#i much much preferred the first game having all the lore and backstories and everything be like... almost secondary

[puphoods]

i have to be honest having never finished below zero as much as i thoguht it was cool if 3 is a continuation of that story rather than something new on 4546b i will be disappointed... i would much prefer more expansion of the planets ecosystems + biodiversity + history rather than all the architect stuff... it was really interesting just not what im here for

[aztarion]

hiii jez, your sol tag is incredible and i love everything about her!! best aesthetic & best most fucked up vampire bbgirl of all time <3 do you have any interesting facts or random tidbits of lore about her that you are willing to share or link me to? wish to know everything & more about her asap tysm 🥰

whaaaat hi bree!! 😭 that oc tag is so thrown together and unorganised girl youre insane putting yourself through that but omfg its til death do us part now 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

i dont really post writing with my ocs much on tumblr but i blabbered for like an hour here im so sorry in advance i hope its a little entertaining…. tw for ed mention and self harm but its just your regular vtm stuff if youre familiar with the background ttrpg

soledad is her courier alias, she usually goes by that or the inevitable nickname sol, which doubles as a small remnant of her old life — her real name is solona ^^

she is first gen mexican-filipina, grew up in california before moving to arizona

didn’t care for academics much; preferred working with her hands — she dropped out of studies as soon as it was acceptable and went into business training under her dad and older brother as a mechanic

very laidback, easygoing, quietly contented; never had sprawling ambitions or aspirations and she was cool with that (was and is a little bit of a perfectionist with her work tho). this created a wedge with her mom who did nawt like the notion of her only daughter wasting prime years and a pretty face in a dingy garage. (i never get it *exactly* how i want in art & have never found a faceclaim i love, but i kinda picture her overall look as like. a timeless, slightly restless sort of dark beauty; like her eyes are always trying to tell you something in spite of herself, even when she looks totally serene lol)

anyway! one of moms fears are realized — sol ends up with a very noticeable facial scar (semi glasgow smile? mouth to under ear and a little further than that even, cheek just super spliced) due to an accident in the garage. sad! oh well she’s the joker now (or she will be after julian)

wait actually while im yapping about backstory i deviate a little from the game options just to make things more juicy and personal but! to me she first meets julian having to work on his suzuki and they hit it off. pre-night road as mentioned she is very easygoing — easily charmed and is herself charming — they def get along like a house on fire. julian would no doubt mentally take note of her whole roll-with-the-punches, laissez-faire attitude — naturally that just seems like a quality that might come in handy when you bite someone and turn them into a creature of the night. also the attentive, methodical approach she takes to her work, and when needed, her on the spot workarounds — he doesn’t want some dumb unreliable chump childe. and alright bear with him here: so it’s not relevant strictly in terms of her being thee potential great american embrace candidate he may be planning for right now, but man shes kiiiiinda cute and the scar is kiiiiiiiinda badass and its kiiiiinda hot that she knows exactly what she’s doing under the hood.…….Julian’s of course no slouch but he prefers it when others are doing the dirty work for him and she knows her stuff. so he’s thinking yeah this might work out. wait did she just say she plays nintendo too — oh this is definitely working out.

well it didn’t work out — sol ends up caitiff. julian accidentally botched her embrace 👍 whoops. but he teaches her blood sorcery as soon as possible — she can fly under the radar as a regular banu haqim. so it does work out! the sire/childe bond likely did some heavy lifting in terms of their relationship but sol was still pretty dopey heart eyes for julian in the beginning, like truly thought he was brilliant and funny and followed whatever he said no questions — really trusted him, figured with him being more experienced and so whipsmart and knowledgeable that he was utterly infallible. julian knew best and like didn’t he keep her safe trying to cover for the whole clanless thing……how could he have anything but Good Intentions dot dot dot……

in the decade after julian goes MIA, sol’s entire demeanor takes a nosedive. in the ingame text, julian and d’espine are described as being ‘fledgling-like’ in that they still have that liveliness to them, like a constant subtle Blush of Life effect. sol had that too in the years w julian, but after so long alone and having to maintain that isolation in order to ghost by in both the human world and undead while drugrunning & couriering, she gets cold — corpse and mind. outwardly she’s very composed; there’s little to no animation (no once-effortless smile, not even a ghost of the dimple in her unscarred cheek ! ) but her inner monologue is distrustful, has aged — is honestly a little paranoid and bitter sometimes — and overly nervous where she once would never have been. when julian returns it’s noted how young he still seems in comparison. that doesnt help the grudge she holds

i think her nerves skyrocket even more so when she feels aila stir. while u cant choose merits/flaws in night road like the table top, i feel like she would have the bulimic derangement that causes a kindred to gorge or throw up blood at random after feeding due to stress — she’s literally just THAT internally anxious. the game makes a point ensuring youre well fed on your next visit to tucson’s elysium since you showed up starving at the beginning, but after the office confrontation with lettow asking what happened to aila — which despite going successfully & having an excellent relationship with him — sol still probably LEGS it out of the viper once dove interrupts and ends up vomiting in an alley before jumping in her car🤦‍♀️ so much for paying alexander to acquire blood and making a good impression this time…..what a waste. and u know what Riga probably saw the whole mortifying ordeal too smh

ok im sorry i could talk abt the entire game like this i have so many headcanons

ooh straight up just facts & a little tldr:

so she’s 5’8; long pretty neck, slim hourglass figure with soft heavy curves, distinctly confident arms and legs, various tattoos: depictions of scorpions and snakes, the sun, spanish and tagalog script in black and red ink. she’s around whatever Julian’s human age wouldve been, i guess mid twenties range

is Julian’s Childe but due to a botched embrace ends up caitiff. masquerades as a banu haqim that, when in the presence of more prejudiced vampire society, in turn masquerades as something traditionally camarilla-fronting: malk/toreador/ventrue, whatever. it’s complicated! por los clavos de cristo does she wish she was back in that shitty little garage 20 yrs ago

throws up when nervous; is constantly a little hungry and risking an oops moment but for the most part maintains iron composure — its become a whittled and useful hard shell

learns blood sorcery right off the bat from julian, learns protean from lettow after staking reremouse w him. she usually keeps things clean and impersonal with a gun and deft precision (and elena with more guns!) but she still likes working with her hands: in close combat, especially when it involves other supernaturals, she keeps elena out of the fight and doubles up that weird combo of blood sorcery + protean — is frankly just a messy blur of slit wrists bloody sigils and slashing claws. (ough wanna draw this ugly visual so bad but omg i just know it wouldn’t work out w my skillset rn)

omg i feel like ive gone on forever in a bunch of directions while saying nothing helpp. ill stop here and spare you! thank you so much for asking bree!! :D <3 you have to tell me about your courier now!!

^ us night roading

[saibugslegacy]

Percival Valley Ask Game

Because of my foolishness I am now committed to make these with all my MCs so here we go. Questions by @rypnami

1) if your mc was an animagus, what would their form be? if they are, what is their form?

I genuinely have no idea for Percival. Maybe a horse?

2) if they could choose what animagus form they would take, would it be the same? or would they want to have a different animal form?

Percival would choose to not be an animagus because he has enough to worry about and the process is a lot of work

3) does your mc have a favourite colour? why is it their favourite?

Purple! No reason, he just really likes it. Idris is definitely lucky it's purple though considering his hair is stuck that way

4) in a modern au, would your mc use social media? what would their preferred platform be? why is if their preferred one?

Probably Reddit and Twitter if I'm being honest with myself

5) did you consult wand lore when choosing their wand? if so, why did you pick what you did? if not, would you ever change wand details to match your mc?

I did! Percival has the most main character wand ever: elder wood and phoenix feather. Elder wood is ridiculously powerful and rare, and apparently the users are marked for a “special destiny”. Phoenix feather is mainly to allude to his patronus being a phoenix

6) what is your mc’s diet? are they vegan, vegetarian, do they eat whatever? Why?

He's a fairly picky eater because he has a lot of sensory issues around food but otherwise no special diet

7) what is your mc’s backstory as to why they didn’t join hogwarts until 5th year? or did you retcon that part of the story when creating them?

Percival (and Idris) didnt go to Hogwarts because their father kept sending the letters back with the reply saying his children would not be attending. Then he died and the twins were stuck in an orphanage. Professor Fig personally showed up to tell them about Hogwarts and magic and they decided to go 5th year

8) what house is your mc in? why are they in that house?

Percival is a Ravenclaw because he is a fucking nerd. Kidding, but it's not entirely wrong. He hates not knowing things, he loves answering unanswered questions, and his curiosity is a hust part of him. There are so many times he gets scared and wants to bail on everything, but he stays because he's so curious and refuses to leave the questions unanswered

9) were you inspired by characters from other media when making your mc? if so, which characters? and how did they influence your mc?

