#i closed and reloaded the game a few different times

[spekktors]

I come back to the sims 4 after nearly a year of not playing only to discover the most recent patch has left it unplayable 👍 you love to see it

[certifiedfreec]

i feel like there would be some subtle signs that könig took an interest in you…

- sometimes he likes to watch you struggle with what little height you have to reach up for the top shelves in the kitchen on base. poor thing, it looks like you need some help from a big, strong, super tall man :( he chuckles a little before stepping in to grab what you needed, but not before playfully dangling it high up over your head to watch you jump for it. “hah, you look like a katze right now.”

- this man eats like a motherfucker. if he even offers to share food with you, that’s basically his way of proposing. you said yes once, and now he’s bringing you snacks all the time before you even have to ask. he wants to feed you, make sure you’re nourished before and after missions- just let the big guy dote on you!

- he doesn’t say much, but it’s because he doesn’t need to; his presence does all the talking. all of kortac went out to a dingy bar one night, and you better believe you were the safest person in the room with all 6-foot-something of him staying close behind you. one glowering look from him is all it takes to get someone to back off- no one touches his precious little katze.

i feel like there would be some subtle signs that gaz took an interest in you…

- he’ll FaceTime you randomly from wherever he is, whether he’s in a safehouse or on the other side of the base. he just likes to get a glimpse of your face whenever he can :’) if he can’t video call you then he’s spamming you with memes that he saw; he knows exactly how to make you laugh.

- you were talking about your favorite food one day, and somehow by total coincidence he cooked it in the base kitchen a few days later! and how convenient, he over-estimated the ingredients and ended up fixing enough for two people! he just might need your help with finishing it ;) he’s already thinking about what to have for dessert…

- he’s a fantastic listener, always letting you vent to him when a new recruit pisses you off or when you’re unhappy with how the latest mission went. he hates seeing you so upset, wishing he could take all your irritations away :( he always stops himself just before can suggest some not-so-fraternization-policy-friendly ways of helping you relieve that stress :’)

i feel like there would be some subtle signs that soap took an interest in you…

- he always notices whenever you use a different body wash or fragrance, and he’ll be the first ask you what the new scent is. no one else really detects it the way he does, but he pays so much attention to you that he can’t help it. he also can’t help but want his sheets to smell like you too <3

- he insists on taking selfies with you wherever you’re on missions together. suddenly it’s a thing, and now you’re taking them together all the time when you’re off base. you think it’s a fun way to document all the places you travel to, but to him it’s the perfect excuse to have some pictures of your pretty face on his phone :’)

- he likes to initiate all kinds of competitions with you during missions- who can reload their weapon the fastest, who can shoot from the furthest distance, etc. it’s honestly kinda hot seeing you get so focused. his wagers start out fairly normal, but if you’re game then he definitely ups the ante. maybe the winner gets to do whatever they want to the loser…you’d never noticed him training so much before ;)

i feel like there would be some subtle signs that price took an interest in you…

- he’s always nearby when you’re training on the shooting range, readily available to critique your aim and give you some pointers. does this involve standing suuuuper close and physically moving your arms and feet to fix your position? with him, it always does <3

- this man stares you down during debriefings. it’s like you become his focal point- he’ll glance at the others every once in a while, but his gaze always settles back on you. he just thinks you look so adorable all focused and serious while he’s talking!

- one night you were outside after a mission, and he was puffing on a cigar from his prized collection. he was asking you about the operation, wanting to know how you felt about it before casually handing the cigar to you- how could you refuse your captain? you’d never touched one of those before so you coughed and sputtered after taking a pitiful puff (it was like an indirect kiss, too!!) and he chuckled amusedly at you. “looks like you need some more practice. i can help with that.”

[zombiee-reviews]

Keirr character discussion / breakdown

• The egotistical prick • The Aira hater • The deciever

- Quick author note: I’m going to be doing something slightly different, where I basically read the scenes that involved Keirr and leave a tag afterwords of pages I am going over. This will at least give you opportunity to read along with me and understand my breakdowns a little better.

- Another note: I am always using the Tumblr mobile app, so I apologize if my documents look rather funky on the computer version. I am trying to spruce them up and make them look at least somewhat good lol.

- Final note: I will be going over “Asmundr” Keirr, only a little bit though, mainly for his background. Other than that, I am focusing on “Home” Keirr. Now let’s get into it!

-

What I will be going over:

- What we know of Keirr’s history

- How he suddenly went from sweet and family oriented. Then turned into an egotistical jerk off, who stopped prioritizing family.

- A little on his personality

-

- Early History

In Keirrs early history, we know that he was born around the middle of Kiques 1st comic, Asmundr. And let me tell you, this fool has changed designs like.. 5 different times.

Ahem, anyway. Keirr is shown as the more “mature” one, compared to Rhov. In Asmundr, it is shown that he is a “decent” hunter, while him and his brother work on deer hides. He is even more reasonably suspicious than Rhov, when Jahla enters the scene and tackles Rhovanion.

When the war between Ranulfr and the Asmundr pack hit, Keirr was pretty useful and followed instructions well. Near the end of the war, you could tell he was tired of having to kill the Shield wolves, but he continued to kill. And really, that about sums up Keirrs story in Asmundr. Obviously, the first comic wasn’t about the offspring, like Home is. So I can’t really follow up with much, in “Asmundr” Keirr.

-

- Read along breakdown:

Now, we’ll be going over “Home” Keirr.

Two years had passed since “Asmundr”, so I feel the rest of this information does not qualify for Keirrs early history section.

Too begin.. Keirr and his family are dropped off on Aedra, they are not given a time limit of how long this lasts. All they know is, father will return at some point. Until then, they all make do and continue with their lives.

Keirr is still shown to be the more mature / family oriented guy. As everyone else decides to explore Aedra and see what they can find, Keirr decides to stay back with the Asmundr pack. Keirr at least retains his personality, for now, from Asmundr.( Page 8. Can also be seen on page 104. )

Then came the time when Zilas died, Keirr was the one to discover him first. Of course, he took it pretty hard considering that he grew up with Zilas and saw him as a brother. Of course, a lot of those crucial bonding moments us readers need are shown “off-screen”. It was never truly shown how close Keirr and Zilas were. ( Page 127 - 128 )

Fast forward to the time he discovered Aira, this is when things get juicy. For a while, Keirr was not Kiques priority and he did not make a real, solid appearance for a few chapters, up until page 138. This is when Kique decides Keirr needs a fucked up “Home” style arc next.

Keirr is seen carrying a torch, probably out mourning his loss I’d imagine.. Otherwise, idk why tf he is out late, or seen / helping anyone bury Zilas? This was the time when night beasts were a thing. Anyway! He is caught off guard by a voice, who comes from Aira, hiding. Keirr still retains his suspicious behavior, like in Asmundr and asks her to come closer, for the fire he is carrying. To his surprise, he is greeted with a badly wounded dog. Reasonably, he asks Aira if she was attacked by a feline, probably trying to see if she is the reason Zilas is dead. Quickly, his suspicions are cleared and he offers her help. ( Page 138 - 139 )

Suddenly, in video game reloading fashion, Keirr spawns at camp with Rhov and Jahla. Where the hell did Aira go? Anyway, I like that Keirr called out Rhov and Jahla for trying to throw blame around on anyone they could, for Zilas’s death. And then looking down at them, like a disappointed father. Thankfully, he is still retaining his personality at this point. I have to say though, it is interesting that Keirr decides to care for Aira alone and not bring her back to the Asmundr pack. Knowing his suspicious behavior, this might have been the better option for him. ( Page 140 - 141 )

We are then shown Keirr and Aira at her den. Keirr is definitely shown as more able bodied than Aira and attempts to help her up, when he realizes she can’t make it up on her own. His so far suspicious behavior remains intact, when he realizes her den has an odd amount of space for one dog; especially one of her size. He even tries to wiggle in some questions for her, but to no avail. He leaves Aira with supplies and is even kind enough to give her a knife and hide a hare nearby for her. ( Page 151 - 152 )

A few hours had passed, seemingly it looks like Aira tracked Keirr down and sat down with him. Keirr then opens up a little bit about Zilas and his family. The odd part for me is that, he is shown to be a family oriented guy, you’d imagine he’d want to mourn with his family? But I suppose he would rather want to mourn alone, for some odd reason. Kique tends to do a lot of important things “off-screen.” Anyway, instead of going back to his family, he chooses to mourn with a stranger. Which to me is slightly out of character of him. ( Page 160 - 161 )

A day or so later passes and suddenly Keirr is an expert in physical therapy. This scene from him looks promising, until he joins up with Whispervale. More on that later. Keirr helps Aira jump over a log and help regain her mobility. Then he decides it’s time to go back to his family, in the middle of such a primary moment? Aira then runs up and kisses him to stop him from leaving. Then he subtly gloats at her about how he is her “only chance of survival”, I mean what a nice thing to say lol. I feel this is when Keirr starts acting out of character, but it isn’t super noticeable yet. I’m also not quite sure why he said she couldn’t join the pack, Kainan would have saw no problem with it? Then he contradicts himself by saying he’ll continue taking care of her, but can’t leave his family to care for a stranger, all in the same breath? What? lol. ( Page 197 - 199 )

Keirr then finally discovers that the Asmundr pack is no longer there. Also, it’s kind of funny how it foreshadows the reindeer being dead in the fourth panel, but magically they’re still alive when Ronja gives them to the Deer humpers. Not only this, but it’s way too soon for the Reindeer to leave behind bones? Or why didn’t Keirr notice them while he visited the territory? Another plot hole lol. ( Page 226 )

Then Keirr suddenly decides he wants to go back to Aira, even after being a subtle dick to her. He notices that she is no longer in the vicinity and begins looking for her instead. Contradicting himself again, because he just told her he wouldn’t leave his family for a stranger. So why does he choose to go after Aira instead and not start looking for his family? Hm. ( Page 235 )

At least Keirr was nice enough to go searching for her.. But he comes across her re-possessing herself with the monster she was previously. Aira explains that she can’t survive without it. Keirr added salt to that wound by saying previously, he was her only chance of survival and then dipping out on her. Reasonably though, Keirr stops her from completing the ritual. Once he is able to pull her away from the spirit, he comforts her and makes sure to tell her that he is here for her. Boy what a damn 180 that happens in the future! Keirr then discovers Aira’s background and what she use to be, they share a tender moment together and then apologize for their previous actions. ( Probably the one and only time you’ll see that in this comic. ) Then Keirr suddenly decides she can join the pack, because it was always an option, Keirr was just being a dick. And with that, Keirr invites her to look for his family with him. Aira is able to offer some advice, as she has previously traveled the entire island in her beast form. ( Page 267 - 276 )

Here comes the total 180 of Keirr, when Aira shows him the way to Whispervale. Suddenly Keirr spouts out “We should ask them to join their pack!” Wtf?? Even Aira asks him why, just ask them if they have seen his family. Then for some reason Keirr wants to use Whispervale for their resources before continuing, but in the same breath wants to join their Tribe? None of what he just said to Aira made sense to me. Obviously Aira is uncomfortable, but Keirr doesn’t give a shit lol. Once Whispervale approaches them, Keirr asks if they can join their Tribe. Keirr then attempts to gain sympathy from Fraujar, but rightfully he gets none. Fraujar makes a statement to Keirr that the health of his tribe is everything to him, and he needs more from them than what they have shown Fraujar. Fraujar then assigns Felidae to get them acquainted with everything. Not sure what Keirr or Kique are thinking in this moment, as this is a total 180 from Keirr and his plans.( Page 311 - 314 )

