#i mean you have the gay marriage DLC

[sigmar-after-not-surviving]

[nerdragenewvegas]

Thinking a lot today about how despite my insane thirst for Joshua Graham, looking at him logically for 35 seconds made me realise that my years in the Mormon church were effectively years in a cult and how projection seems to change how people experience Honest Hearts a lot.

Like there's a huge subsect of people who credit the character with reconnecting them with their faith and I mean hey if that's a positive life change for you that gives you grounding, cool. But I really struggle to kind of understand that perspective of in to be honest because the point of the arc (at least to me) is that Joshua was using faith to project his own feelings and traumas and bias in a way that allowed him to somewhat avoid blame or responsibility in the event he learns he's wrong - he even admits this much depending on your ending.

First time around he did this with the Legion taking that place of a "higher power" once he was out on his own and seperated from the accountability that the other New Canaanites gave him, and when we meet him, he's doing the same thing with his Faith. And believe me when I tell you that scapegoating like this is so common in Mormonism that it's actually hard to clock once you've been in for a while, and Joshua is so good at romanticising what he's doing that we spend a lot of the DLC willing to believe him until he's about to actually do a genocide for real and we realise what's happening here.

This happens a lot in Mormonism with things like LGBTQ+ and gender stuff, where nice things like the Plan of Salvation (which can genuinely be quite reassuing and warm in a spiritual sense) are co-opted to justify homophobia and transphobia and misogyny. "I, personally, don't have an issue with trans people at all! But the plan of salvation is so clear about our bodies and how we need to respect gods choices in our design!" - despite the Plan of Salvation saying nothing about gender identity or expression and honestly kind of validating the idea that transitioning etc is also part of gods plan for some people. "I love lots of gay people and so does the church, but the word of God is clear that temple marriage is for men and women only." That kind of thing. "The whitelegs are gods children, too, but the bible is clear about how we handle those who would seek to harm this Zion we've built! I don't enjoy murder, but it's what God wants, it's a chore."

Realising this and then looking at times in my life where I saw this happen in the Mormon Church is what took me from "gently deconstructing and still believing some of it" to "I was brainwashed and in a fucking cult." So i always kind of struggle to see how anyone can get "I should seek God again" from this, but at the same time? I think that's the best part about Honest Hearts and a lot of Fallout NV in general: it forces you to learn not about yourself than anything else in the actual game. It's such a wonderful game when it comes to getting players to self reflect - maybe this is why it's so known for being the "omg I'm trans now" game.

What a special fucking game, huh?

[gayelderstourney]

OLD MAN YAOI BRACKET ROUND 1

Propaganda:

Sir Alistair Hammerlock/Wainwright Jakobs:

THEY ARE CANONICALLY MARRIED!!!!! THEY ARE FORCE/FINESSE SUN/MOON SALT/SUGAR. THEY ARE SILLY GENTLEMEN WHO ARE IN LOVE. HAMMERLOCK IS A VICTORIAN BIG GAME HUNTER LIFTED STRAIGHT FROM A STEAMPUNK NOVEL WHO IS ALL ABOUT ADVENTURE AND WAINWRIGHT IS A SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN HEIR TO A GUN MANUFACTURING MEGACORPORATION WHO HAS SMALL AMBITIONS. OPPOSITES ATTRACT ULTIMATE INCARNATION. THE THEMES AND MOTIFS AND PARALLELS BETWEEN THEM ARE IMPECCABLE. THEY SUPPORT EACHOTHER UNCONDITIONALLY AND WHOLEHEARTEDLY. HAMMERLOCK THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO DIE AND HE RECORDED WHAT HE THOUGHT WERE GOING TO BE HIS LAST WORDS AND HE SAYS, I QUOTE: "but I long not for death seeking adventures, but instead for one… last… peaceful… moment… with you. I love you, Wainwright. Farewell." DID I MENTION HAMMERLOCK HAS A NICKNAME FOR WAINWRIGHT. HE CALLS HIM Winny AND IT MELTS MY HEART EVERY TIME. GOD THEY GET MARRIED IN THE CORPSE OF AN ELDRITCH GOD AND THEIR WEDDING IS AN ENTIRE DLC. IT ALSO COVERS THEIR RESPECTIVE DOUBTS THAT MAYBE THEY AREN'T THE RIGHT MAN FOR EACHOTHER BUT IN THE END THEY REALIZE THAT IT'S NOT TRUE AND THE OTHER LOVES HIM SO SO SO MUCH JUST LIKE HE IS. I AM SO SO AUTISTIC ABT THEM THEY ARE PEAK OLD MAN YAOI BUT THEY ARE VIRTUALLY UNKNOWN IN THE OLD MAN YAOI COMMUNITY. PLEASE.

They have an entire DLC about their wedding. Their base game story arc starts with Wainwright calling you to ask you to go on a rescue mission to save Hammerlock and calling him the love of his life.

There is a whole game DLC dedicated to their canonical marriage, they constantly call each other by pet names, every single time they talk about one another there is passion in their voices, they express how much they love and care for each other.

Irving Bailiff/Burt Goodman:

they are TRAPPED in capitalist dystopian hell and yet gay love persists. literally they are fighting for their got damn lives to be gay. they've been subjected to evil fucked up brain surgery to make them forget who they are outside of the workplace and yet. AND YET. they fall in love INSIDE the workplace and gain the desire to fight their oppressors so they can do old man yaoi activities. i forgot to take my adderall today sorry im not forming coherent thoughts but they made christopher walken yaoi real

They have only ever experienced being at work and are desperately trying to find meaning with no memory of the outside world. Fraternization is against the rules as well. The yearning is so much.

they are 2 sad old men who are in forbidden love. they bond over a mutal love of corporate art & company tote bags. their love inspired Irving to rebel against his employers for the first time ever. Burt is even Christopher Walken.

They’re so quietly sweet and heart-wrenching… fell in love on the ‘inside’ (they both work a job that ‘severs’ their work memories from their out-of-work memories; inside the job, they have no idea who they are on the outside or what the world is like, but they found each other and found a little bit of love and meaning and happiness inside the nightmare corporate world that is their job)

canonically in love with each other! in the show people sever their consciousness so they aren't aware when they're working. this creates a separate person that only exists while they're at the office, who doesn't share any memories with the person they are on the outside. these two old men bond and find comfort in each other despite the dystopian hell situation they're in

Old men having a forbidden romance while stuck in a hellish workplace dystopia

These two old men know nothing outside of their company propaganda, which says romance is forbidden, and they still choose each other. They bond over paintings, discuss company policy in each other's arms like they're debating scripture on whether their love is allowed. They're sooo gay and it's so sweet to see true, canonical old man yaoi

Weird old man office romance except they only exist inside the bounds of the world’s worst office building and they go on a little date to a room full of plastic plants

[poetryofyouth]

the last few weeks i have been obsessively playing Dragon Age, in preparation for the veilguard release of course.

Dragon Age: Origins is still a work of Art and I would die for her and every companion

Dragon Age: 2 is not as bad as I remembered it? Sure it has it's issues but the story is genuinely so fantastic. Like, the story, the characters, Hawke's relationships with the companions - the combat is almost an annoying obstacle to get to the heartbreakingly tender moments between Hawke and their damaged, broken, hurting friends

For that reason I would love for an option to just skip combat alltogeter and turn it into a walking simulator.

In both Origins and 2, the male love interests are so so so much better holy fuck

Like the first time I played as a lesbian (of course) and romancing Leliana in Origins. Which is... sweet and everything, but the relationship with Leliana always felt... hollow. Love without any true base in Friendship. If that makes sense.

This time, my warden was a bit of a slut and romanced Leliana, (also Isabella), Zevran and lastly Alistair. And holy fuck, the relationship between Warden an Alistair is just perfect. Me playing a female elf only added to the perfection. Sad I couldn't marry him at the end, but hey, staying as the King's mistress is fine with me, Anora's cool with it, mostly, and nothing can get in between true love. I mean, the relationship between Warden and Alistair starts off with pure banter and friendship, you can feel them acutally caring for each other way before you even start any romance. They feel like two people who just fit like puzzle pieces. Jokes, support, bleeding together, either one would not think a minute before sacrificing their own life for the other. and finally, after weeks of pain and suffering and drinks in taverns and jokes around the campfire and horribly traumatizing deaths all around, they both realize that they aren't just friends anymore. Fucking hell that is literally the perfect fictional relationship omg i have never shipped a straight couple harder.

Also I found the thought of being a slutty warden who bedded every available character before finally taking the future king's virginity, then arranging a marriage between her boyfriend and another woman and then also arranging for her boyfriend to get her other friend pregnant just... incredibly funny ngl

And in DA:2 on my first playthrough I romanced Merril. Which was... fine. Though I find it kinda difficult because I didn't like the idea of Hawke just being completely fine with blood magic and all that. Merril also isn't that interesting a character. I mean, comparing her to many other games she is fantastic!! But in this game, she just kinda pales in comparison to everyone else.

