#if you end up playing i hope you enjoy it moon mod! its been an honor

[transflynnscifo]

ohh ok moon mod again, sending as an ask both so I don't have to spam the others but also I do have more questions actually! mostly abt gameplay, bc if it does genuinely go on sale (i saw it's at like $10 rn omg?) i might look into buying and playing it myself

ill bullet point these lmao

what exactly is the gameplay: turn-based, open world, fighting game where it's open-world but not im not sure how to put it, puzzle solving, etc? I'm assuming it's like a fighting game that pulls you in a small arena, but elaboration is appreciated :0

does it,, go on sale on steam or is it purely for the switch it goes on sale? if you know, i totally understand why you might not

thank you once again :'D !!

hello hello!! thank you for asking!!

tov's gameplay uses a "linear motion battle system" which is reminiscent of a fighting game, but you have 4 characters fighting agsinst the enemy. you control one either on semi-auto (which leaves you Locked onto your target), or manual, where controls are harder but it means making a Huge fancy combo out of your controlled character!

the game is open world consisting of the following: the field, towns, and dungeons. you walk around the field (you may encounter enemies as you make your way in the world), you interact with npc and whatnot in towns, while you travel in dungeons and encounter enemies there too.

theres a lot of freedom in how to manage your party members in battles, including the skill system, equipable weapons, battle settings where you can tell the ai how to attack/where to move/etc, and you can even toggle which Attacks they can use. its pretty flexible and each character fullfils different roles! judith for example is aerial combos but is also close combat that you canbhave fun running with!

fights themselves occur in a small circular space when an Encounter happens which does remind a bit of an arena! but only boss fights take a while to beat. some dungeons have a tiny bit of puzzle solving and whatnot but even if you get stuck we have folk online who have put out solutions readily.

honestly the most puzzling aspect of the game is one thing it has kept from Ye Olde style of jrpgs: needing a guide if you want to 100%. not even just to 100%! the game has a few infamous instances of missable sidequests, events that have a limit as to when you can trigger them at latest. one of which is ACTUALLY a judith sidequest. i have done a 100% playthrough twice and i personally did not mind it much but in that regard i am not reliable, i like the challenge of it LMAO

i have good news for you: steam is where it almost always goes on sale! now i have to say that apparently its the steam port that has had the most difficulties with lag and all but ive only played less than 10 hours on the steam version so far. i would say its fine but its definitely better suited for a controller though o7

on the steam version someone managed to create a little file you can put into the steam files that lets you have character outfits from unused and cut content, or even outfits that did not make it from the ps3 version of the game (karol, a boy in the party, had a literal keroro outfit. huge frog outfit really changes the atmosphere of some scenes its hilarious)

feel free to ask more if desired :D

[ladyofsilverr]

Please tell me all about Sylvia and the Nightsong's Twin 👉🏻👈🏻 I also have a 'canon' that involves Dark Urge twins!

So, I am still kinda working with what I know so far in the story. My goals for the two characters are this: Sylvia and Karlach are going to be the romance for the I guess "main" storyline of my playthrough. Aylin's twin sister Thetia will be romanced with Shadowheart, a romance I am quite looking forward to as they are both completely opposites of each other even in their faith and often even have arguments about them in the beginning of their time together. Now to give you some backstory on my characters, or at least what I've gotten in my head so far. Keep in mind, this is most likely going to change as I play throughout the game. Thetia is the daughter of the moon goddess Selûne. She takes place in her role as The Shield of the Moonmaiden, and co-exists with her sister who is known as The Sword. Much can be said about the two, but what is known from is the bond they had was unbreakable. This changed when the two became separated. As Dame Aylin was caught under the curse of the Nightsong, so too did a curse fall upon Thetia. Shar sought to anger her sister, and to do so she cursed one of her children and trapped the other. She cursed the Amulet of Selûne she wore to that of a curse. She was stripped of her immortality, as well as her armor being stripped of its color and appeared as black and grey. The curse also removed the ability for Thetia to be in contact with her mother, and so she was left in her solitude. But the one most humiliating thing that was bestowed as part of the curse was the loss of her whiteish blonde hair, and replaced by black hair. Shar felt it fitting to leave behind 2 silver streaks that ran down her scalp as a reminder of the curse. As Thetia began to roam Faerûn alone, she stumbled across a village that had been attacked by raiders. One of the many men had a child with a blade stretched against her throat, which infuriated the black armored Paladin. With quick haste and vigorous speed she annihilated them all. But she was too late to save the poor little girls parents, and so Thetia decided she wished to take care of the girl herself. Throughout the years she took care of, trained, and schooled the girl with as much as she knew. Thetia would tell stories of her adventures during her very long life span, and of course of her sister. As they travelled from Baldur's Gate, they were caught and captured by Mindflayers, albeit very difficultly, and thus the beginning of Baldur's Gate 3 starts. The thing about Sylvia and Thetia is they consider each other family, and grew to understand each other in a way only Thetia's true blood had come to understand her. The two protected each other, and throughout the events of the game they still do. NOW, I will get into the spoiler territory, so please be mindful.

The events of each romance play out exactly how you'd imagine it. Sylvia loves Karlach, and when she saw the opportunity to join her in Avernus she did not for a second hesitate to join her. Thetia knew who Sylvia was deep down, and regardless if she pleaded for her to stay she knew she wouldn't abandon Karlach to be alone. So the two end up in Avernus, and the story for how that all ends is something I will have to come up when I actually fully complete the game. As for Thetia, she gets her happy ending with Shadowheart. I do plan on having her be free from her curse and like Aylin getting her gleaming power back. But until I have a mod that gives wings or can change hair color mid game, this will simply be nothing more than a thought. I hope this made at least some sense, and as I said before this could very well be completely different once both playthroughs are complete. I hope you enjoyed my oc rambling!

[katachell]

portal 2 project???

portal 2 has an AMAZING narrative. AMAZING. but if you want to rewatch the story... you cant. your two options are to watch let’s plays and randomly skip around to hopefully hear all the dialogue, or to read the quotes on the wiki... which are seperated by character, not scene, and dont give environmental details. this makes it impossible for people who dont want to put in a massive amount of time in to experience the story of the game in one definitive place. so, i propose:

THE PORTAL 2 PROJECT

the end product of this project would be a video, posted to YouTube, that has all of the relevant scenes and dialogue in order. it would play out like a movie, so people who haven't or don't want to play the game can still enjoy and understand the story in its entirety. it would use screen recordings of the game, so you can see whats happening and hear it.

what would be included in the video:

-any moment where there is dialogue (exceptions listed below)

-plot relevant details: for some examples, getting the portal gun, finding a rattman den, introducing a new puzzle element, when cave says that portals can be placed on the moon. (this is to better help people who aren't familiar with the franchise understand what the things they're seeing on the screen are.) (most of these would be short clips: for example, when hard light bridges are introduced, the clip would show chell walking up to it and standing on it, and then the video would move on.)

-major scenes, obviously. an example is when chell falls into the pit or unlocks old aperture.

