#i'm gonna try not to make these . . . TOO SPOILERY ?

[spyrkle4]

My thoughts on the ending of Danganronpa Despair Time Chapter 2

Man just when I think I can predict what'll happen in Drdt it throws a 180

I'm gonna hide the spoilerly stuff under the read more but first things first of my god... this was great!!! And it also makes me TERRIFIED for chapter 3 because chapter 2 was enough of an emotional rollar coaster, idk if the dev or anyone working on drdt will see this silly post bc a LOT of people have been sharing their thoughts on the ending of chapter 2 but I really enjoyed the ending

And that I don't mind if chapter 3 has a long wait bc my mental health is in shambles after this chapter

Okay now the spoilery stuff!

-First of all, I did find it interesting that the secrets (including David in his joker arc) was a bit of a red herring, the secrets weren't part of the murder/case at all, unless you count the part of Arturo threatening Eden over his secret, but after this trial EVERYONE's laundry has been aired and I wonder if that'll be touched upon in Chapter 3

-I think I've said this before but I love how the dead cast (Xander, Min, Arei, and now Ace) are just constantly mentioned, haunting the narrative, I'm pretty sure they're gonna keep that up

-Teruko having a mental breakdown after this, like homegirl spent ALL of chapter 2 trying to repress her grief over Xander and Min, but now that Arei, Ace, and potentially Levi are dead she ended up cracking, chapter 2 ending with her breaking down in the darkened trial room is heartbreakiiiing

-I read a couple posts before typing this and one of them mentioned that "MonoTV's comment about the most mastermind-y person getting punished" applied to Teruko almost being shot after telling Ace to kill MonoTV (she tried), the foreshadowing of this, like hey guys remember in chapter 1 when Ace was dragged into watching horror movies and he commented they were so scary he could've died from it :))

-Levi's really putting the L in Levi dude cant stop getting injured. but seriously I just wanna know WHY DID HE DO THAT LEVI OH MY GOD. LEVIIII

-MonoTV genuinely scared me, also the implications of who could potentially be running this show is also scaring me. and the implications that they're programmed to run this show until EVERYONE is dead.

-Not Ace's excecution being he gets psychologically tortured until its too much for his heart

-The fact it wasn't related to his talent but it was related to his constant fear of death is just evil.

-Also the way Ace goes out, before the ending I kind of thought his arc was a mirror to Arei's where that while she improved and started to trust some of the others, Ace became more cruel and distrustful, even to those still reaching out to him, he was so scared of dying that he ironically caused his own death by participating in the killing game and killing Arei

-And that he was so scared of dying, yet told MonoTV to go ahead with his execution so that the others could give Levi medical treatment and he even yells at Arturo that he CAN save Levi if he tries, dude in the end did change but sadly like Arei, he died before before being able to fully embrace that change

-also if you want to go more feral over the little details check out the names on the gravestones :))) I know at least ONE of the names is his only friend. And based his line of "I'm gonna have THREE deaths on my hands!" His friend might be deceased and he blames himself for it

-I was thinking "I sure hope the squeamish of the cast aka Charles and Rose shield their eyes during the execution" and then there was Whit's line of telling Charles to cover his eyes when Teruko is about to get shot

-Whit's sprite when the gang realize the elevators are closed is scaring me a little. its also scaring the Whit fans!

-That's all I'm gonna say about the ending, it was emotional and at least Ace was able to have some good moments before his end, I wonder what'll happen with the secrets aftermath including David causing problems on purpose, the cast realizing that the killing game is making them worse, and all the little lore that got dropped.

[dangermousie]

Honestly I think you're one of my favourite kdrama bloggers on here and I'm curious: what are the kdramas you consider to be perfect? Like top to bottom not a single flaw seen. What's the best of dramaland for you?

Awww thank you! I love this type of ask too!

Any list of mine is gonna be of course vvv subjective (I am not a romcom lover for example) and I can guarantee you that the moment I hit post, I am gonna lose my mind because I will remember I forgot something.

Also, no flaw by definition excludes some of my faves where there are a few minor flaws but the rest is so amazing it doesn't matter (The Legend First King's Four Gods comes to mind - the first ep ie prologue set 1k years before the main story - is a lil cheesy. But the rest is so good I don't even care and same for My Dearest where I'd perhaps remove the final amnesia bit but it's a perfect drama otherwise with the rest so good I don't even care. So perhaps they should be listed.)

But anyway here are are some dramas where I have not seen a single flaw, perfect dramas.

Mawang (also known as The Devil or Lucifer) - probably the best kdrama dealing with revenge ever made - the damage, the driving need, the destruction of self and yet destruction of self without it. To really explain anything about it would be spoilery so all I am going to say is it revolves around an icy lawyer with a secret, a hot headed cop chasing a string of murders, and a librarian who can read past events by touching objects or people. The way I cried. The way I stared in shock as it ended. The sheer perfection of it all - the acting, the relationships, the writing. I get emotional just thinking of it.

IRIS - yup, an action drama. I am not much of a fan of various sequels/spin-offs (involving different characters, you do not need to watch anything else if you watched IRIS or to watch IRIS to watch the others) but the original is amazing. Sure, it's an actioner. It's also an amazing character study of a person taken apart and trying to put himself together, of past tangling, of people passing or failing tests set by life. It's just - AAAAAAAAA also yet another drama I bawled for hours over.

Train - Yoon Si Yoon is a cop slipping between alternate universes in search of a killer seems like a procedural with a side of scifi but it's more of a meditation on love and loss and what drives us to keep living (or not.)

Someday - hands down the most obscure kdrama on this list, this is a tale of four people whose lives intersect - a mangaka seeking inspiration, a sort of private detective hiding unimaginable trauma under his sunny demeanor, a manipulative yet childlike psychologist and a business minded friend of the last one, the sanest of them all. When people discuss healing dramas, this is the one that comes to mind. My favorite is the detective's arc because it's one of those trauma sunshine things where he's coping, coping, coping and then...stops.

Empress Ki and 6 Flying Dragons - if you watch only two long sageuks, make it these ones. They are smart (esp 6FD), and they are such amazing complex character studies of people being hollowed out by power. The OTPs are amazing and what I love but the character study is even better. And both are epic in all senses of the world.

Speaking of sageuks, Slave Hunters (also known as Chuno) about a former nobleman who's a slave hunter now, an escape slave who used to be a general, and a slave woman masquerading as an aristocrat is my favorite sageuk of all time - a love story, a character story, and a story of the dispossessed, this is smart and grim and hopeful and just - if there was ever a perfect sageuk, this is it.

The Princess' Man and Flower of Evil - ie Moon Chae Won loves a feral mess and goes MINE! TPM is a smart emotional sageuk, one of the best out there and FoE is a study of love and trauma.

Something Happened in Bali, Padam Padam, A Love to Kill, Spring Waltz, Thank You, Snow Queen, That Winter the Wind Blows - old school melodramas (perhaps not TY so much, it's more complicated in genre) that push people to the limits to expose their deepest selves.