Not from media, but Percival was based on one of my old OCs named Julian Athantis

10) does your mc have any special abilities? (legilimens, parsletongue, metamorphagus, etc) how do they choose to use these powers? did you give them powers for fun, or does it relate to their backstory/plot?

Other than the sense that at first he has more Ancient Magic abilities no. Unless a dark curse counts

11) what is your mc’s blood status? how does it affect their time at hogwarts? how does it affect their home life?

They're both half-bloods but it doesn't affect them that much. The most it does is that they were raised muggles and have to try and uncover their father's legacy

12) did your mc open the repository? why or why not?

They did not because they knew they didn't want that much power

13) if your mc opened the repository, how did absorbing all that power affect them, if it did at all?

N/A

14) what does your mc think of the keepers? do they trust them? why or why not?

Percival fucking hates those people. They're hoarding and hiding and even erasing knowledge. But worst is that they are testing and forcing 15 year old children to do their dirty work. A N D they constantly talk down to and about Idris

15) how does your mc’s story continue after 5th year? how do they cope with everything that happened with ranrok, sebastian, etc?

Well I can't spoil that, but I can tell you Percival's curse has a large part to play

16) did your mc learn the unforgivables? why or why not?

No, but he would have had he been given the opportunity because he thinks the limitation of knowledge is absurd

17) did your mc turn in sebastian? why or why not?

He does not. For….reasons :)

18) what is your mc’s family like? do they have siblings? do they still have parents?

They had two parents who were amazing parents and a little sister Annabelle but all three were killed by Ranrok and their father did lie to them their whole lives

19) does your mc have a love interest? who is it? why did your mc fall for that character, if they do have a love interest?

Garreth Weasley! Percy falls for Garreth because he's so…laid back. He's a spot of sunshine and fun when Percival doesn't have it. And he just cares so much about Percival, even thought Percival isn't as fun or sweet as Garreth

20) does your mc have a favourite spell? if so, what is it and why do they like it the most?

If he had to pick one probably the disillusionment charm. He prefers charms over any other type of spell and he prefers being discreet so this spell helps him avoid unnecessary fights

21) if you could change anything that the mc does in the game, what would it be? why would you change it? how would you change it? (ie; a line they say, an event of a quest, things of that nature)

The storyling of the Sallow twins has such a huge impact on the game but nothing comes of it in the end. Whether its curing Anne, not being able to, or even something as simple as knowing how/where the twins end up would be better

22) does your mc have any pets? if so, why do they have the pets they have? and for fun, what are their pets’ names?

Prof. Weasley gets Percival a Eurasian eagle owl over the summer so he can keep in touch with his friends but that's it

23) when designing your mc, why did you choose the appearance you did? has it changed at all since you first made them? would you change anything now?

Honestly I had a pretty clear image of Idris in my mind and even made them first. I just used the same face and shape and such to make Percival then changed his hair, skintone, and scars. I wish I could find a style that was curlier because his hair isn't supposed to be that straight but that one was the closest I could find

24) where is your mc from? where is their family from?

They are scottish on their father's side and South African on their mother's

25) what is your mc’s favourite season? why is it their favourite?

Summer, he loves being able to sit outside and read without it being too cold or rainy

26) how about your mc’s favourite holiday? what makes it special to them?

He doesn't particularly care for holidays anymore but he used to love his and Idris’ birthday

27) if your mc wasn’t in their current house, where would they have been sorted? why do you think they’d be there?

Gryffindor. Percival wants absolutely nothing to do with Ancient Magic and goblins and poachers. In fact he's terrified of all of the above. But every time he squares his shoulders and does it anyway. That screams bravery to me.

28) does your mc have a favourite childhood toy? if so, what was it? do they still have it with them?

He has a bracelet that a little baby Idris made him that he doesnt wear anymore because hes so scared to lose it

29) what kind of music would your mc like? is there a reason?

Im sorry but Percival would adore Taylor Swift. He likes lyrics and hed like fun pop songs so Taylor is the best bet

30) last but not least, just tell us something you love about your mc!

I loooove that his hair is purple. Something about having a character in the 1800s with colored hair makes me excited

[thespianinthebackcorner]

I'm pretty sure Squid Sisters were already pretty popular back in the Splatoon 1-Splatoon 2 days. After all, their relationship, agent lives and family drama was the main focus of the plot (among saving the squid society). And even nowadays, people still love them. They're THE Splatoon icons. Have you forgotten how people went crazy over the Reporter Callie outfit? There were fanarts everywhere!

Off The Hook are also really interesting - they played a huge part in Octo Expansion (you know, the DLC with the biggest, darkest, most liked lore and aesthetic?) and in Side Order, we also know their backstories (especially Marina's backstory is pure fanfic material, people love the angsty deserter trope + she was a breath of fresh air and a mystery as a first important non-enemy octoling character ever). Not to mention that they're literal canon lesbians with healthy and interesting dynamics.

What do we know about Deep Cut?? They've got nothing going on. They were villains in the Splatoon 3 storymode but mind you, not even the main villains. They grew up together, they come from some prestigious families that aren't mentioned ANYWHERE outside of the Sunken Scrolls, we know nothing about them. They don't have backstories, they don't have interesting dynamics (they're just 3 random people and their bond isn't even shown to be that strong, of course people prefer the SS family drama or OTH lesbian romance). Deep Cut is boring, of course people don't care about them, don't blame us, blame Nintendo for neglecting them.

Also, stop acting like you're better than others because you don't care about the icky romance and give deserved equal attention to every poor idol that gets overshadowed by the lesbians. People DO care about other Splatoon characters. There are fanarts of the Agents (Agent 24 is problably the second most popular ship right after Pearlina), non-idol Splatbands, even Craig Cuttlefish and Octavio! Maybe you'll see all this content if you stop exclusively browsing only the pearlina tag. Also accept that Deep Cut is boring.

ooh, another one.

Okay, I don't have all the time to type up an entire essay (tbh I lowkey admire the effort of writing four paragraphs just to bitch on me for having an opinion), so I'm gonna summarise my result.

I don't follow the pearlina tags. The only Splatoon tags I follow are Splatoon and the promo kids tag. Used to follow more but I have my reasons for unfollowing the other ones. (They were mostly agent ships, for clarity.)

I know other people care about the others. I'm just saying that when stuff like this rolls around it's never seen because everyone talking about pearlina gets top spots on this site and no one gives attention to anything else, so everything else is hard to see. This is mostly a recent development with grandfest, but even so Pearlina overshadows a LOT. For me, the Callie suit was actually a rare case of the community not focusing on them.

i know the Squid Sisters were popular in their first games. That's the point. Y'all are sitting out here talking about the old idols and ignoring the ones we're supposed to be paying attention to.

So what if the deep cut members don't have much lore to their names? I'm in the promo kid fandom! They have literally only their names and people don't have a problem coming up with headcanons and engaging stories for them. Just be creative. That's what fandom is for.

Believe it or not, I know Pearl and Marina featured in side order and octo expansion. I know they have a healthy dynamic. Surprise surprise, I've played the games too. I have both DLCs and have completed both. I know. That's not my point.

i also know that there are poeople out there caring about other characters. Like I said, I'm in the promo kid fandom. It's just that whenever pearl and marina appear on screen, any trace of that is immediately overshadowed and made ten times harder to find. And I rarely have the time to go hunting through tags.

I'm not trying to act like I'm better. I'm not guilty of pearlina posting, but I'm not much better either. I'm just stating how I feel and how i see things. If you've got a problem with that, great, but don't insult me for my feelings. It's your choice how you react to things. If you've got nothing nice to say, don't say it.

[zelandiangelo]

🦈 🏷️💌 for the fic ask game!! (o^▽^o) <3 

hiiiiiiiii! <333 thank you for asking hehe \o/ hope you're doing well!!

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write?

You know it's funny that you ask because getting into a character's head is actually one of my favorite things about writing! I usually don't have an awful lot of trouble with it unless I've started with an idea that I'm not as interested in as I thought.

So, there's probably been other times that I struggled but the one that I remember the best is Kaeya from Genshin LOL. I was never so super into Gempact but for a while I was playing it w my friends bc it was a Group Activity so I ended up writing a fair bit of fic just because I was so plugged into it. I stalled out on a fic from Kaeya POV that I was writing that I ended up wrapping up at what felt like it Could Be a stopping point and just posting what I had. The trouble with him, I think, is that he has this mysterious backstory that informs his character that's alluded to in events, objects around the world, etc, but I hadn't really gotten an understanding of that backstory. (I could have looked at the wiki I guess but I prefer to use the wiki to confirm stuff that I already knew or look up little bits of trivia; it doesn't feel right to learn everything about a character in a wiki review that might leave out important story or emotional context.)