Time passes for the pair and of course Aira asks Keirr when they are leaving Whispervale. Seems she’s the one that adopted Keirrs old personality, cause she’s the only one eager enough to go find them. Of course Keirr shuts her down with a bullshit excuse. “We need stability!” Not sure why he suddenly is against his own idea of searching for his family and staying with Whispervale. I mean what else did he expect trying to find them? Aira is obviously uncomfortable joining a Tribe she did not want, but again, Keirr doesn’t care. Finally their right of passage comes and Aira is the first one to participate. Aira is once again expressing she is UNCOMFORTABLE, before her trial begins. Keirr tries to reassure her, but beyond face value, Aira is stuck there because of his dumbass, unwilling at that. Of course Aira doesn’t do very well in her trial, Fraujar then says her character can be improved, but her structure is… Not up to parr. Then Keirr is all like “Oh she just needs to be trained!” Homie, did you not listen to anything Aira has said previously? She was BORN like this, she can’t just magically work out and get better. That’s not how disabilities work, idiot. ( And would you imagine it, Kique is actually an ableist and no wonder Airas character was handled like this! Go on! Read Stazz / Zirvasitys documents on her relationship with the kind hearted author! ) ( Page 326 - 331 )

Tch, anyway. Aira is obviously disappointed, she told Keirr and even expressed to Keirr that she did not want to join this tribe. I would imagine being in her shoes, she feels unheard, but tried to please Keirr anyway, only to fail. Then of course came Keirrs time and suddenly we’re shown a flashback between Keirr and his father. Of course, this was never shown in Asmundr, or Home. Suddenly Kainan and Keirr found time to actually give a shit about reindeer behavior. ANYWAY. Keirr is oddly confident in larping, how did the confident, son of Kainan, shield wolf killer end up in this situation lmfao. Of course, to nobodies surprise, Keirr nails the trial, he still loses the fight against Raun and everyone is buddy - buddy. ( Page 332 - 336 )

The next scene that follows, we have Raun shouting out at Keirr, saying he looks good and can pass as a guard if he keeps it up. Tbh, this seemed friendly at first, but watching the way Raun interacts with Keirr in the future, makes me feel like Raun is the neighborhood creep lol. Aira then comes out of the hut, her scars completely healed. Keirr is at least somewhat more supportive in this page, but future Keirr is nothing but a prick. ( Page 345 )

Fast forward to chapter 10, we finally see Keirr again, because all of chapter nine was about dumbass Rogio. Ahem. We actually see some progress from Keirr, at least keeping his word to himself. But the odd part is, he brought Raun and not Aira? First of all, Keirr hardly knows Raun and Aira understood the whole situation a lot better than Raun. Soooo.. Odd choice in bringing Raun. ( Would like to add really quick, I know Fraujar assigned Raun to follow Keirr, but why tf would Aira not come either? ) Raun is more dead weight anyway, because he’s being a giant wussy about being in that area anyway. Not even allowing Keirr to scope out the area, completely. And Keirr is just laughing about it, like cmon man, I would imagine you would want to potentially comb through the area, not cater to some giant wuss like Raun. ( Page 458 - 460 )

And to nobodies surprise, the next scene that involves Keirr is a flirty Raun. He tries to encourage Keirr to let loose and have some fun, which would have been cool if it had stayed as a friendship kind of thing. But yet again, Kique force feeds us another MxM ship. At one point, if Kique had kept up with the Rhovanion x Rogio arc that he was hinting at, at some point. All of his main male characters would have been gay. Which is obviously unrealistic, not impossible! But unrealistic. Honestly, I take Raun as a fucking creep. You hardly know anything about Keirr and yet, here he is trying to make flirty gestures and tell Keirr he’s avoiding him. As a woman, to my fellow women, any time a man points out that you’ve been avoiding him, a very creepy vibe showers over us. ( Page 478 - 479 )

Then to nobodies surprise again, Keirr is suddenly able to pin Raun, even though Raun was seen to be a lot stronger than Keirr in his trial. Aaaaand of course, Keirr reciprocates Rauns flirting by responding to him in a sexual manner, “I’m the lead sarv now.” However, in the future Keirr becomes more of an asshole at Raun from this point. ( Page 480 )

Ah now this scene just pisses me off and makes me want to throw Keirr off a cliff. Aira is seen laying around, presumably missing Keirr, I’m sure. Or, just wondering where he went. When she catches sight of him returning, she is understandably excited to see him. The one guy that helped her out with everything, in her worst times. The one guy that made her stop from becoming a beast again.. Shits on her entirely. Eyup, you heard it right. Apparently, getting people totally dependent on you and then being a giant asshole, is something Kique favors doing. Aira of course asks Keirr where he went, Keirr is suddenly acting like the biggest ass to Aira. Which tbh, he has no right doing. HE is the REASON she is there, in the first place. She has EXPRESSED to him NUMEROUS times she is uncomfortable with the tribe, but yet, he took her cries for help and rolled them up and tossed them like newspaper. What a god damn jerk Keirr is. And of course, Aira is understandably upset. Keirr basically told her to fuck off and go make her own friends. Even tho a few chapters ago, he was seen cuddling and holding her, telling her he was there for her. FUCK you Keirr. ( Page 481 - 482 )

In the next scene, Keirr then wants to play a pity party for himself, sitting in the rain, all sad looking. Like he didn’t cause this whole situation for himself. Nothing told this jackass to join Whispervale and stop searching for his family, he did it all himself! So really, why tf is he sitting there acting all depressed? Get off your ass and go look for them! Nobody told you that you couldn’t? Honestly, he’s lucky that Aira still gives a damn about him, even after he treated her like utter dog shit. Then, while Keirr is acting like a baby, Zilas makes an appearance and Keirrs dumbass thinks it’s a grand idea to talk to the ghoul. It’s kind of interesting to me how Zilas is still mostly recognizable.. You would think by now he’d peel his skin off, you know, like what Fjordor said that ghouls do. Zilas has been dead for quite a while. Aira then witnesses all of this and comes to his aid, banishing the ghoul. Keirr then suddenly gets all butt hurt about it and snarls at Aira. Okay, I get it, you’re mourning dude, but I would have figured you’d have some logic / sense to know that Zilas.. IS NOT ZILAS! Keirr even asked the ghoul what he could do, like the damn thing can talk back to him. Honestly, Aira should have just let the ghoul tear Keirr up to shreds and save us all the drama lmfao. And one last thing, when Keirr says he saw that ghoul before, but didn’t recognize it. GIRL WHERE? ( Page 515 - 517 )

Suddenly, Keirr is the master of establishing the differences in the ghouls sounds and can still hear Zilas. Also, when Aira mentions that she lived with the Meteor Tribe, really that opened up way too many questions about her that I’d like to ask. But anyway. Aira gives some speech to Keirr about how MT basically fucked around and found out with the spirits. Then a conversation falls into place about burning Zilas’s body on MT land, which ew, his body im sure would be pretty rotted away by now. But this also brings me to another question, what are the ghouls made of? Are they a manifestation of the soul? They quite obviously can’t be their former bodies, because if that were the case, they wouldn’t even find Zilas’s body, as he would have risen and been a ghoul. Another fat question for this comic and I’m not even sure if this was talked about? ( I’ll be honest with you, I forget if this part was talked about. ) ( Page 518 - 519 )

And here we go with the sexual tension between these two idiots, Keirr and Raun. Raun is a full on creep already, but really Keirr is the big asshole here. Previously, Raun asked him out, as he mentioned before the trip, to Felidae and Aira. So instead of.. Idk, not leading Raun on, what does Keirr do? Hugs him and shares a tender moment with him. Oh trust me guys, it gets fucking worse from this point. And I will continue to say that Raun is a creep, but even he doesn’t deserve to be led on. I also don’t remember Raun asking Keirr out, but I’ll just assume that was yet another important off screen moment. This is also yet another rushed, no chemistry ship crammed down our throats by Kique. ( Page 526 )

So finally we get to the part where they eventually burn Zilas’s body, Aira asks Keirr if he wants to say something and of course! Nothing. It’s almost like any time someone dies in this comic, proper funerals don’t exist. Granted, Keirr just said “I love you, brother.” But when given the opportunity before hand, he was like eh, I don’t have shit to say lmao. ( Page 528 )

Fast forward to a year, I mean 3 months later ( in Keirrs arc ). Of course, in another off screen moment, supposedly Keirr and the others returned to Whispervale and told Fraujar what happened. In my opinion, I feel like some punishment should have been bestowed upon them, or at least show Fraujar being upset with them for doing this behind his back. It would have shown more character from Fraujar and also shown Keirr getting his ass chewed out, by bringing all this unnecessary drama and bullshit into Whispervale. Keirr is also being another nosy ass, listening in on his Jarls discussion. Within the midst of this, Ferah makes her appearance. Keirr miraculously still remembers her and asks what the hell happened. I almost forgot that Keirr and Ferah met previously, because they literally didn’t say anything to each other lol. ( Page 566 - 567 )

Oh boy, here comes the cringiest scene that involves Keirr. Keirr steps away for a moment, after watching Ferah, once Felidae walks in. Ferah wakes up and of course is spooked, cause she doesn’t know wtf is going on. Somehow they both remember each others names, though I don’t remember them ever sharing their names to each other previously. Anyway, Keirr asks Ferah questions about Roamer and Ferah tells him that Ronja and Roamer are at MT. Of course, Keirr gets excited and quite frankly I’m surprised he didn’t smell them before, because Keirr was literally in their territory a few months back, but whatever! Ferah then tells Keirr they’ve both been strong and bla bla. Keirr of course tries to take off, being this annoying problem child as usual. If I were Fraujar I would be so annoyed with Keirr lmfao. Of course you can’t just take off like that, from your tribe, which YOU wanted to join. Raun stops Keirr from running off and what follows after is a recipe for fucking disaster lol. Keirr ends up kissing Raun, further leading the king of creeps on. Keirr KNOWS that Raun likes him, so apparently kissing him out of emotional excitement is a totally normal thing to do. Especially when you know that person has a CRUSH on you and yet you don’t reciprocate it! No, no, it’s totally okay to lead on someone who has feelings for you! ( Page 572 - 576 )

Damn near 100 pages later and we finally see Keirr again. Course, nothing has changed with him. Raun and Keirr are seen in a hut together, Raun is basically asking Keirr what they are, because I mean.. They touched tongues, lmfao. But that was because of Keirr throwing himself at Raun, so really I don’t blame Raun for asking. Now in Keirrs defense, I don’t know why tf Raun is grabbing Keirr like that, when asking him a question, so I mean Keirrs response is a little valid, when he yells at Raun. But the blame still lies with Keirr, because this whole time he has led Raun on, but at the same time Raun has been a giant freaking creep bag as well. They are then interrupted when Keirr walks out and runs into Fraujar, standing there, needing to talk to Keirr. ( Page 640 - 641 )

A few pages later, we see a non emotional reunion between Keirr, Ronja and Roamer. I mean god, all of their expressions are so god damn bland. Y’all haven’t seen each other in months, but let’s just 1,000 yard stare at each other, BEAUTIFUL. ( Page 645 - 646 )

Fast waaaay forwards, to more important scenes involving Keirr. After Rhov and Keirr’s reunion, we are graced with a scene where Rhov and Feaf are telling Keirr that MT might get attacked… This fucking idiot. So instead of putting this whole thing on top priority, Keirr just brushes it off and is like.. I’Ll TeLl FrAuJaR iN tHe MoRnInG. Dumbass, how do you know if they are attacking MT? Feaf literally said they might come to Whispervale? How does Keirr know they aren’t literally waiting in ambush, that very moment? HE DOESNT. So instead of putting his family top priority, like he probably should’ve, he decides to talk about his relationship status. What a great fucking family member / tribe member he is. On top of this, “figuring himself out.” I think you know where you stand, buddy. This whole scene though, Keirr was an idiot. He doesn’t even show the slightest BIT of concern for his family / MT. Let’s act depressed af, because he didn’t know where everyone was, but as soon as he finds them and they could potentially be in danger, ah, let’s wait to warn others till morning! ( Page 788 - 791 )

Finally Keirr and Whispervale show up, but yall are too damn late already. ( Page 808 )

And that about sums up my read along breakdown!

