#if generations was a super iconic game with a well loved story i would get it i guess but sonic generations is literally nothing story wise

[sonknuxadow]

i swear to god sega must be choosing which 3d sonic games they wanna rerelease at random because none of their choices here make any sense when i said they should focus more on making the 3d games more accessible instead of re releasing the classic games a million times this isnt what i meant

[yumenotambourin]

do all 3 mouses for the character ask or im shaving elfilis 🪒🪒🪒

I'M SORRY I WAS TRAVELING YESTERDAY AM I STILL IN TIME TO SAVE THEM???

🩷First impression🩵

Elfilin

Very cute! I thought he was quite bland before release already, but I was like 100% sure that it was because the twist was gonna be that he was mass produced.

And then after finishing the game I had a little phase in which I hated him because he was super fucking plot important, yet he didn't do anything and this made me angry, lol

Forgo

As soon as my eyes landed on it, I thought it was Elfilin after some horrific experimentations. But then they showed the actual Elfilin lmao. I thought it was really cute and I didn't want to fight it, thank god it transformed before we fought it. Then I was just awestruck.

Also my mom randomly asked me what it was and I didn't know what to say so I just said something like "a mental parasite species"

Elfilis

The first thought that crossed my mind after seeing them was "oh god they have my exact favorite color scheme I'm gonna be obsessed with them, aren't I?". Breathtakingly beautiful, of an angelicity(?) never seen before from Kirby. Throughout April 2022, I occasionally woke up in the morning wondering wether they were just a dream. The fact that something like them existed in the Kirby universe was astonishing to me.

🩷Impression now🩵

Elfilin

I still think he's severely underdeveloped, but I'm more cool with that now. He's cute and silly and fun, he's a nice contrast to Forgo, and generally an adorable sidekick. Tho I wish there was more of him.

Forgo

Baby. It's very cute, strikes pretty well the balance between creepy and goober, and the superior gemini in my opinion. I like putting it in situations :3

Elfilis

A MOUS!!! As magnificent as the first time I saw them. Except they're now my muse, my guardian angel. My view of them has kinda shifted from "stereotypical perfect lifeform" to "the embodiment of life itself", which kinda recontextualizes them, especially given how hard each mous fought to stay alive, and I find that very inspirational.

I love Elfilis.

🩷Favorite moment🩵

They don't have that many moments so uuuuh

Elfilin

Finding the Light! Perfect way to end the mouces' arc, and goes to show how much of a sweetheart he is.

Forgo

The iconic "everything shall be consumed" is iconic

Elfilis

The only thing that they do, their boss fight 😭 it's stunning and I find myself replaying it more often than normal

🩷Idea for a story🩵

Elfilin

Definitely a plotline where they tackle that he can learn something from Elfilis and/or Forgo as well. I don't like how y'all treat him like he's perfect.

Forgo

I'd like to see it getting used to living a normal happy life :3 the baby has suffered enough

Elfilis

ELFILIS PROLOGUE PLEASE!!! About how they attacked earth and stuff and their capture and maybe even Neichel cameo!!!

(I will not let you forget about Neichel)

🩷Unpopular opinion🩵

Elfilin

As I said before, I hate when people make him out to be this little goody-two-shoes without a single flaw who's juts the embodiment of niceness and kindness and will always do the right thing. Like no??? It's not all black and white! Let him be a proper multilayered character! Let him make mistakes and learn from others! Let him learn from his literal other half!!!

Forgo

Whenever someone says that Forgo is Elfilis an angel loses their wings. Starting from the fact that the game heavily implies if not downright states (I'm on plane I can't check I forgor) that Elfilis = Forgo + Elfilin, why would anyone choose to take two different characters in different situations with likely two different outlooks (ELFILIS WAS SPLIT INTO TWO FOR THE ENTIRE FUCKING PLOT!!! ELFILIS HAS THE HERO OF THE STORY INSIDE THEM!!!) and reduce them to a single, more limited being? Plus, most people with this headcanon are also the "Elfilis/Forgo is pure evil and an irredeemable monster!!!!" people who also really piss me off. Like yeah okay YOU chose to headcanon the traumatized baby and the insane mous as the same character. YOU are the one taking away all the nuance they could possibly have. Also as I said before THATS A TRAUMATIZED BABY!!!

Elfilis

I strongly dislike the headcanon that Elfilis absorbs other creatures into their dna. I feel like it ruins a lot of the charm they have, at least for me, by making their ethereal presentation be stolen from other creatures rather than it just being who they are. Also, while I am a Good Elfilis defender, I love the idea of them destroying planets for fun. It just goes to cement how otherworldy and above it all this creature is. So yeah, I feel like this headcanon takes away a lot of their appeal for me personally.

I also don't like when people make them always angry and grumpy, like do you realize half of them is Elfilin?

🩷Favorite relationship🩵

This is entirely headcanon-based as the mouces don't really interact with anyone besides Elfilin with Kirby

Elfilis and Elfilin and Elfilis and Forgo. More than the three of them together, I prefer each baby mous with Elfilis on their own.

I'm gonna briefly summarize my hc dynamics for them cause I love mice.

Elfilis and Elfilin - Elfilin

As I said before, Elfilin's feelings on his big sibling are very conflicted. On one hand, he feels safe with them, and looks up to them. On the other hand, he fears them. The fact that they just wipe out planets without second thought disturbs him. Although he'd never admit it to himself because he loves them so much. Elfilis, however, is very much aware of Elfilin's feelings. And as much as they're devastated by the guilt of having hurt their little ones so much, they dismss Elfilin's compassion as naivete due to his young age and time spent with the beasts. They're sure he will outgrow it one day and see his superiority, ans in the meantime they remind him that he's their little one and that they'll always love him.

Elfilis and Forgo - Forgo

Forgo sees itself as nothing but a temporary form of Elfilis, unworthy of being seen as anything but. And it's not taking this whole "coexisting with the actual Elfilis" all that well. If the actual Elfilis exists, what purpose does Forgo have? This sends them down an existential crisis. Elfilis doesn't like that. And they're desperate to help it break free from these beliefs. Also, Forgo always saw Elfilis in a very idolized way, as a ruthless monstrous destroyer. But that's not all there is to Elfilis, they can be a little silly sometimes. And Forgo is SEVERELY disappointed. It often calls them an idiot and then feels bad about it because nobody should be reproaching the almighty Fecto Elfilis. Also it exclusively refers to them as "Great One".

🩷Favorite headcanon🩵

Elfilin

Can I be honest? No fucking clue. Maybe that Elfilis teaches him how to fight?

Forgo

I'll make it quick so as not to repeat myself, that it sees itself as nothing more than a temporary form of Elfilis.

Elfilis

The idea that they have no motivation is very important to me. Specifically that they do things purely out of enjoyment. That they're just a force beyond our comprehension who sees everything as insignificant and is just trying to have fun.

ALSO THAT THEY LOVE EACHOTHER VERY MUCH!!!

[mllemaenad]

Is there a reason FEV keeps turning up all over the place? Or for the differences in Super Mutants between regions? I've been assuming different strains, since the virus was experimental, but there might be another explanation.

The Doylist answer to this one is "because super mutants are iconic". They're the threat the Wasteland is facing in the original Fallout, and "where the hell are the big green guys coming from?" is that game's biggest mystery.

When you think of the aesthetic of Fallout, you get: vaults and vault suits, ghouls, super mutants and power armour. So you tend to get those things in all the games. There are Fallout stories without super mutants, but they're mostly DLC. While certainly not impossible, it seems highly unlikely that you're going to go a whole game without ever seeing a super mutant.

I say this because it helps to understand the starting point when the writers are putting together the story: we're having super mutants. That's not in question. We're just inventing the horribly unethical experiment that justifies their presence in this instance.

Okay. With that out of the way ... to go more Watsonian: why is FEV everywhere? Well, because it was a big pre-war project. Arguably, it was the big pre-war project.

It starts with the "New Plague", sometimes also known as the "Blue Flu". This was ... well, I guess imagine the horrible child of COVID and bubonic plague. Big pandemic that killed a whole lot of people in the 2050s. New Plague was also rumoured to be a Chinese bio-weapon. Now, I will note that there is not a lot of strong evidence in the games that this is true. "It was a naturally occurring virus that the US government fear-mongered about for the purposes of propaganda" and "it was some other horrible US research project gone wrong and released into the general populace" might also be reasonable explanations. But the New Plague existed, and it was at least believed to be engineered as a weapon by humans.

So the plan to solve that was the Pan-Immunity Virion, which was intended to be a one-and-done vaccine for any and all viruses. Which, in fairness, does sound pretty cool. Most pre-war projects just leave you wondering who the hell could have thought this was a good idea – but I'll give them that one. That would have been an excellent use of science. But while they were tinkering with that, they found that their test subjects got bigger, stronger and (sometimes) smarter.

Unforeseen side effects began surfacing in early 2076 with the PVP. Animal test subjects began showing an abnormal growth rate accompanied by increased brain activity. The U.S. government took notice of these discoveries, and in the interests of national security, moved a team on-site to secure and oversee the project, which was now dubbed the FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus) project. – FEV Research, Fallout

This leads me to the another big pre-war problem: resource scarcity. See, the big military advancement that was allowing the US to hold its own in places like Alaska was power armour. Now, anybody who's played either Fallout 4 or Fallout 76 knows that power armour is a pain in the arse to maintain. It has to be built; it has to be repaired; it eats through fusion cores at an alarming rate. One of the jokes in the television series is each Brotherhood knight needing a squire along just to deal with the massive amount of work that goes into keeping a person functioning in power armour. And we are in the middle of the damn Resource Wars.

So ... okay. What if, instead of putting soldiers into walking tanks, we turned them into walking tanks? Solves your power problem in one hit, right? Reduced costs, more profit. Suddenly this isn't a medical project, it's a defence project. And the important thing here is that the power armour guys and the FEV guys are one and the same: West Tek Corporation. The people who built those suits the Brotherhood of Steel love so much also made the big green guys they keep picking fights with.

West Tek, much like Vault-Tec, was deeply entwined with the US government and likely the Enclave. They had a lot of free reign to do what they wanted. And what they wanted was to dunk humans in FEV to see what would happen.

We know they tested FEV on soldiers at the Mariposa base.

Log Date January 7, 2077 Major Barnett has ordered transfer of all FEV research to the Mariposa Military Base. He plans to continue the project experiments on volunteer subjects. I am against this, and would like it noted here that research on human subjects is not recommended by myself or my staff. – FEV Experiment Disk, Fallout

We know they tested it on civilians in the town of Huntersville.

The sickness that hit us around February is getting worse. Thanks to some doctor from West Tek, we haven't had any deaths yet. Thomas McDevitt was able to convince them to lend us a hand, and they sent help. Their doctor says it's nothing to worry about, just a rare strain of the flu virus. Tell me, what kind of a flu virus makes your skin start to change color and your hair to fall out? People are starting to get scared. Maybe I'll convince Thomas McDevitt to hop into his truck and head for Charleston or something, to get more help. Come to think of it, I haven't seen Thomas McDevitt since he went to West-Tek. – Gail Meyer's Journal, Fallout 76

We know that soldiers enforced these experiments in both cases. This was government sanctioned mass-FEV exposure.

While it was never surprising, the scene in the Fallout TV series demonstrating the various pre-war corporations collaborating on the vault experiments makes its presence in Fallout 3's Vault 87 pretty much a given. Why wouldn't West Tek try to continue its most tantalising, but perhaps least consistently successful, experiment once the bombs fell?

And like I said – West Tek, Vault-Tec, all those people were caught up with the Enclave. The Enclave loves FEV. If they are in an area, you can guarantee the virus is there as well. There are two separate attempts to just kill everyone by dosing them with FEV – Dick Richardson's Enclave tried it in Fallout 2 and John Henry Eden's tried it again in Fallout 3. The Scorchbeast situation in Fallout 76 seems to have been an accident, but I think there's a fair chance they had some FEV mixed in with their flux and ultracite, given how radical the results were.

