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vanityloves · 4 years ago

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oak and stars for slick! :0

ah yes... this was sent last year...apologies for the last reply...happy 2021 mfs ♡ and thank you sm for the ask!

Word count: 1.6k i guess wtf.

cw: idk? homestuck ajsjdj. kinda mushy towards the end but dw im Me ♡ there's a joke somewhere in here

oak - who’s the more emotional one? how do you balance each other out in this aspect?

Defining 'emotional' is a bit difficult since it's often seen as 'whos the crybaby' but techinally, both parties are emotionally driven. The sole factor is one usually works solo (when working with a group, usually takes a supporting role) and takes things personally. The other can put those feelings aside and work with a group even if they're holding a personal grudge against them.

I'd have to say Ivory is more emotional in the sense of "who cried over (insert characters) death". But of course I'm going to elaborate.

I've always had issues placing Ivory in one 'category' and describe them as "a bit all over the place". At first, they're very jumpy and put off by Slick's demeanor (fairly so). They aren't rude or cold though, rather they're defensive and almost always on guard when around others. Despite this, they're quick to come to someone's aid to act as a protector, since they easily sympathize with others that show fear, sadness or hurt, even if it's an act. (Rightfully) Protraying themselves as naive. They've always been the type to comfort and protect - having a very 'motherly' presence (Ivory is a whole ass mother so I don't blame them)

Ivory is known to display sporadic bursts of emotions that range from enthusiasm and joy or angst and rage before returning to their calmed state in minutes. They're an odd case of slow to anger but quick to put out. The Knight finds the entire thing tiring but don't try to stop said outburts. Things that upset them before, suddenly changes with the seasons.

The type to appear cool, calm and collected and tries incredibly hard to maintain that when faced w/ dangerous situations. Inside though, they're probably ready to cry and once the ordeal is over, they probably do just that.

Ivory tries their best to think logically before jumping into any situation but find that things like 'promises' and plans hold them captive. They're easily swayed when things like this are brought up bc credibility and trust are incredibly important to them. Unfortunately, they're the type to beat themselves up over loses like that, even if it was for the greater good/nothing else could be done. They run off of the more positive emotions like hopefulness and joy (the 'happy feeling' after helping others). This isn't to say they're not petty or bitter, its very much the opposite - its too emotionally taxing to focus on themselves though.

♤

I think Slick is emotional in the sense of he'll experience certain things and if it's something he's not used to, his first reaction is to respond with anger or aggression. He has a pretty bad temper and described to have a nasty attitude and very black and white with his thoughts and decision making. He's the embodiment of 'I won't hesitate, bitch.', if he says something, he will follow through. He's the type to keep promises and wants the upheld on both ends, if the other party does not follow through, he's not the type to feel hurt, rather resorting to anger and cutting off ties - physically and emotionally, he's never been attached.

The man is a mobster so he's used to seeing blood and gore. He's definitely hardened over the years of that rough and tumble lifestyle, so it really isn't personal for him. He's never had it easy and doesn't rely on others (besides the crew) but he's willing to work with others if push comes to shove.

He's not very emotional in the crying and sniffling way. He keeps to himself most of the time and doesn't feel the need to help or seek out others. However, that's countered when he finds himself helping others that are defenseless but become enraged that someone would pick on someone that was 'obviously weaker'. He has a definite soft spot for the gentle, kinder things he runs across but I wouldn't say he gets super emotional about it. Slick runs off of negative emotions such as anger, pettiness, (such as Ivory does with guilt).

♤

They balance each other out with their different outlook/approach on each situation. Some things need to be done immediately and spontaneously, just as some things need to be done with patience or methodically. This isn't to call Slick a dumbass or whatever - the man works best without overthinking the situation and making calls on the spot. Ivory has their fair share of improvised plans but tend to work better with a loose plan (even if it's "don't die"). Their anxiety and lack of confidence ultimately puts them at greater risk.

One thing that's great ab Slick is, he's very sure about himself, his actions, and his feelings so it's reassuring for Ivory. Ivory lends Slick a lot of patience, understanding, but with a firm hand. They don't expect him to take their advice all the time but they expect him to hear them out. There are plenty of close calls that stress Ivory out to no end but on the flipside, Slick doesn't expect Ivory to be so rash and promptly follows them when they do rush into things - he's protective by nature and there's a bit of a curiosity involved.

♤

Overall, their relationship tends to tilt towards the negative aspects of being emotionally driven - pettiness, guilt, spite, etc. But they reassure/calm the other when things get more serious. Slick is incredibly protective and will put himself in danger for them. It's not a matter of not trusting Ivory, rather, it is a sign of loyalty and commitment hebhas towards them.

Ivory is confident in Slick and knows he can fair well on his own or with a team - they still worry but they often rely on hope and luck that things will eventually work in their favor (that's not to say they won't work for their future/goals).

♤

stars - what kind of a date would your f/o take you on?

Ivory was never one for big, flashy dates even in their previous relationships (much to their dismay, they went on many). Dressing up every so often is fun but loses its novelty if it's constant. Slick doesn't seem too flashy either, preferring to lay low and enjoy the time he has alone - sure he broods but he's having his noir film moment. He doesn't mind spending money, he's got plenty to spare which he usually uses on booze and cigarettes anyways. There's no harm in spoiling Ivory on occasion and probably enjoys taking them someplace nice. He hates dressing up in stuffy, 3 piece suits and avoids them at all costs, but if Ivory's dressed to the nines, he's not gonna be shown up.

I've said it as a joke but truthfully, the couple could start off at a 5 star and end up at the diner down the street. Sharing fries all done up in heels and makeup, cufflinks and polished shoes.

That being said, they're both more casual! The duo is more than content driving around the city listening to the radio and enjoying the others company, regardless of the silence.*** Truthfully, dinner and a nice drive or walk around the city is ideal. Ivory's more of a window shopping type and enjoys peeking into windows to watch people bustle around. Slick tends to walk a few steps behind to keep them in view, admire from afar type. He's not a very chatty individual and tends to rely on looks and physical touch when talking to Ivory. He's got a permanent scowl on his face but he's truly content when he's with them.

♤

Slick enjoys his privacy but he's not against going out for drinks and enjoying a nice performance here and there. But if it's shit, he won't be sticking around (if he goes alone), with Ivory he can distract himself and leads them somewhere quiet and he snidely comments on the performances while Ivory tries to find the good and bad in it.

Since that's more of a hit or miss type of date, he tends to do things that are sure to be more relaxing. He's a hotblooded guy, while Ivory's more mellow so he figures getting them riled up isn't something that's 'fun' for them; makes him settle his ass down before he breaks a hip He'll pop in a few of his cherished noir films and let them get as close as they like - he's not as picky ab touch when they're alone.

If not that, he has Ivory randomly choose a record to play and sits back with them. If he was generous and feeling sweet, he'll help them to their feet and hold them near and sway together. He's an awkward romantic but a romantic nonetheless, so he's willing to push through it for the sake of having them against him and teasing them if they look a bit flushed (but reading the atmosphere).

***Extra thing:

Slick really said 'I know a place' and drives out of the city that scares shit out of Ivory- purely because this is unknown territory. Of course they trust him but their nerves often get the best of them as they sit up, a bit stiffly as they look at the scenery passing by.

Very smooth conversation:

"this is where I get rid of 'things'"

"really?"

"yeah"

"oh...at least the view is nice. guess that's why you drove this far."

*met w/ silence*

What 'things', you may ask? Take a wild guess! Maybe it's emotional baggage, sometimes is Physical Baggage!

#self ship #self insert #homestuck #spades slick #slow down why we going so fast!!!#s: knives and ivory #my headcanons #my writing #why must i keep talking jfc #been sitting in my docs for weeks. finally finished them today. bye.#ask reply #anon #n e ways.#♡♡♡ slick ♡♡♡#but also slick....🔫😔

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halberdierminister · 5 years ago

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Okay I set meself some new goals for the new year. How have I been keeping up with them?

1) Write 250 Words Each Day

I have missed a couple days this month, but I have certainly written more than the equivalent of 250 words times 31 days. So while I did have some misses, I more than made up for them. This one is both a hit and a miss, but far more hit than miss. I am mostly on track with this goal.

2) Read At Least 55 Books This Year

If we are counting audiobooks, which we ABSOLUTELY ARE, I have finished ten books this month and am close to finishing two more. If I keep up this kind of pace, I will have met my goal by midyear. We will see if that happens, but I am very well on track with this goal.

3) Get A Full Time Job

I have not done this yet. But I did work two jobs all month with a grand total of two days off. I applied for 24 different jobs this month. This doesn't quite equal out to one job per day, and I certainly didn't do this every day, but that's a fair amount of effort. I worked a lot and I worked on the job search a lot. I've also edited my resume, worked on making a brand new one, and designed my own business cards. I think I am making some progress on this but it is just so hard to tell. I am working on this goal, but I do not know if I am on track.

4) Move Out

Yeah obviously this hasn't happened yet. Kiel and Steph have offered to let me move in with them in Milwaukee if I need to or if I get something there. It's so tempting to take them up on it. I might if I have no leads on the job search by the end of March, but both Kiel and I agree that this winds up with the risk that I just get stuck working at Target again. It's so difficult. And yet today, when my parents were out of the house, I hooked up my Nintendo Switch to the television and just played some video games and I also took out my ukulele and sang some dumb songs and I just felt like myself for the first time in a while, and God I just miss that so damn much. I wanna move out so fucking badly it hurts. Ugh. I will get there. I just need the full time job first. I do not know if I am on track.

5) Drink Less Soda

Well, I drank less soda. I didn't cut out soda altogether, but at least half the days, or maybe even most of the days, I didn't have any soda at all. And the days I had soda, I'm pretty sure I limited it to one, except maybe once or twice when it was two. But by and large I am still cutting down on soda. So that's good. I'm not losing weight, but that's probably because I'm not working physically anymore like I was at Target. The last two days I lifted weights, maybe I'll work out more? Either way, I just needed to cut down on soda, and by gum, I have been doing that. I am on track with this goal.

6) Get Something Published

I am going to be published in Eclipse, a fanzine based on Problem Sleuth the Intermissions of Homestuck. I finished the first draft of my fic for it this year. I also found a zine I might want to send some stuff to tonight, and I still intend to send stuff into The Green Light and Red Cedar. I don't know if I have anything good enough for Steam Ticket, but who knows? I should also submit to more places, and I have been bookmarking pages that have promising listings. I am mildly on track with this goal, but I ought to put more into it.

7) Finish Writing A Legitimate Businessman

I have written 6,654 words on this fic in this month alone. This is the most frequently I have ever updated it. It is not finished, but with every update I near the ending. Some of the endings have been as short as two or three hundred words, most have been around six or seven hundred, but at least one was fifteen hundred words, making it the longest chapter written in years. I am on track with this goal.

8) Write More The Revelation of Takaya According to Jin

I have not written ANYTHING on this fic this month. I did listen to some Lovecraft on audiobook and I've been reading a lot of poetry, so I'm gaining fuel I suppose, but I am not on track.

MINOR GOALS

9) Finish Playthroughs Of:

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild -- Success! I beat it on accident and started a new one. So this one is COMPLETED.

Persona 3 Portable 100%: I am on the last day or two. I tried fighting Margaret once this month and got royally scuppered up the barrelstopper. These sorts of super-hard turn-based battles are literally not fun. I also don't have any Armageddons and I don't know if it's possible to beat Margaret or Elizabeth without them. I don't know if it's worth it to try, but I also don't know if I shouldn't beat this and start a new game plus again. It's just……. I'm literally these two boss fights away from 100%, and I've NEVER gotten this close before. Guh. What I really need is Armageddon though. Sigh. Who knows.

