't care for him he doesn't feel a need to keep him away. Martyn always assumes a level of coordinated malice from Scar that is more than often either completely unfounded or a result of something originating from Grian (my favourite example of this is, right before the siege, Scar wanders over with his bee on a lead and Martyn starts yelling "he's got a bee! what does that mean?!" as if expecting the bee has some pvp reason behind it. when scar just wanted to have a bee).

That isn't to say that Scar isn't malicious - Martyn is right like 90% of the time that Scar's not-so-subtle friendly hellos have some sinister plan behind them, but he doesn't ever truly get that Scar isn't the evil mastermind he thinks he is.

I'd argue this fear is what also makes Martyn not pick up on the fact that Grian is the more manipulative one out of the two - something that even Scott seems aware of - because he never spends enough time with them on friendly terms to be aware of that dynamic.

Last Life AKA big brother syndrome in full blast

Okay that was a long ass section sorry lmao have to establish everything there. Everything from here on is gonna be a lot cleaner I swear.

The Southlanders could honestly have their own ultra-long post about how they're the perfect disaster team-up lord of the flies esque situation the series has to offer.

Impulse, Grian and Martyn are all similar in that they understand they have to play the game a certain way through keeping their loyalties dubious while Mumbo, as a newcomer, is extremely naive and goes along with whatever the more assertive members of the group say. And Jimmy is Jimmy.

Martyn takes on a leadership role within the group, being the one to constantly spearhead their humour and come up with new often disruptive plans (usually targetting Scott because he totally isn't spiteful still, albeit in a very playful way). After Joel traps their base with tnt minecarts, Martyn is the one to keep everyone else back and disarm them, a huge contrast to 3L's siege.

Their group embraces the rules of the game - if you turn red, as Grian does early on, you are kicked out from the group as a threat. There's this sinking feeling throughout all their spyglass shenanigans and life-trade trust exercises that this is still an alliance in a death game and if you prove yourself to be a detriment, you will be kicked out.

It's no wonder than why Jimmy, who gets his usual bottom of the barrel treatment, tries to run away with Martyn's life during one of their trust exercises. He's been shown at this point he can't fully trust the Southlanders to protect him forever -- how could he, when Martyn, again, never slips in any sign of affection between the teasing?

To Martyn, however, this is a betrayal of his trust. His plea to Jimmy to return sounds a lot like their conversation back in 3L on the snowy mountain regarding Jimmy and Scott, except this time Jimmy accepts Martyn's offer and Martyn tells him he was lying, calling him an idiot for believing him in the first place. This is probably the harshest Martyn acts towards Jimmy in the series, but it's worth mentioning that to Martyn the timeline of events goes he offers Jimmy his protection and alliance--> Jimmy refuses--> Jimmy dies (which Martyn probably sees at least partially due to said refusal) --> he gets Jimmy back and does everything in his power to keep him safe --> Jimmy does the equivalent of *killing him* and tries to get away with it.

Martyn still obviously cares about Jimmy despite being upset at him, as after his usual dramatics and declaring a trial for Jimmy in which each of the Southlanders vote on his fate, Martyn still votes to keep Jimmy in the group (again, something Jimmy is never made aware of).

Possibly partially because of the Jimmy incident and the overall dog-eat-dog culture of the Southlanders, Martyn does to them what he never managed with Dogwarts - betrayal. At least, on some level.

Ironically, it's Ren he betrays them for, forming the Shadow Alliance and even giving the life Jimmy had attempted to steal from him to Ren instead. My read of this has always been that it supported Martyn truly being happy enough for Jimmy or someone else to have his extra life, but Jimmy's act of betraying him itself being what hurt him.

I think now's a good time to start mentioning the Watcher Lore, as here is where it starts kicking into gear. Martyn's claims of emotional bonds not carrying over from previous seasons is not only a very natural progression from his emotional distancing in a coping mechanism sense, but also enables him to betray Ren too later on and not have to confront the guilt that comes with that when he tries to lead him into a tnt trap in the final 1v1v1v1. However, he still cheers for Ren as a ghost and even says that he would be happy to see Ren win, indicating he really does not hold any malice towards him.

I've seen people make jokes about the watcher lore being Martyn schizoposting and I'm sure I've made similar jokes in the past but. Speaking very genuinely here Martyn's questionable sanity is a big part of his character to me.

His Episode 8 of LL literally begins with him acting out the usual running joke of him stealing Mumbo's intro, except Mumbo and Jimmy are dead at this point and he is doing their voices and talking to himself. When the illusion is broken, he panics and the video immediately cuts to him running around obviously distressed with a disembodied voice demanding things from him.

I'm obviously not authorized to diagnose every single one of Martyn's many mental illnesses, but I think mentally breaking down in a timeloop death game is a fairly average thing to happen to someone, and Martyn might be especially susceptible due to his aforementioned need for power and responsibility in every relationship (i.e. I'd like to think he feels some helplessness/guilt over Jimmy and Mumbo's deaths, leading to this sequence).

Not to mention, someone who is emotionally vulnerable coming up with a nebulous Group of Evil People who are the source of all the bad things in a helpless situation of violence is. Something that happens historically quite alot. To try and find reason in the madness is just a human instinct, I think.

One thing I feel like I should mention is his "marriage" with Mumbo which. I honestly don't see as anything more than a gag. Not that Martyn isn't a massive hypocrite but "marrying" Mumbo would be very much contradict what he has to say about Scott/Jimmy's situation. I do think he cares for Mumbo and potentially Mumbo's naivete served as incentive for Martyn to put on the usual assertive/provider role but I don't think there's much more than that (no hate to the shippers, tho, if they knew eachother for like a week longer they would've kissed)

Double Life. Oh no

Double Life Martyn is one of my favourite POVs in the series because it is. Hilarious. Unfortunately.

To start off, he is one of the players who almost immediately accepts the soulbound system as romantic and his views on Cleo/Scott's relationship are heavily based on that (I love that one clip where he mocks them in front of Jimmy).