Thomas Eckhart: So you're telling me we're responsible for this thing? It's what? A mutated bird? Some kind of vulture or something? Enclave Scientist: Mister Secretary, based on the physiology we're assuming something originating from the Chiroptera order before undergoing changes… bats, sir. But it's not just a result of radiation, sir. The specimen was inadvertently exposed to our biochemical tests last year, considered a failure at the time. – Whitespring Automated Recording five-point-four-point-eight, Fallout 76

The West Coast Enclave had access to FEV by the time of Fallout 2 (around 2241); Appalachia may have had it earlier (it was easily accessible, in Huntersville). So you've got enormous pre-war companies with a heavy investment in FEV spreading it everywhere, and at least one post-war faction running around with it – and that faction does not care about anybody's wellbeing in the slightest. No wonder that crap is all over the place. I also suspect, given the lax safety standards of pre-war America, and the general chaos of the post-war period, that there's a lot more ambient FEV floating about than is actually documented.

But that brings me to the second part of this – different types of super mutant. To get back on the Doylist train again for a minute: FEV is specifically designed to be the plot device virus. It does whatever the story needs it to do. It's both highly modifiable and wildly unstable so you can have "we tried to do this wacky thing and it succeeded!" scenarios and you can also have "we tried to do a thing and this wacky nonsense happened instead" scenarios. The same exposure event produced both the Master, who is not a super mutant by any stretch of the imagination, and the whole Harold-and-the-tree situation.

That said, I have a few different lines of thought here. One: different strains of FEV seem less important than the various other things to which the victim has been exposed. Two: I don't think there's a lot of evidence for massive differences in super mutants specifically. Three: I think, as I said, that it's at least possible that FEV has been involved in some of the known "wild" mutations out there, and that this can tie those two earlier points together to create a better picture of FEV mutants.

To the first point: we know for a fact that radiation exposure is a major factor in what sort of super mutants you get. The Master figured this out by trial and error:

Oh glorious creator!! I have succeeded in spreading the complete joy of unification to another soul! Unlike the others, his total radiation count was low. I believe this is the factor we have been overlooking all this time, as it seems the conversion is more successful in the cases with less radiation damage. I have never known such glory as I felt when taking his mind into our own. – Richard Grey's audio diary, Fallout

... and the Institute confirmed the same:

This is Doctor Elliott, reporting for the BioScience division. March 2224. We just received another batch of… subjects… but as my previous report stated, we're at an impasse here. More of the same won't help. I am officially echoing the team's position: the most likely progress for our research on synthetic organics requires new avenues of exploration. The two most promising strains of FEV have been adapted to an ideal state, but… we're still missing something. Additional Commonwealth subjects will not help. It's the same problem across the board: exposure to too much radiation. We need something… someone new. There's a proposal we'll be putting forward… I am not entirely comfortable with it, but it seems the best course. – FEV Research Notes: 2224, Fallout 4

This is why the Institute needed to kidnap the Sole Survivor's son in Fallout 4. You just do not get good results when you expose post-war humans to FEV. Whatever adaptations or relatively benign mutations the radiation has caused react badly with the virus.

It's worth noting here that the Institute does actually seem to have successfully completed the original West Tek project. I mean ... synths. They're human, but with increased resilience and disease resistance, and "Coursers" specifically function as a kind of super solidier. Pre-war DNA, appropriately modified FEV, and a hell of a lot of tinkering – and that's what you get. That's exactly what West Tek was trying to do. Implanting chips into their brains to control them is a bit of Institute-specific evil, but I'm pretty sure West Tek would have approved.

With less rigorous testing, you get on the one hand people like Marcus and Lily: super mutants with minimal radiation who seem to have survived the process changed, but nevertheless as complete people. Marcus is very much just a normal guy (terrible aim with a minigun; never ever give Marcus a minigun, but otherwise ... ) and most of Lily's issues seem to be caused by stealth boy use, rather than FEV specifically. On the other hand you get people who clearly had suffered some degree of radiation exposure. This covers most of your generic super mutant foes, but also people like Gond (a super mutant NCR ranger in Fallout 2), or Grahm (a super mutant trader in Fallout 76). They have suffered some degree of brain damage – but they remain people.

Okay. So what do I mean about there being little evidence for differences in super mutants? Putting that Doylist hat back on for a second ... super mutants primarily serve the same purpose across all the games: big, tough enemies for your character to fight. This isn't just a Bethesda thing either: Fallout and Fallout 2 both used mobs of super mutants as enemy encounters. So their behaviour and characteristics have to fit with that function, and any storytelling is going to revolve around that. You could have had the FEV do something different with them, but they didn't.

Back to the Watsonian version ... once you recognise that you are only likely to get super mutants like Marcus if the victim came from either a vault, or somewhere equally protected from radiation, there's just not a lot of difference between the super mutants in general. FEV seems to:

increase aggression – and this is something even largely peaceful super mutants seem to struggle with. For example, Gail in Fallout 76 will tell you that she refrains from violence at the request of her adopted daughter.

impact speech – this is obviously a stylistic choice, as super mutants fit into the "B-movie sci-fi" aesthetic that defines Fallout. Their broken speech is less about the science of FEV and more about "how monsters talk". A few super mutants are exempt from this, obviously, but it's supposed to be shocking to hear a super mutant talk "normally".

affect memory - this may explain the former point, at least somewhat. If super mutants need to relearn speech post-infection, then their manner of speech could simply be the product of copying each other. It's noteworthy that this one seems to be true even in the least affected super mutants: Marcus's memories of his former life are hazy and Fawkes has no idea what he was doing before the FEV. It seems to be progressive, at least in some cases: Marcus's exact words are "My memories of being a human aren’t as clear as they once were"; Brian Virgil still knows who he is; Lily definitely still remembers her grandchildren. But that loss of identity is a persistent theme across most super mutants.

So with all of that, it seems like you're mostly dealing with situational differences. In addition to what are functionally super mutant raider gangs in Fallout 2 there are also many of them living peacefully in places like Broken Hills.

Fallout: New Vegas specifically deals with the interaction between super mutants derived from non-irradiated humans and irradiated ones. Tabitha, a nightkin, refers to the latter as " dumb dumbs" because ... she's helpful like that.

The radio station is fixed, and we've begun sending our message out into the desert. Marcus thinks I spend too much time in here, but what does a first gen know? Rhonda says they're just one step from dumb dumbs, and I agree. – Tabitha's Journal, Fallout: New Vegas

Super mutants in Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 occupy strategic buildings, and seem to have deliberately tamed creatures like mutant hounds and floaters. There's evidence of strategic thinking in Fallout 4: Fist was using Rex to lure more humans and the whole affair was just hilarious to every super mutant in the building (bar Strong). Likewise, Hammer clearly knew exactly what he was doing when he occupied West Everett Estates:

Fist, this is Hammer. I got a human to make the machine work. We found a good place. Already has walls and water. Some human made a tiny room under ground with many good things inside. Send more people so we can raid more. We give you these guns for trade. – Hammer's Holotape, Fallout 4

There's less of that in Fallout 76, but in its earliest version that game had zero interest in presenting functional societies of any kind. When friendly super mutants showed up, they behaved much the same as the examples in other games. There isn't a friendly super mutant town in Appalachia as of this writing, but there could be, if Bethesda ever decides to take the story in that direction. There was no peace with the super mutants in Fallout 4, either, but there could be, one day, under the right circumstances.

Aside from size and the distinctive green skin, there's not a lot of difference between a super mutant and a raider. You're looking at a bunch of angry, amnesiac people who were not likely having a great time even before they got dipped.

That handles most super mutants ... but it obviously doesn't address the elephant in the room: Fallout 3. What about the super mutants of the Capital Wasteland?

We know, absolutely, that the scientists in Vault 87 were experimenting with multiple strains of FEV:

Once again, I've hit that damn wall. At fourteen days, all of the test subjects began to exhibit severe bouts of rage and anxiety. So much so that they were a danger to my team and to this facility. I had no choice once again but to order them to be destroyed. It pains me every time we do this. The same cycle has been repeated in every strain we test. We always see superior physical adaptations, but the mental changes are their downfall. – Chief physician's terminal, Fallout 3

That could definitely account for things like their gold skin, markedly different to the prevailing super mutant green. But the key thing is that they got the same results with every strain they tried. And they were working with vault dwellers, which is supposed to make it easier. So what gives? Well, one thing we also know is that their maintenance chief had persistent problems with radiation:

Vault-Tec's crappy handiwork is at it again. I have spent the better part of a month patching and re-patching the radiation purge system that vents excess radiation from the G.E.C.K. chamber. I have no idea why this system keeps failing. I suspect the system is simply inadequate and can't handle the amount of radiation it's purging. Recommend installing a new purging system as soon as I can get one cobbled together from spare parts. Should have it ready in about a month. – Engineering terminal, Fallout 3

I strongly suspect that the residents of Vault 87 had suffered radiation exposure. Not lethal amounts – we're not talking "leave the vault door open to see what happens" levels here – but enough. They were functionally no different to surface dwellers. Thus the scientists got the exact same results with every FEV strain: aggression, memory loss and distress.

In terms of their behaviour, I think Fallout 3 is best understood as an extrapolation of the "worst" ending of the original Fallout – that is, the ending where the Master wins. You can read through them all on the wiki, and despite all the Master's big promises there's never any blissful "Unity": just a wave of super mutants washing over every settlement, wiping them away. This is what's happening in Fallout 3, and by the time the Lone Wanderer arrives on the scene there's little left.

The original inhabitants of Vault 87 were survivors of a nuclear war. They suffered tremendous loss and grief even within the vault: people who were murdered by the scientists were listed as "unexplained" deaths. They were the victims of hideous experiments that deprived them of their identities. And when they broke free, they inflicted all that grief and misery on the Capital Wasteland. They are without purpose or cause. They are just angry and confused. They don't know who they were or what happened to them.

But how different to their brethren are they, really? You can listen to some of their dialogue:

This is boring. We should be collecting more humans. We need more of us! The bucketheads have killed too many… – Super mutant dialogue, Fallout 3

That's a rational enough statement, in context. By 2277 the super mutants are locked in a decades long conflict with the Brotherhood of Steel. They are aggressively dipping people just as the Brotherhood is recruiting from the locals, to replace their numbers.

I'm hungry! I need something to eat. Meat would be good… A Brahmin head, roasted just a bit, with some… – Super mutant dialogue, Fallout 3

Perfectly reasonable. Who doesn't dream about dinner when they're hungry?

They are not mindless, and they haven't necessarily suffered more damage than an average West Coast super mutant.

Fawkes is obviously the exceptional super mutant in this case: the companion character, the one who came through all this relatively unscathed. But there is also Leo: a super mutant who has largely forgotten himself, but who has chosen peace.

And this, which makes me especially sad, from Fallout 4's terminal entries:

As the years passed, and Arthur Maxson grew, so too did his accomplishments. At age 12, while on a training patrol, he killed two Raiders and saved the squad that was supposed to be escorting him. At age age 13, he single-handedly killed a Deathclaw (and gained the large facial scar he still has to this day). But it was his victory at age 15, over the Super Mutant "Shepherd" who was attempting to re-organize the Capital Wasteland's Super Mutants, that elevated him to hero-like status. When word of this feat reached the Elders back on the West Coast, they knew the time had come… Maxson was ready. Ready to lead and, more importantly, to reunite the fragmented Brotherhood of Steel forces on the East Coast. – The Rise of Elder Maxson: Accomplishments, Fallout 4

That's a super mutant with a name. A super mutant with a drive to organise his people. I'm frankly suspicious of the idea that he was a war leader with a name like "Shepherd", but even if he was organisation of the Capital Wasteland super mutants would be broadly positive. Yes, it might make them a tougher enemy to fight ... but it could also open up the possibility of negotiation, or even peace. It would be a step away from mindless violence. Until the Brotherhood put a stop to that.

So I am not sure there is a significant distinction between the types of super mutant, specifically. Okay, but FEV definitely does some bizarre stuff. We have Harold and the Master; we have floaters, centaurs and mutant hounds; we have intelligent deathclaws (I miss them; I loved them); we have that one genius mole rat from Fallout 2.