Persona 1 Good Ending: Yeah I don't think I picked this up at all this month.

Pokemon Sword: I have beaten the main game and am partially through the post-game plot. It's just kinda boring at this point, but I will beat it I'm sure.

Pokemon Let's Go Eevee: I haven't picked this up this year, but I plan to. It's a fun little game. I'm at Cinnabar Island, so I'm pretty close to the end.

10) Record More Ukulele Videos

I played my ukulele a lot today?? I tried recording a song but didn't like it. I'm working on some stuff though, so I'm not doing this yet but I am at least getting started on practicing and planning

11) Record Let's Play Videos

Not even a little bit.

12) Duolingo?

I've done Spanish on Duolingo every day for 33 days straight. SUCK IT, Me from 2008.

GOALS I DIDN'T KNOW I HAD

13) Set up my turntable and listened to records on my own.

14) Added to my collections of books, amiibos, video games and movies, often in unexpected ways and sometimes at large amounts for little money. And sometimes not. Whoops. I cannot be trusted with money. Ugh.

15) Work out?? I have done so a little bit two days in a row. Maybe I can keep this up and do more. I ought to, since I'm not at Target anymore, and since I won't be at MATC for the time being I will have more free time to do so. It's worth a shot.

So I'm doing pretty well on the ones I can keep track of. I'm not doing PERFECT, but I do think I am doing really well.

This is 1250 words, by the way.

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nivq87 · 5 years ago

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I tried to write a tag post last night but I had too many and it got cut off and my head hurt so I just deleted it but the tl;dr is I finally finished the candy route of the epilogues it was a lot more depressing than I thought it was gonna be

long aimless ramble under the cut

like, idk back when it was new I remember some folks saying it was like as syrupy as the route name would imply and so I inferred it was gonna get real trickstery and then it never did? I think it was about page 20/41 that I realized that it wasn’t gonna go down like that. I didn’t get very far when it was new because I still had some bitter feelings because of meat and the whole tone was just really alienating for some reason. I’ve left the tab open and pinned this whole time, and over the few couple months i’d been reading a page here and there when the mood would strike me, and it would still be just as bizarre as I’d left it, so i’d stop.

Last night I was just in the right mood for something crack and stupid and decided to brace for that kinda vibe and just finish it. Partially because I’m a bit curious about whatever the hell is going on with homestuck2 and want the context, and also because I still had at the bottom of my emails a few ao3 notices about some people’s reaction fic to the epilogues that I wanted to be able to have context for, Especially FRIENDFICTION by oxfordroulette, which already sounded conceptually hilarious, like most things she writes are.

But yeah, going in I expected it to feel like shitty hello kitty bandaid on some wounds that probably need stitches, but the whole vibe just felt super depressing and bleak. Not even just the john parts, all of them. The whole time I was absently thinking of that jane line about dirk’s detective pony edit, how it was cathartic in all the worst ways, and I could relate to that sentiment.

and while I was typing my post last night, I was also thinking about that pbs youtube think channel that was my first introduction to homestuck, and how they compared it to this novel Ulysses, because it was also just real long and on some level a chore to get through. I don’t remember my exact train of thought that got me there to that video again, but I watched the video again just now to try and remember why and:

a) lmao that novel is only 265k words, granted it’s like real dense words, some of which the author made up

b) wow would I even have got to this point in my life if I hadn’t found that channel and watched that video? it was sept 2012 and I remember starting homestuck a month later, getting caught up by thanksgiving, and idr the connecting reasons but I ended up seeking out fan art on DA, which led to me seeing fanfic on DA, and then to ao3 and tumblr, and by the time my birthday rolled around that january I was waiting outside in the cold for the lecture hall to open up just SUPER JAZZED because the serendipity gospels updated. Like, that fall and winter was a real swan dive into a different phase of my life that, if it hasn’t ended yet, sure lasted a long while. The only other medias that have held my attention so long and so consistently have been also fun garbage world of warcraft, and totally not garbage avatar the last airbender and discworld.

c) I keep having this ephemeral thought that I keep wanting to put here, but as soon as I think it I end up on a tangent thought and promptly forget it. Idk, I guess just feeling kinda nostalgic for 2012-14 era homestuck fandom.

meh, anyway this was supposed to be about candy, but like usual i got sidetracked. thinking about other things. but yeah this morning now that my head wasn’t hurting I read those upd8 fics that were languishing in my emails, and they were certainly a lot of fun. I keep feeling like I need to ascribe worth to it, like were those fics worth having powered through the epilogues, and I don’t quite know where this thought is coming from. I feel like I am pretty good at dropping medias as soon as they stop being enjoyable for me, and I guess my feelings about the epilogues are just kinda complicated. Like, maybe I should have just tapped out and moved on, but there’s still parts of the fandom that hold my interest which I guess make it not so simple. I still want to know what’s gonna happen next, but I guess my initial bitterness at it not living up to my expectations at that time just, appropriately, put homestuck on hiatus for myself.

I’m lowkey reminded that after terry pratchett died, I finally got my hands on the science of discworld books, but I have never read them, because then after I do, there will really be nothing left, and I guess the idea that there’s still something left on the horizon is a small comfort, it’s not over yet. but there’s probably no reason to hold back on homestuck because last night I was also thinking of post about how hussie has shown that he sucks at endings, and has realized that he doesn’t have to work out how to do a satisfying ending if he just never lets it end.

I really wish tumblr didn’t eat the last 5 tags on the post I made last night because now that i’m more awake and in less head pain, trying to rewrite the post has quadrupled its length, and while I think I hit most of my original thoughts, it certainly got away from me too. really wish I could remember what I wanted to put down at c).

#Why am I rambling #sorry any mobile users cursed to have this be on your dash rn #and if you're on desktop this is just me thinking on a page #trying to remember my probably much better put last night thoughts down #unless you're just DESPERATE to read me not knowing what the heck I think about things #you're better off scrolling past this #homestuck

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a-shameless-otome-rp-sideblog · 5 years ago

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looking for otome-based RP partners!

Hullo (hopefully future) friends! I’ve got a bit of a weird proposal.

(For anyone who saw the first one on my OTHER-OTHER side blog, this is redux, the 2.0, because that sideblog was TOO NEW to show up in tags and I am really hoping that this one shows up on this MUCH OLDER and REPURPOSED sideblog!)

ANYWAY, here blog isn’t and probably won’t ever be an RP blog. I’ve RPed on Tumblr a lot in the past (mostly in the Homestuck community, a few years back) and while doing so was a lot of fun, it was also a lot of work! Maintaining pages, bios, graphics, etc, is all stuff I seemed to have all the time in the world for a few years back, but I find I really just don’t anymore.

Unfortunately, I don’t really know where to find RP outside of Tumblr and cherubplay (thanks again, Homestuck!) either, but Cherubplay isn’t exactly the greatest for finding anything outside of just raw-doggin-it-smut-fests and while that can be, uh, fun, it’s not really what I want to focus on when I RP.

So why am I here?

DISCORD RP!!

I’m hoping to find other people who don’t really have time to run an RP blog (or who do have time, but also might be willing to dip their toes into doing it on Discord, too, assuming you aren’t already!) for some good time plotting and roleplaying!

Which I guess brings us to the meat of this whole thing… (more, of course, under the cut!)

WHAT WILL WE RP?

I’ve been real keen on otome lately and I’m really looking to play some canon boys to your MC or OC! While I’ve certainly had my fun playing girls before (mostly in WoW, or other MMORPG settings), I find I always prefer to play dudes, and (if you’d pardon this bit of arrogance!) I think I can be pretty dang good at it!

While I do occasionally ship MxM, it’s really only something I do with my best bro, so I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m really only interested in MxF pairings atm! I hope that’s okay with everyone.

COOL, BUT WHAT SERIES? WHAT CHARACTERS?!

I’d like to say I have a pretty healthy familiarity with a lot of otome, but I’m not sure I’d be the hottest at RPing them all! If it can’t be guessed by my avatar, I’m kind of on a Hakuouki kick right now, so I’m partial to that, for sure, but for ease of readability and so you can get a good idea of what I’m open to, I’ll list them in some nicely formatted order.

Hakuouki Characters

Okita :: Okita is tied for my personal favorite Hakuouki dude with Sannan, but I think I’d enjoy playing him a lot more than Sannan (which isn’t to say I wouldn’t like to play him, too!). I’ve always been partial to smirky, tease-y boys, especially when they’re struggling with confronting their feelings.

Sannan :: Sannan speaks to my love of polite but cold characters, and it’s only a bonus that he’s a megane, which I’ve also always loved! As mentioned above, he’s probably tied with Okita as favorite Hakuouki dude, but I think Okita’d be easier to play.

Kazama :: Kazama is fun because I’ve always had a love for garbage can style kidnap-and-seduce plotlines if that was your kind of thing!

Saito :: I love Saito aesthetically and his personality is pretty rad and I’d rank him as pretty up their on faves, but I admit I don’t have overmuch experience when it comes to awkward slow-to-open-up kinda boys! I’m sure we could make it work though.

Other dudes :: I’d be willing to try honestly most anyone from Hakuouki but these are the ones above are the ones I feel most confident/interested in playing! If you’d like someone else, you can most certainly ask, especially if you have some kind of plotline you’d like to see!

===

Diabolik Lovers

Oh baby, yeah I am totally into this hot hot dumpster fire!

Reiji :: As mentioned, I love megane, and Reiji’s probs my favorite of everyone in the whole dang series. Older? Check. Smart? Check. Responsible? Check. Cold? Double check. Really fucking mean? Check. Smirky? Well, in the games, yes!

Shuu :: Sorry Reiji, but I also love Shuu. I might make him just a twinge OOC because his laziness might make advancing the plot kind of headachey, but other than tht, I love this loser.

Subaru :: Subaru, contrary to his third place on this list, is probably pretty close behind Reiji for favorites. Aggressive, ill-refined, totally willing to fight everyone – I admit I tend to play the more well-spoken and calculating kind of characters more, but I’d be willing to rock Subaru for you to the best of my ability!

Ruki :: I won’t say Ruki’s my favorite of the Mukami brothers but I like him a lot and I think I’d play him well!

Everyone else except Azusa and Kou :: Spoiler: I love Azusa to death and find him adorable but I don’t really relish playing openly masochistic characters, so he’s a no go unless we can work something out! Kou is – no offense, but I just really do not like Kou. As far as the famous Sakamaki triplets go, Kanato is one of my absolute all time favorites, and I’d be willing to play him with the right person… but we all know he’s kind of an absolute nutbag, so I’m hesitant to dump that on anyone! Ayato is a staple and Laito could be… like Kanato, I think I’d have to feel pretty assured by my partner they could handle the grosser parts of his character. Open to exploring it, however!

===

Amnesia

I’m not gonna bother sectioning everyone into neat little areas cause there is so few, but Toma is my favorite (I’m a real sucker for yandere, whoops). I’d be willing to play him, of course, provided my partner was comfortable with it! I’d also be willing to do Kent (my second favorite!), Shin and maaaaaaybe Ukyo. Sorry, I didn’t really care for Ikki – not because Ikki was bad (he was actually cool!) but because fan girl route characters drive me BANANAS.

===

Other fandoms :: Hit me up and ask if you want me to try anything! I might surprise you!

