#i’ve heard of it happening to some MMOs too but they weren’t ones i played so idk what they’re called

[sadlittlestray]

i feel like it happened a lot where a charming online 2D flash game would get an ‘upgrade’ where they were like ‘now it’s COOLER and BETTER and 3D!!!’ and it would look terrible and everyone would hate it

[commander-isekai]

Commander Isekai - commander from an another world

A/N:

Hi all! This my tongue-in-cheek fic about a commander, who’s actually a human player from the real world, and who now lives through the game, but armed with previous knowledge about it. They aren’t happy just to follow along a story, so things will get different quickly enough. Hence their name is commander Kai, as a pun from the isekai genre. I’ve been inspired by similar fics done about other games, and I thought gw2 could be a fun one too.

Chapter One:

The Second Awakening or how I found myself in a video game world

Sometimes, all you can remember is falling. It was the only sensation I could comprehend. The world around me was a blurry, like a messy watercolor painting. If there were any noises, I couldn't hear them. I just fell.

A painfully bright light drilled into my eyes.

I woke up with a great thump, as I landed into a large pile of dry leaves. They managed to soften my landing to a degree, but I was aching from all over, like if I had rolled downhill like a cheese in a cheese-wheeling competition, determined to win the first place no matter how crumbly my state would be at the finish line.

"This fucking sucks.." I groaned, tossing my arm out and trying to find my glasses, or my phone, but only grasped more leaves. I hoped I hadn’t broken either one during my fall.

"Are you alright, Valiant?" I heard a concerned voice ask, "the awakening can be sometimes rough, but you'll find your bearings soon enough."

Oh no, had I fallen asleep outside? I had a bad habit of dozing off, but the embarrassment of sleeping outside and this kind person having to wake me up made me wish I could knock myself out permanently rather than face them.

"Yeah yeah, I'm sorry about this, just give me a minute..." I tried to form coherent sentences while pushing my hair away, but my hand gathered only more leaves? and no hair??

I pulled my hand in front of my face and yelped in surprise when I saw that it was bright lavender, a color that my regular human hands should not be, and that I was grasping purple and pink ferns instead of my regular colored human hair.

"Wh-what the hell is going on?" I looked at myself and the person helping me, and only then I realized they weren't human either, but a pea-green person who seemed to be made out of plant material and flowers. Behind them, I could see a shimmering lake and a small village, with more denizens similar to them and me.

As I gasped upon the scene, the two braincells inside my skull finally hit a nerve and made the connection that I had been missing:

A) Somehow, I was in Caledon Forest. Like, the starting zone in Guild Wars 2, an MMO I used to play lot back in the day until I got too busy with my life and other video games.

B) Also somehow, I wasn't a human anymore. I was a walking, talking, internally-panicking sylvari.

C) Last but not least, I could see everything clearly without glasses. This fact stressed me out the most. Had my vision somehow been fixed when I fell? I did like my old glasses, and really hoped they were in one piece somewhere.

"Are you feeling enough well to stand?" the sylvari that must be a mender asked me, offering a hand that I gladly took as I wobbled onto my feet like a newborn calf.

“I think I am?” I answered hesitantly, not certain if I’d stay upright after she’d let go of me.

" I am mender Lorean. What's your name?" the sylvari asked me.

" Um, Kai" I said, as the first name in my mind was the name of my commander character, "short of Cainneach, but just Kai is fine."

It didn't feel right to introduce myself with my given human name, as it was definitely not a sylvari name, and that would have revealed me being something else than your regular baby sprout. I really wasn't married to that name anyway, so Kai came out naturally. I had already used Kai as a all-around nickname, so I settled into it like putting on a new, yet surprisingly comfortable shirt.

"Alright, Valiant Kai", seeing as I could hold on my own against the gravity, Lorean let go of my hand, and explained: "Now, it can take some time to get used to the world outside the Dream. You shouldn't wander off too far from the Grove, at least not until you're experienced enough. You should find anything you need inside the city, and the mentors will help you along. Caithe also asked me to tell you that she wants to speak with you, when you are ready."

The mender that helped me did not seem to comment on my errantic behaviour - they must have seen a wild variety of saplings in their time.

"Wait, why do you keep calling me a valiant?" I asked, trying to wrap my head around what I could remember about Caithe. The total sum was not much - an assassin with a troubled past: a guild of heroes that basically cut ties after a failed dragon killing quest and ex-girlfriend who's in the lead of the bad Nightmare sylvari. That'd be a lot for anyone.

"Caithe told me, about how you joined forces with her to defeat the a large nightmare beast in the Dream. That must be a sign of a great Wyld Hunt", Lorean explained, and asked curiously: "don't you remember the Dream?"

Oh right. The Dream, or the tutorial part with the big dragon monster. I somehow completely skipped that in this new, 4D-supported version of Tyria. At least I did not remember experiencing anything resembling fighting a giant dragon to death, not after waking up here. I had an inkling that telling so would only raise more questions, and I had plenty of those myself.

  "Oh yes, it's all coming back to me", I lied with a practiced straight face, "I must have just hit my head hard when I awoke, that's all.  I'll be on my way now, thanks!" 

I waved and nearly dashed to an exit before Lorean could respond. They were being just nice, sure, but I needed a moment for myself with no one else right now, or I would explode on the spot.

'''

Not far from the village, but enough far that no one would hopefully bother me, I made my way to the large pond, to really take in all the changes.

"Oh no, the fireflies are actually that big", I grimaced when I saw a group of the flying creatures gather around one of the light-giving plants, "That's going to take some time getting used to."

I sat down next to the water's edge, and I could finally take a look at my new features. They were nothing like what I'd been used to - instead of soft skin, my face was hard, bark-like texture. My hair was like plant's leaf, yet sturdier - it hurt when I tried to pull it. My form was different too, almost like I had had a second puberty without knowing it - my limbs were taller than what I had been used to, and I felt my presentation was more masculine than what it had been when I was human.

The more I sat and contemplated my situation, everything around me seemed to make no sense. I was stuck in an unfamiliar body, in the role of the main character of a video game, and while I did not remember every detail of what happened in the story, I knew it wouldn't take long for things to get hairy. Why I was here? Why did I look like this?  No matter how I tried to rationalize it, I had no answers, and I was only left with piling up frustration, and tears began to form in the corners of my eyes.

“Hey, are you alright?” A new voice dragged me out of my depths. It belonged to a blue sylvari with a mushroom-capped head, and whose leaf-like outfit seemed to grow naturally as a part of their body.

“I don’t know, it’s just - a lot of stuff to process. The whole awakening, and everything”, I told them as honestly as I could.

“You seemed to be a little more lost than the other sprouts - and I do not mean that in a judgmental way”, the sylvari said and hold out something: “here, take this, it will help.”

“Oh, thank you”, I accepted the carved bowl that seemed to be made out of a giant nut, and the gentle smell of pumpkin soup overwhelmed me. Gods, I realized only now how starved I felt, like I had not eaten properly for days.

“I don’t have any money, or gold-” I tried to say, but the other sylvari cut in quickly:

“Do not worry about it! I hope you have a pleasant evening!” 

The sylvari took off, and I was too mesmerized by their kindness towards a random stranger like me that it did not even occur to me to ask their name. The soup, still warm in my hands was a temptation too great to resist, and I wasted no time devouring it.

Maybe this world isn’t too bad after all, if people are gifting food freely to others like that, I thought to myself, earlier anguish almost completely forgotten.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #429

“i’m just a bad luck charm to blame when things go wrong”

Are all-nighters something you have grown used to? God no. I have those SO rarely. I don't know how I used to do it. Do you usually wear sunglasses when you’re driving? I don't have sunglasses, and my driving permit has long since expired. Is there ever a time that you enjoy cold showers? COLD, no. A tad chilly, very rarely. I have to be burning the hell up. What clothes are you most comfortable in? Men's pj pants and tank tops. Is there anybody you’re not ashamed to tell anything to? No, not anything. Have you ever unbuttoned someone else's pants? Yes. Are you good at painting nails? Nooooo. My hands are way too shaky. If it’s late at night and you’re hungry, what do you reach for? Usually a granola bar or piece of bread, lol. What word should you really probably remove from your vocabulary? I don't know. I don't really use any words I find wrong/offensive. Will you eat something if it falls on the ground? NOOOOOOOO SIR. Ignoring nutrition, could you live off veggies for the rest of your life? God no. I'm not a vegetable fan. Do you see the value in education? Of course I do. Are you more physically flexible or situationally flexible? bitch neither lmao Does anybody know about your sex life other than your partners? I don't have one now, but my mom knows of some things from the past. Do you make an effort to eat healthy? Yeah. I could try harder, but I do try. Have you ever lived with a girlfriend/boyfriend? Pretty much. I wasn't an official resident, but I was essentially always there and just counted as a guest, I guess. Would you ever be a stripper? No way in hell. Can you honestly say that you love yourself? No. Do you think that you’ve ever actually been IN love with someone? I don't just "think" it, I know very goddamn well that I was. Have you ever done a psychedelic drug? If not, would you ever consider it? No and no. Did you ever see the movie Good Burger when it came out? Not when it came out, but I've seen it and love it. How often do you clear your browser history? Never. Honestly, have you ever eaten raw cookie dough? Yeah man, gourmet shit. Do you consider yourself a burden to anyone? Why do you feel this way? I absolutely do. I'm just a leech at home. A financial burden to my parents since I'm unemployed. I have a lot wrong with me that my mom has to deal with. Who was the last person to carry you? Why were they carrying you? Probably Jason, realistically. I'm probably too heavy for anyone in my life to carry me now, and there hasn't ever really been a reason to besides him just being cute many years ago. Are you a clingy kind of person? If so, how has this affected your past relationships? I know I am. I'm lucky that I don't think it really affected any. I'm not OBSESSIVELY clingy at least, just moderately so. Have you ever witnessed someone drowning? Did you help in any way? Jesus, no. Have you ever felt like you just weren’t enough for someone? Who in your life has made you feel that way? I absolutely have. No one like... intentionally made me feel like that, I just felt it due to my own self-doubt. The times I've felt that that I remember have been in my only two serious relationships, but not endlessly. I'd just do something stupid and feel like it for a while. Have you ever been at a party where the cops came due to complaints?No. What were you doing the last time you spent a night away from home (or wherever you regularly reside)? I was having a sleep study to determine whether or not I had sleep apnea. Where do you like to sit when you’re on the computer? In my bed. Do you feel as though you’re good at understanding/communicating with animals? Absolutely. Are photographs important to you? Do you like to take a lot of pictures? Not incredibly important, because nothing is quite like actually experiencing that moment, but I definitely like to have some of major events. I honestly don't take a lot of pictures documenting my own life, but rather like nature and stuff. And when people pay me to take family/couple/child photos for them. Would you rather hike through the desert, the prairies, the forest, or the tundra? The forest, for sure. So long as I had my camera. If you could reconnect with someone from your past, who would it be and why? Guess. -_- What was the last game you played? Was anyone else playing with you? Do you prefer to play games alone or with others? World of Warcraft. And well, it's an MMO, so you're playing with what, thousands of other people? I mostly do solo content though, but I do usually chat with guildies when I'm on because I'm close and comfortable with them. What is the longest distance you’ve walked in a day? Idk, but definitely far. Do you prefer homemade food or restaurant food? Restaurant, sadly. What was the last new food you tried? Ummm... I want to say sweet potatoes, back at Thanksgiving. I didn't hate them, but they were okay. What is your most recent regret? I dunno, probably something really minor like eating/drinking something unhealthy. What was the last unexpected thing to happen to you? How did you react? I guess that would be the sleep apnea diagnosis. At least, that was the last big one. I can't think of anything in-between. I was very shocked, even doubtful that the results were reliable. But given how my APAP mask has almost completely solved my nightmare issue, I think it's safe to say it's correct. Name your three closest friends. Sara, Girt, and uhhh... Sam. Do you get excited or annoyed when the phone rings? Annoyed, honestly, lol. Do you prefer writing poems or stories? I prefer writing RP, which is pretty much just gradually writing stories. What pisses you off more than anything? Probably rapists, specifically when children are the victims. It's just... so, so repulsive and unforgivable to me. Like I don't understand how a human being could possibly be so diabolical as to scar someone like that. What’s the appropriate age to have sex? I think you should be adults, honestly, given the risk of pregnancy. Not that I followed that, so I can't really talk, and I know most people don't either. When you're really in love with someone and have a sexual side, it's kinda... hard to avoid 'til you're 21. Is there anybody you’re really jealous of? It's so stupid, I'll probably always be so jealous of the girl Jason dated after me. Even though I know they're not even together anymore (well, last I heard a few years ago). Is pornography evil or are you neutral about it? Meh. I'm not into it, but I don't think it's necessarily evil. I personally don't get sex without emotional commitment, but you do you, so long as you are both consenting adults being safe about it. Do you prefer to be monogamous, or are you more a casual dater or swinger? I'm strictly monogamous. I'd be way too jealous to share a partner with someone, and then there's the heightened risk of STDs, too. Have you ever had a crush on more than one person at once? Do you now? Yes, but I don't now. Who is your favorite relative? Excluding my immediate family, Uncle Rob. He is so damn funny. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again? I know I would, realistically. Do you think you will be in a relationship three months from now? No. What’s the greatest thing that happened to you today? It SUCKED while actually doing it, but I'm very satisfied having done around 20 minutes of cardio today at the gym. Cardio is something I 110% need in my life. Have you had any beer this week? I've never had beer. I hate the smell of it, and it's associated with memories of my dad as an alcoholic anyway. Could you cry right now? Nah, I'm in a good mood. If you could see one person right now, who would it be? I'd honestly love to hang with Sara again. Do you wear contacts? No, but I wish I did versus glasses, contacts are just WAY too tedious. What color shirt are you wearing? It's a dark teal. Song playing right now? Ha, I am STILL obsessed with Powerwolf's (but with Alissa White-Gluz's vocals) "Demons Are a Girl's Best Friend." Do you wear the seat belt in the car? Absolutely always. Please, please, wear your seat belt. Has anyone ever mistaken you for someone else? Yes. There was a kid at dance who, from behind, thought I was his mother and he just ran up and hugged me from behind and I nearly had a heart attack. Do you like the color orange? Yeah; it reminds me of Halloween. Sometimes, do you wish you were someone else? Not really entirely someone else, but a much better version of myself. What is the weather like today? It's hot as shit and pretty hazy. Do you want any piercings? UGH like you have no idea. Have you given anything up for Lent? No. You do what you want, but I honestly think it's a dumb concept. Would you rather go to a rock concert or a rap concert? Rock, for certain. Have you ever dated someone that was a different race than you? Yeah; Juan was Hispanic. How old is your best friend? She's 23. What does your favorite necklace look like? It's a spiked choker with some dangling chains. It's fuckin' hot. Are you keeping a secret from anyone? I don't like the wording here. I don't have anything I'm hiding from someone in particular, and nothing they need to know at all. I just have a few inconsequential secrets I just don't share with anyone. Would you take a million dollars if it meant you had to die a month later? Uh, no thank you. Do you keep any type of diary or journal? You could say surveys are like snippets of a diary of sorts for me. I share a lot and use them to vent and just jabber on about my thoughts and feelings without exactly burdening anyone with them. What was the last thing that made you really happy? I'VE LOST A POUND SO FAR AT THE GYM!!!! :') It's been just one week, I know, big whoop, but it means A LOT to me. Prior to this, the numbers had just been gradually creeping up and up... but not anymore! :D Can you remember what you dreamed about last night? Very vaguely? Or maybe that was the night before's dream... Have you ever gotten kicked out of a class for being disruptive? Definitely not. I was a well-behaved, quiet student. Have you ever injected a drug? Noooo. Do you think the whole day is better if you smoke pot? I've never smoked. Last time you killed a bug? A while back when an ant walked over my laptop. Are you wearing perfume? What kind? No. The last male you spoke to… is he attractive? That would be my personal trainer, and yeah, he's very handsome.

