#i'm already on my third playthrough

[colealexart]

obsessed with persephone from stray gods so i had to draw her

[the-69sin]

[wayfinderships]

Good evening gamers!! Hope you're all doing well!! As for me...I have 3 Yakuza Crushes now 😔 One of them if from Judgement though if that helps-

[showyoumyfavoriteobsession]

am. am i going to romance astarion for the second run in a row

[unchronology]

A triumvirate of Tavs

Isokhai

Silver Dragonborn

Paladin (Oath of Devotion)

Acolyte

When the eggs of the great silver dragon Adalon finally hatched, she shared the celebration with a tribe of nomadic dragonborn who had recently settled in the lands above her lair. Adalon declared that the wandering tribe would now forever have a home with her, and furthermore, their own hatchlings would carry her blessing. Adalon passed over the youngest children of the dragonborn tribe, and breathing upon them their ruddy, rust-coloured scales turned to brilliant silver.

30 years later, Isokhai remains one of Adalon's supplicants, but his travels upon the surface (and the sudden shock of a mind flayer parasite) have caused him to start to question the motivations of his patron. Battling one cult has him start to see parallels with his own background...

Nellis 'Nell' Firewine

Strongheart Halfling

Ranger (Beast Master)

Folk Hero

For nearly ten years, Nell has been known as the 'Tower of Gullykin', the stalwart protector of that halfling town. She is loved by her people as a true champion, admired for her bravery and trusted by them to keep the town safe.

Year after year, whenever troubles descended on the innocent Gullykin halflings, Nellis would be there to defend them, though she would regularly need to draft in a few stout young hin to help... not all of which would survive.

To Nell's surprise, she greeted her kidnap and tadpoling by the Absolutists with a certain sense of relief. As bleak as her new situation is, perhaps it might break her out of a decade-long cycle of grief and survivor's guilt.

Solaufein

Seldarine Drow

Fighter (Battle Master) / Necromancer

Outlander

100 years ago Solaufein found himself the collateral damage of a labyrinthine power play by a Matron Mother in his home city within the Underdark. Though his death was ordered, the intervention of a strange band of foreign spies and assassins allowed him to slip the bonds of Drow society and strike out on his own.

Having no home to return to meant that for a while Solaufein was forced to find work as a mercenary. The Underdark was no longer safe for him, and he found his way to the surface. Even here however he could not find a home. Oddly enough, a band of tadpoled misfits might just be the answer he wasn't looking for.

Aleria

High Elf

Sorcerer

Haunted One

"Blood... blood... blood... blood... blood... blood..."

[dragon-in-spirit]

Well, after bouncing off it hard during the first third of the game a couple times, I finally beat Tales of Zestiria. Not my favorite in the series by any means, but despite the lack of depth to the storytelling and characters, and the weirdly stilted and archaic-but-not dialogue style of half the cast, I actually enjoyed it. The equipment skill system is interesting in theory but terrible in implementation, but once I got the hang of it it wasn't too awful. Gonna run through the bonus dungeon and then finish setting up for a new game+, then see how I feel about a second playthrough or if I'll switch to a different game.

[longroadstonowhere]

hm

looking at gameplay times of the switch games i’ve played was.... a choice

[pirateprincessblog]

accidentally sending a nude to ateez (hyung line) - fake texts

𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫.: you are a rookie idol in kq, and accidentally send a nude picture to ateez 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: psh x y/n, khj x y/n, jyh x y/n, kys x y/n 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬: a little angst?, sexting, insecurities, fingering, squirting, oral (f! Receiving) 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: reader is of age!

𝐬𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐡𝐰𝐚

*offense not offence omg

the practice couldn't end fast enough. when it did, you shook as you exited the practice room. and you shook even more when you found park seonghwa's figure leaning against the wall with his back, one foot resting on the wall behind him and one on the ground, with a hand in his pocket and the other one scrolling on his phone. when he noticed you, he gave you a sweet smile and offered to take your backpack.

in no time, you find yourself back inside the now locked room, sitting in front of the mirror with your legs spread out and slender fingers slowly pumping in and out of you.

"look how pretty you are." "you moan so sweetly." "look at you glowing." he chants against your ear, hot breath caressing your face and lips grazing your neck and jaw.

𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐣𝐨𝐨𝐧𝐠

your third award show already as a rookie, and you are still nervous. you excuse yourself, and the members offer to go with you.

"i'm fine, just need fresh air."

you exit the venue, breathing heavily. once you step over the threshold, you lean against the wall. the air is cool and biting against your bare arms, but the adrenaline rush inside you is keeping you warm. you miss the way the door opens again, a figure with his hands in his pockets slowly approaching you with a smirk.

"hey."

"fuck- where did you come from?"

"do i need to teach you manners, little rookie?" the playful glint in his eyes isn't gone, even though his face is dead serious when he grabs your jaw to look at him.

you are at a loss for words. a person standing aside might think that you were scared or in danger, but the arousal between your legs proves different.

"nervous?" he asks, seeing your distressed face. you nod, not able to break eye contact with him. it is so addicting. "let me help."

legs over his shoulders, and back uncomfortably pressed against the cold wall, you moan against hongjoong's hand. he has his head buried in the layers of your dress, tongue relentlessly lapping at your aching core and ridding your body of any remaining worries and troubles.

if someone once told you that kim hongjoong would be accepting his award and giving a speech with your arousal coating his lips, you'd call them a madman. but you sit and watch it happen, lips shinier than any lip gloss in the world.

𝐲𝐮𝐧𝐡𝐨

opening the door and finding jeong yunho standing there just as you were mid blocking his contact was a punch to the chest.

"hello." he smiles. "is alex here?"

"i'm here, you don't need her now." you step aside to let him in.

you guide him to the living room and continue into your room, hoping he'd stay there. but he doesn't, instead following to the room which you've managed to clean this morning. as you search for where you left the disc while you were stressing over the accidental nude, yunho busies himself with touching your things.

"ah, the fateful joystick."

"stop, give me that." you reach for it, but yunho uses his tall card, simply holding the gadget high in the air. "not fair."

standing on your tiptoes as your fingers desperately try to grab it, you lose balance and fall on the man. he catches you with one hand around your waist, pressing you further against him. "careful."

"take it, i don't care. it's a stupid game that i keep losing in, anyway."

"want me to teach you? this would be my second playthrough. i lost the disc and when you said you had it, i had to."

when you agreed, you didn't think he'd teach you while he also makes you moan. every time you don't listen to his instructions and fail, his hips stop and he denies you an orgasm, leaving you whining and groaning in frustration. his hand rests on your arched back, while his other one pulls your hair so your eyes stay on the screen. his hips work slowly, giving you enough sensation to keep you focused too. once you finally get through the toughest level, he pushes your head into the mattress, slamming his hips against your ass and finally giving you a reward for your hard work.

𝐲𝐞𝐨𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐠

conveniently, you sat in the front, next to yeosang who was driving. your cheeks redder than ever, your heart beating loudly, and your thighs pressed together. you felt wrong, but couldn't stop the gawking. his hands looked pretty when playing the violin, the guitar, and driving. it drove you insane.

"oppa, can you stop at a gas station so i can get some water?" one of your group members asks from behind, and the man doesn't take long before finding one and stopping.

all of them step out to refresh, leaving you and yeosang alone.

"i'm sorry." you don't hesitate to apologize as soon as they're gone.

yeosang is sitting on the edge of an open trunk, scrolling on his phone and avoiding you. or so you thought. he looks at you confused. "why?"

"for the picture. i'm sorry. i didn't mean to."

"i know you didn't, it's okay." he smiles assuringly.

"but- you didn't respond to my messages. i thought you were angry."

"i was..." he lowers his gaze, his cheeks a light pink colour. "i was in a dilemma. no man would stay careless after seeing a picture like that. especially me, since it's you."

"what?"

"you think i didn't notice all those clicks of the camera and you zooming in on my hands?"

and those very same hands have you bent over the open trunk, fingers drilling into you from behind as you moan into his other hand. you fear that the members might be back already, but yeosang assures you that he has it under control, urging you to relax and enjoy.

light squelching fills the trunk, along with his palm colliding with your bare ass with your skirt flipped over. in no time, the orgasm hits you like never before, and you hear yeosang gasp behind you.