-small, funny details. (without lingering for too long.) it wouldn’t be portal 2 if you dont show the little details! examples include the borealis dock, the elevator room screens, or when wheatly is monologuing and you can go back and he’ll keep monologuing (”you’re at my mercy! wait- come back! (chell goes back) FOOL! you’re at my mercy, and i dont have any!”

-exploring the enviroment: for example, the screen recorder would stop to look at the awards in old aperture, zoom in on chell’s name for the potato experiment, listen to the optional/hidden cave experiment dialogue, as well as look at old posters and signs that tell you about the dangers of old ap. just so the audience is grounded.

-ive touched on this in other bullet points, but not everyone has the time or willpower to look for the little hidden things in the game. this would make sure that you get a very full, portal 2 experience.

what would NOT be included:

-puzzle solving. some chambers take a few minutes to solve, and there is no dialogue. this interrupts the story. unless the puzzle solving is relevant to the plot, like quickly introducing new mechanics to the audience, it wont be included.

-unimportant dialogue. for example, in the neurotoxin generator area, whealtly will ramble for - i think i lasted 4 or 5 minutes before i left - a while, just trying to convince the neurotoxin generator to shut itself off or something. while entertaining, it takes away from the focus of the project.

an example of the formatting:

i imagine the format to look something like this: (im using chapter 1 as an example)

-full, uncut opening with the wheately escape. the cameraman waits at the door before opening it so you get his full dialogue. ~5 minutes

-chell goes into her old relaxation vault, listens to the announcer, puts a button on the pressure pad, then enters the elevator. this introduces the button/cube mechanic. (this scene comes directly after the last, with no cuts). since there is announcer dialogue and new mechanics, this stays relatively uncut. ~1 minute

-chell exits elevator, hears funny announcer dialogue. the camera looks at the room for 5 seconds so the audience understands the setting for the scene, as well as the act. ~15-20 seconds

-chell presses a button to open a portal. this is the first time a portal is seen. she walks through the portal. this introduces the core mechanic of the game. (~30 seconds) (once the mechanic has been used once or twice, the rest of the puzzle is cut)

that would be the basic format. for things like multiple uneventful test chambers in a row, it would show slow fading shots of the test chamber number so you understand that time is passing. this would be intercut with shots of the setting.

HOW CAN I GET HELP / THIS PROJECT STARTED??

getting all of this footage is too much for one person. editing it... is too much for one person. ALL OF THE FOOTAGE HAS TO COME FROM PEOPLE WORKING ON THIS PROJECT. IT CANT COME FROM OTHER PEOPLES YOUTUBE VIDEOS. For this project, I’ll need people to record the footage, people to help edit the footage, and 1-3 people who know the story well and are willing to go over the game’s plot and determine what scenes and details we need, so the records know what to record and what to focus on. 

Do you want to help capture footage? if so, youll need:

-access to the PC version of the game with LOW LAG gameplay

-a screen recorder program. it CANNOT have a watermark on the finished product. needs to be high resolution footage.

-(the recordings will NOT feature your voice or a face cam.)

-(you do not need mods and please leave the portal gun with its base texture)

-(id be comfortable with each screen recorder person to cover around 1-2 chapters... so maybe 4-5 people, unless i can find more. youd be following some directions on what to record. you do not need to edit, just get the footage.)

Can’t do that? Can you EDIT video footage? you’ll need:

-a video editor. high quality. i dont know the editing industry, i dont know what software exists.

-MUST be able to export it without a watermark and in high quality.

-(each editor will be responsible for a chapter or chapters. then render your final product. one editor will put all of the finished chapters together. this means you can use different software from the other editors, and will have a good amount of control over your assigned part. i dont have a number for how many editors there will be. id like more than one.)

Can’t do that? What about choosing the important scenes and details and acting as a sort of ‘writer’ for the plot? You’ll need:

-a good knowlege of the game and its history and fun facts. if youre obsessed with this game and franchise... yeah same. but as long as youre interested and know it well, thats fine

-be able to browse the wiki

-time to review the game by watching lets plays or playing it yourself

-be able to choose the right details and communicate that to the screen recorders and editors. remember my example about chapter one earlier? youd have to lay it out in a similarly comprehensive way.

-take constructive criticism

-must be older than 14 for this. youve gotta make a lot of decisions in this role. ive seen some really creative and talented high schoolers, so thats where im drawing the age line.

-(im hoping for 1-4 of these people, including myself.)

IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN HELPING, SEND ME A DM. IF YOU’RE CHOSEN TO WORK ON THE PROJECT, I’LL SET UP A DISCORD FOR THOSE INVOLVED. IF THIS GETS SOME SORT OF MASS SUPPORT, I’LL SET UP A DISCORD FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN UPDATES.

The purpose of this project is to make it so you can relive the portal 2 plot without having to replay the full game. Other methods do not exist. No one video shows the plot in order with ‘filler’ removed. Voice lines exist in text form, but do not capture the visual aspect of the game, or give context, and are not a full experience. This story is a masterpiece and deserves to be edited so it is comprehensive and all in one place. No one will claim credit for owning portal 2 or writing the story - the video is showing gameplay, and just so happens to be the relevant gameplay. However, screen capture, editing, and direction credits will be given to everyone who participates. This project will allow you to introduce friends and family to the game without sending them a video where only 5 minutes out of the 1 hour video is relevant. I have wanted this project for a while, but I’ve realized that I can’t do it alone. Even if you can’t help directly, please spread the word and reblog.

[mysmedrabbles]

Another Place [Yoosung Kim]

from the Fourth Wall breaking series

quote contributors: 2 anons and @thedujifuji (submissions bolded, will not be posting the actual asks)

a/n: welcome back to hell i’ll be your tour guide,, finally posting these after only 19 years!! Hope you guys enjoy!

warnings: big sad

-7th wall mod alex

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       It was the late night chats that were always the loneliest. Staring up into the bleak cracked ceiling, you traced the shadows cast by the moon outside with your eyes, the empty feeling filling you yet again... a void that demanded to be felt no matter the cost. It was times like these, under the cover of darkness where you were left alone with your thoughts, a yearning so deep you could swear you would unravel, leaving nothing but the shell of the person you once was.

       Man this game was fucking you up.

       Rolling on your side, you checked you phone, the bright light assaulting your eyes. Able to distinguish the time, you made your way to the Mystic Messenger app. Two minutes to 2 am. Ten minutes until you could sleep.

`

       With the cheery tune of the opening screen, a smile couldn't help but find its way to your face, an almost giddy sensation filling the previous void you’d longed to be filled, an otherworldly feel as you surveyed the winnings of the latest Honey Buddha Chip package on your screen. Not much, but enough for a call perhaps? A call to a certain golden haired boy? 

       One more minute until the chatroom opened.

` 

       Your eyes surveyed the screen yet again, looking for something to do to pass the ever stretching seconds, when the familiar ring of a phone call echoed through your room. A call. From Yoosung. A glitch? Weren’t calls supposed to happen after chatrooms? 