===

AND SO THAT LEAVES US WITH… WHAT WILL YOU PLAY?

Honestly, I’m gonna be real with everyone here: I love roleplaying because it’s like writing fanfiction with someone else, so it’s all the fun and self indulgence of fanfiction, but better, cause ya know – someone else is doing it with you! And I’m really here for the self indulgence, so please go ham.

Yeah, you can play the MC of the game, and I’d be cool with that! But honestly, I love OCs, and I’d love to hear about and plot with your OCs. I have some ideas for potential plots (especially for Hakuouki), but I’m also open to your ideas, too, and I think a lot of plots could work best outside the confines of a pre-established MC. Also, you get to show me your drawings/face-claims/whatever for your characters, and that’s pretty rad!!

Also, as someone had asked when I tried to post this on my previously non-functional blog, I’m also open to crossovers! I’m cool even if I don’t know much about the character -- you’ll just have to pardon my ignorance.

===

So, uh… RULES? RP STYLE? ETC? SOME POORLY ORGANIZED POINTS

+ Yeah, I’m deffo 21+ so ideally you would be too, especially if there’s anything like, remotely scandalous going on! I’m not too sure I feel very comfortable RPing with anyone younger than 18, mostly just because there’d be such a big age difference between us. Rest assured it isn’t because I think I’m better than you, or being ageist! It’s mostly just for my own sense of comfort!

+ Speaking of scandalous, I don’t push hard for anything super graphic unless that’s your style because I’m very much a person who loves drowning in the emotions of “holy crap does this guy really like this lady a lot”. I tend to be over indulgent as heck when it comes to inner monologues describing just how much your character makes mine’s heart go doki-doki, so expect a lot of that. If we start heading towards fuck-making of the graphic non-fade-to-black-variety, we should deffo discuss the sorts of things you discuss before those scenes! (Kinks? I GUESS???) But, as mentioned, it’s deffo not at all on top of my list of prerogatives. We need to BUILD for that!

+ My RP style tends to be 3rd or 2nd (lmao, Homestuck) person, present tense, a couple paragraphs to “oh my god, you can shut up now”. You can write however you like, with my only request being that you be passably literate! Not like, snootily literate. You get what I mean? I hope so. ):

+ As far as activity goes, I’m also fine with the Tumblr esque style of replying whenever you get around to it! If we both happen to be on for a barrage of replies, great! If we can only get one or two out a day, also great! I’m pretty easy going, honestly.

+ I love working in universe and also going mad with AUs. Find some cute starters or AU ideas on tumblr and you wanna throw them at me? I’m always open. From vampires where there are none to school AUs to coffee shop AUs I am willing to try most things, but note: I am primarily a fan of DRAMATIC ROMANCE so keep that in mind!

+ Want some kinda crazy love triangle where your lady is pursued by not one, BUT TWO DUDES? We can probably make it happen!

+ I run the gamut from fluffy and sweet romance to angsty yandere esque stuff, so please feel free to talk to me about what kind of dude you’d like!

===

A SAMPLE OF MY STYLE:

It has been months, Okita reminds himself. It has been months, and months, and more months on top of that – almost a year, maybe a little more, even, and as he sets his teeth behind that constant wolf’s grin, he thinks to himself: You should be better than this. You should be stronger.

But for all the time he’s spent with her, it has never gotten easier. No, no – it has only ever gotten worse, and it’s particularly bad now that he’s alone with her, now that she’s so close –

“Okita-san?” Her voice rings in his ears like a few plucked notes of some delicate string instrument, and he feels his lips part, his smile all teeth. She’s paused, midway between pouring him a cup of tea, and her eyes – ever and much too familiar – meet his with a hint of shyness Okita feels guilty for relishing. “Are you okay?”

“Worried about me, mn?” He rolls his head from one shoulder to the next, halfway between a shrug and a stretch, and tries very hard to resist the urge to pull her towards him, into him, that he might catch more of the rich perfume that lingers along the line of her throat. “You shouldn’t be.”

You should, he thinks, and not without a hint of guilt, be more worried about yourself.

===

ANYWAY, IT’S LATE.

I feel like I’m missing some garbage, but I’ll probably add to this tomorrow when I inevitably remember what I forgot! If you’re interested, send me an ask or a submission or a Tumblr… DM? We can work from there with regards to exchanging contact info!

#hakuouki rp #hakuoki rp #otome rp #diabolik lovers rp #amnesia rp #ikemen sengoku rp #hakuouki #hakuoki #diabolik lovers #amnesia #ikemen sengoku #i'm sorry for all these tags i'm trying for exposure #let's be real this probably won't even work #i might have to do this on like #my main blog #or my main side blog #the horror

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fantroll-purgatory · 6 years ago

Photo

@plumb1tes

This is my Athena Troll! Hope you like her ^u^

YES with the 80′s businesswoman vibe! Love her!

FIRST: Alternia or Beforus or some type of AU?

Ok, this is a WIP AU where twelve trolls (based off of Greek Gods) play sgrub, and their planet is pretty similar to Alternia in terms of enforcing the hemospectrum and the like. This troll is based off of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war (the tactical side of it)

Name (preferably include how you came up with it and why): Athine Pallas (Athine from the goddes’s name, Athena. Pallas is from the extra title that some address Athena, as some call her Athena Pallas.)

Hmmmm I worry that this name tips its hand a little too readily? Athena’s got a lot of epithets besides “Pallas,” many of which serve an actual function of her role as a goddess. Based on your description, I think the best ones to use for her are Atrytone, “The Unweariying,” and Promachos, “She Who Fights in Front.”

So maybe…Atryon Pachos? Also keeps her initials the same.

Age: 7 sweeps (almost 8)

Strife Specibus: shieldKind (Can be throwable, and its quite high-tech, like Captain America’s. It has retractable razors on the rim of the shield, and circles back after thrown like a boomerang.)

God I love this! As CD pointed out, Athena from borderlands has a rad shield that might be fun to use as a visual anchor!

Fetch Modus: Not really great with these, but puzzlemodus seems to fit her, as she likes solving problems.

I kinda like giving her Jade’s Pictionary Modus since Athena is a also a goddess of handicrafts.

Blood color: Teal

Symbol and meaning: It’s an astrology sign of Minerva, Athena’s roman counterpart.

Love it! It already fits tealblood sign language pretty well! I may add a line and open up the upper loop a little but I think it’s good to go!

Trolltag: adroitExarch

You’ll see below that I’ve offered suggestions to modify her ancestor’s title, but I still like this trolltag since it sets up a desire to rise above her station.

Quirk: She doesn’t use any other punctuation other than a period. It’s to show her monotone voice. (If you have any suggestions I’m glad to hear some!)

Nah, I think this works! Troll quirks don’t have to be super complicated. If you wanna add a fun one, maybe she extends her “oo” sounds into “ooo” when she’s over-excited, sort of like an owl hoot!

ex: “Whooo the fuck do yooou think yooou are?”

Special Abilities (if any):

Lusus: An owl, which is sacred to Athena. She was a mentor to Athine, and raised her without much fighting, as Athine was a pretty composed grub. However as Athine gets older, she spends less time with Owlmom, and doesn’t really listen to her advice as much due to believing she’s smart enough to not need it, becoming absorbed into studying due to wanting to be a general, like her ancestor. Owlmom loved Athine, and felt pretty sad about being ignored. She grew a bit mischievious, and would frequently cause trouble to get Athine to pay attention to her.

Personality: The first thing to describe Athine: logical to a fault. She is a pretty unemotional person, and responds to questions with the most logical answer she can think of. Athine is an ambitious person, and a go-getter. She doesn’t want to settle with being a legislacerator, even though she assumes she’d be a pretty good one. She has her sight on being the general of the emperor’s army. With her perception and intelligence, she gained a decently sized ego, though it’s much more subtle than others in her session (*cough cough* the Aphrodite troll *cough*).

I wanna MEET the Aphrodite troll!

Athine is also a pretty irritable person, but most of her frustration is directed at her lusus’s mischief, and tries not to lose her cool in front of her group if she can help it. She is a pretty professional person, and almost always reacts to situations with an apathetic demeanor. This doesn’t mean she’s emotionless, but she prefers to not have her feelings cloud her judgement on others.

God yeah she’s a Dersite.

Athine is confident in herself as a leader, and is good at ordering others to work in order to achieve a goal. She’s definitely not a personable troll, nor is she very friendly, but is able to quickly make decisions in the heat of the moment. She is very no nonsense, and has no sense of humor most of the time. While she thinks herself as a good leader, if a friend were to be harmed by her own judgement or decisions unintentionally, she would be quite remorseful and critical of herself for a long time.

Interests: She loves to play chess, and has played it since she was a grub. Athine is also pretty studious, and likes to gain knowledge that will benefit her or her group, though she doesn’t really like trivial knowledge, or information that isn’t useful to her.

Athine likes to play FLARP with the Ares troll of their session, being a pretty formidable duo (him being the one that does most of the actual fighting, and her giving him orders. This is symbolic of the fact that Ares and Athena are two sides of war; Ares is the brutal fighting, and Athena is the tactical planning.)

Honestly if I could add something? Include weaving. She’s the goddess of warfare and of handicrafts, and her weaving competition with Arachne is one of the more famous myths with which she’s associated. Also much like tactical warfare, weaving requires immense pre-planning and rapid adjustment if you mess up.

Ansestor: The Exarch. A supreme general that squashed rebellions, leaded fleets of soldiers to victory, and the Emperor’s right hand woman. Her story was a pretty well-known one, and it is from her ancestor that Athine aspired to become as brilliant as her, and wanted to become a general instead of a legislacerator. Athine greatly respects and admired her ancestor, and wishes to be just like her.

Man I like the concept but troll rules as far as we know still state that ancestor titles be eight letters long. If we go a rank above Exarch, we get Patriarch, which actually matches the correct number? Whether you wanna change it to Matriarch or not is up to you, but I like Patriarch since it lines up with Athena wanting to be on the level of her male contemporaries. As CD points out, a common feminist criticism is that Athena favors men in her stories but also like…men wrote those myths, so…

But the point stands. I especially feel like this fits her because you’d expect army generals to be purplebloods or violetbloods, both of which are apparently male-dominated castes.

Title: Thief of Mind (I think this suits her pretty well, but if you believe you found another one that suits her, I’m all ears.)

I…honestly think she might be a Space player? Tactical warfare and handicraft have a lot to do with manipulating space, and while I admit that I’m the one who included weaving, Space definitely has an association with fashion (Just look at Kanaya and Jade, the most fashionable characters in Homestuck).

Given her desire to be this flawless leader, I think Heir of Space is a fitting title? Especially since the inverse, Mage of Time, also lines up with the character you gave her.

Land: Any suggestions?

Yes! Land of Spiders and Frogs. Given the Arachne myth, I can’t imagine she’s a fan of ‘em. Also lets you design a very witchy-looking planet, which is fun since Athena is also worshiped as an aspect of the Goddess in Wicca. Go wild! Put some crystals on it! And Hoo BOY is frog breeding the perfect task for her! It’s literally all about pre-visualization and intense strategy.

Dream Planet: Derse

Yep yep. With her new classpect, that would make her Liga, sign of the Dogged. I think it suits her real well, and incorporating it into her original sign is as easy as adding just a couple lines. Let’s go to the redesign!

My redesign was pretty heavy handed, partly because of how well-designed she is in the first place. Sometimes it’s like, I could just textually give you one suggestion or go absolutely crazy with it.