Now I'm playing a male gay Hawke and I first romanced Fenris. And I am just a sucker for a sad, hurting man learning how to feel again. Fenris is just such a good character. Of course he is horribly racist agains mages, which i mean, not that i / Hawke condone it, but anyone would need years of therapy to get over what the magisters did to him, so i love the thought of Hawke being patient and slowly trying to show him they are not that bad.

So I love to kinda torture Fenris and run around with him, anders and merril, their companion banters are so great.

But Fenris of course dumps Hawke after the first time and sure you COULD wait for him to come around in act three but screw that, I will not have my feelings played with like that.

Especially when there is an even sadder, more broken man waiting for me. Anders is probably my favourite character in DA:2. Even the last time I played, without romancing him. But now I startet DA:2 right after finishing the Awakening DLC and I just LOVE the difference and the similarities between the two Anders versions. Some might say it's inconsistent. But I choose to believe that in Awakening, even if Anders had seen so many horrible things already, he was still able to keep a more happy-go-lucky facade. I imagine between the end of Awakening and Hawke first meeting him, Anders has seen many many more horrible things while being with the wardens. So he is just extra-traumatized in 2. And of course, his character changed with the whole spirit of justice thing. But even if he is a lot more serious and a lot sadder, he still has that Anders-Charm. I love his love for kittens and his need for justice for the mages

And even if the DA:2 love interests (apart from Sebastian) are all bisexual, I love that they are not just default staights that can just also be romanced by same gender Hawkes. Like, when Anders confesses that Karl, who just died, was his first boyfriend??? I think I cried. The PAIN the HURT the HOMOSEXUAL ANGST. I will burn down all of Kirkwall if that makes Anders feel even a little better.

The rivalry / rivalry romance aspect is really cool and I love it exists but unfortunately i am incapable of not being liked by everyone.

Seriously how does a game that was pretty much universally considered a disappointment by the fandom (i previously didn't like it either!! Idek why!!!!) have storylines that trump pretty much any movie of tv show made in the last 5 years. Please let me play this just as a story game/walking simulator i need to look into mods i want to see every possible conversation and fuck everyone (tenderly and with love. and also as hateful rivals)

Also I have played the games so much recently I hope I don't accidentally say "by the maker" in public lmao

[forourtomorrows]

okay so i heard a lot of people talk about edgeworth's line on marriage in aa-6's dlc but what about phoenix ??? here is the lines mentioned by the way

Phoenix: W-Wait. You're not thinking about finally settling down and getting married, are you?

Edgeworth: Why do you always have to jump to such extreme conclusions? For your information, I have no intention of doing such a thing... What about you, Wright?

Phoenix: No plans here for now, even if I wanted to... (Well, at least I found out how Edgeworth feels about marriage. Not that it has anything to do with the case...)

"even if i wanted to" ??? like i know those are 5 words but if they wanted phoenix to say "haha i'm single so not gonna happen" they could've just made him say "no plans here for now, and not for a long time" or just end it at "no plans here for now" because it's like saying " i don't plan on getting married and even if i wanted to it's not like i can" (that's how i read it anyway)

and because i am completely not normal about this line since the day i read it and i mulled over it for way too much time (i have no life) i'm going to give some answers to why can't phoenix get married even if he wanted to ? why can't he ???

because he's single: the most simple answer and i guess the one the game wanted us to think about. basically he's saying "i have no plans for now, and even if i wanted to because well... you can't get married if you're alone" (i think people marrying themselves is a thing though). but again, if that was the intended meaning, they could've stopped at "no plans here for now" and call it a day, it's short and effective and people (like me) wouldn't be breaking their brains thinking about it.

because he's a father: OKAY before you come at me listen. trucy is amazing and everything (i love her. really) BUT that wouldn't stop phoenix from worrying if 1) his partner would accept getting married with someone with a child 2) if trucy would accept said partner and 3) if the two of them would get along. defo not the meaning intended but it's one of the first thing i thought about (because it made some kind of sense to me)

because the one he loves isn't interested in him/available: he has "no plan" on getting married because his love is one-sided. even if he wanted to get married it's not like he can if he's the only one in love, thus the "even if i wanted to". the "even if i wanted to" is meant here as a possibility "if in a near future i want to get married well i can't" which would make sense if he has a some non-requited feelings. seems rough buddy.

because he's gay/bi: the game is japanese and it was originally set in japan (even though the translation changed the localization of the game, i'm not teaching you anything) , and in japan, same-sex marriage is not legally recognized. so he doesn't plan on getting married, and even if he wanted to he can't because it's simply not legal. i don't really think it was meant that way but if they wrote it that vague it's not my problem if i pick the meaning i want :)

he's in a relationship with someone who doesn't want to get married: well, if his partner doesn't want to get married, it would make sense that he has no plans for it, even if he would've liked too, even if he would've wanted to, because well, you gotta respect your partner's wishes (there is literally no problem with not wanting to get married btw). so he's basically saying "i'm not getting married even if i wanted to because i'm with someone who doesn't want to get married". and that's okay !

anyway this is all i could think about concerning these 5 words(he is in a more financially and life stable position than in the 7 years gap so money wouldn't be the problem here), so if you have suggestions please put them in ! and if you have any questions please ask ! this sentence was so vague and could imply so many things and its contrary it's making me crazy. anyway i should stop rambling now haha.

[bloomdigital]

Since your first game came out 10 years ago when the scope of LGBT media for youth was much worse, what do you think has changed between now and then and what sets Longstory 2 apart from new media which has come out since?

CW: Discussions of homophobia/transphobia in media, mention of conversion therapy law, tropes

This a great question, let's take a look. To put this in a wider context on LGBT rights in general...

Picture it: Sicily... I mean... Toronto, 2014!

While global human rights don't revolve around Canada, (ed note: Although historically Canada has led the way in developing policy based around enshrining human right into law) that's where we're based. Canada was only 10 years out from same-sex marriage being recognized across the country--the States, in comparison, only received the court ruling that would make it legal in June 2015. Sadly, Canada wouldn't make a conversion therapy illegal under the law for another seven years. It'd be another 2 years for "gender identity and expression" to be added as protected under the Canadian Human Rights Act, not like that explicitly protects trans folks, but it's something. So that's an overview of where we were at on the ground, at least.

In the world of games, things were..... Not like that. A couple of big inspirations for LongStory were Life is Strange, which was released throughout 2015, and The Last of Us, especially the "Left Behind" DLC, which was released in 2014. Keep in mind that all of these inspirations, however beautifully written, were penned by straight guys--and that both games either do or can kill off at least one of their queer characters, see: bury your gays trope.

That was the name of the game (in games) at the time: Players occasionally could enjoy decently written LGBT characters, but they were often killed off, for punishment or pathos.

Maybe that heady mix of a country that was rabidly expanding it's understanding of what human conditions and experiences were protected rights, juxtaposed against a games industry that was (and remains) reluctant to expand the definition of who plays games and can be represented in games is what led us to care so deeply about LongStory. The fact is at the time of it's creation many of us were experiencing the joy of seeing our own lives changed by shifting tides of acceptance in families, at school and at work.

Since then, there's been a massive shift in media across the board, including games, turning toward "own voices" stories; creators can tell stories outside their own experiences, but if they do it should be well researched and hopefully include a (properly paid and credited) cultural consultant and/or sensitivity readers. Or admit when you got it wrong, at the very least.

LongStory came onto the scene as we began to see this shift. That and we responded to our players' needs. The game was originally supposed to be about a girl, the original feminine-presenting avatar, but when early players asked if they could be a boy, it was an obvious decision to make a masculine-presenting avatar an option. One of our claims to fame is that we were one of the earlier adopters of pronoun selection as well, including gender neutral pronouns, which also isn't attached to gender presentation (ie. feminine presentation = she/her, masculine = he/him). Now a lot of games (but certainly not all) have gotten better at different iterations of gender presentation instead of just a binary of GIRL/BOY.

The upside to this shift is that now young people are kind of "spoiled for choice", which is a very good thing. Games, movies, TV, books, comics, in media of all kinds for all ages it's often odd when there's not a queer or gender diverse character. Funny how diverse real life is, huh? Our media should reflect that.

We're finally seeing the cracks in the monolithic presumed straight, white, cisgender man audience. It is our genuine hope that the success of LongStory, which honestly comes down to folks continuing to care about the game and ask us these great questions, has had an impact on the growth of the industry and it's increasing inclusion and representation, however imperfect that may sometimes be.

Speaking of imperfection. I was just having a conversation yesterday about the toxic individualist (and, I think, deeply capitalist) idea that when someone else receives, I lose. Now when bigots, fascists and creepy evangelicals see diversity in the media, be it LGBTQ and/or BIPOC representation and/or disabled or non-neurotypical representation it gets labeled as "woke", which is bad because: ?????? I think that comes from a place of believing that when one person wins somebody else has to be losing out. That's not how life works--but it is how capitalism works! Capitalism has made us all so afraid that there is not enough to around, not enough love, or stories, or hero narratives. When the opposite is true, people have an abundance of love and creativity to share, but again, capitalism is sort of based on this idea of scarcity... yeah, it's how to keep people isolated.