"a squirter, huh."

well, now you were.

[chanafehs]

veilguard is killing me because before it released on of the reasons the devs said you couldn't import a worldstate is because they didn't want to include characters from the older games because of too many variables and they didn't want to invalidate anyone's personal canons only for veilguard to come out and be like here's morrigan and dorian and isabela and valta (from the descent dlc????), i'm halfway through the game and i just keep waiting for someone else to inexplicably pop up lmao

No literally because I romanced both Morrigan and Isabela in my canon playthrough and I feel like I just got cast into the shadow realm because nothing my Warden or Hawke did every really mattered in reference to them. They’ve invalidated so many choices already and I don’t think they even realize it, or if they did, they just don’t care. Even a line there or maybe a codex entry here would’ve done wonders for me to better accept this game and how all these returning characters are in it - Dorian doesn’t even mention you when you talk to him too which drives me crazy!!

The only choices that seem to matter are the ones in regards to solas and I’m begging on my hands and knees for BioWare to realize these games are more than just solas (he doesn’t even show up until the third one). I’m almost done with the game now and I’m just waiting for some surprise cameo that’ll also invalidate my choices sighhhhh

[chronologically-challenged]

I'm slowly doing my 100% playthrough, and I'm wondering, what's the most amount of fucked up things you can do to Siffrin in one loop?

So far here's my list in order*:

Wake up from the third family quest OR using the dagger the first time

Remember the Incident

Ask the daydreaming about their sister

Give Mirabelle the letter while she already has the bow OR have Loop call you terrible for looking at the letter

Bad Touch

Show Loop the coin

Loop tells Siffrin they're just like the King (ask them about the King Quest in act 4)

Hang out with Loop

Tutorial Event

Siffrin gags on banana chips

No one touches Siffrin during touch therapy

Bonnie says they want Siffrin to die (first half of rotten adults)

Use the glass

Find all three ghosts

Meet the Change God

Finish the Sus Quest

Ask the Head Housemaiden about wishcraft OR have Siffrin use the dagger on himself for the first time

*if you can't do them both in one loop, the capitalized OR indicates this.

Other things not included bc idk if one cancels out the other or it's too rng dependent: 1) Siffrin wakes up and forgets everyone's names (not sure this can happen on a loop you wake up post the dagger/third family quest), 2) Bonnie shadow face jumpscare 3) Loop chat where they ask if Siffrin has any plans once he gets out of the loops, 4) Terrified Siffrin during the King Fight.

[pinkyjulien]

WIP Saturday 🙋‍♂️

Been slowly gettin' back into CP77 modding and wanted to do some comfy hoodie :3

First attempt was a port from Marvelous Designer

Everything was going fine, weight was decent, but trying to get the materials right was fucking my groove up

Wasn't satisfied with how it looked, the shadows were unpleasant, and couldn't find any materials that I liked - so I ended up tossing it aside (didn't delete it! Might rework in the future when I feel better about it 👀)

Instead, I decided to work from a Vanilla garment!

Pics from Khagan's Clothing Catalog

I love this hoodie and used it a lot during my PL playthrough - tho it's way too crowded for what I had in mind, a simple, comfy hoodie

Even if I was able to delete some of the additional bits, a big part of it is actually baked into the main submesh (like a lot of vanilla meshes)

After my unbuckled Aldecaldos jacket I feel more confident tackling heavy editing projects tho, so this wasn't TOO spooky 👌

First thing first, I deleted a big chunk from the left top side and kept the bottom part (to keep the assymetry and natural flow of the fabric) then I mirrored the right side and connected everything to the remaining left side

Fixing a mesh up means I also need to unwrap its UVs again - AND that means duplicating, moving and flipping the normal map to follow the new unwrapped uvs

Same with the mlmask layers, but that comes later 🧍‍♂️

The original Hoodie has a bunch of additional meshes; the sleeves and hoods variants are on a separate mesh that gets called by the OG entity

I decided to merge everything into a single mesh, easier to handle for me in the AXL structure later 🔎

Regardless, still needed to move the sleeves and hoods to match the new fixed left side (since its a mirror of the right side!)