So CD and I have a running theory that tealbloods are all designed after college kids of some kind. But the lady on the left doesn’t look like she goes to my college! She looks like she’s mock-interviewing me and keeps scribbling way too many notes after each of my answers and never changes expression.

She’s 7 sweeps old. She should look like a teenager. So I wanted to design the girl that might eventually grow up to be the woman on the left. And who becomes an 80′s powersuited war general? A 70s college feminist, potentially. I based the design on the right on Gloria Steinem, who was really weirdly upfront about working for the CIA because it was “liberal, nonviolent, and honorable” lol. Let’s go top to bottom!

Hair - Original is heavily edited from Sollux’s hair, of all people (I admit to being very weak when it comes to spriting hair with limited volume), while the new version is from a naphal sprite sheet. Gloria Steinem had iconically highlighted hair and I wanted to nod to that.

Eyes - whenever we talk about a “wise owl” we usually see a cartoon owl with a graduation cap, a set of comically large glasses, and a pointer. I wanted to give her glasses to make her look more owlish while keeping the downcast condescending look from the original.

Lips(/Heels) - I wanted to add a little bit of college-y rebellion to her aesthetic and felt the best way to do that was to play on the trope of “lipstick as red as the blood of her enemies.” Instead, she’s sporting a seadweller-purple lip and a matching kitten heel, to make it clear she’s gonna chew ‘em up and stomp on ‘em.

Shirt - I was listening to Death By Glamour on loop when I sprited the left side to get in the mood for those shoulders. On the right I simplified a lot. Gloria Steinem usually wore plain shirts with high-waisted pants, which was easy enough to edit from your original.

Symbol - made it a little bigger and added two internal horizontal lines to reference Liga

So that’s my very indulgent review of your troll! I hope you like some of the suggestions I made!

-TR

#plumb1tes #athine pallas #athine #pallas #atryon pachos #atryon #pachos #tealblood #review #redesign #tr review #submission

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argentconflagration · 7 years ago

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A, B, C, O, Q, V, and uh... W, to throw in one non-shipping question

Ok I just got home and @noddytheornithopod I’m going to answer this one first just to break it up a little more evenly.

A: Your current OTP.

… That really depends on how long a period of time is captured by “now”. For maybe a week now, I’ve been in the thrall of an obsession with Zero Two / Hiro from Darling in the Franxx, but speaking in a more overall sense, I’d certainly say Kirishima and Bakugou.

B: A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind.

I mean I don’t know if this counts because it was basically immediately after I watched BNHA that @peregr1ne explained TsuYami to me, which I wouldn’t have shipped on my own, but consider – it’s not just theme shipping. Tokoyami is obviously uncomfortable with who he is. He seems to believe that on the inside, people look down on him or fear him. He sort of reminds me of me in that I tend to be extremely surprised when anyone besides those I’m super close with does anything nice for me. Where as Tsuyu is not only visibly and deliberately ‘odd’, but she speaks her feelings very frankly. And from Tsuyu’s side, it makes a lot of sense to me that she’d find the most withdrawn and awkward kid in the class (with an animal head, to boot) and say “I want that one.”

C: A pairing you wish you shipped, but just can’t.

Umm the background pairings in kiribaku fics sure would annoy me a lot less if I shipped Kaminari and Jirou. I’ll leave it at that.

O: Choose a song at random, what ship does it remind you of?

The first song that came on was “You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid” which reminds me of Terezi?Vriska because … well just watch this AMV, that pretty much explains it. But I kind of wanted to make a new song/ship connection, so I’m going to keep going.

Second song that came on was “She’s My Ride Home” by Blue October, a kind of silly song about being in love while doing things like murder. I just know there’s an OTP that this makes sense with, but it’s not coming to me. (Simply trying to find the connection was sorta fun tho.)

… I tried to keep going and find a song that I could make a new connection about, but discovered that my music library maybe just isn’t suited for that? I listen to a lot of music about heartbreak / unrequited love / tragic romance, while I tend to prefer ships where the ship is the happy, healing part of the characters’ lives, even if everything else in their life is tragic.

Q: A ship you’ve abandoned and why.

Hmm … I’m not sure there’s any ship I’ve totally abandoned, in that I don’t like it even a little bit anymore, but my first ship in the Homestuck fandom was actually JohnKat, and of course I lost a lot of interest in that when I got much more involved in Karezi.

V: Do you have any 3-way ships? If so, what?

Hell yes, I am so here for the polyamory!

Special shoutout to Takuto/Wako/Sugata from Star Driver! Most of my poly ships are a couple I like + another person (kind of shaped by the fact that it’s much easier to find fics of couples than OT3+’s) but Takuto/Wako/Sugata is truly an equilateral triangle in the sense that there isn’t a particular dyad among them that’s my favorite.

… Okay I just spent several minutes going back and rereading the tiny amount of Takuto/Wako/Sugata fanfic in existence. I have basically forgotten literally everything about Star Driver except that Takuto, Wako, and Sugata are in love and their basic personalities.

Anyway not to toot my own horn, but I’m sorta on an Izuku/Ochako/Tsuyu kick because it ended up being endgame in the Ochako-centric longfic I wrote during NaNo last year. Now that I think about it, I think I ship the three of them partly because I’m frustrated with the ship war between IzuOcha and TsuChako – specifically, the queerphobia. No, Horikoshi is never going to make anything queer canon, with the exception of KiriBaku if we get very, very, very lucky, and you don’t have to rub it in everyone else’s faces just because your ship is straight. And on the other hand, Ochako is canonically interested in Izuku, so the bi erasure of SHE’S A LESBIAN!!! gets old really fast.

(I appreciate the way this question was matched to the letter.)

W: 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms.

-Terezi Pyrope from Homestuck

-Steven from Steven Universe

-Chandra Nalaar from Magic: the Gathering

-Kirishima Eijirou from Boku no Hero Academia

-Zero Two from Darling in the Franxx

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ourlittlebitofnothinguniverse · 6 years ago

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All for the video game ask. (do I need to mention only if u r comfy w/ it at this point). Love you!!

alright u done done it now bitchhhhhhhh are u READY 4 THIS SHIT (dshfa;lkj thamk i am so pumped ur my biggest enabler) i already answered a couple of these for anon but i’ll go ahead and answer them here as well

1. First game you played obsessively?hmmmm i wanna say the legend of spyro the eternal night? i played it so much i could beat the whole game in four hours. i’ve heard lots of ppl actually hated the legend of spyro trilogy but honestly they can suck my ass i loved them

2. A game that has influenced you creatively? Writing, drawing, etc.uh besides my answer for anon of skyrim not many games have actually just straight up influenced my art style but i’ve been playing this game called Fe (not fire emblem just Fe) and i really want to draw fanart for it bc it’s super cute if that Counts as influence?

3. Who did you play with as a kid?if this is meant in terms of co-op games nobody bc we didn’t have anyif just in general, my sister for the most part. i’d watch her play things like resident evil and she’d help me with the hard parts in medievil and crash bandicoot warped (read: racing levels)

4. Who do you play with now?myself lmao i don’t rly like co-op and multiplayer games and i prefer to play most games by myself

5. Ever use cheat codes?like i told anon, no bc i don’t know how they work and i’d probably only use them for the sims anyways

6. Ever buy strategy guides?not really? once we bought the collectors edition for diablo II when i was little and it included the strategy guide which i stayed up all night to read (bc i had run out of other reading materials in the house) but like i don’t really use them idk

7. Any games you have multiple copies of?the sims three and i know you know the reason why but in case anybody else wants to know: i didn’t know they had actually completely changed the game since i had played it last probably a decade ago so i bought it @ walmart this year and then i got mad bc it apparently SUCKS ASS now so in search of a copy of the original version i bought a second one from amazon bc the Image being used WAS of the original case but it really was the new version so now i have two SHITTY SHITTY VERSIONS of a game i used to love that i will never play bc it’s shit except maybe i will bc apparently it has real life music in it just replaced with sims language which is amazing and this response is far too long for the question but i asked u if u were ready so u signed up 4 thisi also have an xbox version of it tht i got for like christmas or smth years ago and a,,,,,, ds version??? that i got last year bc somebody was selling “the original version of the game including every expansion pack” for only like $30 and it definitely said disk version but when i got it it was this Pre-owned Dirty Ds Cartridge Covered In What Looked Like Strawberry Jelly and when i tried to contact them they shut their page down so there’s that which equals four shitty shitty copies of the sims three and i will never be more mad about anything than i am about this

8. Rarest/Most expensive game in your collection?uh well back when i had a job i spent A Lot of money (to me it was a lot) to get the collectors edition of the last guardian so that would be my most expensive. other than that i would have to say one of the hardest to find (maybe not rare but not common)games i have currently is medievil for ps1 bc it took me like a week of searching to find a copy in good condition online for sale bc i rly wanted to own it again since we had to sell all my old games when we moved to oregon which sucked bc we had a Bunch of cool games (mostly early ps era)

9. Most regrettable purchase?did you see my rant about the sims three for answer 7? yeah

10. Ever go to a midnight game release or stand in line for hours?never lived in an area where that is A Thing

11. Have you ever made new friends from playing video games?i wanna make a homestuck joke here (srsly probably not like i said i don’t rly do any type of co-op or multiplayer games so)

12. Ever get picked on for liking games?not really?? is that a Thing?

13. A game you’ve never played that everyone else has?uh idk literally any COD game, basketball games, Fallout games, overwatch, anything that’s co-op, shooter games or sports related etc idk i’m a simple fellow these types of games don’t appeal to me

14. Favorite game music?idk what this means? like genre-wise??? idk abt stuff like that i just like good game music but i’ll tell you the fuck what, hiveswap music fuckin SLAPPED

15. If it was a requirement to get a game related tattoo, what would you pick?fuck shit idk man i don’t rly want a tattoo maybe uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh smth that could be vague

16. Favorite game to play with your friends IRL?idk rip lmao

17. Ever lose a friend over a game?Nah man i can’t even imagine smth as dumb as that unless they’re screaming racist or sexist slurs bc then friendship is terminated but otherwise like wtf it’s just a game,,,

18. Would you date someone that hates gaming?i mean?????? sure????????????? they don’t have to game with me??????????? unless they tell me I can’t game bc they don’t like it in which case Bye u controlling piece of shit

19. Favorite handheld console?u kno those games that used to come in sonic happy meals? yah (jk uh i don’t have much experience w/ handheld consoles besides nintendo ds-es and they’re cool)

20. Game that you know like the back of your hand?like i said i played spyro the eternal night so often i could beat it in four hours so probably that one.