All this to say, there is a new generation of people, afraid of the beautiful exuberance and diversity of life wriggling their way into positions of power, or lobbying and manipulating the systems and people in them to get anti-trans laws on the books, or look for ways to roll back protections on hard fought basic human rights it's taken generations of LGBTQ folks to achieve. More often than not it's just a shameless power grab scapegoating historically marginalized communities. Lots of that. So we're still here, still working on our games, still saying the same things with renewed enthusiasm.

LongStory starts from a place of empathy, which is something that's unfortunately needed now more than ever. We want everyone, but especially young people, to look at a world as it should be, which is diverse and open to exploration, where they can make mistakes but still be surrounded by love and compassion. I think that's what sets LongStory apart from a lot of media and makes it really special.

-MJ (and Miriam)

[tertiaryunit]

If they don't like your hcs that's a them issue. Please continue infodumping & sharing your fan work, it's great.

Megan getting the token cishet is incredibly accurate. Hard agree. OH ALSO does the DNA theft lore bother you as much as it bothers me??? Like after they have the initial seq, they can just synthesize it forever, you don't need consistent access to Jensen for samples unless (I wrote a needless explanation post a while ago... ofc...) you want his CELLS. Which would need harvested from blood or csf,,,

I'm curious what you think of Vaclav Koller, Jim Miller and Duncan Macready (queer hcs and/or also just general thoughts). Mac is fun to me bc he canonically has 3 ex wives. Personally I've taken that as he's aromantic and it took him a while to figure out what he wanted/didn't want. Societal pressure/toxic masculinity meaning he thought it was totally normal to hate being in romantic relationships. and also he's just rly bad at being nice to people. -Helix

Oh dw I don't intend to stop :D I have fun writing and drawing my work and hope that for whoever unfollows more people know that this is a LGBT+ friendly space (couldn't be otherwise 'cause I'm in the community too lmao)

I have to think that they had much more nefarious purposes for Adam *OR* they wanted the original around just in case something happened to the original sequence which made them lost it or something? I am leaning in them being interested in actual human testing considering the Adam clones in the Versalife vault 😬 (Also I'm sorry to Megan fans, I hate her so much lmao) (adding here no explanation is ever needless :D I think I actually saw it)

Vaclav nonbinary pan nation rise up I headcanon him having some sort of addiction to light stimulants (aka: coffee). I think he'd be good friends with Shadowchild Miller is one of the characters I will never let die in any run. I am sorry for Allison (since this game decided you can't save both like in the Missing Link DLC for HR) but Jimmy lives xd I am biased on this because for once we have a canonically gay character with a family (even if he's divorced) and I don't want him to die. (He fixes the problems he had in his marriage in my hc and gets back with his husband) I'm gonna be honest Mac gives me the toxic cishet vibes hhh but as you said, that can be for the societal pressure or bad masculinity ideals. (I see Adam commenting "I start to understand why you divorced 3 times"😭 ) Extra character info cause I love them: Alex Vega and Elias Chikane remind me how much this game was cut in half for a sequel that never came out 💀 Ivan Berk too, you probably remember the collective gaslighting the trailers did on the fandom adafsfdsdg

[isa-ah]

they really should have taken more responsibility for deciding to make it it's own game bc they charged $70 for something that feels like it WOULD have been better as dlc. from the opening tutorial area (old king ghost sends you to 4 shrines to get your special powers for the game) to the continuation of the shrines- which were one of the most complained about aspects of botw- to keeping Zelda a past tense out of focus background character told thru snippets- to the just go to the 4 corners and do these 20 minute cereal box puzzle style dungeons- like. why even bother? why even bother

$70 so they could copy and paste the same 3 sky Islands to every region of the map? for a ton of caves that all look and play the same? for the depths which are one to two biomes tops? it's all tedium to me. it's tedium that adds Very Little one you get over the initial 5-10 minutes of novelty.

"we're listening to the community!" drops Zelda in a heartbeat (again), tells the entire plot passively (again), promises the game is focal on rebuilding Hyrule but we do less rebuilding than we did in botw at all, brings the zonai in bc of popular demand just to change EVERYTHING we knew about them and elaborate on NOTHING about them- to setting up what could have been a spectacular end to the cycle at the end of all the timelines where Zelda and Ganon meet at the beginning of it all and Zelda recognizes the shortcomings of her legacy (which likewise failed HER) and instead we got. gestures. whatever the fuck that entirely unnuanced bedtime story plot was, with some Pretty Obviously Racist undertones.

and it's like.. maybe that's mean! maybe I'm underselling it. but am I? because I've been playing Zelda games as long as I've been cognizant and I've never felt DISAPPOINTED by one before*. and the way I see it, totk had very very little to bring to the table; it looked a little better than botw (but did nothing for the infamous frame drops), it handled better (natural progression), and... tulin. oh, and they forced an abrupt marriage onto the fan favorite ship for link to prove he wasn't gay. am I forgetting anything?

*triforce heroes wasn't real and can't hurt me.

im watching a retrospective about Majora's Masks dungeon progression and realizing a little more every time he says "this game took a lot of very brave steps out to not be ocarina of time" that my disappointment with totk isn't out of place. I've been told "it's breath of the wild 2, why did you expect it to be different?" but like.. it's it's own game. why is it the exact same but with an arguably worse iteration of the story?

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: July 10th

I really let asks get away from me lately. I was super focused on working on that Patreon Moment. With that done I can finally think about doing other things, so here’s a new collection of answers!

Thank you for sending in questions everyone ^^.

For the new Patreon moment, will you be able to reference it in step 4? Or just like a tiny nod to it if you pick certain choices?

There won’t be. I’m sorry if you were hoping for that! The Patreon moment is meant to be entirely optional, it’s not something that gets you extra content in the main game.

Is the new CG artist the main one now? :0 I’ve noticed theres been a difference in the art style recently. Is the old CG artist still going to make art for the game? :0

The original artist still makes CGs for the game sometimes, but he mainly focuses on character sprites.

Are you going to put the NSFW our life moment on a website other than patreon? I would love to get it but I can't use patreon atm.

I don’t know. I'm afraid we can't release the Patreon Moment on a normal game storefront because we can't mix 18+ content with our family friendly game. If there's some other place similar to Patreon where it's not the normal type of full-scale public content releases we'd consider using that, but I’m not sure if there is another site that’s better than Patreon in that regard. I'm sorry.

Out of curiosity, in all of your games so far, which characters in each were the most fun to write? They obviously don't have to be your favorite characters!

Buffalo Seer in AFA, really everyone in XOD/XOBD is pretty equally entertaining to write, The Guide in LoV, and Cove in OL!

idk if you accept "personal" questions, but is there anything you've been watching/ listening to lately

Mostly, I’ve been watching/listening to Authortube videos as of late! It’s people who talk generally about the process of how books become traditionally published and/or share their own experience as they attempt to be published. I don’t have an interest in writing normal text based books, but it’s really interesting to hear about that world. I’m listening to a video about royalties right now as I answer these asks.

Will one of the desserts we get to pick be fudge? That'd be such a cute reference! 

Haha, yeah, it should. Unless I completely blank on it and forget when trying to include the various referential food options.

I don't know if this has been asked previously but what would be the approximate heights for the presets MC can choose from Step 2 ~ 4? Are there any measurement you had in mind? Sorry if I didn't make myself clear kk I've been struggling with my English lately 💀 

I don’t know, ahah. I didn’t have any numbers in mind for that. So it’s whatever you imagine it is!

I noticed a bug with the Patreon moment when it comes to what your character wears. When Jamie and Cove are kissing while my character only had dresses selected, I had both the option to remove the dress or to remove the shirt... Picking one of the options to interact with Cove, after he removed his shirt, it had Jamie remove their shirt followed by ther pants despite only having dresses picked. 

Thank you for reporting ^^

I keep refreshing steam to see when the new doc for xobd will be released. I noticed you haven't posted anything about it in quite some time. Would it be possible to ask about a timeline/potential date? (If it's even this year—) I know you and your team are probably working super hard, I'm just super curious! ~Thank you!~ 

There are more stories done, I just haven’t gotten around to publicly releasing them. Hopefully I will have a chance to spend the time on that sooner rather than later!

hello!! i’m not sure if it’s an update but i’ve just replayed our life and at the end i can’t propose to cove anymore? :(( i’ve actually tried playing twice but the options are not there anymore, did you guys remove the options? i’m sorry if you’ve answered this before!! thank you and have a good one :) 

I’m afraid things haven’t been changed or removed, so I think you might’ve accidentally picked the wrong things somewhere along the way and locked yourself out of being able to propose by mistake. Sometimes you meant to say you want to get married but instead you mis-click and have it so the MC isn’t thinking about marriage or something. All I can suggest is starting from the beginning of Step 3 and making sure to follow the steps listed in the FAQ. I’m sorry for that.

Did yall remove some of the options for when youre making out with Cove in the charity moment? I could've sworn you could grab his bonkadonk and its not there anymore 

This is the same situation as the above. We didn’t remove things and you’re not wrong that there are sometimes those options. But there are various choices you have to make to get those options and it sounds like you accidentally missed something. If your relationship isn’t long-term, you can’t do it for example.