Him acting flabbergasted at Cleo rejecting him despite pretty much having no relationship with her prior to this season is a really funny contrast to Scott and Pearl, especially when he continues pursuing her like they're recently divorced and Cleo's just like. rolling her eyes. It's all very performative on Martyn's end and why I mentioned his sense of masculinity at the start, because in theme with DL being The Feminism Season TM this is when it comes full throttle in display with the way he treats Cleo.

Martyn keeps referring to himself as a "provider" and refers to Cleo's relationship with Scott as "childish" -- Martyn trying to win over Scott's partner to his side, assuming he knows best for the partner and calling their relationship a sham? Does any of this sound familiar?

Cleo is not like Jimmy, however, and is very clear to Martyn in terms of what she wants from him - which is an apology, no diamond swords or heart-shaped houses, but Martyn in all his emotional denseness can't understand this and keeps assuming there must be some hidden strings attached.

I couldn't find the original meme I had in mind but these are within the same genre. The one I remember had captioned something like "dads don't say "i love you" but they will buy ten boxes worth of the fruit they overheard you say you liked once", which pretty much sums up Martyn's emotional intelligence to me. He would much rather give you way too much of something he thinks you need (e.g. with Jimmy the playful teasing, with Cleo the acts of service) than just say "I love you".

Cleo's blunt honesty serves as a stark contrast to Jimmy and brings something out of Martyn that we rarely ever see -- a genuine, vulnerable interaction in which he has to admit he's hurt. Cleo immediately denies him the role of rescuer he wants to play by telling him directly that she, not Scott, was the one who came up with the idea of teaming up and even gets Martyn to verbalize he's hurt by their actions and cares for her.

Once that illusion is shattered for Martyn and Cleo even admits she's acting manipulatively towards Scott, Martyn realises he and Cleo are more alike than he initially assumed and that he doesn't need to take care of her like he always tries to with his relationships. Ironically, the one relationship he has that is born almost entirely out of government mandated performative romance, is the one that gets him to examine how he views people especially his romantic interests the most.

This is, of course, all said with the fact that following this very heartfelt moment, the next time he speaks to Cleo he pushes her off a fucking cliff and kills her in mind. And the fact that he was very much beating the shit out of her and even called their relationship "toxic" himself early on in the season.

It's kind of hard to gauge Cleo and Martyn's relationship from this point forward but Martyn definitely chills on the namecalling and cooperates with Scott and Cleo for the main part going forward.

I think it's also worth mentioning that, despite Scott once again being the object of his spite, Martyn is once again friendly with Scott all season. When he catches Cleo and Scott mid-axe crit, it's Cleo he starts hitting and not Scott, despite them both being responsible. Behind his back, Martyn will claim Scott is "ruining" Cleo but to his face Martyn is always respectful. He actually even calls Scott "pretty"/"hot" in the last episode, which has some implications I'll talk about more in the Limlife section.

Martyn, like everyone else, is weird about Pearl. Uniquely in his case, Pearl isn't a witch nor demoness, but rather a non-factor he seems to have had written off and her triumph in the end comes as a shock to his system.

He dismisses her concerns over and over in the first episode as they are exploring together and, instead of seeing her as a natural source of allyship, doesn't value her enough to keep her around as an alliance even after Scott and Cleo dump them. In his heart to heart with Cleo, he even very randomly speaks badly of her, although he immediately seems to feel a bit of guilt over it.

He never seems to view Pearl through a sympathetic lens despite the two being in the same circumstance and, again in the same conversation with Cleo, they both agree that she could act as essentially a pawn (an "extra healthbar") for them like Cleo uses Scott.

I feel the need to clarify that while, yes I do believe Martyn is Weird About Women, I also do think he's honestly above average and sees them more as people than some other men in the series (note: my standards are not very high)

He sees most people as nothings that can be manipulated or competition that also can be manipulated, it just so happens that all the women in the series so far land squarely in the former and it took Cleo saying to his face "I'm taking advantage of Scott" for him to realise she wasn't a victim. However, even afterwards, he never treats her with the same competitiveness he has for people like Scott and Scar (albeit it makes enough sense in this season since she's attached to his healthbar, but this remains the same for future seasons). And as a reminder, he holds respect for those he deems as threats, which might have something to do with why he feels comfortable hitting Cleo but not Scott.

As for Ren and the Broken Hearts Club, they didn't get a lot of time together this season since both were preoccupied with their own soulmate dramas and being awful to Pearl but what we do see of them ranges from heartwarmingly nostalgic to a little bit hollow. Martyn saying to Pearl that they're the same at this point doesn't really read to me as him being truly sympathetic since this is post the "you should go use pearl as your second hp bar" conversation and Ren is way too busy to deal with the emotional turmoil of what's going on between himself and Bigb to really pay attention to Martyn.

Ren is still very kind to Martyn, especially considering the last time he saw him in LL Martyn was trying to kill him, but there's an emotional gap between the two that's very noticeable at least to me when compared to 3L and LL.

I think Martyn, at this point, convinced of his own "emotional bonds don't carry over seasons" logic, might be a bit too comfortable on relying on Ren. In both DL and LL he runs to Ren when his current alliance gets shaky and Ren is a source of definite comfort for him (as he said so himself on stream). Ren, as a source of comfort, is not a threat to Martyn aka not someone he needs to keep tabs so when said source of comfort falls through the gaps, you get:

Limited Life. The one where he compares himself to Joffrey from GOT

I don't think I have much to say about LimLife Martyn that hasn't already been said.

I will say I don't necessarily think Majorwood is purely his rebound relationship from Ren, the Mean Gills forming is very much not OOC for either Scott or Martyn (this is pretty much how they acted with eachother at the start of 3L) and their resulting give and take coworker-esque dynamic is a very natural place for them to end up from their previous interactions. Scott, like Martyn, tries to shed his emotional attachments with each new season so they are, in a very literal sense, making eachother worse by reinforcing that habit by normalizing it to eachother.