[unwiltingblossom]

Wow!! You love isekai too!! Here are some I think you'll like Moshi Fan Ren, Master of Ragnarock, Hataage! Kemono Michi, Gun x Sword, Citrus, My Sweet Sugar Life, Overlord, Magic Knight, Recovery of an MMO Junkie, Chaos Dragon, Arifureta, Mr Love Queens Choice, Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint. What animes do you like ? °.·~°·*.· ~ . *

Hello!

Lemme take a look at your list~!

As for Moshi Fanren, I’m not that much of a fan of zombies (I love post apocalypse for watching a world rebuild, but not much for zombies themselves)

I’ve actually already watched Master of Ragnarok - I remember there being a plot where his love from his life ends up getting isekai’d much later in the story, right? There was also a completely ridiculous and hilarious moment where a girl’s boob somehow just...came alive and knocked a piece of fruit off a platter she was holding. I don’t understand. it was surreal.

Kemono Michi was fun, though a bit strange.

I haven’t seen Gun x Sword before, but it reminds me of Trigun somehow from the description, I’ll give it a look when I get the chance!

As for Citrus and My Sweet Sugar Life, I probably wouldn’t enjoy them, as I’m not into yuri (or yaoi, I prefer gxb if it’s gonna be a romance anime) - that, and in the latter case I’m picky on thrillers

I really enjoyed Overlord season 1 and also 2, but season 3 really turned me off from the show, as Ains has started losing control of his villainous persona and starts doing harm to his own (human) followers. I do like Jircniv though.

If you mean Magic Knight Rayearth I really enjoyed that manga. It’s a classical isekai kind of format and I loved it. I never finished part 2, but that’s because my library didn’t have the rest. Anyone who likes isekai should try reading that, as it’s a precursor to modern isekai format

As for Recovery of an MMO Junkie - I absolutely adored that anime. I ship Moriko and Sakurai to death. They’re adorable, and I love Sakurai. Such a cutie. I really hope we get more of the anime.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Chaos Dragon before? I’ll have to give it a look.

As for Arifureta, I liked it at first, but his relationship with Yue speeds though at such a ridiculous pace it left be dizzy and completely disengaged with it, which is a problem because the rest of his relationships are dependent on the fact that his and Yue’s relationship is the most epic of epic. Also, Hajime is just a capital J jerk. It reminded me of Shield Hero if people weren’t constantly being like ‘Naofumi stop being a dick for five seconds pls’

I actually play Mr. Love Queen’s Choice! I’m caught up with the english release of the game and I know some stuff that happens in the future. Currently I’m trying to ease my father into watching the anime, since the story is so good but I won’t be convincing him to play a girl game any time soon, lol

I’ve never heard of Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint before but the power sounds really cool, so I’ll look into it and see if I can find it, even though the genre isn’t really my favorite.

As for anime I already like, hm...well I might forget some but off the top of my head some of my favorites are:

Dragon ball (all of them except GT, which had potential but really squandered it hard. Super has its issues, but it’s still ongoing and hasn’t started randomly throwing away characters, nor given Vegeta a buzz cut)

Fushigi Yuugi - the manga, the anime wasn’t done very well honestly. I actually hate the primary romance and Miaka’s just...almost unbearable, but I love the whole concept and world and the characters so much that it’s one of my all time favorites anyway. I of course read all of Genbu Kaiden and am reading Byakko Ibun too.

Video Girl Ai - There’s an anime running now called Rent-a-Girlfriend, but Video Girl Ai did this already, first, and way better. Just not the anime. The anime only covers the first three graphic novels of like...10?

Naruto is a given, obviously, it’s probably one of the best battle shounen anime there are, especially at accomplishing things other ones fail to do properly.

I also enjoy Black Clover and I kind of liked Fairy Tail but it’s a little silly, and I don’t like Natsu. If you don’t like the protagonist of a shounen anime that’s gonna be a problem. Though to be fair I read literally two panels of Asta and went “Wow, I hate him.” but he almost immediately gets better, and is one of the smarter shounen leads.

Other anime I enjoy...hmm. Tenchi, of course - not Tenchi in Tokyo - Inuyasha, Ranma 1/2 though I never finished either. I really wish I still had the PSX Inuyasha game where you could pick who Kagome dated, boohoo. Seven Deadly Sins, though the latest season has been boring, My Hero Academia though probably not as much as most people would, Rage of Bahamut was great and Favaro needs to get back with Amira already. Fate Stay Night, naturally, though I don’t care for heaven’s feel. I need more of Kuromukuro to be made, so the samurai and his girlfriend can finally be reunited again. Despite its weird ending, I also liked Chobits

I also liked Orange, CLANNAD, Steins;Gate (and 0) and SukaSuka/WorldEnd because I guess I like suffering. I was there for when .hack//SIGN was starting out, so I’m always going to be a fan of that bizarre, convoluted mess of a mystery.

I started Fruits Basket but dropped it as soon as I realized who Tohru would end up with, because I hate a love triangle where I already know the result from the beginning. I just don’t like love triangles at all, honestly, partly because I never prefer the canon ending. (and thus if I can tell it’s a triangle but not who will win - which is rare - I still don’t enjoy it due to anxiousness). I liked Free! but the fandom is so annoying I got tired of the show and dropped it. I enjoy Bleach, but I feel like it peaked in the Soul Society arc, and the filler kills me.

I’m sure I’m missing some, but it’s what I can think of right off.

[mamthew]

On Final Fantasy XIV and Asymmetrical Memory

I plan to spoil large chunks of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn and its expansions in the following write-up. I will probably go most in-depth into the Heavensward expansion, but I expect to at least allude to plot details from other expansions in such a way that people who haven’t yet played them might work out what happens, so steer clear if you don’t want that to happen.

Every time I play a Final Fantasy game, I constantly think about what a remake/demake would look like. The cutoff for this is between IX and X – from X on, I parse out a potential demake in the style of VI or IX, while from IX earlier, I think about what a potential remake of the game could look like. I figure this cutoff is pretty indicative of what I most enjoy about Final Fantasy games. I really like the ATB battle systems of IV through IX, but I want the stories to be presented with voice acting and cinematic cutscenes (I was a little disappointed in the gameplay depicted in the XVI trailer for that reason, but that’s only sorta tangentially related).

I don’t think I’ve ever been so invested in the potential for a demake as when playing FFXIV. The game is an MMORPG, and I do not like MMOs, so that’s definitely part of it. I kept thinking in the back of my mind that I would much rather be going through dungeons with the characters accompanying my character in the story, rather than the random fellow players rushing me through them. The developers, clearly, had heard this criticism before. As the game progresses into newer updates, more options become available to make the story feel more like a single-player experience, culminating in the ability to choose to explore dungeons with a party of NPCs and a story explanation for why randos appear around the protagonist for boss fights (neither of which apply retroactively, unfortunately).

Over the course of the game, then, I went from wishing I could play a game with this story in the style of VI or IX to wishing I could play this game, but developed from the beginning by the developers who made the Shadowbringers expansion with six years of experience under their belts. That’s not to say I don’t sometimes fantasize about the ways this story could be handled in a more traditional style, but with Shadowbringers, the game has essentially become a single-player game I am made to experience next to other players, which is much more bearable than a traditional MMO.

Like many games in the series, FFXIV is about memory, but it tackles this theme in a very different way from most. Rather than focusing on amnesia or memories fading, it looks instead at the conflicts that arise from asymmetric memories.

The second expansion, Heavensward, is about a holy war fought for centuries between dragons and humans (slash-elves). Over the course of the story, it is revealed that the main disagreement in this holy war arose from the differences in the lifespans between these two species. The humans have developed a religion explaining to them why dragons attack them every few decades, in which it is taught that their original king was murdered by the dragon Nidhogg, and one of his loyal knights took the dragon’s eye in revenge. The dragons, this religion teaches, are a scourge on the earth. It is heretical to consort with them in any way, and those who do often change into dragons themselves. Thus, from the humans’ perspective, not only are humans and dragons locked in a constant war, but the dragons are the aggressors for attacking every few years and for turning their own fellows against them.

Dragons, however, live for a much longer time than humans. Nidhogg is, in fact, still alive, as are several of his siblings, and his father. The dragons are at war with the humans because those many centuries past, the humans discovered that they could gain strength by killing and eating the dragons, and they did just that to Nidhogg’s sister. There is an asymmetry of memory to this conflict, meaning neither side is truly in the wrong. The humans, who only live for a hundred years or so, can only remember the dragons’ attacks to their cities. From their perspective, they are attacked by these monsters without reason. The dragons, however, still vividly remember the inciting incident of the conflict. The wound of the murder of Ratatoskr is still fresh, to them.

The game has an overarching conflict that’s framed in much the same way: neither party believes themselves to be at fault because the discrepancy in their respective lifespans has created an asymmetry of memory. Summons in the FFXIV universe take on different forms depending on what stories the summoner had heard about the god, meaning that the look and behavior of staples like Shiva and Ifrit can vary wildly depending on the memories of their worshippers. The game suggests, too, that the perfect empire would be one that can create and manipulate this asymmetry of memory, to have subjects who do not remember ever having not been subjects, but who the imperial structure still remembers are not sovereign citizens.

Difference in experience can allow for this asymmetry in memory, too. The protagonist has counterparts in parallel worlds, but each of these counterparts is, by any metric, their own person, with their own life and experiences. The protagonist’s power allows them to view others’ memories, which works well as an expository tool, but also maintains in the forefront of the player’s mind that everyone’s actions and ideologies are informed by their experiences and memories. Our diversity, the game reminds us, is literally a product of an asymmetry of memory.

This way of exploring memory is a pretty stark departure from the rest of the series; it’s much more subtle than the series’ usual focus on the acts of forgetting or chronicling experiences. This theme was absolutely informed by FFXIV’s status as an MMO; I can watch as hundreds of fellow players experience the same story events in radically different ways. Everyone’s protagonist is a different race with a different name, aesthetic, and class. They start in different towns, each of which has its own unique first thirty or so story quests. How we each experience dungeons and bosses is determined by our “role” - do we deal damage, or heal, or sponge damage from enemies? Our characters essentially do everything alone but with company, and we can stand and watch as others’ characters criss-cross fields, spawning enemies only they can attack, or standing in front of random NPCs, experiencing stories we ourselves are not seeing. Some players are “legacy players,” and the story is very different for them, as it is a continuation of a story us newcomers cannot access.

While this theme was made for the MMO medium, though, I think it is also well-suited to the Final Fantasy series as a whole. We all experience the series very differently. Some were introduced through Final Fantasy I on an NES in the ‘80s, others were introduced through VI, or X. Some were introduced through Kingdom Hearts, or Super Smash Bros, or a Dissidia arcade machine. We all picture a different character when we think of Cid, whether that’s the spandex-clad Cid from IV, the cantankerous astronaut from VII, or the cranky garage-owner from XV. When a Final Fantasy game references a previous game, we all might have different games we connect that reference back to, informed by our differing memories and past experiences.

I saw a complaint once that FFXIV fails to be its own game because it is too caught up in nostalgia. It would rather remind people of other games than stand as its own game. I disagree, especially when it comes to the stories of Heavensward on. I find it and Shadowbringers to have some of the better plots the series has ever done, with characters who earn their right to stand among the most iconic characters in the series.

I do think, however, that it is impossible to play a game in a long-running series without your experience being affected by your memories of other games in that series. Humans naturally have a tendency to seek out and find patterns, and we write connections and patterns into series, pretty much by definition. This is what I do when I imagine remakes and demakes while playing Final Fantasy games. I use my memories of other games to inform my understanding of the one I am playing. I find throughlines between vastly different games and cross the yawning void of divergence to imagine what it would be like if they weren’t so different after all.

[drennalynspast]

[ My First Relationship / First Breakup ]

Saturday, Apr. 27, 2013 - 6:31 a.m.

Today..well..13 hours ago, I experienced my first breakup.  It was from a man who happened to be my first boyfriend and first relationship.  We are both 24 years old. 

The Beginning: I met “andy” on okcupid.  I was at a point in my life where I felt sexually frustrated.  I wanted to cure an itch, at the same time I was willing to be open to the idea of trying to have a boyfriend and be in a relationship.   Okcupid allowed me to create a profile and sift through particular wants, needs and interests I had in other people who also were hopefully more compatible with me.  It was the beginning of a new year.  January 2013.  New experience.  new discoveries.  Carpe diem.

This one individual stood out to me on okcupid.  We seemed to talk so easily through chat. We eventually exchanged numbers and texted each other for a week before we decided to meet up in person at a sushi restaurant.  It was my first “real date” too.

He had a wild life in his past. He said that he matured more now.  He is in grad school: vocational rehab counseling.  He has a job and is self sufficient at paying his own bills and living on his own. He likes mmos, particularly WoW, doing outdoor activities, keeping up with sports and reading news. He was a very intellectual and introspective person. He was also atheist or agnostic.  He also believed in not wanting children which was a huge plus for me.  He was also a sexual deviant in the sense that he had tried a lot of things and was willing to try new things in the future.  I also was impressed how he was so strict on having a workout schedule and tried to keep fit and take care of his body.  

At the date we were nervous, eventually loosened up a little. We talked a lot. We had a lot of interests and similarities in preferences/morals together. He seemed too good to be true.  At some point later on during the night at my place, he asked to kiss me. I made a further to attempt to be more into and start grinding him. Obviously I was craving sex. He didn’t resist and we attempted intercourse.  He was struggling to get a full erection throughout the night since he wasn’t quite comfortable with me yet on an emotional level. 

I wasn’t bothered. We laid naked in bed and just talked throughout the endless hours of the night and attempted sex again. He left at 10:30 am in the morning. We did not sleep at all. we couldn’t sleep.  It was a passionate and exciting night.  Meeting someone for the first time and just ..yeah getting to get to have sex again from a 3 year dry spell.

After that, the next time we met, I was over at his place.  We had sex first thing (after I showered) when he saw me.  We hung out, talked, played games.  I think a week after our first date, he asked if I could be his girlfriend. I said yes.  And now, April 25th Friday, what we [didn’t] have is over.