HI IM SO EXCITED I CAN FINALLY GET THE STEP 3 DLC 

Thank you for getting it!

Is Shiloh super totally straight bc I’m very gay and a huge Shiloh fan, would my man make an exception?😩

Sadly, he is one of our super straight characters. I’m sorry.

Hi, I have a very dumb question. In Step 2 does Cove not wanna share his drink with us at the mall (or rather why he stops drinking it) because it's an indirect kiss? Or is it like ...weird to him to share? Because if I remember right he eats off our spoon in the birthday scene right? 

Yeah, he’s awkward about it because he likes the MC and it feels very personal to share a straw with his crush.

Hi! If you don't mind me asking, who is the artist for OL2? Their style is so pretty! 

Thank you for saying so! This is her Twitter- https://twitter.com/redridingheart

Do Beginnings & Always and Now & Forever exist in the same universe? 

Yep! XOXO Droplets also exists in the same universe. It’s one big GB Patch world, haha.

Do Pran's parents regret the way they raised him? Do they feel ashamed of it?

No. They’re the type of people best cut out because they’re not gonna change. Which is why Pran does go very limited contact when he’s an adult.

Hi! I just wrapped up my second playthrough of Our Life, and I absolutely adore it, but I had a question. I went to the gallery and found I was missing 2 CGS (specifically Step 1-3 and 2-3) and I had no clue where they would've shown up. Which moments are those found in? 

You get it by telling Cove about his dad offering you money to be his friend in Step 1 and Step 2. You can’t get both in one playthrough, since you can only tell Cove the truth once. I’m really glad you liked it!

Hi hi! Please, how tall is Baxter and Derek? Love the game so much and I can't wait to see more! 

I don’t know, aha. I think Baxter was around 5′10 and Derek was like 5′8/5′9, maybe. I really am not one who has specific heights for things in mind.

is adult cove a bottom, top, or switch? 

A switch, though would choose the top if he had to pick.

I was wondering if there is a way to transfer save data? Even if through the game files. I wanted to be able to transfer my save data from my desktop over to my laptop so that I could continue playing right where I left off from but I'm not entirely sure how to go about that. 

If you save the save folder/persistent data of the game from your desktop and put it into the game folder on your other device, that could work.

Hi! Is it possible for us to know the date when our life: now and forever comes out on steam? Sorry if you've mentioned it before but I haven't seen it and I'm looking foward to that happening and just wanted to know :) 

It’s gonna be a long time, I’m afraid. There’s no estimate right now.

I started playing Our Life with my sister a while ago, and I think you guys should know that we discovered your secret. >:)

L from death note and Cove are clearly the same person, and this whole game is just an origin story!!

I’ve never seen that show so I’m sorry to say I don’t understand the connection/reference you’re trying to make. I’m pretty out of the loop when it comes to media. I don’t watch movies or TV.

Will OL2 have options for disabled MCs?

I understand if it's too complicated, just curious

Unfortunately, it’s not really something we have a plan for. We couldn’t finish the game if we tried to include every disability and have it be meaningful. It’d just be too much content to create. But if we decide to only include a few, how would we choose which disabilities get to be represented and which are left out? I don’t know. It’ll probably have to be something we don’t include as an option again, sadly. I’m sorry.

playing our life > anything else 

Haha, I’m glad you’re enjoying it.

Honestly, I would like to thank Our Life for helping me come to terms with my sexuality. Before, I never would've actually thought that it was possible to like boys romantically and still be asexual. Almost all of the BL visual novels I've read had unskippable sexual content in them and it honestly just didn't click with what I feel. I'm glad I found Our Life. I love the game, the developers, and this fandom so much. Now, I can safely come out as homoromantic AND asexual (at least anonymously here anyway; my parents are still huge homophobes 😂). 

Aw, it’s great to hear you felt comfortable being yourself in the game! That’s wonderful. I’m really sorry about your parents, though.

Will the demo for OL2 be on android? Really not sure if I could wait any longer than I have to aha 

Yeah, it’ll be available for Android once we eventually release a demo!

Do all these reveals perhaps mean development is progressing ahead of schedule? Please let that be the case I'm already obsessed with Qiu 

No, sorry, aha. Art comes along much faster than script/programming-work for us. It’s gonna be a long time before the game is a finished thing you can actually play. But at least we can look at the beautiful images.

Hey! First of all I wanna say I reallllllyyyyy loooovvveeee Our Life and XOXO Droplets! I have over 300 hours of playtime on Our Life… Anyways, I was just wondering, are the Derek and Baxter DLCs going to come out at the same time? If not, which one do you plan to release first? :3 

They will come out separately and Derek will be first! Glad you like the game.

I keep replaying Our Life to get every possible iteration and I am loving it <3 I was wondering if Cove gets locked out of his confession because MC was talking to Lee, would it be possible to confess to him in step 4? 

Yeah, you can avoid the confession in Step 3 and then get it in Step 4.

Hi, my Cove wears bracelets through step 2 and 3 but I still don't get an option to give him a bracelet? I didn't even know that was possible until I seen someone else ask about it lol 

Hm, did you use the Cove creator? Maybe there’s a bug where using the creator to add bracelets doesn’t fulfill the requirement to give Cove a bracelet in Step 3.

Wait, I'm dense, when does Baxter appear in step 2? Is it from big park firework? I feel so bad since i really love Baxter and waiting to buy his dlc. 

It’s in the Soiree Moment. You have to be just friends with Cove, indifferent, or crushing but not ask Cove to the dance at all. Then while there you can find someone new to dance with. But if you bring Cove to the dance while crushing, the MC won’t wanna dance with anyone else so you can’t get the scene.

In step 2 when we go to the soiree I made my mc go alone and baxter chooses the mc to dance, i'm curious, why did he pick the mc? sorry if this has been asked before! 

Because the MC looked to be around his age, seemed to also be searching for a partner, and had nice legs. A perfect option for him.

I read some of the FAQs, and I saw that we could tell Baxter about the condo that he rented there was previously the mean old grandparents. how do we get the mc to tell him that? 

It happens in the DLC Moment “Late Shift”. If you don’t have a job you instead get a longer scene with Baxter.

I don’t know if you’ve addressed this or not, but are you planning on paying voice actors for our life: now and forever? 

Yeah, we pay our VAs in all our projects.

hey can i ask how you did the moments thing in ol? im trying to get into making visual novels and while im VERY sure its out of my comfort zone and all that atm i kinda wanna know just for the future, bc im p sure it would work well for something i wanna do :O but its also fine if you cant say for other reasons :> 

I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean. Are you asking how we programmed the screen or something script related? Adding Moments like that is pretty straightforward, though. You just have buttons that open to different labels and then the scripts are essentially individual short stories/vignettes. Good luck with your VN!

Since Autumn becomes gender fluid later in the game, will there be a character who remains as he/him to romance in game? 

OL1 has the he/him LIs, OL2 is all about other genders.

I don't want to impose on your creative plans, but a parrot could possibly make a good pet in an OL-type game? They're pretty long-lived and likely to still be thriving by the end even if the MC got them back in step 1. 

I do appreciate the suggestion, but I’m afraid it’s not likely going to happen. I understand there are technically some animals that could theoretically live long enough to last the whole game that or we could have the MC only get a pet after some years have already passed. But the many things that would have to be considered/accommodated for makes it just something we probably can’t manage adding. I’m sorry.

As time passes will we be able to see Qiu and Tamarack's other stage arts as well?

They are both so cute i can't wait to be friends with them!

Yeah, we’ll show content from other Steps in the future. It’ll be a little while from now, though.

Can you date Cove and still have your family comfort you in the car?

You can’t get Cove’s Step 3 confession scene if you have the family comfort you in the car. But that’s not the only way to date him. You can get together with him earlier in the game or later on in Step 4.

Is Mc always going to be the one walking down the aisle or could Cove do it? Also could you choose to have one of your moms walk you? 

No. Cove wouldn’t want to walk down the aisle like that and the MC automatically respects that. And the MC also gets to have their preferences respected, so it’s up to you whether they want to do an aisle walk or not. You also can pick who, if anyone, walks with you.

Once step 4 is out, will you be able to go the whole game on crush/love without either of you confessing? 

Yes, as long as you tell the game you don’t want to progress the relationship. Even in Step 4 it won’t force you to officially get together.

Howdy, so in Step 4, there will be any Romance with Derek that is not part of any dlc? 

He’s only a friend unless you get his romance story.

Will the step 4 in OL2 be one big step or are you considering moments? 

Step 4 is just an epilogue in both games.

hi kind of a weird question but!! we know tht cliff doesn't start dating again but. wht abt flings? like does he ever do 1 night stands or anything? thank u!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Nope. Cliff has a very small interest in sex. If he’s not in a real relationship with a partner he’s crazy about it simply isn’t something he feels a need for, so one night stands wouldn’t even cross his mind.

sorry if you've already answered this, but i was wondering if there were plans for there to be bonus love interests in OL2 like how we have derek and baxter in OL1.