So why would super mutants be consistent? Well, I'd suggest maybe they're not. It's just that "super mutant" is what you get when you expose a person to FEV under certain circumstances. I suspect that other mutated humans may also have an FEV component to them, and when the differences are big enough we stop calling them super mutants.

This is not meant to be exhaustive. There are a lot of mutants in the Fallout universe and this post is quite long enough. Nor is it meant to be definitive proof that these are FEV mutants. We mostly can't know. My argument is that: we know FEV gets around; we know environmental elements can have a significant impact on what you get out of FEV exposure; in some cases we know we are looking at quite extensive changes in a short period of time.

Group 1 - Psychics: There are people in several of the games that seem to demonstrate psychic ability. Sulik, in Fallout 2, is quite uncanny with his insights when communing with his grandfather's spirit. The Forecaster, in Fallout: New Vegas is able to foresee certain evrnts. Mama Murphy, in Fallout 4 takes chems to receive visions of past, present and future. We know the Master in the original Fallout experimented with an FEV "psyker" project. It did not go well. While there seem to be some side effects, the people listed above are largely fine, so this would presumably involve extremely mild exposure to FEV.

Group 2 – Trogs: "Troglodyte Degeneration Contagion" is an environmental mutation suffered by residents of the Pitt. Like classic FEV "super mutant" exposure, these individuals suffer from memory loss and aggression. Unlike super mutants, they are small (ish) and wiry, and very much built for speed. We know that radiation and toxic chemicals play a part in their mutation, and it is noteworthy that the Fallout 3 Official Game Guide makes a reference to "unidentified mutagens". It is also noteworthy that there are Trogs in Fallout 76, which begins 25 years after the bombs dropped. So whatever happened here happened fast. We're not looking at two centuries of change.

Group 3 – Mole Miners: There is very little lore on these people, but they are also a very rapid mutation: they are present in Appalachia at the start of Fallout 76. As there are "classic" super mutants in the area, these may be an interaction between FEV and the toxic air found in the mines.

Group 4 – Swampfolk: Admittedly this one is a bit of a reach, but they very much fill the super mutant niche in Point Lookout. I acknowledge that there's an unpleasant joke about "hillbillies" and "inbreeding" here, but I think it's also worth noting that these people suffered from both radiation exposure and apparently New Plague. This would be an interaction between multiple types of engineered viruses.

I know, I know: this is a lot of words. So – the "too long, didn't read" version:

FEV is everywhere because a bunch of careless and malevolent pre- and post-war groups put it there. They also dumped it in the water in at least one location, and once you've done that the stuff can get anywhere.

While there are different strains, environmental factors are probably more significant in determining what kind of mutant you get.

What we call a "super mutant" has relatively little variation, with the major factor being how much radiation exposure the person had, and consequently how much brain damage they have suffered.

There are a lot of other types of mutated human out there, and where FEV is involved you're likely looking at wild variations based on various environmental factors. But we don't call those people super mutants, because that's a very specific type of FEV mutant.

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

How was windows 95 revolutionary? I would love to hear more about it

HI HELLO THANK YOU FOR ASKING

okay okay okay SO

Windows 95 had a major overhaul in multiple aspects. It’s the first of the 9x series of WinOS, followed by 98 and ME. In order to understand why Windows 95 is such a big deal, we first need to discuss Windows 3.x

(Wikipedia, Windows 3.1, image 2)

This is Windows 3.x; specifically, Windows for Workgroups 3.11. 3.x was the first series of Windows OS to become popular, and it itself was a major improvement over the previous 1.x and 2.x OS, but I won’t get into that too much. Like the previous versions of Windows, 3.x is basically a graphical shell for MS-DOS. You may be familiar with DOS; it looks like this:

(Wikipedia, MS-DOS, “History”, image 1)

DOS is, primarily, a typing interface system. You could run programs with graphics on it, like Oregon Trail or Flight Simulator, but at its core, DOS wasn’t very graphical. If you wanted to run a program, you typed its name. If you wanted to check the size of a file, you had to tell the computer to reference the directory.

Notably, DOS isn’t super user-friendly to new users. If you’re using a computer for the first time, how do you know what an A drive or a C drive is? How do you know the name of the file you need to run to play the game you’re trying out, or how to tell the computer where to find it?

DOS was incredible for its time, and was still a very powerful system. Several early operating systems from several companies used some version of DOS; the early Apple and Mac computers ran on it as well. Microsoft’s version, MS-DOS, had been popular for some time, but Apple’s graphical interface on Mac computers proved intensely popular for newer or less experienced users. MS-DOS couldn’t compete. In an attempt to make MS-DOS more user friendly, we get Windows!

(We will get to windows 95 I PROMISE)

Notice the differences between Windows 3.x and MS-DOS. Programs have a visible location now; they’re in the “Program Manager”, and they have icons you can click on to run them. Files can be found in a “File Manager”, and they have images of file trees to show you where everything is. You can have multiple windows open at once; see how the clock is visible in the corner while Minesweeper is open and running.

However, Windows 3.x wasn’t perfect. It was still built entirely off of DOS, and relied on DOS compatibility to function. Because DOS’ data was stored as 16-bit chunks, so was every file and program on Windows 3.x. This was a limiting factor; there was a ceiling on how big a program could be, how long a file name could be, and how much memory you could use. 32-bit data processing was possible with the computer hardware available in the 90s, but everything in Windows 3.x still ran on 16-bit chunks regardless of hardware, meaning slower runtimes and less flexible software options.

(If this 16-bit and 32-bit stuff doesn’t make much sense to you, don’t worry about it too much. The important thing is that 16-bit and 32-bit software are not compatible with each other, and that 32-bit software generally has more flexibility and speed than 16-bit, while 16-bit software takes up less of the computer’s resources.)

3.x had other issues as well. You could have multiple programs open at once, but *running* multiple programs was a different story. If you attempted to, the OS often struggled to prioritize which program to run. Furthermore, while 3.x’s interface was leaps and bounds more accessible than MS-DOS… that was a low bar to clear. 3.x was still clunky for a lot of users to use, and for new users, learning where to find their programs and how to run them was hard.

Installing anything new onto the computer was also a hassle; if you wanted to use a newfangled mouse, for instance, you had to install drivers which told the computer what a mouse was. Even if you plugged the mouse in, it wouldn’t necessarily work. Same was true for other common add-ons, like new keyboards, printers, and scanners. Sticking a disk in the floppy drive wouldn’t inherently mean the program on it ran; you still had to find the correct drive and open the file and run it.

3.x also just suffered from… not telling users what to do. This sounds weird to us now; Clippy is practically a meme because users found being told what to do by a paper clip so annoying. But 3.x was radically different from an MS-DOS command prompt, and if you’d never used a graphical interface like 3.x before, it was easy to get lost. Look at the 3.1 interface; could you find and run MS-Word from there? Could you find a specific document and open it? Could you save it to a floppy disk and share it with your coworker, without being told how to do it?

Enter… Windows 95

(Wikipedia, Windows 95, Image 1)

Isn’t she beautiful?

Right away, some new features jump out at us. Upon startup, we get this pop-up menu welcoming us to the system. It starts with an important fact for new users; how to find and run a program. There’s a taskbar now; unlike 3.x, which displayed minimized open programs on the desktop, open programs have their own designated spot along the taskbar. The default desktop is organized for user convenience now, with commonly used programs on display. The time is automatically displayed along the taskbar, instead of having to run a clock application, and the font of the programs and windows isn’t just the chunky MS-DOS font anymore. This desktop is much less chaotic; sleeker and cleaner, with more graphics and color options visible from the jump.

By contrast, 3.x systems didn’t have a dedicated start menu. When you booted up, you were immediately hit with the program manager and little else. What’s a program manager? Up to you to find out! Meanwhile, Windows 95 is already introducing important features to the user. This is what the Start menu does. Here’s where it is. Here’s how you use it. The Start menu also had quick access to a help menu, where frequent user issues could be troubleshooted, and basic information about he system was accessible. Clean, simple, user-friendly.

Take a closer look at those default desktop icons. In 1995, internet connections were more commonplace, using dial-up internet services such as AOL through phone lines. Microsoft immediately shows you your connectivity options; the Microsoft Network is right there, ready to be investigated. When you run it, it immediately starts helping you set up your internet. If you click on Inbox, you’re taken through the process of setting up an email account via Outlook. If you’re a new user who previously didn’t know how to send an email, or connect to the internet, Windows 95 had an answer available right there.

We do need to pause here and acknowledge that bundling Microsoft products onto an OS automatically like this was not universally received well. While conveniently available to new users, programs like Microsoft Network are, well, Microsoft proprietary software. By offering them automatically like this, and not including bundle options for other software, Microsoft was shunting more and more users to their own software and away from competitors’ services. They were sued over that! It’s strange to imagine today, but at the time, Microsoft bundling its software as the default option for its OS users was a major violation of the accepted values of free choice for OS and software.

if only that lawsuit had stuck… I digress. nowadays you can’t uninstall Microsoft Edge without breaking something.

POINT BEING. Everything about this new design is user-focused. Windows 95’s major new features weren’t necessarily making it more powerful for experienced users. Instead, a lot of the focus was on ease of use; lowering the barrier to learning new skills on the computer.

Case in point: plug and play. Plug and play may be my single favorite feature of Windows 95. It’s a quintessential component of understanding who Windows 95 was for, and why it was so successful on the market.

Plug and play is very simple. You have a new component you need your computer to sync with, such as a printer. You plug the printer into the computer, insert the accompanying floppy disk if it has one… and a window pops up, asking you what you’re trying to install. You click on what you’re installing, and an installation wizard takes you through each step, and that’s it. All the necessary software is installed, all the necessary information is saved to the computer, and now you can print something. That simple.

Compare that to 3.x, where installing a printer meant plugging it in… and then finding where in the system it showed up, and making sure everything was properly synced yourself, and running any accompanying files yourself, all while following a physical manual (at best) or flying by the seat of your pants. If you know how to do that, that’s not a big deal; once you have that skill down, it’s not super hard to transfer it. But new users don’t have that advantage. Your grandpa who just learned to use MS-Word to make a Christmas card doesn’t know how to connect his computer to the printer. He doesn’t know if he needs to install or run any files or drivers first. And why should he? That’s not why he was using the computer. Plug and play removes the barrier to entry; now, your grandpa just plugs the printer into the computer, clicks “next” a few times, and it works.

Windows 95 was also the first 32-bit system Microsoft released… kind of. 9x systems are weird, in that they have both 32-bit and 16-bit programs that they rely on to function. It’s less a clean break from 16-bit, and more a step in a new direction. Now, there are dedicated Windows programs which only run in Windows; the OS has some measure of independence, although it still relies on DOS architecture for some of its processes. You can still access the DOS command prompt, either by specifying on startup or through the MS-DOS prompt button, but it’s not the entire backbone of Windows 95. Viruses which ruined MS-DOS computers don’t always run the same way; you have more security than before. And in the early years, very few viruses were written that could attack 9x systems. The new OS had more power and flexibility in its 32-bit capabilities, with the added bonus that new users had a slightly better shield against virus infection (for a bit) (that didn’t last long).