________________________________________________________________

The Middle: We hung out, did things together:  experienced eating new foods and activities. He showed me new places, I showed him new places.  We played games together.  Even when we weren’t playing the same mmo, I still sat by next to him playing my own game and doing my own thing. In the beginning we were sexually into each other.  I guess that is like any new relationship. You just want to fuck the other person’s brains out and explore their body.  It was an exciting feeling.  He sometimes felt overwhelming where he actually wanted it way more than I could handle. I believe it was like 6-7 times of sex I had most at one day.  That doesn’t count all the blowjobs either.   I was in consistent pain.  My vagina was being stretched out more since it hasn’t been exposed to that length of dick before and I must’ve tightened up since not having sex for 3 years So yeah, I felt raw, sore, some blood here and there and I couldn’t experience keep up with him and his pleasure needs. I was fine though.  I enjoyed being around him. (though sexually frustrated I couldn’t enjoy as much)

I started nuvaring birthcontrol in February.  At the end of the first ring cycle, I began to bleed constantly. I have been bleeding for literally about 2 months straight and still have been bleeding up until now.  I think it is a side effect of the ring, but I read about how it is supposed to subside after a while since my hormones were still adjusting.  Anyway, because of the bleeding, he couldn’t access my vagina that much as far as oral or fingering.  I wouldn’t let him as much and I felt embarrassed.  I didn’t mind still having vaginal intercourse though.  He wanted his dick sucked on/ face fuck me a lot more. I felt like I was rejecting him more of his requests more often.  I think part of me was the way he just was blatant about expressing  his desires and made no effort to really try to “soften” me up to make me in the mood to where I felt aroused and wanted to do it eagerly/willingly.  I expressed my concerns about how I wish he could be more affectionate/romantic with me, and it would make it easier for me to be more willing. He then said it wasn’t in his persona to work to do that. Like he grudged having to dance around the point and put effort. 

He also started smoking pot again; he said he was going to finish it all by 4/20. He still have some leftovers, and said he was not going to buy anymore after that.  Obviously I haven’t stuck around him longer than this period to see if he lived up to his word. I was bothered that he even took up smoking pot (even if temporarily) again after his 6 month quit.  I felt like he sorta changed in the sense that when he started smoking it again, he was less productive in terms of keeping his priorities in line, going to work consistently and having a consistent workout schedule. He kind of neglected sticking to his regimen because he felt more lazy?  I think that is when I also noticed the sex to kinda, I dunno, be less than what it used to be.

Sometimes I would ask myself, am I ready to love him?, though in the back of my mind I felt some sort of distance between us as far as intimacy and affection goes.  I was passive and I was expecting him to do more for me or just be there more for me on some things.

I felt like we were still okay. We never yelled or treated each other like shit.  I wasn’t a total bitch to him nagging at him all the time.  There were some small things that bothered me, but I held it in and didn’t get on to him.  We never had any argumentative differences to where we just loathed being next to each other. It didn’t get to that point.  This Wednesday, I hung out with jack and his boyfriend. I told him my perception and feelings on how I felt my relationship was going, asking questions.  But in the end, I thought we were doing fine and nothing really got in the way of us not being together anymore.That is how I perceived things were.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The End/ Aftermath: On Friday, around 9:30 am, he texted me asking if I wanted his cock in my lil pussy during his lunch break.  I said, “yes!”.  He came over, we fucked.  After that, he left to go back to work.  We had plans to see each other again in the night.  I was going to go down to see him in Norman. I was going to spend the night and we would attend the Norman Music Festival on Saturday.   Because I work night shift, I had to sleep a little more in the afternoon before I got ready to pack etc.  It was still 6:30 pm and I was still in bed. I was still tired and trying to squeeze some extra sleep in.   I was starting to try to force myself to get up, but still lay in bed.

I heard the door open to my apartment. Andy came in.  I wasn’t expecting him to immediately come over to my place after work.  I didn’t mind and was excited to see him again. He came in my room. He immediately started talking and the words that came out of his mouth, “I’ve been doing some thinking. I need this relationship to end. “  The first thoughts that came in my mind were, what the fuck!? Huh? I asked him if he was serious. He said, “yes”.  I felt like I did something wrong. He assured me that there was nothing “wrong” on my part that was the reason.  Like there weren’t any flaws about me and that he simply said, “I still don’t feel like we are connecting.”  There was no connection between us, he came to the conclusion. He contemplated the thought about breaking up 3 weeks ago.. or a month he told me. But he kept trying to wait or felt guilty.  He finally came to the decision to end it that night with me.  He was waiting for a feeling to emerge between us, but evidently it never occurred.  He said it was for the best to end it now so we both won’t get more hurt later on when we were around longer.  He also mentioned that he felt like we were more friends and our relationship was based on the premise on sexual activity.

I feel in shock, surprised, caught completely fucking unaware he would even break up with me at this point.  I feel like in disbelief. My body felt numb, weak, and shaking.  Is this really happening? Please tell me more. Please give me more fucking answers. But he said that with situations like this, we can’t nitpick everything and pinpoint things.  When it comes to trying to develop a connection or feeling with someone, sometimes you can’t work to obtain it, to force it to arrive.  I didn’t want to lose him. I hate losing him. But I understood what he was saying. I couldn’t force him to drag himself in this relationship further.  I couldn’t bear to bring myself to beg for him to stay.  I wish he could stay, but I couldn’t verbalize that I wanted him to toss his ideas aside and try.  Of course I suggested that if he told me he felt no feelings earlier, we could have tried harder. He said it would only make the relationship feel more estranged, uneasy and not go further.

I am in denial that it couldn’t work between us.  But at the same time, maybe I knew it wasn’t blossoming into something further, but I felt too complacent, too scared to lose that feeling of having someone around to just be there for me all the time.  I’m afraid of the idea of losing a regimen a consistency in my life. But am I really afraid of actually losing him,  Andy?

Most people hate being alone.  We crave affection, intimacy, not even that, but just having a consistent closeness with someone whom we can share our experiences daily.  I tell myself:  I need to make myself happy instead of relying on others to make me feel good.  I forget that a lot about myself, Andy had to remind me that night that I am my own priority.  

He was a good guy in the end.  We never said we loved each other or felt that way. I am still a novice when it comes to figuring out my feelings and emotions with someone. But I felt like that would be something that would grow more over time.  I felt like we were able to have more time to find out.   He felt like it would be better to end it now before time was wasted and nothing got better. Though,  I was still sorta peeved how just the whole Friday, he just fucked me earlier that day and then later on came back to say he wanted to break up with me.  

We had a long talk about things. He sat next to me trying to comfort me. Answer any questions or give insight about things.  There are still a lot of things I wonder about. I tell myself that there must be something wrong with me. It is my fault and I could have been the one to make things better if only I had known.  And I hate myself for not being a good enough person for him to want to keep me.  He still tried to assure me that there was nothing wrong with me. Sometimes I wonder if he is saying that to try to spare my feelings. I also think about questions about if he is truly over his ex that he was in a 3 year relationship, and that hindered his progression with me and trying to develop feelings.

I made him delete all the naughty pics and videos of me from his phone and computer. I made sure to see that he delete them in front of me. I also deleted the stuff of his videos from my laptop as well.  He packed up his remaining stuff at my place.  We exchanged our final thoughts and words.  He gave me a couple of sweet kisses for the last time. For the first time, I realized, it seemed like he made those kisses actually mean something or have emotion in them compared to the other kisses I got in the past.  For once (in a long time), I felt an emotional kiss, but it is also painful to know those would be my last from him.   

A million thoughts race in my mind constantly. I want it to stop. I want the pain to go away.  I ask questions about what if, what could have been done differently.  My mind is struggling to accept it, to move on. Mentally I understand what is going on, but I cannot bring myself to emotionally feel at peace right now.  First day of surviving a breakup, I don’t expect things to get better overnight.  

I think about scenarios about him asking to take me back or even Andy just texting me something to see how I am doing.  I have random moments of the warm memories I had with someone. I then realize that I can no longer have that kind of memory with that person anymore.

I try to go to sleep. I wake up a couple hours later and realize,  I’m alone now.  I’m single now. I’m fucking alone with no one.  I get in a panic.  It hurts. it hurts so much.  I cry so much. It’s hard. It’s difficult trying to recover, to accept, to move on.   The knife has already penetrated my heart, but I am feeling the bleeding sucking out my life and energy ever so slowly and painfully.

I talked on the phone with my two best friends. They gave me their opinions.  Jack said how he felt like Andy wasn’t going to be the one with me, and how it probably wouldn’t have lasted long. He said how on our meeting Wednesday that I had a hint of unhappiness.  He also tried to cheer me up and encourage me that the next guy I meet, it will be better than the previous one.  

I need to stop thinking of things that I shouldn’t have done or could do to salvage the relationship. It just causes more convoluted thoughts.  Granted, maybe there were some things that could have been different or changed, but there is no definite answer. Sometimes I think if I moved too fast just jumping into the sexual activity and then subconsciously forcing a built relationship foundation to justify being constant with that.  I have no regrets on what I did. I realize that everyone is different. I hear stories about how people just fuck for while and then something grows more between them.  

Sometimes I think with my approach to sex first, I would eliminate forced feelings with someone so early.  The whole idea of holding out sex for a month and then finally having sex with someone for the first time after that then you convince yourself you are in love with them or have feelings.  But it’s just the elated feelings and excitement about the sex perhaps.  

Perhaps I will try to take a different approach and wait for the sexual activity later in the dating scene.  I now feel like I feel more intimidated when it comes to meeting new people. Will I ever meet a good guy like andy again who exhibits a lot of the qualities I am looking for?  How can I compete with an ex who has had a better connection and made someone feel like they were in complete heavenly love before? What can/should I do better?  Not only do I have to find a guy who is good to me in the sense of treating me well and being faithful, but I have to find someone who I can experience a deeper connection with and love.  This shit is hard.  I wish I could experience what love feels like but love should never be rushed.

Of course I need to try to be single for a while.  I need to heal.  It just. fucking. Hurts. Being. Rejected.  I was the first one of his exes in which he was the one to make the decision to leave the girl first.  It makes me feel like I was the inferior one in the end. I was inadequate.  He said that I exhibited several appealing qualities that were better than his exes, but he just didn’t give him a feeling of connection.  I feel so defeated. Like since I was the first one for him to breakup with it must mean something about me. I wasn’t that good enough. I feel like I was a terrible girlfriend.  But  I know I am not.  

I know that someday I will find someone better. It just sucks, not knowing, just waiting. The uncertainty. The doubt.  I will feel better about this over time. I know in the end, Andy did me a favor by backing out now before things hurt even more between us. There are no lingering feelings of animosity or grudges, just pain and hurt of being let go.

I need to be my own person, focus on myself.  Make myself be happy. I need to accept who I am. Eventually I will learn to let go.   

Goodbye Andy. Thank you for giving me my first relationship experience in life.   Thank you for letting me in your life and accepting me.  Even if it was for 4 months;  It was a good run. I have no regrets.  I'm glad that I still have respect for you in the end.

[thewritewolf]

Nino’s Quest Chapter 1: Gathering the Party

When his uncle leaves for Morocco, it looks like Nino might be stuck without any Dungeons and Dragons for a few months. Since this is a terrible fate, Nino takes it upon himself to make a campaign of his very own.

Now if only he could find a party...

Thank you to @alienducky for inspiring me to expand on this one shot from last year’s fictober prompt! And thanks to @marinoodles for letting me steal her name!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 (Final)

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3. My ko-fi.

“As you clutch Raygar close, he whispers a single name into your ear as if it were the most important thing in the world: ‘Doznak.’ The moment the word passes his lips, the light leaves his eyes.”

“No! Not my dude Raygar!” Nino wailed, his fist hitting the table, gently shaking the drinks that had been set on it.

“...And I think that’s where we’ll end this session. Thanks for coming out, you guys.” Uncle Hassan gave a hug to the other two party members as they left, leaving just him and Nino to pick up. “Thanks for the help, little man. How are you liking this campaign?”

“It’s totally awesome, uncle dude!” Nino raised his voice to be heard as he carried the glasses to the kitchen and left them in the sink. “Each story gets better than the last. And man! Tonight’s cliffhanger. I can’t wait to get the low down on who this Doznak dude is next week.”

When he returned, he saw his uncle smiling sheepishly and rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah… about that.”

“What?”

“I’m going to be visiting your grandpa in Tangier. So, uh, you might be waiting on that thrilling conclusion for a while.”

Giving his uncle a suspicious look, he asked, “How long is a ‘while’, exactly?”

“I won’t be back until New Year’s, kiddo.”

Nino gaped. “Dude!” He said, betrayed. “We’re only just at the end of summer! How am I supposed to wait that long?!”

Uncle Hassan chuckled. “Well, you’ll be starting school soon. That’ll help keep your mind off it, right?”

“Maybe a little.” Nino pouted and pulled his cap down, trying to hide his disappointment.

A large hand settled on his shoulder and Nino looked up into the hazel eyes of his uncle. “Kiddo, you’ve been doing great and it’s been fantastic having you around in the game. But sometimes groups have to take a break for a while. These things happen.”

Nino sagged. “But… I was just getting the hang of Dungeons and Dragons…”

“Well, you don’t have to stop.” Nino looked up, curiosity getting the better of him. “My books are just going to get dusty waiting for me here. Why don’t you take them and make a campaign of your own? Invite your friends. Trust me, it’ll be way more fun than playing with us geezers.” Uncle Hassan laughed, his eyes sparkling with mirth.

His friends? Nino thought of Adrien, with his impenetrably dense schedule. Alya and her lack of interest in games, whether they be board games or video games. Marinette and her tendency to always be juggling fifty projects at once. Although… they weren’t his only friends, right? It couldn’t be that hard to find two or three people willing to game with him like once a week.

“You know… you might be onto something.” A grin reached Nino’s face as he took the rulebooks that his uncle passed him. Outside, a car honked its horn - his dad was there to pick him up.

“Tell my brother-in-law I said hello. And good luck, kiddo!”

Nino waved and felt his mind light up with the possibilities of adventure.

--------------------

The last month of summer went by in a blur as Nino put his mind to work getting his campaign drafted. When school started, he took a few weeks to get back into the swing of things before he started the hunt for a new party.

That’s where he hit a snag.

There weren’t that many Dungeons and Dragons players in his class. Or, at least, not many that he knew of. He managed to corner all three of them during lunch and pitched his campaign to them.

“...So what’d ya think, dudes? Sound like a party or what?”

Max cleared his throat and pushed up his glasses. “I really am very sorry, Nino, but I’ve been kept adequately busy with my work on game design. While I’d love to join up, it would cut into my other projects. Regrettably, I’ll have to decline.”

“Alright, dude, no sweat.” Nino patted Max on the shoulder and turned toward the other two. “What about you guys?”

Juleka shook her head. “Sorry. I just started one with Rose. Can’t back out now, you know?”

“And I just got hooked on a new MMO with Ivan,” Mylene said with a wince. “If I stop now, I’ll lose my placing that I worked so hard for!”

“Major bummer.” Nino tugged at his cap as all four of them got up to return to their usual seats.

“According to my projections, I’ll have a greater likelihood of joining on the next adventure.”

“Maybe next campaign,” Mylene patted his arm as she walked past him.

“Yeah, we can try again next time.” Juleka paused. “Have you tried asking Adrien?”

Nino shook his head. “Nah, dude is always super busy.”

‘Sure, but he was asking me and Rose about D&D. I dunno, maybe just try it?”

“Really?” Nino perked up. His best friend had gone home for lunch, but he was still just a text away. “It might be worth a shot. Thanks, Juleka.”

“No problem. Good luck.”

Taking a seat at the table next to Alya, Nino shot a quick text to Adrien.

Nino: Heard you were asking about DnD. You game?

“What’s that about, babe?” Alya asked, looking over his shoulder.

“I’m trying to get a party together for Dungeons and Dragons.”

“Dang, and the first half of that sentence was so promising.”