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- Personality Breakdown

So looking over Keirrs personality traits really gives me some mixed feelings. To be honest, I can’t say that he is independent. Not anymore at least, he was the one that decided he wanted to join Whispervale, he even went against his own independent idea of searching for his family. So for me, he is neither logical, independent OR family - oriented.

A few of these other positive personality traits really haven’t been tested thru the fire, so I can’t really say what he is or isn’t. Mainly because Kique does not focus much on Keirr, like he does with the jackasses of MT and former MT members.

To put it all in perspective though, Keirr was a pretty solid character in Asmundr and in the beginning of Home. Unfortunately, he too fell victim of Kiques weird kinks / fans and became a whole contradiction to himself and his own personality traits.

-

And that is the end ladies and gentlemen! Hope you enjoy :)

- Zombiee

[pl0xm4st3r]

Rant incoming. I'm really just writing this for myself because I don't want to keep pestering my friends about Persona 3 Reload as I play it. I'm sure all of this has been talked about ad nauseum in the fandom but I don't really interact in fandom spaces. I want to but it's these kinds of thoughts I know people have talked about before that dissuades me. I don't feel I have anything to add.

Anyway, a friend and I were talking about how each of the Persona protagonists are blank slates, and they brought up how despite this, they still think it's possible to play "as them." Which is to say, they all manage to have distinct personalities despite the game not giving you much in terms of characterization.

The first place I noticed this was in the few dialogue options you get. I've only played Persona 5 Royal and I'm in the middle of P3R (Beginning of October), so I'm comparing those. I noticed that Makoto has a lot of instances where you can pick some variation of "What a pain" meanwhile Joker never says anything like that that I can remember. Joker does have instances where he's annoyed, but he tends to be snarky rather than purely dismissive. I think my friend put it well when he said that it paints the picture of Makoto being someone who's constantly in his own head. The fact that he always carries around an MP3 player and can tune out at any moment adds to that. And that brings me to character design.

Obviously with both wearing uniforms, there's a limited amount of expression in that alone. What's more significant here to me is posing. Makoto is slouched over, hands in his pockets, looking down. Joker has a wide stance, and while his head is at a 3/4ths as well, his head is turned more up, and he has a slight smile. Now, in-game they're a lot more similar (slouching and having their hands in their pockets all the time), but I do think this is a significant difference in how Atlus chose to present them.

And my final point is that their characters reflect the themes and aesthetic of the game. Like, obviously this is true, they're each the protagonist. It would be an strange design decision to make them stand out from the rest of the game for no reason. I bring it up because, like I mentioned at the beginning, they're each blank slate characters, so it's hard to latch on to anything with them. And yet, I read a distinct personality from each of them, one reflected by the spirit of the game. Persona 5 is about rebellion and standing up for what you think is right, it's incredibly lively. Meanwhile Persona 3 is markedly more melancholy, and it's mired in death everywhere thematically. I read Joker as far more confident and fiery, while Makoto is more closed off and sad.

What was the point in me writing all this? For one, because I just have a bunch of thoughts bundled up. But it's also because I enjoy writing fanfiction, and I've been wondering how you write characters like these while keeping them accurate. It's hard enough to stay accurate the side characters with more established personalities. How do you write blank slate? It gives you more freedom, but at the same time there is so little to base anything off of that it's easier to go off the path of true characterization. In other words, "he would not fucking say that." How do you write a Joker, a Makoto, a Link, a Gordon Freeman?

[vntako]

vn* in a bottle: petit game collection vol.1

hm, i guess there's a bit of an irony talking about this before needy girl, but here we are. i played this with my darling and had a really nice time

this game is a spin-off of needy girl overdose / needy streamer overload. it's collection of 3 minigames and a developer's notes room. it's retro goodness, not that i'm that old to know. i did play toradora portable though, and that had some extra content similar to this. i guess that main difference is that you're paying for this extra content, huh. i feel it's pretty worth it if you really like needy girl

only one of the minigames is a vn, so let's talk about that last

break out kangel

it's kangel breakout. this one is entirely in japanese. it'd be fine if there wasn't a little bit of dialogue, but otherwise you're not missing anything

i'm not sure how common it is to have strip breakout as an extra minigame in vns, i've only played one other that has something like this, but it kinda feels like a staple to include if that makes sense? i could be wrong. i don't exactly know what to search online to find that kind of info, too

anyway this is just strip breakout. break the blocks, collect the falling power ups and uh remove kangel's seifuku. simple as that. she's ofc wearing smth under that, there's no nudity in this game

don't die, kangel!!

this one may generally be found to be more enjoyable than breakout. it's a shmup where you shoot your fans with meds. i like the art, it's super cute. though i could say about every kangel and ame art in this game

there's a bit of story that's mildly engaging, i found it neat. you're typically here for the gameplay though

the street is just a background, you stay entirely on this screen. you have pills to use as ammo, and your only objective is to not die (like the title tells you). after a few waves of nerds, a boss appears. and there's three bosses to beat

after a wave you get to pick a new pill. picking the same type of pill upgrades it. they're pretty self-explanatory. then it randomly shuffles some of it into your ammo every time you reload. also you reload with RMB, which also lets you dash a bit

it doesn't take that long to beat (this is stage 1's clear screen though). i had a fair bit of fun with this one. you do have to beat the boss, but you can let every other nerd just pass you

kangel's room

this is the credits. the people who worked on the game have stuff to say, so listen properly!!

ame's happy happy dating game

i couldn't screenshot this one properly, so please forgive the clutter. i don't really wanna crop it all so in exchange i offer you uh, you get to see my wallpaper

it's been that for a few months now

ame wants to go on a date with you, so you better choose well!! i think the most interesting part of this game is that it let p-chan monologue their thoughts. they're kinda messed up

ignoring the fact that i only took this screenshot now, you get to pick where you wanna take ame on a date for the next few days

since you get to pick, there's a good and bad ending, naturally. better not give her a bad time, mmkay?

i realized once some cgs showed up that this is where people have been getting those nice ame wallpapers from. the art for the vn is nice, it's really neat and clean, and ame looks super cute. the music is mixed a bit weirdly at times (kangel's theme is so loud) but overall i liked the aesthetic direction here

p-chan is here to give us a description of the world as someone really close to ame. however they describe things reflects how ame sees it. ame is fleshed out so much more than we see her in the base game through p-chan's monologues here (the base game does it great though lemme just clarify). i mean more to say that this format lets people stay and really be with ame past the webcam app on p-chan's screen. it feels a bit dangerous, to occupy the same space as her. and of course it is, ame being who she is. though that goes the same for all humans

i think the bad ending represents a lack of consideration and care one might have towards people. i went for it "just to see what it would be" without regard for how someone might feel about it. it tracks given the conditions for that bad end, too. impulse, disregard, the absence of seeing while doing.

going for the good end kinda feels like a chore, given you have to see everything in the game. though, it's supposed to feel more like a prayer, i think. a connection with ame, of sorts? seeking out and trying to understand her through the places she goes and hearing what she thinks. it might not be something you'd consider pleasant, but few things in life really are. even less so for humans. ame is a human

it's easy to connect with angels, all you need is the internet. i want to connect with human beings, too

[asingingpenguin]

My first few hours of DATV thoughts:

Steam, where are the achievements????

I know party composition doesn't matter as much for this game, but it's weird to me that at least for my play through Bellara and Lucanis are the fist two companions. I picked a warrior because I knew we started with Neve and Harding and figured it would be a hot second before we got someone else, but damn. At least playing a warrior doesn't feel terrible, but heaven forbid you can't throw your shield right at a stationary ranged target.

There's still plenty to explore and get lost in. I think I spent several hours wandering around the forest and cross roads lol.

I've had missions that outright didn't load enemies and have left me in a locked room forced to reload from my last save. I've also be caught respawing on a ledge that's so close to water I just fell into that I can't escape an endless loop of falling into the water... forcing me to reload my last save. At least auto saves are generous.

More under the cut which are more spoilers IMO (or not as need to know like the bugs). This is not really a complete list, but just rambles. Maybe I will have more later.

It's annoying to catch up new players on the 4th installment of a game. I'm tired of games made for new players in mind when it's the 3rd or 4th of a series. It means characters say shit that feels very odd, or outright change things a bit because new players won't understand any complexity coming from the Dread Wolf of all characters when you first meet him.

The dialog pacing is weird. Everyone to me speaks like I knew Bellara would, fast as if they have to say something the second someone stop speaking. There's no illusion of the characters thinking or just not knowing what to say in the moment. There's only once a character was caught off guard, and even then his stumbled answer was immediate. Again, makes sense for Bellara, not so much for Neve or Lucanis IMO (even Solas has this issue and ??????).

For the game being more linear, you can still do things that make the game feel off. It seems like ever character has special environmental interactions... that one character has a personal quest about learning how to do theirs, but you don't have to do that first before you can use that still for them.

It started to feel more like Dragon Age to me when I went to get Lucanis. Neve teasing him about what she knew about him (or didn't) was the first ambient dialog I actually liked that didn't feel like it was happening too fast and felt weird.

Flirting with Bellara felt a bit like Merrill 2.0, which I'm assuming will be different over time (only got the first one). Harding is also cute and fun (and awkward in a good way). The only person so far I haven't been able to flirt with is Neve and I'm bitter about that.

It's not as shitty of a game as the haters would have you think, but there are things I did expect better of, like the dialog not just being awkward (even for DA), but the pacing feeling wrong.

Right now I'd give it a 6.5/10 with room to get up to 7 or 7.5.

[zoroara]

for the khr ask game, 🗡️!

Okay first, you have now entered "things i've thought about way too much" territory, Obviously we are working under the understanding that i would not have the fragile little shit body I have because it would not matter what the weapon is my bones would die using it <3.

Anyway Read more be upon ye cause I'm going in for the long ride here.

Firstly, while the ask is specifically of "weapon" there are multiple khr characters that use more than one weapon. So I'll put my main one and then the small additions I'd make. the 3 other options are just side arms to the main one.

A bastard sword. This would be the main one. Though heavier due to it's length it is used to be both one handed and two handed. It's utility in terms of how it can be used is one of the better blades for melee combat and since this tends to be what's happening over let's say mounted combat, makes it a better choice than some other swords. It's thicker and tougher so it has an easier time deflecting and blocking than things like the rapier which may snap under the pressure.

Since it's not sharp all along the blade it can be held at different lengths which is useful in close quarters for stabbing and if you flip it around you can use the pommel as a bludgeon and the whole sword as a flail. Though uncommon in Khr this is also really really useful against armoured opponents and people with shields due to the force it sends through the body, and the different hold allows to target specific points of the body.

Now for the Side arms options:

First side arm option:

Unsurprisingly a Buckler. Now most people incorrectly identify all circular shields to be bucklers however it's only really the small kind of cap like shields that are true bucklers. Their small size meant they could be made sturdier without becoming too heavy for the user to quickly combat. Though they don't look like much protection at first glance there's a good reason for their use.

Though mainly used to protect the sword hand they also had several other functions, as they can act as a sort of floating armour point, that due to both how much more sturdy they are and their shape could deflect many weapons well. They also double as a bludgeoning weapon due to the sort of bump in the middle of it. Additionally a skilled user can actually use them to catch an opponent's weapon and trap them allowing the user to control the fight from there.