THIS GOT LONG LOL tl;dr I was writing a lot of genshin fic even though i'm not really built to be a Gacha Lore Understander so i had some trouble with Kaeya!

🏷️ Is there a tag you like to search for when looking for fanfics to read?

>///<

i like sickfic hahaha;;;;;; if I'm being so real unless I get really extremely into something (eg. KNB or Yugioh) sickfic is the ONLY kind of fic I'll even read LOL. I've also written a lot of it myself, when I first got into fic writing I wrote it pretty much exclusively.

I didn't think this was gonna be a long answer but now i wanna talk about it LOL. I just think that when a character is ill (or injured tbh) the Vulnerability that it forces them into can be a really interesting trigger for changed character dynamics. You can have a standoffish or antagonistic character unwillingly in this position be treated gently, with kindness, and soften some of their relationships; alternatively, you can have their soft side come out if they're confronted with someone ELSE being vulnerable. You can have a character who tries to do Everything have to ask for help, you can have just plain fluff between characters with an established good relationship... it's even ok if characters act a bit out of character bc you can blame it on delirium LOL.

Essentially, unless you're getting really funky with it (which you can and it's fun!) a lot of sickfics follow a similar structure/set-up (character gets sick, character deals with being sick, other characters find out character is sick, they are now also dealing with it). Plot and structure is something that I still struggle with even now that I've stepped outside of writing sickfic exclusively, so at the time that I started writing, sickfic offered something of a baseline for me to write what I was really interested in (character dynamics) without having to think too much about the structure! Also it's fun haha >_< even though I've branched out I definitely still favor them quite a bit LOL

sorry for writing u a sickfic essay i am really Normal about it

💌 Is there a favorite trope you like to write?

OMG I WROTE ALL THAT ABOVE AND NOW IM LIKE WHAT DO I SAYYYYYYY I THINK THE ANSWERS ARE THE SAME LOL

let's see. Sickfic Good for the reasons outlined above. I enjoy writing polyamory quite a bit too (character dynamics are so fun!!) but I don't write it as frequently as I'd like bc not all characters are built for it and it can get a bit complex besides.

OH. OH OH OH. teachers/mentor figures. my favorite fic that i've ever written is shockingly not a sickfic: it's called I Accidentally Fell In Love With My Childhood Friend The King And Now My Students Are Also My Sons!? and it's for one of my most favorite animes ever, Oushitsu Kyoushi Haine (The Royal Tutor). (I thought the silly light novel title was funny LOL)

The entire premise of the show is just This Guy Is An Extremely Good Teacher For These Four Misunderstood Students which like. Is lab-grown to be like catnip to me RAAAAAHHHHHHH i've watched the show twice through and cried at the end both times. Anyway. The fic I wrote is technically a ship fic between the royal tutor himself (Heine) and the king (Viktor) who hired him to teach his sons (they get married in this fic hehe >w<), but the focus is really on Heine's relationships with his students, and how they handle their favorite (only) teacher getting married to their father.

I feel like these descriptions don't do the anime or my fic justice LOL all I can really say is that as someone who works with children the anime really touched me and it felt so permeated with genuine love and care for students who are left behind and for teachers who see those students and put in the work to help them. and as for my fic well. now that you've reminded me of it i think i will reread it SKJKDFJSDKFJ

I HOPE THESE PARAGRAPHS ARE OKAY THANK YOU FOR ASKING ME QUESTIONS I REALLY LIKED THESE! YOU ARE VERY COOL!

[ceruleanvermillion]

AU Where Zhongli and Dan Heng are brothers

This is just a very messy brainstorm session. Also some star rail and genshin spoilers. there might be leaks? I dont really know but just in case, be warned.

Anyway

It has to be an AU, since these two already have super complicated lore on their own lmao. Anyway the gist is that a long time ago these two are like super powerful immortals, but then they are separated because of *mysterious reasons*. Now, they can sense each other being alive, but like that's it. They don't know how the other is doing, or the state of one another. They're much older than they seem. There's also a backstory I'm building for their pre-canon brotherhood story and lore but that's a whole other can of worms. For another post, maybe.

Regardless. That is obviously not how the story should end. So, they'll have to meet. Some technicalities: It's hard to compare honkai and genshin power levels, because they're essentially different kinds of games. Fischl and Keqing got major power boosts in honkai in that one crossover event a while ago.

BUT. Meeting is possible. Thank you, Welt. Thank you, Sumeru lore drop about descenders. Lumine and Aether are Travelers, come on, it should be possible.

So. How should they meet? Should it be in Zhongli's Universe? Dan Heng's universe? Or a third part Universe? Well. One Interesting thing I have noticed, is their relationship with "Memory". Zhongli has really good, near-perfect memory. Dan Heng is running away from his past- he is implied to not remember most of his past memories.

So I established this: At the present moment, Zhongli remembers almost everything. Dan Heng does not. With this we can conclude that for the story to move, Zhongli must be the first to take action, despite the fact that Dan Heng is currently in a magic space train. So, most likely it will be in the world of Star Rail. New question: How does Zhongli arrive?

We're getting into speculative fanfic lore here. I'm better with Genshin Lore than I am with Honkai Lore, so don't hesitate to correct me if I make mistakes. I'll italicize it.

Zhongli is a deity. He is still divinity and a gnosis does not affect that, unlike how a herrscher no longer is a herrscher when the don't have the core. So if Welt can, theoretically Zhongli can too. We can interpret the gnosis as his last remaining tie to Teyvat- without it, now he can multiverse hop easier.

Side Note: At this point we don't know anything abt Zhongli's actual origins or what he's capable of.

So maybe he can open a vortex portal thing. Zhongli is really good with space magic- and him rescuing xiao also proves that he can do that for someone else. Venti can make vortexes and stuff. So maybe he enlists Venti's help. Venti is equally sus, so its only fair he gets a part lmao. So they do a lot of research- and when he's ready, he can finally jump.

Again, this is still tentative, but i do want to explore some possibilities.

Oh- but. There has to be a sort of event catalyst, right? Why? Why is this story unfolding this way? Why is it that one remembers and the other forgets?

The intention had always been for Zhongli to remember and for Dan Heng to forget but...there needs to be a midpoint. one can't do all the heavy lifting, it won't be a fun story if that's the case. So. Dan Heng's arc centers around him trying to remember- because he realizes these dreams that he has recently that are actually his memories are very different than the regular ones about Jing Yuan and Blade and the Luofu. Zhongli's arc centers around him trying to get to Dan Heng.

So. What is the goal of this story? What does it want to achieve?

Reuniting, that's the main main goal. This is the consistent point in the story- the plot is currently still tentatively being brainstormed, but changes aside-

They Have To Meet. These two must meet. preferably in an emotional way.

A bit of fanfic made-up lore details that I may want to include (as of now):

The world of Teyvat is an outlier universe. It is strange, it stands out, it remains in it's own little corner. Basically, Teyvat is just Really Really Weird. Partly inspired but how Genshin impact is kind of an outlier amongst the current Hoyoverse games. Like even Tears of Themis is set on earth.

The separation can be said to be because of Zhongli. Of course, the true events is far more complex, and me personally, I don't think it really is his fault- but Zhongli is the catalyst for this to happen. His brother doesn't blame him, and again, real events far more complex- but he blames himself, kind of. He does not regret it, but it also provides motivation for his character- and of course, the lore goes deep. Zhongli is objectively my favourite genshin character- and I have theorized many things about him.

The story is partly kind of loosely inspired by chinese drama love between fairy and devil. There is no intended romance to be included in the story, but certain themes I intend to include.

Honkai Star Rail spoilers/leaks(?) idk if this is actually a leak but Dan Heng has gone through several incarnations since the separation. Zhongli is Zhongli. Dan Heng and Zhongli are at their core magical and powerful, although at present, both are weaker than how they had been. However, maybe they can still access some of what they used to be able to do? idk

They're close brothers and they're wholesome and I love them (Not Tentative/Definitely Confirmed)

But yeah tldr so much of this brainstorm is still tentative and might be changed accordingly to what works best, but I did enjoy exploring several possibilities in the plot.

[stormbite-art]

i feel morbidly curious since i've been looking at old sb art and stuff, what was the original story/first draft like? story-wise and character-wise? again, just curious

The original first draft, version 0.001, pre-alpha, unrendered version of Stormbite was a hot mess, but there are still some anachronisms of it in the published version because I loved messing around with it in its raw form.

RIP Version 0.001 - Circa. 2012~

The first version was written by an angsty, unknowingly asexual, hyper stressed, nerd-ass teenager full of spite filled ambition, who had a little book/art club of other nerds who were into art, manga, video games, hyperfixations on birds, mushrooms, fish, and all other niche Ology zones, that they wanted to entertain and please. We all liked sci-fi and fantasy, non-human protagonists, were all raging angrily about how a certain series was going and the state of YA fiction at the time (it was those dark 2009-2013 years where all YA fiction was paranormal romance love triangle bullshit).