Nowadays, 9x architecture is a thing of the past; the last 9x system, Millenium Edition, was released in 2000. Even as the 9x architecture was becoming massively successful, Microsoft was investing in a new type of OS which was coded from the ground up, in a non-assembly language which didn’t rely on DOS to function. At the time of development, this new technology, or NT, had too high of system requirements to really be functional on anything but the most robust computers. For a home user in the 90s, 9x was the best option, with lower memory requirements and similar or faster speeds to NT on home systems. But on the horizon in 2001, an NT storm was brewing… an XP storm…

[heart-of-the-morningstar]

I HAVE RETURNED FROM THE FNAF MOVIE AND I HAVE SOME THOUGHTS

✨ Non-spoiler section ✨

I had such a fun time with this movie! There were a ton of Easter eggs I caught and I’m sure there’s a few that I missed! My best advice for anyone wanting to see this movie is don’t take it super seriously, you’ll enjoy it more! The makers of this film weren’t lying when they said that they made this movie for the fans, I do feel like fans will enjoy this movie way more than a general audience and that’s perfectly fine! It’s campy at some parts and funnier than I thought it would be, but that’s what made it so fun! Now for the nitty-gritty…

❌ SPOILERS BELOW ❌

What I liked…

• First off, Matthew Patrick is a fucking LIAR! He does have a cameo in the movie, he says his iconic “That’s just a theory” line which was great! He’s a waiter at a diner, which leads me to my next point

• The diner was named “Sparky’s”, which I feel like only OG fans will get the reference. But for those of you who don’t know, back when FNAF 1 came out, there was a rumor of a secret/rare animatronic in the game called Sparky the Dog. There was a fake image floating around showing him standing in the door to parts and service. This was later confirmed to be fake. BUT! In the movie they also have a dog-looking animatronic in the parts and service room which absolutely took me out lol

• Acting was great! Everyone was fun to watch, Josh Hutcherson was a great lead as Mike and Piper Rubio was so sweet as Abby but I gotta give my props to Matthew Lillard towards the end of the movie, he looked like he was having so much fun being this unhinged monster! Speaking of…

• There is a spring lock scene!! It is real!! And God was it cathartic to watch! Obviously being PG-13, they couldn’t do blood and guts galore, but I think they managed to pull it off pretty well! Afton’s scene was definitely my favorite in the film hands down! And yes, he gets his “I always come back” line which put 5 years back on my life if I’m being honest lmao

• There is blood in this movie! Not a gratuitous amount, but it was enough for what they were going for I think! The kills of the people breaking to Freddy’s were more entertaining to watch than I thought! Especially Freddy’s kill…that caught me completely off guard lmao

• There aren’t too many jumpscares but that was fine with me! They do this repeat jumpscare with a little figurine of Balloon Boy like 3 times and I thought it was funny every time! They do a really good job with tension in this movie!

• The animatronics!!!! LOVED THEM!!!! They were so detailed and well designed, they were so fun to watch!! The Jim Henson company did an absolutely stellar job with the designs, I want to hug them 🥺

• So the story…I thought it was fine! They do stray from canon by making Vanessa Afton’s daughter in the movie instead of Mike being his son. They do confirm Afton was the one who kidnapped and killed Mike’s brother Garrett. The story is kind of left open ended as if they could continue the story (which I hope they do), but I think it leaves a more or less satisfying ending!

• There’s a minor mid-credit scene with Cory Kenshin and a secret message at the very end of the credits. I couldn’t hear it well but it’s spelled-out letters exactly like the ones from the death minigames in FNAF 2

• Yes, The Living Tombstone’s FNAF song is in the end credits, I felt my soul leave my body 😭

Minor Negatives…

• The story is slow at the beginning, it takes a little bit for anything super interesting to take place

• There are some plot points that don’t get explained or resolved (which is par for the course for FNAF) but that leads me to believe that they want to make sequels which I am all here for

• The Aunt Jane character wasn’t super important, she was fine, but she was there just to serve as an antagonist to Mike for a whole 5 minutes of the movie, if that

• I wanted so much more Afton/Spring Bonnie time, it was too short for me but I am happy with what I got. Also, he didn’t wear any purple in the movie which I think is a crime 😂

• Kind of wish there was an R rated version of this movie even though FNAF isn’t known for being bloody and gory, but some parts felt a little tame

• Also please correct me if I’m wrong but, they didn’t use the Toreador March music at all?? If I missed it, please tell me but I was waiting to hear it and it never came from what I remember

Speculation…

• So the biggest plot issue for me was that they never explained Afton’s intentions for killing. I think fans of the games know why he’s killing, but the general audience won’t. I’m sure it has something to do with the saw blade machine that tries to stuff your head into Freddy’s head. But it wasn’t clear. Vanessa never gave us a straight answer either even though she was in on it from the beginning.

• Towards the beginning of the movie, Abby is shown to be talking to her “invisible friend”, this is before Mike is hired as Freddy’s security guard. Turns out that friend is the ghost kid who possess Golden Freddy/Fredbear (again, isn’t clear lol). I wanna know why that kid showed up before Mike and Abby even went to the location??

• I may be reading too much into this, but when Mike goes in to get a new job after being fired from his mall security guard job, he’s talking to “Steve” and Steve does something interesting. He’s berating him for his inability to hold down a job, the he looks at his name on the file and just goes “…Mike S…” and just, doesn’t finish saying his name. He looks at Mike really weird like he’s trying to find something, and then just completely changes the subject. IDK, I’ll probably have to watch it again, and I think it would be a stretch to go the “Mike Afton” route especially since they established Vanessa was his kid. But ya never know with FNAF 😂

• Also the secret message that was spelled out at the end of the credits. If any of y’all know what they spelled, please tell me because I could not figure it out! I would love to know what it said!

Conclusion…

I just had a blast with this movie! I wasn’t sure what to expect with this movie but I think Blumhouse and everyone who worked on this movie did an amazing job, you can tell they put so much heart and soul into this! I will patiently be awaiting the announcement of the next movie until then!

Rating - 8.5/10

[theadventurerslog]

Side Quest: King's Quest 1 AGDI Remake

Hey, guess what? New kind of entry. Sort of: my KQVI replay screensharing fits here too but tagging-wise, new, because I didn't think of it then.

There are sometimes going to be games I play I want to talk about but not do a full let's play style journal on, so that's what side quests will be.

In this case I got curious about the fan made remakes of King's Quest 1 - 3, which can be acquired here: https://agdinteractive.com/games/games.html.

So yeah here's yet another version of King's Quest 1.

Story and structure it's the same game. It's very faithful in that regard. However, it uses a point and click interface, although you can also walk with keys. It's essentially the same interface as V and VI down to config options and saving. There is also an option to turn off dead-ends. I don't know exactly how that affects puzzles but no doubt a worthwhile option for people who don't want to worry about that.

Visually it's very similar to and clearly based off KQ V and VI as well. Some of the screens have visually changed environmentally, which did cause me some confusion with my map.

And some things are still entirely familiar.

There is voice acting including Josh Mandel for Graham as he was in KQ V and the tiny bit in KQVI which was very cool of him to do. Although, his audio quality is noticeably different from the rest. He only speaks at the beginning and end however. All the descriptive text is decently narrated as well, though I am, I admit, spoiled by KQVI's narrator. I just love him.

Characters also have portraits.

The troll's an interesting take...

Here's the rat.

It's a bit of a mix of the AGI and SCI versions, more SCI than AGI. The Rumpelstiltskin puzzle uses the AGI solution with the backward cypher instead of simply his name backward. The stairs from the cloud land are the scarier SCI stairs however.

The beanstalk is still my enemy, though I had an easier time with it despite the SCI version also letting you click to move. I only fell a couple times!

On the other hand I had a lot more trouble with finding the path on the clouds and fell several times there...

Weirdly, the game in a way felt emptier to me. I think because Graham barely talks in the game and there isn't the text parser to play around with, so there isn't the opportunity to just try as much or type silly things. And there isn't a whole lot to interact with in ways beyond looking at them. (no talking to everything in sight like KQVI for example). Obviously your mileage would vary depending on how much you do goof around.

Some of the hot spots feel super finicky, so that could get irritating. I did discover when I was double-checking the help screen for something else that icons have a tiny red dot that act as the hit box point. Knowing that helped, but I still could have done with some broader or more generous hit boxes.

I think it could be good for people who want to play it but don't want to use a text parser and/or want to use the ability to turn off the dead ends. A bit more of a modern experience. Personally I think the SCI version is my preferred version, but it was an interesting jaunt anyway. II and III from what I've read and heard will have more interesting diversions and changes from the originals.

That all said impressive work for a fan project!

Three versions played now and I didn't get perfect points. I missed grabbing the slingshot. Hmph.

[toyota-supra]

My Top 10 Favorite Games I Played In 2023

In chronological order. It's a long one.

Titanfall 2

I've been told to play this for years now, though for most of those I did not really know why, as it never seemed like my kind of game. But, ever since I started really getting into mecha sometime in 2022, I decided to finally give it a try. I'm very glad I did. Titanfall 2 is a criminally short First Person Shooter with a very fun mech/pilot dynamic, really good mechanics of movement and combat for both, and some of my favorite level design of any game I've played in a long while. The platforming is crazy good! The mechanics are tight as hell! The mech is awesome! I recommend Titanfall 2 for literally anyone reading this.

Mega Man Zero

The Zero series is the one that most called to me in the Mega Man franchise every time I looked these games over, and I was right in that judgement. While I couldn't say if I was going to appreciate most of the GBA era action platformer difficulty or not, it was clear from Zero's more agile movement and bite-sized missions with very memorization-heavy bosses that I would enjoy it. And I did enjoy it a lot! Most of the bosses kicked my ass but it was an absolute blast to finally learn their patterns enough to defeat them. The problem is, I went out of my way to not get any of the game's health upgrades or energy tanks, making the final boss so hard for me that after days and days of attempts I gave up. Not beating Mega Man Zero is probably my biggest regret of the year lmao

Fate/Stay Night

Honestly, what do I even say? You can see my Saber icon, right? Fate is a franchise I never bothered to get close to, knowing of its name only through vague images and names of more popular characters (not even from FGO, just in general), and from later on getting to know that Fate/Grand Order was the game it is I felt like it wasn't for me at all and who cares. So when I learned what the original VN was actually about I felt stupid. How could something so fitting to my tastes have gone under my radar for so long...? Despite not being much of a reader in general, F/SN is a very long game that feels like it's just as short as you need it to be. The prose flows so well, every single character is lovable in many ways, and there's so much passion written into them and the situations they're in that it's one of the most smooth-flowing VNs I've read (which granted are not many) even though it's around the high 6 digit wordcounts. I love this game dearly.

Stranger of Paradise - Final Fantasy Origin

I wanted to play this game since the first few trailers! How cruel was it that, not only did I not have a powerful enough machine at the time, but the game wasn't even on Steam until the year after release? Final Fantasy Origin is the game it presents itself to be. There's something about it that's so special to a certain kind of person (which I happen to be one of) and that falls flat for everyone else. The combat and its many Weapons, Jobs and Skills to use are just fantastic in how nice they feel, and I really do like the type of story Stranger tells. I haven't finished it yet, but I'm close to it. I like to describe Stranger of Paradise as everything good about PS2 and PS3 games in a modern title.

Pseudoregalia

An old feeling from a new friend. Pseudoregalia is everything I like in 3D Platforming, and a little bit of what I don't. If you've ever looked at a single gif or video of Super Mario 64 and thought, "this looks pretty fun to play," you should be playing Pseudoregalia. If you like goat ladies with big butts, I can't say I understand if that would sell you on a game or not, but it is a feature everyone mentions. I wrote on this game already, so please do check that out and get it. It's one of the three titles of this list that came out this year, and I have not heard enough people talk about it.

Armored Core VI - Fires of Rubicon

My favorite in this list, which is funny because I don't know what to say about it at all. Armored Core is a series I've been studying up on from the outside for a while, and the announcement for this title was my reason to finally dive in. Unfortunately, I did not get past playing the first mission of AC1 a few times and booting up AC3 once. But I will get to it eventually! Fires of Rubicon is one hell of an action game, that I adored for every single one of my (currently) 67 hours of play. Going through the campaign with builds a little too busted for the AI most of the time was my dishonorable focus of the experience, but there's a lot else to do for every kind of person. The amount of freedom you have for messing with your builds for either single or multiplayer is not to be underestimated. Though it could be better. Here's hoping there will be a game that is.

Midnight Club 3 DUB Edition Remix

I played this game as a kid so much that the main menu and its theme are scarred into my mind, yet this whole time I had no idea what the game was actually like due to the fact that most of my playtime was doing a few races and just cruising around. Once you dive into trying to finish the story, MC3 is a much different experience. One that frustrated me so much, I got actually ill from the stress. Please take breaks, gamers! Your health is more important than finishing an 18 year old game! Still, I did eventually do it. Midnight Club 3's handling model and gameplay structure are really impressive in comparison to the much more popular Need for Speed series, and I have to admit I did enjoy the game a lot. It's just a lot harder than it ever needed to be. I'll probably never forget this game, and that's not really a good or bad thing. Just, advice from me, if it gets too hard, maybe switch to sports bikes. Buy that Ducati.