Maybe! There are side characters who could be given romance stories, but whether or not it will happen depends on funding and how long everything else takes to finish.

I don't know if i'm allowed to ask about ol2 here yet, if not u can ignore this or answer it later. My question is can you date one of them and be good friends with the other? I don't want to be strangers with the other bcs i love them both a lot :<

Yes you can!

what patreon level do i have to be to unlock the nsfw moment? im on the $5 one right now, will that give me access to the moment, or just access to the moment progress? 

That’ll give you access! Tier 2 and anything higher allows the player to download it.

[sogayfortolerance]

Alright I just started playing Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town and I have thoughts, granted I’m only just starting because it came out on March 26th in Australia and I could only pick it up on the 27th so these are really just first impressions rather than anything else.

Pros:

- I really like the smaller things they’ve done like;

- They added how many plots of land a watering can can water instead of a bar

- They’ve added a ‘health’ bar to trees and rocks so I don’t have to guess how many swings it’ll take to take it down

- There’s a lot to do right out the gate (Fishing can be opened on day one, farming can be done on the third day, mining is opened right out the gate, cooking is open when you upgrade your house for the first time which I did on my fourth day and it’s really easy to get your coop up and running which opens up animal farming), it can get kinda overwhelming but it’s always better to have too much to do in a game than not enough

- Really the only character I really like is Linh (and that might just be because I'm half Viet)

- Actually Reina is pretty cute as well

- And Iori

- I love that mining is back especially since after Trio of Towns mining was just sad and I wasn't sure it was staying after Friends of Mineral Town

- Fishing was pretty confusing at first but I actually really like it

- The character creator was cute and pretty fun

- I did also like how in the character creator you choose your ‘Body type’ and ‘stance’ then you choose if you’re a ‘granddaughter’ or ‘grandson’. It would have also been awesome if you could choose ‘grandchild’ or ‘grandthem’ but we’re getting there

- GAY MARRIAGE IS HERE TO STAY

Cons:

- Why did they get rid of the portraits? It makes conversations with everyone feel so impersonal

- I think they were trying to go for what the Wii games did but the problem is that the camera doesn't really work for it, what I mean is that the camera will zoom in for the conversation but like half the time it gets stuck on the building or a tree

- And as a consequence to getting rid of the portraits I now have to manually check the romance options heart level rather than just have to look at what colour their heart is

- No seriously I really don’t like that I can’t look at a portrait of them especially since this has quite literally been in these games since the very first one in the series (the only ones that don’t have portraits are the Wii games which I did really like but the camera actually changed to focus on the characters faces and I feel like the 3D models of PoOT just aren't really all that good, like they’re fine but definitely not the best)

- They got rid of the mini map and it’s a bitch to get to in the menu and as a consequence I don’t know where I am, where anyone else is or where anything is in general 

- Unpopular opinion but I don’t really like when they bring back previous bachelors and bachelorettes as marriage options again because then I get sad imagining that Ludas or Amir got sick of my farmer, divorced them and then abandoned their kid. I do like it when like in Island of Happiness Karen and Popori show up for a vacation for a season.

- I don't really understand the need for a lumber maker, in the old game all you had to do is hit wood with an axe, now you chop down the tree and use 20 logs to make a lumber maker which takes 2 hours to use and you can only make one lumber piece at a time so you have to go back and refill the maker

- The conversion of wood to lumber makes no sense to me 3 wood = 1 lumber is just dumb. 5 ores = 1 ingot makes sense to me but the lumber makes no sense

- I don't really get why they made the museum a thing (it kinda just feels like they’re ripping off Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing)

- The frame rate is just awful and drops constantly 

- None of the characters really feel all that interesting to me 

- I literally couldn’t care less about most of the bachelors and bachelorettes, they all feel so vanilla and boring (read: dull as dishwater). Even when I first saw the concept arts for them I literally couldn’t make a choice because I didn’t care about any of them (I’ll probably change my mind later once I get to know them better but not a good first impressions) that being said I’ll probably go for Iori, Linh or Reina because they look the most interesting 

- It’s a bit weird I can’t use my DLC outfits right when I get access to my dresser but instead have to wait until the boutique gets into town to pick up my outfits (At least I don’t have to also in-game pay for them).

- The loading screens are weird as fuck, it’s literally sometimes just a close up of the mayors nose.

- The game feels weirdly grindy like more so then usual in a farming sim

That’s really all I can think of for now, I’ve heard that they’ll be patching in more dialogue for the characters and I hope that the portraits come with it but I kinda doubt it. And yes I am still very upset about the portraits AND the lack of a mini map.

Feel free to add anything here but I honestly doubt anyone else is going to read this.

[forestofbeginnings]

You mentioned not having a positive view of SoS:PoOT - may I ask why? Because i agree. Everything we've seen on it so far seems great but there is just *something* about it (that i cant put my finger on) but i am just not excited about it either.

Yea, I can talk about my thoughts. I’ll be putting this under a cut just incase people want to avoid a PoOT-negative wall of text or just aren’t interested (I am a RF curator, after all! People probably aren’t here for my SoS opinions lol). 

I’ve always been a bit lukewarm on the game, but mainly because I kept forgetting it existed since RF5 information has been releasing at the same time as PoOT information. My growing distaste has come from the lackluster character designs, the general blandness of it all, and everything about the DLC. 

The character designs for the bachelor/ettes are extremely bland and probably the worst I’ve seen from the series in a long time. Not from a bad standpoint but in a “most of these characters could probably be a filler background character in a previous SoS game” way. You know, those portrait-less villagers in 3oT or even IoH. 

And when I mean bland, I’m saying it doesn’t seem to have an identity of its own. Most of the SoS games have this feeling of being their own distinctive entries in the series, but this game seems more of a...”this is another entry in a series” game than a distinctive game that can stand on its own. The heavy emphasis on cameo characters in its DLC has only made this identity issue worse. 

Speaking of the DLC, this is the one hill I will die on: it’s the worst part of what I’ve seen pre-release. Everything in the DLC are things that were included in previous games free of charge. The only other game with DLC in North Amerrica? All the updates included in it, from Woofio marriage to updated town events, were free updates in Japan. It was only paid in NA so XSeed would get paid for translation. The fact that Marvelous has decided to sell these previously free updates and features separate from the game AND announce it a month BEFORE release is just the scummiest shit in the world for me. 

Plus, people who are buying the limited edition aren’t even getting a discount or at least the costumes from the DLC thrown in. They’re already paying extra money for the game, but now they’re suddenly being asked to pay an extra $20 for the complete experience (and before someone says that the base game is still a complete experience, they have quests in the DLC; that’s scummy, don’t lie). 

I am happy for the people who are excited for the game (one of my friends has been waiting for a Felicity cameo for years, I can’t help but be happy for them), but yeesh it’s a game I do not have good vibes with. Maybe I’ll eat my words if I play the game and really enjoy it. I have it pre-ordered, I have zero plans to buy the DLC. And to me, this is just something to pass the time between now and RF5. 

If this turns out bad, I’ll be very cautious about supporting SoS in future games. This is the first non-remake game since Yoshifumi Hashimoto left SoS to create Hakama and RF4S/RF5, and they’re seriously starting off on the wrong foot.

The only positive that I can say is gay marriage at least?

[gascon-en-exil]

Mercilessly Judging the Men of Fòdlan: The Kingdom

It’s been a long time coming, over eight months in fact, but now that it may be assumed that the last of the DLC has been released and the fandom as a whole has settled comfortably into its various camps I think there’s no better time than now to answer that burning question: how raunchily, outrageously gay can the male cast of Three Houses possibly be? For those unfamiliar with this fun little series of mine, I’ve been applying my extensive knowledge and experience of gay male sex and hookup culture to the men of Fire Emblem, originally as a way of reckoning with the refusal of the games themselves to provide me with any worthwhile self-insert M/M content. I stand by that premise for FE16 - you all know how absolutely nothing appeals to me about m!Byleth or his prospects on that score - but in the years since my first outing of merciless judgment with Awakening that idea has expanded into something broader, an imaginative modern AU of sorts where all these guys are into men (if not always exclusively) and willing to put themselves out there in the lewd and semi-anonymous world of hookup apps in search of their preferred carnal delights.

A note on organization before we begin, as this material is too long to cram into one post. Excluding Byleth (as Avatars and their spawn always are for this project) there are twenty-one playable male characters in Three Houses. This makes for an even threeway division to preserve the eponymous conceit of the game, but not a particularly neat one. Aligned with the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus I therefore have below the male Lions, Kingdom knight and Azure Moon-exclusive Gilbert, and Faerghus-based underworld kingpin Yuri. As with all things concerning M/M outside of Byleth and his awkward S rank monologues, the Lions have it the most clear-cut.