However, the parallels to their respective 3L partnerships I can't blame people for pointing out, right down to Martyn killing both Ren and Scott in the seaons he was teamed with them and the latter being happy about it.

I think it's time to say what I've been implying with Scott and Martyn throughout this whole thing and that is that they are eachother's ideal ally. They are both aware of the game, play the game, emotionally distant, manipulative and make themselves suffer more for that mindset. I don't think there was ever a moment in their allyship where either assumed the other wasn't going to stab them in the back later, despite the mutual respect they have being very real.

Martyn spends a lot of time this season just wandering around talking to various people, alot like how he acted in 3L before he and Ren became an official thing. It's almost as if, without Ren there, he loses his default go-to guy and is once again sizing up the competition around him.

The one exception I would say would be his interactions with Cleo, who he seems genuinely friendly with, even offering himself up as a "godfather" for the Clockers before the whole server became some form of extended family. You'd think this alliance would also have some basis in the ever present Scott/Cleo alliance but Scott's constant sacrifices for the Clockers are never discussed between him and Martyn, in fact the two of them rarely talk about anything ever past base-building and dolphin-wrangling, and the Clockers seem to treat them as two seperate entities rather than an alliance (e.g. Bdubs seems almost entitled to Scott's life after a certain point, but none of them ever even consider asking Martyn for time).

That, and of course the fact that Martyn kills Scott very unsympathetically towards the end, really point me in the "Martyn is still spiteful towards Scott" direction -- after all, alliance or no alliance, I don't think Martyn would want to be in the conversation with Scott where he tells him about his "love you back" exchange with Jimmy. Martyn certainly respects Scott, loves Scott I'd even say, but I don't know if he actually likes Scott.

I think it's also interesting that it's this season where Martyn's Watcher Lore interludes make a return, just in time for his source of comfort (Ren) to be missing.

Re: the watcher lore the comment Martyn makes about swapping out souls of players who are too "damaged" is very in line with his DL seeing women (and "weaker" men like Jimmy, Mumbo and, of course, Ren) as default victims as, knowingly or not, he implies through this that all the women in the series have souls too weak to withstand the horrors. This also in turn implies that he himself is not broken, which I think he'd like to believe.

Secret Life. It's happy again :D oh wait no

Secret Life starts with Martyn kissing Jimmy. I feel like we moved on from this way too fast in general I mean on the cheek or not he did kiss him he did literally kiss him.

I'll be honest I think the Big Dogs POV is the one I'm least familiar with out of all of these but from what I do remember it's very nice to see Martyn and Jimmy settling back into what seems like their Evo dynamic or even their pre-horrors LL dynamic.

Unfortunately Jimmy is not Cleo and thus cannot get Martyn to be the slightest bit vulnerable, so their dynamic remains stagnant and neither acknowledge the awkwardness that still resides between them.

Jimmy is at least very clearly holding onto some discomforts, judging by his behaviour late in the series when he acts aggressively towards Pearl and celebrates Lizzie dying. He even chases Scott down with a sword on horseback earlier on and, very early in one of Pearl's episodes, he quickly switches between sounding sad and angry.

It's clear to me at least SL Jimmy has reached some sort of breaking point, and this never gets acknowledged by Martyn (I like to think he just lacks the EQ to deal with it). This all cascades into Jimmy attempting to kill Martyn and running away before dying.

SL Martyn feels almost like, to me, the 3L Martyn who successfully convinced Jimmy to team with him and the disaster that comes with that. Martyn certainly has continued to be his survivalist self, not trusting outsiders to the point where when the Wither/Warden combo is unleashed, he immediately assumes they're picking off reds and goes to hide.

Weirdly enough, his protective tendencies towards Jimmy are pretty much gone. It's almost as if when he doesn't see an active threat (e.g. Scott) he assumes things must be good enough and leaves it at that, which also implies he can't comprehend that He might be detrimental to Jimmy himself.

Obligatory. Yes he still misses Ren. Him literally basing his alliance concept off of dogs is. hilarious. I'm so sorry babygirl.

Real Life is, again, non-canon to me but turns up the "dad who buys you 45 mandarins" energy to 11 with him being Ren and Skizz's pseudo-dad. I love Ren having a crisis about his own RP btw it's the funniest thing and he does it like. Everytime.

Uh yeah I hope that's long enough

[callabang]

jet lag: the game: the rpf primer

so you've just encountered jet lag: the game. maybe this is because you read an insane poly bdsm fic that i wrote and now you want to know about who those guys are. maybe you're ABOUT to read an insane poly bdsm fic that i wrote. maybe you're normal. etc.

what is jet lag the game?

jet lag the game is a travel game show where they use various forms of transit and real-life locations as game mechanics. also curses/challenges/etc. it's not important. essentially they have taken all the parts of travel that are bad and chosen to JUST do those. a lot of times this involves hunting each other for sport. one part travel show one part game show one part chaos. if you want to watch this show, which i recommend, may i suggest:

starting with the new zealand season which rocks my socks and has in my opinion the best guest (toby!!!!!!!!!! a woman), or

viewing the most recent hide and seek season set in japan which is very cute and fun

i am happy to answer more questions about jet lag the game the show / nebula / the layover podcast etc. BUT THIS ISN'T REALLY ABOUT THAT and also i started watching it like two weeks ago so honestly ask maria @killjoys-makesomenoise

let's get weird.

the main boys involved in this show are SAM DENBY, ADAM CHASE, AND BEN DOYLE. they created this show together and are always contestants in each season, sometimes with a guest. there is something sooooo wrong with them for doing this game show

to be clear me and the co-author of this primer maria @killjoys-makesomenoise do not actually know that much about these people and make no claims to biographical accuracy or even a basic understanding of their careers and interests outside of this show. this primer is a collection of curated vibes in support of our fanfiction and nothing else

sam denby

born and raised on youtube. he likes logistics. like in a really serious way he likes logistics. he has a spreadsheet brain full of transit schedules and LOVES! planes and trains and automobiles. he used to have the world's most potent baby face but then he moved to colorado and got into THE OUTDOORS and skiis and runs ultramarathons and so now he's like 6 foot 2 and sleek and muscled etc.