Test Drive Unlimited

Another car game, but this one I have the least to say about of any on this list. I had played TDU on PS2 multiple times before and thought it was awesome. The atmosphere and immersion of this game are unrivaled by any racing game to this day. But playing the PC version with a steering wheel and pedals made everything so much more incredible. I played the Platinum mod, which adds hundreds more cars and fixes a lot of issues with the original game (but not all of them; the game was still really rough and I hate how much the resolution is a pain to change). Overall, one of my favorite experiences with a steering wheel controller so far. Otherwise, a pretty good game if you like driving.

Super Mario Sunshine

An old friend, and a new feeling. I don't play 3D platformers as much as I wish I did, because they're really not part of my main priorities looking for games lately, but every time I play a Mario game, it's like I found love again. It was not the first time I played Super Mario Sunshine, as I had collected a dozen or so Sprites years before, but playing the whole game in I think two weeks during the latter half of the year was such an incredible experience. Unless for some reason you play it on the Switch, Sunshine is a game that loves you as much as you love it. And you do love it, right? I know I do. I'd love to play this game many other times in the future. Granted, that applies to every game here, I just wanted to say it out loud for this one.

Lethal Company

A fairly recent release! Having played it with many groups of people by now, both modded and vanilla, I think Lethal Company is probably one of my favorite multiplayer experiences ever. It is scary and hilarious, but also just really really good, to a level that surprised me for my quality standards of co-op (horror) games. Lethal Company turns friends into improvised horror movie actors and it's incredible. I'm almost at 30 hours played and will likely get to 40 at minimum. It's also pretty cheap and likely runs well on all sorts of machines, so consider checking this one out too.

Honorable Mentions

Witch on the Holy Night and Story of Seasons - Friends of Mineral Town are games I am adoring and could definitely go on this list, hadn't I started them both quite late into December. Maybe next year I'll give them a shoutout!

[dyelwi]

1, 7, 12, 17 for Ms Athena Cykes since she’s your current icon?

Athena my beloved aaa I love talking about her any chance I get hehe putting this under a read more bc it’s gonna get LONG

1. Why I like her: so so many reasons. Where do I even start lol um I’ll start w just her personality!!! Ace attorney has a lot of characters in the “peppy happy girl” category but Athena has always stood out to me because of her unique quirks and how well she bounces off any and every other character!! Her dynamics w other characters (esp Simon and Apollo) are always really really good, and I think she’s a really strong character that a lot of ppl overlook due to not liking aa5 as much as other games (which, btw, I’ve never seen anyone fault athena for, it’s usually the cases themselves and the handling of Phoenix and maybe Apollo they don’t like but notice how athena is like never complained about in terms of writing quality, at least from what I see lol). She feels cartoony and realistic at the same time, which is hard to achieve but is also exactly what aa protags need!! Her trauma and trauma responses are compelling for the mystery aspect of her story while also being compelling just in general, which isn’t always the case in these sorts of games, and I just really like how she’s written overall.

And ofc I have to mention I just have a really personal connection with her. As an autistic person w adhd I saw myself in her more than in p much any other character, but whereas when I first got into ace attorney I was gloomy and grumpy Athena was so energetic and so dedicated to helping ppl that I just really looked up to her, and even now I consider her to be like almost a role model in some sense?? And her being into psych pushed me more into psych than I already was and is probably part of what has led me to where I am now— graduating with a psych degree this year and going on to pursue grad school and a career in mental health counseling. Athena just makes me so happy and she’s so good at helping people despite and even because of her (probable) autism and I wanna be able to make people happy and help them too yknow???

7. Something the fandom does w her that I like: tbh not a ton lol, but I always appreciate when people see how she can very easily be interpreted as autistic and they work that into fan content!! I also appreciate the calls for an athena centric game, as I think she was very strong in aa5 but needs a little bit more. I truly think she could be like THE strongest written female character I’ve ever seen if she got just another bit of an arc and capcom doesn’t mess it up lol. I actually have faith in capcom tho, ik that’s a bit uncommon but if tgaa is any example of the sorta writing they can do i have faith.

12. A headcanon— besides the obvious and like basically implied neurodivergencey, I like to think she likes animals, specifically more uncommon ones!!! I think she should have a pet, maybe some sort of reptile or bird. Simon has a bird, maybe she gets one too lol. I like sun conures a lot and they do have athena vibes tbh

17. A ship with her I’m fine with/don’t hate but also isn’t my favorite: hmm well by now you probably know I’m a big justicykes fan but other than that I don’t ship her too hard w anyone??? I guess after justicykes I’d say her and pearl might be my next choice, it’s a rare one but I think they could be cute!! But since I lean towards liking that one instead of being neutral, I suppose the true answer to this question would be junithena. I’m like. Entirely neutral on it lol. I think they’re real fun as friends but I just never saw the romantic spark everyone else seems to see??? Who knows tho, maybe when me and my gf play aa5 together I’ll see it. A lot of the fan art is super cute but I just never really got the romance vibe w them idk

[onewordshy]

Free Online Halloween Goodies

I made one of these lists every year and posted it on reddit but they deleted all my posts as spam a while back so I'm backing them up here!

Read - Abby Howard's short horror comics: An icon in the online horror scene (to me at least), Abby is known for crafting spooky stories with great art and her comics are a must read! The demo to Scarlett Hollow, her blockbuster visual novel, is also worth a play.

Play - QT: the so-called "anti-jump scare game" wherein you search through a spooky abandoned house trying to find your friends. It's super cute and perfect if you don't want something scary.

Listen - A Bnny Nghtmr II by BNNY RBBT: A Halloween themed visual album tied into a YouTube alternate reality game about a mysterious '90s pop star who vanished. The album uses unusual sounds and the autotune heavy style might seem grating at first but it's kind of mesmerizing and a good listen for the season.

Read - Ruby Quest and Nan Quest: Two legendary horror "quest interactives." The writing style is a little unusual and the artwork is kinda crunchy but trust me, they're gripping stories of people trying to survive terrifying ordeals, combined with escape room puzzles and psychological horror. I personally prefer Nan Quest (its "haunted hotel" setting really works and it's much more polished).

Watch - Lo by Travis Betz on YouTube: which is not only my favorite horror movie but quite possibly my favorite movie in general? It's about a man who summons a demon to find his missing girlfriend, it's very low-budget but it's incredibly creative and a great meditation on love and loss.

Read - Emily Carroll's comics: You might have seen these floating around before but they're good, His Face All Red is the perfect Halloween ghost story.

Play - The Night Is Darkening: a short, free horror game about a ship that gets stranded on a floating island. It's just a simple exploration game but gothic energy is strong with this one, despite the short length it had tremendous world building that made me so intrigued. More unsettling than scary.

Browse - MORTASHEEN: an online database of fictional monsters from the creator's fantasy setting. If you're into creature design and unconventional monsters and somehow haven't heard of this, get on it now.

Read - ALL HAIL THE MONUMENTAL HORROR-IMAGE: An article posted to The Outline that I think fans of horror would be very interested in, it’s in slideshow format so you essentially just scroll through screen caps of iconic moments from horror movies interspersed with text from the author opining on what exactly it is that makes them so effective.

Watch/Listen - Evil Dead: The Musical: A campy parody of the already campy horror franchise, the original Canadian cast of this show was professionally recorded for posterity and has made its way onto YouTube. The video is pretty potato quality but you know what, we’re lucky to have this at all.

Play - The Open House: A very unique horror game that takes the form of, of all things, a virtual guided house tour through a fairly mundane piece of real estate that slowly reveals itself as a house of horrors. While there are a few obligatory jump scares, the game relies mostly on the unsettling atmosphere and brilliant pacing to lure you in and keep you hooked until the terrifying end. A short game (twenty minutes if you’re quick) can be played in browser or downloaded, but here’s a play through as well.

Watch/Listen - Ghost Quartet: A one of a kind musical/theatrical experience. the show weaves a complex interlocking narrative that I can’t even begin to unpack but is ultimately about four friends who get together on a dark night to tell ghost stories. It’s an old school style of spooky, telling out tales of love, betrayal, revenge, and of course ghosts, all spelled out through abstract metaphor and fantastic music.

Read - Jared Pechacek’s Annual Harvest Festivals: A thread of microfiction tweets each describing mysterious local harvest festival traditions from a town called Springfield in every state in America. The brief descriptions are evocative and offer a fun twist on some classic Americana, sounding both familiar and surreal.

Listen - Old Radio Plays: There’s a certain kind of vintage charm to these old radio programs that’s very comforting, and while I don’t pretend to be an expert in these types of things I’ve linked to a handy tumblr post where another excited recommender has compiled some that they felt were noteworthy.

Watch - Daisy Brown: Daisy Brown is a web series that exploded onto the scene back in 2017 with the video “How I Feed Alan,” which shows a cheerful young woman feeding sugar pills to some kind of monster. The strange juxtaposition of the grotesque imagery with Daisy’s completely casual tone was instantly intriguing, and over the course of the next two years she’d upload regular vlogs that gradually unraveled the mystery behind this strange family.

Play/Read - The Shadows That Run Alongside Our Car: A fully illustrated visual novel that tells the story of two strangers driving a car through the zombie apocalypse towards an uncertain fate. It’s very well written, has great atmosphere, and the theme of searching for hope and human connection in the face of inevitable demise is more timely than ever.

Listen - LVCRFT: Basically they’re a collective of (pretty high profile) artists in LA who got together and decided to create Halloween music, and it slaps! They have several excellent albums full of spooky tunes that you should be bumping to while they’re still seasonal!

Read - Crow Cillers: The basic gist of the plot is that a group of kids get tangled up in the machinations of a cult who are trying to control an otherworldly dimension(?) called Ynce Iche, but that's just the starting point for where this comic goes because it's the kind of story that tears itself apart and sews itself back up. A diverse cast of characters and well written dialogue bring a lot of life to this experimental webcomic.

Watch - Local58TV: The brainchild of Kris Staub, a perennial fave of the online horror scene. The videos are short films designed to look like news broadcasts from a world similar to our own, but also different in a few key ways. Found footage VHS horror has been a growing field in the past two years and imo this is the best it's been done yet.

Play - Symposium of Grief: The story of a ghost trying to find his lost heart, this one is a bit more emotional than the others listed here. It takes place in a spooky town full of ghosts and monsters but it's more about trying to find connection and a purpose in life than anything else; the writing is funny and the art is gorgeous and I have no clue why it's free because it seems super high effort.

Play/Read - the uncle who works for nintendo: Is this a cult classic? A text based adventure game about being a kid and going over to your friend's house for a sleepover that goes very, very wrong. I don't want to say too much and spoil it but suffice to say this is more hair raising than you'd expect. Can be played in browser so you don't have to download anything!

Listen - Ellise: Ellise makes short, catchy pop songs that have horror themes, with her last EP being centered around fairy tales in particular. It's a bit "edge lord" at times but hey, that's part of the fun!

Read - Fuan No Tane: A cult favorite manga, Fuan No Tane is a collection of unsettling ghost stories inspired by the unusual urban legends of Japan. It's slice of life in a way, there's no plot and every entry is pretty short (some just a few pages long), but the imagery and mundane-cum-horrifying tone really stick with you.

Watch - Ultraman Max Episode 22: "Butterfly Dream": Kind of a wildcard pick but if you're into the more surreal side of horror then this one is for you. While the typical episode of Ultraman would see the hero fighting some sort of rubber suit monster, "Butterfly Dream" instead is a bizarre, experimental story about a man attempting to write an episode of Ultraman, a woman trying to craft the perfect monster, and the hero caught in the middle.

Play - Don't Get Spooked!: A twine horror game from Halloween aficionado bogleech.com, this is a silly little comedy game where you click links to navigate a haunted house and try to collect all of the endings. Very dumb but a lot of fun.