The Empire

The Alliance

Dimitri

It’s rare that you can get a feeling for someone’s whole life story entirely from watching their presence in hookup spaces over time, but he’s an exception. Once a sweet, wide-eyed collegiate who looked eager to get dicked down by any reasonably polite and attractive top/vers, hard years have turned him grim and sad and just barely put together enough to be presentable for a clothed face pic, much less anything more revealing...and still eager to get dicked down. He’s been dealing with a lot lately, and even though he’s still game for a quickie from time to time (especially with muscle guys, a shallow weakness of his he’d blush to admit to out loud) a single roll in the sheets isn’t going to make him emotionally available. Apparently he’s already well-covered on that front as it is; with his charisma and open-minded way of looking at the world he’s made many friends and fuck buddies and companions who seem half like boyfriends and half like something indescribably beyond that, and a new trick would be hard-pressed to compete with that and likely wouldn’t want to if it means engaging with his demons. Still an enviable hookup partner though, with a full pert ass and a whole assortment of friends who love to play with him and anyone else who lands an invitation to his bed. His cock has left many a bottom drooling, but unfortunately he’s haunted by the memory of the time when he went too hard and nearly caused a medical emergency. Now he just takes it and doesn’t even let anyone ride him, but there are just as many men who aren’t complaining about that in the slightest. Has a very high chance of winding up in a tender and fulfilling poly marriage that’s still open on all sides - he’s got a lot of hot, sweaty love to give.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: body worship, muscle bears, group sex

Favored gift: a body pillow, on the infrequent occasions where he has to sleep alone with no one to cuddle

Dedue

One of those shy larger men who will never initiate conversation, because he’s been blown off one too many times for shallow reasons and isn’t expecting that to ever change. It doesn’t bother him greatly though, because as his profile states he’s in a relationship and he and his partner only play together so unless you’re only looking for friends - not impossible, as he’s got quite the array of engaging hobbies on display in his pics - you’ll have to accept that this bear has a cub...or something like that anyway. Bad at small talk and even a little embarrassed to talk about his expertise in the kitchen or the garden, it’s a completely different story when the lights are off where he’ll give cocky power bottoms and scoffing total tops exactly what they deserve. Sub bottoms on the other hand bring out his softer, cuddly side, and he’s more likely to be using his considerable weight to lovingly press them into the mattress as he opens them up with his tongue and eventually his dick. Is utterly devoted to his partner but enjoys watching him playing around with third parties, even if he’s almost never allowed to sit on the sidelines for the entire night. To the shock of everyone he’s actually a total vers, even if he leaves most tops stammering excuses and bending over for him anyway. He’s usually polite enough to stick to oral in those cases. He’ll never be the most sociable man, but he’s a real catch regardless in every other aspect and is no doubt looking forward to his inevitable wedding and only sometimes X-rated married life. Still fondly recalls the first time someone introduced him to the idea of sex while cooking, and now he takes it as a challenge (only when he’s cooking just for himself and his sexual partners, of course; he doesn’t want to be unsanitary).

Favored erotic tea time subjects: twunks, voyeurism, cum swapping

Favored gift: a chef’s apron short enough to let his junk hang free

Felix

Has a biting retort for every unsolicited nude and “looking?” ever sent to him, and he gets a lot of both when his pic is just enticing enough and his profile is full of enough acerbic wit to provoke the kinds of guys who actually read those things. Claims he’s vers, gets pissed whenever anyone tells him that’s just code for bottom, gets even more pissed after hookups when his partner points out that that’s totally true in his case. Prefers oral to conversation, both giving and getting, and he’s got a remarkable talent for handjobs that surprisingly doesn’t seem to be born from excessive masturbation. Not so great with fetishes - he punched the first guy to pull his hair while he was giving head, and passes made at him during his workouts leave him more annoyed at the interruption than aroused. Disarmed by anything too soft and cutesy so he’s not great with fems, but it’s unclear if this has anything to do with his lingering daddy issues that he’s not working out in the bedroom because they’re (probably) not like that. Not sentimental at all, but he’s probably got that one longtime slow burn affair he doesn’t bring up with his tricks. If anything ever comes of that he’ll vanish immediately from the app space, but until then he’s up for a 69 followed by a good long pounding - much longer than you’d expect from someone of his frame. Good thing too, because he loves making his partners cut loose and give it to him raw and hard.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: “straight” guys, dildos, pig sluts 

Favored gift: high-quality lube. and lots of it

Ashe

Everyone’s BFF, sweet and affable and able to bounce from friend group to friend group even without always having to take his clothes off. Usually finds himself as the token twink surrounded by men who are very much not that, because they value his friendship and reliability (and also his ass, as expected). Did not have the best home life and has probably had to do a few shady things to get by, but with all that mostly behind him anyone would be happy to date him or even just to take a walk with him, as he’s quite outdoorsy when he’s not taking care of relatives or less responsible friends. A bottom by expectation because there’s not much else one can infer when he shows up to bars and house parties alike in the company of guys twice his size who aren’t shy about being casually handsy with him. Still, has learned to be quite deft when the need arises and knows how to stimulate on multiple fronts, whether for one partner or several. His weakness for muscles is genuine too, and he loves a firm chest as much as taking some guy’s thick meat. Paradoxically doesn’t have a lot of patience for dumb jocks, but since he knows just about everyone worth knowing (and sleeping with) in his area and works the freckled fresh-faced young cutie angle with an artlessness that surprises some of his less gifted peers he’s bound to wind up in a comfortable relationship of some kind or another. Prefers to have sex with the lights on, and if given the option will cuddle for a long time afterward to avoid turning them off. His ass has freckles too, but he rolls his eyes when he gets asked that.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: gym sex, spit roasting, breaking in new bottoms

Favored gift: a sensible jockstrap, for workouts and for dates

Sylvain

Everyone you know has slept with him, but almost never more than once. You might have even met him in person long before you encounter his minimalist profile with its headless abs pic hitting you up with a shot of his erection measured against a beer can followed by an address. Gets a lot of action on that pic alone, but repeats are few and far between when he pulls out his phone right after pulling out of his guy of the hour and starts browsing through what’s on offer again and slow jerking. Not a big fan of FWBs met through hookups since he always feels like they’re being too clingy even if they just happened to get horny for him again a few weeks later. Does not like to talk, especially about his family, and he almost never extends an invitation to spend the night. Still, as callous as he is that cock is impressive and he knows how to put it to work. Good with his mouth too, and true to his cultivated total top persona he’d sooner rim than blow. He’s also successful and likeable enough in his personal life to have buddies who’ll play around with him, and he might even have some kind of nebulous long term thing going with one or two of them that they strictly don’t discuss. Bottoms only as a challenge, but he’s not great at it and doesn’t have the stamina to last very long while riding. Is on PreP and uses condoms religiously so he’s got that going for him, but testing after sex with him is still recommended because there’s really no telling how many other holes he’s filled that week. Likes twinks and twunks, but loudly refuses to ever be a sugar daddy no matter how desperate he might get in his later years assuming he doesn’t die of untreated syphilis or something equally appropriate and ridiculous.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: marathon fucking, double penetration, open relationships

Favored gift: a fleshlight molded into the shape of his favorite fuck buddy’s hole, for sentimentality

Gilbert

His pics are neither very current nor very flattering, and he doesn’t excel at small talk although he’s evidently been around long enough to know how to get an open-minded hookup over to his place from time to time. Encounters are fast and fumbling and drawn out more by his waning libido than anything else, and half the time he’ll settle for watching a guy play with himself in front of him while he makes an effort to get into it. It would be inaccurate to say that he’s not a romantic man; rather, it’s as though all his passion has been left behind in a difficult former life that he only reveals some of in long wistful moments over multiple encounters. Doesn’t get many repeats however on account of the lackluster performances, and also because his stubbornness bordering on self-righteousness about certain topics becomes very grating very quickly. Based on the stories he tells and the few pictures he has to show he was quite a catch in his earlier days, but circumstances and being closeted until much later in life kept him from exploring as much as he wanted. Has the potential to end up in a loving if not particularly sexual relationship with someone provided they’re extremely patient as he works through and/or learns to set aside his numerous hangups. There are worse fates...but never, ever call him daddy. It brings up a lot of bad memories, plus he just thinks it’s weird. Kink is something he left behind decades ago when he resigned himself to the knowledge that he wasn’t going to be getting much vanilla action, much less anything more exotic.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: mutual masturbation, actual straight guys, spooning

Favored gift: the balls to get some closure

Yuri

A consummate professional, albeit one whose marketing strategy carefully conceals that fact and also leaves no room for the kind of casual bigotry that flourishes on hookup apps - having a problem with “no fems” is expected from the build and the guyliner, but he’s all for equal opportunity sex even on top of that. Accustomed to the usual array of lonely and horny men who hit him up for pics and dirty chat and the occasional good time, and skilled enough in a variety of roles to perform whatever’s being asked of him. It’s not entirely clear where his own tastes lie; even the muscled closet cases who show up in his messages on the DL don’t seem to do all that much for him if they’re not paying. A former career in the arts has left him with an entertainer’s flair for pleasuring his clients both in and out of the bedroom along with an eclectic skill set that always finds a way to get put to work during sex. He can grind his hips, swirl his tongue, arch his back, and moan in the just the right ways to drive his partners wild, and all that experience also lends itself to his ability to patiently tutor even the clumsiest of lovers into something resembling competence, enough for them to get off if not himself. Bottoms more often than he tops, but he’s vers enough in skill and in preference to pivot when necessary and will probably have little trouble keeping this gig of his going later in life as well. He may not ever end in a proper relationship, but he’ll still do well for himself in an unorthodox way in keeping with the curiously world-weary optimism he sometimes espouses during pillow talk with guys who actually interest him enough for conversation.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: flip fucking, big top/small bottom, religious kink