21. Game that you didn’t like or understand as a kid but love now?the only games i didn’t like as a kid i p much still don’t like now

22. Do you wear game related clothing/accessories?i am Poor

23. The game that you’ve logged the most hours into?currently skyrim or stardew valley

24. First Pokemon game?I didn’t get to play any pokemon games until this year actually but i got myself pokemon y and ultra sun so those are my first two! although you Could technically say pokemon go bc i played that for the first time like One month before i got y and ultra sun but like idk if tht counts so *shrug emoji*

25. Were you ever an arcade game player?i never lived where arcades were a thing tbh

26. Ever form any gaming rivalries?Why

27. Game that makes you rage?there’s this absolutely adorable and INFURIATING game called so many me that’s a puzzle platformer but the controls are so ridiculously precise that it’s absolutely the WORST to play bc unless you do it just right at just the right millisecond you will die over and over and over

28. Ever play in a tournament?nah

29. What is your gaming set up?the livingroom tv and my mom’s xbox one or my bedroom with my ps4 i got for my birthday and my xbox 360 that i got like 7 years ago

30. How many consoles do you own?alright so If ds-es count i own,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, roughly seven? i have my new ps4 i got for my birthday last year, my 7 year old xbox 360, another xbox 360 i bought from a kid @ school, a ps1 i bought last year for the Nostalgia that’s in rly good condition, a rly old ds lite a rly old 3ds and my new pokeball 2dsxl. i would also say that the ps3 my aunt left when she died is mine bc my mom never used it and she had bought most of the games For Me and Her to play together anyways so the idea that she left it to my mom is,,,, Weird but my mom claims it was left to her so Shrug emoji

31. Does the 3DS and/or Virtual Boy hurt your eyes or give you headaches?“virtual boy” i love it omg. uh not really i don’t use my ds-es that often bc i don’t have a just wild amount of games but when i do use them it doesn’t rly mess w/ my brain or eyes too much

32. Did you ever play a game based on your favorite show/cartoon/movie/comic?probably not?

33. Did you ever have any bootleg games or plug-n-play games?i don’t think so tbh

34. Do either of your parents play video games?my mom does but she really only plays like three games (the newest assassins creed, skyrim, and stardew valley)

35. Ever work in a game store? Or do you have a favorite game shop?nope

36. Have you ever shed actual blood, sweat or tears over a game?man have u ever heard of brotherhood a tale of two sons? mom told me abt it and she didn’t warn me abt how it ended and i had to leave the room and cry bc it broke my heart

37. Have you played E.T. for the Atari 2600? Do you think that’s the worst game ever, or do you have another nomination?i didn’t know that was a thing

38. A game you’re ashamed to admit that you like?i can’t think of any tbh. oh wait i take that back sonic unleashed it’s terrible but i love it

39. A sequel that you would die for them to make?maybe not a sequel but they rly need to come out with another stardew valley type thing or maybe expansions or smth so that you can talk to and befriend more ppl and stuff

40. What to you think of virtual reality headsets or motion controls?never been able to try them but they look super fun and i can’t wait to see how they improve the technology

41. A genre that you just can’t get into?multi-player games period. also first person shooters and sports games. there’s more but i can’t remember the title of the game bc i don’t know what genre it would be lmao

42. Maybe it wasn’t your first game, but what was the game that started you on your path to nerdiness?i assume this means game related nerdiness not just my inherent nerdiness in general so probably the very first spyro game

43. Ever play games when you really should have been concentrating on something else?all the time my dude

44. Arcade machine that has consumed the most of your quarters?none

45. How are you at Mario Kart?probably shit i’m not good @ steering in games

46. Do you like relaxing games like Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon?i love them! i have like 100+ hours logged into stardew valley and i only got it in like november of last year

47. Do you like competitive games?not really

48. How long does it take your to customize your player character?so long. i either have to make them gorgeous or beautifully hideous

49. In games where you can pick your class, do you always tend to go for the same type of character?yah tbh lmao. i have like eight thief stone khajits in skyrim rn

50. If you were a game designer, what masterpiece would you create?i have a Lot of ideas and not all of them are good

51. Have you ever played a game for so long that you forgot to eat or sleep?forgetting to sleep, yes. forgetting to eat? no

52. A game that you begged your parents for as a kid?i was a very sheltered kid i didn’t know about new games coming out when i was little bc we didn’t have any way for me to find out About Them. i’m making up for it by begging as an adult for ni-no-kuni II and the new spyro trilogy remastered

53. What’s your opinion on DLC these days?depends on the game tbh some of it is good and a lot of ppl who make mods are rly talented but sometimes the big companies just make dlc to make more money so it can be rly shitty so it’s kinda a 50/50

54. Do you give in to Steam sales?heck yes rn i’m waiting for house flipper to go on sale bc i’ve been waiting for it to come out since i found out abt it

55. Did you ever make someone you hated in the Sims and did mean stuff to them?no my style of playing the sims was more along the lines of make a hundred houses that are all P Much The Same House and making a hundred familys and never playing literally any of them hadflskja;sdfjdslkhja i just liked building stuff and that’s why i’m pissed abt how much they changed the sims three bc it used to be Way Better

56. Did you ever play Roller Coaster Tycoon and kill off your guests?we didn’t have it but i did have zoo tycoon and i’d release the dinosaurs sometimes

57. Did you ever play a game to 100% or get all of the achievements?legend of spyro the eternal night

58. If you can only play 3 games for the rest of your life, which ones do you pick?uh!!! that’s too much pressure and i would get so bored playing them for the rest of my life even if i loved them so i will not choose

59. Do you play any cell phone games?sort of? i’m big into abyssrium and i like viridi if those Count?

60. Do you know the Konami Code???????????????????????? guess not

61. Do you trade in your games or keep them forever?keep them forever!

62. Ever buy a console specifically to play one game?i got the last guardian before getting the ps4 does that answer ur question? (jk that is not the only reason i wanted and got the ps4 but it was One big reason)

63. Ever go to a gaming convention or tournament? nah

64. Ever make a TV or monitor purchase based on what would be best for gaming?not really? i just use whatever i currently have bc i am lame

65. Ever have a Game Genie, Game Shark or Action Replay? Did it ever mess up your game’s save file?nope

66. Did you ever have have an old Nokia with Snake on it?not a nokia but we had this one handheld thing that had a bunch of games in it that included snake i just can’t remember what it was it had like letters and numbers and it needed like regular batteries and you could only play the games that came programmed on it

67. Do you have a happy gaming-related childhood memory you want to share?i cannot think of any right off the top of my head even though i know i played a lot of video games and loved them when i was little. hm it might not count as like a gaming-related childhood memory and more of just a memory of a game but we did have one really interesting little game that i absolutely loved i think we only rented it but u were a scientist who could turn into a mouse and it was absolutely amazing i loved it i have no idea what it was called hm

68. Ever save up a ton of tickets in an arcade to get something cool?not really we didn’t have arcades around where i grew up

69. In your opinion, best game ever made? there are a lot of rly good ones i can’t choose a best game

70. Very first game you ever beat? like i told anon i’m p sure it was crash bandicoot warped

WHEW this was rly fun thank u for enabling me it took me like two hours to answer this i’m so happy. ilu 2 man hope ur day has been rad!

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the-appreciation-zone · 7 years ago

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I LOVE jalexy's taz fics. Raise and get Razed is fuckin hilarious, and Do You Remember Me is so sad and sweet and Im so excited for the next update <3!

Jalexy I don’t really know you that well but from what I’ve seen you are very nice and I love seeing your icon in the chat discussions!!

Galexy is really jazzed about dnd! And she knows her stuff! It's really fun going back and forth when talking about the pros and cons of spells in different situations!

Hey Jalexy! It’s been a lot of fun seeing you around on the writer’s discord! Thanks for giving boom and me ways to customize the server to maximum non-readability – I’m sure we’ll use that information in totally responsible ways and not at all for fun and goofs. Your ideas for the potential Pacific Rim au were great – you mentioned that you like to make connections between the different stories and that’s one of my absolute favorite parts of coming up with aus. We should talk more about aus sometime! I love them so much, come and talk and share this au pit with me. (Then we can trick other people into writing them.)

I read your fic, “Raise and get Razed” and it was wonderful! I really like that you took a look at what necromancers might be beyond very goth and hiding out in caves; those are fun too, but the necromancers in your story are original and interesting! I love the idea of average people getting creative with a dark form of magic for relatively innocent reasons – I never would have considered a person using necromancy to help their farm, but asking a parent for advice using plants as a sacrifice are excellent ideas.

I think my favorite part, though, were the pun names and Lup’s reaction to them! I have no idea how you came up with so many but that entire section where the group is being asked for their names was wonderful. My absolute favorite line is this: “B- Buddy- Buddy Corpse? His name’s Buddy Corpse. It’s- it’s ironic how he- he died really c- cause I can admit that it sounds like bloody corpse but th- that’s his real god given name.” (Poor guy, how did he never notice this trend?) Lup going back to retrieve the bodies just so she could see if their names were also puns was hilarious and absolutely something Lup would do. Poor Kravitz is trying to be professional and Lup and Barry aren’t helping; it’s a mess and a delightful peek into their dynamics together!

Thank you for sharing this work and some wonderful experiences on discord, and I hope we can talk again soon! I hope you feel every bit as appreciated as you deserve to be!

I’ve also read your fic “Do You Remember Me?” that you’re collabing with hyperInactive, and I am so excited to see where you two go with it! I’m incredibly fond of aus, and especially those that explore what might have happened differently in the story with even a slight change. I really love the idea of Lup getting out of the Umbrastaff early, and this is the first time that I’ve seen it explored with Lup leaving the Umbrastaff during the Rockport Limited arc. (While I was reading I hoped that the au aspect was going to be Lup being freed early, but I was not expecting it to happen in that moment! I had to stop and try to remember if that was how the fight went down - and then the crab snapped the staff and I had a great “oh shit” moment.) That’s such a unique opportunity! Lup has the chance to see what’s happening on the moon base and react to it, but is also able to more obviously interact with events of the story in a way that she couldn’t in canon. There are so many possibilities here! I’m not sure what you’re planning with the rest of the fic, but there are several arcs filled with potential and I’m so excited to see where you go with it!

What I especially liked in the fic - something else I haven’t seen before - is Lup refusing to believe that her brother would have forgotten about her. There are a number of fics that explore Lup learning things from inside the umbrella, and in most of them she figures out almost immediately that Taako has forgotten everything, including her. I love the difference of, despite all of the evidence that might hint otherwise, Lup doesn’t believe it. (And the moment on the train when she wonders if Taako stopped looking for her after a couple of years broke my heart - she’s not angry, but she never would have stopped looking for Taako.) That’s such a realistic way to portray that realization; it’s the one thing that Lup refuses to accept until she absolutely has to, and that gives her moment of realization so much more impact. I’m very excited to see what you do with both this and other fics in the future!

"Jalexy, the apprecaition zone has led me to your Ao3 and i have never been more greatful. 'Raise and get Razed' was hilarious and all round a wonderful short read! All their names are puns and it took me a while to get it but once it clicked I died laughing. Also the setting of the barn, and their reason for summoning (pumpkings, the first instinct when pumpins arn't growing is ask a demon. im.) was great?? I loved it. Im not very far into 'Do You Remember Me' that you have been writing with hyperInactive but bOY is it good. The lup feels are so heavy in this one, and I can assure you I'll be binging the entire fic sometime soon. Theres this wonderful mix of lines straight from the podcast as well as explorations of scenes from Lup's perspective and its just. The feels. Its just all so good."

Cool. Well I would like to say that I read some of her fics and that her strongest skill, one I really envy, is her ability for description! It’s really easy to picture what she’s saying and it’s all so real seeming. Honestly it’s an amazing skill and makes her writing great in a way that keeps my attention and I just assume everyone else’s

Their angst is absolutely A+ and their tumblr has the perfect balance of fandom v memes, and i enjoy following them v much (although I don't understand their homestuck references, which i assume are very funny based on other experiences). They're a warm and funny presence on the discord, which is mainly how I know them, and they're always around to chat or to help generate Horrible Ideas. They are eminently quotable and the discord would be an emptier place without them.

Ive got my addition! Ive read and reread your gift for candlenights sooo many times!! I love your works, but that one in particular was so funny i was dying! Badass dysfunctional reaper squad is the absolute best, and I love how you write them! You’re a ton of fun to have in the chat, from the thousands of cursed jean jokes that get dropped to the fun ideas tossed around (even in the dangerous waters of the homestuck tag). Stay cool!!