“So is that a pass then?” Nino said with a faint smile. While sometimes he could get her to play games with him, he understood that it wasn’t her favorite. Just like how he didn’t share her love of rom coms, but indulged her every now and again.

“Yeah, babe. Although…” She looked at Marinette as she rushed into the building clutching a brown bag with the Dupain-Cheng bakery logo. “...there might be potential there.”

“Hey, guys!” Marinette sat down opposite them and opened the bag, passing some chocolatines to the two of them. “What’re we talking about?”

“Hey, M.” Alya leaned forward. “Do you ever play roleplaying games?”

“Um, sometimes? You know my favorite is fighting games, but I’m up for some adventure sometimes.” Marinette tilted her head to the side. “Why?”

“Well, Nino here was thinking about running a Dungeons and Dragons campaign…”

“I’m… not sure.” Marinette’s eyes widened. “Not that I’m not interested! It sounds like it’d be fun to do with friends. But I don’t know if I’ll be able to find the time. Plus-”

She was interrupted by the sound of Nino’s phone going off. He’d left it on the table, so everyone could see that it was from Adrien. A small smile crept across Nino’s face when he heard the little intake of breath when Marinette noticed.

“S-so, um, how’s- how’s Adrien?”

Poor dude. The guy isn’t even here and she is stuttering. Nino pulled up the text.

Adrien: Yes!!! I got all the rulebooks months ago and I’ve done my best to learn but no one plays. [sad cat emojii] Are you going to be a DM??

Chuckling, Nino sent him another message.

Nino: You bet! Would you be able to meet once a week?

The response was immediate.

Adrien: Maybe if I say I’m working on a group project? I could pull it off, yeah.

With a huge grin, he looked back up at the girls. “My boy is in!”

Marinette bounced up and down in place. “Then so am I!”

“Oh?” Alya leaned forward with a smirk. “What happened to not having the time?”

“I will find the time, I promise. But gaming with friends? And Adrien? Too good an opportunity to pass up.” She met Nino’s eyes and had the good graces to look sheepish.

“Nah, don’t worry about it. If this means I get more players, than I don’t mind.” He turned towards his girlfriend. “Speaking of more players… Now everybody else is in. How ‘bout you?”

Alya rolled her eyes with a smile. “I guess someone has to keep an eye on you hooligans.”

“Nice. This is going to be great!”

-------------------

Nino: And… we… are… LIVE!

We’ve been expecting you, Adrien Agreste

Marinette joined your party. Everyone look busy!

Alya is here, just as the prophecy foretold.

Nino: Say hello everybody

Adrien: Hello everybody

Nino: You’re hilarious

Marinette: hello! Hey guys!

Alya: Sup

Nino: We’ll be using this Discord server for all Dnd related things, k? Mostly for planning new sessions

Adrien: What about… spicy memes?

Nino: Know what, bro? I’ll make a channel that you can spam to your hearts content

Adrien: <3

Nino has changed his name to Lord DM

Alya: Seriously

Lord DM: Definitely

Adrien has changed his name to Adrien Regreste

Alya: Pffft

Adrien Regreste: Come on, Mari! Its what all the cool kids are doing!

Alya: Hey now

Marinette has changed her name to marinoodles

Marinoodles: ...How’s that?

Adrien Regreste: ;-; Its so cute. And also hilarious??

Marinoodles: I mena thank you! *mean

Alya has changed her name to Alya’ll Beware

Alya’ll Beware: Sweetie you know you can just edit your comments right

Marinoodles: ...Now I do.

Lord DM: Lol Anyway. How’s this weekend looking?

Alya’ll Beware: Just jumping right into it, arent you? But yeah I’m free

Marinoodles: I babysit Manon on sunday but saturday is clear!

Adrien Regreste: I can pull off saturday! Where are we meeting??

Lord DM: Whoever we meet at provides food. Since I am DM, I am exempt. (Plus my place is always supes crowded)

Adrien Regreste: Uh I can probably manage it off. Father will be out of town with Nathalie. The Gorilla is much more lenient hwen it’s just us.

Marinoodles: Gret sounding! *Thta sounds gerat! **That sounds great!

Adrien Regreste: Haha, yeah! I’m pumped to have you guys over. :)

----------------

Despite Nino’s fear of a repeat from last time, none of them were thrown out or belittled on their way to Adrien’s room. The worst that any of them received was an uncertain glare from the Gorilla as they filed upstairs.

As it turned out, the most difficult problem they had to face was Adrien’s purchasing habits. Nino had to explain to him that even though they were teenagers playing D&D, there was no way they’d be able to get through five pizzas and all the drinks he’d ordered. After he’d extracted a promise not to go overboard again, Nino went straight into explaining the basics and had them roll for stats.

“You sure about this, dude?” Nino leaned over Adrien’s shoulder and frowned at his character sheet. “I get you’re gonna be a bard, but max Charisma and low Wisdom just sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

Nino could just barely overhear Alya whisper to Marinette, “Attractive but kinda dense? Doesn’t that sound like someone we know…?”

“ALYA,” Marinette whispered back in a scandalized tone.

“Maybe, but that just means it might be more memorable, right?” Adrien looked up at Nino and couldn’t hold out against the excitement he saw in his eyes.

“Sure, bro.” Nino walked over to the girls. “And how’re you two hanging?” He craned his neck to see where Marinette was sticking her highest stats. “Dexterity… and intelligence? Good choices for a rogue.”

Marinette smiled. “Thanks! I’ve been thinking about her background. Get this - the rebel daughter of an elven baron.” She nudged Alya. “Pretty neat, right?”

“Wow, that sounds way cool, Marinette!” Adrien beamed at her and she melted.

“Than- than- Thanks, Adrien! You’re cool too!” She winced, but Adrien’s smile didn’t dim.

Nino raised an eyebrow as he noticed her hit points. “But, uh, why’d you stick your lowest stat in Constitution? Your dude isn’t gonna be able to take a hit.”

A sly smirk spread across her face. “I won’t need to take a hit if I play my character right.”

“Heh. Fair enough.” Nino turned his attention to Alya’s sheet, only to see it blank. “Um, something wrong, babe?”

“I dunno.” Alya shrugged. “I’m not big into games like you guys are, so its all going in one ear and out the other.”

“Well…” Nino took a seat next to her and thumbed through the core rulebook. “Maybe we should just keep it simple, right? So you can get your bearings.”

“A fighter?” Alya raised an eyebrow. “Seems kinda boring.”

“Yeah? How about a knight errant, looking for glory to make her name in the world? Rushing forward to defend the weak from the strong? Still sound boring?”

A grin split her face. “Now you’re speaking my language, cappy.”

“That’s Lord DM Cappy to you, babe.”

“Don’t push it.”

“Okay, so let me see if I get where we’re standing.” Adrien pushed the hair out of his face and looked at the three of them. He pointed to himself. “I’m a half-elf bard.” The finger shifted to Marinette who blushed and frantically waved at him. “Elven rogue.” Alya fell under his digit next. “Human fighter. Where does that leave you, Lord DM Cappy?”

Alya groaned and Nino chuckled. “Since someone needs to watch out for you guys, I’m going to be playing a human cleric. A priest of the sun.”

“Sounds like we’re pretty well balanced? Well,” Adrien ducked his head. “Except for me. Maybe it’d be better if I just played a wizard…?”

“N-no!” Marinette quickly interjected. “Adrien, you can be what-whatever you want to be!”

“Dude has a point. There is more to having fun than being the most efficient party possible, bro.”

“Alright.” Adrien relaxed. “Awesome.”

“Now, let’s get everything else sorted for character creation. And while we do that, I can tell you a little about the world you find yourselves in…”

As Nino began by telling them of the Good King Hamon, he felt a spark light up from within. He could already tell this was going to be the best campaign.

[enchantment1385]

My most magnificent mega must (have) mods memo.

So, I’ve been putting this off (big surprise!), but the time has come! I am going to try and provide some recommendations of my favorite mods. Mods I will not play the game without, or mods I love so much, I can’t recommend them highly enough! Hopefully some of you will find a new excuse to play one of these games again! I will split the list up into games so you skip if you don’t play a certain game. Again, these are my personal recommendations, so please don’t get all bent out of shape over this people. I also won’t be adding the very amazing utility mods (such as SkyUI or mcm or mod organizers) as I feel these are required mods. Today's installment -  

~Skyrim~

VIGILANT  +  VIGILANT Voiced - English Addon Okay, where do I start with the amazingingness of the mod? It’s massive, compelling, scary (chapter 3 holy fucking shitballs, batman!), and just absolutely perfectly executed on every level horror mod! This is not a mod you complete in a couple of hours, this you need to put aside a day or 2 and go through all 5 chapters! 1 guy made this. 1 awesome japanese dovha, alas it’s not as adored as it should be as, when originally released, the english subtitles (literally translations from Google) didn’t really translate well... or at all at some points. Hence why you need the voiced addon which makes this mod a 15+ hour, fully awesomely voiced adventure to seek out daedra, and be physically, and morally tested by the one and only Daedric Prince of domination, Molag Bal. Your choices WILL affect the outcome. This mod gives you everything you want from a mod. New weapons, new armour, new enemies, dark soul like boss battles, new places, new people, new land. With Halloween quickly approaching, this is the perfect time to give this a shot! 

Legacy of the Dragonborn

I stayed away from this mod for SO long thinking it was just a massive oversize player home to put all your crap on display. I was wrong. I was SO wrong. This mod is the ultimate scavenger hunt turned up to 11. It adds some of the best mods out there and puts them all together to make you WANT to go find that bloody staff, or helm, because A, it now looks amazing, and B, there’s a place for EVERYTHING in the museum, it must be filled! It adds old relics, new quests, a very gorgeous fair sized player home, you get to go to Elsweyr, and even get an airship you CAN use later! And trust me when I say, there is nothing that looks quite as impressive as your dovah walking around a city with your massive ass airship looming overhead. The way everything gets placed into the world is fucking flawless, and if you’re bored or just want more out of Skyrim, this is the mod that does that, and WAY more. Also a massive bonus, it has several patches for other mods that didn’t get incorporated (vigilant being among them) to add extra wings for you to display the items from other mods! 

Interesting NPCs

Another mod I stupidly avoided to begin with. So as we know, vanilla followers are... meh. But now with all these new battles and exploring you have to do, you might want someone watching your back, right? Forget vanilla, time to go interesting! This mod adds -

• 250+ Voiced NPCs • 25+ Followers with Location Based Commentary • 15+ Marriage NPCs 

This mod makes Skyrim feel inhabited, but with REAL people. People who you can, should, and will want to talk to. The voice acting is just fantastic, the characters are an absolute joy, they fit into the world so perfectly you’d never know they weren’t there all along! Well... Except for the fact they’re actually interesting, and have more than 5 things to say! It also has something called ‘Super Followers’. These followers actually comment on what’s happening in your story. Just about to go kill your first dragon? They have something to say about it. Just joined the college of mages? Have a chat to see what they think! I can not express how much this will change your game, but 151% for the fucking better! Oh! And just in case you were running short on things to do, this also adds 50+ more quests! *(footnote) Pleaaassssee go to Soljund's Sinkhole and take Rumarin with you. What he says when you clear that place out has me laughing my ass off every time.

Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul

Are you tired of being the only one is Skyrim who actually seems to DO anything? Are you weirded out by the fact when you walk into an inn at 4am everyone is doing the same thing as they were at 2pm last week? Confused as hell by the comment ‘Do you hunt? The plains outside Whiterun are ripe with game.’ How the fuck would you know, Anoriath?! You never leave Whiterun, dude! EVER! That ends with this mod. Now people have routines. They sleep, they eat, they walk around, they don’t just stay in one place all the time! It makes the npc’s go from a static feature and changes them into actual people, or goes a long way to help! Even people like carriage drivers now have a lil tent near the carriage, and will even take shelter under cover if it starts raining. (if it’s not too far from the carriage!) Random people will now not try and fight the big dragon who is burning everything to a crisp, but instead run away and take shelter, you know, like a normal person would? Which is helpful, as I tend to hit them with a stray spell then get into shit for accidentally electrocuting the blacksmith or someone who shouldn’t have stood in the way of the MASSIVE FUCKING DRAGON IN THE FIRST PLACE! Anyway... This mod is awesome and makes all the vanilla npc’s less static and weird!  

Relationship Dialogue Overhaul - RDO

Don’t know about you but, I’m kinda bored with the dialogue in this game. The same 5 lines on repeat, over and over and OVER again. I want people who hate me to say something a bit more nasty that ‘What do YOU want?’ This mod adds over 5000 lines of dialog that was never used. Braith finally has more insults to throw at you! Which is great, because I hate that kid and now you will too! Your rivals will be rude to you. Your friends will compliment you. And your spouse will finally say more than a handful of lines to you! With this and the AI overhaul Skyrim will finally feel like it’s come alive. It seems like such a small addition, but it makes a huge impact when you hear lines that you’ve never heard before! 

PC Head Tracking and Voice Type &  Expressive Facial Animation (M)  (F)

So we’ve finally got a living breathing Skyrim, and holy shit, it’s a beautiful thing, right? Time to focus on bringing you to life. Don’t know about you, but I found it plain fucking odd that I didn’t ever look at the person who’s talking to me. Like, not even accidently. I also found it creepy the only time I ever made any sound whatsoever was when I shouted. So the first mod is going to fix that shit. You’ll finally look at the person talking to you, or at that dagger you’re just about to steal. What's more, you’ll be able to assign a voice to yourself, so you’ll greet people who talk to you. Fun doesn’t stop there! You can download voice packs such as, Ciri, Yenifer and loads of others! But... What if you know who you want them to sound like and there isn’t a pack for them? Well, make your own! The page is really good and explains how. So we’re not a clueless goon anymore, we look and talk, but that basically makes us no better than the T 800 terminator. The second mod will make you actually have emotions, instead of constant blank face. You’ll smile at friends and loved ones, and scowl at people who you hate, like you Elrindir. For the last time, I didn’t mean to steal the fucking apple pie! But I think me spending HUNDREDS of gold should have made up for that and did NOT warrant you sending a group of thugs to come kick the shit out of me!  Sorry. Just... Some unfinished business between me and that bastard bosmer. 

Enhanced Lights and FX

I have a potato as a laptop, as such a lot of these amazing ENB’s are totally off the table for me. But... We all deserve a pretty Skyrim, right? Fuck yes we do! And this is the mod that does that for me. So there are two versions of this bad boy, and you will really want to think about which one you want to go for. You’ve got standard, or hardcore. The MAIN difference is, the hardcore version will make dungeons dark. No, I mean pitch black darkness. Really think you know bleak fall barrow? Install hardcore then go run through it. It make sense that it would be dark down in these places, but fuck me dark is now really dark, which I personally love, but you might not. Install at least the main file and the weather mod and I guarantee when you boot your game back up you’ll be saying ‘wow’.  

Enhanced Character Edit  OR  RaceMenu

Okay, first off you only need one or the other NOT both. Here’s the difference. If you want to make a character that looks like they’re from FFXV or korean mmo, you’ll want to get Enhanced character edit. They’re all so damn pretty! Even the men are pretty! If you want something a little less cute looking and maybe more mature, Racemenu is character creator for you. Both give you a TON more customization when creating your new oc, down to finger and toe length and what’s not to love about that?? 