My Country the New Age, Hong Gil Dong, Rebel the Thief Who Stole the People, The Crowned Clown, Return of Iljimae - they focus on class in period setting (just as Chuno did) and make me care and think.

Worlds Within - seemingly about lives of studio workers, this is a rare drama where you feel you are peeking at real people.

Gloria and Family Honor - 50 ep drama where I'd remove nothing and that feels so intimate.

W Two Worlds, Extraordinary You, The Moon in the Day, Live Up to Your Name, Queen In Hyun's Man - high concepts that improbably work and make you think and feel.

Secret Garden, City Hunter, Healer, Sungkyunkwan Scandal, Faith, Tale of the Nine Tailed, I Hear Your Voice - just a wonderful good time.

Gaksital - take a bad guy, make him your protag, slowly redeem him and put him through hell.

Bad Guys - a bleak take on revenge and truth but also a damn good time at the same time somehow.

Beyond Evil and Cruel City - about cops but not really. About forgiveness, love and limits.

Come and Hug Me - brought me back to kdramas. A love story and trauma story and a bit of a thriller. It's everything.

Beauty Inside, Last Scandal, City Hall, My Girl, Delightful Girl Chunhyang and Hometown Cha Cha Cha - it is very rare for me to love romcoms. These few make the list. They also made me cry so make of it what you will.

Shut Up Flower Boy Band - the only time I liked a teen drama.

Capital Scandal and Chicago Typewriter - masterpieces dealing with the 1930s revolutionaries.

Que Sera Sera - if you love dysfunction and intense shipping, oh boy!

I am sure the moment I hit post, I will remember something else, but this will do for now.

ETA: aaaaaa Damo!!! My very first sageuk and what a way to start!!! Perfection.

ETA2: Arang and the Magistrate! OK Shin Min Ah is in an awful lot of these...

[leidensygdom]

So what’s Argyros’ personality like?? And what’s her backstory, if you don’t mind sharing? I know I’m pretty late to this but man the design is SO cool and I’m invested

Here's a fresh Argy doodle to go with the answers!

The personality: They're carefree, highly social, sometimes a bit too direct, and quite flirty. She craves human (in a broad sense) connection and she's highly social. Which means Argy is absolutely thriving right now as they're just studying medicine at the moment.

They came with quite a lot of medical knowledge and studying is an attempt to try to know why did they even have that in their database and personality. It's almost a bit of an obsession: She feels the need to study every little bit that makes up flesh-based lifeforms, because she feels they're far too fragile. Argyros is caring to an uncomfortable degree at times, but it comes from their need to ensure everyone is in perfect condition.

They're more than happy to help heal a wound and maybe study you a bit on the way. And their skills as a healer are quite good, even if having a dozen eyes and a giant halo on you can be a bit overwhelming.

Despite his fairly open attitude, he speaks little of his concerns or worries, and does rarely share any detail about his more personal thoughts. There's definitely something wrong with them, but there's just one person they've talked about this. Despite how much Argyros love putting others back together, they keep themselves quite private.

The backstory: I can't really share all that much since it's spoilery for my fellow players (as she's gonna be a NPC in a Pathfinder 2e game), but she basically has not much of an idea about it herself. She was suddenly aware of existing one day, and had some memories and knowledge, but no exact idea of where were they made, and for. Trying to find a place to fit in was hard, and trying to search for answers was even harder: It seems there is something actively trying to not let them do so.

They're not entirely sure where does their divinity come from either. It's not unusual for people to be born with extraplanar influences, but Argyros was either created or infused with that divinity. But she doesn't know who or why, and isn't too willing to admit that they just have no clue. One of the main party members is gonna be a proper celestial, and I'm sure they'll be a bit of at odds about this!

[jcollinswrites]

JC!!!

No you did not make a father/son RO choice 💀

I just saw this and ofcourse you did 🤣😭

It's gonna be me in Honor amongst thieves all over again.

Now i have to ask another two parter question:

Sorry, i know I'm annoying 😑

1. How would Namer's son actually feel about him dating an MC around their age?

And 2. Much more importantly.

TOTALLY HYPOTHETICAL!!!!!

Completely

I never do this....

Clearly!!!

But say you struggle to really choose between the ROs. And you kinda romance more than one....🫣

How would the ROs react to that? Are some of them very jealous? And who would have the most rivalry dynamic among the ROs if MC was interested in more than one RO.

Just for shits and giggles... i completely have no problem with this in every other game.........

Also hiiiiiii!!! 😇💕

No you did not make a father/son RO choice 💀 I just saw this and ofcourse you did 🤣😭

Huh? I did?

Oh wait. I did. Oops 😇 Could be father/daughter too 🙃

1. How would Namer's son actually feel about him dating an MC around their age?

Very weirded out. They would be uncomfortable around MC for a long time. I think they would need some years to get used to it. If MC is cool about it, then maybe sooner, but I don't think Ahmose could ever really be friends with that MC, not on a deeper level.

you struggle to really choose between the ROs. And you kinda romance more than one....🫣

I thought about this for a long time, and I came to the conclusion that I will do locked romance routes. Not because I don't like jealousy scenes (I love them), but I think I already have way too many variables in the story to be able to implement a who-dates-who/ break-up/get-together-again thing. It would just be too much to write and I'm already writing A LOT.

So, my current plan is to make a choice in Chapter 4 (up to change), where you choose your final RO and get stuck with it 'til the bitter end. I'm sorry if this disappoints some readers, but I think this is the best solution for me to be able to deliver a quality story.

How would the ROs react to that? Are some of them very jealous? And who would have the most rivalry dynamic among the ROs if MC was interested in more than one RO.

For the aforementioned reasons, this ask is not spoilery then, so here you go 😀

I think Narmer would be the most jealous lol. He would try not to show it, but he really wouldn't like it if MC suddenly starts showing interest in someone else. (ESPECIALLY if that other person is his kid, then he would be pissed off. Unless the MC is a teen. Then he would go YES go choose Ahmose you idiot)

Qenna would take that as an opportunity to push the MC towards the other, clearly better, more emotionally stable, not-a-trainwreck potential love interest. It would hurt them like a bitch, but they would still do it.

Zaia would sulk. They would be conflicted between wanting to prove that they are clearly better than that other nobody, but at the same time, Zaia would realize that MC would probably be better off with a fellow human.

Tabiry would be a bit jealous. But she also knows that the MC is a person with free will and a free heart, so she would try to up her game, but otherwise, wouldn't interfere. She would sulk in private.