       Without thinking you pressed answer, the smiling face the blonde avatar bore fading away as the call subtitles took its place. 

`

      “Hello?” his voice was higher than usual, almost panicked, and yet you could feel your heart flip in your chest as his voice struck you, a small bit of reality you had left. “Hello?” came Yoosungs voice again, voice cracking near the end. “Damn it, damn it.” you heard him mutter from the other end. 

       You expected a chatbox to pop up, to respond, but nothing came, nothing but silence as the incoherent muttering came from far away on the other end. You listened intently... would anything happen? What kind of glitch was this? 

       “Hel-damn it, Seven said this would work- Hello?”

       Cheritz? Answer box please?? 

`

       You heard a deep breath on the other end, and you could almost imagine Yoosung closing his eyes as he calmed himself, one hand gripping the table to keep himself steady as the other held his phone to his ear. 

      “Hello? I- MC... that’s... thats not your real name is it. I dont know... if you can hear me, I’m praying Seven could do that for me.. I-Mc-” his voice wavered dangerously, trying his best to collect himself before he continued, his voice weaker than before, “If you can hear me... please.. say something-i- let me know you’re there.”

       Were you supposed to... answer? It felt silly, replying to the emptiness, saying something that would immediately be swallowed by the dark, but it also felt wrong to sit there doing nothing, waiting vainly for a chat box to appear. Maybe it was a new update.

       “...Hello?”

Silence.

       Just as you moved to end call, Yoosung spoke again, his voice drawn to a hush, as if he were afraid to break the fine glass line separating the two of your worlds. “You're..you’re real,” he breathed, defenses down as he himself clutched his phone desperately with both hands, pressing the device as close to his ear as he could before continuing, “I thought- that you were just a character on a screen I never- there’s so much I need to tell you, so much that-”

       “Yoosung?” was all you could muster, your mind blank at the reality you were facing, until the only thing that could be heard was your heartbeat pounding in your ears, distorting the silence of your room.

       “-And I don’t know how much time we- yes?”

There was so much you wanted to say to him...

       “Thank you,” you started. Whether this was real or not, you weren’t going to pass up an opportunity to talk to him. The idea that this might have just been another simulation broke your heart, but these were quickly rushed away when you looked down at the continuing phone call, remembering Yoosung on the other end.

       His rambling was cut by your thanks, confusing him, it was he who should be thanking you, not the other way around, he started to respond, but you beat him to it, “Yoosung I- in- in you I saw so much of myself; I was,” you took a deep breath before continuing, “so lost, wanting to move forward but so afraid to let go of the past. You showed me,” a crack in your voice as tears threatened to swallow you whole, emotions you hadn’t known you even had rising rapidly to the surface, “You showed me that it's possible to move forward even after you've lost your way. You have helped me and shown me far more kindness than anyone else ever did when I was at my lowest point and because of you I want to be a better per..son with ... every passing day.”

       You finished with a flustered breath, heat suddenly rushing to your cheeks as you realized your declaration, completely our of character from your usual stoic self. This was a game. You declared your love to... someone who wasn’t even real. The shame of idiocy spread through your chest the longer he stayed silent, only his own heavy breathing heard on the other end. 

`

       Taking a second to bring himself back together, Yoosung tried to ignore the warmth spreading through his body, heart and gut synchronized in a flustered dance, both struggling to keep up with the racing of his mind. It didn’t seem real, that the person he’d inevitably loved- continued to fall in love with day after day, was real, not just a character made up by Seven, a virus in the app.

`

       You heard a small giggle from Yoosung, making your heart soar. You could almost imagine his face, violet eyes shining with the threat of tears, blush adorning a smiling expression as he vainly tried to hide his face in his hands, too embarrassed by the way your words stripped him of rationality, touched him in a way where he’d lost all functionality, enraptured by your voice, by you. 

       A smile made its way onto your face as you continued, set to get everything you’d wanted to say out in the open, “You’re amazing and I just, I love you so much and I wish, I wish more guys were like you in this world. You’re so, soft, amazing, artistic, and an excellent cook? The omurice will never stop looking delicious.”

       To this he finally had a response, “It was! It was delicious! If I send you the recipe will you promise to make it?”

       “Of course.”

       “I’ll see if I can text it to you! You won't Believe the things I went through to get to this point, good thing it was worth it in the end! Being with you is always worth it..” 

       He was rambling, and the initial tenseness of the first meet shaken off as his infectious laughter filled the receiver, voice bright with excitement as he went on about the other recipes he tried in his spare time, the ones he’d always wanted to make one day for you... the ones he never could.

`

       His voice started to crack, static becoming more and more prominent as his voice was broken by what? Bad cell service? The fact that you were talking across dimensions? 

       Yoosung could be heard getting sad, his tone dropping, a melancholic need for you filling his head, suffocating him with thoughts of you. He paused his words, starting anew. “MC I... I’m sorry I think... we’re running out of time but before I go I just... I need to tell you... gah why is this so hard.”

A pause.

       “I love you... truly. You showed me kindness when there was no one who believed in me, and it’s because of your love that I’m still alive.. that I have something worth living for. Every time you play my route...” the static got worse, ripping a few words from his sentence, actively trying to separate the two of you as he went on, “...I wish I could protect you forever, make you as happy as you make me.. I wish we had more t- I wish we had more time. There’s so much I want to ask you, so much I’m sure you want to ask. Please, no matter what.. stay happy for me.”

Well...actually.. I do have one serious question for you... Yoosung Kim: does Yoosung Kim is bi?” you chuckled cautiously, a weight lifted as you heard his broken up giggle in response, and for a second you could almost believe that everything would be okay.

The static got louder, cutting in between Yoosung’s words, only fragments of a, “well - lov- ou so,- h-pe s-,” were able to be made, connection weakening, Yoosung’s presence fading away.

`

`

Tapping on the phone, where you were praying for some sort of relief, you were only met with a blank screen, his voice gone, leaving a gaping hole where he’d buried himself into your heart.

`

`

Gone.

`

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        ☑️ Dont Show Again

[brothermouzongaming]

My Game Awards thoughts

I'm not going to cover everything that happened but I am going to go over some news breaks, my thoughts on the ceremony as a whole, some announcements we got/ ones we didn't, and maybe some "entitled gamer rage" just cause I can.

results for the awards here

The Xbox Series X announcement was unexpected but it is a nice jab from Microsoft to get the idea of the console in the minds of people even if it's just the physical look alongside what I can only assume was supposed to display its power and graphic fidelity. The ball is in Sony's court, I can't wait to see what they come up with. I suspect E3 2020 will be when we get something similar to what Microsoft did but maybe even bigger since they've had the time to work on it by then.  

Let's stay on Microsoft for a minute cause that Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 trailer was... a trip. If Microsoft keeps this up I'm definitely going to have a difficult choice to make come holiday 2020. The tone and visuals of the trailer as a whole are disturbing and gorgeous all at the same time. I was captivated the entire time and love the more psychological/mythological mesh they're really diving into. I literally had to go and watch it before I moved on to other topics while writing this.