Enhanced Camera

You finally have a body in first person mode. not just hands when attacking. Which FYI Bethesda, is creepy as fuck. Next mod. 

Familiar Faces

Right, last one as we could be here forever, but I need to do more of these things for other games so let's finish with something stupid, but awesome, shall we? You know who’d make the best companion? That spellsword character you made. Or the sneaky archer. Or that tanky as fuck warrior, but they’re on that other save.. No more! When you fire up the game with this mod installed, you get a portal stone placed in your inventory. Use it and get get warped into this empty hall. Go to any of the books on the pedestals and hit yes when prompted. You, your abilities, spells, shouts, game progress and inventory has just been recorded. Load up another save and do the same in a different book, then you can go recruit... you! You can even make yourself marribale! Got that perfect otp? Create them both and have them travel around with you! Want them to use their shouts? No problem! Want them to not use shouts? That’s fine too! Isn’t that overpowered? Who gives a flying fuck?! 

Now go have fun in Tamriel, Bahlaan fahdonne!

[osmw1]

Dimension Wave  Chapter 15 — Somewhere Efficient, Profitable, and without Anyone in Sight

The next day. Last night, to celebrate the three of us getting together, I treated them the best herring I had. Our party got real lit and we crashed hard at the end of the night, even though it’s not like we got drunk or anything.

“So, what’s this about?”

I try to remember what happened yesterday. After getting a passerby to cook our top-quality herring, the three of us hung out by the riverbed—lantern in one hand, dinner in the other. We chatted about how we’re all Spirits, Yammy’s communication disorder, how she was anxious about being a bother to others, and even how my sisters forced me to play as a girl. I feel like we got a lot closer. That was fine. I can still remember up to that. But what’s this about?

“… zzz…” “… ‘tis how… I speak…”

Lying before me are Shouko in her yukata and Yamikage in her underwear. And yeah, I’ve nothing by my underwear on too.

“Wha…? What did we do last night?”

This game is rated PG; booze is restricted for minors, so I can’t even blame myself for being under the influence for any mistakes I may have made. And of course, nothing lewd can be depicted in game either. I’ve heard rumors that there are new VR games for adults only, but I really don’t think this is one of them.

“Ugh, what time is it?”

The sun shines through the windows. At the very least, I can tell it’s not morning anymore. I open up my menu and check the clock. It reads 1:24 PM. Jeez, it’s midday already. We’re absolute degenerates to be sleeping in on our first day as a party.

“Shouko! Yamikage! Get up!”

As soon as I shout at them, Shouko sits up with her eyes half-open. Judging by how she’s the only one in her PJs, I’d assume she dragged us all the way here.

“G’mornin’, Kizhna…” “Oh, wake up already…”

Beds really are too OP in this game. I think we got at least four, five hours of sleep. It’s probably a safety measure for dealing with people who stay up and play too much. Anyway, now’s not the time to get sidetracked.

“Shouko, what happened last night?” “Ev’body looked sho shleepy, sho we headed back to the inn.” “Mm-hmm.”

She’s not conscious enough to speak properly, but I still understood her. It seems like the three of us somehow managed to stagger back here.

“It woulda been dangeroush to shtay out there, so I got a big room for ush.”

I think I got the gist of the situation. But… but…

“But why are the two of us naked?!” “… ahh!”

Ah, she’s fully awake now. Shouko looks around at her surroundings before speaking again.

“Good morning, Kizuna. Quite the fine morning, isn’t it?”

What a refreshing smile.

“It’s past noon already!”

  The truth was actually awfully simple. Because clothes will wrinkle in this game, Shouko was being considerate and stripped us down. I guess wrinkles are a pretty big deal. But it’s not like there aren’t dry cleaners in town. As long as you have enough money, they can clean anything. And because they’re not expensive either, female players tend to often use them, apparently.

“I am truly sorry, Kizuna, Yamikage.” “No, don’t be. I should be thanking you instead.” “Aye. Had you not taken us safely to shelter, it may have landed us in an unthinkable predicament. We ought to be grateful to you.”

Yamikage was quite dazed after waking up. She was super embarrassed about other people seeing her nearly naked. She even blurted out ‘D-Don’t stare…’ as if it weren’t embarrassing for us too. Plus, she let her old-timey speak slip. It’s probably a part of her roleplaying. I mean, who actually speaks like that in real life?

“But, y’know, I’m a dude, right? You gotta be more careful. I mean, yeah, we can’t do anything in this world, but still… it wouldn’t be right.” “That’s true. Since Kizuna looks exactly like a girl, the truth had slipped my mind.”

Yeah, I know, I’m currently a girl, but… I guess I do look obviously feminine and same goes for Yamikage. She didn’t really seem to worry about seeing me naked though. If Dimension Wave weren’t so detailed, everybody looks pretty much the same. Of course, everyone looks good—unlike real life—but everyone is humanoid in nature. It is what it is. Those two know only know me through the body and voice of Kizuna†Exceed. They should be careful around a guy like me… but it’ll probably be fine if I’m more careful too.

“Well then, let’s make up for lost time. Where’re we headed to today?” “About that…”

Shouko makes an uneasy face.

“As fitting as the Forest of Eternal Darkness was for us, every other place I’m familiar wouldn’t be good for Kizuna. I mean, there would be plenty of people who would see us.”

She does have a point about her concern. If I were to be honest, it’s not like an absolute must that we keep it a secret. We’d have our priorities backwards if we let something like that stop us from hunting together as a party. We thought about simply waiting until nightfall to head back to the forest, but it’d be kinda a waste. It’s not really Energy-efficient for three people, Shouko said.

“In that case, maybe it’s not worth hiding anymore. It’d be impossible to keep it a secret forever anyway.” “I understand, Kizuna, but would it not be a shame if we so easily reveal your secret?” “Forsooth.”

Well, I guess so. If this were any other MMORPG, people could just go online and find out how the game works. But in Dimension Wave, most people don’t know even know what goes into forging a weapon. Gutting-type weapons are the weakest, so it doesn’t see a lot of use. But that’s because people don’t know that there’s more than just attacking with gutting weapons, hence why Shouko and Yamikage don’t want to give away this cash cow.

“So, what we want is somewhere that’s worthwhile for Energy, money, but also with no one around…” “‘Tis quite the list of requirements!” “I’m afraid we may be a little too greedy.”

We’re all in agreement about that. It’s almost as greedy as having a six-figure income requirement to even consider marrying someone. It would be weird if such a place existed with nobody there. Not to mention, the chances of being seen by anyone is definitely greater than zero. Hell, we might just be asking for the impossible. In an MMORPG, there are always locations that are popular and locations which are deserted. But if it’s a place where no one goes, it usually means it’s not efficient to grind there.

“And somewhere empty too…?”

I’ll admit to being unreasonable. There’s no way somewhere like that… wait a minute. There is a place like that. I didn’t get a good grasp of whether it was Energy-efficient or not, but at least I know the monsters are stronger there than the Forest of Eternal Darkness. But, it’s a little—

“Miss Kizuna? Is something the matter?” “Did you come up with a good idea?”

Both of them look at me with anticipation. Their expectations of me might be a little too high after the whole Lizardman Dark Knight battle yesterday.

“I can think of a place where there’s no one around but with monsters stronger than the ones in the Forest. Though, I really can’t say so for sure.” “What sort of place is that? ‘Tis an easy decision should we head there directly, no?”

… it’s not like I think it’s somewhere we should go, but it seems like Shouko and Yamikage are interested. No, we should decide as a group. I just threw out a suggestion.

“The ocean.” “The… ocean?” “Yeah. I paddled out to the open sea on a wooden boat before we met, right off the coast of the first city. I didn’t have much Energy then, so the monsters were pretty damn strong. I had to retreat, but I’m thinking that there’s three of us now…” “I can see why you’re unsure.”

How many monsters are there? Are we strong enough? Will we be safe? There are just too many unknown variables. It doesn’t seem like any of us would be good fighting on water. The monsters are strong too. But because almost nobody has fought them before, their mats are rare to say the least. And assuming that their mats sell, we would do well to go grind there.

“There’s another issue.” “Pray tell, Miss Kizuna.” “My boat’s too small.”

It would be pushing it trying to fit three people on my Wooden Boat +3 and that’s just for seating capacity. If a monster were to come at us, we would be dead in the water.

“Where did you get the boat?” “Ah, I found it in a market stall at the first city for 40,000.” “Perhaps we could directly contact the seller?” “Yeah, if only I knew their name. It was just some random market stall after all…” “‘Tis a handcrafted piece, no? The name of the craftsman should be inscribed somewhere.” “Wait, really?”

It’s obvious for MMOs to have the crafter’s name written somewhere. I check out my Wooden Boat +3 in my inventory. There it is. There’s a “Crafted by” line in the description. “Sheryl”. Surely, there’s gotta be more than one Sheryl. It’s so normal, yet so odd.

“I’ll try calling her.”

I let the others know before selecting “Chat” in the menu. Then I punch in S-H-E-R-Y-L. It’d be nice if everything works out well. I bought the boat about a week ago around noon as well. I don’t think she’d suddenly become nocturnal, right? Well, even if my call doesn’t go through, I can try again later at night. Of course, if I were to call her three times and I still can’t reach her, I’ll take the hint that she’s not interested. I could always go see her in person as well. Maybe I should ask her if she knows Alto, seeing how he’s got all sorts of connec—

—Sheryl has joined the chat.

“Hi, sorry for the sudden call. My name is Kizuna†Exceed. I bought a boat from your store about a week ago.” “…”

Huh? No response. Did she pick up? No, wait, this isn’t a phone call. It’s not like I could’ve called the wrong person. Plus, her name was easy to spell, so I’m sure it’s right.

“Do you hear me okay?” “… yep.” “Oh, good. So, I have a question for you. Since the boat I bought the other day fits only two people, I’m wondering if you have anything a little bigger.” “… nope.” “I-I see…”

I got my hopes up a little, but I guess nothing’s that easy. Back to square one, I suppose.

“Alright then, thank you for your ti—” “But, if you’ve got the mats, I could make you one.” “Mats, huh?” “There’s only a single person I can think of that’s bought a boat from me… I think I remember you. Seeing how easily you can drop 40,000, I’m sure you’re able to assemble materials too.”

Oh, right. If I recall correct, the 40,000 serin covered the costs of the raw materials. I don’t really know what her goals are, but I think I can get her to make me a boat as long as I front the costs.

“… it all depends on the size of the boat, too. How big are you thinking?” “I’m wondering if you can make me something big enough to seat three people and have enough room to fight on as well.” “…” “Umm…” “… hold on. Lemme crunch the numbers.”

I know I’m asking for a lot. And materials for a boat, eh? Seeing how the boat I have now costed me 35,000 serin, something three times… hell, even four, five times as big would run me about 170,000. Honestly, in that case, it’d be over my budget. I don’t even have that much money.

“… can you c’mere?” “Sorry?” “Can you come here?” “‘Here’ as in the first town?” “Right.” “I could make the trip, but it’ll take a while since I’m in Second right now.” “Right.” “You want to meet up, right? “… right. And if possible, bring the other two along too.”

I glance over at Shouko and Yamikage and pause to think.

“Can I run the idea through my friends first?” “Sure.” “And in that case, when would be good for you?” “Anytime is good. I’ll open my stall at the same place when you get here.”

—Sheryl has left the chat.

I’m still a little fuzzy, but at least we’re a step in the right direction. … it’s tough speaking with someone who’s so quiet.

“How did it go?”

The two of them ask me. Gotta explain it to them that our plans have changed.

“I got ahold of her, but it seems like we gotta help out in crafting.” “Whatever do ye mean?” “Well, I’ll cover the funds, so don’t worry about that. That’s not the important part.” “Then?” “We gotta meet the woodworker in person. She says she wants to meet both of you too. I said I’ll leave that choice up to you guys.”

She said, “if possible,” so we’ll see what we can do. I don’t think she’ll force us all to meet her. Well, if you asked me though, I’d like for us to go together.

“Then let us go together.” “Aye, aye.” “Y’all sure? I kinda feel like I volunteered you guys to go already.” “I’m sure. I don’t so much feel forced by you, Kizuna, but I also have no other plans.” “For I am your shadow, Misses Kizuna and Hakoniwa, I will always be behind you two.”

I guess I should be happy? But at the same time, you kinda sound like a stalker. In any case, our plan now is to head to Lurolona. Even though we said it’d be inefficient, we still went to the Forest of Eternal Darkness that night. We’re just playing it by ear.

contents: /prologue/ /ch001/ /ch002/ /ch003/ /ch004/ /ch005/ /ch006/ /ch007/ /ch008/ /ch009/ /ch010/ /ch011/ /ch012/ /ch013/ /ch014/ /ch015/ /next/

(please support me on Patreon or Paypal)

[dothewrite]

okay, i just can't stop thinking about this? but like, i imagine that if kuroo has an s/o, they're probably going to be friends with kenma, right? i, along with probably the rest of the fandom, also headcanon that kenma has anxiety. so can you do a scenario where said gf is with JUST kenma (probably waiting for kuroo or planning his surprise party or something) and suddenly kenma gets a mental breakdown so she kinda comforts him while kuroo gets a call and rushes to where they are?

I have so many things to say with Kenma, but I hope that this turned out to your satisfaction. Honestly, I think Kenma is very strong. But even the strong have their weak moments, and they deal with it the best they can, right? So I think that his way of dealing would be his silence, and all his different sides just collapsing into each other, and Kenma forgets who he is a little. I’m no expert on anxiety, and I can only base this on my singular experience, but I only wish that when it happened, I had been around someone I could trust, like Kenma has.

“Butjust because it burns doesn’t mean you’re gonna die,You gotta get up and try, try, try.”-Try, Pink.

Kenma’s never been one for many words. It’s a quiet afternoon,a rare day in Tokyo indeed, and Kenma’s silence as you manoeuvre his mouseacross his monitor is more than the approval you need. Maybe he’s just in agiving mood, or maybe there’s something about the way the sky’s darkening today,but just because you can’t put a finger on it, doesn’t mean it’s less valuablein the slightest.

“I’m going to press create, okay?” You glance downonce at your friend’s defeated posture and grin. Kenma doesn’t even bothernodding, or speaking, he simply looks up at you with that exasperatedly deadexpression on his face, and you know that it’s ago.

You press create, like you had said, and the ‘createyour character’ screen pops up immediately. As expected of the newest graphicscard, there’s zero lag in this gamer’s build.

“Alright,” you tell him as you lean back, “now it’sall yours.”

“I see I shouldn’t have been glad when I found outthat Kuro’s girlfriend is a gamer too.”

“What’s wrong?” You grin some more, channelling a bitof Kuroo yourself, “this is a game! It’s a good game! You can’t just play onthose tiny buttons all the time.”

“This is an MMORPG, and yes, I can.”

“Since you don’t want to socialize in person, you cantalk to people online.”

Kenma looks at you witheringly. “I’m talking to you,aren’t I?”

“You’re the one who invited me over,” you practicallyglow at the memory.

“Yeah, that’s ‘cus you wouldn’t stop bothering meabout this game.”

“Not because you like me?”

“Get out.”

You laugh, an unfeminine, cackling laugh and somehow,the corners of Kenma’s lips tilt upwards just the tiniest bit.

“C’mon, Kenmaaaaa, make your character!”