he is extremely blond with long hair that could look good if he did a curly girl routine which he never will. he has like three outfits which are mostly athletic clothes and tshirts and he does pattern mixing but NOT on purpose. he loves to wear a hat and sunglasses and make no expressions and be IN his phone.

he is everyone's boss at jet lag and extremely rigidly ethical and his personal life is a locked box inside a deep dungeon. he's very competitive and strategic and competent but also has really bad luck. he has terrible hand eye coordinate. he's my favorite personally and i want to study him like a bug.

here's a reddit comment that captures some of what he's got going:

Sure, it's logically possible that someone out there could have a generally-less-expressive-than-average voice/face, be obsessed with airline scheduling and high-end car statistics (and jump on any opportunity to list them), react to experiences like fairground rides and bungee jumping in a way that regularly makes people around him go "you're a psychopath", find riddles that require non-literal thinking so hard he thinks they're "not good riddles", seemingly regularly and genuinely forget that other people don't have his specific kind of spreadsheet brain, and thrive on metrics/grind-based sports while lacking overall hand-eye coordination, without being on the autism spectum... but realistically, autism is the easiest way to explain a lot of these things co-occurring, isn't it?

adam chase

he's been a writer for sam's other youtube channels for years and was brought in front of the camera bc sam needed someone to play his insane little games with. he's a sweetie with a squeaky little voice and also he's extremely competitive and i truly believe his resting heart is 120 bpm. he's AGITATED and overprepared. he cares so deeply about every single second of the game whether he's winning or not and also about the game design/planning/production. he has been described as a caretaker and someone who would "be a good dad." he's also not a sore loser at all and is very compassionate! sweetheart.

surprisingly hard to find a good evocative solo pic of adam. here he is with sam in a typical sam outfit and in matching tie-dye with ben. he's so skinny and fast and importantly he's a fucking nerd. also he constantly vocally stims by bursting into song.

benjamin doyle

formerly an intern for sam's other youtube channels, ben was comedy writer friends with adam which is how he got involved in this mess. babygirl and he knows it. online in a tumblr way somehow and also has apparently perused fanfiction of himself and his coworkers. lock ya fics !!!!!!!

he's an indoor cat in a major way and suffers so much physically from competing in what is objectively a very physical show and yet he also is one of the game designers so that's his fault. he's the only one with a sense of style and he dresses like a cartoon character. he's surprisingly droll and lackadaisical and adam and sam thinks he's soooo funny. he loves a gambit and a scheme and enjoys a plan that is 50% vibes. he's little and short and has the biggest most limpid blue eyes of the three of them who all have blue eyes so that's saying something.

here's a redacted-for-spoilers youtube comment about his relationship with adam who he's usually paired up with for team challenges:

The trust that Ben has in Adam!! When he agreed to let Adam make that last wager I thought I was gonna be sick. It must take a lot of self-regulation skill to just stay chill and supportive and crack jokes while witnessing your teammate like, harness the power of childhood [redacted] trauma and in order to dissociate into a [redacted]. Adam is obviously a powerhouse but Ben is an unsung hero, just an absolute rock.

he's probably the only one who ever has a healthy emotional state while they are playing. AND SOMETIMES HE FREAKS OUT and that's great too.

the dynamics.

the main ship is ben/adam but this is OUR PRIMER so we're talking about ben/adam/sam which is the ship that compels us most.

first of all given the format of the show sam by definition haunts the narrative and is the narrator. also ben and adam live in NYC and sam lives in colorado and i think we can all have fun with that bc it shows that sam is a wild private recluse but also he talks to them every single day at work and is obsessed with them.

anyway the premise of the show mandates deep trust in each other and also, again: they all have to have the same thing wrong with them. WHICH THEY DO!

they put themselves in their own little rat race and then film themselves and edit it for us to consume and then debrief and analyze the rat race on their podcast. it's CRAZY. they are always making game plans based on deep psychoanalysis of each other's habits and preferences. they have such deep intimate knowledge of each other that they play against an imaginary version of each other and GET IT CORRECT.

three neurodivergent people have never thought about each other more. they care about each other but also they love tormenting each other. they're all sadists but none of them are masochists so they have to take turns. and what they DON'T know is that we can link any casual work-related commentary into an extensive mental lore of their insane light-bdsm long distance polycule. so translate that into some smut and let's go go go !!!

[samwitcch]

mad max, the party's zoomer - apoc au character details under the cut!

---

max's role in the party:

a runner - fast and quiet, tends to be the one who makes out with the most supplies

mechanic - knows best about cars and is one of the party's designated drivers (the other being mike)

medic - not as skilled with plants and medicine like will, but is good with first aid and physical treatment!

thief - who the party sends out if they need to "borrow" from other groups (second nature to her)

skills + hobbies:

incredible with melee weapons and hand-to-hand combat -> everything she knows was taught to her by billy

decent shot, but prefers using melee way more!

stealthy, like a ninja - her and el are the quietest in the party! max's fighting style is much more brawler-like despite this

good with card games (likes poker, speed and BS) -> likes to play them with the party a lot, but in particular with dustin and lucas

skateboards whenever she can -> her favorite thing to do next to driving!

really loves listening to music (fave artists are madonna, taylor swift and destiny's child) -> likes having el or will in shotgun so they can listen together!

quirks / fun facts:

whenever dustin goes to bed, max takes his current handheld and tries to beat his high score on whatever retro game he's currently playing (dustin does not know its max who's actively beating his ass on dig dug and tetris)

she took billy's jacket and baseball bat and made them her own - very complicated relationship with him and her upbringing with her stepbro made her very skeptical and suspicious of others (especially the party when she first met them)

when she steals things, she tries to keep the party in mind when grabbing extra :')