Ahmose would be a bit heartbroken. I think they would just go for advice to Qenna, who is actually not the worst person to ask for advice, and Qenna would tell them to have confidence, be themselves, and let the MC choose what they want. (bit hypocritical, but that's Qenna in a nutshell)

Long ass answer lol, but thanks for the messages! ✨ (you are not annoying)

[karoochui]

I just wanted to say I am so enamoured with Binary Insurgence! I eat up everything, every little crumb, you drop about it and the entire idea is so interesting to me! I'm so in love with stories and worlds like this! I'm also curious to know about the relationship between Sun and Moon, if it's alright to ask. How was it before the fire compared to after? Does their relationship begin to mend (because I'm certain over the years it deteriorated) when y/n comes back into the picture? If any of this is too spoilery or you just haven't fleshed it out yet then you don't have to answer! I'm just super curious about the boys and how you see their dynamic/relationship. I just look forward to seeing how their bond has grown and/or broken and how it may be mended over time.

AHH im glad you like it so much!! Im happy to talk about what i've got, but you are right not everything is fully fleshed out. I have points i wanna get to but while im brainstorming and planning i make up a lot of stuff as i go and then go over it again later to see if i like it or can connect stuff in any way. I have 3 chapters for Arc 1 fully summarized as of now! (Which probably doesn't seem like a lot but i like my chapters long, so it's quite a bit actually).

I wanna say, too, that i'm planning for the first story to be more in the perspective of the reader, so most things about Sun and Moon's personal thoughts and feelings are gonna be more implied than said. I might have some switching points of view, i'm not sure, but i haven't found a place i'd do it or think it's relevant. The sequel is gonna be more from their perspective since it'll mostly be about them.

NOW! I see Sun and Moon as brothers, so they really treat each other in a way that's like that. Before the fire they get along pretty well. Most instances of issue would be when Moon blocks out Sun when he fronts, or just mutual panic over the fact Moon lost his shit w/ the virus. They'll have their disagreements about things (i havent planned specifics yet) but generally they're chill. Sun just worries about Moon hurting people, but Moon worries too. With the way the virus functions in this AU it's hard for Sun to fully fault Moon for what he does, especially because he's also affected by it but not nearly as bad. (I'm gonna explain this more in another ask i have).

Plus, even before the virus they were always glitch/bug-ridden because technicians fucked up their programming continuously after removing them from the theater to work in the daycare. So they had to kinda navigate through that together, glitches and errors on both ends (though not deadly). They hate P&S bc of this, obviously. Hardware fixes suck but they fucking HATE software examinations.

Later on though some issues come into play whenever Sun starts getting worse by being further exposed to the virus (it gets worse for him when they eclipse) because it presents itself in Sun differently than it does Moon. He gets snappier and angrier at times (that comic i made that's captioned "well someones snappy") and while they both understand he doesnt mean the shit he does it's still not great. And nobody's gonna just let themselves be talked to like a dog even if the reason it's happening is because of something the other person can't really help. They're still relatively fine at this point, though.

It's at the end when shit goes really bad, because this part of the story does end badly. I won't spoil specifics but after the fire Sun loses his shit. He starts trying to put the blame on Moon for everything (the virus enhancing his already bad habits/fucking with his line of thinking) out of grief and anger. That carries over into the apocalypse and he just gets worse in general. He gets irrational.

It's a long period of time though, so he eventually also manages it, in his own way. But! I did say before in an ask that in the sequel he's "not evil, persay, but he's a fucking nut". He damns Moon to an hourglass to just fucking get rid of him about 100~ years before they meet you again (he fully thinks he's in the right for this (and he also just hates him) and the only reason he really even stayed around after that was to make sure Moon didn't get out again). He's not a bad-intentioned individual, but he's off the fucking wall at many times bc of the virus having made him worse. He's stubborn as all hell to an infuriating degree, he's irrational, hard-headed, reckless, and while a good bit of his old, kinder self is still pretty prevalent he can be downright fucking mean if provoked. Again, worse than before, and it doesn't take much these days! I always imagined him to have more dramatic, snappy, diva aspects to his personality (even before Help Wanted 2 came out) bc hes so theatrical and intense, so basically take a Sun that's like that, crank it up to 100 and put him in a Bad Situation. That's what Round 2 Sun is like at his worst. He's not a complete lost cause though, and he's far from dumb when he does stuff, just clouded by his own judgement. He doesn't think anything's wrong with him (or does he?).

Moon doesn't really hate him like Sun hates Moon, because although he knows that what happened (the ending of the first story) is technically both of their faults he just feels guilt. They do fight a lot, though. Most of it is Moon trying his best to tell Sun that he's basically full of shit and not seeing things right after Sun starts something, but Sun's at the point where he's gotta learn by consequence. Part of the reason he's so bad is bc 1: hes been infected by the virus for so long now and 2: in his grief, anger, and resentment he's learned to live with it rather than fighting it.

But the sequel is gonna be a feel-good story! Falling in love w/ the reader all over again, i want things to get cleared up - or at least some kind of middle ground between Sun and Moon - the whole sha-bang.

[numberonemoefan]

I was talking to my dad yesterday about fallout new Vegas for around an hour straight, and mentioned I was planning on playing fallout four sometime, cause my copy of fallout sometimes gets a glitch for an hour that just resolves itself later, and he, while playing fallout four, basically BEGGED me not to play fallout four LMAO

it's so funny to me cause he bought me fo3, fnv, and fo4 and I started on nv and I'm apparently making him want to start nv again every time I ramble about it because he, quote, "would not be playing it [fo4] if there weren't mods"

probably still gonna try it eventually, but I doubt I'll love it as much as I love new Vegas (partly just cause I reallllyy love new vegas. also hi to my sister who followed me for some reason. why did you do that? now you just get sick of me talking about fnv in real life and online/lh)

but new vegas's level of detail is insane to me. all the little character interactions. like, a large majority of the groups/types of NPCs who aren't currently hostile have custom dialogue for when you aim your sights on them. I wouldve never thought that there'd be stuff for that. for scientific reasons, y'all should put a gun to y'all's companion's heads LMAOO. but there's seriously so much fucking detail. like, you can just absolutely fucking fail a stat check and still try to say it and you'll just say it like a fuckin loser. there's so much to explore, like the other day I found the mountainy area with the super mutants on accident. I saw there was an area on the map without any places id discovered, and I was like "y'know what? lemme go check that out." and when I saw TREES for the first time, I was absolutely thrilled. the storytelling in the locations is awesome (and occasionally very heartbreaking) too. gonna put this under a read more line cause it's spoilery for some lore, some of it is sad, and also this post is already long

for example, this is like a stupid one, but apparently the entire H & H tool company was FUCKING. if you read through the terminals, you not only get perhaps one of my favorite lines ever, which is

but you also see multiple people making emails that say something along the lines of "I told X I needed to do something. bring the moon rocks and dino head grabber ;)" (not an actual quote, but the objects are just as ridiculous)

AND THERES LIKE THREE OF EM AND THEY'RE ALL CHEATING ON THEIR WIVES/HUSBANDS WITH AN OFFICE AFFAIR PARTNER WHILE ALSO CHEATING ON THEIR OFFICE AFFAIR PARTNER.

this is probably the saddest/most disturbing one, but there's a vault that was overrun by spores that infected the residents, vault 22. I was finally getting somewhere, and I found a room with a key card in it. yay!