Second side arm option:

Look you are probably not quite thinking of this but a gun. It was extremely common for sword users to use guns as an off hand once they were introduced. Especially when guns were still slow and had trouble reloading. It's literally a great option to have one if you can and gives range that a sword obviously wouldn't have.

The one problem is a lot of modern handguns aren't exactly made for one handed reload, so you have to go more with some double action revolvers, or for a more modern gun probably the Smith & Wesson M&P. Of course after future arc there people don't really reload their guns anymore with the heavy use of flame so at that point the whole debate on which gun doesn't matter nearly as much.

Third and Final side arm option:

Parrying dagger, in a sword fight, which it seems if you're carrying a sword in khr that is what most of your important fights are going to be, is an extremely useful tool. Though not as effective in terms of other types of melee fights it's still usable. Parrying daggers are made to help manipulate your opponent's weapons and are sturdier for it. There's a few different shapes of them and though the "trident" and "swordbreaker" look and sound cool they were incredibly rare and not exactly easy to use, their cons outweighing their benefits.

I would choose the ones that are designed with waves in them, as their form though a little silly are actually really good at damaging the hands using the blocked blade by causing impact in several places, and these waves are more likely to catch the weapon and give you more control.

Thank you for listening to me ramble about this i really really like weapons.

[rallamajoop]

A Guide to Resident Evil Village's Weirdest Unlockable Weapon

RE8’s LZ Answerer (aka: did you know you this game lets Ethan unlock a fricking lightsaber?) is surely the weirdest video-game-thing I have ever spent far too much time working to unlock – and then even more time figuring out once I had it. So GDI, I’m writing up a proper guide on this thing, because there is sweet-FA other info out there about it on the web.

For a novelty-weapon, this thing is complicated. It has multiple different modes, and multiple different colours, none of which are very intuitive and most of which aren’t actually very useful. But it can still be damn useful for anyone going for the knives-only achievement, and may even come in handy going for the no-healing-items achievement. And even as a pure novelty, c’mon – this game gives you a fricking lightsaber, how is that not awesome?

So here’s the lowdown.

Unlocking the LZ Answerer

For this, you need an SS Rank on every level in Mercenaries mode. Including the Hard levels, which is a heck of a job. But if you’ve bought the Winters Expansion (and you should), then by the time you’ve got SS ranks on every standard level, you’ll have unlocked Lady Dimitrescu as a playable character (just an S on the last level is needed). And Lady D is broken on hard mode.

Her rush-in-and-choke-slam move will one-shot any regular enemy besides the Soldat Panzer or Jet, and she can tank more damage than anyone else and use healing items if you’re stuck. You’ll still need regular attacks to deal with boss enemies, but getting SS or even SSS ranks in hard mode with Lady D is sometimes easier than scoring the same ranks in easy mode, because the scores you need are lower. She’s not your best option for SS ranks on the lower difficulty, and even with her, those hard mode stages are still a challenge, but she’s totally your best option.

Once you’ve got those scores, the Duke will sell you the LZ Answerer very cheaply at any point where you can access his shop – even if you’re reloading from an older save. Sadly, it’s not available in Mercenaries mode, or when you’re playing the main campaign as Chris.

If you're paying really close attention, you might note this thing uses the same model as Chris' target locator. Why it's called the 'LZ Answerer' we will probably never know.

Using the LZ Answerer

Here’s where things get complicated.

Switching Modes

The LZ Answerer has three different colour modes, each with different effects, and each of which can be activated in either single- or double-bladed versions. Like all ‘knives’, you can either slash with it or hold the aim button for a forward stab for extra damage.

To activate your sabre, hit the attack button, or hold the aim button.

To activate double-bladed mode, hold down the aim button. After a few seconds, the second blade will start extending. You have to keep holding aim until it’s finished extending or it’ll disappear again. You can actually attack during this period – Ethan will simply do a forward stab – as long as you don’t release the aim button. The annoying part is that if Ethan is knocked down or if you change weapons, the sabre will deactivate, and you’ll have to do this again.

You can change the colour of your sabre the same way you switch ammo for your grenade launcher: hold ‘aim’, and hit the interact button (F on keyboard). Switching colours will also switch you back to single-bladed mode, unfortunately.

Entering double-bladed mode doubles your damage and changes Ethan’s attack animation. It’s well worth using, but does take more time to activate, which becomes an issue under pressure – especially when Ethan gets knocked down mid-battle and you have to reactivate it again in a hurry.

Note that Ethan’s usual parry-ability to push an enemy away doesn’t work when you’re using the LZ Answerer, or any other knife-weapon. Apparently you’ve got to be holding a gun for that.

Colour Modes

Red: Attack mode. Sabre does maximum damage in this mode.

Blue: Defence mode. Sabre does less damage (about 1/4 of red), but can be used to parry attacks, knocking enemies back.

To parry successfully, you need to hit the block button just as an enemy attacks. Just holding block down will still block, but won’t knock the enemy back.

Green: Healing mode. Sabre does even less damage (about 1/12 of red or 1/3 of blue), but heals Ethan slightly with each hit.

Healing mode will also boost your HP when you attack farm animals, or some inactive Soldats. From my own experiments, this didn't work on the Soldats in Heisenberg's operating room, but did work on the first inactive Soldat you encounter, sitting in its chair, and on the Soldats you find lined up in alcoves in the passage by the backup generator room (one of which does attack you, so something of a pattern there).

Double-bladed mode: Doubles damage of whichever colour mode is active.

Damage reductions here are relative – I don’t have exact figures, but have done a bunch of experimentation on multiple difficulties, recording how many hits it took to down an enemy, so have some figures.

On Casual difficulty, a single-bladed red sabre will kill a standard lycan or moroi in 1 hit. Your blue sabre will need 4 hits – or 2 with a double-blade. For comparison, the Karambit knife (unlocked after you finish the game for the first time) took me up to 3 hits to take down a lycan. Some of those hits may have been misses – its range is so short that it’s often hard to tell if it’s connecting at all – but you can see the LZ Answerer is already starting to lose its edge.

To kill 1 lycan with the green sabre will take you around 6 hits, even if it’s in double-bladed mode, so presumably closer to 12 with a single blade (I say ‘presumably’ because good luck counting out 12 hits on a single lycan). Even on Casual.

Up the difficulty to Hardcore, and you’ll need 2 red hits to take down one lycan (or 1 hit in double-bladed mode). By Village of Shadows, you’re looking at 2 double-bladed hits from your red sabre per kill – so if we do the math, we’d be looking at 48 hits with a single-green sabre. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Where it really gets complicated

So in theory, this is a weapon with a lot of versatility: 6 different modes, the ability to parry and knock down enemies or even heal yourself, and do serious damage without spending ammo! In practice though, only the red mode is really useful (damage in other modes is just too steeply reduced), and even then, more of a novelty than a substitute for your guns.

See, here’s the thing: using the LZ Answerer really drives home that this is not a game designed for melee combat, and letting enemies get into melee range is a Bad Idea.

Even on casual difficulty, most enemies will strike at you the moment they get into range, and your sabre has no real impact or stopping power. Enemies will regularly take multiple hits from it without flinching, and it does nothing to interrupt incoming attacks.

So you can hit a lycan the moment you get into range, and that lycan will still tank the hit, dive straight through the blade, knock you into the dirt and go for your neck, locking you into an extended animation and forcing you to reactivate the sabre again from scratch before you can go in for another hit. If you want time to reactivate both blades, you’ll probably have to run away and come back.

In theory, being able to parry incoming attacks in blue-bladed defensive mode should be a good solution, but in practice, parried enemies are blown too far away to set them up for a counter-attack. By the time you’ve closed the distance, they’re probably getting back up again. Using your regular block in melee combat and then attacking immediately after is actually the more viable strategy. Note also that, even on a successful parry, Ethan still takes damage, and all that damage adds up pretty quickly.

But the biggest problem is that defensive mode reduces sabre damage by around 75%. That means up to 4 times more hits to take down an enemy, and at least 4 times more chances for them to get through your guard. By far the most effective strategy I could come up with – regardless of difficulty – with was to just rush enemies with my double-red sabre and take them down before they had the chance to react. With this thing, the best defence really is a good offense

Healing mode is only worse: one hit from a green sabre does barely 1/12 the damage of your red sabre, and you’ll need multiple hits to raise Ethan’s health by even a single colour phase. Trying to kill enemies at short range with what amounts to a pen knife just results in getting bitten more, and ending the battle with less health than you started.

Some Actual Tactical Advice

The long and short of all this is that in 99.9% of circumstances, there’s no reason to use any mode but red. The best tactic available is killing your enemy in one hit, before it ever gets the chance to attack at all.

Strategy-wise, I found two different semi-viable ways to use this thing in combat, both working best in double-bladed red mode. Switching colours mid-stream is just too slow to be practical under pressure.

Block as soon as an enemy gets close to you, then use the window after it attacks to attack back. You’ll take some damage, but not as much.

Charge in swinging the lightsabre madly, preferably while weaving to the left, hitting the enemy without putting yourself in a good position for it to hit you back. On lower difficulties, this will kill most enemies in one hit.

If you do get knocked down in the midst of a fight (and you will), you’ll probably end up finishing the fight with a single-bladed sabre. C'est la vie.

In Conclusion

So with all these issues, is there are a reason to use the LZ Answerer at all? Well, actually, yes.

For all its problems, the red sabre is still the best knife-class weapon in the game. Even in single-bladed mode, it does more damage than the Chris’ karambit, and has better range to boot. And if you’re going for the knives-only achievement, that’s not to be sneezed at.

Though green-bladed mode isn’t useful in combat, it will actually heal you a little even when attacking farm animals or (surprisingly!) inactive soldats. And if you’re going for the three-healing-items-or-less achievement, then that's actually useful.

That said, by the time you’ve unlocked the LZ Answerer, you should already have unlocked ‘special customisations’ for all your weapons (a much easier Mercenaries-mode unlockable). And with that bonus, Ethan’s basic starter pistol, the Lemi, also heals you a little with each hit. It doesn’t do much damage, but you can do damage with it from a safe distance, and that’s often going to be way more practical.

All that said, the green sabre can be more efficient. Testing this out, I found that, killing the two goats with the green sabre refilled my health all the way from red to dark green, whereas killing those same two goats with the Lemi only increase my health from red to orange. And being able to stand there and just whale on inactive Soldats is a pretty effective way of refilling your health too.

Ultimately, the LZ Answerer is mostly just a novelty weapon that can be pretty frustrating to use in practice. But as a cute gimmick that mostly exists as an excuse to play more Mercenaries and reuse Ethan’s knife-wielding animations in a fun way, that’s all it really needs to be. It’s neat, but you’re not missing a lot if you never unlock the thing, and that’s okay.

[ss-2dplatformer]

Looking at and researching Game UI

This will probably be a dump of game ui's and what I like about them. (Spoilers, I like the persona series a lot so there will probably be a few of those games on here.)

A Hat in Time

There's a lot you can see in this image. The health in the top left split into quarters, somewhat emulating the look of a clock. Considering the game is called A Hat in TIME, I think this is quite neat. The top right telling you your location. The bottom left showing you the total of items you have collected and then the middle of the screen, you see a speech bubble coming from the character that's speaking. While I'm not too familar with A Hat in Time, I can tell what the UI is showing off to me, which is a good bonus as this shows that it is clear in what it is portraying to you.

2. Hollow Knight

You can see your health in the top left, emulated by the little skull icons with the currency for this game beneath it. The title in the middle of the screen showing you the boss you're about to fight. This UI is quite decent as it isn't overflowing with information and only tells you what the game deems vital for you to know at that moment. Because a boss fight will usually come after a point where you've learnt the mechanics and the controls already, and because of how Hollow Knight is played, it's vital to be able to see as much of the screen as possible, so I think it is done quite well here.