That shark game Man Eater got another trailer, I am kind of surprised that hasn't come out yet. Not hyped or anything but I mean it does look like fun the way Untitled Goose Game does. Woooah here she comes (sorry couldn't help myself).

No More Heroes 3 coming out with the big weird trailer. Seriously I was so intrigued and caught off-guard. Touche Nintendo, every day you bring me closer to getting a Switch. Bastards.

GodFall a self-proclaimed "slasher-looter" action rpg by Gearbox Productions dropped a vague, but beautiful, cinematic teaser. It also subtly drops that it will come to PS5 and PC. This is the first mention/marketing for the PS5 at all, and it's through a short CGI trailer that tells us nothing. Weird.

Ghost of Tsushima got a great cinematic/ gameplay trailer that was teased at the State of Play event Sony just had. It was entertaining and gorgeous but I need more gameplay, still very interested.

Sons of the Forest This is interesting because it appears to be a very interesting step forward after The Forest's 2014 release. Definitely leaning into the blend of mysticism and body horror with the new trailer emphasizing on a sexually confusing four-legged woman and several fleshy faceless husks clearly intended to be enemies. I gotta try The Forest especially if this one fulfills the fantastical horror it advertises.

Control not only won Best Art Direction and was nominated for many more awards, but they also dropped new content. Bless. Expeditions are a new repeatable mission type that sends you into a Jukebox (if you've played it you'll bear with me here) where you can get new and high-grade mods as well as an outfit. This requires you to scavenge the world for the coins that get you into the...Jukebox...world place. The rewards seem meager, like what is going to keep me coming once I beat the highest tier and get the outfit? That said, it's a nice reason to pop Control back in and boy is it nice, even better with the patches that improve performance and finally let the game flow the way it's supposed to. I wish it was a little deeper and maybe there's more to it than we know now, but it's clear that this is supposed to hold players over until the first DLC drops. Not a complaint, more of a matter of fact.

Wolf Among Us 2 was announced...interesting... I guess they really are pushing that whole "TellTale is back" thing huh. We'll see, they can't afford to fuck that up. It's clear this is a tactical move to build hype and get people wanting that game they've been wanting since 2013. Why not come back with the one game you know anyone who cares about "TellTale" will, therefore, care about? Makes sense to me, don't fuck it up new guys.

Where the fuck was my Batman announcement? The Harry Potter rpg that we know is in development? BioMutant, where the hell is that game? There are so many games in development and some even close to release that really could use some shine on a stage like this. Since I'm out to prove a point: Last of Us 2? Marvel's Avengers? RE3? Dying Light 2? Vampire Masquerade 2? Watch Dogs Legion? Psychonauts 2? Moons of Madness? Digimon Survive? Since we're so focussed on turning back time (more on that later). OddWorld? Little Nightmares 2? I hope my disgustingly exacerbated point is made, we could've had so much more. One or two of any of those games would've made it way much better.

My point is if I'm Geoff Keighley and I'm ending one of the biggest broadcasted gaming-related events of the year and it ends with a FAST AND THE FURIOUS GAME? You bet your ass I'm taking however much Google paid for all those bullshit (though entertaining) Stadia commercials and I'm sweetening the pot for Sony, Activision, EA, Ubisoft, Nintendo, WB Montreal, Capcom, literally anyone for an exclusive news drop of some kind. I'm sure any of those studios could've been persuaded in the name of publicity and hype and could've met/exceeded the excitement levels for a Fast and the Furious game. Fucking pathetic, is this 2009? Did you see those graphics?

Also...Green Day...? Seriously did I wake up in 2009 and no one told me? You have CHVRCHES on stage, you're handing out awards to bands and composers, you have a full orchestra for more musical numbers than even I'd care for...and you thought Green Day should be the headliner. I understand it was more of a personal choice by Geoff since he's a big fan but fucking hell go to a show don't subject us to it.

All in all, this night was pretty underwhelming with some flashes of entertainment strewn throughout. Yes, you have huge moments like Microsoft announcing the Series X, but when those are followed by minutes of Stadia commercials, moments like "Teh ken" and "This is gaming it's supposed to be free. Free love," and the myriad of obscure and nothing announcements it really shows that there are just some demons this award show can't seem to shake. No, I don't expect full gameplay reveals and walkthroughs but there is a middle ground between twelve-second trailers for new IPs and full-on presentations.

Ikumi Nakamura was there so I'm gonna start demanding she appears at all Game awards/ presentations thank you very much.

edit: all this ranting bullshit and I never mention that in my opinion, I think DMC5 should've taken GOTY. I totally understand why Sekiro won because it's great. It's deep, beautiful, visceral, rewarding; but so is DMC5. What tipped the scale was how much fun I had playing DMC5 and no Sekiro isn't for conventional "fun" but I thoroughly enjoyed DMC more and that really is what it boils down to when everything else is so evenly matched.

[auroreswritings]

Day 7!! It’s the end!! Last day of ChuuAtsu Week, so you guys get a fairy tale AU because why not! I just want them to be wearing kimono, I had this image of the two surrounded by beautiful fabric in my mind and it didn’t want to go, so there goes~

A BIIIIIG THANK YOU to the mods who took care of this event, Cherry and Yoyo, I loved taking part in this, hopefully we’ll be doing a lot more ChuuAtsu things in the future!!

This is also on AO3.

The Prince and the Tiger

              Once upon a time, in a faraway land, lived a young prince and his pet tiger. The child had received the tiger cub as a present for his fourth birthday, and since then they had been inseparable. Every day they would walk together around the palace, run through the huge traditional gardens and eat together in the big dining hall; everything the young man did, the little tiger would do. In summer, they would swim in the pond on the palace property, in winter they would roll around in the snow, not caring for status, only enjoying the world around them. Every night, the little tiger would cuddle against the boy’s stomach and they would both fall into a peaceful sleep, lulled by the other’s deep breathing.

              As years went by, the tiger became a magnificent beast, its black and white fur mesmerizing all subjects of the land, while the young boy turned into a handsome young man, his cerulean eyes and tangerine hair the talk of young and old people alike. The elegance of both human and creature was praised by all who saw them; the manners taught to one had been learnt by the other. The two were always seen together still, now traveling across the land to see their dear subjects or visiting other rulers in neighboring countries.

              One day, on one such voyage, the king of a great country joked about, asking for the young man to marry his daughter. The prince laughed, seemingly wholeheartedly, but deep inside he knew the time had come for him to receive more official requests of the kind, a thought that was piercing his heart. He had no interest in marrying anyone, wanting to rule his land with only his tiger by his side. As time went by, marriage proposals became more numerous and the prince’s parents were pressing him to finally come to a decision. Eventually, their insistence became so overwhelming the young man had no choice but to cave in, with one condition: he would decide who to marry during a ball they would host at the palace in a month time. As much as it pained the prince, he knew he had to fulfill his duty, to obey the rules attached to his rank.