it was a bedroom. there was a baby carriage in the room. there were two spore carriers (essentially plant zombies) which I killed, then kept looking through the stuff in the room. there was a type of spore person I hadn't seen before that jumped out of me. it was called a runt. IT WAS THE FUCKING KID. after I killed it I just spent 7 minutes or so just staring at my screen cause. what the hell.

the empty houses are so haunting to me too. like all the different junk items strewn around tell a story if that makes sense. like, toy boxes, or houses with absolute loads of empty alcohol bottles in them. it's weirdly haunting.

nipton is also such a haunting location, obviously with the crucifixions and all. going into the houses and figuring out the legion bombed the fuckin bodies was so horrifying and interesting. according to my dad, they do stuff like that in real life in wars sometimes.

there's just SO MUCH STUFF idk how to put it all into words

play fallout new vegas guys

[remnantsofthepast-if]

What exactly you didn't like in new da, if you don't mind asking? <3

Oof, where to start? There're quite a lot of things, not gonna lie, but most of them are spoilers so I'm going to stick to the non spoilery ones.

Let me begin by saying that I do like the game despite its clear flaws, and I understand that it must have been a tricky development with covid happening in between and a lot of important people who worked on previous games leaving. As a (somewhat of a) developer myself, I sympathise with that, but as a consumer I have to judge the end result I bought, and after waiting for a decade I just expected something more than what we got.

Putting my opinion under the cut because I get passionate about it. Hope you have time to spare, lol!

For starters, this game gets rid of the Keep and only has three choices to import. While most of the things in the Keep are not really important (especially since the game takes place in the north), that's already a bad start and rises serious concerns, mainly with the returning characters.

It also butchers half of the already existing lore, and contradicts another bunch of events that happened in previous games, like the Well of Sorrows. Harding talks about how the Inquisitor went to the altar of Mythal (which only happens if the Inquisitor drank from the Well), but then, during a conversation between Taash and Emmrich, they talk about how Morrigan turned into a dragon during the events of DAI (which only happens of she drank from the Well)

The pacing of the first half of the game is excruciatingly slow. There are a lot of parts that are there only to lengthen the game unnecessarily, and it can get very boring very fast.

The dialogues are... okay-ish, I guess? It's very obvious that they wanted to be socially correct. Way too much, in fact. They seemed so focused on being inoffensive that there’s little real conflict between characters or in the plot. There's a part where two characters apparently argue? Except that there's no real argument. I only knew because the game told me, otherwise I wouldn't have noticed because again, nothing really happened. And they were completely fine with one another after one conversation two minutes later.

All the companions feel rather dull to me, and some are incredibly annoying. For example, there was a series of quests regarding Solas that I enjoyed at lot, and the companions would get together to comment on it. It was a serious and very interesting subject, but then one of the characters would jump out of the blue to (try to) make some witty remark that only managed to take me out of the story.

Plus, the childish dialogue most of them have (all of them, really) doesn't help at all. Another problem of being socially correct in a game that's supposed to be dark. Most of the time, conversations with them feel more like talking to teenagers than adults.

And don't even get me started on how awful Taash's character is... And no, the problem is not their gender identity, but how it was handled. This ask I got about Albert/Lavina describes perfectly my problem with Taash.

Also, and this only happens with the spanish translation, why the fuck did they translate Harding's name? Why is the text calling her Encaje instead of Lace!? God, that pissed me off so much I ended up changing the text to english, lmao!

Lastly, what they did to some of the returning characters... Poor Isabela, smh. Thank goodness Morrigan doesn't have that big of a role, and that there's zero mention of the Warden and Hawke.

---

It's not as bad as I read in early reviews (thankfully!), and I'm still having fun with it. But I expected to get so invested that I'd end up making several runs like in previous games. Now I'm only playing once and probably forget about it for a long while. Hopefully when (if) I replay it I won't ditch it like I ditched my second run of MEA.

Anyway, TLDR: Mediocre at best. Good individual game, but pretty bad sequel. The only good thing this game does as a sequel is give those Inquisitors who romanced Solas a happy ending. That's pretty much it.

The name "Dragon Age" weights heavily on it. Probably the reason why I'm judging it so harshly.

Thanks for the ask, btw! That was entertaining xD Shame on me for spending more time writing this than a chapter of my story, lol!

[moghedien]

I just started my first playground of baldur's gate 3, do you have any tips?

sorry for answering a bit late, I'm about to hit by a hurricane lol

anyway, I may not be the best to ask as a lot of people have been playing the game for much much longer than me, and I'm not always sure what people don't know/miss

overall, I'd say don't worry too much about picking a "wrong" option or messing up, especially not in the first playthrough. there are very few instances where you make a "bad" mistake and don't immediately know it. if you don't like how something turns out, just reload and try again. or just go with it and see what happens and do it differently next time. also remember to save and quicksave, and that you can quicksave in the middle of dialogue even.

also don't worry too much about your build. like yes, you can minmax everything to your hearts content to do maximum damage at all times, but you can also just not do that and do whatever you want and get through the game just as fine. from my experience, its very hard to break a character and make them useless, and even if you do that, you can just respec them later.

Also some quick tips that might be slightly spoilery. I'm not gonna get into details with it, but I'm putting them last in case you don't wanna read. It mostly pertains to stuff that you might actually miss/think you're gonna miss:

You can go into the Underdark or Mountain Pass (Gith Creche) whenever you want and still go back to the main act one area. Those aren't really points of no return, they just have harder enemies, but you can back track after going to those places and even go to both of them despite the game making it seem like you have to make a choice. You just don't want to proceed past those places until you're ready to leave act one for good. You'll know you're near the exit for Act One when you meet and a certain old wizard.

You can absolutely recruit Minthara in a good playthrough and while still recruiting Halsin. When Halsin asks you to kill the goblin leaders, you still need to fight Minthara, but toggle on "non-lethal" damage (google how to do it if you don't know, its a bit different based on PC vs console and its probably best to visually see what you have to do anyway). Fight her and knock her unconscious, and take out the rest of the goblins (lethally or not, your choice), just be careful of hitting her with area effects. Once the battle is done, hover over her body, and it should say she's unconscious instead of dead. She's still lootable, and just leave her sleeping there. Later in the game, she'll come back and you'll get a chance to recruit her (and it won't really be something you can miss, you'll know when you're at that spot).

In Act 2, when you're at a certain Inn, if you want the best case scenario for certain NPCs and also probably one of your companions, DO NOT let the cleric get kidnapped. If she gets taken in the fight, reload and try again until she isn't.

Long Rest in camp (especially in act 1) with different companions active in your party. Some cutscenes won't trigger unless they're in your party so you can miss out on some scenes if you don't swap people out occasionally. The main ones for this that I remember are Astarion, Shadowheart, and Lae'zel.