Now that the meshes are fixed both model and UV wise, need to re-weight it from the OG garment 🤚 That concludes the 3D part

AXL side, I went with 4 different garment ent and apps to handle the 4 variants; default (hood down, long sleeves), hooded, rolled sleeves, and hooded + rolled!

A fun lil detail with this mesh is that the hood doesn't have any garment support - with this in mind I decided to use the T1 - inner torso - slots to allow us to wear vest on top of the hoodie

😫👌 Idk idk it scratch my stinky brain really good HGHFH I love it

With everything ready, t'was time to tackle the FUN part; the appearaaaaanceeeees 🤠

I first had 4 designs with 5 colors each - but it quickly turned into 6 colors each; first design being the "basic" / default one, that I named "edgewear"

Gotta keep in mind that each color has 4 mesh variants, so that's already 24 items

I then used the beloved "orange leather" vanilla hoodie with the white barghest face on it (the one I used through my PL playthrough! probably my favorite tbh) as a base for my next design, "quilted"

It has a cute skunk ass hood 🦨

And I'm currently still working on a third design inspired by Varsity Jackets, the... well gfhhg "varsity" design

All of the appearances are still Wips and might change 🧍‍♂️

and I'd like to maybe add one more BUT... that's already 74 items, I don't like having too much options hgfh but dynamic AXL makes it really easy to just go apeshit with variations

ANYWAY I felt like doing another Behind The Mod TM post :3 some of y'all like them and I like sharing my modding stuff!

[summertimemusician]

Linktober 2024, Day 1, Mirror (Self)

Alright here we go again.

Technically a sneak peak of a bigger thing to come in the future that I'm repurposing, and the result of my final playthrough and readthrough before EoW dropped being Four Swords Adventures and that made me sad about Shadow Link again.

Note that this is for the Four Swords Adventures iteration of Shadow Link that might evolve into an LU Shadow, not Dark Link in either LOZ or LU, I have other plans for him.

This one shot was brought to you by Scars by The Crane Wives, Ribs by The Crane Wives, Ruin by The Amazing Devil and Two Minutes by The Amazing Devil because the author's playlist decided to be incredibly cheeky when they blacked out to write this like an ancient seers being cursed with visions and then called mad and hearing they've been put up for execution.

As always the nature of the relationship can be romantic or platonic, mostly due to the author's time constraints and further plans.

Anyway enjoy the reading!

It was cold.

The sort of cold after a wildfire, when everything's turned back to ash, the sort that left burned your vision white after the flames licked through your veins and left an ache in your bones. He shuddered, coughed black onto the stone floor, shaking with a muffled whimper.

It never got any easier, being dragged from the Dark World and into the Realm of Light, the goddesses' world itself revolting against an intruder, wanting the wound torn asunder into their oh so precious realm cauterized. To purge the intrusion and smite it where it stands.

Too bad for them (and for him), his master didn't particularly care about what the world wanted. Didn't particularly care that he hadn't grow accustomed to the pain or the cold, he had to stand up. There was work to be done.

(Shadow gritted his teeth, willed himself not to think about the prophecy of a golden haired princess- because whether he liked it or not, it was prophecy. As those with divinity running through their veins are wont to spill from their throats so carelessly- of violet eyes and a smile a third moonlight and hands holding a hammer.

It always hurt more, after one of the heroes liberated one of the maidens, or the jewels, the pain lingering for days afterwards and carving a home in his metaphorical bones. But just this once he'd take the cold bite of the Four Swords over the pain in the hole in his chest that Vio's betrayal had left, something that felt so much worse than every other time before.

Just this once he wished that maybe, just maybe, the hurt would be too much to bear, that he wouldn't wake up again-

Why? Why does it hurt so much but he's still here? He already knew the Light was uncompromising and unforgiving, but he thought them at least above curses.)

His ears twitched as soft, almost silent footsteps came up to his side. Someone crouching by his fallen form, setting a cautious hand over his own that Shadow couldn't help but draw away from with a hiss, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the world again, to your face, carefully blank as you guided him to lean against your side, a silver choker with a crimson gem winked mockingly at him, the shade closing his eyes and going boneless against your side.

Shadow was so, so tired.

He heard you quietly sigh, plucking his cap from his head and running your fingers through dark amethyst, smoke and mist made hair. "I told you so."