Because I was full of spiteful ambitious rage, and it was not my first rodeo in deciding to make a creative project of some kind, I decided to do my own story/comic with some characters created by my nerd club friends.

It was entirely what you'd expect of a teenager who did not fear cringe and was just wanting a good time to entertain friends. Plots were flexible abstract things, and canons were loose. Ships passed in the night, and AU's were golden and hyper modifiable to fit any scenario or adaptation. There was no lore or world rules, it was a free for all.

I managed to get through almost 20 pages of colouring this super rough comic, and doing what is essentially still the first chapter without really doing a script or any forethought into what happens next. Version 0.001's remnants still exist in chapters 1-5 and that is it, everything else after that came later when I decided that drawing took too long, and writing was faster and easier to change. Drawing out thumbnails of scenes did help in writing what happened and how a fight played out however.

The original versions of the characters however:

Storm had the full anime works: She had a split personality with colour changing, glowing eyes, possessed by the spirit of her dead twin, a metal collar that couldn't be taken off, lightning and frost powers, nerdy t-shirts and converse.

Kat was originally a blonde-haired blue eyed white girl, with blue jay wings which changed. Her tail was cut off, she was a trained assassin who wore revealing ninja outfits, her and Amell was meant to be a thing.

Beth had a pet owl called Harrold who was a spy for her, wore a cavaliers hat and was a self-proclaimed technomancer who could hack anything and control technology, was cheerful and helpful, had all of her limbs, and was obsessed with blueberry muffins.

Wilny was pasty emo boy with scraggy hair and much greener wings. Also he could actually stop time rather than mess with perceptions to make it feel as though time has stopped.

Amell was a skinny, lanky dude, greek rather than kiwi, and had blue eyes, and could lift a car in flight.

Comet was more of a main character with a kind of disturbing backstory, long hair, reality manipulation powers

Raoul was a wolf-girl before she became Asena and Raoul his own person. Palmer didn't really fully exist.

Malana is more or less the same, but was meant to have horns at one point and was created in Risio but was a reject.

Sabre & Fell were generic bad guys. Rex was a good guy.

There was also a lot of other characters who either have been recycled into other minor characters (ex. Rai, Asena, the Varren group ((that was the first rodeo)) or Roux) or have been lost to time and cut completely.

Of course, time goes on, you grow and change, develop and redevelop both what you like, how you work, what you can do and prefer, so of course it evolved a lot more and there was a lot of changes along the way.

Personally, I think they all look a lot better now.

[toshio]

GAMERS!!! attention attention

just wanted to say that if u own a nintendo switch and u LOVE jrpgs/adventure/fantasy type anime esque games u should 200% download and play octopath traveler 2. it came out like a month ago but. hear me out. it’s so damn good and i’ve been addicted to it!

(also if you didn’t play the first game dw. it’s not connected story-wise so u can just buy the second one). entire game is about $60 usd but trust me it’s worth every penny, the demos are also free in the switch e-shop if you wanna dip your toes in!

if you’ve NEVER heard of it, it’s basically like pixelated jrpg style from the 90s but it has a modern twist on it (made with unreal engine so you know it’s gonna look stunning). simply put, it’s an absolute love letter to those pixelated sprites that we all know and love and grew up with. but with 3D elements & particle effects and stuff, also did i mention there’s lots of angsty traumatic cutscenes about the 8 main characters in the game and almost everything is beautifully voice acted? (like fking seriously. no spoilers but ALL of these 8 characters you play as have traumatic backstories except one character it’s hilarious. we love fictional trauma, mama)

in terms of playstyle - i always compare it to pokemon but better. i grew up loving pokemon but this game has a way better battle system than pkmn, it’s like your typical turn-based JRPG but it has way more elements to it that make it much more engaging and rewarding to follow. also all of the characters talk and grunt and say ~*~anime protagonist~*~ energy quotes while they’re beating up giant demon worms in the desert or giant sharks in the ocean. like holy fuck it’s so epic and DID I MENTION if you’re a weeb you can literally change the voice acting to japanese if you really prefer that (you fucking weebs, i see you).

i’m gonna try to wrap it up because i could literally talk about this absolute modern cult classic series by square enix for hours, the game is AMAZING and i promise you will not regret picking this up. it actually bothers me how little people talk about this game but i don’t mind because it’s an absolute gem to the gaming community. if you’re wondering who my favorite character from octopath 2 is, it’s this guy above ^ named partitio. his lore is basically that he’s a merchant that wants to defeat poverty LIKE HELLO we love a himbo who wants to dismantle capitalism...but anyways. *mic drop* play octopath traveler. NOW.

[iamthepulta]

Hey which media/story/franchise is your liztlie AU based on? I've been trying to figure it out based on context clues and I'm getting no where. Please insert long ass info dump rant below.

OH HELL YEAH. <3

The Liztlie AU is based on the Fallen London universe by Failbetter Game studio! Fallen London is a decade-old browser game that’s updated regularly. It’s excellent. There’s also a PC game called Sunless Seas, which was my introduction to the fandom and still some of my favorite content. After the success of Sunless Seas, they made another PC game called Sunless Skies, which I love lore-wise, but for some reason can’t get into playing. (And now they have Mask of the Rose! Which just came out on the 8th! Also set in Fallen London, but a prequel to all of the games.)

For some background, Fallen London and Sunless Seas are set in the same location and same timeline. London as a city, has been pulled down into the cave called the Neath. (Mask of the Rose is set just after the Fall happens.) There are several different London factions, but most importantly, on one end of the Neath, there is a Gate. Sunless Skies is, strictly speaking, a possible AU timeline, set after London discovers and opens that Gate to a realm called the Reach.  

Sunless Skies is its own beast; all the lore in Sunless Seas and Fallen London is dialed up to 11. The focus is on either allying or destroying the 'Great Chain of Being', which includes everything from the industrialist time-manipulating nightmare London has become, to talking rats, to the “Gods”, the Suns of each realm which feed off of the souls of their inhabitants. The game developers did a great job at expanding the world of Fallen London in Sunless Skies, and there are several maps you can play through, a few dozen storylines, and a lot of cool content. (10/10, recommend. Although as fellow rock-eater, you might prefer Sunless Seas. It’s always a tossup.)

So because PC gameplay isn’t enough, people enthusiastically made an RPG out of Sunless Skies! Enter Grant Howitt and Chris Taylor. The Skyfarer RPG system is one page long. I’m biased because I hate long, complicated, number-based RPG systems, but I think this RPG is awesome. It was meant for short campaigns, it’s a d10 system, and your character is designed around being one of the officers on a Skies locomotive. Easy, inventive, and flexible.

Enter two ADHD geologists and a pandemic:

@paleomancer hit up our friend group one day and asked if we wanted to play a oneshot RPG in Skyfarer. We were socially distancing and mentally traumatized nerds, so of course the answer was Yes. And the oneshot was great! We made our characters, played the game for a few hours, finished the oneshot plot, and successfully carried our passenger to Elutheria along with her illicit books. We liked it so much we agreed to keep playing every few weeks just to keep in touch during the pandemic.

This was all well and good until I lost my mind playing Westlie. My dipshit friends (affectionate) thought it was a great idea for me, the First Mate, to be promoted when our captain kicked the bucket. I hadn’t written fiction since college, but I started writing again as I fleshed out her backstory and the DM and I crafted her sister, Morgan. Then I just kind of kept… creating stories and toying with different ways for Westlie to develop until @justanormalseagull and I were playing around with the Found Family/Adoption trope. She'd played Lizzie’s character, and in a burst of inspiration, I realized the plot of our first few Skyfarer seasons would still work well if Westlie adopted Lizzie and never left London. So I casually wrote five chapters as a gift, fell down the rabbit hole again, and now the Liztlie AU is a 200k monster. xD

So to really answer your question, the Liztlie AU is an AU of our Skyfarer Game, which is a translation of Sunless Skies, which is an AU of Sunless Seas, which is an offshoot of the ancient, niche, Fallen London browser game. xD The context clues are piecemeal at best, haha.

But the nice thing! At this point, the Liztlie AU is its own standalone story; it starts at the 'beginning' of the Skyfarer campaign, so you don't need to know anything about the Pyrrhus. And it's set in Sunless Skies, but I explain 90% of the world as Westlie learns about it anyway. Both aspects are basically Easter eggs for readers to enjoy if they happen to know. Which makes the absurdity of what I'm writing even greater because the AU is kind of my own novel now? But also, most definitely not.