Here you can see the map, it is laid out clearly and accurately shows your exact location. There are also icons you can spot which tell you what you will find in these locations. Not shown in this image but there is a button you can click which will show you a list as to what the icons mean. Additionally, unlike in the image above, the map isn't fully filled out the second you enter an area. You have to explore it yourself, which discovers more of the map as well as these key locations.

Here, you can see a larger portion of the map, evidently zoomed out. The highlighted area showing you which location of the map you're in. This is useful as, like you can see in the image, if there is a boss you want to head towards in order to fight it, you can plan out your path to get there.

3. Persona 3 Reload

Here you can see the daytime, social sim aspect of the game. You have your date situated in the top right, with the day and time of day placed around it. The background of the date in text saying what type of day it is, whether it is a weekday, the weekend, or a holiday. Additionally, you can see that it is blue and in sort of a wave like fashion, which adds to the water astethic that the game shows in many of its UI elements.

And here, you can see the dungeon crawling, rpg aspect of the game. (I am not sure why the character is dressed up like joker persona 5, the person who took the screenshot most likely equipped a DLC outfit.) On the right side of the screen, you can see your party members. Beneath each of their icons (which indicates who you currently have on your team) you can see their health indicated in blue, and their sp (the resource used when using any non-physical attack) beneath that in the yellow. To the right of their icons, you can see bars of different colors and fullness. This is the guage that shows how close they are to being able to perform a special attack. On the left side of the screen, you can clearly see a minimap which progressively fills up the more of the floor you discover. And speaking of floors, beneath the minimap, you can see the name of the floor block you're on (There are 6 in total, though the player isn't told this information until they reach the final block) and what floor you're on (There are 264 in total, though again the player is not told this until you reach the final floor).

Here you can see in battle. (Again, the characters are dressed up differently than usual due to DLC outfits.)

On the top left, you are able to see which enemy you're targetting along with any buffs/debuffs that it may be inflicted with, but only if it is inflicted with any. Surrounding the character, you can see a blue crescent moon which, if you know the game and what it is about, makes a lot of sense. To the lower left, you have available actions. The red Theurgy bar being the special attack I mentioned previously which allows you to use one high powered or unique move that you would not be able to use otherwise. The other red Oracle bar you see to the bottom left of the character is another ability that slowly charges up over time which allows the party's navigator to use a random move which buffs the party in some way (whether it healing either hp or sp, or buffing their attacks). In the middle of the screen, you can again see exactly which enemy you're targeting along side which form of physical damage your basic attack will do to the enemy. On the right of the screen, you can see your party members, alongside their exact health and sp which wasn't necessary previously as you weren't in battle. You can also spot that the icon of the character you have selected at the minute (currently, the protagonist) is slightly more left than the rest of the team.

That went on longer than expected, I apologise.

4. Celeste

There isn't much UI during the actual gameplay of Celeste but for any there are, you can tell that the developers made sure that it was vital. Here, you can see the total amount of strawberries collected within the stage.

Interestingly, seemingly to not deter the player, it does not show your total death count during gameplay but only during the load menu and when you choose to start playing the stage.

Here, you can see that the developers set up tutorials in the form of birds atop areas you're trying to get you that have text made in order to aid you in playing the game

This is another form of UI you see in Celeste as there is a story so you have characters with portraits that speak to you as you can see in the image below.

[rootvegetableboy]

cm dev log #10 - august 2024

happy september, everyone! i burned the shit out of my dominant hand this month, so, things weren’t necessarily as productive as i would’ve liked… but progress was still made for sure :)

here are a few things i worked on in august!

player death:

i did this at the very beginning of the month, as it was one of a few things necessary to release my first playtest. (more on that later!) like a lot of things i put off for months because i thought they’d be way difficult, this was a lot simpler than i’d thought it would be.

there are not a lot of moving parts to this! when your hp reaches zero, your player object is destroyed, and the death screen fades in. pressing enter at the death screen will reload your most recent save.

cutscenes and dialogue:

previously, conversations and dialogue in the game were pretty static, so i introduced an object called “obj_camerashift”. when called, this object can move both the camera & which direction the player is facing, giving the effect of the player “looking” at certain things mid-conversation.

i made a few other small changes to some dialogue-handling objects, as well. the aiming/shooting cursor now disappears when a textbox is on screen—i found being able to move the mouse around during conversations a little distracting, and i think it looks a lot more seamless this way. i also implemented an object that keeps track of plot/story related variables! surely i will not use intimate knowledge of the player’s actions against them :)

arson?

you can now set fires

fun for the whole family!

playtest one?!?!

do you guys remember last month when i said “i would love for people to playtest within the next couple months”

well… i actually moved way quicker than i was expecting and released playtest one at the beginning of august! i put out some feelers for who all would be interested back in july and was able to get a bunch of people to participate and share their feedback with me. i’ve been hearing a lot from fellow game devs about how important early and frequent playtesting is, and now i can finally say, with pride:

oh my god i get it. i am WAYYY to close to the trees. and i am so, so unbelievably grateful to everyone who took the time to test, because it really opened my eyes and gave me a much clearer picture of where things are at. let’s take a look at what people thought, and most importantly, what i learned! :)

standard enemies:

i chose to go with a goldilocks-style rating scale for the post-playtest survey. i felt like this would help me focus on the individual player’s perception and experience, because i had a lot of different ranges of skill level in playtesters. (my partner defeated the miniboss on their first try, but to my knowledge almost no other player was able to do this!)

this is a summary of responses about the difficulty of the small-scale enemies. i found it helpful to switch back and forth between the summary of all responses and individual responses when analyzing data, as often people would explain what occurence led to what choice. for example, i had one person rate Bug entirely “just right” for every category, and they explained in their written response that they enjoyed the threat level that the speed of the bug posed. i had another person rate Bug’s overall power & movement speed as “too difficult” for the same reason cited: the enemy’s speed! however, the person who found it too difficult also expressed that they don’t have much practice on keyboard&mouse games. you can start see where dev decisions start to get both more simple and more complex with access to all this info…

the summary of all responses is very helpful for analysis of overall player trends, though. i was pleasantly surprised that people tended towards finding the snake a little too easy overall (i <3 making things more difficult). i wasn’t expecting people to be so divided on the bug’s damage, so that’s one of the categories where teasing out individual responses is a little more helpful.

miniboss:

this is the most beautiful graph in the entire world to me right now.

the clear overall trend towards “just right” is so exciting for a first playtest!! it’s also a huge relief to know that the core gameplay is legitmately enjoyable. i had several people express that the miniboss fight felt rewarding because they were able to watch themselves get better at it. that feeling is exactly what i’m going for in terms of difficulty, because it���s one of my favorite feelings to have: knowing that it’s not any special levelling or number getting me through the fight, it’s just me and my skill.

though it’s really exciting to read about the aspects people enjoyed, i got a lot of insight from those that found this too easy or difficult as well. one person who found the fight too difficult suggested a small wait (”a breath or two”, they said!) between attack patterns, as they were getting very quickly overwhelmed. (i think this is a great idea!) i had another person who found the fight a little too easy in every category, and mentioned that they were able to complete the entire fight without using the player dodge mechanic at all. this is interesting to me because a lot of the people who seemed to struggle with the combat struggled with using the dodge mechanic specifically. actually, this is a pretty good segue…

player:

testers were rating the relative strength/weakness of each category offered here as opposed to “difficulty”. though, it’s sort of the same thing in this case…

anyway, as you can see, the dodge was pretty divisive.

i believe there’s multiple issues here that are compounding each other. the first is the dodge animation: it was very quickly drawn and i don’t think it gives anything in the way of juice or satisfaction to use. it’s also not even really an animation, i just change the player sprite to a static image depending on what direction they’re facing. because of this, there isn’t a clear “beginning of dodge → end of dodge” visual progression, so i think players get confused on when they’re actually invulnerable.

the second issue is the timed length of the dodge itself. playtesters only got 15 frames (or a quarter of a second) of invulnerability, which is just really difficult to consistently execute. this is especially affected by another issue about the player i had several people point out: the player hitbox was much taller than it was wide, so dodging attacks that were coming at you vertically became especially hard to pull off.

rest assured, playtesters, i have heard your cries! i have already changed the length of the dodge to 22 frames (a little more than a third of a second) and squashed the player hitbox significantly shorter. a full dodge animation is on the list of things to draw as well—hopefully these changes will help.

so it was less of a “work on actual game content” month and more of a “pace back and forth across my apartment thinking very hard about survey results” month. i’m glad it went this way though! it gave my hand some time to heal and gave me a lot to think about. i’m excited to tackle september. i don’t think i’ll do another playtest for at least a few more months, though… it was a lot of work to set up…

as a final note, in two months project cm will be one year in development… i’m thinking i will reveal the name of the game at that point. it could be nice to know what “cm” stands for…

that’s all for the august log. see you in a month!

[eatmekaneki]

Paradise Fallen~

Chapter 2- ‘The Story’

Series Summary: God is dead and so is the Devil. Only the angels and demons on earth are here to help us now.

You find yourself mixed in a battle between forces of good and evil when you witness a crime on a dark road at night and get moved into witness protection.

The criminal is baited into finding you so he can be pulled out of hiding. You start to have your heart and body pulled back and forth between this blue eyed angel and the fanged fiend who sneaks into your bed at night.

In this chapter Gojo explains a bit more what’s going on and who he really is…

Warnings/Tags(*for entire series): Graphic Violence, Smut, Angels and Demons au, Vampire!Getou, Angel!Gojo, Angel!Nanami, Demon!Toji, Fallen Angel!Choso, FMM threesomes, Poly relationships, dubcon, knifeplay, gun play,

——-

It took a few more days for the hospital to say that you were healthy enough to be released.

Gojo visited you daily and when he wasn’t there, at least 4 police officers were hanging around the hospital area with one right outside of your room.

You and Gojo didn’t talk any more about the strange events. He let you heal and take your mind off of things. Probably knowing there wasn’t more to get out of you.

Though, that did make you wonder why he kept showing up to see you.

If he didn’t have more he needed to know, what good were you to a detective? He could just pass you off to whoever that guardian he wanted looking after you was and keep looking for clues on his case.

But here he was playing card games with you cross legged on your hospital bed every day.

You had to admit, if he wasn’t on the clock when he was showing up, you’d have started to think it was because he liked you.

He would flash you the most beautiful grins when he’d win every game and make teasing jokes that could’ve almost passed for flirting.

You couldn’t help but notice though, you weren’t the only one getting flustered by him. It seemed everyone he met, man and woman felt like they were falling in love. That was enough to ground you. You told yourself that was proof that you weren’t special, and there was probably some other reason Gojo kept coming to see you.

But today you were leaving, finally.

You had been told that you’d be taken into witness protection for your own safety. The ‘guardian’ that Gojo had referred to, was a hired guard that you would be going to live with in a safe house for the time being.

You didn’t have any pets, or family, and you were told you’d be covered financially with a debit card that would be reloaded regularly.

It wasn’t going to be much, and the place was a shitty 2 bedroom place in a different shitty part of town. But, maybe, you considered the thought…it might actually somehow be less shitty than where you’d been.

You hated to feel relief for this situation considering the circumstances of it. But…you couldn’t deny a part of you that felt happy?

You had just wiped your slate clean in a single moment. Your boring lonely life had gone from nothing, to moving in with some stranger in a new part of town…and you felt glad for it.

Gojo walked you out to a black luxury car where a tall blonde man was leant back against the door. He had his muscular arms crossed and a frown on his face.

“You’re late Gojo.” He kept his frown. The tall handsome man looked you up and down, not addressing you, simply taking you in for a moment before returning his gaze to Gojo.

“Ah Nanami.” Gojo sang at him. “I had to get ready for you.” He ran his fingers up the other man’s bicep. At that he uncrossed his arms and made a scoffing noise at Gojo.