"Shut up." He grumbled, nuzzling further into the crook of your neck. One clawed hand curling against your free wrist, digging into the skin. Absentmindedly noting there were new scratches just above the metal.

It was routine by now, the warmth of your existence against his own a welcome balm, not quite of the Realm of Light where it's unpleasant, not too close to the Dark World where he felt like melting back into the embrace of the darkness, only to howl in agony at being dragged out.

Memories not quite his own bled into his mind all the time. How you'd shape ice into flowers for the princess in winter with nary a though, of blinking and from one second to the next you'd have whatever sword he had hostage if you though it was time for a break with a smile brighter than the sun.

His master had changed that though. It took months for you to stop trying to claw the collar out and to stop trying to fight Vaati.

(Funny how holding a mage's dragon as a bargaining chip is just as effective as kidnapping a ruler.)

Your gaze flicked to the polished obsidian of the Dark Mirror, to the gold, ornate frame. "The offer is still open, you know. Let me take the suffering from you."

"No." He scowled, leaning back to glare into your eyes, a hint of fangs poking out from a maw struggling to keep the shape of a human jaw, "You helped him. Helped them." Shadow spat, there is that hurt again.

You shrugged, a movement that's just slightly awkward as you flinch, "That I did." You confirmed simply, it almost made Shadow see red as he leaned away, knocking your hand from his head in the process, but if there's anything him and the heroes shared, was a lack of a desire to hurt you. It was a little grating to be honest, "Vio even offered to take me with him, to be honest."

"Then why didn't you leave?" He demanded.

Why did you stick around?

Your eyes shuttered, a hint of conflict in your pursed lips. Before you found your words, they come out softly, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you why. You'll just have to find out yourself."

You tug your wrist from his grasp, and Shadow lets you go.

(Stubbornly pushing down on memories and emotions that arearen'tarenotanymore quite his.)

You stand and turn away, pushing the curtains away from your sight, you turn your tired eyes to Shadow with an emotion he can't put a name to. "Just keep it in mind that there's more than one way to end this. Nothing is truly inevitable."

Shadow watches you go. 'There's nothing that can be done. He tells himself, hand hesitating above the Dark Mirror, briefly, it curls into a fist. The hero's original self stares back at him.

'… Does he really believe that?'

He shakes his head, and focuses on willing the Dark Mirror to show him his counterpart.

His chest still hurts.

[barbwritesstuff]

Is Gaius named after emperor Caligula by any chance?

No.

Ancient Roman names are confusing. I'm not going to dive too deeply into it (because I don't fully understand it), but the Romans usually had three names. Eg. Gaius Julius Caesar.

The first name was called a praenomen and was an intimate name usually used only by close friends or family.

Which is why we usually just say: Julius Caesar.

The second name is a nomen which is typically a family name. The third name is a cognomen, which is kinda like a nickname that most people used to get by day to day.

In Blood Moon, when Gaius was first introduced, I wanted Gaius and Lucius to use praenomans when speaking to each other (because brothers), and Gaius gave the wolves permission to use his given name too, which was a) for ease of readership and b) because he's weird and deranged and wanted the wolves to talk to him as if they were close friends.

Now, according to Wikipedia:

By the first century BC, the praenomina remaining in general use at Rome were: Appius, Aulus, Caeso, Decimus, Gaius, Gnaeus, Lucius, Mamercus, Manius, Marcus, Numerius, Publius, Quintus, Servius, Sextus, Spurius, Titus, and Tiberius.

There are only 18 choices.

I couldn't use Marcus (because Marco was already a character in the story and that might be confusing) but I also wanted names that wouldn't throw modern readers too much, which excluded a lot on this list. Remember, I wasn't planning a sequel at this stage. These were originally just going to be characters that appeared once in one playthrough.

Quick, easy to remember names were key, especially as the court was going to be chock full of various new vampire characters.

(This is also why I used the name 'Medici' in this scene. Quick, easy to remember, and some worrying implications for those that might know a bit about history).

So I picked Gaius and Lucius for the vampire brother kings.

Gaius Dominus (no noman because he has no real Roman family) and Lucius Hostus Dentatus.