The best links if you want to browse are: My Archive -> “the crew of the Pyrrhus” (for memes of the main campaign), "fl", “dnd”, "liztlie au", “wm”, “mw”, or just “westlie”

THANKS FOR ASKING! THIS MADE MY EVENING. :D NOW YOU KNOW! :D

Brief character summaries (links lead to more):

Westlie Faire is/was my Skyfarer PC. She has a horrible father, Arthur Faire, and ran away from the title of Heir to Fairweather Shipping Co. to be the First Mate on the Pyrrhus.

Morgan Faire is her younger sister. Extremely lucky due to [redacted] reasons.

Lizzie Twaddle is/was @justanormalseagull ‘s PC. She was an orphan who snuck aboard the Pyrrhus and got adopted as mascot by the crew. In the AU, she’s adopted by Westlie while she’s trying to sneak onboard a train and Westlie takes her back to London. Just wants a family. T__T

[lulu2992]

Ok this might gonna sound strange or silly and more of a me thing but it needs to be said. I think we should’ve gotten more DLC amigos for Far Cry 6, especially when we have 2 Amigos va Download packs who have no Lore in the story *Alia Champange and K-9000* I think It’s a Massive Missed Opportunity, especially with the villains DLCs since after beating them you get, Weapons *weither it be new, a Reskin, or returning from the past game*, Costumes, vehicles, Chibis, Mounts Ect But No Amigos. Vaas’s DLC is the only Exception since you had no Pets in FC3, However not so much for the others. For example beating Pagen’s Maybe we could have Gotten Shangri La Sky Tiger *In Just going to Call Him Sky for short from Now On*, and I’m just going to say for Joseph It’s a Crime That Cheeseburger DIDNT Make it back *Or Timber, Peaches and Horatio*

Now I’m a bit sad they didn’t do that and we didn’t get the Tiger or another Fang For Hire in Far Cry 6… You’re right, it doesn’t really matter that Champagne and K-9000 don’t have a backstory because we love them anyway, and you can never have too many virtual pets!

Actually, I think I would almost have preferred them just giving us Boomer as a reward after completing Collapse rather than trying to justify his presence in Yara. Since the USA still exist and the Seeds are apparently still alive in the world of Far Cry 6, the Reaping most likely never began, so Rae-Rae is fine, so Boomer still has a family, so Hurk just… stole him? I was happy when I found “Boom Boom” but my first thought after reading the note was, “Oh no, he’s here all alone, away from everything and everyone he knows and loves, poor baby…” I stopped feeling sad when I realized he could sit in my car, but still 😅

[horizon-forbidden-sheesh]

Writing Process: Preamble

*Ahem* SO! I was recently honored with a question about my organization process for writing. And, boy howdy, am I just tickled pink to tell you! I've never felt so seen!! Let's do this thing.

Let me start by sharing that IRL, I'm a copywriter/project manager for print & digital design work. So when I started writing my first-ever fic, I organized it much in the same way I would a website build.

But tbh, when I started The Marshal, I didn't really know I was writing a fic. In fact, I was only working through my typical video game process. In that I'm extremely anal note-taker, and it's just the way I live my regular-degular life. All my books are annotated to the Nth, I’ve been keeping a (rather inconsistent) diary since I was 17, and I’m a religious bullet journal-er with very specific journal preferences (grid paper, always).

My practice of video game note-taking goes all the way back to drawing maps of Luigi's Mansion as a kid to try and optimize my speed runs, and progresses into tracking daily decisions for BG3. I’ve also got entire pages in my bullet journal dedicated to developing backstories for all my Cult of the Lamb cult members, and my Notes app has several installments of history & lore from various Civ V games. It’s simply how I prefer to play.

(Side note: No, I am not technically diagnosed with anything. Yes, I have found myself in repetitive, furious spirals, tearing out pages of my notebook over-and-over when the map I HAD to draw in pen was not 'perfect.' 💁🏻Is this OCD?🦋 Who knows. Who cares.)

Game Timelines have always fascinated me, pretty much since Ocarina of Time. I want to know how exactly long something took, what order it happened in, and whether it's technically 'feasible' within the parameters of the game. Peep my post about 'realistic' gameplay for more deets.

Mostly, I was trying to track where I 'camped' each night, because it was SUPER IMPORTANT that the events of the game took place within the ~3 month timeline GAIA sets before the environment collapses (super casual). So, the notes from my first play-through looked like this.

And then I met Kotallo.

And I started drafting journal entries from Aloy's POV to explore the internal monologue behind all those ✨faces✨ she was making.

(These ones. Infinite credit to @Diviner-Alva for doing the LORDT'S WORK.)

They looked like this:

If you've read 'The Marshal,' you'll notice some similarities.

After a few weeks of gameplay, I was pushing 20k words in 'journal entries,' and it just... wasn't cutting it. That was around the time I knew I had an bona fide obsession on my hands.

Writing exclusively in Aloy's POV left out SO MUCH OF THE STORY that was developing in my li'l head alongside my gameplay. I was imagining a whole burgeoning, slowburn romance as I picked my way across the Forbidden West. It mirrored the side quests (That Talanah convo??) and overall themes of HFW perfectly. (Also, um, the consistent controller rumble during the Scorcher cut scene?? Like, WTF? You're telling me Geurrilla didn't know EXACTLY what they were doing? Pfft.)

I can't tell you when exactly I finally took to the internet to feed my hyperfixation, but let me tell you that it was my first time discovering Ao3, and I spent the summer of 2022 devouring every fic in the Aloy/Kotallo tag. I felt like I had finally found my people. It even worked for a while! But the story playing in my head didn't exactly match any of the stories 1:1, and I realized after a while that no one else could write MY headcanon.

Still, there's a TON of overlap in a few of them: Medicine by HIMLuv is by far the closest, and my personal fave. I love basically everything Garbage_Dono has written. Obviously, I've developed a massive crush on Pikapeppa. (How does she do it so FAST? *awe, amazement, un poco envy*) There are some truly incredible writers out there, and I'm genuinely grateful to every one of them for creating a foundation that gave me the permission I needed to finally fucking WRITE. I denied myself fanfic for probably 20 years, imagining all the ways I would be ruthlessly mocked if anyone ever found out. I've had a-lot-a-lot of shame blocks to work through as I've been writing over the past year, and this story about opening up and trusting others feels deeply personal in a way I can't quite put into words.

That's how I made the decision to begin adapting the journal entries into a more organized fic. So, I started my second play-though and created this account around that time. It would be probably be another ~6 months before I got drunk enough to just press 'publish' on the first chapter in April of this year, over a year after the game came out.

Every other reference tool I've made, I created along the way. I intended to post more of them here on tumblr, but hey. Life Happens.™ And even tho it feels like the fandom had moved on post-DLC, there's still pleeeeenty of time. 😘

Anyway, I'm gonna clip this here, and get more into the weeds on organizational tools in another post. But it felt like I needed to talk about this first, because when I started really writing in the Fall of 2022, I already had a lotta documents under my belt that I needed to wrangle.

If you got to this point, thanks for reading this entirely self-indulgent post.

xo, Sheesh. 🖤

[epicspheal]

This! Honestly I wanted to add I think a lot of the gen 1 discourse also miss the point of gen 1. It was a basis. A starting point. Gamefreak had no idea this was about to become the largest franchise in human history. They didn't think they'd get past Johto (Gold and Silver were literally called Pokemon 2). They had to sell the game...and in untested waters the most strategic thing to do is to start of simple and then build on that. Kanto's the most bland region geographically in some people's eyes? Sure..it doesn't have ultra unique biomes as say Galar's Wild Area or Paldea's Area Zero but 1) they really couldn't on the Gameboy and 2) they had to make the region appealing. Kanto was designed to be a fantasy counterpart of our world. Where little kids go out to play in the forest near their house (hence why the first major biome we do meet in Kanto is an actual forest). Mountains and Caves and Beaches, things that you might go on a field trip or a family vacation. Nothing too otherworldly outside of the creatures that live in those areas. Team Rocket is the most basic of the villain squads? Again sure (but honestly I like them more than a good half of the other villains). As much I still enjoy Team Plasma's story the best out of the villainous teams, that wasn't a story they could've told right off the bat. They needed to build up the lore of the world, how humans and Pokemon interact (which included giving us more powerful legendaries that served as guardians if not outright deities) before they could throw on a plot like that. To start off, making a villainous organization whose goal was to exploit the fantastic creatures of the world makes sense. Going back to OP's statement of you have to have a slime monster. You have to have a villain who wants to exploit things for money and power. You can add the more philosophical villains like N's original goal or more nuanced antagonists like Sada/Turo after you establish the worldbuilding. Gen 1 has the most basic plot: go catch Pokemon for old professor, fight your former best friend turned jerk and collect trinkets and be the very best which involves the final battle defeating your former friend? Again sure, not as riveting to many as say Gen 5, 7 or 9. But again they had to make an appealing plot in limited circumstances. Having the quest be "Gotta catch em all" to encourage you to explore the simple biomes and trade? It's a genius way to make an excuse plot in limited words. Give you a rival story with a relatable conflict:how many people have had friends that suddenly broke things off when you were around 10-11 years old? Plenty and so it makes the stakes feel personal. Get trinkets and be the very best? Easy enough to get people on board! People like collecting trinkets and achievements. Oh you get to battle that mean former friend and triumph once and for all, giving a satisfying conclusion that makes sense in context? Great way to give players motivation, a sense of accomplishment without having to overtax the already strained system (since we know how infamously buggy RBGY was). Gen 1 did what it needed to do in a simple format. Does that mean it's the perfect version of Pokemon? No. Does everyone have to like Gen 1? Absolutely, not! We all have preferences. Do I think the remakes (both FRLG and Let's Go) could've done better in expanding on Kanto's biomes a bit while still keeping true to the original vision? Could they have added a bit more backstory to Giovanni's creation of Team Rocket? Expand on the broken friendship between Red and Blue? Give a bit more character exploration of the gym leaders and Elite Four? Yes, to all of the above.