“Sexual harassment.” He whispered.

“What was that?” Gojo yelled out with a smirk, already getting into the back seat of the car and closing the door.

You were standing outside of the sleek black car alone with the tall blonde man named Nanami. This was who would be guarding over you for however long it takes them to catch that fanged killer.

This man was a lot different than Gojo, he wasn’t a detective or a cop, but he seemed way more like one that Gojo did. He radiated authority and power in a way that already started to make you feel weak in the knees just from the way he kept looking you up and down.

“Well…get in then.” He muttered. He turned and opened his own drivers door and swiftly got inside.

“We’re having your stuff brought over to the new place! We’re all set to go!” Gojo had swung the passenger door open and slid over patting the seat next to him.

Nanami scoffed again when you got in.

“What am I, your chauffeur?” He grumbled.

“Sure,” Gojo grinned. “Namani will do whatever I tell him to” Gojo spoke to you then, but narrowed his eyes on Nanami in a way that surprised you, a way that almost… Scared you?

“won't you?” He spoke sickly sweet at Nanami.

“Yes.” He replied through gritted teeth.

“Wh-“ you started to ask why. What the deal between the two of them was. Or why he felt the need to be so hot and cold to the man you were supposed to be trusting with your life now.

But before you could even get out a word, Gojo was speaking again.

“So now that we are out of the hospital I can finally tell you the truth.” He spoke very seriously.

His legs were spread relaxed in the spacious backseat of the car. His hands crossed in his lap and he had his thumbs twirling mindlessly as he spoke, staring down at them.

“You sure that’s a good idea…” Nanami spoke from the front seat.

“Focus on driving Guardian.” Gojo snapped commandingly. Yes…maybe you were starting to get a little scared of him.

This wasn’t the same Gojo flirting with nurses and playing cards with you.

Even his jaw seemed more angular and rigid, as if he held himself tender and tighter in. He was a wind up toy wound up too tightly and waiting to be let loose. Despite it all, he still looked so lovely.

“I think it’s time to get this over with. Because I’m going to need you to know what’s really going on for what comes next.” He sighed.

“Yeah…I’m always down for knowing what the fuck is happening.” You agreed. Obviously if he’s been keeping things from you, and you were given no choice but to be in this mess now, you wanted to know what to expect.

“Don’t like…get weird about it though.” He warned you.

You raised an eyebrow. “Okay…I won’t ‘get weird’ about it.” You nodded skeptically.

You were the one that told him the other day you thought a man had real fangs, so how much weirder could it get?

Gojo sighed, trying to figure out where to start. And settled on.

“Y/n. What do you think about god?”

“God?!” You chuckled. “I don’t think of him. That’s what.” You shrugged. “Is that what this is? Am I being saved?” You joked but suddenly did start to wonder if this was some weird cult thing now.

Gojo still looked entirely serious.

“Well, I suppose we all only think of him in memories now…” he muttered more to himself than you. He realigned himself and sat up a little straighter.

He then took your hand in his without asking suddenly. His hand was cold and bony, but soft and strong feeling. He started to mindlessly play with your fingers and trace circles on the back of your hand as he spoke next.

You werent sure why but you let him do this.

“So god was around…he used to be. But he was killed…” his voice caught on that.

“You see. We’d finally done it. We had the big battle. Even found a way to take down the Devil without ending the world and had minor human casualties considering the apocalypse prophecies…we’d beaten fate! But we didn’t expect after the Devil died that his demons and fiends would all still retaliate. Only a short time later and they’d found a way to kill our master. He’s been dead for a while and now we’re here picking up the pieces and trying to keep life going…”

This strange yarn he was weaving felt like something from fairy tales. But, there were tears ever so slightly forming in his eyes.

You noticed Nanami glaring back in the rear view mirror. His gaze had gotten even more harsh and stern. A human hearing this story wasn’t sitting right with him.

“We…?” You asked hesitantly, trying to piece together what he was saying.

“The angels.” He replied softly. “Like Nanami and I.”

“Angels…like from the Bible.” You muttered, trying to not ‘get weird about it’ but really wanting to.

“Yes. The very same.” He nodded, still clasping over your hand with his own. “Nanami is a lower level Angel. A Guardian. He’s your guardian Angel now actually.” Gojo smiled. “And I’m a cherub.” He spoke that proudly with a cocky smirk. “And currently the highest ranking Angel that exists.” He winked at her

“As far as we know.” Nanami added in.

“The rest of the Cherubs, Thrones and Seraphim fucked off when heaven was taken over.” Gojo snapped. “So if they’ve decided to leave earth for dead, I’m considering them dead.” The growl in his voice was almost feral.

And though you weren’t sure you believed a word he was saying, something about his powerful protection over earth made your heart warm. You really did feel like something powerful was watching over you now, a grand energy that hadn’t been here before.

Gojo’s fingers were now fully intertwined with yours and he was simply just holding your hand at this point.

You thought about saying something, but it seemed like such a strange time to have that be the thing you question, of all things happening in this car.

“So…angels…and demons…and no more god and the Devil.” You repeated what you heard so far.

Gojo chuckled. “She’s a wonder this one.” He teased. “But, yes…I know it’ll take a bit to sink in. But let me continue and I’ll tell you why this matters for you to know.”

You nodded at him, and he smiled one of his flirtatious smiles and squeezed your hand.

“So after taking over heaven and driving out the angels, some fled to earth to protect it, knowing it was next and some fled for good. Our strongest fled for good…” his eyes narrowed. “None of us in the highest ring had ever been to earth. They were cowards and when the master fell they ran to the corners of the universe, to who knows where. All except me…” you noticed his hand clasp yours even tighter.

“The demons did exactly what I’d warned the highest ring about, and they attacked earth next. They killed all of the angels of the Dominions on their way down. Next was the Powers -those who usually ruled over laws of good and evil in heaven and earth- they were kind of like our judges and court system. Nanami’s mother was one of the Powers” he nodded toward the driver who was still silent but white knuckling the wheel at his mention.

“Next” Gojo continued. “They killed the Principalities. The angels that had been divided up here on earth to rule over certain lands. Each country had one guiding it. But now…it’s lawless, chaos…there’s not enough of us to keep this world together.” He sighed. “It was already a tough job to begin with.”

“Especially when our master was so strict with the humans.” You heard Nanami mumble from the front seat.

“DON'T YOU DARE EVER SPEAK BADLY OF FATHER.” Gojo hissed out with a sharp voice coated in venom. Literal smoke poured from his mouth at that. You rubbed your eyes thinking you were seeing things.

But, you weren’t mistaken. Actual smoke was spilling from the pretty boy’s lips and falling in gray rings downward. His chest heaved quickly, worked up at the bad mention of the deceased god.

You realized your face was showing your fear as Gojo suddenly softened.

“Sorry.” He gave a sheepish look, “reflex. Us in the upper court tend to have a hair trigger for any bad mention of god. Especially when it comes to correcting those under us.” He spoke that last line to Nanami more sternly.

Nanami once again scoffed, this time accompanied with eye rolling.

“This is all…” you couldn’t find the words to describe it. “A lot?”

Gojo chuckled at that.

“It is a lot. And I haven’t gotten to why this matters to you yet, so I’m sure you’re still very confused as to why I’m even telling you.”

You nodded slowly.

“A lot of us angels have to blend in here on earth now and try and counteract the fact that demons and fiends have started to move from hell to earth, what they like to call Overworld.

They want to settle here instead, and make it an expansion of their home. Increasing hell’s land, and bringing it to earth.”

Nanami was now pulling off of a highway and down onto some smaller side streets. You noticed the GPS still reading 16 minutes to the destination.

“I work with anyone in the police force and government that have enough clearance to know about such things. a lot of the angels have been operating this way since what we call ‘The final fall.’ So, finally. Where you come in…” Gojo gave your hand another soft squeeze, this time you felt your stomach flip a bit. Was it because of just how powerful you were realizing the hand you were holding was?

“Our current biggest concern in the remaining angelic court is that there was talk of a bunch of fiends -low level thugs made up of creatures like vampires, incubi, banshee’s and pixie- bringing one of the Deadly Sins up from hell.”

He clenched his jaw tightly.

“None of the demons of the seven deadly sins had set foot on earth yet. Most of the angels would be able to tell if one of them had. The energy that high level demons give off is felt by any Angel.” He explained. “To finally get to my point…I think the man you saw was transporting one of the Deadly Sins. And we are going to use you as bait to bring him out.”

Your mouth hung open.

“I’m sorry WHAT.” You yelled instantly. Snapping your hand back from him. “I’m not bait. I won’t be bait.” Your mind started to spin, you wondered if you could survive jumping out of the car at this speed and glanced up to see you were almost to your destination.

“Y/n…y/n…! Please!” His voice soothed. “We aren’t going to let anything happen to you. I promise. That’s why Nanami is here.” He nodded to the man in the front. “Contrary to popular belief not everyone gets their own guardian Angel, so you should feel pretty special.” He smiled at Nanami. “He’s a pretty cute one too.” That flirtatious voice was back already.

Knowing now that he was a cherub made that all make much more sense.

[crazysodomite]

tbp mission 3. i forgot to take a screenshot of a really good vista of the factory (?) so im biting my elbows now.

i like this mission. good old good old hammerite compound! took me over 2 hours to complete because i wanted to see the whole map.

i have to say this mission was weirdly easy... again. now i'm not knocking this campaign for being 'too easy' because i would rather have fun exploring big, detailed, well-designed levels without reloading 500 times every time i need to move to and from another room. i guess i was just having different difficulty expectations. i don't Dislike it but i think each mission could use a few more stationary npcs, a few more patrollers. not in a way that makes the mission require extreme precision but at least for some flavor. because on this mission i often found i was just walking around on a whole floor with 1 maybe 2 patrollers max. it was especially weird on the treasury floor.

now the level design is excellent as always. so much stuff to see and explore that i constantly backtrack just to make sure i didn't miss something. and that's a good thing! also something i didn't note before: the sound design. often when you stand close to something or enter/exit certain rooms or buildings the ambience changes accordingly! and i really appreciate that! also i don't know what they did but npc dialogue sounds pretty much exactly like the original games. or at the very least pretty close. not all... but a lot of them.

[twentydaysofdrabbles]

The Concierge Presses On (Part 50D)

"I've been waiting for this," Undyne snarls, holding her hand out to summon another golden spear. She twirls it, sinks into a combat stance, and roars, "I'm gonna rip you apart!"

"I think not," is your even reply as you whip out your gun and fire three shots right into her chest while moving swiftly towards the duelling Papyrus and Chidi. It's not going to stop her, or even wound her, but it's enough to get the monster to hesitate in charging at you. "Swap!"

Without giving you a signal that he heard you, Papyrus seizes Chidi by the collar of his suit and throws the human man into a wall. His red eye lights burn bright as he swings his masked and hooded head to a charging Undyne.

He cracks open his maw and snarls, magic thrumming in his every word as he advances on the former Captain, "I AM WHO YOU SHALL FACE!" Red magic gathers in his hands to form into a familiar shape of his bone sword.

"Papyrus?!" Undyne gasps, her fierce expression turning aghast. But as quickly as that expression formed, it changes into a fierce, hurt scowl. "Traitor!"

You jog past Papyrus to take his place fighting Chidi, watching the massive man pick himself up from the ground.

Papyrus pays you no mind as he prowls towards the former Captain, snarling, "I SERVE THE THRONE, NOT THE MONSTER WHO SITS UPON IT. YOU. YOU DISHONOUR THE TITLE OF CAPTAIN!" His voice rattles the glass and chandeliers, causing the lights to flicker too.

Already, the air between the two monsters is tense, thick, heavy with magic. You can only imagine what a clash between them would be like, and you hope that the dining room isn't completely destroyed once all is said and done.