--- other notes: ladies and gentlemen, our newest addition - maxine! i'll admit, the two characters i think i'm most shoddy on for their characterizations are dustin and max. since max's story in my au is so heavily tied to her issues with trusting people again (specifically men) and family, i'm scared that it will make her character intrinsically tied to relationships instead of having her own character. i'll try my very best for it not to be that way, of course!

for now, she's how i imagine her in the show - she's still a cheeky, sarcastic, stubborn and awesome tomboy with insurmountable trust and distance issues, and i love her for that! the circumstances that drew her to the party are currently a secret, but i will establish now that billy is tied to her storyline and how the party meets her for the first time - while billy's an interesting character in his own right, i straight up don't like him :P so i'm warning people now that billy's more a plot device for max's arc and i probably won't be diving incredibly deep into his character. this is a party centric au after all!

when i was thinking of max's character, i was trying to keep the things she liked in mind and why she was so cool in the first place! ofc, she had to skateboard, even if it was only a little, and she's honestly just great at games in general (to dustin's dismay).

her upbringing in canon and the way she acts is pure "survival instinct" behavior. she knows first aid, she knows how to drive, she escapes vecna, she's incredibly independent! she's a fighter, through and through. she's also not really one to hesitate often to be hands on, and i can see it in the way she acted seasons 2-4 :')

lucas is almost done - maybe a few days give or take!

[dailyadventureprompts]

So I don't usually get involved in class balance discourse but recently I stumbled across this video and it made me realize something about D&D's game design, specifically WHY casters get access to room/encounter clearing amounts of damage while martial characters are stuck with their low damage iterative attacks.

See, since d&d was one of the first things to emerge from the primordial soup of ttrpgs there were a lot of developments in game design that we take for granted today that simply didn't exist as concepts back then. One of these was asymetricality: the idea that different players at the table might be using their own set of mechanics to interact with the game at different levels.

Today we understand that while our DMs/GMs/Storytellers/Directors are fellow players, the game is FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT from their perspective and the mechanics they have access to should probably reflect that.

I've complained before that d&d's monster making system is nigh unusable because it expects you to do a lot of extraneous work for a creature that's going to be dead in three rounds. This is because the game has traditionally modelled monsters in nearly the same way that it models player characters, which seems like the most backwards bit of game design ever until you remember that d&d evolved from wargames, where having a unified system with clearly defined math was important for maintaining competitive balance.

Magic is unbalanced for the same reason that monsters are over-complicated, because it expects the party and the dungeonmaster to be using the same mechanics despite their fundamentally different play experiences.

Think about it: however much fun it is to make things explode Fireball and it's big brother Meteor Swarm are not well designed player spells. They're really USEFUL for a DM looking to deal a lot of damage to a relevant level party, but encounter balance starts to go out the window once the players get their hands on them.

So how do we fix this? Honestly, not sure. I'm really interested in how the 5e successors are taking advantage of the asymmetrical nature of the GM/Player dynamic, as everyone's seemed to have independently learned the lesson that there should probably be a different set of mechanics depending on whether you're behind the screen or not.

For D&D itself though, I think it's one of those things that I'm going to need to tinker with for a while and up my game design skill. Learning where the game breaks down teaches us how to improve it. Currently I'm experimenting with retooling player HP and making counter-magic a LOT more common to make the use of those big encounter-ending spells more tactical. I might also take a look into it if I ever feel like tangling with the spell economy.

[theresattrpgforthat]

As someone who designs games, are there any specific games you've read that do interesting things with the Forged in the Dark or Powered By The Apocalypse systems that get you excited to write your own stuff?

(Asking those two since Protect the Child is FitD, also excited to hear if another system is excited rant worthy)

My friend, thank you so much for giving me space to ramble lovingly about games and mechanics. I don’t know if anything suggested here will be new exactly, but I am relishing the chance to talk about how the games I’ve read and played have impacted my design journey.

This is going to be a walk-through of various games that have given me a lot of tools to work with. Right now my head is full of Protect the Child, so I'm not really thinking about any other design projects, but I hope you enjoy this nonetheless!

Brinkwood, by Far Horizons Co-Op, Slugblaster, by Wilkie’s Candy Lab, and Moth-Light, by Dissonance.

I knew of a few Forged in the Dark hacks before I heard about Brinkwood, but when I realized that the Masks were basically communal playbooks, my mind was blown. Both Slugblaster and Moth-Light appealed to me because of their setting, but when I read the rule-books I was also impressed by how they were able to take the base Forged in the Dark and change it to make the rules work for the proper genre and tone.

Brinkwood takes the playbooks with special powers and makes them communal. You can pick up a new set of powers every time but still play the same character, so you can have variety while still pursuing the same character’s storyline. Because the Masks are shared, the “crew playbook” doesn’t look the same as it does in a lot of other Blades hacks, as no matter what Masks you take, you’re still engaging in a rebellion against vampires. Brinkwood also gives the GM a lot of guidance on how to flavour the antagonists in a way that is challenging, interesting and dangerous, while also giving the players a way to veto any subject matter that bleeds too much into real-life boundaries. Honestly, I think Brinkwood probably directly influenced my game A Terrible Fate more than Protect the Child, but the initial moment of realizing how much you can play with the game was a really important step in my development.

Slugblaster re-organizes your dice resources as Boost & Kick, and shifts Stress into a currency (Trouble) that you have to spend, rather than a time bomb. This gives your characters more longevity and takes away a lot of the gritty trauma that works for Blades, but doesn’t make sense for hover-boarding teens. Additionally, Slugblaster gives agency of faction creation over to the players in a way that’s way more personalized than it is in Blades. Specific questions are meant to be answered by specific playbooks, which I think is a great way to speed up crew relationships, as well as ensuring that each player at the table has a piece of the world that they contribute to. When setting decisions are left up to the group as a nebulous whole, one player may have more say over setting creation just because they have the loudest voice or the most ideas. By giving specific choices to specific playbooks, you’re ensuring that each player has a piece of the world they can point to and claim as theirs.