Kenma rolls his eyes, but turns back to the screen asdirected. You watch eagerly as his fingers drape over his streamline mouse, elegantfrom years of practice, and wait for the first change he’s going to make.

Nothing happens.

The cursor remains unmoving, and those thin, setterfingers stay exactly where they are. It’s a beautiful picture, but it’s lessentertaining when all your friend is doing is staring at the shimmering blue creationscreen without a single movement.

“Hey… are you alright?” You dare to shift a littlecloser. “I’m sorry if I was bothering you too much.”

“It’s fine,” he says so quietly that you’d have missedit if you weren’t almost draped over his back.

The hairs on the back of your neck raise in anxiousnessanyway, Kenma’s reassurance bouncing off you completely. “You don’t have toplay if you don’t want to. I know I was really pushy but-“

“-I’m fine,” he repeats, firmer.

You sit back on your heels, falling silent. Kenmararely spoke to you like that, or anyone, for that matter. As the silence growslonger, the more you feel in the way, as if you were blocking somethingprofound from happening, as if there’s a voice in the background begging you toleave.

So you do, and you get to your feet without any resistance.Maybe Kenma noticed, but there’s no movement from him that indicates eitherway. The steps towards his bedroom door feels heavy, but you don’t let themdrag.

“I’ll leave,” and those aren’t the words you want tosay, but they come out anyway- blunt, more honest than anything else you’d beable to conjure. Your hand rests uselessly on the doorknob, and you count tofive for a response before you left the house for good.

It hits four, then five, and you turn the handle.

“It’s not-“ he begins like a startled bird in winter, dartingout and back in. You almost miss it, with the flurry of shame that rushes toyour cheeks. “-it’s not you. I-I…” and you feel like you’re losing him, beingdragged away by the current, and the boy who never speaks meets the girl whonever fights.

You feel the metal slip away from underneath yourfingers as you sink down to the floor. Afraid to look up, or perhaps todiscover what you’ll see, you make your way across the traditional Japanese flooringon your hands and knees until you’re a reasonable distance from Kenma again.

His hands have fallen away from his PC and onto hislap. He doesn’t seem to be looking at them, however, but to the side, countingthe ridges on a square of flooring.

“I’m not afraid of talking to people,” he finallyspeaks up.

Somehow, you know that you’ve lost this round, thatyou’re the one left to catch up as Kenma takes one step by one step away fromhis comfort zone and you’ve yet to attempt. Heck,if you’re catching up, then you’re going to catchup.

“What are you afraid of?” Confidence comes slowly, butit swims upwards as your sentence comes to a close. Perhaps this isn’t what you’rebest at, as the words you want always seem to dance in front of your fingertipsand slip away at the last moment, but you- you love this kid. As a friend, as ahuman being, and when he turns around to look at you in a soaring act ofbravery, you’re humbled.

Kenma’s shaking, just barely, and just because, you reach out and pull his frail shoulders againstyour own. He falls into you without much resistance. His posture is stillrigid, his angles unfriendly and his breathing hostile, but he’s close, and you’rethere, and you’re going to sit there with him until that upwards twitch of hislips comes back.

“I’ve got anxiety,” he announces dully, like it’s unavoidablehow the sun rises in the east, “GAD.”

“Okay.”

“I-I don’t like people around when it happens.”

You say nothing, because it’s the right thing to say.If Kenma doesn’t want you here, then you wouldn’t be. And his interruption isas much of an invitation for you to leave as was your five seconds at the doorwas to go.

“I think Kuro’s the only one who’s been around when itgets bad,” he adds.

“Would you like me to call him here?”

Kenma doesn’t reply, but you see how his fingersclench and then unwind again, so you reach for your phone with one hand andtype in the message.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t haveto,” you murmur. “But what happened?”

“Just now.”

“Mhm.”

His silence returns, as does his shaking, and all youcan do is hold him with your own small heart. And, you wait. Soft, hesitantstrokes up and down his back you offer, and he shrinks away at first but leansinto your touch after a few seconds. Another act of bravery; you count two.

“I think of gaming a lot,” Kenma begins, “and I starta lot of games. So this MMO… it- I keep on starting things, and it’s like aloop.”

You know he can feel you nod against his hair, andsomehow, his heaves for air grow just the slightest bit more regular, althoughlouder. Like he’s not trying to hide them as much anymore.

“A loop where nothing ever ends,” he breathes, and ifa beautiful dream could be a nightmare, this is its battle cry. “I never start anythingmeaningful in my life, I only start things that take up my time, start games,beat levels- and then next game… I’m in a fucking loop.”

This is the first time you’ve heard Kenma swear withsuch vehemence, and it makes him sound present in ways you can’t bring towords.

“I’ve never really thought about what I’d like to do,or what I can do. Even volleyball I’vefollowed Kuro around and joined because he made it fun for me- it’s likenothing I’ve done is for myself.”

“Your hobby is you, too.”

“But they’re just hobbies,”he gasps, desperate. “I can’t be just games,that’s just really sad.”

Your fingers tighten, but you’re not going to saysomething you know won’t be welcome right now.

“And I don’t know what I’m capable of. Maybe it’snothing, maybe it’s just being a mediocre setter.”

He isn’t.But you can’t tell him that yet.

“I can just see it- all my life I’m going to be tiredand useless and just a quiet guy who games and doesn’t like people. I can’teven like people,” and Kenma laughscruelly against your shoulder. “What am I going to be? When will I ever getanywhere? What if I don’t care? I’m the most afraid of not caring. It’sprobably the option that’s going to come true the most.”

“I don’t think you have to care,” you offer quietly. “Whohas the right to guilt you into caring about things you don’t?”

Kenma moves to slap you about the head. “Society,dumbass.”

“Seriously, Kenma.” You sound serious. “I-I’m in noplace to say much but, I think you’re allowed to be you. You don’t have topunish yourself for being you.”

“It doesn’t help, being me,” he answers. Toeing theline between snarky and exhausted, he sounds like Kenma again, and you know forone that his laugh won’t leave you.

You shrug. “It might not help, but we can make do,right?”

“Is that the plan? To wing it?”

“I’ll help you,” you promise, tentative and feathery,like a wish made in a dream, and all Kenma has to do is to reach out and graspit. “Kuroo will help you. All your friends will help you. We can’t control everything,right? So we just gotta make do. Some things we just can’t plan for.”

“Some things,” he echoes.

“Yup.”

“Maybe I should stop gaming,” he says, and sounds somiserable saying it that it almost makes you laugh.

“Don’t! Who else would I play with? Besides, you’renot losing things because of your hobby. It’s just a hobby,” you tell himagain, “it’s okay to like it. But it’s also okay to try new things too, so wecan figure out together ‘what you’re capable of’, yeah?”

Kenma heaves a defeated sigh, and smiles. It’s a weaklittle thing, but it makes your chest warm. The only appropriate response is tocuddle him even more, to which he can only protest feebly against death bybreasts. Naturally, you don’t hear a word of it.

It’s also how Kuroo finds the two of you- he’s pantingand looking far too disheveled and sweaty for his fashionable lookingensemble, and there’s a funny little dance his face makes as he tries to decidewhether to be worried, baffled, or tsk.

“You put some effort into your clothing today.”

“Someone bothered today. Wow.” Both you and Kenma sayin unison, with varying levels of enthusiasm.

Kuroo shakes his head, a parent home to find thirddegree destruction, and flops down next to the two of you. You yelp, because he’sa big guy, and very capable of flattening both you and Kenma.

“I was worried sick,”he whines. “Then I rush here to find you two going at it-“

“We were not!”

“Oi Kenma,” Kuroo drapes himself almost entirely onKenma’s back- which is supported by your own frame, and you definitely feel thestrain. “Are you trying to steal my girlfriend?”

“Like hell,” Kenma rolls his eyes again, “she wouldn’teven leave me alone about that stupid game.”

Kuroo reaches over to ruffle your hair, and you curlinto it unconsciously like a cat.

“Which game, eh? Can I play?”

“You really should ask her instead-“

“Whaaaat, you haven’t even passed the creation screen?Kenmaaaaaaaaaa.”

“JesusChrist, alright, just shut up.”

Kenma drags his unwilling flesh body over to theabandoned PC and taps at his mouse with the weariness of a dying god. Kuroohovers happily around him, pleased enough that the tension drains out from thewires of his muscles.

They make such a picture. You’re tempted to take outyour phone and snap one, but something holds you back and you decide that the betteroption is to leave the two of them to it for now.

You’re a simple step away from the open doorway, butyou can’t resist the temptation to glance back one more time.

Kuroo’s eyes meet yours, a stolen secret, and when hesmiles at you- relief, gratefulness, pride, love- you don’t bother hiding youranswering one.

[kanralovesu]

Why Does Everyone Like Gabriel Dropout?

So let me just get this one out of the way. I HATE Gabriel Dropout. I dropped it midway into episode 2 (I looked at the next episodes briefly to write this). This was a huge surprise because I LOVE the concept of Gabriel Dropout. I mean seriously, this is even a better concept in my opinion than “Dragon Maid”. And you know for the first episode, I could see its untapped potential despite it kind of falling flat. (Read my post on that episode here http://kanralovesu.tumblr.com/post/156023895098/im-skeptical-about-gabriel-dropout-first ) At that point it was just me being skeptical because I did have fun watching the first episode. Oh boy, then I got to the second episode. The jokes I thought weren’t funny the first time came back, the characters continued to be one dimensional and the comedic situations just strayed further and further from the original premise. So my big question for today is: Why do people like this show?

I want to compare this show to two other shows airing this season, Konosuba and Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. Now, you might be thinking to yourself “Why compare it to those shows, they are clearly on a completely different league of comedy. This is just a stupid gag comedy!” Well you’d be surprised. The particular heresy I’ve heard is that Gabriel’s Dropout is BETTER than Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. 

So, let me tell you why that’s bullshit. The two shows have very similar premises all things considered. Magical thing is nerdy thing. Dragon is maid. Angel is NEET. The shows also have a cast of supporting characters which are the same magical thing but have their own personalities and what not. The key difference that I want to point out is how Dragon Maid BUILDS on it’s premise whereas Gabriel Dropout ABANDONS it. The fact that Tohru is a dragon drives 90% of all jokes in Dragon Maid and that’s because the writers know the strength of their premise and how to use it to create comedic situations. Tohru interprets things in a medieval way, like seeing a seesaw as a catapult. The writers put Tohru into new situations but continually use her dragon nature as the punchline. The opposite is true for Gabriel Dropout. Gabriel is supposed to be a NEET who loves video games, yet we hardly ever see her play games or even reference them. Its almost like that was never the intended focus to begin with. More comedy in the series has been drawn from making fun of Satania than making fun of games. Worst of all sometimes Gabriel references games as if she were what people THINK a gamer is. Notice how in the beach episode she just references how she’s surfing the internet with zero specifics. Notice how we don’t even know WHAT Gabriel likes to do on the web. What’s her favorite MMO? What message boards does she troll? Overall it just feels like he nerdiness (supposedly the core focus of the show) is underdeveloped. 

We can carry this on into the other characters of the show as well. In Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid we get a sense of how being a dragon effects each of the side characters. For example, look at how Fafnir approaches an RPG differently than a human. He happens to love treasure, a very dragon thing to do, and so he falls for all the traps (Lets also just take a moment to realize that Dragon Maid in that episode made more specific game references than the entirety of Gabriel Dropout). Now lets compare him to Raphael. She embodies the idea that the show is trying to pitch which is that these angels and demons are acting the exact opposite as to how they should be. This is great in theory, as playing off what a magical thing SHOULDN’T do is also a great use of the premise (See Konosuba). The problem is that these characters are simply too one-dimensional to be good, almost as if the fact that they’re demons and angels was meant to flesh out the character by itself. The premise was used as an excuse for bad characters. Better writing would have used their angel-ness to introduce more interesting things about them. Lets pretend for a second that Raphael had more behind her sadism than she does. Perhaps in heaven school she just had this one teacher who was so freakin happy all the time and it made her sick to her stomach thinking about it. She would mess up and expect punishment but only a cheery “You’ll do better next time”. This drove her to have the feelings she did now. That in itself would be a funny backstory but then the rest of the episode would build on that joke by introducing a new teacher at their current school similar to that teacher. Its not that hard to build jokes off of complex characters. I’d argue its just as easy as writing jokes for one-dimensional characters. The hardship comes in coming up with a character’s actual motivations instead of just taking what they do for face value.

Ok, ok, but this is just a stupid gag comedy so why do I need complex characters, and hell why do I need to stick to my premise anyway? Plenty of shows make great comedies using only a high school setting so even with just that it should still be a passable show. Well, ok, I’d definitely argue that you NEED complex characters and you NEED a strong premise to create a GREAT show, so why is Gabriel Dropout bad and not just ok? In my first discussion of Gabriel Dropout I said the pacing and constant payoff with no setup was the shows reason for failure. Ironically, the second episode did fix this but in fixing it drove down the quality of its punchlines. After watching bits of the next few episode I became convinced that the new problem is the quality of the jokes. 

So lets drag Konosuba into this and compare its idea of comedy to the running joke from Gabriel Dropout which can be summed up by “Lets all make fun of Satania”. Konosuba has a similar joke named “Lets all make fun of Aqua”, so its not like Konosuba is the bigger man or anything. We all love to see people get made fun of, its just human nature (Just look at Fail compilations). However, making fun of Aqua is funnier because she is an asshole. We make fun of her in jokes featuring instant karma. Just look at the first OP of Konosuba where Aqua makes fun of Kazuma for falling into the lake only to fall in herself. Now look at Satania. Arguably she is the most redeemable of all the characters. She may be a pompous idiot like Aqua, but we see she isn’t an asshole. Making fun of a redeemable character is less funny. I think the reason why Satania has become a fan favorite of the series is her constant torture by literally everyone. People identify with her the most because we like the underdog. There is a reason why characters who are in school are often bullied even if they’re not even nerds or anything that would warrant bullying. Watching a character get treated unjustly makes us connect with them, not want to laugh at them. It really surprises me how much Gabriel Dropout wants to make laughing at Satania be a thing. The dog is the perfect example of a running joke established for this sole purpose. This dog is by far the biggest bane of my existence in this show because the humor derived from his has no setup and bad payoff. He’ll appear out of fucking nowhere just in the nick of time to harass Satania and it feels like the ex machina of jokes. 

So why is this show popular? Should I just say that people have shit tastes? I think its more than that. I think the reason WHY people have shit tastes is because they are illiterate to what is good and what is bad. A show like Gabriel’s Dropout is good for a quick laugh to some people. People don’t realize that there is little to no development on the premise because they’ve already picked it up and started watching as if it were as good as what that premise is. I think the people who say Gabriel’s Dropout is better than Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid only see the show for what they claim to be rather than how well they’re executed. I’ll admit I love the idea of angels being filthy otakus more than I like the idea of a dragon being my maid, but one of those shows takes their premise and delivers on it and the other doesn’t. I think people love Satania because she’s the butt of the joke not because she’s a good character. I think the other characters (namely Gabriel) are relatable purely based on their descriptions not how they actually act. Overall, I think this show throws a lot of ideas at the audience it knows they’ll like (such as angels, video games, and chuuni demons) and then delivers just enough base comedy to convince you that their show is entertaining, assuming that an uneducated audience doesn’t notice or doesn’t care that their promises are not kept.