If you aren't playing a durge character, maybe do that afterward. I think I'm glad I did durge after I beat the game with a non-origin character first, but playing durge is an entirely different experience for the game. I imagine playing as the other origins too, but I haven't done any of them yet.

ummm, that's all I can really think of at the moment, so if anyone else wants to chime in with stuff, feel free

[holmsister]

I've done a 180° on toshiro/shuro he is my baby child whomst i love now. But I will freely admit its because I'm fully spoiled and can read all the extra material with impunity so I'm not gonna judge others too harshly. I was once one of you... spoilery meta under the cut

I always thought that his problems with laios were very much a low context/high context culture situation + different brands of ND clashing. Like that shit happens its unavoidable. They punch each other about it and then they're better. Laios doesn't have a mean bone in his body and Toshiro is in dire need of friends, they'll be fine. (I like how often Kui draws the two of them hanging out with Kabru its cute. Boy's night in which they talk about their feelings and how their parents failed them while marcella and falin are out on a girls night (lesbianism + experimental dark blood magic))

My main criticism towards him was how he choose to "call up" his own party instead of going with Laios back into the dungeon at the start but now the vibe I get with the extra material is that the girls were following him around anyway so he was like "fuck it let's go back in". He wasn't trying to beat laios to falin as much as making sure she would survive no matter what. Him leaving Laios and Marcille and Chilchuck alone is Still not great but like. Namari did it too. It seems to be more of a recognition of the fact that Laios party was actually so skilled that it could make it with only half its members than a "leaving them to die". Probably Namari and Toshiro both thought "they're gonna give up and come back soon" rather than "they're gonna die and disappear FOREVER".

And like. His personal story is so UNCOMFORTABLE. I can understand why he didn't want his friends to meet the other members of his party if he could avoid it.

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

I love seeing people ramble about their stories so, can you ramble about Biting the Bullet?

Totally! I recently decided to pause my first draft because I got stuck and do a dummy draft instead so it'll be nice to just talk about it a little. <3

Originally it was going to be a silly story about a military fireteam during a war in a fantasy universe. It. It was going to be silly. It was going to be an action-comedy. It is.... not that anymore. All the world conflicts started getting into the mainstream media and I began seeing more military recruiters in my school and I kind of began projecting my anxieties and frustrations and stuff onto the story and honestly I think that made it a lot stronger.

I have three options I'm still not sure which to pick for the POV. I'm doing it in 3rd person past tense for sure, but I'm still not sure if I'm going to switch between all four of the main characters' perspectives, just Sibatol and Arsioly, or just Arsioly. For the first draft I'm rotating between all of them and we'll see how I feel after that.

I think my favorite thing about this story is the decisive character moments I have planned. My characters will develop gradually, but their biggest developments come from moments where they have to make big choices, whether to stay in their old ways or grow as people. Visralion, the team's medic who usually puts others before himself, says no when Arsioly first asks to be his boyfriend. Because even though they both like each other, Arsioly is a pretty shitty person to everyone but Visralion at that point, and Visralion recognizes that if they got in a relationship it'd just end up with him trying to fix Ari and that's not his job. This is also a big moment for Arsioly- he can choose to be awful about the rejection or he can choose to look at his own behavior and improve as a person. He chooses to improve himself.

Ari probably had the most of these and I can't say one of them bc spoilers but another one he has which is more subtle but still important is when Estera, the girl his fireteam finds on a mission and basically adopts bc she has nowhere else to go, wakes him up in the middle of the night to cuddle because she had a nightmare. His immediate reaction is to tell her to suck it up and leave him alone so he can sleep. But he chooses to be compassionate to her and it really makes him realize how much better it feels to be nice to people (and helps teach him the value of a life bc he almost shot her and is now seeing that all the people he's carelessly killed could have gone on and had moments like these but shh...).

Most of Virava's are more spoilery but they revolve mostly around her being terrified about her past repeating itself, and she ends up overcorrecting and taking several steps backwards before she finally stops bearing all her feelings by herself and actually talks to people about her fear.

Talking about Sibatol under the cut because his portion of this revolves around be talking about him being promiscuous, if hearing abt that will make you uncomfy don't read further :3

The one I can think of for Sibatol is a bit less straightforward than the previous ones but bear with me. He struggles with hypersexuality for most of the story due to trauma from when he was young. Sleeping around causes a lot of problems for him but he just can't stop and he really struggles in situations where he can't just fuck his way out of it. Most of the moves he makes hurt him or make situations worse or just generally dig him deeper into this hole he's dug for himself. But I'm not the person that's gonna give you a character like this and then tell you that the way they become a better person is by being less of a slut. His turning point (I won't be too specific bc spoilers) is when he learns how to use his sexuality in a more strategic way, a helpful way that makes things easier for people for once, which is a gateway into him changing his mindset abt his sexuality and he's still as promiscuous by the end of the story but he doesn't just use it as a distraction from bad feelings anymore, he approaches it in a healthier way.

[los-ninos-tortugas]

Let's talk about the Familial Bonds AU

So I'm currently at home and looking over all the pages of writing and AU's I've made so far, literally don't know how not to be nervous posting about my own AU's but I think part of it was that I wrote this down a while ago. But! Let's do this anyway.

I started writing this post a full year ago. My grasp on long stretches of time is... slippery at best but goddamn. Evidently I wasn't as close to shaking off my anxiety back then as I thought. Which to be fair is still true now. But I've been sick and miserable this past week as well as incredibly bored and I've been thinking about this AU a lot again lately and I've been trying to find a way to ease myself out of my post college graduation burnout and finally posting this seems like a good way to get the ball rolling. So enough about me, let's finally talk about this AU.

So, going from my notes that I wrote a while ago; You're Family Because I Found You, I Found You Because You're Family (I really had a penchant for long and dramatic titles when I first started writing for Rise). Short name: Familial Bonds AU

AU Summary: Stories in this series fall under the head canon that Casey Jones is Cassandra and Leonardo's biological son. So far there are two(?) stories planned for this series.

Something Unspoken: Despite their close relationship and some obvious signs that Casey was in fact Master Leonardo's son, it was never something they acknowledged. Casey spent his first seven years with his mom, moving around constantly to various resistance bases. In those years Casey only ever saw Leo in passing and hadn't yet made the connection himself-- in spite of having some turtle-y features of his own. Casey came under Leonardo's wing at eight years old after his mom died fighting the krang. Living and learning from Leo allows Casey to figure out their connection pretty quickly, but the fact that Leo himself never seems to bring it up* stops Casey from wanting to bring it up himself. Casey is a bit too young to understand or figure out why Leo never seems to want to talk about it so as the years go on they seem to develop this unspoken understanding that it's just something they don't talk about (even though Leo acts as Casey's father in all but name).

Now that Casey is living in the past with a sixteen-year-old version of his dad he has some very complicated feelings about this whole mess and decides he's just gonna ignore the problem and hope it goes away. (Hint hint, it does not.) But of course, it's not exactly super easy to hide all of his more mutant turtle features so he treads very very carefully to make sure none of them realize he's more closely related to the Hamato's than they initially thought. However this becomes harder and harder as a new branch of the Foot clan** starts creeping into New York's criminal underground, and it becomes clear that they also have a vested interest in the key, which the Hamato's are still struggling to figure out a way to destroy.