Moth-Light takes the CATS safety tool and embeds it into Pact creation, allowing the genre and tone to shift the way the game is played slightly to reflect the kind of story the group wants to tell. The core setting is the same - a planet with gigantic bugs - but the ways the characters interact with the setting changes depending on the Pact that you choose. I think this is a genius way to give a group a way to use Safety Tools without them necessarily realizing it, and it ensure that the group enters the story on the same page. This mindset fuelled my choice to present the world-building as a series of questions for the players to answer, establishing some truths about the technology levels and the use of magic before players make their characters, setting some basic limitations to make sure folks are on the same page. Currently however, I don’t think I’ve achieved the seamless translation of CATS into a game-appropriate setting exercise - I’ve just ported CATS into the game.

External Containment Bureau, by Mythic Gazetteer.

External Containment Bureau minimizes a lot of their character options and does away with playbook options in order to make character creation customizable while still quick, and one of the primary ways they did this was by changing the way gear rules work in the game. In standard Blades, you can only use equipment to improve your Effect, but in ECB, you can use your equipment to add +1d or improve Effect. This is primarily because ECB doesn’t use stats in the way Blades does, but I liked the way that little tweak gave the player an additional resource.

Additionally, ECB doesn’t care about load. Instead, the character comes with some gear associated with their department, and a few gear slots that they can fill themselves. You can always have everything in your Gear section on you - the limitation is in what’s available. I really liked how the game provided a balance between gear that made sense for your department and gear that reflects the way the player wants to portray their character, so I did the same thing in Protect the Child.

Antiquarian Adventures, by acegiak

I heard about the way Stress works in Antiquarian Adventures when I was listening to the Dice Exploder podcast, and it sparked a lot of thoughts about what Stress can be used for, especially since I knew that I didn’t want to give the characters Trauma in Protect the Child. Thematically, it doesn’t make sense to imply that parenting is inherently traumatic, and I don’t want to cast the Child as a source of trauma for the parents.

Antiquarian Adventures solves this problem by allowing Stress to re-set every time you fill it, as long as the player is able to dictate how the character suffers some kind of setback or brings about some form of trouble as a result of getting too stressed out. The exact trouble is attached to the playbook, adding to the distinct flavour of each trope. In Protect the Child, I made sure to add one Reaction that was unique to the playbook, to reflect the same kind of thing.

Last Fleet, by Black Armada Games.

Last Fleet blew me away with the Pressure mechanic. It’s a physical manifestation of stress that exists in the setting, that doubles as both a player resource and a ticking clock. You can spend Pressure to give yourself a better chance at success, but once it hits its cap, your character is forced into a situation that that they cause themselves.

In many ways, Last Fleet is doing something similar to Antiquarian Adventures, but the one thing it adds is that it gives the player options in terms of how they’ll cause trouble. Some options overlap across playbooks, but each playbook has a unique collection that helps keep it somewhat distinct from the others. One of the best moments I had in play was when one of my players realized that he had the option to actually turn on the group - the reaction was like a little present he’d just unwrapped for the entire group, and it made for an extremely memorable moment for the table.

Last Fleet also inspired me to shorten the Stress Clock in Protect the Child. Base Blades has a 8-mark Stress track, but in early play-tests, I felt like it was difficult for anyone to fill up their clock in a single session. The Last Fleet Pressure track can only hold 5 marks of Pressure, and re-setting it doesn’t empty the track, but rather puts it at 2. I think that constant Stress provides a bit of a friction point for players, which is needed since it’s easier for players to achieve bigger dice pools in Protect the Child.

Beam Saber, by Austin Ramsey

When I was agonizing about how to encourage more roleplay between players, someone recommended that I read through Girl By Moonlight. Unfortunately, I don’t own a copy of Girl by Moonlight. I do, however, own a copy of Beam Saber, so when I decided to comb through other Blades games for relationship mechanics, I stumbled on the relationship clocks of Beam Saber.

In Beam Saber, you write down beliefs you have of each other character in the party, and attach each belief to a slice on a Connection clock. During downtime, you have the option to Cut Loose, which helps two Pilots relieve stress with each-other at the same time as filling the Connection clock. Filling the clock awards XP as well as provides the characters an opportunity to confront each-other about the way they see each-other.

I liked the idea of using time together as a chance to relieve stress. As far as I understand, this moment of connection is also seen in Girl by Moonlight, but I decided to limit the amount of stress you could relieve in Protect the Child because I’m still operating under the ethos I was introduced to in Last Fleet - I want to keep the characters under a lot of pressure, making room for them to make terrible decisions, and therefore giving them room to grow.

Lady Blackbird, by John Harper.

I returned to Lady Blackbird when I realized that the way I’ve set up runs in PtC means that it may be hard for players to do things like engage in long-term projects, or train for XP in a regular Downtime session. I also noticed that it was hard to get the players to roleplay with each-other with the way that Downtime is written in base Blades - it’s often navigated through in a very procedural way. Finally, I wanted to make the game a bit more one-shot friendly, with a way to present a Downtime-like section partway through the game without bogging down play too much.

Lady Blackbird has moments in between Action scenes where it explicitly encourages players to engage in flashbacks or character interactions in ways that allow them to clear conditions and provide a bit of exposition into their backstory. This, coupled with the Impressions in Beam Saber, gave me the tools to both encourage the players to role-play while also giving them the tools to foster relationships with each-other.

Right now, Rest Stops only have two moves: Bond with the Child and Bond with Each-Other. By reducing both of your options to moments where your character interacts with other characters, and encouraging both of these options to reflect your character’s ideals and history, I’m hoping to provide some of the maintenance of Downtime while encouraging the role-play that happens in Lady Blackbird. Longer downtime actions are relegated to Time Passes, which will only come up in campaign play.

I still haven’t perfected this stage though. For example, I haven’t figured out what to do about wounds.

Apocalypse Keys, by Rae Nedjadi / @temporalhiccup.