              The tiger, seeing the distress in his beloved human, tried to think of a solution to help his friend. The magic of the night sky, though capricious, was renowned the world over for its power and potency. Thus, every night he pleaded the moon, asking for something, anything that would allow him to help the prince. For a month, the tiger would wake up at night, go to the garden and look at the moon, hoping, praying with all his might that the shining satellite would hear him and grant his wish.

              The day of the ball had finally arrived, and the prince was getting ready in his chambers. Servants were helping him with his kimono, laying layers after layers of lush, heavy fabric, tying intricately embroidered fabrics around his waist, arranging his hair with different accessories and ornaments. The graceful tiger always found by his side was nowhere to be seen: he had disappeared in the middle of the night, leaving the poor prince alone with the lump in his throat and the knot in his stomach. The ball started soon enough, a cacophony of music and chatters. The prince was smiling and talking and dancing, entertaining his guests as best he could despite his heavy heart. A few hours went by, and the prince still couldn’t make up his mind on who he would marry, none of his suitors leaving a lasting impression on him. All he wanted to do was run out of the room, find his tiger and cuddle with him, patting its soft fur until he fell asleep.

              As the prince was trying to think of where his beloved animal could have gone, a young man entered the ball room. He was dressed in the most splendid kimono ever seen, its pure white fabric laced with extremely intricate designs, threads of black, gold and silver delicately dancing all over the clothe. His hair looked like it was shining, a magical pearly glow only broken by the darkest strand of hair flowing on one side of his head. His eyes were the colors of sunset, deep violet meeting bright yellow in an enchanting blend. He walked across the room, his steps confident, his head held high, charisma flowing from him and catching everybody’s eyes.

              The prince, realizing the room had gone silent, turned to where the gazes had all shifted to. His eyes fell on the young man walking towards him and his heart skipped a bit. He didn’t know why, but this stranger seemed extremely familiar, as if he had known him his entire life. The man in white approached him and knelt in front of him, delicately holding the prince’s hand to his lips and leaving a soft kiss on top of it. At the contact, the prince’s mind flashed with images of the past and a genuine smile graced his lips, a sight that hadn’t been witnessed for a while now. The two men stayed still for some time, lost in the other’s gaze, unable to move or say a thing. The silver-haired man eventually stepped back, bowing down again before walking away from the prince. The ball continued for the rest of night without any other noticeable event. The prince was still making an effort to dance with all his suitors, gallantly talking with them as they waltz together, but his mind and eyes were elsewhere, always searching for the man in white around the room, and always finding his captivating gaze in the packed crowd.

              The end of the night was drawing near, and it was finally time for the announcement everybody was waiting for. The prince was standing at one end of the room, the king and queen right behind him. All the suitors were lining in front of them with one knee to the floor and their head bowed, a string of colorful men and women impatiently awaiting their fate. All of them had tried their hardest to get the prince’s attention all night, with words or physical actions, and all thought they would become the next addition to the royal family.

              Without a word, the prince stepped forward, examining everyone’s face meticulously. He didn’t like to be the bringer of bad news, but his choice had been made for some time now, and he knew it would disappoint many in this room. He started walking, his feet gliding slowly in front of the lined courters until he was facing the very last bowed man. His silver hair was falling over his face, hiding his expression, but his body looked relaxed, as if unaware of the tensed atmosphere surrounding him. The prince bent down in front of him and put his hands on each side of his face, guiding him into making eye contact. They both smiled and the prince suddenly pulled the other up, his hands travelling down to his hips. The silver-haired man just had time to put his hands on the prince’s shoulders before this one propped him up and started twirling, their kimono dancing around them in flashes of colors, the two men giggling softly.

              The red-head finally put the other man down, realizing such an act was not befitting of his rank. Not that he cared, but his parents and a lot of other people were still in the room, and he didn’t want them to witness this reunion. This reunion, yes, because the prince had immediately recognized his beloved tiger in the eyes of this young man. He didn’t know what magic came into play, but he was grateful for it: the only creature that he had been close with for so many years had returned and in the best way possible, saving him from a fate he thought he couldn’t escape.

              Eventually, the ball came to an end and the guests left the royal palace, some of them frowning in disappointment, others smiling from the sight of true love they had witnessed between the prince and this unknown, handsome stranger. None of them had realized the man in white had never introduced himself, not once mentioning where he was from, which kingdom he was representing: his charisma and manners had spoken for themselves, the only proofs they needed of his royal upbringing, gaining him respect from all who had seen him that night. Even the prince’s parents had fallen under the same spell, elated by the prospect of their son finally marrying, never asking the man who he was or which country he was from. Had they asked, the young man would have answered that his territory extended for miles after miles, encompassing forests and rivers, mountains and seas; he reigned over many, for every animal knew that, in these lands, the only ruler was the mighty tiger, the king of all nature.

              The young prince and the tiger-turned-human married not too long after the ball, their union celebrated in the whole kingdom. Soon, their life went back to what it used to be, with the only difference that now the tiger could finally talk and laugh with the prince, their bond becoming even stronger. No mention of the real tiger’s disappearance was ever made again, all believing it had gone back to the wild. On some nights though, when the sky was dark and the moon full, a black and white beast could be seen, sometimes walking around, more often cuddling against the prince in his bed, sleeping peacefully next to his one and only.

[gimmeeshelter]

hi babe I wanna talk music with u. tell me what you think is the decade defining album(s) of the 60s-80s and why? x

oh prepare for a long-ish ask. I think the 70′s and 80′s it’s kind of clear what albums were decade-defining but the 60′s really was when music made its largest shift ? if that makes sense my brain is fried from after writing this paper lol 

1960s

1. The Velvet Underground & Nico// The Velvet Underground

- Even though i hardly talk about the velvet undergound on my blog i am incredibly fond of this band. i think their sound brought something totally different to the music scene at the time, and the warhol influence fused music and art into an incredible union. i think the velvet underground is like the band of the art rock scene, with just a touch of mod? they’re incredible. 

2. Revolver// The Beatles

- In my opinion, Revolver is the best beatles album like its a banger from start to finish (except yellow submarine fuck that) I feel like this album has a really good balance between their original sound, while also adding so many different elements its just a really interesting album to me. I think this album is a really good example of the progression of rock throughout the 60s, especially compared to their earlier albums

3. Highway 61 Revisited// Bob Dylan

- okay i really could’ve put any dylan album on here from the 60s because theyre all so good and i think they all made such an influence on folk/rock music. his songwriting is literally indescribable (i know i dont need to tell you this). I picked highway 61 because it’s my favorite at the moment (from the 60s, my favorite dylan album is desire) I also think this shows the versatility of dylan i dunno ? Similar to revolver, highway 61 encapsulates the changing tides of the music scene in the 60s

4. Let It Bleed// The Rolling Stones

- oh my FUCK when i thnk of the 60s i think of this album almost immediately. It’s not my all time favorite stones album but god its up there. opening with such an apocolyptic song like gimme shelter ? bold ass move and im glad they did it. That song literally is a beacon for the end of the 60s, especially when you look back at all the crazy ass shit that happened in 69. That song sends fucking chills through my spine. And the end of the album with you cant always get what you want, i think the album starts with some deep, kind of menacing song but ends with this shining light? i dunno how to explain what im trying to say i hope you understand what im saying. I think everyone near the end of the 60s needed that shining light, and let it bleed is symbolic of that. 