Cartoon bad guy names, but they're vampires, so they get a pass.

When I started writing Thicker Than I tried REALLY hard to make Gaius go by his other name/title, Dominus. But my brain wasn't doing great when it came to renaming him, so he's still just Gaius.

Eventually I also gave him a second cognomen (Caesar) because that literally just means king and it makes sense he'd have it.

I can't believe I lay in bed for 15 minutes typing this out on my phone. 😅 I hope it's not too long or boring.

[moonchopsticks]

finished great god grove tonight! first scattered thoughts:

- been said to death but fucking immaculate style. yugo limbo never misses

-im the type of person that Needs to Know what happens next in the story so i definitely rushed over a lot of optional dialogue. definitely coming back for a second or third playthrough where i can dig into the world a little better

-i loooved the progression of revealing the lore and worldbuilding throughout the story. it was all very straightforward and followable yet sparse enough to make me feel like i was piecing together the nature of the gods and the grove organically. also watching the bizzyboy puppet exposition dumps were such a treat

-very cool worldbuilding, although sometimes the gods just felt like Big Immortal Humans. i know they all had their associated domains which influences their respective communities (+ tied into the different types of love that they each represent) but it never felt like they had much power outside embodying a specific theme. which is fine, there's lots of ways to interpret divinity and the concept of a god. maybe i'll have something more coherent to say abt this in the morning?

-^^ kind of ties into inspekta's whole deal. he already had immortality and was guaranteed it basically forever, in what way did king's ascension and the other gods just existing threaten him? like i'll buy that he had the sort of ego that comes from being insecure about the meaning of your short life and from fear of irrelevance, but if he was afraid of death it seems like he'd already be chilling just by accomplishing ascension. i guess he just wanted it All? i'm not really pressed about it, since the themes of like. love in the face of mortality and the insecurity that fear of death can bring are hugely impactful to me personally. and i like to see people talk about it. i just think more couldve been done with it.

-speaking of, capochin is a banger of a character. he has such a little ego and lords his authority over his subordinates, and you can just tell he's dripping with insecurity about his place in the world. i.e. at the right hand of inspekta as his unflinchingly loyal dog. he craves power and purpose and fears irrelevance, just like inspekta, and is tethered to his place by both intense fear and devotion. he treats the bizzyboys like dirt but even as they start to rebel against him they know that he'd never hurt them. also he's a 3 foot tall smug bastard fifty something year old with little puppy dog eyes. who's doing it like him

-inspekta, like all the players in the story, was made with such love and care that i couldnt imagine anything but a hopeful ending for him. aw hector. the secretly evil twist was pretty obviously telegraphed. had my suspicions pretty early on, which were solidified by the time the bizzyboys attack you after cobigail and all but stated after buzzhuzz, where they turn to fascism. (surprised that razzma said it straight up.)

- probably my favorite gods were cobigail and bauhazzo. did NOT expect to like them so much! cobigail's lore is really good for a human turned god of harvest--music teacher that lives in the school she used to teach in, a bright pillar of the community, voted to ascend by the town she brought together. slowly forgotten by the people she used to break bread with and slowly starving because they're forgetting how to come together and feed her. and she's a fucking cutie patootie sweet pea. and bauhazzo was very charming to talk to and also one of the most interesting thematically to me personally. for a god of memory and keeper of thousands of years of history he's very tender about the small moments. being a living memory essentially and letting nostalgia overtake you in a moment of weakness is an on the nose but relevant warning against fascist rhetoric (and just in general the trap of thinking about the Good Old Days). in general im someone that loves the ups and downs of life, and i tend to be nostalgic about the past and fear the passing of time, but my memory is really poor, so i end up thinking a lot about the subjectivity of memories and about how effervescent everything is...bauhazzo just ended up resonating with me ig!

-the first time miss mitternacht dropped that king uses she/her my eyes goggled out of my head like that cartoon wolf. experienced the euphoria of finding out that cool guy was a butch lesbian in real time. also makes her and miss mitternacht's thing one million times more juicy. idk i love gay people

-not sure why this stuck in my head but i cracked up when vibi was getting a little too into imagining capochin getting sweaty and dirty. pathetic man likers rise up

-patty i love u forever

-idk, this is the sort of game that reminds me that i want to create something. i want to make art without reservation. i'm grateful for projects like these.