But echoing OP's sentiments, sometimes generic and basic is what's needed. Everything can't and shouldn't have layers of complexity in order to be good.

i think people rag on gen 1 pokemon designs for being uncreative too much when that's not really the point. at the time pokémon's identity wasn't all about the deeply researched origins of every pokémon, it didn't have an identity yet. the pokémon needed to do one thing: be cool monsters you wanna collect. if you bought pokemon for the first time and found a grimer you wouldn't be like "a slime monster? so generic". it would be a travesty if this monster collecting game didn't have a slime monster! a giant bird might not be the most creative thing in the world, but it's a giant bird! it's a raptor you can ride through the sky!

you don't have to think they're good designs, i just think it's not a bad thing that they're generic. you gotta have the monsters you'd expect to find in addition to the more unique and nuanced ones. you just gotta.

they didn't need to do the whole "thing evolves into three of itself" more than once though i think diglett could have evolved into biglett instead of dugtrio. like cmon wheres the mole monster youve always gotta have a mole monster. it fits thematically for magnemite tho

[maxwell-grant]

Thoughts on the two sub-zeroes?

(OOOOOH, CHINESE NINJA WARRIOR, WITH YOUR HEART SOO COOLD....SUB-ZEEERO.... OOOOH, YOUR LIFE IS A MYSTERY, WARRIOR WITH THE MASK! SUB-ZEEERO....)

I said as much in the tags of my Scorpion post that I generally don’t play favorites between Scorpion and Sub-Zero, whichever I prefer between the two usually depends on how I’m feeling that day. That being said, I pretty unambiguously consider Sub-Zero to have the better story and to be the more versatile character overall.

Like Scorpion, Sub-Zero’s appeal necessitates him to have a darker personality than the other MK heroes and for him to straddle the line between hero and villain in a way the others don’t, even in a cast full of characters which, in most other franchises, would be barely acceptable anti-heroes at best. Scorpion does this based primarily on the strength of his backstory and his highly volatile and flawed personality, Sub-Zero manages to do this by actually directly splitting the balance: With two Sub-Zeros. One is the scumbag who ruined Scorpion’s life (even if bigger villains were involved) and died to transform into an even bigger and spookier scumbag, the other is a major hero and player in the MK universe who gets to be directly involved in more storylines and affairs than Scorpion does without ruining his appeal. 

Both characters can be brought out to play depending on what kind of story you want to tell with Sub-Zero and both work really well in those contexts. I don’t usually like to default to this kind of shorthand but, I think the easiest way to get across what works about Sub-Zero (that isn’t just retreading my Scorpion post, much of which also applies here) is to point out that, for all intents and purposes, he’s the Mortal Kombat equivalent of Batman. Ed Boon directly stated that Noob Saibot’s mystery and shadowy persona were intended to be akin to Batman’s, and for Kuai Liang it doesn’t really get more blatant than, in the MK vs DC crossover, him being the only MK character allowed to beat Batman, and then going on to don a cape and become the MK Batman in his ending. 

The biggest impression Bi-Han as Sub-Zero left on me actually didn’t have anything to do with his game appearences, which are very limited besides the fact that he starred in his own solo adventure game. Bi-Han in both of his forms is more interesting as a dark counterpart and source of torment for both Hanzo and Kuai Liang, than he is as a character onto himself. But the one big impression I actually have for him actually comes from the tie-in novel written by Jeff Rovin which took a lot of liberties with MK lore, as there really wasn’t much of it at the time to go off on, and had a pretty interestingly creepy take on Sub-Zero, playing up the character as sort of a crazed, inhuman survivalist and mercenary, remarkably humorous for such a chilling character. There’s a moment in the book when Scorpion introduces himself for the first time dramatically proclaiming “I am Scorpion”, and Sub-Zero snickers and responds “I’ve eaten scorpion, and had scorpion soup. I can’t say I cared for either. Now, tarantula stew–”. 

In particular the first scene he shows up really stood out to me, more so than anything else in the book. I loved it’s setting and it’s description of what his home looks like, I loved it’s description of the Lin Kuei’s origin and horrific training tactics that created Sub-Zero, I loved it’s description of Sub-Zero’s gear and attributing his powers to “silver plates that allowed him to reach deep into his dead soul and generate waves of cold", way cooler as an explanation for Sub-Zero’s powers than him descending from some Outworld/Edenia cryomancer race, and I loved how casual of an introduction it was to the character. It’s just Sub-Zero waking up, getting a message via pigeon, petting the birb, and dressing to go to work, which contrasts elegantly with just how bizarre and inhuman everything else about Sub-Zero is established before we even meet him.

He dwelt in a cave two hundred feet up the face of a cliff by the sea. The mouth of his home was barely wide enough to accommodate a slender adult, and was accessible only by climbing the sheer wall of rock, a feat that was impossible for most adults and daunting even to the few arachnids and marsupials that tried it. It was still hours before dawn when the pigeon reached it. Landing in the narrow mouth, the bird cooed once then stood still, as it had been trained to do.

The ninja was awake and beside it in an instant, crouched beneath a ceiling that didn’t allow for him to stand. Dressed only in a white loincloth, despite the cold floor and chill air in the cave. He was reading the message by moonlight a moment later.

A smile crossed his lips, lips so pale and claylike that they appeared dead. His small, very narrow eyes looked from the message to the bird to the moonlight that lit just the entrance of his dark abode. He ran the back of an index finger up and down the bird’s breast.

“Good Hamachi. Return to your master so he will know that I have received his message and am on my way to do his bidding. For a price, of course,” he said. 

He glanced at the several pyramid-shaped stacks of scrolls in the rear of his cave. His fee was another manuscript from Shang Tsung’s library, one of the many scrolls that were centuries old, dating back to the dawn of the days of the first ninjitsu and containing arcane secrets of the league of assassins to which he belonged, the widely-feared Lin Kuei.

Removing the string from a scroll Shang Tsung had long ago given him in payment, the ninja placed it in the bird’s beak, gently turned the white pigeon around, and coaxed it into the night.

I actually don’t recall much else about the novel or whether it was any good as a whole, but this sequence really stood out to me at the time as a very interesting way to reinterpret a videogame character into a literary medium, and it really reinforces a lot of what makes ice powers so inherently creepy. It’s something that I’d have liked to see partially carried over to the game’s take on Sub-Zero, even Kuai Liang.

Kuai Liang to me is easily the most interesting of the “purely” good guys in Mortal Kombat (closely followed by Jax and Johnny Cage), a character where it’s never really into question whether he’ll fight for Earthrealm (unlike Scorpion, who can take some convincing), and being a purely good character in MK is not an easy task considering how often Mortal Kombat games struggle to make it’s more heroic protagonists entertaining (I know nowadays people have come around on the guy a lot, and rightfully so because MK11 really made him great, but let’s not pretend “Liu Kang sucks” wasn’t the prevailing opinion for decades to the point they kept killing him off or making him evil to try to “fix” it). The closest Kuai Liang ever came to being evil (besides the Revenant bizz) was when he was made into Cyber Sub-Zero, and that lasted for, what, a couple seconds at best, before he was rescued and then went on to beat Kano, Goro, Kintaro, and Ermac at once in quick succession.