Watch - The Black Tower: A classic short horror film about a man who notices a new building on the horizon… and then can’t stop noticing it. The story is told entirely through voiceover and mainly static footage, which gives the film a dreamy and unsettling atmosphere, and the “monster” feels very unique even today. I think if you like the more artsy and understated side of the horror world you’ll appreciate this.

Play - There’s A Bear Outside: Spend the night in a cabin and encounter a totally normal bear. An unusual spin on the “campfire story” formula, this interactive text game loosely tracks the stories of different people who encounter a surreal thing (really, a completely normal bear) which causes their lives to spill open. Kinda spooky, kinda silly, kinda a surprisingly emotionally cutting exploration of the human experience.

Read - Third Shift Society: A supernatural action comic about a down-on-her-luck girl who discovers psychic powers that conveniently land her a job as a “Paranormal Detective” and adventure ensues. Kind of a stock standard Webtoon but it was nominated for an Eisner Award and also one dude has a pumpkin for a head, so, that’s fun!

Watch - Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Series: A web series that offers comedic take on the classic Legend of Sleepy Hollow, following meek school teacher Ichabod Crane as he tries to unravel the mystery of the Headless Horseman that haunts his new hometown. Chock full of crazy characters and wacky circumstances, the show has an interesting sense of humor but manages to land a lot of good jokes while still crafting a surprisingly compelling story.

Read - Katalepsis: An ongoing urban fantasy web serial with major horror elements that follows the adventures of a young woman who discovers that the gruesome hallucinations that have plagued her since her childhood are real, a revelation which almost literally throws her into a world of strange people with stranger powers. Has a relatable protagonist, a unique story, creative world building, strong character development, and also like every character in this book is a queer woman.

Watch - Zombie Prom: Boy meets girl, boy and girl break up, boy drives into a nuclear power plant and comes back as a zombie… that old story. And it’s a musical! This short film (a bit over a half hour) is a super campy parody of ‘50s teen romances with a lot of fun songs, perhaps a little low-budget but that’s just part of its charm. Notably features RuPaul as a villainous high school principal.

Read - Angel Chain: An ongoing web comic about two dysfunctional sisters who encounter an “angel” who they can control using charms attached to their flip phones, but not all is as it appears. Sort of like a bastardized parody of anime/creature collectors/‘00s culture, this comic isn’t very far along yet but it stands out for eye catching art style and delightfully emo sensibilities. Be sure to explore the homepage for secret links too~

Play - Night Work: This interactive comic casts you as a janitor on a space ship who does his best to survive when things go horribly wrong. A simple story elevated by the beautiful black/white/red color palate and some smart gameplay choices. Plays in-browser so there’s no download required and it’s really quick, though you’ll probably want to do it a few times to get the different endings.

Play - The Anthology Of The Killer: A series of short games about a young woman named BB who goes on misadventures and meets all sorts of kooky characters... who want to kill her. Swim through a haunted waterpark, stumble through the dark backrooms of a cursed theatre, survive the art in a judgemental museum, become the herald of a new form of music, and more! The visual style is immediately striking, very punk and surreal, but what makes the games stand out is their great sense of humor and unexpected intelligence- you'll find yourself thinking and laughing at the most unexpected moments.

Explore - Welcome Home: A fansite for a (fake) children's show called Welcome Home that was mysteriously "lost..." perhaps for a good reason. The characters and the fake show seem very cute, but as you click around the site you might stumble across several links that hint at something darker lurking beneath the cheerful exterior. Tying together the internet's fascination with lost media with the rise of "mascot horror," it's no wonder that this went viral earlier this year, which is great because it means there are a lot of "explained" videos/articles out there for people (like me) who don't have the patience to actually do ARG bullshit.

Watch - The Search For The Next Elvira: A deep cut from Elvira lore is that back in 2007 she concocted a reality competition show where she put thirteen youngsters through a series of challenges to determine who could best fill her bra shoes and it is peak '00s reality television- there is no budget, it's super cheesy, nothing makes sense, and yet you just can't stop watching. At only four 40 minute episodes, it's a fun little thing to have in the background.

Play - Elevator Hitch: A unique visual novel with escape room elements about a young man starting a new job at a corporate office finds himself sharing an elevator with an annoying executive... and that's just the start of the horror! Explore nine different floors, each with their own twisted puzzles, and try to find a way to freedom... if it even exists. Witty writing, a charming anime inspired aesthetic, and plenty of surprises in store.

Explore - A Book Of Creatures: A cute little blog devoted to recording different "creatures" found in mythology and folklore from all around the world. If you're a monster lover like me this site is a treasure trove because the creator goes pretty deep with the references and pulls up some fairly obscure creatures- and provides beautiful illustrations for each.

Watch - Gregory Horror Show - An animated series of short episodes that tell the story of a human who arrives at a mysterious boarding house full of terrifying creatures that make his every waking minute a nightmare. It's a more cartoonish take on horror but the memorable cast of characters and the surprisingly compelling story have made it an enduring cult classic.

Read - Dustin K Couch's Creepypastas: This creator has gone viral several times for his unique format of short form comedic horror stories that come in the form of fake social media screenshots about surreal phenomenon that takes hold via the web. Short, amusing, slightly unsettling, and punchy. Also on tumblr if you don't want to go to xitter.

[tiptapricot]

Happy 1000 followers! That's definitely a number worth celebrating :D. Here are some asks for your Ask Game; don't worry about answering them all, these are just some questions I thought of, free free to answer whichever ones you want to. :3

What got you into writing?

Is there any books or piece of media that inspired your style of writing, or did it develop in some other way?

What character(s) do you enjoy writing the most and why?

Are there any character(s) or fandom(s) you love that you'd love to write for but never have?

Are there any hobbies or interests you have that you find leak into and/or influence your stories?

When did you embrace the ways of the apricot? (That is to say, when and why did you commit to the bit and start creating your marvellous collection of apricot icons?).

Hope you're doing well :). Enjoy your fame, my friend! 🧡🧡🧡

I will answer 🔥 ☠️ ALL OF THEM 🎸🔥 *sick riff*

What got you into writing?

I don’t really remember a specific point of Getting Into It, because (and this def plays a part) my dad is a writer! He’s written for some video games and has some short stories published, so I grew up with him reading me books and writing his own manuscripts/engaging us in that way. He never like Guided me into writing but it was always a natural presence and I was exposed to a lot of stories early on.

We did nanowrimo in elementary school, and I also made comics when I was younger that were my own narratives and things, and I did a few small stories for other classes along the way, but when I started Really doing it more intentionally was when I got into fic writing. Which… what got me into that was I think like… danganronpa self insert things? That’s my ultimate lost fic. I wrote it in the notes app in middle school and it was super long and then I hated it and deleted it all and I’m SO MAD ABOUT IT because IT WOULD BE SO FUNNY TO LOOK BACK ON NOW! It was kind of just a natural progression though I guess? When I started reading fic more and being online more and getting into more media, I wanted to create for it since I’d already been doing that sort of thing (most comics I did were inspired by superhero shows I watched or DND games I played) so I stated posting. And then I did more original stories for school and started making ocs and it just sorta settled into being part of what I do.

Is there any books or piece of media that inspired your style of writing, or did it develop in some other way?

None consciously? And I can’t really trace my style to anything in specific, but there’s def got to be some input from the books I grew up on. Stuff like series of unfortunate events, larklight, the leviathan trilogy, the keys to the kingdom series, the Roman mysteries series, the Lockwood and co series, Harry Potter to an extent, etc. all were things that I was exposed to growing up. I don’t think I’ve really picked up the quippy narration a lot of those have, but I know they shaped some ideas of description and imagery I do now, at least in inspo. But I guess on a whole it just sort of developed naturally? I really don’t have a very conscious writing process half the time 😭

What character(s) do you enjoy writing the most and why?

At the moment and also in general I like characters that have strong voices. They make the prose pop for me, make it easy to find fun descriptions and forms of speech. Bill and Ted and Steven Grant definitely come to mind immediately as like. When I get to write them stuff just goes fast because I know how they’d talk and narrate and react and it feels like something very solid to shape and work with. So accents? I guess? But on a larger sense of just characters I Like Writing… MK system are all very fun and I really enjoy getting to explore their dynamics and reactions. If I ever get my hands on Din Djarin for a fic (finally) I think I’ll have a good time with him, but idk. I think it’s very dependent on the interests I’m into at the time, as those will be the characters I’m the most excited to engage with and create for, so it varies!

Are there any character(s) or fandom(s) you love that you'd love to write for but never have?

THE ZETA PROJECTTTT!!! AND ALSO MORE OF LEGION 2006 ANDDD THE DCAU ANDDDD MORE LUKE N DIN N ORIGINAL TRILOGY CAST AND THE DAREDEVIL NETFLIX CAST AND MISS FISHERS MURDER MYSTERIES AND TIGER AND BUNNY AND— Ahem. Yes there are and they torment me every day wanting to get to create for them but having finite brain space and time space makes writing everything all the time… a bit hard. I kind of want to do a like niche interest power hour week or somth where I take fandoms I haven’t written for and make a small piece for them—WOLF 359 ALSO GOOD GOD!!!!!!!! But I don’t know when that will be.

Are there any hobbies or interests you have that you find leak into and/or influence your stories?

Not generally, but whenever I’m writing a character as having an interest in something or really liking something in depth it often has to be something I’m also into for me to be able to do research on it. This can mean I sometimes have to find middle grounds between what a character might find fascinating and what I find fascinating, so sometimes my interests are directly or indirectly in stories. Lost media I know has made it in a few times, and so has sci fi and superheroes and action figures. I don’t really have a whole ton of hobbies that are easy to slot in or draw from on a large scale otherwise, as niche toy collecting, a love for stickers and earrings and clown paraphernalia, and performing arts are only applicable under certain circumstances.

INTERESTS is a whole diff thing. My monster/inhuman character love, my love for certain genres or aesthetics, etc. influences ALLLLL of my OCs and a lot of my fics. Stuff that focuses on loving the strange, or the inanimate, or the weird crossover between the two is in a lot of my work (and will be in more haha) but definitely colors the types of stories I want to do, and the original content I end up making outside of fic.

When did you embrace the ways of the apricot? (That is to say, when and why did you commit to the bit and start creating your marvellous collection of apricot icons?).

THIS ACTUALLY HAS DOCUMENTABLE HISTORY!! Ok so.

The username Tiptapricot was what I came up with when I made my Minecraft account in elementary school. I liked apricots and peaches and plums and stuff (still do) so that was part of it, but I was also into semi-tap dancing (AKA being a young kid with some cheap tap shoes from somewhere and doing performances) so tip-tap and apricot combined and… there we were. It became my standard name on sites when I had to make accounts (bar like animal jam I think because it was maybe made earlier), since it was never taken and it was unique enough to slot in.

I guess as I was maybe making an Instagram account or going into highschool or just… for some reason, my sister @dimidarling wanted to make me a cute icon and, based off my username, drew me a little apricot with a face for one! This created what I now call… Prototip on July 14th, 2019

This icon was very cute and I loved it a lot, but it wasn’t quite the vibe I was wanting for myself, so I ended up getting a PNG of an apricot, slapping it on a blue background from looking up “light blue” on Google, and drawing a little face on it. That became the Default Base Tip as is seen in my icon most places, in December of 2019

FUN FACT you will never unsee after I say it: I think at some point I resized or re-edited the image or something, and I wanted to carry over the original face I had drawn on it, so I ended up cutting it out and pasting it over a face I didn’t like as much, and on the left side of Tip’s face (our right) u can see this tinyyy little black mark showing the edge of the main face cut out because I didn’t get it perfectly covered or aligned. I’m sorry in advance.

ANYWAY! So base Tip was made. I don’t remember the following order of events, but still being in my kpop phase in late 2019 I got Twitter briefly and made a Tiptapricot account there. And having an apricot with a face I thought: wouldn’t it be so funny if I was a gimmick account that pretended to be a real life apricot tweeting? So I did that for like a little bit. And then I went: wouldn’t it make the bit even better if this apricot was appropriately apricot aged? And long story short I changed my age to be a year old, then realized that would probably be bad legally, but when changing it back to my actual birthday, Twitter freaked out and banned me for messing around with my age and not being old enough when I made an account (even though I was at the time) so I got booted off Twitter. (And I’m glad about that can you imagine if I had settled in there instead oh lord) But the seed for apricot jokes was planted!