TLDR:

Gabriel Dropout is bad. I said it. When compared to Konosuba and Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid this becomes even more clear. It has a great premise that it doesn’t develop while Dragon Maid has, in my opinion, a worse premise and yet executes it perfectly. To put it in perspective, Dragon Maid has used more direct references to video games in one episode than the whole of Gabriel Dropout has so far and gaming is not even in its premise. In first episode the show had decent punchline but with no buildup, whereas all subsequent episodes have had better payoff but horrible punchlines. Comparing the “Everyone make fun of Satania” joke to the “Everyone make fun of Aqua” joke from Konosuba, we see that Konosuba’s works because we hate Aqua for how much of an asshole she is, whereas we don’t hate Satania because she is clearly one of the more redeemable characters. Konosuba has it even better because making fun of Aqua is not as overused as making fun of Satania is. Overall, I think people think Gabriel’s Dropout is good because they aren’t educated in what a good show is and therefor they’re not looking for the things they should. People latch on to Gabriel’s Dropout because of its amazing premise not realizing how badly its executed. 

What are some of your experiences with people talking about Gabriel Dropout? What do people say they like about the show? I really want to know how people stand here because its still partly an enigma to me how it can be almost as popular as Dragon Maid while being so much worse.

[thesteadydietofeverything]

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age is a welcome update to an overlooked series highlight

I played Final Fantasy XII, a bit, when it originally came out in 2006.  I wasn’t playing games much in general at the time - as a junior in high school, it was the start of several years that lasted probably up until I graduated college where my experiences playing video games were few and far between.  Still, the impact the Final Fantasy series had on me just a few years prior, when I put a thoroughly unhealthy amount of time into playing VII-X, roughly between the ages of 9 and 13, meant that I at least felt the need to check this new game out, as I have with every new single-player entry in the series.  At the time, my reaction to it was even less enthused than  my more recent reactions to XIII and XV, both of which I played for around 20 hours, essentially enjoying myself for that time, but being put off enough by their flaws to abandon them well before completion of a full playthrough.  I probably didn’t even get past the first five hours of this game before giving up on it to retire to my room and listen to Pavement records and read anarchist literature, or whatever it was I was doing at that age.

I don’t remember many specifics as to why I quit so early, but upon returning to it over ten years later with the newly released Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age for PS4, it’s not hard to imagine.  This game is a thorough departure from what the series had been so far - battle is no longer a random JRPG-style menu clicking affair, but a more streamlined approach not too unlike MMOs of the time.  Not only that, but the main way that battle is done is through the game’s innovative and weird Gambit system, which allows the player to essentially program characters to perform a number of actions in particular situations by assigning them simple if-then statements.  When your gambits are set up correctly, the game practically - as a number of critics at the time complained - “plays itself.”  Grinding through the overworld or a dungeon can sometimes literally be as simple as pointing your party leader in the right direction and letting your well-trained team take care of the rest.  At the time, such a system must have felt like a removal of many of the things that made Final Fantasy what it was to me; looking at it now, I can’t help but admire the daring deviation in a series that, for whatever flaws it undoubtedly has, has proven itself to be consistently unafraid of twisting its formula in unique and bizarre ways.

My newfound appreciation for this overlooked series entry, however, is not just a result of time and distance.  The Zodiac Age changes the way the game plays in a number of really quite significant ways.  One of these changes is with its License Boards - the means by which the player spends earned experience to learn new abilities, use new weapons and armor, gain significant amounts of HP and helpful skills buffs, etc.  Though I never played the original game enough to remember how these Boards originally looked, they’ve now been modified to lock each character into two “jobs” of the player’s choosing - one at the beginning of the game, and another a few hours into it.  Again, my lack of experience with the original prevents me from true comparison, but considering how open-ended and overwhelming these job-based Boards can be, I’m happy to not have to deal with the truly open approach of the original.

A much more clear and obvious difference in this new addition is the inclusion of a dedicated fast forward button.  Literally.  At any point while not engaged in dialogue or the menu, the player can simply tap R1 to make the game play either twice or four times as fast as its normal speed.  This seems like a bizarre option at first, one that I wasn’t particularly keen on utilizing in my first couple hours of gameplay: the characters move at a decidedly silly, Benny Hill-esque pace at these speeds, and when just getting acquainted with combat, actions happen at a rate too fast to properly comprehend.  But I soon came to realize that for large sections of the game, double time feels like a perfectly natural pace to move in, considering the size of some of the maps in the game and the rather laborious pace of the normal speed.  Some of the more labyrinthian sections of the game can take hours to fully explore - the final dungeon, for example, took me nearly five hours to get through at double speed, and while navigating my way through such a massive and rewarding space was possibly my favorite sequence of the game, I imagine that if it had taken me practically twice as long, it would have worn out its welcome long before I had finished it.

The Zodiac Age, of course, also sharpens and clarifies the graphics of the original in a pretty impressive way - it’s not that it doesn’t still essentially look like the PS2 game that it is so much that it accentuates the striking potential still being squeezed out of the aging console at the time of this game’s release, mere months before the launch of the PS3.  Additionally, the entire gorgeous score has been re-recorded.  Despite my initial misgivings about this game being the first FF I’m aware of to use a composer other than Nobuo Uematsu, Hitoshi Sakimoto wrote truly some of the most lovely and iconic video game music I’ve ever heard with this game, and to hear it expertly performed in high quality audio is something that never failed to propel me through the several dozen hours I spent with it.

Lastly, one of the more subtle, but very important additions of this new version is the inclusion of an autosave feature.  Again, sometimes I’d go an hour or two in double time between save crystals, and it wasn’t unusual to occasionally die in that time: the game contains these enemies called “Elementals,” eerie floating orbs that look not unlike something out of the new season of Twin Peaks and can utterly devastate your party in the early hours of the game.  With autosave, it was easy enough to simply start a couple minutes before I encountered said Elemental and do everything that I could to avoid it, but if I had been forced to go back an hour or more to the last save crystal, I likely would have set the controller down for good out of utter disgust for a game wasting my time like that in 2017.

All of this puts me in an interesting position, considering that the last review I wrote was for the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, in which I struggled to grasp the point of a remaster/remake deviating from its source in a way that fundamentally changes one’s experience of the game.  There are a few obvious differences here.  First of all, when it comes down to it, this is still technically the same game.  The N. Sane Trilogy was a bizarre exercise in attempting to completely remake a game from the ground up in a new engine, while attempting to give it as much fidelity to the original as possible.  In practice, though, lazy or insufficient design meant that the game just didn’t feel like the originals, despite its obvious visual similarities.  The Zodiac Age, on the other hand, is a more traditional remaster, but with a whole lot more: the additions and modifications may change the game in significant and meaningful ways, but the core game is exactly as it always has been.

Probably even more importantly, these changes actually improve the game.  Granted, my limited experience with the original means that any nostalgia or endearing feelings I have for it are mostly relegated to a general affinity for the series rather than specific memories of my first time playing it.  This is as opposed to, say, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, which I unequivocally played the shit out of as a kid.  Still, the changes seem to stick to objective improvements: the ability to control the speed of play and the autosave feature make this game immeasurably more accessible to modern players, including those who, like myself, don’t necessarily want to devote the 60-80 hours of gameplay the original demanded in order to experience what the game has to offer.  I imagine that even adventurous devotees of the original will be thrilled at an old favorite being given such a graphical and aural overhaul, not to mention the new play styles offered by the modified License Boards.

But all of these tweaks and improvements would mean little if, at the core, there weren’t already a great game worth revisiting here, and as a fan of this series, it’s a uniquely satisfying feeling to discover that this 11-year-old game is, indeed, great.  While not exactly exempt of typical JRPG bullshit, it’s the strange, fascinating, and (relatively) mature game one would want out of a collaboration between Hiroyuki Ito (director of my two other favorite games in the series, FFVI and FFIX) and Hiroshi Minagawa (director of two other classics of the genre whose complexity precluded my appreciation at the time they came out: Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story; maybe it’s about time I revisit those as well). 

It’s worth noting at the mention of Minagawa that this game’s setting of Ivalice puts it in the same world as his other games.  The story, for as indebted as it is to Star Wars (and, unless I’m projecting, Game of Thrones, which is at the least interesting to note, given the exceptional pop culture phenomena that series has become since the show debuted five years after the release of this game), is engaging in its political intrigue and subtle character dynamics, especially compared to the melodramatic bombast of most of its PS2 JRPG peers, including Final Fantasy X.  While all of these games, toward the end, are going to boil down to needing to save the world from some megalomaniacal evil and mystical jargon about crystals, and this game is no different, it at least boasts some of the best characters that have graced the series.  Of particular note is the relationship between Balthier - think a demonstrably more suave Han Solo - and his partner Fran, a Viera (yeah, the sexy rabbit ladies) who has a mysterious connection to the magical Mist of the world.  It’s hardly an original pairing - this game, as most games of its genre do, utilizes reductive archetypes - but through a combination of solid writing and particularly strong voice acting for the time, it just works.

What also works, and works shockingly well, is the aforementioned Gambit system.  Though conventional wisdom might suggest that reducing the actions needed to be taken by the player decreases the player’s engagement in the game, the opposite, as it turns out, seems to be be true in this case.  In other Final Fantasy games, typical combat transports you to a different game screen where the player, more often than not, continually taps the action button to attack until all enemies are dead, a marginally fun exercise that can become mind-numbingly tedious upon repetition - and if there’s one thing you can expect in a game like this, it’s repetition.  By keeping me on the map and allowing me to assign rote moves to characters to do themselves, the game actually kept me focus on the more fun aspects of these moments - the Diablo-esque satisfaction of filling out a map and collecting loot, the colorful character and enemy animations, and tweaking my Gambits to make sure that I really am doing all of this as efficiently as possible.  Very few games make grinding as gratifying of an experience as Final Fantasy XII.

Of course, as abnormally gratifying as that grinding is, there’s still a lot of it, and even with the fast-forward feature, the game still takes quite a while to get through - my final time was right around 45 hours.  This was with doing a good amount of the side content the game has to offer, including many of the optional monster hunts scattered throughout the world (while I declined to do several of the late-game hunts, I wholly admired this system, which drove me deeper into dungeons I had already explored, revealing whole levels that I never previously realized existed); still, I’d imagine a more straightforward playthrough would only shave that time off by a handful of hours.  

Even I, under different circumstances, would have likely gotten bored with this if I hadn’t played it at the time that I did.  This game happened to be released toward the beginning of the summer session at the school that I work at, where I’d typically work twelve-hour days throughout the week.  As it turned out, after coming home exhausted and yet oddly wired every night, putting a couple hours into running around this vast JRPG world was exactly the kind of meditative release I needed to relax me before going to bed and doing it all over again.  I can pretty definitively say this game helped me survive the most stressful time of my work year, and as a result, I’m all the more happy I never discovered this game’s idiosyncratic charms until now.  Now I do have a well of good memories associated with a particular time and place wrapped up in this game, and I have a new top-tier favorite in a series I will never be able to help but love.

8.5/10

[verziehenone]

Video games ... what a past time.  So much time is spent on them, I can’t even imagine how many hours I have enjoyed building and breaking worlds, meeting and killing people, and just having the time of my life (lives) in virtual worlds.

Probably the first game I ever played was Tetris on the Gameboy.  The original Gameboy.  That bulky off-white thing that took 4 AA’s that seemed like nothing could keep it down.  Could probably have built a house outta those things.  And the battery life was pretty solid too! 

But soon I graduated to Mario, which was not awful on Gameboy.  Then came the big one: Pokemon.  Around then I upgraded to a Gameboy Pocket  The foldy one.  It went from a monochrome brown and green thing to a nice gray with black and white shades.  Terrific clarity! 

Then the Gameboy Color happened.  But before we get there ...

My first console was an Atari.  Good times on that thing.  Pitfall, some space game, and a few others that were equally blocky and terrifically entertaining in a way that many games just don’t capture now. 

Then was my Nintendo.  I think it was because I traded/sold my Atari at a garage sale or something, and boom, I was the proud owner of a Nintendo.  Eventually got me one of those sweet Duck Hunt guns (let’s be honest, that was basically the only game anyone used it on), and a few great games.  Zelda, a few Marios (Mario 3 will forever be amazing, but Mario 2 had it’s charm.) 

I did some swaparoos (involving a mountain bike and another Atari) but came back to the Nintendo.  That said, this was all around the time that friends of mine had the Sega Genesis or the Super Nintendo, and I was stuck with the lame-o OG Nintendo.  I even remember one time convincing my parents to spring for renting a Sega Genesis from Family Video (or whatever it was called) and using that Sega Channel (or whatever) to stream Mortal Kombat and another fighting game or two.  Don’t tell my parents, lots-o-blood.

Back to the portables.  Gameboy Color was a revolution.  Sure, Pokemon in color was amazing.  Any game (Final Fantasy Tactics, Super Mario, etc) but really, it was Pokemon.  And the reason they were amazing-er on the Gameboy Color?  It was backlit.  And that made ALL the difference at night.  No more huddling around a little nightlight or gripping a flashlight in my mouth to try to catch one more ‘mon, or just one more fight, one more ...

I had a Gamegear for a bit, which was the Sega competitor to the Gameboy.  Glorious color gaming, 8 AA batteries, big ole screen, but the games (other than Sonic I think) just weren’t there.  So I got rid of it, and eventually the glory of the Gameboy Advance happened.  The one with the big ole screen, that Super Mario was friggin’ amazing on.  And naturally, Pokemon again was amazing.  I eventually got me the next Gameboy (SP) the next foldy one, which was the last one before the 3DS (I think), which I never got (though I’d love one).

Console-wise, for the remainder of my pre-college life I was always a generation behind.  Everyone had the GameCube when I finally got an N64 (but don’t cry too hard, GoldenEye was worth the wait).  I finally got a PS1 in time for everyone to tell me how amazing the PS2 was.  This isn’t a sob story, just the result of growing up in a family where if I wanted a console, I had to buy it with my money.  So I did, and I was just more patient.  Though I was friends with people who had the latest and greatest.  At one point I had the 3 main consoles, (a generation late): the PS2, the GameCube, and the Dreamcast.  I felt like the toast of the land.  Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Crazy Taxi, Super Mario Sunshine, I had it all.  Good times.

Until!  The summer before college.  I had a few bucks put aside and wanted me a real gaming PC.  The one I had prior to that was a hand-me-down from my Youth Pastor that played StarCraft on it ... barely.  So this one, a big $600 beast, and I found myself loving the major boost in power that my Athlon something something gave me over the Pentium 2 I had prior.  Unreal Tournament was brilliant and I enjoyed so many great gaming experiences on that machine.  And Civilization 3 stole far far too many nights and days ... I spent hours and hours playing that.

Then college came!  And a credit card!  And I built a new computer!  And it was fast and had a pair of 17″ CRT monitors (I upgraded to 17″ widescreen LCDs) and it was glorious.  (GeForce 8800 GTS baby).  I did so much more gaming.  Eventually even got around to World of Warcraft, though I did enjoy plenty of non-PC gaming with pals on a variety of systems.