Chidi finally gets to his feet and groans, shaking his head once. "You have one, too," he grunts, rolling his shoulders. "Fine. No more games."

You couldn't agree more.

In a flash, you draw your gun and fire at the same time Chidi does. Most shots ricochet off stone and wood and shatter glass, but a good few pepper your and Chidi's raised jacket lapels as you both split in different directions. You're not surprised that you fail to wound him, and likely he is not surprised he had the same amount of success.

This will be a close quarters fight, you think to yourself as you slide behind a flipped table, ejecting your empty magazine and sliding another in. You only have one more magazine as well as the gun you lifted off the Myrmidon earlier, but you can't blow all your ammunition on this fight. There is far more to do.

But Chidi also thrives in close combat - you have heard tell of his lightning fast kicks, how he moves a lot faster than his size belies. But if you got inside his guard...yes, that's a plan.

Patting your coat to locate your garotte - in case you need it - you flex your hands and stretch them to alleviate the slight ache from your rapid firing. The red fabric is soaked in blood, now turning tacky and sticky and providing just a little bit of resistance. The thick scent of copper is thick in your nose, but it doesn't disgust you. Not in the slightest.

Quick footsteps advance on your position at a quick clip and you know you're out of time.

Chidi rounds your cover and advances on you with his gun raised, squeezing off shots to keep you on the back foot. You rush from cover to cover, your head shielded by your coat as you weave in and out of gunfire, responding with three shots that you fire with your free hand. Your clothes might be bulletproof, but it certainly hurts.

The bruises from earlier throb in protest as you move quickly. One that borders your spine, right over where your kidney is, is particularly annoying and it twinges as you whirl around to land two precise shots to take advantage of Chidi reloading. Why the man would do this out in the open, you have no idea, but you're certainly not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

It's hard to shoot accurately while moving. Even harder to account for his greater height while moving. But your aim is true. One gets him in the groin, and the other his lower belly. Non-fatal, considering the tactical weave that he wears - far more superior to that of the High Table soldiers, as your bullets fail to penetrate to the skin. But of the same quality as yours, as he howls out in pain and nearly buckles to his knees.

The Chilean somehow grits his teeth through the pain and stays on his feet. Damned pain tolerance. You don't waste the opportunity, though, and rush him.

Your gun disappears back into its holster to free your hands as you spring forward and up to slam into Chidi's upper body. Your feet find purchase on his hips. Your knees and legs squeezing his ribs and sides tight to balance and cling, squeezing a cry of pain from him as you tighten your legs. Your thumb hooks into the back of his collar and you fist his suit tightly. All to anchor yourself as you rear back with a bladed fist raised high, to try and sink your blade into his eye.

Alas, Chidi is too fast. His hands fly up. One to fist in the back of your coat, the other catch your punch before your blade can sink into his head. It's close. So, so close. Close enough that the razor sharp edge of your knife nicks just under his eyebrow.

You bare your teeth at him in a silent snarl and bear down on him with all your might, even pulling on the back of his collar to gain more leverage. The nick under his eyebrow deepens as you push the point of your blade into it, blood welling up and joining the drying streaks of blood that already colour your weapon.

But just as you cannot defeat Chidi's strength, neither can he defeat you with his. In the end, the Myrmidon elects to hurtle himself, and by extension you, into the same pillar that you had taken cover behind before.

Your back hits the stone hard, hard enough to knock the wind out of your. But your training keeps you from losing your grip on Chidi entirely even as your strength falters in the fight to sink your blade in his skull. You're somewhat mollified that the force of the thump actually drags your knife across his eyebrow and off to the side of his temple, drawing a long, weeping red line across his face.

Chidi roars and rips you off his chest with a heave and a burst of power. The force of his action throws you onto the hard wood floor like a ragdoll, and it is only instinct alone that makes you twist and land in a way that doesn't immediately break your back or your shoulder. It still drives the breath from your lungs as you roll and roll and manage to roll onto your feet from the momentum.

Holy stars, this hurts. Your shoulder throbs and so do the bruises littering your body, and even the small of your back and sides of your hips where you store the extra magazine and the stolen gun. The one blood streaked blade is still bared, scratching the wood as you heave yourself to your knees and crouch warily as you catch your breath.

Chidi likewise has collapsed against the pillar, his fingers touching the blood trailing from the long but shallow cut with a grimace on his face. He breathes shallowly, holds himself in a way that indicates that if you haven't bruised his ribs, you have at least made them very, very sore.

You both eye each other carefully as you each nurse your own hurts, as you each ease into a ready stance.

"We are not here for you," Chidi finally bites out, shuffling his feet to inch closer towards where he had dropped his gun.

With deft, but aching, hands, you draw yours and dissuade him from doing so with a warning shot. "Then leave," you say lowly, eyes hard.

It's hard not to look over at Papyrus to check if he needs any help, but the sudden shockwave of magic that ripples from his side of the room tells you that you are better off keeping away. The shockwave makes you stumble and stagger, and though Chidi does the same, he uses your momentary distraction to lunge for his gun.

This time, he's faster than you.

Pop pop!

"Give up John Wick and we will!" he raises his voice to be heard over gunfire and magic spells both. Though with the way you raise your jacket over your face and run for cover, you can barely hear him.

Of fucking course.

You duck and weave and run for cover as you fire blindly in his direction. It's not sustainable. Not only because it eats up far more bullets than you can spare, but also because your hand cramps and seizes on the trigger. Fuck.

A room comes up to your left and you dive into it with only a moment to think. It takes another moment to pry your fingers open and to stow your gun, and then another to figure out where you have ducked into.

A wash station - tall cabinets and stainless steel plate washing machines and sinks. All structures tall enough and sturdy enough to bear your weight. Good.

Rather than stay on the ground, you leap up and catch the edge of the cabinet which is thankfully screwed into the wall. You scramble up and crouch on your perch just in time for Chidi to come charging in after you.

The man doesn't immediately look up, his head instead swinging from side to side to see where you had went. Rookie mistake on his part.

Chidi has but a moment to register the red shadow flying towards him from above. This time, you are faster...along with the element of surprise. Bowling him over onto his back, you care little for the way he hits the ground hard with your weight on him.

He lashes out and tries to rip you off, but he's still stunned from the impact. You take the opportunity to shift so you're kneeling on his arms, freeing your hands which now sport your unsheathed blades. Your first strike doesn't land as he manages to move his head enough that he dodges the blade, but not your knuckles. They impact the side of his face with a heavy thud, reverberating through your forearm.

Not a clean hit, and certainly not a fatal one. Trying again with your other fist, you raise it and bring it down, but this time it misses completely as bullets slam into your throbbing shoulder at the same time as Chidi yanks at your belt to unbalance you.

It results in you losing your balance just enough that Chidi can throw you away from him and further into the room.

You roll onto your back and slide on your side, reaching for a gun with aching fingers and hands to train your sights on the Myrmidon leader who staggers to his knees.

Pop pop...pop!

Two to the chest - blocked by raised, clothed arms. One to the head, delayed by your aching, uncooperative trigger finger, blocked by a raised jacket.

Damn damn damn.

You can hear more booted footsteps from outside the washing area. Reinforcements. For Chidi and Undyne, most likely, given the way that the Myrmidon leader keeps his back to the door and his face to you. And also given the fact that they shot at you - none of your staff would dare.

Fuck, if that's the case, you can't be found on your back. Grunting with effort and pain, you heave yourself to your feet through gritted teeth. One more. Just one more try.

Charging towards Chidi with a deep snarl on your face, you watch his body language as he braces himself to have you barrel into him. You see his arms raise, his hands open. He's preparing to grab you.

But you don't use the same trick twice.

This time, you drop and slide between his legs, skidding on the wooden floor right up onto your knees behind him. Fingers hook onto his belt and you growl with the effort needed to yank him off balance. With the help of a strategically placed knee, Chidi goes down with a shout, slamming onto his shoulder on the floor.

Yeah, you hope that hurt.

Flicking your eyes around, you look for an escape route.

Two more squadrons of High Table soldiers bear down on you with their rifles raised, a sea of black advancing towards you. You swear lowly and get your feet under you to get the hell out of there.

Higher calibre bullets slam into your back and thighs as you run for cover, hard and painful enough to knock the breath out of you with every blow. One catches you just as you slide into cover, and that's the one that winds you. Wheezing for breath, you crawl up onto your backside and scoot to put your back to a sturdy half wall, your face twisting with pain that rains fire up and down your back and thighs.

Fuck, none of the bullets penetrated your clothes and you're alive, but hell if this is the better alternative.

Fumbling for the gun in its holster, you push through the haze of pain to register the hail of gunfire upon your shelter...or lack thereof. Now that you're paying attention, you can feel the heavy taste of magic on your tongue. Thick enough that you can feel it on your skin.

What on earth...

Carefully, you lean and peek from behind your cover to find a curious sight. Eight High Table soldiers fanned out in formation, all with their sights trained on your position, frozen in space with fields of red-tinged blue cloaking them.

Papyrus?

You look past the frozen soldiers to see the tall skeleton monster still clashing with Undyne, his mask cracked in two and revealing the left side of his face. If it's not him, then...

"aw, eight on one? that ain't very fair. how's about i even the odds a li'l, eh?" A deep, baritone voice echoes oddly in the air, coming from all directions. But it is the loudest from the entrance from which the soldiers clearly came, a broad, stocky figure topped with a fedora silhouetted in the entryway. Bright, glowing red eyes flare bright in the shadows of their face, and magic ripples in the air at every word. "ya boys are gonna have a bad time."

You sigh in relief and crumple against the wall.

Sans. He made it.

[fictionfixations]

persona 3 reload (i love)

CW: ACTUALLY. uh. warning for like. suicide?? guns? well its not actually suicide but like. i mean this isnt spoiler free but they use a certain method to trigger their personas that could be very triggering to people so if you're uncomfortable with death and anything related, this is NOT the game for you!

Also spoilers for other persona games

i just saw the entire story of persona 3 reload (well. i watched someone play it. because im not the biggest fan of grinding, but on the other hand listening to grinding in tartarus vods where they just talk about random stuff [actually, i watched CyYu's playthrough. If you don't know, that's Akihiko's VA] is nice to have in the background)

this was the second persona game ive seen. the first was persona 5, which i saw the anime for, but forgot like most of what happened (ive been regaining that knowledge through fanfiction.)

in any case i also spoiled myself to what happened in persona 3 by fanfiction

so i knew. that. protag would die.

but it got me really sad. and with the in-cutscene options where it just. feels so slow.

(and a part of me is relieved that we didnt see them make the realization that we're dead. it was all happy times till the end and i know that wouldve gotten the waterworks coming)

and then the main menu screen??

its just. empty.

and this got me crying (i always hate endings, honestly. the 'will we or will we not meet again?' no thanks i shall live in 'these characters will live forever in a sort of limbo in the same school and nothing changes because yes'. ...although that might be a little too close to a certain twisted wonderland plotline LMFAO)

(also oh my god the osts in this game are such a fucking BOP AGHH)

(i have no clue what my reaction to the plot twist with like ryoji n stuff would be though, honestly. i spoiled myself reading those time travel fanfictions where persona 3 protagonist [either makoto or minato] either comes back to the beginning. ..OR somehow comes back to life??? or appears in persona 5 with amnesia at first. and like. there's one where ryoji was there (as a voice). or the yellow in his phantom thief costume was 'his idea of rebellion' aka ryoji. so then. i went to the wiki. and so yeee.)

in any case i definitely prefer this over persona 5. and that might be because i really got myself invested in the actual story and cared a whole lot about the characters (Cy Yu did a 100% playthrough using a guide as he played the original but respectfully kept the entire thing spoiler-free so ppl like me could fully experience it for the first time while getting the most story :D)

but yeah.

also.