Favored gift: creative restraints, for when he’s feeling acrobatic

[asleepinawell]

It still really annoys me that they just didn't make everyone bi in three houses, or at least they should have made Shamir an option just based off her a support with the professor, still really bugs me

yeah they easily could have done that, and the fact there was only one bi man (until they patched in another one with the dlc) really spoke to how uncomfortable the series still is with that stuff. but especially in three houses where the S support stuff is kind of a last minute thing without much impact (in comparison to awakening for example where everyone shacks up mid-game) there's literally zero reason they couldn't have just made everyone bi.

what I do like is a lot of the paired endings and supports that aren't with byleth/the player character that are pretty gay (dorothea/petra, shamir/catherine, ferdinand/hubert, and annette/mercedes come to mind). they're mostly not explicitly together as a couple in the same way the hetero pairings are, but...ugh...it's like on the one hand the devs probably didn't have the gays marry and have kids because homophobia and don't want to gross out their homophobic fans, but on the other hand I'm more drawn to queer stories that don't hit the stereotypical 'happy ending' of marriage and kids and end up being queer couples existing in their own space by their own rules which maybe doesn't look like a conventional shared ending. but I don't think that's what the devs intended those to be? it was more like subtext than deliberate redefining of what relationships are. felt like the xena days of everyone knows they're in a relationship but the network says no.

(I think the biggest indicator that they were trying to tone down the gay that any player might have to encounter aimed at them is with characters like Petra who has a pretty gay ending with Dorothea but can only be S supported by m!Byleth...so it's not that she wasn't into Byleth or not into women, they just didn't want to add more explicitly gay options).

also, possibly controversial opinion, but I'm more invested in the pairings that don't involve byleth and those were the ones I really wanted the game to acknowledge. like I was much more interested in Shamir/Catherine than Shamir/Byleth. and the supports between them were pretty gay! and it was like...they could have done a much worse job, but they could have done better too. by which I mean edelgard and dorothea's shared ending should have been as gay as their B support was and that's that on that.

also I'm really gay for Shamir so that is a huge mood and regardless of everything I just said the fact she couldn't be S supported by the female player character is a travesty.

so basically...I have a lot of complicated feelings about it but also yes I 100% agree with you

[blowingoffsteam2]

Ultimania Updates-SRT

Gathered in one place, here’s the updates from the new Ultimania (and maybe some other tidbits) added to the Sleeping Realm Theory (SRT) doc so far.  The sections these updates are found in are bolded so you can find them within the doc and read the surrounding context:

1.  The Theory Itself

Time travel at KG to save everyone’s hearts has been confirmed by Nomura! Look, see, where we said the second timeline went Save Everyone > Time Travel / Rewind > Xehanort Gay Dies After Decades Long Marriage Dispute, that’s been confirmed!

Q: When we leave the Final World, we are back to the point just before Sora and his friends were defeated. Why is that?

Nomura: “The power of awakening is essentially "the power to put sleeping hearts back the way they were." But the impact of forcing his friends' fading hearts back the way they were rewrote reality, and created a singularity. The rewrite caused the chronology in which they were destroyed to have "never happened." Source

2. Dive to the Heart

Now that the main interview with Nomura has been translated, it’s confirmed a very important thing for this theory.

“Q: The Final World, a place very important to the story, appeared in the game, but what kind of world is it?

A: It is a place where those just a step from death arrive, connected to the Station of Waking. Up until now, the Station of Waking was always a dark place where the floor was made of stained glass, where the condition of the inside of one's heart could be shown, but in this case I made The Final World a place where I could show [that] more concretely, a place similar to a portal to [people's] respective hearts. Within the game, it's said that sleep and death are intimately linked, so if one's heart were in a state of sleep and they found themselves in the Station of Waking, the idea is that if they moved on from there, they would find themselves in The Final World.” - Nomura, KH3 Ultimania.

What this says basically, is to arrive in The Final World during Dive to the Heart in the first place, your heart should already be “in a state of sleep”. Nomura has confirmed, before the first DTTH we see, at the very start of the game we play, Sora is already in a state of sleep.

3. KHII.9(Context: This update is placed in the translation section talking about Riku’s growth from saying his wish is to have “strength protect the things that matter”- “Daiji na mono”- in BBS to “strength to protect my cherished person” in KH3- “Taisetsu na hito”)

The Ultimania actually goes out of its way to explicitly state this growth on Riku’s character page: “‘I want to become strong enough to protect the things that matter.’ Roughly 10 years later, after many twists and turns, he has finally obtained the strength to protect the person who matters.”

4.  KH3 for realsies this time

(Context: This one is in regards to the “logo conspiracy”, just to show that this sort of obscure hinting is not beyond something Nomura would do)

In an interview with Nomura in 2016, he revealed that he hid secret clues in the cover art for 1.5, 2.5, and 2.8. Because of course he did, I guess!

“Nomura: There are actually two secrets about the illustrations from [KH1.5] until [KH2.8]. Extremely attentive KH fans might have already discovered them, but one is that Sora's movements change from sitting, to standing, to walking. One more is that when you line up the three illustrations, you'll notice that they show the flow of time with changes in the sky. [KH1.5] is sunset becoming night, [KH2.5] is the middle of the night, and [KH2.8] is night breaking into dawn. Those three illustrations have a message regarding the final chapter, [KHIII].”

Ultimania Update: Oh boy did you think Nomura was done? Cause he wasn’t!

These party people were confirmed by Nomura in the Ultimania to actually be robed figures, sneakily placed to look apart of the building, people hidden in plain sight. What’s silly is that people had been wondering this exact thing when the box art had been revealed, and that too got shot down on the same premise of “reading too much into it”.

5. The Paopu Fruit

In the Ultimania, Irino (Sora’s VA) stated that they recorded two versions of the paopu scene:

Irino: “We recorded both a sharing scenario and a not sharing scenario. During the editing, it wasn’t decided which [Nomura] would go with, but it seems in the end he went with the sharing scenario.” - KH3 Ultimania VA Interview

In an unseen timeline (the waking/real world) a litany of things could go differently, and while this tidbit could be nothing, it’s at least an interesting note and a fun little fact.

6.  Flowmotion and Attraction Flow

There’s a section showing concept art and planning for Attraction Flows. (thanks to @gummiphoned for the discovery and photos!)

In the bottom corner, there’s an in game concept example. 

With Sora in his DDD outfit.

Set in DDD’s Traverse Town. 

7.  Reality Shift

There’s a section that elaborates a little on the Combined Keyblade, confirming it to be the very same one we see in DDD.

Top Text: "During the special event in the realm of darkness, when Sora and Riku deal the finishing blow against the Demon Tower, the two of them used their fusion keyblade. That keyblade is the same as the one that appeared in 3D."

Bottom Text: "In 3D this fusion keyblade appeared in The World That Never Was when using Reality Shift."

8.  Promotional Materials

Later, official sources started to use a simple but unrelated, specific hashtag.

夢しかない (yume shika nai) translated to “ONLY DREAM” or just “There is only a dream”. The first time it’s used was the 6 days to go countdown

It was then used moving forward in all promotional tweets including release day (PlayStation japan was also using the tag). The last time they used this was the secret movie announcement tweet.

9.  The Secret Ending

This has actually been confirmed by Nomura to take place after KH3 and that when Sora disappears in the ending he arrives here. More or less exactly as we thought.

“Q: I see. Then, continuing on, I'd like to ask about the secret movie; is the location connected to the ending? A: Yes. After disappearing in the ending, Sora arrives in the world shown in the secret movie.” - Nomura, KH3 Ultimania.

10.  Shibuya, Baby!

Nomura also made note that this Shibuya isn’t the original in universe TWEWY world Shibuya. It’s Shibuya, but ~Shibuya~. As in, some kind of alternate version.

“Q: Is the place Sora is in the same world as the one in The World Ends With You?

A: It looks that way. However, rather than saying Sora has gone to the TWEWY world, the meaning is that it's not exactly Shibuya, but ~Shibuya~ (note: this is hard to explain in English, but instead of it being written in kanji, the name for "Shibuya" is written in katakana here. This basically means it's not the same Shibuya as in TWEWY or in the real world.) Also, although Sora promised Neku and his friends that they would meet again in Shibuya, this video is not connected to that.” - Nomura, KH3 Ultimania

11.  Rage Form

From the Dengeki Playstation interview:

--There's a form that appears called "Rage Form," which reminds us of the "Anti Form" from KH2. What is the setup behind that?