I played World of Warcraft heavily throughout college, spending 4-5 hours a night usually (still had a solid GPA and 2 part time jobs and a girlfriend, so I wasn’t a total loser) and it was wonderful.  I remember at one point I even played another MMO in my off time, and it was stupid and glorious and ridiculous.  I spent my non-PC gaming time playing a lot of the PS2 games I hadn’t beaten or just enjoyed like Final Fantasy 10 and Star Ocean and so on.  Big into RPGs.  I even got a PSP during that time for the Star Ocean 1 and 2 remakes and I still wish I had kept it, to be honest.

After college I was living with a roomie (from college) who I played World of Warcraft with, but also enjoyed the Nintendo Wii and PS3 he had.  We did a lot of great gaming on those systems, though I did a lot more PS3 than Wii stuff.  Rock Band became a past time for us (and I got quite good at Expert guitar, could play huge chunks of some songs with my eyes closed) and he was great a bass.  Stoke 3 live on!  And did I mention Fallout 3?  Ohhh man.  It never changes.

So I decided to buy an Xbox 360.  I never had an Xbox (though I did a little Halo in my time) I just decided that I wanted a console and should get one he didn’t have.  I also very much missed Fight Night (a boxing game) and wanted to play that again.  But the eventually I moved out and was on my lonesome and didn’t have a Blu-Ray player.  And have always been a Playstation guy.  So I sold the Xbox 360 and bought a Playstation 3. 

Until I got my bigscreen TV I didn’t do a ton of Playstation gaming, instead mostly doing PC (mostly World of Warcraft) gaming.  I did do a game here and there of other things but nothing memorable.

But, one day I powered down my computer, went to work, and came home only to find ... no power.  No response at all.  The reason this matters is I had just decided to come back to playing World of Warcraft (after a break that my then-girlfriend convinced me would save our relationship, because video games were our only problem -- nope), and was bummed I couldn’t.  I didn’t have the money to fix it so I returned to console gaming and enjoyed a lot of then-newer hits like Dragon Age: Origins, Darksiders 1, Dante’s Inferno, the Assassin’s Creed games, and a host of others that escape me.  I tend to not do a lot of shooters on console, preferring them on PC.  GameFly helped me fly through games pretty quickly so I was able to save quite a bit of money by not buying all of them.

A few months later I was living with a new friend and decided to research how to fix my computer, and found it was much cheaper than expected.  So I got a new motherboard and some new ram and was up and running in time to enjoy Star Wars: The Old Republic, a new MMO.  It was amazing and super super fun leveling and the story was great ... until you hit max level like you ran into a wall.  So then I got into Skyrim and a few other games, working my way through the different PC games I had missed out on (like Mass Effect 1-3, Dragon Age 2, and some others). 

Living with some new friends I was introduced to other games I’d never heard of or played, like Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, and

Time moves on again and I decided to swap out some newer parts and make my machine more future-proof, since I had a baby on the way and would never have money again until a bit later.  I also used some of my birthday money and Christmas money on a PS4.  So I was set.  Like a rockstar.  A rockstar who enjoyed Madden and Grand Theft Auto V and so on.  And Far Cry and Crysis and Wolfenstein and not World of Warcraft.  I had been done for a long time.  Partly due to time and partly due to money and partly due to a lack of interest.

Skipping around a bit to the present, I’m still and always will be a gamer.  I still don’t have a 3DS, as much as I’d love to have one for Pokemon, but I have a PS4 and my wife has a Switch, and my PC is still gettin’ love when it gets a bit outta date.  Never going to have a bleeding edge waste-of-money PC but I will always strive to be caught up to play the latest games.

I am back into World of Warcraft again, playing with a prior roommate and some other really great guys, and it’s being managed much more carefully than before.  Outside of that, I’ve been playing Uncharted 4, Overwatch, Diablo 3, Civilization 6 (Oh my gosh I love Civ) and a smattering of others.  I still have my Gameboy SP with Pokemon Red and Yellow and Gold (I think).  I also had a Playstation Vita briefly but decided it just wasn’t for me.

I have a long list of games I want to play so I won’t list them all.  (Yes I will, because this is my blog).  In no particular order:

Stardew Valley (In progress)

Mad Max (In progress)

Bloodborne (In progress)

Dark Souls 3

Torment: Tides of Numenara

Wasteland 2

Pillars of Eternity

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Dying Light

Doom

Watch Dogs 2

Dishonored 2

Final Fantasy 15

Nioh

Persona 5

Horizon Zero Dawn

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Red Dead Redemption 2

Injustice 2

I’m a gamer at my core and a good gaming experience is something so hard to communicate to those who haven’t found a game that tickles their fancy.  But when a person finds that game that challenges them in the right way, entertains them or entrances them, and they just can’t put it down ... that’s just the best.  (And in this post I’m not talking board games or mobile phone games, those are entirely different posts).

This really just scratches the surface of my gaming time, thoughts, and philosophy about games.  I have so many thoughts and ideas, so many memories and experiences, and so many terrific games that I loved and can’t wait to try ... it’s just a matter of the same thing it always was: Making sure that it is always secondary to real life, real people, and the stuff that really matters.  Otherwise... game on.

[osmw1]

Poison-Wielding Fugitive   Chapter 4

‘However, I have heard not heard of such job as Poison Earth.’

Is that right? I mean, I’ve played a few videogames before, but that’s a job title I’m not familiar with.

‘Aye. To my knowledge, “Earth” is a first job for humans. Once a certain level and conditions are fulfilled, you will advance to a second job.’

So, Earths are first jobs. Might be pretty similar to the jobs that frequently appear in MMOs.   Like how you’d go from novice to warrior, mage, priest, or ranger. But the stupid “Poison” bit has really caught my attention.

“Poison” is just poison, right? Besides Spirit Link, other usable skills that I have are Poison Absorption (Weak) and Poison Release. If “Earth” means “human” in this world, then what am I? A poisonous person? Why the hell poison? What, am I toxic or something? I’ve never even trolled or griefed before.

‘Aye… perhaps it is due to my influence.’ “What do you mean?” 

I inquired Veno. He replied in a slightly troubled tone. 

‘It is because I was born a poison-type dragon.’ 

There are lots of different types of dragons too, huh? It’s not exactly rare to find dragons described as red, blue, white, or black either. In this case, would he be green? It would be quite kinda tricky to put him in a game.

Because I’m linked with him, I’m a poison human… a Poison Earth. Is this an effect of Forced Possession Summoning? Hmm? Hey, didn’t I see you breathe fire and cast lightning? 

‘If I had used my most powerful magic, there would be nothing but death for my opponents. It would be more troublesome that way. Rarely do I use poison now.’ 

Ah. He had been holding back in the fight so that he wouldn’t kill anyone. He would rather let them go rather than to deal them serious damage.

‘The swamp that you fell into was a poisonous swamp. That would be the reason why the girl gave you an antidote, is it not?’ 

That’s right, isn’t it? It must’ve been because I was in the poison that I was feeling great. Maybe it was actually dangerous though. Who knows. 

I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem like a pleasant job class. How do you put it? It just doesn’t seem like it’s very strong and it doesn’t seem like it’ll get stronger either. From what I’ve experienced in JRPGs, poison is never useful in a big battle. Most bosses are resistant or immune to poison, so it never does anything. 

‘That is not true. Do not make light of poison.’ 

That’s only because you’re on the boss monster’s side.

In a JRPG, it’s not very effective on your opponent but super effective on you. That kind of bullshit happens all the time. 

‘Aye, then you are wondering what you should do?’ 

… in a place without computers, there’s not much an SE can do. No, there’s practically nothing I can do. Like I said early, the life I lived was far removed from things like combat or exercise. If you think about it normally, you can’t level up your job unless you actually use its powers. 

“Well, not much of a choice but to use my job, huh?” 

The problem is how much power does a Poison Earth have. They had to resort to Forced Possession Summoning—an outrageous measure, might I add—to defeat Veno. What if I had picked up some of his powers too? Maybe I could use it to my favour as well. But honestly speaking, in JRPGs, abnormal statuses are usually bad news for the player. But in Western games, that’s not always the case. It depends on the game too, but I’ve completely shutout a last boss before with poison and paralysis.

But who knows which one it is in this alternate world. Might be possible too that neither is true. Whichever it is though, I’ve got to know what a Poison Earth can do in order to survive from now on. To go down the list, Spirit Link is probably a skill related to Veno.

‘Yes, that is perhaps correct. It is most likely that you were forced to learn the skill because of your link with me.’

Can skills be activated by focusing on the desired outcome? 

‘Ah, there too exists skills that have to be acquired through proper training.’

Seems like there are learned skills as well. While thinking about nothing in particular, I focused on Spirit Link to try to activate the skill.

… nothing especially seemed to happen.

‘I believe the ability to communicate through our thoughts while linked together is the desired effect of Spirit Link.’ 

So that means it’s a passive skill. Alright, next up is Poison Absorption (Weak). I try to focus on it, but there weren’t any changes.

‘Certainly, you realize that I was watching when this skill activated.’

What? When was that?

‘It was when you fell into the poisonous swamp and was floating on your back. You seemed to be in great comfort if I am not mistaken.’

… must’ve been right before Arleaf saved me, when I was still half-asleep. It was because of this skill that I felt fantastic, like I was soaking in an onsen. That just doesn’t sit well with me though. I guess it does exactly what it says on the tin and absorbs poison… 

Next up is Poison Release. I focus on it and then get the feeling that words lit up.

Swamp Toxin

Some other icon appeared. … guess I’ll just select “confirm”. Two lumps of purple liquid were created in my palms as soon as I did that. 

‘Hmm… you are able to attack with the toxins you had absorbed. It would appear that you are able to cast beginner-level poison magic.’ 

Do I sling this at my opponent? Hmm… might have lucked out getting magical abilities. But I’m not really excited or anything about being able to use magic so easily. 

‘Oh, but it is not magic. You will need learn quite difficult spells to cast magic. I shall offer you the chance to learn. First, you have to—’

Veno conveniently draws these charts and formulas in my field of vision, but it doesn’t get through to me. Ugh, it hurts to fuckin’ look at. Show it to me later!

‘Hmm… as one would expect, the translation skill does not activate for matters like this. At a later time, then, I shall simplify it for you so that even you can understand it.’ 

Though it’s so that I can survive, to so kindly and thoroughly teach me would be a great help… but that’s not the problem. 

‘I have time to spare for I am currently merely watching. Would it not be fine for me to kill time this way?’ 

He has the nerve to be so carefree… I thought it’d be cool to ride a dragon into battle, but right now, it seems like it’s the other way around. Feels like he’s a dragon riding on my shoulders, ordering me what to do. 

‘Is there some reason that you should be making fun me?’ 

I’m having a conversation with dragon in my head who’s nothing but talk. 

‘Scoundrel! How dare you ridicule me?’ 

And that’s why I’m not scared. He gets all thirsty for blood but I don’t see him making a single attack at me. But still, it’d be a pain if he keeps getting pissed off like this. Literally and figuratively. 

‘It seems like we have been sidetracked. You were wanting to begin with confirming of what you are capable, correct?’ 

We’ve pretty much wrapped up with this confirmation, haven’t we? To be frank, I don’t think I have what’s needed to do what Veno wants—defeating a monster and levelling up. 

Firstly, I don’t have any weapons or armor. Secondly, food. Moreover, I’m feeling kinda hungry but I don’t have any of this world’s currency. How the hell am I supposed to live like this? 

… speaking of money, Arleaf told me to go to the town hall. There might be a way to earn money there. 

‘Aye. If it is like how it is in the past, there is a chance that something like a bulletin board with methods of acquiring money existing. You should try going there. Perhaps it is that building.’ 

With that said, we left the square and headed towards the rather large building that looks different than the houses around it. The building is deserted, but there’s a bulletin board by the entrance. I’ll just check it out first. 

Though I’ve never seen this writing before, it’s translated in a way so that even I understand. No, maybe it would be more accurate to say the meaning gets transmitted into my head. However the translation may work, I can assume it’s thanks to Veno that it does. It would be absolutely tragic if I came to this world and didn’t understand anything said or written. It’s easy to see if you think of the situation when I was saved by Arleaf.

After being spoken to in a language I’ve never heard before, I was fed some mysterious medicine. Then she was pointing and gesturing, somehow trying to figure out my condition. Even with all that said and done, I get to the village and kept hearing a dragon’s voice in my head. … yup. If you think of it like that, you could say I’ve been blessed. 

‘You brood upon strange thoughts. Well, at least you are giving me thanks.’ 

Oh, think about it the other way. Imagine if the Forced Possession Summoning transferred your magic to me too. 

‘What?! To have my feats and prowess stolen by humans?! Take your words back at once!’ 

Right?! It’s more convenient for me this way! 

‘To dare steal my powers is but villainy! Remember that!’ 

I go to take a gander at the bulletin board while I brush off Veno’s rage. Generally, most of the posts are calls for assistance and trade requests. I wonder if there’s a specific time to post. It doesn’t seem like you can just stick a note up whenever you want. Oh, there’s a request with a recommended level for adventurers. 

Defeat tiger plants growing in the plains Recommended: four or more party members; basic job lv 20 or higher

There are a few posts like that printed on the board. However, for a lv 1 novice like me, it’s not a job that I can handle. 

‘About that commission you are currently reading, it seems like the reason why no one has accepted it is because the reward is not befitting the work.’

Half of this stuff is pretty simple to understand, but it’s mixed in with requests that seem closer to scams It’s not too much different than back home, huh? Hell, this town hall is less of an adventurers’ guild and more of a public employment service center. Like, this is all day labor work postings. 

Guildhalls in tabletop RPGs and videogames are always so grand and full of adventurous spirit, but right now, the romance is withering away in front of me. Is it really like this in reality? Or is it only because this village is so dead that this place looks shabby? 

… I feel like this’ll have do since I’m pressed for time. But usually I’ll need to present a license or something for this. 

‘Are you perhaps speaking of adventurer registration? That is performed at the church. You will also need to be put through something called a baptism.’ 

At the church? 

‘If possible, I suggest you to avoid using the church. They pose quite a danger.’ 

Yeah, I hear religions can be dangerous sometimes. Is it because the guys who tried to kill you were from the church? 

‘They were crusaders of a chivalric order sent by the kingdom. They’re related to the church, I suppose.’ 

I see. That’s what he means by dangerous. 

‘About the jobs on the bulletin board… I suggest the request that is by your right-hand.’ 

I read the writing on the request that Veno suggested. 

Harvest marphina Recommended: poison-curing magic; lv 25 or higher 

It seems like I would be rewarded for each gram of marphina collected. The requester is this village’s tool dealer and apothecary. It says harvest, so it’s a plant, right? But since I’m not at the recommended level yet, wouldn’t this be really tough for me? 

‘What are you saying? If my memory serves me right, this plant grows in the poisonous swamp that—as if falling in were not enough already—you were swimming in? You are able to absorb poison, correct?’ 

Ah. I just have to go back the way Arleaf showed me, eh? What’s more, I don’t even need any purification magic, thanks to my Poison Absorption (Weak). Normally one would need an antidote, but it might not be worth it to use one just to do this request. This request would only be worth it for those who can cast magic that cures poison—that way, it would cost nothing. 

The recommended level of 25 might indicate how difficult it is. Maybe you can only cure the poison at that level. In any case, Poison Absorption (Weak) can likely handle it somehow. 

This might just turn out to be an easy job. I wonder if Arleaf harvests like this too.

previously: /ch001/ /ch002/ /ch003/ /ch004/ /next/ (full list of translated chapters) (discussion thread) (support Average Translations)