I think Kuai Liang has consistently had some of the best character writing in the series because right from the get go he had two other great characters to contrast and rival with, and he was allowed to grow and change, from Sub-Zero 2 to THE Sub-Zero, from renegade and runt to undisputed leader, with a whole lot of drama along the way. Ed Boon himself said that Kuai Liang "has a very deep, soap-opera like history and story in his relationship with a number of the Mortal Kombat characters”, which makes him contrast quite nicely with not just Scorpion, but the other ninjas as well, who mostly stay on the sidelines with their separate storylines until called upon. Actually, come to think of it, the concept of a “legacy character” wasn’t at all a thing in videogames at the time (even nowadays it rarely is), even in 90s superhero comics it was still rare to see a successful example of one, let alone one who succeeded in completely outshining an already extremely popular character (the Spine Rip fatality alone made Bi-Han a hell of a legacy to live up to). 

By all accounts he should be every bit as evil as Bi-Han was. The two have the exact same backstory, raised to be assassins by a shadowy organization since children, enduring grueling training into becoming cold and vicious murderers. Kuai Liang is pragmatic, distant, stern, and bound by honor to the Lin Kuei, but he is very much not his brother. In fact, in every matter except killing ability, he is indisputably superior to his brother (and he is repeteadly established to be stronger as a warrior, more skilled as a cryomancer, and the better Sub-Zero). Unique among MK characters, Kuai Liang’s greatest virtue comes from his compassion and, yes, his cool head. Through him, Sub-Zero’s cold persona becomes not a sign of evil, but a virtue that allows him to better focus and assist and teach other warriors.

He redeems the name Sub-Zero, and going by his MK11 ending, he would go through extreme lengths to redeem his evil brother as well if given the opportunity. He rises through the ranks of the unfathomaly ancient and evil organization that turned him and his brother into cold killing machines and single-handedly reforms the Lin Kuei into a fighting force for the good of Earthrealm, and forms allegiances with other factions. He’s the one to put an end to the feud between the Shirai Ryu and the Lin Kuei and to form an allegiance with Scorpion, inviting his brother’s murderer for a peace offering and even keeping his cool when things go sideways because of Frost and Scorpion nearly kills him again, and now, the two are allies. 

And people like seeing Scorpion and Sub-Zero as allies so much that we all forget that it took about 20 years for the two of them to even be seen fighting on the same side, in Kuai Liang’s non-canon MK9 ending, which once again, was instigated by him reaching out to Scorpion. Kuai Liang turned one of the greatest and most famous feuds in videogame history on it’s head simply by proving that the only thing cooler than Scorpion and Sub-Zero fighting is Scorpion and Sub-Zero working together, and because everything in Mortal Kombat works by rule of cool, that’s where their relationship has been headed this decade.

Yeah, it’s dawning on me a lot recently just how much of Mortal Kombat is influenced by it’s creators being massive comic book nerds, because while I wouldn’t say this about a lot of other fighting games whose lore and characters I keep up with, Mortal Kombat is mired extremely deeply in superhero storytelling and it’s a game where every character basically is a superhero/supervillain, I really wasn’t just putting the Batman comparison here for simplification. And it makes sense too, considering just how vast the shonen manga and anime influences run in Street Fighter and King of Fighters and Tekken and so on, combined with martial arts history real and fictional, it only makes sense that their American rival would pull a similar trick, but with comic books instead. It’s very interesting how, through these two brothers, the same character, with the same costume and the same powers and even the same personality in general, can shift between such drastic opposites in role.

And, yeah, Ed Boon is right, Scorpion vs Sub-Zero absolutely is a soap opera. “Superheroes” and “soap opera drama” are a combination that I generally do not care for, in the slightest, but, whether it’s in comics or manga or videogames, no one is immune to fierce color-coded rivals with contrasting powersets and personalities going from deadly enemies to even deadlier partners over the course of years while generally stealing the show out of anything they show up in. As to be expected.

[themattress]

I finished this game. And in the end, its story included:

Time travel and time loops, worlds and people actually existing in a computer simulation, multiple variations of characters including literal clones, characters who are also partly other characters, body-jacking, different layers of reality, memory loss, existential angst, tangled relationships between characters, previously established information going out the window once later information is learned, villains who just won’t die, scientists with good intentions that go too far, a breed of enemy with a variety of forms, convoluted plot turns due to dreams and/or memories, slow afternoon scenes of characters just casually talking and eating food, characters not communicating information to each other when it could solve problems, characters dropping long-winded exposition dumps, characters being easily forgiven for heinous actions, weak romantic writing, the number 13 being important, detailed lore in written unlockable reports, elements that are blatantly derivative of other sources, terms that leaves you scratching your head in confusion, an evil old man that’s behind everything wrong, and a schmaltzy happy ending where everyone lives and every sacrifice made is reversed.

Holy shit, it’s literally all of Tetsuya Nomura’s Kingdom Hearts bullshit! All the stuff I hate!

.........So why did I enjoy this so goddamn much!?

Three reasons, all of which are crucial differences between it and Kingdom Hearts.

1. The most obvious first: it’s just one game. One game with one self-contained narrative. It’s not stretched out across multiple entries ad nauseum with no clear endgame plan in mind; it’s clear going in that while convoluted, this story is a puzzle that you can actually completely piece together. Everything will make some degree of logical sense by the time that you’re finished, and you don’t have to worry about anything being changed or backtracked in any following games. There’s even a menu placing all of the events in their proper order, the setting of each event and characters featured even being clarified, and it’s right next to the menu with the unlockable reports. The confusion does end, leaving you feeling satisfied.

2. The tone of the game is tailor-made for all of this. It’s a hard-edged sci-fi story with purely Japanese content, not something meant to be a fun fantasy adventure crossing Japanese and Western content together in a way that should balance each other out. Seeing so much of what I listed above in a Kingdom Hearts game bothers me because that’s not how the series started and ideally should be, whereas it feels totally natural for this kind of game.

3. Last but not least, the characters. Nomura made all of his characters service his bullshit and flattened them down to just being the things they make happen in the plot or what happens to them in the plot; having an interesting, engaging and fleshed-out personality fell by the wayside. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim never forgets to make you actually care about its characters. Each one is distinct, with their own intricate backstories, unique personality quirks, and preferred way of doing things. You feel like they are human beings who are making the events of the narrative happen, rather than pieces on a board being moved around by the writer to suit his storytelling whims. All of their story modes have a different vibe to them as a result - you’ve got an identity crisis story, a Cute Girls Doing Cute Things shojou romance, a male and a female coming of age tale, a Madoka-themed Protagonist Journey to Villain, a bisexual awakening(!), a detective mystery, a Bourne Identity-style thriller, a Girl and her Alien Robot, a somber tale of personal loss, a Groundhog Day comedy, a haunting psychological tragedy, and a straight-laced scientific information gathering.

Going through all of these characters’ stories, coming to care about them, and then having to see them finally band together and defend the world from within their badass giant mech vehicles....that’s the true heart of this game; it’s where the greatest joy comes from. For all game players who think this sounds like a good time, I highly recommend this. Vanillaware hasn’t put out something this excellent since Odin Sphereand...uh, Odin Sphere’s remaster.

I’ll wrap this post up with the moment the game truly dug its hooks into me:

Just terrifyingly beautiful.

[shihalyfie]

With Digimon Ghost Game starting, I thought about how different it is from previous Digimon series, though it's still undoubtedly Digimon... and then I realized all Digimon series are like that. So I wonder, what do you think sets each Digimon series apart from the rest?

I think both Ghost Game but also the reboot have been a wake-up call for people in terms of realizing that likes, dislikes, and tastes are subjective, and I think it's especially important in terms of this fanbase that is so obsessed with this idea you can objectively rank things by quality -- especially when each series is often deliberately trying to have its own identity, so it's arguably apples and oranges -- and forcing this idea of what's Good and Not Good on everyone else (especially when there's a nasty double standard phenomenon where Adventure and often Tamers get to be so impervious to criticism that people conveniently forget they're perfectly capable of being scrutinized for a lot of things they're weaker in). Very frustrating to see everyone who likes less popular series treated as if they have to accept that they like a "badly written series" for some things and everything else is a guilty pleasure, which I find to be incredibly dumb.

The most important take-home here is that the fact each series has its own identity is always going to be the main factor in what makes it "good" or not to you, not some arbitrary bar of comparison that's based on some narrow-minded view of "good writing" (which is usually unreasonably based on Adventure). For instance, the reason why 02 is so important to me is because (see below), to me, it has the highest amount of meaningful, important life lessons and themes that it wanted its audience to remember, to the point that I frankly do not care about where the plot goes in comparison. That may not be the case for everyone else, and that's fine, but should my tastes be called unreasonable for that? I think we're also coming to realize that because of Adventure (and kind of 02)'s precedent, so many people have been judging series purely by how intimate their individual character development style is, but this is unfair because Adventure and 02's ridiculous level of character depth to psychological detail is extremely unusual and unrealistic to expect of others; Adventure and 02 only achieved this by practically considering the plot utterly subservient to its character arcs, and it's arguably why they have some of the weakest "plots" in this franchise. It's so bizarre that I can see character development in other Digimon series that outstrips even most kids' anime on the market, but it's not as much as Adventure's so apparently it's bad. And, moreover, as it turns out, some people have priorities other than characterization; just because Adventure had that as its strength doesn't mean that's the only thing anyone should care about. Is the plot fun? Is there a meaningful message besides characters (also important to me)? Do you vibe with the tone being dark, or being silly? How much do you care about resourceful usage of Digimon lore? That kind of thing. Everyone is different, so that's why everyone has their own priorities. If you’re someone who prefers darker content, you may not realize that writing good and well-timed comedy is actually a very, very difficult task, especially when said comedy simultaneously has meaning (in comparison, it’s surprisingly easy to write “dark” but shallow content).