5. Are You Experienced// The Jimi Hendrix Experience 

- Jimi Hendrix was one of the first artists to capatalize off of guitar based music (if that makes sense this is getting really long and im starting to ramble). I’m not saying he was the first person to have cool guitar solos or do any intricate playing (he low key was though) but he really revolutionized the way rock music was being played at the time and was one of the game changers. I firmly believe that without him and the music he made, music of the late 60′s and even 70s wouldnt have been what it was. 

6. Led Zeppelin II// Led Zeppelin

- okay im really torn between putting this album on the list. Because when I think of Zeppelin i don’t really think of the 60s because they are The band of the 70s ya know ? I was tempted to put this album in the 70s section of this ask but i feel like people would give me flack for that. I think this album really shows where music was heading going into the 70s. They pioneered that hard rock sound ya know ? I think this album, like let it bleed, is a good indicator for where music was heading. also cant forget about the wack ass lyrics that are in that album, talking about balls and shit how Foul. 

1970s

1. All Things Must Pass// George Harrison 

- if u really thought we weren’t gonna talk abt my fucking baby ur mistaken :((((((. I think this album is such a good example of music in the early 70s, still clinging to a bit of that 60s, peace and love vibe while also making a rock record. I guess the two biggest examples of that would be something like I dig love anf then comparing that to out of the blue. Its definitely got that 60s flare but there’s so much more depth ya know ? george is the best pls block me if u think otherwise bc ur crusty 

2. Dark Side of The Moon// Pink Floyd

- yes. i know this ablum is basic. but its still a good representation of music that defined the 70s. Floyd was the biggest success with the whole psychedelic rock thing, they made it enjoyable for everyone and i think that can be seen in dsotm. 

3. IV// Led Zeppelin

- You know why.

4. Talking Book// Stevie Wonder

- was tempted to put songs in the key of life but… i like talking book better lol. Any of his albums made in the 70s could be considered decade defining albums. Mans got incredible talent, and his lyrics spoke to a wide variety of people i think ? also the combination of funk and soul that hes famous for can later be seen in disco music. I think his music in general just speaks to a lot of people, and a lot of musicians take inspiration from him

5. Rumours// Stevie Nicks

- im gonna be up front with this one, everyone fuck with stevie and i bet u dont know anyone who doesnt like dreams or the chain. shit slaps what else can i say 

6. The Eagles// The Eagles

- The eagles are like the poster child for american rock (more specifically, west coast rock), which became popular in the 70s. I dunno when i think of the 70s i think of driving down the highway and when i think of driving down the highway i think of the eagles, its just common knowledge 

7. London Calling// The Clash

- similar to my problems with putting zeppelin ii in the 60s category, i thnk london calling really belongs in the 80s section maybe ? actually no, i think this album is a good synopsis of the punk movement that started in the mid/late 70s and then carried into the 80s 

1980′s

time for the sad boissssss

1. The Smiths// The Smiths

- god this melancholy fucker. personally this is my favorite smiths album, you could argue that the queen is dead is more impactful and youre probably right. But i think their first album brings the sadness to the forefront ya know ? like they were one of the first sad boi bands and i respect that shit. Also think this album is like the poster child for a sad teenager in the 80s, and god knows there were a lot of those weirdos. 

2. Purple Rain// Prince

- personally… controversy is my favorite prince album but we wont discuss. This album is so widely popular i grew up on this shit. like every song on it is a banger and defintely splits the line between pop and rock, something we see a lot when looking into music from the 80s 

3. Like A Virgin// Madonna 

- madonna was the first pop princess idc this album is like 80s pop defined. shes amazing, this album is amazing, what else can i say? im right :)

ive been typing for a long time im sorry im gonna end this now i hope this is good enough :( luv u and i hope u enjoyed my thoughts. also i cut a lot of albums out bc i didnt want to make it too long but :((((( okay bye

[appreciate-kaimaki]

can we get a scenario with kaito asking maki to a high school dance, and maybe a little description of what they’d do at said dance?

This one has literally been in our askbox for months... I'm terribly sorry this took so long to complete, anon! My perfectionism really got to me on this one because it really struck a chord in me, and I was trying a bit too hard to make it flawless. I've got it under control now... I think. Anyhow, please enjoy the fic under the cut! I had an absolute blast writing this, and I hope you enjoy some shameless Kaimaki fluff.

~Mod Shuichi~

Momota Kaito was a man with much bravado, able to bear the rigorous regimen of the astronaut training program and face the myriad dangers of outer space without batting an eye. Yet, as he prowled the corridors of Hope's Peak High School with his best friend-slash-roommate Shuichi in tow, the spaceman couldn't help but fear the task he was now about to face. The Homecoming Dance was looming a mere week ahead, and Kaito had decided to take the opportunity to try and take his longtime crush, Harukawa Maki, as his date.

That, however, was something much easier said than done. The obsidian-haired girl had the nickname of 'ice queen', which had not come without reason - she was known to ward off anyone foolish enough to dare approach her with a silent glare which, according to Kibo, was capable of cutting holes in metal.

Shuichi sighed. "Please tell me what you see in her, again?"

"I don't know! There's... this something about her that makes me want to know her better."

"If you insist. Just come back in one piece." With that, the detective left Kaito and his girl troubles to hang with his other friends. Kaito wasn't entirely sure that he could return without injury, however, as he slowly appraoched Maki's seat. Hoping his voice wasn't quivering too much, he extended a trembling finger and tapped her shoulder.

"Hey, Harukawa?"

Any semblance of control Kaito had left evaporated like a snowflake on the Sun as Maki finally turned to face him and fixed him in her crimson stare. When she spoke, he could instantly understand what Kibo meant.

"What do you want?"

So this was what it felt like to have his blood freeze in his veins, Kaito thought. Despite his best efforts to control his own speech, his paralyzed tongue could only stutter out,

"Uh, doyouwanttogotothedancewithme?"

The following five seconds were simultaneously the longest, most awkward, and most terrifying moments in Kaito's life. 'That's it,' he concluded. 'I'm gonna show up on tomorrow's news as a dismembered corpse.' Frozen in fear, he missed the look of surprise flashing across the obsidian-haired girl's face - but not her reply.

"Yes. I'll go with you."

"Uhwhat?"

Maki's face immediately morphed into a scowl as she turned away, but it was impossible to miss the shade of vibrant red now gracing her features. For a moment, Kaito thought it matched her eyes very well.

"Do I have to repeat myself? I said I'll go with you, loser!"

Internally ecstatic at her words but also not wanting to incur Maki's wrath by overstaying his welcome, Kaito left her a muttered 'thanks' as he hurriedly shuffled over to Shuichi.