From here on my notes actually get pretty spoilery so I'll just keep all that to myself for now and go over some other little details.

*A big thing that I actually ended up getting stuck on (and probably one of the reasons I delayed this for so long) was Leonardo's motivation for not talking to Casey about how they're related. For a while I wondered if it was out of character or unnecessarily cruel for Leo to treat him only as a student and eventually I came upon the conclusion that if nothing else, Leo is his father's son and being emotionally stunted is practically genetic in this family. So his reasons I think are more misguided than anything and still come from a place of caring, if still ultimately rooted in fear. I think being in that place of war and loss and seeing the pain that Casey went through at losing his mother I think Leo might have thought to himself "I can't put this kid through that again." In the bad timeline who lived and who died was never guaranteed, and Leo knew he wasn't excluded from that, so I can see his logic as something along the lines of not wanting to give Casey false hope only to then break his heart again. I don't think he necessarily anticipated living to see the end of the war, or that he and Casey would grow closer anyway. And ultimately Leo is wrong anyway, and he can't spare Casey from the pain, and losing Master Leonardo hurts just as much.

**I like to imagine that the Foot Clan has had a few splinter groups form over the years. I mean, they're a few centuries old it's hard to imagine that some people didn't split off. I like to imagine that the group that eventually made it's way to New York that we see in the show is probably the oldest existing sect, hence why they're still deeply into the world of the mystic as well as savvy enough to build a shell company to finance their endeavors. This new group that's coming in is one that I think dropped out of the mystic world a while ago, and didn't really believe in it. They're more strictly focused on just committing actual crime. But with the New York Foot Clan basically wiped out, and with the invasion changing people's worldview a bit, they seize upon the opportunity they see presented to them. Their interest in the key and in post-invasion New York comes from an interest in the krang technology and weaponry. They're not particularly interested in the krang themselves and they're honestly a little smarter than their predecessors so they don't exactly want to open the floodgates again, but they do still want to study the properties of the key and krang tech for nefarious purposes so it unfortunately falls on the weary Hamato's to stop them (poor kids can't catch a break).

There are a couple of other subplots that unfold in this fic (I've thought about this a lot) but again, in the interest of not getting too too spoilery for now, I think I'll hold those details back for a bit. Let's get into the second story I have planned for this.

The More Things Change: Buckle up gang this is the "Leo loses his arm" fic. After getting ambushed by the new Foot Clan Leo is critically injured and the gang has no choice but to bundle him off to an actual hospital in the Hidden City. As they're all sat in the waiting room Casey starts to wonder if certain things are just inevitable as he thinks back to when Master Leonardo lost his arm. Present Leo is understandably pretty distressed about this new development considering he just got out of recovery for his injuries from the invasion and is of course now wondering how he'll move forward from this and if they'll still be able to execute their plan for getting rid of the Key. Perhaps a little unsurprisingly I don't have a lot of notes for this fic yet because it is a sequel to a fic that hasn't been written yet, but the details will get fleshed out as time goes on and I do have a lot of thoughts about it.

My notes for this AU overall are a bit incomplete, which I'm kinda fine with since I wrote them a long long time ago now and revisiting them now actually gives me a chance to really think about filling in a lot of blanks that didn't come up in my initial ideation process. Like you might notice that for an AU about Casey Jones being both Leo and Cassandra's son that for some reason Cassandra seems to be oddly missing from a lot of the plot?? I'm not sure why I initially forgot to include her for about 90% of this but now I can think of a way to actually put her in and do justice to her character rather than just being Dead Mom(tm) because she's so much cooler than that. And I've also been working on fleshing out everyone else's roles in this story because since I've initially thought of it I've come up with a lot more layers and subplots that fit into this universe that I really want to explore.

That's it for now, thanks for reading <3

[kithtaehyung]

ummm… hi 🥹 i didnt realize people on here thought of us still. i mainly lurk nowadays because life has been insane (good) but i still have you on notifs because i love you dearly. i actually only use social now to keep up with the news for the few fandoms im in. that anon is absolutely not weird, your blog is a place we will always remember for life for obvious reasons, people wanting an update is actually really cute. jake (sax) and i hit our year in june and just put a down payment on a house just outside the city - the commute is worth it 😍 i think that’s the big update everything else is the same 😂

okay ill share something cute, when we visit upstate to see family his mom (love her) sometimes makes little comments when he’s being extra sweet on me. things like, “don’t know what you did but it’s so nice to see him like that” and we always look at each other like it’s an unspoken inside joke that it was really a deliciously, disgustingly beautiful story and community of people who worship a fictional version of a hot k-pop man that got him to open up, at first.

we also just read lollipop last night, together 👀, and it was unhealthy for us in the best ways. you are magnificent as always. i have more spoilery thoughts so im gonna submit them for your eyes only when i have more time to really focus.

anyway, i love you and the 3tan fam (the fl3 fam too 👀) and i will be here for everything you do always 💚

-🎻

OH. MY GOD. YALLL WE GOT A RILEY AND JAKE UPDATE I WANNA CRYYY ok i actually did when i read this message the first time but yes i will tear up again while writing this.

of course we're gonna think about y'all🥹 i think about you guys and wonder how you're doing, same with a lot of you that let us know your individual stories. it's touching to know that things are moving in a wonderful direction. a HOUSE! BIG🗯️

your little inside joke just makes me smile so wide omfg. y'all are so.. ugh i wanna hug you both and just shower you in the prettiest flowers and tangerines while trying to keep it together!! if there is ever a wedding.. i would 1000% go if invited🥺

so.. you read lollipop, huh🧍‍♀️together, huh🧍‍♀️i can only imagine the reactions lmfao that must be the fucking best to read silly dirty fanfics together arghhhhh can you tell i'm so sappy rn LOL submit the spoilery parts whenever! i don't have to post right away.

WE LOVE YOU😭😭😭 thank you so much for giving us an update! honestly my whole week is made🫂

[girlfromthecrypt]

I also agree you should go for the branch you are thinking of including. Personally, I doubt I'll ever see it in game, since my MC (his name is Trent) is way too nice and way too in love with Flo to even get to the situation. That said, I'm all for it.

The warning proposed by the other anon also makes a lot of sense. I'm not someone who read trigger warnings often, but I know it would be useful for the people who do.

If anything, more than being worried about the warnings, I'm curious how you'll get to a point where MC could do such a thing. Now, I've seen some mean and not so good natured choices in game. And maybe it's just me being too nice while playing. But I don't really see how MC could get to the point of doing what you want to include in game. Maybe it's because we're more or less still in the earliest parts of the story (I imagine, I'm not sure how many chapters you are planning to write), but we've not be able to do anything as dark as what you are planning. So, for me at least, I see the biggest challenge is to get to that point. A part of me would like to propose the idea of MC getting to do such a thing because the supernatural corrupts the minds of the people at the camp, so their moral decision making begins to fail. But that's actually a way of coddling the player if anything. It makes them less responsible for deciding to commit such an act, as well as taking some of their agency, and that to me means the story is weaker. And it would be antithetical to the spirit of IFs as a whole (where our choices are meant to truly change the story and the characters we interact with). Also, horror is way more interesting when it comes not only from the supernatural, but from within. Since the latter is the one kind of horrying truth you'll one day may able to find in your life...