From there it happened somewhat naturally as a way to either make reaction images for friends online without sending my face, or to change my icon to play along with a funny joke. I made edits for friends in the DC fandom and for jokes we had running about each other going to jail or like “I’m gonna beat you up” or whatever, and joined along with a growing bit of giving me Tip related names, it became something I Did.

Now my Tip folder is 200 images strong and my mascot/sona/little guy is somth I actually care a lot about and have a lot of fondness for as a way to express goofy stuff and emotions in a way that’s simple to draw and feels rly truly me.

And there you have it :-D The Ti(nfodum)p

Ty for the questions Charlie, they were super fun to answer!!

(IDs in ALT)

1000 follower celebration

[necroangelz]

HIA YOU SEEM SO NICE JAJAAHDHEJWV- I remember following you from one of my Tumblr accounts (I have like 4 and have forgotten about the passwords of most of them)- So you may know me from there ig!!

Actually I came back here because I wanted to ask something- What is "Needy Streamer Overload" about?? I keep finding the game pretty intriguing and since you had it on your layout I thought I could ask you- (I also felt that it was a perfect opportunity to try to socialize a bit and meet more people on Tumblr-) Sorry if I'm bothering you! ^^

@.mistysaur

AWWW THANKIEEE 🥹🥹 and yeah I'm pretty sure i know uu from there!!

oh boy. let me see if i can explain NSO without dropping 19 paragraphs LOL

also, don't worry, uur not bothering me at all!! i love when ppl send me asks bc i have a hard time talking to ppl first, so this is also a good time for me to socialize!

ramble under the cut >:3

anyway, at its core, NSO is a game about managing the streamer career of a very mentally ill girl. the player is p-chan, the manager of their ' girlfriend ' Ame or k-angel/omgkawaiiangel, and they basically tell Ame what to do throughout the day. they can hang out, spend time together, play games, go on the internet, go outside etc. doing certain actions gives Ame ideas fur streams. there are many types of streams uu can do, each streaming category has level 1 up to level 5 streams, streaming is what gets uu followers. certain streams can get uu more followers but they would also increase ame's stress...

the player also has to manager her stats, her affection, stress, follower count and mental darkness. there's not much story because the whole game is centered around the players actions if ya get what i mean. the endings center around the effects of ame's stats if that makes sense.

NSO is a very fun game (i guess it's obvious that i love it lmao) the gameplay could get a little repetitive bc it's all the same but the graphics and music are so so cool. the interface is like this little computer and stuff and uu see Ame through the webcam screen and uu select her daily activities through app icons. the music is so catchy and perfectly fits the vibe of the game.

NSO is also a good portrayal of the toxic side of the internet—during some of the worst endings, ame spirals in front of the camera during a stream, and instead of having sympathy for her, her fans are quick to turn on her and dogpile on her instead. laughing at her misery as if she wasn't a person at all. they spread rumors, talk about how they always hated her from the start, doxx her, and then move on to the next entertaining internet personality with no loyalty to ame at all. it shows how people online can become cruel to each other because, well, it's all online, so they believe nothing is important or significant. NSO also depicts parasocial relationships, internet addiction, and wanting to get attention, love, and gratification from the internet. in general i love how NSO portrays the internet because everything feels so... real. the stream chats, the comments under ame's tweets, even Ame's texts to the player, they all feel so natural. like they're all actually said by people who spend way too much time on the internet and hence use slang and ways of speech that are common online. i always felt really bothered that mainstream media, especially those made by adults, SUCKED at portraying the internet. NSO isn't like that

so ya that's nso :3 if one thinks that NSO is something one is interested in, and one is sure they won't be triggered by it (bc yeah this game is super heavy) please by all means check it out!! i don't have any playthroughs to recommend since i don't watch playthroughs, but there's def some fun ones on yt! or buy it!

[lakemichigans]

tlou episode 4 thoughts!

- i loved seeing ellie play around with the gun in the bathroom. that felt like the perfect amount of childish innocence contrasted with the fact that she clearly knows how to use a gun on some level

- THE JOKE BOOK THE JOKE BOOK THE JOKE BOOK!!!!

- i totally didn't think we would see that scene with ellie and joel in the truck, i thought that the end of the last episode was all we'd see! i even showed my friend a clip of that scene from the game because i didn't want her to miss out, oops. super cute though

- joel not being able to sleep because god help him, he has a job to do. my hearttttt 😭 and the fact that as soon as he recognizes that he cares about her, even the smallest bit, he rebuilds that wall and insists that she's just "cargo", not family. typical joel.

- they really upped the tension leading up to the iconic "he ain't even hurt" scene (although i'm sad they cut that line, because it implied so much about joel). i loved how ellie felt genuinely scared and joel kicked into protector mode (and the callback to sarah hurting her leg: "are you hurt anywhere, are you hurt?" was so good)

- okay so of all my predictions on how the stolen gun would turn out, ellie successfully saving joel was the option i called the most boring, but i'm actually 100% happy with how it turned out. we finally get to see some humanity, remorse, and sadness from ellie in relation to death, something i've been CRAVING. this felt like the ellie i know and my heart broke seeing how that encounter happened. the fact that joel actually apologizes and doesn't act like an asshole after? hello?? that was a welcome change. hbo!joel is a lot more self-loathing where game!joel is more closed off to emotion in general, so this makes sense to me. joel teaching ellie how to properly hold the gun was so cute! and then she puts the gun in her pocket anyway yesss that's so ellie, that's my little shit

- "it wasn't my first time." HMMMM is she talking about riley? did she have to kill riley? :( or someone else?

- melanie lynskey killing it as always!!! it makes so much sense to tie her to henry. i'm super interested by her story! it feels like a soft intro to abby's future story; maybe they're introducing the idea of the cycle of revenge now so people won't freak the fuck out when we get to part 2? one can hope...

- jeffrey pierce!!! i didn't recognize his face but as soon as i heard his voice i was like omg

- joel wheezing his way up the stairs was so cuuuuute, "get up you lazy ass" 😭 i love them so much

- what a beautiful fucking scene, you know the scene i'm talking about. man. i could listen to them laugh with each other all day 🥺 reminds me of this concept art:

- HENRY AND SAM!!!! they must've already been in the building right? i loooove the way they introduced them after joel promised that no one would sneak up on them and they already stated that joel is hard of hearing on the right side, which we then see that he rolled over in his sleep (letting his guard down) and he didn't hear them sneaking in. just another one of joel's "failures" in his mind. and sam is deaf (?) or possibly they're just using sign language as a way to stay silent/safe? either way it all ties together so well

- this is a dumb complaint but i really wish they had used ashley johnson's cover of true faith for the credits. but i'm glad lotte kestner is getting recognition after what happened with the original trailer

- neil druckmann in the post-credits saying "i love humanizing villains" sooo real, i love it

[fruchtgummii]

I keep posting LOAOQLQ I'm kinda sorry anyway here's my review of all lbp story modes I've played. I just decided to put this here cos why not.

Gives context to my tier list

So. I'm going to review the LBP games story mode who's I have played. Keyword, STORY MODE. Okay : )

Well. Let's start with LBP1 since it's the first one. The story is cute, us having to defeat the collectors. And we can all agree on that the aesthetic is absolutely amazing. The feel and the aesthetic is something I enjoy so much. It almost feels like you're in a dream (not as much as in milestone5 but ykyk). It doesn't really have characters we really get a feel into but quite a few of them are still endearing.

Curator one is the king with the gardens, arguably one of the most iconic and memorable areas in all lbp games for us fans. For me I also have quite the emotional connection haha and yes it does well enough at what it's supposed to do, be a tutorial.

The savannah (Zola) is probably my least favourite area. I still love playing through it though, I just don't enjoy the theme as much.

The wedding (Frida), first level is one of my favourites in the whole game. I love the theme! It's fun and Volver a comenzar makes me cry. I don't really like the level where you have to go around with Don lus dog, but I still really appreciate the area.

The canyons (Uncle Calapenis) is really awesome and super iconic. This is really where the game starts to spike in difficulty and still it's so enjoyable.

The metropolis (Mags) once again has one of the most iconic levels with the construction site. Atlas slaps and I love the level in general. I also quite like the theme. Once again, fun.

I can say the same about the islands (Sensei) and The temples (Magisian). They are challenging and fun. And pretty. Just perfect lol.

I really love The wilderness (tbe collector). It's challenging but really fun, I love the levels that come before the boss fight, and the boss fight itself is just fine :)

I find the ending a bit short? Idk I feel like they could have done something different to make it have more impact.

I think LBP1 story mode is almost perfect. It's fun, challenging, there isn't a moment in the game where I hope a level is ending fast, not a moment where I dread thinking about what worlds to come.

Now, ummm LBP2 yes... ehem.

I love that we have proper characters. I really love all of them for their own reasons and even the villain the Negativitron is awesome. They're all cute and have amazing personalities!! Yeah I could rave about them for hours.

Anyway. I enjoy the story mode, till Avalonia. LISTEN. The last time I ever played the story mode was when I got the game, which was in late 2012 I think. I couldn't finish the game because back then it was too hard for me, and through that I ended up in eves asylum since levels unlock when you play with others who already have them unlocked. Anyways, like a year or two after I assume I actually managed to finish the story, and not once have I played the actual story mode since then. Till today.

In my mind, the opinion that LBP2 was the best LBP game stayed in my mind. The story was perfect, the create mode was perfect bla bla. And that's the expectation I went on when I played it today. And uhmmm well let's go shall we?

I dont like the excessive robot usage. I was never a big fan of the controlinator controlled creatures, and god. Is there a lot of that in this game. Not my kinda thing at all. In a lot of levels I was just hoping it would be over soon, and that's not what I consider a good gaming experience in my eyes.

Anyway, that's just wjat I feel though, only I don't like that. And I know there are plenty people who are in love with the storymode, which I absolutely understand. I quite like the bossfight, and I love the story. It's big and messy and really nice ! But the story (game) isn't for me. I don't feel like replaying it. And I was happy when it was over.

I feel guilty I have to feel this way about LBP2 but I need to be honest. It's not my favourite, at all. And that's just how it is.

Now for LBPvita, its quite the cute game! The story is alright, sadly most of the characters are super forgettable. I like the themes and once again, the music is bangers. I had fun playing the story. I can't really say too much about it other than that it's a neat little lbp game!

LBP3 ... when I was younger yes I had spite. I was angry and upset because it was buggy. I said I hated the game and the story mode even though I hadn't even tried it properly. I said the music sucked and I didn't like the characters.

Admittedly I am not too mad at my younger self. We all were upset. Now. I bought the game on ps4 for the cheap price of 8 euros like two years ago? I just wantrf it for funsies. I never touched it much since it was still buggy and I didn't have the nerve to get into it, but last month I think I decided to try and play through the story, and open up to give the game another try.

The story is ofcourse, rushed. I've watched videos on both beta and alpha, and yes, A LOT was changed last minute, I'm talking months away from release. We all know the game was rushed by Sony, so no hard feelings towards sumo. From Prologe to Ziggurat the game feels fine, but in bunkum lagoon everything becomes so fast.

That out of the way, now you have to piece the story together yourself. In the beta some details were different that don't really fit the current version. So I'll just tell my interpretation. (Short). We have to save the planet Bunkum from Newton who has been possessed by the evil titans, which were locked away in a can ontop of stitchim Manor.

Different from other villains, Newton himself isn't intirely evil. He seemed to have unleashed the titans due to insecurity and wanting to impress his parents, not understanding the true power of the titans.

Anyway, we have to help stop the titans, safe bunkum and Newton. I really like the gameplay. Its fun! I like stitchim Manor, and I love manglewood.

Speaking of manglewood I didn't mention how I quite love some of the characters in this game too. We even can piece together deeper backstories for some of them which I think is very yum yum.