Raise and get Razed was one of the funniest TAZ fics I've read!! Barry is a nerd, the characterization was spot-on, and the sheer amount of puns... I kept laughing through the entire thing! Also, I love your blog and blog theme,, it's so soft and nice to look at.

I hope this isn't too late but for galaxies good good feels thing I wanted to say that I knew them in the McElroy party server and they've always been extremely fun to be around and just a joy to be near. they always have soft, fluffy ideas that they execute beautifully, it's good enough to be published as a children's book, and honestly, their ideas are great for when you just want to unwind with a warm and fluffy story.

Sorry this is so late ive been moving house while working full time things been slipping x.x Jalexy! Holy jazz you beautiful human, you are a day-brightener in every possible way! You're so positive and easy to talk to and an actual literal Great Human with a tumblr that is aaaaaall Good Shit (bc I legit scrolled through for a couple hours because all of it was so good?? You know how to pass on that good good content and it's ALWAYS a good day when you're on my dash. Thank you for being one of the sunshine people <3

"Hey!!! I don't get to talk to you nearly enough for how fucking cool you are, but you are super fucking cool. I wish i had so much more substace to put in this than i do, but school is kicking my ass (like always, really, fucking developmental disorders, why are they like this???) and i am a nervous bean who has seen your url and your killer handle (seriously, that nickname and handle are to die for!!! good shit right there) many times and been too weenie to talk to you. I know you are super chill and super cool, and i admire you a lot, and hopefully we talk a lot in the future. <3"

Time To Appreciate the Shit out of Alex! Like, ok, you are just so good???? im giving up on anonymity here, you're gonna know its me by what I say. If I tried to be vague and anonymous, I wouldnt be happy with what I said. (Also this is gonna be super sappy bc i have two modes: Angst and Sap, and this sure as hell isnt gonna be the former). Anyway, you are so much fun to write fics with. Like, hands down I would write endless amounts of stories with you bc you have such good ideas, constantly. Half the time our brainstorming is me sending you an idea that I think is decent but not that great, and then you sending back an idea that is just So Damn Good. Your story ideas are super original too, and they're stories that if I saw them in a bookstore i would buy them in a heartbeat because I've seen nothing really like them. And your writing never fails to make me laugh, because you just have this way of adding humor to stories that doesn't seem forced at all and I'm convinced its a whole different art form because I could never be as funny as you when I write. And then, when the humor is super obvious in the writing it doesnt even feel wrong or clunky in any way it's just hysterical.

Your writing style is just so unique and I could read it forever. Youve been one of my absolute Best Friends for four years now, and you've motivated me to write so much, I can never repay you for all the ideas youve given me and the beta-ing help and the brainstorming we've done that most of the time turns into us making jokes about Everything. Do You Remember Me is one of my favorite things to write, and thats largely thanks to you. You're just so supportive of all my writing, no matter what it is, and I hope that I'm doing a good job in return because honestly? I think one of the reasons I'm so intent on making that fic perfect is because I want to make you proud? You're just a huge inspiration to me and I really want you to be happy with the fics we make together. And you'd better know that when you publish your first novel, I'll be the first one to get a copy because its gonna be amazing! You're gonna be amazing!

#the appreciation zone #galexyvalkerie #the taz fic writers discord

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rooreelooo · 7 years ago

Text

GOTY 2017

2017 was a good year for games. You know it, I know it, it's been said by everyone who has any interest in this hobby at all. Having said that, putting this list together really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be! The peaks of the year were higher than any year in memory, but outside of those islands of excellence it was otherwise not too noteworthy for me. Maybe I just didn't play as many games as I'd like? I dunno, I think I get stuck in ruts sometimes and struggle to properly diversify.

In an ideal world I think I would like to play games from many genres, telling many different stories and coming from many different cultural and social backgrounds. I want to play large games at the top of the budget scale, and smaller games at the bottom. I want to play it all! That's the dream! But that's never the reality - what actually happens is that I get stuck playing the same games for weeks and weeks, pouring hours and hours into them while other things pass me by. I don't have unlimited time to game, and these fuckin things just keep getting bigger and bigger. Endless sidequests, unlimited padding, arbitrary gating and stalling mechanics... these things are probably the bane of my existence. I just need to fuckin learn how to let go, and feel good about walking away when I've had my fill.

Anyway let's talk about specific games that I enjoyed this year. In the past I have tried to only include games released within the specific year on my list, but I am making two exceptions this year with FFXV and Uncharted 4 because they were both a big deal to me and I didn't actually own a PS4 until this year.

Honourable mentions:

Stardew Valley

This was in my GOTY list in 2016 as well! I know it's not a new game per se, however the Switch port is new. I played and enjoyed this in the past, but the barrier that prevented me from being properly invested was always that I wanted it on a portable device. I wanted this game to be the game I played in bed in the evenings, and I wanted it to keep me entertained on train journeys and in front of the TV while watching other things. That wasn't possible for me until 2017, and now that I have it on the Switch I have finally managed to properly sink my teeth into it and get weeks of Good Good Farming under my belt. That is one heck of a good port! It doesn't feel new and fresh enough to make the numbered list, but I need to clarify that 2017 was definitely Stardew Valley's year in my opinion.

fuck jojamart, and fuck big business

Hiveswap: Act 1

I don't think this was good enough to make the jump into the numbered list either. I really enjoyed the writing, but it was all over too quickly. Even when poking every corner and reading every little nugget of writing it still lasted only 3-4 hours for me. It also doesn't help that it was kinda glitchy, to the extent that none of the cutscenes would play for me, necessitating that I keep a YouTube longplay open that I could tab into every time I needed to watch a cinematic. Presumably that bug got patched out, but by that point I had already completed it and didn't have any intention of playing it a second time.

The reason I'm singling it out here is because I feel lucky to even play this game at all! This has had one of the longest and most fucked up development processes ever. The Kickstarter for the Homestuck Adventure Game launched & completed in September 2012, and the five years that followed was just an endless stream of bad news, delays, restructuring, rumours of stolen funds, and other shady goings on that the public will never know about. For most of those five years people assumed that this game would just be vaporware, so I am super happy for the people who worked on this project that they actually managed to get it released. And I'm happy that it's good! And funny! And has a great soundtrack! And you know what? It managed to get me excited about the world of Homestuck, something that I thought for sure would never happen again. Here's hoping we don't have to wait another 5 years for Act 2 because I really want to see this story through.

what a long fucked up road it’s been huh

Final Fantasy: Record Keeper

I still play this game every day. Literally every day. I have never played a game with as much regularity as this one, and I have definitely never sank as many hours into one single game as I have FFRK. I love it! It maybe doesn't excite me as much as it did in it's heyday, but it still gets updated with interesting new content all the time. Looking at some of the stuff we have on the horizon, it seems like 2018 will have even more huge event additions and overhauls, so DeNA is definitely doing the work to keep this fresh. I will admit that a lot of the recent endgame-level boss battles have been making me feel pretty unsatisfied (fuck Magicites) but that doesn't mean I'm not excited for the next batch of them to drop in February.

I just think this needs celebrating. We've passed the 1000-day mark with this game, and in that time I reckon the number of days that I didn't boot it up is in the single digits. It's been fully integrated into my daily routine in a way that no video game ever has, and the fact that I can consistently clear endgame content with high-level relics without spending a single penny goes a LONG way to making me feel good about it. I cannot see myself ever loving another mobile game the same way that I love FFRK.

three goty lists in a row and still going strong

Anyway, now for the actual numbered list:

10. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

I played this at the beginning of the year, so I'm a bit rusty about it, but from what I can recall I'm pretty sure it was an exciting and swashbuckling race around the world with a surprisingly touching family story at its centre. As somebody who has never played any other Uncharted game (and had never really wanted to), I think I would have skipped this one entirely were it not for the fact that I got it as part of a console bundle with the PS4. Steff gets very antsy if I buy new games without giving the ones I already have a proper shake, and so partly for her sake I decided to give this game a spin after sitting on it for a few months. And you know what? I'm super glad I did, because otherwise I would have missed what was easily one of my favourite games of the year.

Gameplay wise there is a lot here I didn't like, so maybe that's what prevents it from climbing higher on the list here. Turning the difficulty on to easy mode was essential, but even after doing so I still felt like the combat sections were too drawn-out and numerous. Likewise I feel like there was a lot of environmental padding, and far more of my time was spent trying to get somewhere cool than actually doing stuff once I got there. Nate and Sam just cannot get from A to B without somehow stumbling across an entire mountain's worth of cracks, ledges and jumps. I felt a LOT like Milhouse whining and wanting to know when Itchy and Scratchy would finally get to the fireworks factory.

I wouldn't say the gameplay was ever outright bad, but I will say that it was kinda an ocean of average. Within that ocean however were islands of excitement! Like Nathan and Sam driving around for fucking months in a motorboat trying to find Hidden Pirate Utopia on the backside of Skull Island or whatever, I too felt like I was navigating these seas from exciting plot point to exciting character interaction, and then to dynamic unique gameplay sequence or well-choreographed cutscene.

Honestly the thing that I took away most from this was how nice it is to play a game with such a good cast of characters. Nathan and his extended friends & family felt real in a way that video game characters rarely do - I loved that there were characters who made bad decisions, and then doubled down on them when called out on it. I loved that there were characters who lied to themselves about what they want, and then deluded themselves into thinking they had legitimate reasons to do pointless and dangerous things. I loved that there were characters who argued, fell out, and then showed genuine regret as well as emotional maturity in how they chose to make amends for the harm they caused. The fact that all of this is wrapped up in a story about two brothers trying to hunt down a hidden pirate society is just icing on the cake really. I should probably play The Lost Legacy huh? You know, the Uncharted game that actually DID come out in 2017.

brb gotta climb this fuckin mountain

9. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

In a lot of ways, this is the best Fire Emblem game to have been released in years. I enjoyed Awakening when it was released and still think it's pretty good. I also enjoyed large parts of Fates despite the abysmal characters and dialogue, but I think neither of them are as good as this game. Maybe it's because this is a remake of a game that was originally released in 1992, but parts of this game feel unencumbered from a lot of the bloat that has bogged this series down in recent years. There's barely any support conversations yet the characters still feel fleshed out, and the relationships that exist feel satisfying even without being able to recruit the inevitable time-travelling baby that is spawned by the coupling (you know, like how it worked in the other 3DS games).

The fact that the underlying game is so old does have a downside though, as many outdated features were still kept intact in this remake. For example, the map layouts are almost always dull and strategically uninteresting - I'm pretty sure that like 90% of battles take place on a map which is just an empty field littered with a few trees and gravestones for cover. It's made worse by the fact that the only kind of mission is the 'kill all enemies' variety, and missions such as 'survive for X turns' or 'protect some NPCs' weren't retrofitted into it - the overall effect is an extreme lack of variety on a battle-by-battle basis.