Returning to the topic topic; the only caveat I'm able to see, if looking hard for one, when it comes to include the path you're planning, is that while the game is horror... Well, children are still very present in the story. So maybe some people may feel it doesn't fit to include such a path as the one we're discussing. On the other hand, I very much doubt you'll make the children be involved with it. So far they don't even help romancing any of the RO's, so the whole path you are planning seems so removed from them no one would ever connect them unless they are reading the IF in bad faith.

Overall, I think you should include it. As long as you think it fits with the story.

Also, it makes me wonder if something of that sort has occurred to you for the other ROs? Maybe not as cruel. But something with major consequences, either for the RO (as a victim of MC), MC (as the responsible for the bad thing, getting their comeuppance), or both the RO and MC at the same time.

Woah there's a long ask! Thanks so much for your input; I'll try to pick up on everything.

Firstly, I wish Trent and Flo all the best, and yes, MCs who aren't romancing Sawyer won't be presented with this option. And nice MCs are ofc simply not gonna choose it so you hit the nail on the head there. There's definitely gonna be a warning for it (there will be for many things as the story goes on).

As for how MC would get there; never you worry about that. I already have that section well planned out, and it's going to come up kind of soon in the story, too. Not in Chapter 6 but from what it looks like, probably around Chapter 7 already. I won't go into too much detail since that'd be very spoilery, but I've already outlined how exactly it's gonna happen, and don't worry, it'll be the MC's very own authentic decision. Uninfluenced by any camp horrors whatsoever. I totally agree with what you wrote when it comes to MC having their mind corrupted. Also, outside influence isn't really necessary when it comes to stuff like this, after all, people take advantage of one another irl and while they're sane of mind often enough. Sad as it is.

And NO the children are not involved with ANY of that. There will be absolutely no kids around when this path happens, none of them will witness the conversation with Sawyer where MC can make this choice, nope nope nope. Don't worry, the little ones are gonna remain far removed from this.

Yes, I think I will end up including this--- Everyone so far has advised me to do it and I must say, I agree. I had my doubts bc I'm not used to writing such a blatantly self-serving MC. But I wanna make this IF have choices that count, and I want that to include choices that I myself wouldn't pick.

That's a good question at the end there. I certainly have some... vague... ideas for the other paths such as this one. But they would all happen later on in the game bc the other ROs aren't in the position Sawyer is in. They're "special" as an RO for reasons that'll become obvious. Also, the other ROs simply aren't as vulnerable as Sawyer, and not in the same ways, so it's difficult. But yes, I do plan to give MC the option to turn their back on all of them in one way or another. It's just further away than with Sawyer so I don't know how yet, exactly.

[danaris112]

Alright here we go. You asked for the infodump and no here we are XD

SO I had a few thoughts and I sent them to @yesiamprocrastinating (and honestly might want to read those before this one cos it kinda give basis for the world a bit?) BUT I have had more so here we go :D

So if you didn't read the other post, the idea is that the apocalypse is actually a simulation created by Tom Riddle for evil purposes and some characters were going to be part of the apocalypse some weren't. I was gonna have remus be one of them and have James, Regulus, and Sirius be in the sim already.

HOWEVER!

Now I'm leaning more toward James being outside the simulation and Remus being in. I'm gonna be nice and do pre-established wolfstar in this I think (but they're gonna have angst too dw).

And basically what the deal is, is that Dumbledore sent James and the rest of his group into the apocalypse sim to stop it from the inside and also apprehend Regulus cos apparently he's the one who created it??? (he did but it's more complicated than that and that lore isn't fleshed out yet)

And that's where the Jegulus angst comes in and i WISH I could explain exactly why, but that's BIG spoilers and as of right now I reeeeeally really plan on writing it so I don't want to reveal that yet :3

I'm sorry this is a lot less than I had originally planned on sharing but I just realised how spoilery all my other ideas would be DX But they're there and they're SO good DX

I will say, I had the idea to do the 'Turning Into A Zombie' thing in this universe be more of a slow infection process that takes a few weeks, rather than all at once. And THAT is going to be plot relevant when certain parts come out in the story >:D

Also Barty will definitely get to hotwire a car and bowl over a bunch zombies at some point because he deserves it :)

Okay this is so interesting so thanks for sharing it with me :)

This honestly kind of reminds me of a video game I played. In it there were people sent into a simulation as a form of rehab, but the sim was taken over. There were certain people in the sim that had the task to save the others, but they also couldn't reveal themselves or they'd be considered traitors and ostracized from the group

So that's what it makes me think of, because we have Remus, Regulus, Sirius and some other people being stuck in the sim, while James and co are trying to stop it from the inside. I guess that makes me ask, does James reveal that it's a sim, or does he hide it so Riddle doesn't target him or something? Because if he does, that could factor into the Jegulus angst lol (James technically lying to Regulus and all that)

Regulus being the creator of the sim makes me really intrigued though. Did Riddle take it over and twist it to his liking? That's what it makes me think of but idk if that's what you planned lol

Also turning the zombie apocalypse into a slow infection is a good idea. Even if it's a sim, it could still kind of show the collapse of society bit by bit, and I'm a sucker for things like that

Of course, it's definitely a necessity for Barty to run over a bunch of zombies LMAO

And I totally understand you not spoiling a bunch of it but it's also like.... I NEED TO KNOW. I just have so many questions

Also sorry if this is messy I kind of got carried away 😭

[genderfluiddoppio]

Hiiii you should talk about why you love pakunoda a lot, I absolutely did not glom onto her when I was watching through hxh 2011, but I am so excited to be sold on her. Sorry if this is the wrong blog to ask on!

I'm so glad you asked :) I also didn't really click with Pakunoda after watching the 2011 anime. I thought she was neat but that was it. But the 1999 anime (and ova) gave her a bit more time in the spotlight and developed her character A LOT more and once I watched that I was obsessed.

(Honestly I think the 1999 anime is better than the 2011 anime in general but that's a topic for another time)

Any time I go into the Pakunoda tag I get so mad because a lot of people tend to make her one personality trait Being A Woman. And I suppose it's my own damn fault for becoming obsessed w a female character in a shonen anime, especially one that only shows up for one arc (and a flashback in the manga).