Anyway, manglewood. Fun. Not a single level i don't enjoy replaying. Speaking of replaying I'm also not talking about any of the levels that aren't the main levels because I played on Mt own and I couldn't play most of them.

Ehem anyway I love the theme of the ziggurat, even if I really hate that one level with the fire. (So hot, so sweaty ;)). I'm in general not the biggest fan of toggles gameplay. And for whatever reason the second titans fight is impossible for me. I can't see shit send help.

Bunkum lagoon is okay, the levels are so nice too. The Great Escape is my favourite level in the game, its fun and challenging. And tbe boss fight is very nice too.

Sadly, the ending feels so rushed. You feel literally no accomplishment after finishing everything. For me tbe fact bunkum lagoon as a whole including the ending being so rushed is just the most negative thing about it.

That being said, I must admit that it, along with LBP1 slightly above, is my favourite story mode. Younger me is turning in his grave.

Thanks for reading mwah

[bloomood]

Finished final fantasy 16 last night and had some (many) thoughts, spoilers below!

so, clive’s massive honkers…..

First off I just want to say this game was AMAZING. The if the sound track doesn’t win every award it’s nominated for then it should literally be a crime. I’m serious, every main characters theme got me so hype and especially the soundtracks in the Ultima fight… oh my god… when Clive’s theme kicked in at the end I wanted to cry it was so good.

To also mention my gripes with the game: I didn’t really like how the gear and loot in the game really didn’t matter. The buffs you got from accessories weren’t cool to acquire, and honestly you could probably play through the game on the normal action difficulty mode without any accessories and not feel a difference.

(Exception being the berserker ring which gave you empowered attacks on a perfect dodge. I wish every or more accessories could be as impactful as this one.)

I do also think this would’ve tied naturally in with having more overworld enemy diversity. Having status ailments, resistances, etc., coming from gear or just knowing that enemies would be varied in certain areas and hurt you in different ways would’ve added a much needed layer of depth.

I also had a big issue with the game’s pacing. It has such INSANELY epic highs, and then some very boring low segments. The world and meeting new characters in these low segments was still nice I just wish it was handled a bit better instead of being so jarring. Hand in hand, the side quests. Oh my god. The pay off in the end if you follow the side quests chains all the way through was so amazing, but the way they’re littered out with fucking CLUMPS inbetween main story (looking at the 12 side quests now available right before the finale) drove me crazy.

One last slight negative was the handling of Jill, but I don’t think I’m as angry or disappointed as a lot of others. I think her story was fantastic, herself as a character is lovely, I just wish she had more dialogue in general whenever she was traveling along with the party. Just more things to say in cutscenes and overworld questing would’ve done a lot.

Now onto the positives. Combat, amazing, felt so satisfying and really made you feel badass throughout the game even when you’re just fighting some bees. Music. Amazing. Titan’s battle and soundtrack coming in will be an unforgettable moment for me.

The BOSS FIGHTS. Like what can you even say about them that hasn’t already been said. These are the most insane setpieces I’ve experienced in a videogame. The music and the cinematics made me CRAZY, a game hasn’t made me audibly scream and stand up mid combat in forever like this game repeatedly has done. I’m also a big fan of QTEs in general so I may be a bit biased there, but the addition of them made me feel super cool in these cinematic moments.

The characters are standout as well. I am REALLY surprised with how amazing Gav was as a side character. He really grows right alongside Clive to the very end. Uncle Byron doesn’t get as much love as he should with how beautiful of a man he is. Mid as well brings such a needed dynamic and personality into the hideout in an otherwise bleak setting of the blight ravaging the world. The entire side character and quest cast just gives them so much personality as you’re running around the hideout, Otto and Charon especially grew on me very quickly.

Cid, Cid, Cid. It’s crazy how he wasn’t in the game even for the entirety of it but he left such an impact on the player, the characters, and the world. Him and really everyone in the game had such stellar voice acting that they’re unforgettable. Torgal is the best boy, and his side quest chain into the final one really tugged in the heart strings and I’m glad they gave him so many moments including big, and little interactions with the world.

Dion, Joshua, Jote, Jill, all just kept hitting. Dion especially of the batch is iconic and I’m really glad he was so well received from the general player base both for how insane he and Bahamut is, and how nicely written of a character he is. Joshua and Jill both grew up alongside Clive, and little things from the brief childhood history kept showing up repeatedly in the story in their personalities and it made the ending even more gut wrenching. I love them all.

To talk about the Antagonists, I thought they all were interesting and served their purpose well. I wish Barnabas had more time to naturally share things about himself, motive, etc. I feel like his arc along with Clive was a bit rushed character wise, but maybe that’s just because he didn’t have much else to show given how he was all about being Clive’s foil, already having surrendered his will and human drive to Ultima. But he was definitely the most badass of the antagonists strength wise, legit terrifying.

Hugo and Clive’s rivalry was my favorite though. Mainly because how it wasn’t anything heroic between them, it was just rage. Vengeance, just a desire to wipe the other off the face of the planet. It was so cool to see, especially in a Final Fantasy game, and both their dialogues and voice acting were amazing. I didn’t have a problem with ultima as an antagonist, they had a cool design and played the role of detached god-thing perfectly to me. The final battle with the eikon’s all showing up and the multiple stages gave me CHILLS.

The ending seems to be the most divisive aspect of the game. I can see both arguments. It can be seen as really too open ended; almost like the writers themselves didn’t want to conclude the story so they left as much vague symbolism and hints as possible in the last 10 minutes.

But I also don’t mind it, it leaves so much for interpretation and discussion up to the player and fan that it can be, and mean, anything you want it to be. That was the point of Vivian’s final quest wasn’t it? That truth was just belief, the strength of a people’s belief.

Until CBU3 release some DLC or canonize any ending of course. Heh.

Beautiful game I will think about forever. Thank you for this final fantasy. These are all my opinions of course and I’m not stating anything I think as fact. Happy to discuss the game ^_^

[orphancookie69]

Now Watching: The Super Mario Bros. Movie!

Mario has been on a roll this year, anyone else thinking we should quit our day jobs and become plumbers? Between Universal Studios adding “Mario Land” and the movie debuting on 4/5 in theatres everywhere...don’t even get me started on the amount of games from the franchise that are selling hand over fist. Let’s talk movies! 

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

So, before I watched this movie-I have played the games for my whole life, my parents played the game before me. This game came out in 1985, which puts this on the radar of my parents growing up-and then on my radar in childhood. My nephew is avid gamer, who has done everything mario related. He has either played or watched youtube for gameplay footage, and even just went to Universal Studios. So, you have Mario on 3 generations. His current favorite game is Super Mario Maker 2. 

This game, turned movie, can almost be too iconic to succeed. I meant what I typed, I know the phrase is “too big to fail”, but I mean what I type. One question I had before was: who was the target customer? Was it my parents who played the OG game? Was it me who played the current game with extended storylines? Or my nephew who has probably watched more people play it more than he has actually played it? 

This is your spoiler alert. Here I will go into some things I loved and did not love about this movie. 

There was so much movie in such a little time. While there are a lot of games in the franchise, from my knowledge of the mario universe-they covered the following game: Mario Kart, Super Mario Odssey, Luigi’s Mansion, Yoshi Island, and so many more. The movie is 1.5 hours long. Some references to the games were more subtly referenced, and others were like watching a video clip from the games. 

The movie itself is well made, the actor list is not a bad mix. The story is not untrue to the base material. The mixture of real world and game world is a little odd, but kind of necessary. In game, there is no question of why you are there. In the movie they have to establish why humans are in the video game world. The movie needed to be a little bit longer to kind of establish the brothers. Yes you know the brothers, but when you are changing the story-you have to explain it. 

While you are normally helping to rescue the princess, the tables are turned. I wonder if that would of been the case if we weren’t in a time of feminist trying to dominate the world. Music is all over the place, half the time it is video game classic tunes and the other half its oldies over the generation. There is even a beastie boys song in the movie! 

There is a lot of movie, in too short amount of time. In my opinion, I don’t feel like Nintendo struck the “classic kid movie balance” in putting jokes for the adults but keeping the movie kid friendly. It was definitely more for the younger to youngest generation, the older generation is too busy adulting to keep up with the ever continuing story. For me, there are some things that are “classic mario” that I would of loved to see more. I did not see enough ghosts or yoshi’s. I know there is a lot of types of being in the universe and its hard to show them all in 1.5 hours, but if it was done differently-you could of slowed it down and maybe had a sequel. 

While I do love this era of gaming turned cinema, not every game is successfully turned into a movie. I would say this game was middle of the road, while I have heard good things about D&D being turned into a film. 

Did you know if you look up Mario games, there are 50+ games in the franchise? IMDb gives this a 7.5 out of 10, and a 53% on Rotten Tomatoes. Would I recommend this movie? It is not bad for older kids. Older people will not totally understand everything, but like anything that makes money these days-its about targeting kids and getting adults to pay for them. Have you seen this movie? What would you tell someone who hasn’t seen it? Inquiring Minds Want To Know. 

[non4ry]

new re4make trailer how we feeling?

I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS. I haven’t posted about it because I know I have some friends who are avoiding re4make spoilers completely SO. I am going to give this a ‼️‼️ HUGE RE4MAKE SPOILER WARNING ‼️‼️

I have the most thoughts about ashley so i’m gonna save those for later in the post because there’s a lot to unpack with her, but other than her, I am kinda interested in this new direction they’re taking with Luis? Him being alive and filling in a partner role is super cool and the minecart scene was so silly (speaking of that I am so so glad they’re showcasing the humor aspects of re4 that were so iconic in the original while also removing the tasteless humor and still keeping the serious tone of the game!! looks like really good writing so far) A lot of the voice acting and general gameplay quality seems a lot better in this trailer than the older ones. All of the character designs for the villains look amazing, the game actually feels like it’ll be kinda scary! I do genuinely love the horror elements of Resident Evil (even though the only actually scary one is 7 imo), so I’m glad to see them touching up on that a bit.

One of my only qualms is that I feel as though Luis is replacing Ashley in some aspects/parts? But it also seems like they’re taking a much more serious and almost Unwilling Antagonist route with her. I’m not too entirely sure how I feel about it yet, my other two characters I’m thinking about with this direction being re5 jill (a storyline I hated) and re7 mia winters (a character I loved) my opinion will definitely be influenced by the actual game itself, however I support women’s wrongs and I think girls should be allowed to do whatever they want.

I really hope that this direction with her doesn’t turn into unnecessary torture though, I am really nervous about that already seeing as how they are considerably more violent with her than they were in og. (This trailer showed her being Choked out instead of just grabbed, the scene of her tied up, all of the sacrifice scenes, etc.. I just hope they’re kind to her.)

On another hand though I do really love how this Plagas Infection opens up for taking her more seriously, acknowledging her as a person who is Actually struggling with this horrible thing that’s happening to her (because we barely saw it in the original, she was just a punching bag for the villains) I also hope they don’t abuse this over and over again to get her out of the story like they did with having her conveniently be kidnapped several times, I want to see her more, I want to see her fight and live and exist, overcome her fears (which given a lot of her dialogue with leon seems to be a direction they’re taking! She seems to be nervous about him at first but is slowly warming up to him and his kindness and reassurance, which is so much more realistic and human and I think does her a lot more justice than her immediate crush on him in OG.)

Speaking of Leon I am so excited to his character direction and his interactions with Ashley feel so much sweeter and genuine, as kind and gentle as he was to her in the OG game I always found myself a bit off put but how . Inhuman their dialogue interactions were, when we’re supposed to be seeing them build this bond and trust to each other and escape the hell they’re in. I am so so glad that they kept Leon’s gentle nature with her instead of going out their way to make him this emo asshole that everyone characterizes him as.

To summarize I am generally really excited, there are definitely some things I would have done differently (mostly with ashley’s design) but I am excited to see the vision they have in mind for the game and it’s characters. I would love to hear your thoughts as well because honestly this trailer gave us a Lot of new stuff and I haven’t even touched on the gameinformer gameplay yet either .