It's still a lot of fun though, and the enjoyable characters and enemies kinda offset a lot of the dullness of the battles. I was particularly impressed by the quality of the voice acting and localization! Honestly I hope that future games in the FE series look to this game for inspiration... lol, ok no. You and I both know that ain't gonna happen. Nintendo has planted their flag in the fertile 'anime matchmaker' soil. Still though, if the next FE game makes use of the Switch's hardware to deliver a game with the same level of polish and execution as this one, it would probably at least look fantastic!

these guys wont be joining me in battle, they’re just for show

8. Pokémon Ultra Moon

What a weird game... ok so Pokémon Sun was my GOTY of 2016, and I stand by that assessment. I think it was the best Pokémon game in years, and I think it added a lot of variety to a series that was in dire need of a shakeup. You can't deny that in many ways it was hurried out the door though, probably in order to get generation 7 out in time for Pokémon's 20th anniversary. It has some cracks and holes that were plastered over, and I dunno about you but when Ultra Sun & Moon were announced I was hoping that we'd get a version of those games that had been fully repaired and restored. You know, a version with the benefit of an extra year to restore the obviously missing content and handle some of the plot holes. What we ended up getting was... not that.

This game is an alternate telling of the Sun & Moon story, and I think that's an interesting concept - despite starting off largely the same, you get some visitors from an alternate dimension who branch the story off in a completely different direction. Eventually everything goes off the rails, and we end up with something that is largely different in a pretty cool way! I think that the new additions to the plot are weirdly janky and not very well executed, but it was fun to play a version of a game I love where everything ends up playing out differently. It's a bummer that some of my favourite scenes from the original got cut in favour of the new Necrozma stuff, and it definitely hurt the characterization of Lillie and Lusamine along the way, but whatever. That's only a problem if you view Ultra Sun & Moon as a replacement for the originals, and I don't. I view them as a side project, one that doesn't replace the originals but rather takes it in a different direction.

Aside from the storyline, I think this is probably the best Pokémon game in recent memory. The improvements to the UI and menus are appreciated, and the addition of 100 extra Pokémon give it a level of variety and replayability that goes much further than expected. We lose a little in the narrative to gain a lot in the gameplay, and honestly I think that's probably a fair trade in this case.

rebattling these guys was, i’ll admit, a hell of a lot cooler than i was expecting

7. Splatoon 2

I'm someone who barely ever cares about online competitive games. I just don't - it's never been my thing. I don't come to video games to win. That's why I'm surprised that I was able to ever get as engaged in Splatoon 2 as I did! I played a good chunk of Splatoon 1 on the Wii U, but the loop of matching up against strangers online over and over again ad infinitum wasn't interesting enough to hold my attention too long. So why did the sequel (which is largely just more of the same) land so differently?

I think that the release landscape of the sequel was just much better than the original. It came to me at a time in my life when I was far more receptive to going out of my comfort zone on a game like this, and the fact that it was on the Switch was a huge point in its favour because it got swept up in the zeitgeist and excitement of this amazing new console. My time with it has probably ended, and if it were to be released now I don't think I'd ever be able to work up the same enthusiasm, but back there in August the stars aligned - it was absolutely the right game at the right time.

Salmon Run is so good - I think it's my favourite part of the game for sure. Collaborative multiplayer is so much more preferable to competitive multiplayer, and defending that grimy ocean base with a random spread of allies and weapons was fun every time - even the times we lost. My only gripe is the bizarre decision to withold it and only open the doors on a specific schedule, which I'm sure you can tell me there's a good reason for but still upsets me. I don't always get to play games as much as I'd like, and sitting down on a busy evening to enjoy a few hours of Splatoon only to discover that Salmon Run has locked up for the entire evening just feels disappointing.

I wish I could have participated in more splatfests, but I kept missing them! After the initial Ketchup vs Mayo one I completely failed to hear about any subsequent ones, and only found out about their existence after they had already wrapped up. When's the next one? Is it soon?

squid simulator 2017 improves on the 2016 model in many ways, with more accurate squid movement and squid noises

6. Disgaea 5

What the fuck is up with this series? But like... for real though, wtf? I've never played one of these before, but I had always kinda been interested in them because I'd heard they were one of the most complex and technical tactical RPGs in the genre. I guess that's true, and I can't deny that the idea of a good tactics RPG on a handheld console like the Switch was an enticing prospect, but BOY. What I ended up getting was NOT what I expected. In a good way though!... I think?

This series does a lot. It's like... ok, imagine a regular tactics RPG. Now imagine that 100 hands reach out and grab hold of every small nook and cranny of the game, and then they all pull it out in different directions leaving a misshapen and deconstructed mess. Now dunk that in a stupid anime plot with some lame-characters who sometimes spout really funny dialogue, and you have this game. If that metaphor makes no sense then I'm sorry, but this game left me very confused and frazzled and I'm really struggling to adequately vocalise why.

I think it's because of how much customisation you get? Like, every part of the game can be tweaked and adjusted - the game gives you all the sliders that control stuff like enemy difficulty, quality of the rewards, and strength of items. It also allows you to create characters from scratch, meaning that you sorta have free reign to basically approach any part of the game in any way you like. If you think that sounds broken and exploitable, then you are 100% correct - this game is absolutely broke as fuck. It knows so, and it revels in it. In fact, it seems to encourage players to find any ways of exploiting it they can. If you can find a way to powerlevel your characters up 20 levels at a time, outpacing any and all storyline bosses, then yes you should do it. Why wouldn't you? It's a demon's right to take advantage of anything and everything that gives them a leg-up over the competition after all. It doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the game, but rather it just makes it even more fun. After all, you might be steamrolling through the stages, but you're doing it on your own terms.

Yes there is a lot of grinding - especially in the endgame where you start getting your characters to level 9999 with 100000 in each stat. This game kinda makes grinding into an artform I guess, but it doesn't stop it being weird and time-consuming. I had a lot of fun with this game, but when I stopped playing I was feeling like I never wanted to see a number ever again.

i played this on the switch, so yes i am counting it as a legit 2017 release

5. Super Mario Odyssey

This game is the perfect 3d platform-collectathon-adventure-whatever-you-call-this-genre-nowadays. I think it wins best controls of the year, as it just feels and flows in such an intuitive and logical way. Once you master the art of throwing the hat and diving off of it, throwing it again and diving again you start to move around in worlds in ways you never expected and approach challenges from directions that seem completely wrong. There's a lot of satisfaction from nailing a complex series of jumps, landing somewhere far away, and thinking 'I don't know how I was SUPPOSED to get here but here I am I guess!'

An open world platformer like this is judged in how well you feel like you can memorise the world layout, discover shortcuts, and move swiftly between A and B, and in Mario Odyssey those things all come very naturally. If you can see a piece of level geometry then you can definitely get there, and there are no invisible walls keeping you on the 'correct' path and preventing you from wandering too far astray. I don't really know how to explain how good that feels - it just does. It feels Right.

If this game has a flaw, I would say that it is too much of a good thing. There's value in knowing when to step back, draw a line underneath everything and declare it complete, and I feel like maybe the devs didn't quite know when the correct time to do that was. The end result is that it feels bloated - too many moons have been crammed into a small space. Sometimes I felt like I could barely walk a few steps without kicking over some random rock and finding a new moon, and the novelty wears off once you realise there's like 900 of those fuckers out there. I barely made it halfway through that pile before I had completely grown tired of tracking them down, which is a shame! I feel like maybe if you eliminated about 50% of the moons from the game the whole thing would feel a bit tighter and more focused. Nevertheless, I didn't lose any sleep over the ones I failed to collect, and it didn't detract from my enjoyment. I played exactly as much Super Mario Odyssey as I wanted to, and that left me completely satisfied.

it me, merio

4. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

The highest compliment I think you can pay Breath of the Wild is that everything just makes sense. It's surprisingly free of video game contrivances, the sort of thing that you take for granted and don't really notice until they're gone. Most of the time, when you sit down to play a game it's like you're agreeing to a pre-arranged set of conditions about what you can and can't do in that world. You can walk around, but most scenery is not interactive in any way. You can use bombs to blow up rocks, but don't try to use bombs to blow up pillars because they're non-blowupable. Fish can be caught at a designated fishing hole, but the fish that swim in the river are decorational and obviously cannot be caught. Playing video games is often an exercise in learning what parts of the world are put there for you to play with and what parts are put there to simply act as barriers and shepherd you along your way, and the more games you play the more fluent in this language you become.

Breath of the Wild doesn't really truck with that kind of thing. If you think that something makes sense, then there's a good chance that it can be done. Trees can be chopped down to form bridges, enemies can be killed by rolling boulders onto their heads... I dunno, I guess that this game still has an internal logic, but it covers its tracks so much better than I am accustomed to. The most important thing it does is nurture the notion that there isn't a right way of doing anything - that you can go about completing your goals in any way you choose. It's just nice, and gives the entire game a feeling of freedom and creativity and discovery. I guess the same could be said for any large environment, but I dunno. The quiet understated way that BotW allows you to complete your goals in your own pace and fashion just feels very personal and intimate.

I think the biggest problem I have with the game is that it's sense of scale and discovery is purely a one-way street. You start off as a shirtless hobo with no memories or knowledge, and you gradually learn how to defend yourself and explore. Every play session is a new lesson in survival and accomplishment, and over time you build up a repertoire of gimmicks and tricks that you can use to help yourself. The world is big and scary, and enemies will DEFINITELY kill you in one hit, so every advantage you can take is worthwhile. But the world doesn't remain big and scary forever, and as you explore it becomes smaller and smaller, while you become stronger and stronger. By the end of the game you can go anywhere and do anything, and no enemies are a threat to you... but the spark of discovery has been extinguished, never to return. I actually felt a lot of melancholy when I stopped playing that game - I felt like a fish who had grown too big for its bowl, or an adult who revisits their childhood home later in life and is surprised by how much smaller everything has become.

the rain and weapon durability never even bothered me, i liked them

3. Final Fantasy XV

This was a great game, and one that I absolutely did not expect to like as much as I did. I mean... ok I love this series, so I'm a little biased here. Even though there were several aspects of the game that looked a bit suspect prior to release, I was willing to give it all the chances it needed to impress me. It turns out that such a level of lenience wasn't really warranted. It was a good game in and of itself! A great game even, with a fantastic setting, likable characters, and a story that was dull within tolerable standards.

The structure of the game is weird, and there are too many pointless sidequests with no narrative worth at all. "I know you're the crown prince of my city but I'm still gonna ask you to wander into the wilderness and kill 10 dogs for me." Uh, how about fuck off? But once you realise that you can safely ignore any and all of those, then the game actually becomes pretty liberating.

I think that it's no coincidence that the atmosphere resonated so well with me because of the specific time when I played it. I had just come back from a holiday in Iceland with friends, and the six of us had done a lot of sightseeing punctuated by driving long distances over beautiful natural landscapes. Lots of 'hey everyone look out the right side of the car right now!' and 'hey let's pull over here and take some photos of that waterfall!'. Coming back from that holiday and playing FFXV felt like a direct continuation of that excitement.

I remember one mission where Prince Noct and his Boy Squad were escorting Iris to some city, and they were all sitting in the car just chatting to pass the time. Crossing over a large bridge, the gang decided to pull over and have a wander around to check out the local wildlife, and so we did just that. This game is very pretty, and the five kids standing at the side of the road watching the sun set over this bridge, taking a few pictures and chatting lightly, really captured the fun and discovery of sightseeing in a way that was very dear to my heart. There was no great narrative or gameplay reason to stop and look around - it was just the joy of seeing something really cool in the company of people who are very dear to you.