Nomura: The forms in this title are very different from that of KH2, so we decided to change all the names. Rage does indeed have characteristics that are reminiscent of Anti, but it's basically a separate thing setup wise. Anti is based on Sora getting completely stained in darkness, but Rage doesn't go quite that far. It's based on him going into a rampage state, controlled by feelings of anger.

12.  Namine

Nomura has since elaborated a little bit on what happens with Namine tho it still doesn’t really answer the biggest question. It’s said that when Kairi took the blow from Xehanort, this set her free (even if we don’t see a heart whatsoever). Nomura plans on explaining it more down the road, apparently.

13.  Xion

Nomura has since stated in an interview that upcoming DLC will go into Xion and how she’s here so, hooray!

[fe14festivalofbondstranslations]

I don’t have a Switch, but FE16

Quick note: the original Japanese title for this game seems to be “Fire Emblem: Flower Snow Moon.”

“Flower Snow Moon” is a Japanese art term borrowed from the Chinese meant to represent the beautiful things of the three seasons: Spring (flower), Winter (snow), and Autumn (Moon). Apparently “Wind” is meant to represent the summer, but I don’t think that was part of the original term? If anything, Flower, Snow, and Moon represent the Three Houses while you, the player may represent the unmentioned “Wind”. Kinda cool.

After seeing the trailer I really like some of the new mechanics. I like the idea that you’re leading an actual army this time around instead of one person going forth and slaying multiple people (which, while awesome, has never really sat right with me), and I’m actually kind of glad that they don’t have the weapons triangle, because that’s something that I did like about Echoes. I’m a little disappointed that the weapons are breakable again, but they needed to mix in a challenge somewhere. And I am so so glad that the Archer apparently can attack from close distance again because I absolutely loved that from Echoes.

Mechanics aside, if this is going along the ‘three routes’ direction with the three houses, then I would really prefer something similar to Shin Megami Tensei IV in terms of storyline and morality. It’d be awesome if everything was morally gray and no real right answer. Like you could only pick one house and the other two die on the route. I really would prefer something bittersweet and not all feel-good (Revelation) for once. Again, Echoes was fantastic that it made even the main villains somewhat likable. Like how Jedah was doing everything he could for the sake of Father Duma. Evil as he was, his motives were surprisingly sad.

As for supports, I actually preferred Echoes’s system, in which not everybody talked to each other. And that to me was great because it was really realistic; you are able to tell the personality of each individual character by who they willingly hung out with. I know a lot of people were disappointed with the lack of supports in Echoes, but it was something I really liked because the supports were very in depth and actually very meaningful. Unlike Fates because there were so many conversations that the majority of them were just shallow nonsense (usually about food) because the writers couldn’t think of something meaningful for all of them (and they had to correlate with every route). The only change I would make for this is to still have the Avatar or Lord (whatever you play as) be able to talk to everyone like in Awakening. I was genuinely surprised that Alm and Celica couldn’t.

Come to think of it, if there are fewer supports, that means that you could also have different supports for each route, like Corrin and Azura in Fates. That would be pretty awesome. I speak from the meta sense because how much space is in the game card for the supports, really? Considering the near two hundred supports from Fates that were all the same in every route except for Corrin and Azura, I think they were pushing the issue of memory space. 

Now, I did see a complaint that Fire Emblem is turning too anime-ish, and I somewhat agree. Fates was a huge blowout on anime character stereotypes and relationships and fanservice, and somehow the art was just too cutesy for my tastes. I definitely preferred both Awakening and Echoes art style. So far though, I don’t actually think it looks too bad. It’s definitely very anime, but as long as the actual personalities of the characters isn’t some anime stereotype, that’s already a win in my book.

I would prefer that there not be a child mechanic, but I wouldn’t mind a direct sequel FE17 about their children, like with Eliwood and Roy. That would actually make an amazing DLC if the game could read your save data and give you another three different possible storylines depending on what your choice in FE16 was, but still reusing old maps.

And then LGBT+, because it’s not actually something new to the series, but Fates was the first time that same-sex marriage was openly feasible, even if your options weren’t all that great (no offense to Niles and Rhajat, really, but...).

Unrealistically speaking I just want most everyone to be bisexual so you can pair up whoever with whoever as you please, but I’d be happy if there was actually a more even mix this time around. Like 1/4 straight, 1/4 gay, 1/4 lesbian, and 1/4 bi. And trans characters that you learn are trans during their supports (although if that could be a plot point, that would actually be really cool). And maybe one or two asexual characters. Oh, and characters who are already married and have a family waiting for them. Like, give me a character that actually came from a happy life and are trying to go back from the war to a happy life, jeez. 

Realistically speaking, there will probably only be one of each because LGBT+ is still a tricky subject in Japan. Honestly, I thought that Python (ambiguously bi) and Forsyth’s (also ambiguously bi) relationship and Leon (clearly gay but not given a label) and Lukas (ambiguously asexual/aromantic) were really well handled. I actually really like that they weren’t given outright labels about their sexuality, considering that this is technically medieval times and such labels weren’t invented yet. It made it both immersive and inclusive at the same time. 

Finally, the main thing I really want to know is where and when this game is going to be taking place. Where does it fall in the timelines? Are we going to see some connections to Awakening again? Or maybe this time we’ll be visiting Eirika and Ephraim's homeland before it was their homeland? Roy? Ike? Is the Falchion going to make an appearance? What’s the lore going to be? Honestly, that’s what I’m most excited about. I love long-running video game series for their lore, like Legend of Zelda. 

Guess it’s time to save up for a Switch. My parents will kill me, of course, but fuck it. It’s my money that I earned. 

~Kiyoshi

[gaminginsteadofsleep]

Fallout 4

Release Date: November 2015 Developer: Bethesda Platform: Playstation 4

My first gaming review! Sadly, I’m, like, 3 years late and no one cares, but hey, whatever. I only recently picked up the Fallout series in the past 2 or 3 years. The only one I’ve played fully before this was Fallout 3, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I honestly didn’t think Fallout 4 would be as good. I mean, 3 had the capital and all the cool famous ruins and museums to explore. Nothing like finding Super Mutants on Capitol Hill. But Fallout 4 was pleasantly surprising. I fell in love with exploring the Commonwealth and I loved the addition of more fleshed out companions (the Bioware fan in me was tickled). It was definitely a Bethesda game, though. I swear to God, I wish I had a dollar for every time a Brahmin just spontaneously appeared in a building or got stuck awkwardly in between other in-game items. Or that lovely moment when you’re engaging in dialogue and an enemy just fucking nails you out of nowhere. Lovely. 

My biggest issue was the plot was so awkward. Better game reviewers than I (all of them) have discussed the fact that the game is like “you’re married and you have a son and YOU’VE GOT TO FIND HIM”. Like, wtf, I play Bethesda games to shape my own characters and decisions. I don’t wanna be a mom. This would’ve been way more engaging if they kidnapped my dog (no, dogmeat!!) Also I feel bad for all the gay gamers who were suddenly saddled in a straight marriage right out of the gate. I mean, thanks for killing off the spouse but still. Bleh.

Pros: 

Companions! Hell yeah. I loved learning more about them and their commentary throughout the Commonwealth. My favorites were Piper, Nick Valentine, Deacon, and Hancock. 

Smoother controls and user-interface. Everything felt smoother and more polished then Fallout 3

I enjoyed the split between the different factions. I ended up liking the Railroad most just because they seemed the most actualized as characters (why the fuck is Preston Garvey the only minutemen of any importance??)

Massachusetts was fun to explore. A mix of old historic monuments and locations but also just fun every day places.

Cons:

For fuck’s sake Bethesda why is there so little difference between the graphics of Fallout 3 and 4? New engine bitches

I don’t care about my son. I mean the ending with Shaun was mildly touching but don’t marry me off and give me children. A father is one thing… making me a nuclear family was meh.

Glitches. all the glitches

I felt like there was less ability to make choices. You tended to be a pretty good character no matter what. No blowing up towns or anything. Not until the DLC anyway. It just felt more rigid in the morals than previous Fallout games (not that I miss the Karma mechanism)

DLCs:

The added Workshop DLCs were alright. I only got them because I bought all the Fallout 4 DLCs as a bundle on sale. I enjoyed setting up settlements well-enough but adding builders and cages didn’t appeal to me much personally. 

Automatron was pretty simple “plot” wise but I did like building robots for whatever reason. It’s was amusing to Frankenstein robots together and have them help my settlements. 

I’ve had mixed feelings about Vault-Tec Workshop. On one hand, building a Vault and running it, experiments or not, would be good fun. Building a Vault from scratch, however? A bit too much building for me. 

Far Harbor was excellent. I enjoyed it’s morally gray options, the additional information on Nick’s past and his brother DiMA, and the creepy fog and more weirdly mutated creatures. 

And in the end I didn’t even really delve into Nuka World. The bland reviews and focus on Raiders (why would I want to raid settlements I built myself??) had me uninterested overall. 

Final Thoughts:

I enjoyed Fallout 4 despite it’s shortcomings and put plenty of hours into scouring the Commonwealth. I’ll be interested to see where Fallout 5 takes the franchise since Fallout 76 seems to be one hell of a flop.

SCORE: 9/10