I think it's fair to like every Digimon series for its own thing, depending on your personal tastes. I can't speak for everyone, but my impressions are that it has to do with the following:

Adventure: Significantly easier to understand than 02 due to its more straightforward plot, and focus on individual character development ("individualism" being a strong point here). In terms of characters, it goes a lot into some very real social problems (the divorce around the Ishida and Takaishi families and the pressures surrounding Jou, for instance) in a very realistic manner. Also, it has that sense of mystique and absurdism to the Digital World that's both whimsical but also mysterious, and while 02 has it too, Adventure's the isekai story that has it the most.

02: The first is its focus on the importance of human relationships and the compelling group dynamic unparalleled in this franchise, and the second is its important themes and life lessons that I think are some of the strongest in said franchise. I have a whole tag for the ridiculous amount of nuance packed into every detail and dialogue line for this series, and I think every time I've rewatched an episode I've learned something new about it because there are so many things that clearly wanted to be said in each line. The entire series is basically an unpacking of the feelings of insidious self-hatred and the crushing feeling of being subject to society's expectations, and ones that are so deep-seated that you often don’t even have a single answer to how to unpack it (for instance, Miyako hardly has a tragic single event in her backstory, but she says and does a lot of things that'll be painfully familiar to those who have experienced chronic anxiety). Almost every plot point can be said to connect to each character arc in some way, and the mantras for appreciating and treasuring your own life and living life the way you will make this, in my opinion, the strongest series in terms of speaking to those who struggle with this kind of existential crisis for reasons of depression or otherwise. (Oops, I think I went too passionate about this; my biases are obvious...)

Tamers: I think it forms an interesting study and unpacking of the kinds of things you take for granted in Digimon or the monster-collecting genre in general, and an examination of how they'd work in a real-world context (although 02 had a focus on daily life, it didn't quite merge the Digimon and the real world factors until very late in the series). Also, probably the second highest on "hard sci-fi" (the only one that outstrips it is probably Appmon, but Appmon has a very different, more simplified take on it).

Frontier: A series that lies somewhere between Adventure's scale of individualism and 02's scale of group dynamic, and one more discussing the feeling of having your heart hardened from being an outcast, and what it takes to accept the idea of opening yourself up to others again. Recommended for those who like transforming hero and magical girl stories, too. From the Digimon perspective, also the one with the most detailed and consistent Digital World mythos.

Savers: I think this is the series that most drives home "life is complicated" (i.e. there isn't a single mastermind behind everything) in the most tasteful manner, because while it drives home the point that you can't just simplify everything into a good side and a bad side, some bad things really are evil (hi, Kurata), and it doesn't change the fact that everyone's responsible for cleaning up the fallout. The portrayal of the evils of government bureaucracy is probably the most realistic out of any of these series.

Xros Wars: For those who like fun, most of all! For those who like seeing Digimon finally get more of the spotlight and individuality since so much of it had been geared and biased towards the humans prior to this. For those who really like worldbuilding, and, after all, this is called Xros Wars, so it's interesting to see shakeups on the usual formulas in the form of the different factions and their priorities. Hunters is very different in tone, but I do think they have some of these aspects in common; that said, it being closer to having single partnerships brings it a bit closer in line to conventional Digimon partnerships, and it also has more of a picture of daily life. Also, as much as Tagiru is probably your-mileage-may-vary since he's not exactly a very nice kid (I get it if you don't vibe with that), which may also rub those hoping for not nice kids to become nice the wrong way, I do have to say I find him to be one of the funniest characters in this entire franchise, and you'd be surprised how hard good comedy is to write.

Appmon: Probably one of the strongest theme narratives besides 02, since it has a very clear and obvious theme about the importance of kindness in a world where technology is dominating and we're almost encouraged to strip the feelings out of everything. (Bonus for more straightforward plot than Adventure or 02 while still retaining a lot of its elements in terms of how to characterize them.) Also the first series to be speculative about the near future instead of taking place around the time it airs, and it's very obvious it wants to provide important and necessary commentary about what we need to do in the incoming era, especially as a lot of what it has to say becomes increasingly relevant.

Reboot: For those who like Digimon mythos and null canon -- this is probably the only series to show it off in this level of detail -- and the kind of cool action fights that would usually be saved for the climax in prior series (and animated in much more intimate detail with battle choreography than prior series would have). There are a lot of people into this franchise who felt like it genuinely was not making enough use of its Digimon roster and its potential because it kept going back to the old standbys (especially Adventure-based ones), so it was a huge relief for that crowd to see attention finally being paid.

[neon-moon-beam]

What I like, don’t like, and hope to see in Splatoon 3:

Let’s get don’t like out of the way first:

PEOPLE BEING OVERLY-AGGRESSIVE IN TURF! Holy shit people, this is a kid’s game designed to be fairly non-violent! Turf is literally for people who want to ink, not to base camp, splat everyone as much as possible, and chase people literally around the entire map until you splat them! You want to do that, go to Ranked where splatting goes further in aiding the objective, or create a room and do that shit with your friends!

THE DISCONNECTS. Oh my god this game is so buggy right now. It’s had...two patches? And the disconnects keep happening.

Earning money is harder if you don’t want to/can’t do online (a real pain if overly aggressive people are gatekeeping!), Salmon Run gives out less money, Tableturf doesn’t give you anything...

There’s like, three songs during online modes right now. It’s gotten annoying to hear the same ones over and over, sometimes several times in a row. They couldn’t just recycle from Splatoon and Splatoon 2 during matches?

I REALLY don’t like games that force perfectionism. This is why I haven’t completed some of the kettles (break EVERY target in a certain amount of time ones). Let the people who want to 100% do that, but allow some wiggle room for players who don’t! You can argue the wiggle room is just not doing the secret boss kettle but that doesn’t really seem fair tbh

Certain weapons, specials, and the Glowflies and Cohozuna in Salmon Run need to be adjusted. I don’t think I’ve survived a single Glowfly Wave and I was pretty good at it (and Salmon Run in general) in Splatoon 2. The flies move too fast to react to, especially if you’re already in a group of Salmonids trying to get eggs and they move to you (a secondary problem is it seems people don’t know how to get to vantage points and stay in a group in order to take the Salmonids out in a row). I don’t think I’ve ever had a team take down the Cohozuna save for in the lowest level. It feels too overpowered right now.

Splatfests have NOT been balanced at all

I did not enjoy the backstory/lore of this game at all

What I do like:

Play as an Octo from the start, customize Small Fry’s hair, and hair and legwear are no longer genderlocked!

I LOVE getting to decorate the locker!

The catalogue is a nice touch

Splashtags!

SALMON RUN IS OPEN 24 HOURS! (This is helpful if you prefer cooperative to competitive)

New Salmonid Bosses are pretty funny

New Occurrences in Salmon Run are good too

Idols are great

Splatsville is fun to run around in; Inkopolis was...pretty tiny.

Tableturf is an interesting addition. I’m not too big on it but sometimes it’s a good break from everything else.

New as well as retuning clothes

Some of the new ink colors are really pretty! Especially the periwinkle that shows up in Salmon Run sometimes

What I hope to see added:

A big DLC; story mode felt too short. You can skip anything except boss battles as long as you have enough power eggs, so it can be really short if you want it to, but even with minimal or no skipping it feels short.

A mode for people who want to aggressively splat, so Turf War can go back to being for people who want a more chill mode to play in. Or else a mode where there isn’t splatting at all for people who don’t want to play a mode focused on that.

More new and returning music for matches

All the buggy things and unevenness fixed

Better matchups in Turf Wars. Right now it seems to be dependent on how much you ink, and seems to pair people up with “inked more” vs “did not ink as much” which often means “went for splats instead”, making it really unbalanced.

More new weapons and specials

Tableturf really needs more than one battle theme

More Salmonid content. We’ve learned more about them so far, but it’s still mostly through the lens of Salmon Run. It would be nice to have something along the lines of Octo Expansion but with Salmonids.