For all it's flaws and weird fantastical JRPG contrivances, the long road trip that Noct & Co embark on felt very sincere and realistic to me. Having it come to an end was upsetting in the same way that it's upsetting to come to the end of a holiday, to have to travel home, say goodbye to your friends and go back to your boring real life. Of all the games I played this year, this one had the biggest gulf between 'how emotional I was expecting to get about it' and 'how emotional I actually got about it'. Don't even get my started on the final hour or two of gameplay, holy shit, way to build me up and tear me down Square-Enix.

sponsored by cup noodle: “noodles in a cup”

2. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy

Let me just say one fucking thing about Crash Bandicoot - he fuckin rules. Yes he may be a disgusting orange shirtless triangle with arms sprouting out the sides of his head, but man his games are good! I'm certain that most of my love for those games is because of rose-tinted nostalgia glasses, but I don't care. I've been playing those games since I was a child. Once a year I make a point to go back and play one of these games to completion, and this tradition has only strengthened with the knowledge that Steff also loves these games. The two of us play them together, and we have a jolly old time breaking crates and collecting Wumpa Fruit and that sort of thing. They have given me so much joy in my life, and this year they got polished up and re-released by Vicarous Visions so the whole world can once again experience Crash Bandicoot Fever all over again (as if I ever stopped having it)

This trilogy is kinda the perfect way to bring those games up to a modern standard. The controls feel good, the levels have been faithfully rebuilt, and everything looks so much prettier and nicer. For someone who has such a high level of familiarity with the original trilogy, it's an absolute delight to see them handled so well, and I can confirm that the feeling of playing those games has been perfectly upscaled.

I think what I loved most though is that this doesn't just upscale an old game, but it makes intelligent changes and additions as well - ones that don't feel out of place. Lots of quality of life improvements smooth over the rougher part of the decades-old level design, and new content is added in the forms of time trials on Crash 1 and 2 levels. This completely recontextualises the level design and gave me ways to explore these levels in ways that I hadn't ever done so before! I used to speedrun Crash 2 before I was too young to even know what speedrunning was, so having an actual in-game time attack mode get added to those levels was a level of personal nostalgia that I really wasn't expecting. It's like I'm back in 2004 all over again, playing Crash 2 on an emulator in my friend's conservatory as fast as possible, trying to distract myself from the scary bits of Event Horizon (and still getting frightened).

Of course, I guess I should point out that a lot of those Crash 1 levels are Not Built For Speed. At all. They're tests of stamina more than of perfect execution, and getting relics on them was... interesting, to say the least. It might have been frustrating and difficult at times, but it forced me to take knowledge that had been in my brain since I was literally a babby child, and utilise it for a purpose which it had never before been used. It was an amazing feeling and I loved every minute of it, even the minutes when I was swearing my sorry ass off and yelling after my hundredth death on that goddamn High Road, Fumbling in the Dark, or even (god forgive me) Stormy Ascent. And I would do it all again, and I WILL do it all again, probably once a year, until I die and leave nothing more than a comical skeleton in a Crash Bandicoot Tshirt and a speech bubble that says "WOAH".

}8^]

1. Nier: Automata

I don't really know what to say about Nier Automata that hasn't been said elsewhere - this game has a LOT of talking points, and everything it has to say has been explored by other people who are better at that sort of thing than me. There is one thing that I haven't really seen discussed all that much though that I'd like to touch on, and that's the way it handles recurring characters and elements from the original Nier.

With how many people are coming forward and saying that the game is a great jumping-on point to Taro Yoko games, and that most important plot details from the original game are referenced within Automata as well, it almost seems like this game is viewed as more of a replacement than a sequel. Not many people played Nier 1, and a HELL of a lot of people played Automata, which is a shame because I love that old game a lot!

That doesn't stop it from being an excellent sequel though! Automata does a good job at getting players up to speed on all the important plot details that need to be carried over, but my favourite parts of Nier Automata were the parts where it delved a little deeper and made direct reference to characters and events from the original game. I don't want this to be flooded with spoilers, but suddenly genre-shifting into text-only visual novel in order to explore Popola and Devola hit me harder than I had been prepared for, and was possibly one of the most affecting storyline beats of the entire game. Furthermore, stumbling upon Emil's underground house and recognising it instantly as Kainé's shack made me have to stop and take a break. The way the original Nier ended left me feeling as if I would never ever ever get a chance to revisit these characters, and that for better or for worse I had heard the last of them. The second I heard the opening piano notes of Kainé's theme in that underground cave and realised what I was about to hear however, I felt like a door that had been closed for a long long time was suddenly and unexpectedly reopened.

I appreciate it for handling characters and events from Nier 1 with a light touch, but I appreciate it even more for handling them at all. Honestly it just makes all the Emil stuff even more horrifically sad and upsetting, but hey - sometimes life is horrifically sad and upsetting. Everything that lives is designed to end. We are trapped in a never-ending cycle of life and death. Those are the words that bookend this game, providing both the beginning and the end of the narrative. But that's no reason not to stick with it and see it through nonetheless.

Who knows, maybe one day you'll get a shot at breaking out of the destructive and depressive ruts you find yourself imprisoned in and have a chance to do something else with your life. Maybe you could even help a stranger in their time of need, and show them that there is more to the world than abject despair? I can't return to the world of Nier Automata after ending E, but I can at least know that I made the world a better place for someone else who was trapped within a horrific cycle of their own. How unusual that such a depressing and bleak game could end in a way that imparts such powerful feelings of validation and empowerment in the player.

Fucking hell, Nier Automata is a good game.

#text post #GOTY

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dragimalsdaydreams · 8 years ago

Photo

here it is, the payoff of a year’s worth of work! or an on-off year, at least– this was hardly a constant project. also, sorry this is so big! I’d recommend right click>view image to see this better

also this desc is super freakin long, so for anyone interested, the rest of my commentary is under the cut

it kills me that I wasn’t able to finish this for last year’s 4/13– I wanted so badly to dedicate this to Homestuck’s finale, but I grossly underestimated how much time I needed (just a couple weeks before the anniversary, Ashley? really??). despite this, I’m glad I was able to finish this piece without having to worry abt a time crunch

I’ve EASILY devoted more time and effort into this piece than ANY other piece of art in my life (and that includes full muscle/skeletal diagrams I’ve drawn for past Eclypse refs). it’s funny, I actually “started” this piece in 2012, when I first drew the rough sketch of my idea (obviously Alpha kids and Beforan trolls didn’t exist then, so I was planning to do a kinda “pre-game/post-game” symmetry haha LITTLE DID I KNOW). even at that time, I wanted to contribute something special to the HS fandom– something I’d never attempted for any other fandom then or since. however, I could tell my skill wasn’t developed enough to produce a decent piece (nor did I have the motivation to start a monster like this..), so I tucked that sketch away, hoping I’d return to it someday. I still don’t think I’m at a high enough skill level to give this tribute what it truly deserves (colors... are my death...), but I admit I’m oddly proud of this final product? it’s more than I could have accomplished in the past, that’s for sure (it’s so weird to see how much I’ve improved even comparing the basal sketch stages)

(and, as is tradition for me apparently, here are the other tributes I’ve done for past anniversaries: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016)

sorry for sounding a lil’ sappy here (tho I’m sappy every 4/13 lmao), but Homestuck is so incredibly important to me. no other fandom has come CLOSE to what Homestuck has given me in terms of absurd (often sometimes embarrassing) shenanigans, close-knit fan communities, incredible fanworks, and countless other fandom elements. not to say that other media/fandoms haven’t contributed to my life in significant ways, or that other fandoms aren’t as good, but the HS fandom experience was (and is) so…. unique. there are certain events and situations that could only be experienced within Homestuck’s format, and would be difficult– if not impossible– to replicate in other types of media (or even other webcomics). and beyond that, I’ve dedicated such a significant amount of love and attention to this comic that no other fandoms in my life can rly compare

most fandoms fade over time and slip away from interest, but there are those golden few that clamp onto your heart and don’t let go. Homestuck is one of the few fandoms I can say with reasonable confidence I’ll always cherish, and I just want to thank Hussie and all the incredible artists, animators, musicians, programmers, etc. that have directly contributed to the experience. I think I speak for most when I say my feelings abt the end of HS were…. mixed, at best. but even the negative aspects do little to dampen my love for Homestuck as a whole– this story is just too MASSIVE to let one little ending ruin it! not to say the ending (or any of the comic) is beyond criticism, but the criticism doesn’t ruin the last several years of this fandom experience for me. if anything, that finale left me with a sense that this story isn’t truly over– that there are more loose ends to be tied and further plots unraveled. I’m not sure if that should be considered a good thing (once again, mixed feelings), but at least it works in the context of the upcoming game, haha. either way, reading-- and watching and playing-- Homestuck has been an incredible journey thus far, and I eagerly await the future Hiveswap will bring~

past all that SAPPY COMMENTARY, my main goal w/ this piece was to represent every single Homestuck character (as well as a few significant symbols/references in the comic). considering the nature of Homestuck’s ridiculous timeline, however, this is kind of impossible. thus, I gave myself a few rules for who was and wasn’t included:

- no duplicates. considering there are at least 8 versions of everyone, I absolutely needed this rule. there are obviously a few exceptions (such as Calliope/Callie Ohpeee, Caliborn/Lord English, etc.), though I felt I was justified in including their doubles. this rule honestly kills me a little because I REALLY wanted to include certain duplicates like Bro, Mom, and the Ancestors, but I couldn’t b/c of the next rule–

- if I include some of a group, I must include ALL of the group; IE- “symmetric” representation of all characters. if I were to include the Alternian Ancestors, I would feel obligated to include the Beforan Ancestors too, but there aren’t any canon designs for them, so that would be impossible. similarly, if I were to include the Beta (human, non-Dad) guardians, I’d feel the need to include the Alpha guardians too, who honestly felt less like “unique” characters to me than the Beta guardians did compared to their Alpha kid counterparts (though this could just be due to the fact that we were introduced to the Alphas as adults before the Alpha kids themselves). and even if I were to draw all the kid’s duplicate guardians, that would make me feel obligated to do all the troll’s Ancestors which, again, just wouldn’t work. this is also the reason why none of the Denizens were included, b/c we’ve only got a few of their canon designs (tho I’m considering including their underlings in the future, but I’m not 100% sold on the idea b/c, again, not all underlings are known)

- no “poly-characters”. essentially, no sprites. this prolly falls under “no duplicates”, though I personally consider characters like Davepetasprite^2, Jaspersprite, and even Davesprite unique characters in their own right. it’s just that sprites open up a whole new world of 100+ character possibilities, and I had to draw the line somewhere

- represent each character as their “essential” self. I tried to go for versions of each character that gave the "truest” impression of that character, if that makes sense? for example, I drew Terezi blind and Vriska w/ her robo-arm and blind eye b/c I feel these aspects are essential elements of their characters. Aradia, on the other hand, I drew pre-death, even though this doesn’t necessarily match the “timeline” for Terezi and Vriska’s injuries, b/c I feel that pre-death Aradia represents the “essential Aradia”

- keep overall “character themes” similar across the board. this could also be described by a few sub-points such as: “no god tiers,” “no dream selves,” and, “no alchemized outfits,” among others. I thought it would look oddly off-balance if, say, only some trolls were god-tier, or only one set of kids was wearing alchemized outfits rather than their original outfits. ~in general~ this resulted in drawing most characters as they first appeared in the comic, though there were obviously some exceptions. to return to Aradia’s example, I honestly think that godtier Aradia is the MOST “essential” Aradia of all of them, but the need to adhere to the “pre-game” theme of the rest of the beta trolls overrode that rule, so pre-death Aradia works just as well

#homestuck #4/13 #413 #homestuck 413 #homestuck 4/13 #I WAS LEGIT STILL MAKING LITTLE EDITS TO THIS UP 'TIL LAST NIGHT #TAKE THIS DAMN THING AWAY FROM ME

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