It’s kind of hard to quantify or describe the influence Apocalypse Keys had on my design, but I’ll give it a shot.

In Apocalypse Keys, your character never has to fail. There’s always options to give yourself a success, it’s just a question of how much you want to sacrifice parts of who your character is in order to get what you want. Apocalypse Keys is itself an amalgamation of a number of different mechanics from various places, such as the way you use tokens to improve your rolls, as originally found in Libretè, or the Theorize roll, popularized in Brindlewood Bay but originating in Codex: Moonlight.

The character playbooks are also centred on different struggles that the player has decided to wrestle with. The Summoned has a lot of moments centred on fighting destiny, while the Last wrestles with grief and loss. Some of the themes in these playbooks give you a lot of freedom to explore struggles and traumas that affect people in real life, but are flavoured in a way to give your monsters great power and extremely interesting backstories.

Finally, the way your character looks is completely up to you, and is irrelevant to the things your character can do. If you want a thousand glowing eyes, it doesn’t matter which playbook you choose. If you want to be the spirit of all werewolves that came before you, it doesn’t matter which playbook you choose. If you want to carry a golden spear that can listen to the regrets of the restless dead, I don’t think it matters what playbook you choose. I think that there’s a bit of a carryover from what I love about Changeling: the Lost to be found in Apocalypse Keys, in that your character’s origin and presentation can be as varied as whatever you can imagine, and can fit into the themes of whatever playbook you decide to wrestle with.

Protect the Child doesn’t directly borrow any mechanics from Apocalypse Keys, but I think the ethos behind the design is there. I want the players to experience the same creative freedom, while tying down specific themes to specific playbooks. I want to enable conversations about real issues that affect real people, while allowing the table to situate those issues in whatever setting makes the most sense for the group. I want the players to feel powerful, and at the same time recognize that the biggest obstacles to being good parent are generally incredibly personal.

I also admire the way that Nedjadi designs, from the rigorous play testing, to the purposeful openness about his inspirations, to his careful documentation of who has inspired him and where his ideas came from. I think being able to provide a clear through-line to the ways your were influenced by other design works is good for the historians of our hobby, and it also reinforces a culture in which game designers influence and allow themselves to be influenced by each-other.

[ohno-the-sun]

Spoiler heavy fnaf ruin dlc rant up ahead

I am so fucking proud of steal wool they really took every criticism from the original game and fixed it and even added more

Like Cassie actually acts like a human being?? And like her knowledge of the original characters and cute little comments on every item are so endearing there is so much detail going into this.

The fact that they expanded on one of the fan faves Roxanne and giving her a great arc I’m in love I’m so happy

They honestly gave more depth to all the animatronics too like we finally see Bonnie’s design and get and get a taste as to what happened, also that poster Freddy gifted him I’m crying they are so cute and gay I love them

😭😭😭

Also the whole dark ride section with Monty is so fascinating like is that narrative kind of true or is it just fabricated by fazbear inc to cover up the decommissioning of Bonnie

Why replace Bonnie with Monty?? Why not make a new Bonnie model?? With the prototype label on Freddy it may be confirmed that they make multiple models (well we already kinda knew that with Freddies comments but oh well)

Also Freddy?? Like is that our Freddy or a different one?? They very clearly highlighted the prototype label so they want to emphasize it, but then the head is still missing like in the princess quest ending so what is the truth??

Feel bad for chica fans tho she really was sidelined hard

Aaaaa and my baby boys!!! There’s 3 now aaahaga

I was really not expecting eclipse to be the way they were, very… normal? Is that the right word?? Like obviously a little delusional on when the daycare is gonna open again, but in the right mindset of like this child needs to leave this place is not safe. It is interesting to me that both he and Roxy thought that it was Cassie’s birthday, maybe that was the last day before she left the plex? Or maybe that was the day the plex caught fire? Or maybe most depressingly we are playing on Cassie’s birthday so the animatronics have it in their systems what her birthday is and wish her a happy one (if they are in the right state of mind lol)

Some peeps are upset moon is a little too villainous

I think you can still say it was mainly the virus but I would argue even if it’s not the virus I feel like moon is kinda justified here. Like sun has been shutting him away for a long time before this (if the books are to be believed but also in general) so when he finally gets a chance to roam free of course he’s gonna take it. And idk about u but if my alternate personality was constantly trying to shut me out and I finally got control, I probably too would try and keep my control for as long as possible. Also from what I have seen so far, not even moon is all that aggressive? Like he grabs you at the beginning, but I think that’s just his very ineffective way to get kids to sleep and other than that he just kinda stays away

Poor sunny baby is stuck in the ar world 🥺🥺 I didn’t notice at first but yeah everytime you talk to him it’s only in the ar world. And the end part where you switch them out for eclipse if you do that in the ar world, he says not for me it’s for moon.

I will say though I noticed the voice acting for them changed a little this game, like both have a higher pitch and are more goofy sounding? Like more gremlin energy than evil villainy. I wonder if that was on purpose? Both of them sounded more like the other so maybe that was the reason? Interest interest

Also their mouth moves?? Sort of?? That’s so silly to me they have a whole working mouth system and their face mask doesn’t work with at all 😭

Does give me lore intrigue tho cause like why do their mouths move but not anymore?? Did something happen?? Are they just not maintained enough?? They also move outward instead of up and down (at least from what I saw) so is the mechanism different?

Also the way that sun and moon talk about eachother is so interesting. Like moon says the light hurts “us” and sun says “no the other me” like they seem to almost consider eachother more connected than we first thought, like they’re not just coworkers or strangers they are almost like two sides of the same person. It’s very interesting and I wonder where people will take this.

Overall great job I’m so excited to comb through the game and find every little secret (especially regarding the dca) aaaa

Ok ok update moon does have a jump scare but it’s ridiculously hard to get and I’d still argue he’s not as vicious as he was base game. I mention in another post but eclipse being as kind as he is and being (presumably) a combination of both AIs, gives even more evidence moon is supposed to be kind and caring like his posters suggest but something went wrong. Also Cassie’s comments on their plushes show that there were kids who truly liked the daycare.