"She say yes?", the detective asked.

Kaito could only let out a deep, relieved sigh. "In a sense."

The remaining week vanished in a flurry of hurried preparations, and soon the big day was upon them. The dormitory hallways were bustling and abuzz with activity as a myriad of Ultimates clad in their finest suits and dresses searched for their dates. Kaito and Shuichi also joined the crowd as they too made their way to the girls' dorms.

"Ugh, I'm never gonna get used to having my arm inside my sleeve," the spaceman muttered. He had dressed in a deep purple tuxedo with a smattering of glittering 'stars' on the lower hem for the occasion, but the formality of the event meant that he couldn't just throw it over his shoulder like he usually did with his jacket.

"Can't relate," his friend replied. He was also wearing a tux, but a more low-profile charcoal gray one with barely visible graphite pinstripes. "Most normal people wear their jackets properly, Kaito."

Kaito waved him off. "Pssh, who cares. Normal is overrated anyway."

Their discussion about sleeves and arms were abruptly interrupted when Akamatsu Kaede all but teleported in front of them, her pink strapless recital dress fluttering behind her and a lilac purple ribbon decorating her bosom.

"Found you, Shuichi! And hi to you too, Kaito. Mind if I steal him away for the night?"

An astounded Kaito turned to his sidekick. "Man, someone got lucky! How the hell did you end up going with her? Never thought you'd be her type..."

"To be honest, I have no idea," the detective replied with a shrug. "She asked me, actually."

Pouting, Kaede put her hands on her hips. "Hey hey, Kaito! No badmouthing my date here! Oh, by the way, who are you going with?"

"Harukawa Maki. I was just going over to pick her up."

"Oh, that's good to hear! She always seemed so lonely. Hope things work out great between you two!", the pianist chirped as she took Shuichi's hand and led him away. Left alone once again, Kaito resumed his search for Maki's room.

Finally facing the door, Kaito steeled his nerves one last time. Taking a girl to a dance wasn't supposed to be hard, even if she was his longtime crush who could, in fact, literally crush him to powder should anything go wrong.

"C'mon, Kaito. You're the Luminary of the Stars... you can do anything you put your mind to... the impossible is possible, you just gotta make it so!"

Reciting his mantra to himself, Kaito finally knocked on her door. He honestly had no idea what he expected to see, but the sight he faced when the door finally opened utterly blew him away. Maki had chosen a scarlet gothic lolita-style dress with generous amounts of black lace frills and a slim halter top that was only held up by a pair of impossibly thin spaghetti straps that crossed over her back before disappearing into her corset. It matched her onyx hair and crimson eyes perfectly, and she looked stunning beyond compare. Even her usual hair scrunchies seemed different... shinier, somehow. Kaito guessed they were some sort of satin.

"Stop staring, idiot!"

"O, oh! Of course, I'm sorry." Snapping out of his Maki-induced stupor, he offered her his arm.

"Shall we go?"

Maki wordlessly nodded and took his arm, and the duo made their way towards the gym where the dance was being held.

Homecoming was a very extravagant affair. Most of the artistically inclined Ultimates had been conscripted to decorate the gym into a party hall, and they had delivered splendidly. The ceiling was nearly invisible from all the banners and streamers that had been hung up, and the floor had been transformed into a polished dance floor with rich velvet carpets around the edges where the tables were. A veritable buffet of snacks, drinks, and refreshments were set out on one side, and a state-of-the-art sound system and a grand piano had been installed on the stage to complete the lavish atmosphere.

Many students had already taken to the dance floor, swaying to the music with their dates as light jazz played over the gym. As Kaito glanced at his date, unsure to ask if she wanted to dance or not, Maki suddenly whirled on him with a fiercely determined look on her face and all but dragged him off to the center of the venue.

"Wha- wh- Maki?!"

"Shut up and dance with me."

Kaito did not object. He allowed Maki to lead him in a foxtrot, the girl surprisingly well-versed in dancing to the point that Kaito had to put in a bit of effort to keep up at first. He caught on soon, however, and found himself gazing into his date’s crimson eyes as they settled into a steady rhythm. They were quite mesmerizing, Kaito thought, like swirling nebulae glowing with starlight…

He was jolted back to his senses by a finger that poked dangerously close to his left eye. "WAH!"

"Earth to space idiot," Maki chided. "You almost stepped on my foot there."

Kaito, as always, was not without a comeback. "It's not my fault you're so breathtakingly beautiful."

"Do you want to die?"

"Sorry, sorry!"

Maki's lips thinned into a line and her brow grew a slight crease as she stared into his tie, her feet slowing for a moment as she sunk into thought. "Do you really think I'm beautiful?", she mumbled.

"Of course! Even more than the brightest star!"

She blushed a beautiful shade of apple red and not-so-subtly brought her heel down on his toes.

"Ow!"

"That's for making me lose my composure."

"You really do look hot when you blush- ow!"

The pair continued to dance to the music, Maki's face now significantly redder than before. Kaito couldn't help but smile - he had his perfect date, the dance was going splendidly, and everything was just so perfectly well!

The tone of the event would soon undergo a complete shift, however. Ibuki-senpai soon took over the stage with her trademark 'music' of unintelligible screaming and yelling, and the once-calm party was now more closely resembling a rave than a dance. Kaito couldn't bring himself to understand how anyone could actually appreciate the cacophony issuing from the stage, but judging by the crowd's reaction it seemed he was the exception, not the norm.

"Wanna get outta here?", he asked his date, who thankfully seemed to share his opinion on the Ultimate Musician's 'music'. Although Maki was standing right next to him, he had to shout at the top of his lungs to be heard over the senseless din echoing in the gym.

"Please!", she yelled back.

Covering their ears, the pair headed out to the school's garden where the full moon was casting its light. Glad to be away from the chaos, they found a bench and sat in a comfortable silence for a while. When he was sure the ringing in his ears had finally subsided, Kaito asked Maki the one question he had been itching to know for the entirety of the past week.

"Why did you say yes when I asked? To the dance, I mean."

Maki averted her eyes from the astronaut, but her blush was impossible to miss. "I... I might've had a bit of a crush on you."

"Wow, I never knew that. I knew I had a crush on you, but this is... why?"

"You showed Yumeno your notes when she got sick and missed school last week. You became Saihara's friend when he was alone. You actually listen to what Tojo has to say. And you're kind and friendly to anyone and everyone you meet."

"I'm afraid I still don't see the connection."

Maki let out a small sigh. "I'm not very good with people. I want to get closer to them and make friends, but I just lash out and scare them away. But you always showed so much kindness to everyone. So I thought maybe, you were the one I could try and get close to."

"I'm honored - wait, how did you know all that?"

"I'm observant."

"Anyway, that's no big problem, Maki Roll. I wasn't really good at being social from the get-go, too." In an incredibly bold move even to himself, Kaito put an arm around Maki's shoulder. Even more surprisingly, she actually leaned into it. "I know you're a good person. I'll make sure help you every step of the way, and you'll be making lots of friends soon. I swear by the name of the Luminary of the Stars!"