Okay I'm gonna start with actual canon evidence (meaning like. literally any scene that has her in the 1999 and 2011 animes and the manga) of her personality/character before I delve into my insane theories/headcanons. Also spoilers for the manga obviously I'll try to keep the most spoilery bits to their own section

So Pakunoda doesn't get a lot of screen time and before the hostage exchange situation, she's pretty passive. She doesn't speak much and in the beginning of the York new arc, she's chilling with chrollo at the hideout. She doesn't get an active part in the story until the blackout happens and she decides to ignore chrollos orders to save him. Before this, the phantom troupe were like. Not generic villains, but they haven't had a chance to truly show their motivations. As far as the audience could tell, they were villains through and through and didn't have any sympathetic qualities. During the hostage exchange plot, we see a sympathetic side to Pakunoda and the rest of the phantom troupe and the troupe becomes more nuanced as characters. Not only do we see the spiders loyalty to chrollo, we see it's not as simple as "aw the villains wanna save their friends too just like the heroes" though that is part of it. It's made clear that some of the troupe considers following chrollos orders true loyalty, while Paku, shizuku, machi, nobunaga, and kortopi think saving chrollo is more important. Pakunoda even admits this would be seen as a "betrayal" because she's ignoring chrollos orders and compromising the safety/integrity of the troupe by valuing his life above all else. She says "consider me betraying the spider for your sake" when she decides to follow Kurapika's demands and go through with the hostage exchange. her loyalty differs from most of the other spiders because she's loyal to chrollo ABOVE her loyalty to the spiders. While I'm sure most of not all the spiders consider him a friend, they value his leadership and his orders above that. 

Also everyone talks about how chrollo and kurapika are parallels and like they're not wrong but kurapika and Pakunoda are just as similar if not more so and melody even points it out (internally) during the negotiation!

Melody says "[Pakunoda] who you despise with everything you have is driven by the same motive as you. She wishes to save her friend, her boss." 

Kurapika doesn't realize this because he's still clinging to the mindset that the troupe is a group of bloodthirsty heartless monsters, when in reality they are complex people with the same motivation as him, especially Pakunoda. The only reason kurapika is able to get Gon and killua back safely is because Pakunoda is just as desperate to get chrollo back safely. 

(Manga spoilers here kinda)

In the phantom troupe backstory, we see that Pakunoda was closer to chrollo than any other member of the phantom troupe. she refers to him as her "little squire/little brother" (depending on which translation you read) and says she likes how kind he is

gonna throw one of my headcanon/theories in here but like. i feel like pakunoda still thinks of chrollo as that sweet kid who everyone had to look out for. i think part of her yearns to just be happy and carefree with her friends again. I didnt mention the ova's extended scene with the cat before now because i feel like thats the scene everyone points to when they say they like pakunoda. but i think it's even deeper than "pakunoda is nice to cats" because in the ova, the cat represents her and the troupe. while she takes the cat back to its colony, she flashes back to her time in meteor city when the troupe was first formed. not only that, but the cat has purple eyes like paku does (in the 1999 anime) and the black cat is positioned on top of the slide like how chrollo is positioned on top of the junk pile. i think thats when pakunoda made her decision to go back to the troupe and share what happened during the exchange, though she knew it would cost her her life.

Tldr; Pakunoda is (almost) singlehandedly carrying the phantom troupe's reputation as well written and nuanced characters and people tend to forget that

ALSO. Very important information.

she has dimples

[bluepeachstudios]

GitS Asks!

Considering in 2003, Donatello was stung because he was protecting Raphael? Yes, Ghost would still be mutated even with Phantom there. I feel like with both Phantom and Ghost around, the kids probably figured it out a lot quicker. They still call each other "Raph/Raphie" and "Don/Donny" without thinking about it, and that's just too many coincidences.

Spirit doesn't hover over them like Ghost does. I mean, he does, but he stays secret for much longer than Ghost does. He's more of the turtles' secret sensei.

Spoilers! From now on I'm not gonna be answering asks that ask for direct spoilers. If you're not sure, go ahead and ask anyway, but if you don't see it, that means it was too spoilery!

Spoilers! But this story arc will be wrapped up before the hiatus. Or at least part of it will be.

s-spoilers--

Normally he's 5'8". He is now 10'9".

Ouuuhhh I've thought about this before. He'd only be 16. He'd be the same age as the other turtles. Ough. Send him back in time to save the Rise kids with Casey. Nah but forreal, he'd probably die before that final battle. He's too stubborn.

Mmmm SAINW in the context of GitS.

This made me laugh hgkdjfh thank you so much

It is indeed enough to cover your next fix. Delivery is on friday. <3

(puts this in the GitS asks anyway) IDK RISE SPLINTER ALSO SEEMS FINE GALAVANTING AROUND MOSTLY NAKED??? At least he wears underpants.

Personally I have the headcanon (and thus in GitS) Splinter tried to get them to wear clothes but they kept pulling them off, so Splinter gave up. It's like trying to keep four cats in a basket.

Yup! :)

SAINW would happen differently, I think, but I truly believe that SAINW happened because they were too busy looking for their brother when Shredder took off using the rocket. I believe that 03 Don seeing SAINW warned him to look deeper into what Shredder was doing, and therefore he found the rocket that they boarded during Exodus. It was the only way he would be convinced to kill his own family in order to stop that apocalypse world from happening.

So basically, yes, the apocalypse world still happens, just in different ways.

Losing Donny means they have no access to technology as good as they used to. Remember, at 15 Donatello could hold his own against Baxter Stockman, a genius adult man. The turtles have April, and she's very good, but she's also an adult woman and Donatello WAS 15. Don's mediator personality also helps. Mikey couldn't keep that up.

Losing Leo means they have no leader. Raph probably steps up, but he's reckless, he doesn't know how to think right, he doesn't trust himself to be leader. He makes mistakes. He has to learn from them. They all miss Leo.

Mikey going missing I think has the biggest impact on them. He makes jokes during dark times, keeps their spirit up, cheers them up all the time, always looking to make them laugh. They lost their sunshine and they're plunged into darkness. They don't hold back as much. Donnie's mellowness doesn't balance out Raph's rage or Leo's depression.

Losing Raph hits them all very hard. He's their protector. He takes the heavy hits. Leo trusts Raph to have his back more than anyone else. Raph second-guesses him when he believes he's wrong, makes Leo think more critically. I think Leo starts getting too caught up in his own head. He starts taking on some of Raph's traits. He gets overprotect of his family, he gets angry easier. He's so tired.

Some things are ingrained.

Splinter dismisses his own emotions and tries to bury them deep and never take them seriously, so he does the same with his own boys. It helped him, right? So they would okay, right??? Ghost is the opposite. He's the one that bottles up his emotions and hates himself for it, so he tried to teach his kids how not to be like that.

the rest are spoilers <3

Dang if that ain't the mood idk what is. Part One will be over soon! Unlike Twilight the parts are probably just going to get shorter instead of longer. fhgkdgf

GitS Hiatus will be starting after chapter 31 is posted on July 14th! I have no idea how long it'll be. I'm gonna try and build up a backlock so I can post regularly like I did with Part 1.

Spoilers!

My thoughts about the movie are deep and endless and I'm... so excited to get to it...