GUNS.

trauma.

ive only seen it a few times in crossover fics between persona games. but. ..i really like seeing peoples reactions to them pulling a gun out and shooting themselves. (sometimes it works. sometimes it doesnt and it breaks because there's a difference to how every persona world works for each game. like. Dark Hour, TV World(? ive never seen 4 but ive seen fics), Metaverse(iirc)... And the shadows I think mean different things.)

also the theurgy's are very pretty. and if i misspelled that i am so sorry.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Waiting Out Bugs

There was going to be more Horizon Forbidden West yesterday, but yesterday morphed into an unbelievably bad pain day. I managed to get through the work day - had to; Scruffman and Temp were both out so I had no one to report to and we were already shorthanded. But after that, even sitting in the desk chair was a no. However, I was reasonably okay first thing, so I did try for that stupid drone. I know computer processes are complicated, but yeesh.

Right. Attempt 1. Can I get to that wall without stepping in blight?

I can! Up I go, and ... Ah. In a game where there's a difference between being able to stand on something and Being Able To Stand On Something, those gun turrets are things I am Able To Stand On. Buuuuuuut the drone's still too speedy. Reload.

Attempt 2. Back up the wall, and ... now it's stopping in the wrong place. It's supposed to stop near the turrets, I'm pretty sure. I mean, that is why I am Able To Stand On them. But drone is stopping right above the doors I kerboomed the firegleam on awhile back. Can I climb up there?

Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii cannot climb up there. Is the turret on the other side close enough to let me leap to the drone?

Nooooooooo it isn't. Fuck. Reload.

...Huh. I am ... at a different campfire - one nearer the gun turret I was balanced on when I tried and failed for the drone. There must have been an autosave.

Attempt 3 - third time's the charm?

THIRD TIME IS THE CHARM. It's stopping at gun turrets. UP I GO.

And yaaaaaaaay! Don't like having to land in blight with it, but at least I don't have to "Hold E To Grab Data" for very long.

Right. I have some time. Now what?

I wanted to check out some stuff around Plainsong. I can splash out on using one of my fast-travel packs. Man, I know we used to be able to craft fast-travel packs but I don't remember if or how we can on this game, so--

...And just as I think that, the game gives me a tool tip on how to do that. HUZZAH! Normally I just go to the nearest campfire and fast travel from there, but crafting my own fast-travel packs is probably good for when I'm doing morning gaming.

Right. There should be a codex entry in this area. Fields full of blight, satellite dish array ... should be around the base of this dish somewhere.

...Or up. It could be up.

Look, I know that's a grapple point; let me grapple without potentially stepping in blight, okay?

Right. I can scan it from here. No more jumping.

Well. Maybe let's just see what's through this gap.

Ah. I could have just walked over to it from here. Ah well. Lesson learned. I could go check for green shiny elsewhere but I probably don't really have time for that. So ... hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work I go.

Today is going to be a take-it-easy day. It's going to have to be; I'm feeling better but dear gods yesterday was awful. Lots of rest breaks, maybe a nap, not leaving the house if I don't absolutely have to.

Nice thing is that we're starting to have the kind of weather where I can have the windows open during the day without worrying that the heater's going to kick on. We're supposed to get to 20 Celcius today. Currently at 16-ish, and I can get some fresh air. I mean, yeah, it's apparently a high pollen day, but it's a high pollen day for me either way, 'cos my petunias.

On the subject of the garden, most of my stuff has sprouted and many have even started growing adult leaves. A few still haven't sprouted, but I'll give them some time before I panic. Chamomile in particular has a reputation for just taking its own sweet time. But the dill and particularly the coriander are growing incredibly fast and I'm probably going to have to repot them soon. Good thing I already bought my Big Bag of Soil for the year.

Yeah, this is me being Plant Parent - pondering the loss of baby leaves instead of baby teeth and thinking about how fast some of them outgrow their pots rather than their onesies. The reason why I own a t-shirt from TeeTurtle that reads "My Plants Are My Babies". It's a little twee, but I guess it's true enough anyway.

(...oh fuck I need to take out the garbage later...)

[generation1point5]

After life, death. After death, life again. After the world, the pale. After the pale, the world again!

Persona 3 embodies the existential crisis; the nihilist and the absurd in equal measure. Among JRPGs, it has probably one of the more unique and thought-provoking stories that I have come away with. More than a generic story of high-schoolers-use-the-power-of-friendship-to-kill-god, Persona 3 pursues a nuanced and powerful story of everyday students coming to terms with their own mortality, and standing against it even as they recognize the ultimate futility in the act. The game's original tagline featured in the intro, Memento Mori, is perfectly suited for encompassing the themes and character directions of all its diverse cast of characters. Despite its more fantastical elements, Persona 3 is rooted in the everyday things; the trifles, the frail and the human, the fallible and the fragile. More than just exploring trauma that must be healed, Persona 3 reminds players that life is indeed terminal, and explores many of the ways in which people react to this fact.

I admire the ambition of this game to cover an immense and difficult topic, even as I think it falls flat in its exploration in some regards.

There is a strong sense of FOMO in Persona 3; this was an impression that was even more heightened for me, having checked it out late into my 3-month PC game pass as a bonus for overhauling my graphics card. I had about a month to see how a year of one's life can change oneself and all one's surroundings. From what little I had gleaned from the game through osmosis of other friends who had played in the past and the guidance of present friends who helped me optimize my blind run, I tried to experience as much as the game that I could before the opportunity was lost to me.

If I had only a year to live, I think I wouldn't act so differently.

The sense of fear of potential loss is all-pervasive. There is a drive to make the most of each day, to tie every loose end and take everything into account before the end. It drove me to optimize each and every day; I wanted to know what I had to do, all the things to say, to get the optimal outcome. Sometimes I wonder if I was playing the game to enjoy it as I normally would or if I was playing to satisfy my desires within the constraints of the game's framework.

The first instance of dissonance that I felt (and actively pursued) was to suck up to all of the social links and to maximize my social stats in the game as quickly as possible. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to maximize all of them by the end of the game, though I had come close enough to be satisfied with the result. There were a few points where I had begun to relate to the characters in the social links as "people," but far more often I had seen the 1s and 0s behind them; I reloaded my saves to say the "right" things to them, regardless of whether I had agreed with the dialogue or not. At a fundamental level, the relationship is transactional. I get to see the music notes, the ranking goes up, and I get my dose of serotonin and my in-game benefits when fusing personas. If there was any meaning that I could derive from the social links, it was in the tangible ways people could benefit me, that I might bring about a more optimal result for the good of all. It was utilitarian at heart, and that is perhaps one of the constraints of a traditional JRPG that runs up against the themes that the game attempts to explore regarding the vital importance of relationships.

Or perhaps, if all else fails, one can simply see the usefulness of finding the people who give you what you need to survive. In many ways, Jin embodies this dynamic in what he sees in Takaya. There was nothing inherently unique in what Takaya said or did for Jin; only that he was positioned at the right place at the right time to answer Jin's crisis of being, and so gave him purpose. On a material level, there is nothing terribly distinct to separate Jin's fanaticism with that of the cult that Strega attempts to construct to usher the Fall, only that it revolved around a person, as fallible as the dogma which was spouted from his lips.

Where many of the villains feel underwritten or at times shallow, the teammates that comprise the party are extremely well-written and thought out. They have much greater freedom of being able to be related with a degree of sincerity that I did not enjoy with the other social links. They also had the most screentime, and the most development as a result. Each struggle with death and loss each their own way, some that bear the scars of past trauma and others that go through it in the game's events. Each one comes out of their trials with a resolve to live as driven by the legacies of those who entrusted to them their hopes and dreams. This animus is as inspirational as it is weighty, wretched as much as it is powerful.

Like many shounens, there's a pervasive theme within Persona 3 to take on or to dismantle the will and the legacy of one's forebears to shape the future. In P3's case, this idea is reframed into the idea of adopting or dismantling the will of one's forebears for the sake of the future, the future's very existence being at stake. At the heart of Persona 3's conflict, there is a struggle between the is a will to live and a will to despair in the face of death.

While I appreciated the depiction of the struggle itself as it played out among various characters, I had come away with a distinct feeling of disappointment with the hints of underpinnings of what my friend @h-worksrambles aptly calls "the death drive," that sense and near-compulsive force within people to find the effort of life no longer worth sustaining. Where Persona 3 pursues philosophical underpinnings to the question, questions for which there are no answer, I had hoped instead for a more material analysis, as it is more practical and immediately relevant.

Perhaps the strongest point of Persona 3's writing for me is its unflinching depiction of what is colloquially known as "the sins of the fathers." The legacy of the powerful Kirijo Group, with its immense amounts of capital and influence, seek a means to forge a utopia from their research into the Shadows. Somewhere along this line, their seemingly noble goal becomes enraptured in an all-encompassing desire to die, the despair defining their success in achieving the impossible. Even after the dissolution of the Kirijo Group's initial efforts, this depraved vision was carried on by Strega, with immediate consequences also trying deeply to all the protagonists in the game in some shape or form. Moreover, the shadow of Kirijo Group's original efforts to bring about an apocalypse begins to manifest in the form of Apathy Syndrome, whose gradual effects on the populace create a great strain on the local community.

You can't get much thinner of a veil for the chronic depression stemming from Japanese socioeconomic conditions than that. The setting of Persona 3 also highlights the almost absurd pressure being placed on people far too young to be considering topics like their own mortality and the end of the world, its conditions wrought by the animus of their forebears; if the cast of Persona 3 is meant to be an allegory of the difficulties facing the youth that are far outnumbered by an aging and rapidly stagnating Japanese economy, then the analogy is as subtle as a sledgehammer. Outside of a fictionalized setting, the stakes are almost comical, if not incredibly bleak.

Yet in the middle of all this is also a story of a war machine that learns what it means to be human, to find meaning in the face of ones inability to fulfill their own function. Although explored in many other ways through both main and side characters, Aigis most explicitly embodies the human experience through self-discovery, throuh self-actualization. Over the events of the game and in the face of being given an impossible objective, she finds the drive to find and create meaning in the face of destruction of the old, that which was in-built and inherited. In a stroke of irony, the thing she comes to desire when she cannot achieve her inherited design slips from her fingers. The one she swears to protect dies in her arms.

I am of many minds about the ultimate conclusion of Persona 3. On one hand, I balk at the sense of futility; on the other, a brutal recognition of memento mori. This is likely intentional, as it strikes to the heart of the existential themes presented in the game. A common refrain in the face of existential recognitions of mortality is to create meaning in one's life, but to my mind this speaks more to the human need for a coping mechanism as an everyday fact of life. The meaning of life as a concept thus becomes a byproduct of higher intelligence, a necessary component for the drive to continue living, rather than a genuine, sincere question in search of a true, material answer. There is nothing in my mind that conclusively proved that SEES reaction to the same existential crisis held any greater claim to the truth than Strega's, only that they proved to be more powerful in the end. The debate was fundamentally an axiomatic one; the conclusion was fought out through expressions of power: that speaks more to the realms of politics than it does philosophy. But then, politics has always been more of a driving force in the world than any philosopher.

Where Persona 3 offers a strong and nuanced explorations of the human psyche in the face of an all-encompassing mortality, I come away with a desire to see how a change in people's material conditions, and with it a fundamental change in our organization of the economy, could in fact produce a much more cohesive and greater view of life beyond the individuals that comprise the stories in the broader tapestry. The values of empathy and persistence in the face of futility espouse in Persona 3 offer a good foundation; but beyond the foundation there is a structure that enshrines and solidifies these values remains to be built if the future of humanity will be realized. Beyond psychology and the persona, there must also be good politics and policy.