[moonlit-doodles]

while recording another part for my p5r playthrough today, i went a little bit crazy over these two pieces of dialogue from his first counseling session with ann and akira respectively (which occur on the same day).

bear with me.

i really had to bite my tongue not to say anything about it since i'm trying to keep my playthrough spoiler-free - but this is textbook groomer behavior. calling a teenager mature for their age, expressing awe over how they've made it as far as they have, etc.

while i think that a lot of the maruki scenes with the rest of the phantom thieves after this are incredibly forced and really just used as a plot device to get third semester to work out the way it does, these two scenes (as well as ryuji's) really strike me because i feel like

- and, disclaimer, i do genuinely believe maruki to be a kind person, but i don't think he is a GOOD person because he enforces his kindness upon others rather than recognizing what the ideal outcome for THEIR LIVES is (not his own ideals!) -

i feel like maruki's discussions here with ann and akira are heartfelt and true. he really is trying to connect with them and help them, but his idea of help is different from theirs. he's prodding for their ideal, without recognizing that a teenager's idea of what is ideal may not necessarily line up with the words that come out of their mouth

and in pushing for this, he is grooming them to be more receptive to the way that he prods at them for their wishes and what he perceives as their ideal presentation of reality

this ramble of mine isn't exactly comprehensive and articulate but all this to say that maruki is outright grooming the phantom thieves, ESPECIALLY akira through the rest of his confidant

(discussion i had with one of my friends the other day)

i think my point is that maruki is NOT a saint by any means and in fact on replay when you know what his goals are he comes across as outright predatory even if you know that he IS trying to do what he believes is the kindest, most just thing. and somehow he really has spoken to people - not only the people in-game, but also the people in the fandom -

and it's BRILLIANT writing because he has captured the fandom in the same way he captured the phantom thieves. it's so incredible to have an antagonist who is genuine, heartfelt, and kind, and is truly trying to prevent the protagonists from being hurt, but he just doesn't understand that the things that hurt them to begin with are not only what made them strong but also what made them who they are

(from discussion with my rp partner about maruki and akira's likeness, & how much more like him maruki would have been had he the strength to overcome/overturn rumi's unjust fate)

maruki is INCREDIBLE and he is a STUNNING piece of writing and that's why he is such a powerful antagonist to round out an already brilliant work about the powers of love and grief, trust and loss...

i just think it's worthwhile to point out that from the very beginning he was looking for ways to excuse his own ideals as for the benefit of other people, mistaking words born from pain as the truth - as reality.

this game is so incredible and third semester does not let us down. there is SO MUCH to dig into and it's just..... incredible. truly.

[hitodama3]

Homicipher: How Was I Supposed To Know?!?

I saw the escape route and ran full tilt for it!

I am just a (cute apparently) girl (apparently) trying to escape *probably* hell/limbo!

I see the escape I leave EXPEDITIOUSLY!!!!

Spoiler probably...

HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT I NEEDED TO HESITATE AT THE DOOR?!?!?

They are the horrors I assumed that I'd just fall through a trap door or get dragged back in or *something*! How are the horrors being better about respecting my boundaries then real breathing people????

I lived for *once* and I am being guilt tripped by a radio wave in a trench coat!

Was on the tik of toks and I saw a video of Mr. Scarletella begging you not to go (and admittedly I've only gotten one ending (Good Ending 2) so I'm guessing how to get this scene (don't worry on my second playthrough already)) which I assume you get if you hesitate and like...

My baby boi~

I am playing this game for you!!!!

If I had known I would have clicked that option but I was playing the first round blind just to see what canon ending I'd get. I'm so proud because I normally end up with a bad end route because the otomes hate the answers I pick. But the *one* time I get a good ending I feel so much guilt.

I am wracked with the need to see more of him (Mr. Scarletella)and yet Mr. Crawling is doing his damned best to keep my stupid ass alive and mostly in one piece so I'm trying not be to much trouble for him.

Probably finish my second playthrough and maybe a third just trying to piece the language together myself and get blind endings before looking up a walkthrough.

10/10 having a great time so far.