[thanatika]

yeah i agree with your point about survival mechanics and i feel the same way about the lack of combat mechanics. "why would an educated city doctor need a weapon" because shit is hitting the fan in every way impossible and pretty much everyone is walking around armed... also why am i supposed to believe the the fact that he's a man of intellect will somehow provide him with food? i don't think anyone is going to be too eager to share food during an outbreak intellectual or not...

+ follow up for the previous ask but actually my favorite quest from the original pathologic is the day 11 bachelor quest that involves shooting down soldiers. i think it really drives the point home about how this random fuckass guy who is supposed to be battling a plague doesn't even have the time to do that anymore because the people in charge are asking completely irrelevant things of him now and he's at a position where he cannot refuse what is being asked of him. like i think it was good storytelling that even as the guy who lowkey wants to deal with the plague and solve its mystery you still have other, more pressing, less interesting and or pleasant tasks to complete

i agree! honestly, i feel this way about the combat mechanics even more than i do about the physical survival (food, health, illness, sleep) mechanics. because sure, i can see how it makes sense for daniil's position of authority to mean that his basic needs are somewhat provided for -- although i don't think it makes more sense than what we got in the original game. i've never seen anyone bring up "isn't it kind of unrealistic that the bachelor isn't given lots of food during a massive food shortage?" as a plothole that needed to be resolved. the townspeople generally don't like him much, and most of the people with power don't either, except for the kains. sure, maybe it's kind of weird that you can go see the kains while broke and on the verge of keeling over from hunger, and they won't do anything to help you, but... the kains are pretty self-centered, and they're so goddamn weird that maybe they forget that you need to eat food to live anyway. and it's half-implied that the powers that be are ultimately giving daniil this role as a convenient way to kill him, so it makes sense that they would put no pressure on the town authorities to keep him alive.

(and honestly, artemy is taken under the olgimsky's auspices as much as the kains take daniil's under theirs! which is to say, selfishly, with ulterior motives that are more important to them than the well-being of their healer, but... the olgimskys are set up as the wealthiest of the 3 families financially, as well as the ones with the most access to food, given their control over the meat industry. so if anything it's "weirder" that artemy isn't more materially provided for, though to be clear i don't think there's an actual plothole there either way.)

but anyway, you could handwave it and say that daniil's position of privilege and authority gives him more perks than he got in the original game, but the amount of fighting you have to do to get through town is... kind of an unavoidable physical reality? like you're given so many sidequests that you often wind up walking around town after dark, and that's when the bandits come out. is the idea that the bandits would be too scared to attack him because he's so important? because that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and even pathologic 2 establishes that he's seen as a valuable target by the bandits:

and then there's the quests where combat plays a more direct role in the story itself, like getting involved in saving andrey from the firing squad, or killing guards to break artemy out of prison, or the quest where you have to kill var in attempt to stop the arsonists (which i include on the same tier as the other ones because i really like the quest journal entry he has if you complete it where he blames himself for willow's death. it's a good character moment.)

hell, even in pathologic 2 itself, one of the biggest Bachelor Moments is on day 11, when you have that big dramatic convo with him after he killed a soldier for the papers he was delivering. plus one of bad grief's idle dialogues in patho 2 is commentary on the bachelor being "quick on the draw" and that he "already shot someone". like he just straight up is not living a combat-free existence. and overall, combat isn't just a good tool from a mechanical perspective, heightening the stakes and placing pressure on the player (though it is), it's also pretty important for him on a thematic level imo, almost as important as artemy and his "rivers of blood". in patho classic, daniil has this early interaction with the inquisitor:

which, thinking about it from a doylist perspective, was probably the writers' attempt to make it sound more plausible that this random medical researcher from the big city was competent with multiple types of guns. and i appreciate them coming up with that hint of backstory to cover their bases a bit, but with those bases covered, i think the fact that daniil ultimately spends more time shooting people than he does prescribing medicines for them actually does a lot for him thematically? i mean, if his whole thing is that he's this "tempted destroyer", someone who frames his career as a combative battle with death rather than a quest to save people's lives, whose "default" solution is to raze the town with artillery because he's too limited by his rationalist worldview and military upbringing (and bitterness over being manipulated and sabotaged) to come up with a solution that saves the any remaining infected survivors on his own. plus the way that clara frames artemy and daniil as two sides of the same coin in being violent destroyers and killers, who without player intervention will immediately devolve to running around chasing each other down in what's either an insanely dedicated tom and jerry LARP or some really elaborate foreplay. imo, that whole dichotomy (which is pretty core to the game, as the idea of dichotomies are core to it in general) works so much better with the way they're both presented in classic, stalking around with gun/scalpel in hand. hell, not to mention the effect that spending 12 in-game days trying not to starve and getting killed by bandits or guards or worms or soldiers every day would have on the player, and the way it would make them feel about the town and their natural projection of those feelings onto dankovsky, who is a perfectly fitting vessel for them as the avatar actually undergoing those virtual experiences.

ultimately i think they are mainly going this direction out of a desire to do something more creative and original, which is fine... it just seems a bit silly to me that they keep saying "well obviously that doesn't really work for the bachelor's scenario", when, well... even as recently as patho 2 in 2019, they seemed to think it fit his narrative pretty well! i'm also guessing that a lack of combat won't be that bandits are just no longer roaming the streets at night. it sounds more like pathologic 3 is set to be more of a nonlinear experience, where you'll probably fast travel from place to place instead of having to walk across town so much? so you'll be avoiding bandits just in the sense that the gameplay will be avoiding them. i guess i'm hoping that at the very least, there's still the implication of the crunch of not getting enough sleep or food and the threat of being stabbed to death while trying to get through town occurring to dankovsky in the background, even if those mechanics are deemphasized in favor of more macro-level town resource management, time control, and sherlock holmes fruit ninja or whatever the hell they were on about back in 2022 lmao.