"Did you just call me Maki Roll?"

Panicking, Kaito instantly froze. The nickname was something he came up with in the spur of the moment, but had he chosen the wrong thing to say? "Uh, sorry 'bout that, it was kinda stupid, I'll stop if you don't like it."

Then Maki burst into silent giggles.

"No, I love it. Nobody's ever given me such a cute nickname before. Sorry I scared you, it's the eyes, isn't it? I have to work on my expressions..." Her smile was clear on her face as she looked up towards him once more.

Kaito grinned. "Actually, I think you're cute even with the murder eyes. It's unique... it's something only you can pull off."

"Oh, shut up."

Chuckling at her remark, Kaito took her hand in his and stood up. He led her over to a small circular clearing in the middle of the garden where the moonlight shone brightest, fiddled with his phone, and set it down on the floor. The suave voice of Frank Sinatra soon filled the air.

Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...

"What are we doing?", a surprised Maki asked.

"Dancing! The night is still young, after all, and I don't want to waste my beautiful date because the music isn't to our taste." He took a step back and bowed, extending a hand to her like he did earlier. "Shall we dance, milady?"

Maki took the offered hand. "Gladly."

Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars...

Moonlight illuminated the two of them like a dream as Maki allowed herself to be led by Kaito in a gentle waltz. Her crimson dress flared out like a blooming rose with each spin, and his star-studded coattails flew in the wind with each move they shared.

In other words, hold my hand… in other words, darling, kiss me!

The pair danced all around the garden with hands clasped tight, softly mouthing the words to the song that was serenading them. The experience was similar yet completely unlike the dances they danced in the gym only hours ago - this time it was infinitely more private and intimate, a show for the two of them only. Lost in each other's company, it seemed to them as if they had been transported to a realm of nothing but moonlight and soft music and rosebushes and each other.

In other words, please be true... in other words, I love you!

The song came to a close as Kaito swept Maki into a dip, their faces hovering a mere inch apart. Purple eyes met red, neither able to look away. Lips were parted to let out warm breaths that quickened as both realized how close they were to each other. The pair were in perfect balance, each holding the other in place with their very body. And just as it seemed the fragile yet beautiful moment could last forever...

Maki took hold of Kaito's collar, drew him closer, and kissed him full on the lips.

It was as if time itself had stopped. The rustling of the leaves in the wind, the dull thumping of the music from the gym, and even the glow of the moonlight shining above melted away from her senses. There was nothing left behind but his slightly rough but warm lips on her own, the firm fabric of his jacket under her hands and his toned back beneath it, his gentle and sweet scent in her lungs and the pleasant tingling in her heart. In short, it was nothing but perfect. She could have spent an eternity in that single shining moment and never get tired of it.

Unfortunately for Maki, a slew of doubts started bubbling up to the surface like fizz in a glass of soda the moment her brain caught up to her body. Here she was, with her lips on some boy she'd literally known for barely a few hours. What if she was overreacting to someone who'd only shown her basic kindness? What if she was overstepping her boundaries when Kaito only thought of her as a friend - and a closed-off and distant one at that? What if he thought of her as clingy and obsessed over him in all the wrong ways?

"I'm sorry," she breathed, "that was uncalled for. I shouldn't have done that." She hurriedly pulled away, disentangling from his warm comfortable embrace. She was all ready to flee from the garden, flee from her traitorous emotions and this stupid feeling in her chest when a gentle hand grabbed her wrist.

"Maki Roll," Kaito whispered, "if you wanted a kiss you could've just asked."

He pulled her back into his arms in one swift movement, into that intoxicating black hole of warmth she would never be able to escape, and kissed her again with all the passion in his heart.

And of course, like all things, the second time was even better than the first.

[sozotohakai]

15 QUESTIONS, 15 MUTUALS

Tagged by @moon--wake​ (thank you!)

⭑ are you named after anyone ?  

Technically yes, my mom was raised Christian though she grew apart from the religion itself (but not from her belief in God and angels), and when she learned she was getting a daughter (which she had desired but until me didn’t get), she named be Christelle, to be written like this (rather than Kristel for example), and it can be read as Christ+elle (elle being french she). This works perfectly for me too as it shortens to Chris, which is a more gender neutral name, which is rather fun considering mom wouldn’t have known back then I would realize I’m non binary.

Fun fact: my middle name is the same name from an aunt if I recall correctly, one of the few people from my father’s side of the family that mom did like.

⭑ when was the last time you cried ?  

This weekend, there was Doctor Who on TV and there was the episode with Doctor Donna so if you know it you know it’s the ending that made me cry. It didn’t help my mind start going “Yooo super angst Wangxian” and I yelled NOPE. Long story short: the episode deals with how the only way to save someone is to erase all memories of the time spend together (including meeting) and how they can’t come into contact with anything that could lowkey remind of said times. Now I’m not okay thinking of how the theme of having forgotten is heavy in DGM ouch.

⭑ do you have kids ?  

Nope, unless you count characters I created we always joke that with mom, they’re her grandchildren.

⭑ do you use sarcasm a lot ?  

Depends, it can come out of me at random times, its more likely to happen if I’m playing; or if I’m lacking sleep.

⭑ what’s the first thing you notice about people ?  

That is a good question...   It can vary? But mostly I feel like I take right away into the overall appearance, like... either to recognize them, or store them in my mind so I can hope to recognize them later. I don’t really (or not often) stop at a detail, it’s just, get a reading of the general appearance of someone. After that I pay attention to expressions and how they speak (which is funny to say since I have trouble with eye contact half the time).

⭑ what’s your eye color ?  

Brown

⭑ scary movie or happy ending ?

Happy ending, though tbh, I do kind of love scary movie, it’s just that I have troubles actually watching.

⭑ any special talents ?

Uuuuu, I guess, I’ve been told I’m good at emotional empathy? I’ve been able to know when someone felt low just by how they would write. That’s, I believe, the main reason I find my way with words (when I have time to think) because it’s heavily based on my empathy mixed with experience. Like, I feel so much what someone else is feeling, and that’s why I can come with up with words for them and their situation.

⭑ where were you born ?  

France

⭑ what are your hobbies ?  

Writing, reading, playing games, listening to music, watching videos (Markiplier, React, MMD&Vocaloid stuff, AMV&Anime mix videos, sometimes bloopers and funny stuff).

⭑ do you have any pets ?

I don’t, but my brother and his dad have a cat so he’s like my pet. His name is Grisou (gris = grey so it’s totally a cute naming of his fur colour), he’s playful and seems to view any approach as a signal to play (aka paw at you and try to nip), though he’ll get cuddly at times from what I heard. For my part, we’ve got this ritual that I’ll slowly approach my fingers so he sniffs them (unless I see him about to paw/bite so I dont even try), he lets me pet his head a tiny bit, and then I leave him alone. So he doesn’t try to paw or claw or nip at me because he knows I’ve learned to tell if he’s okay with an approach and when I should stop.

(Fun fact: one time he kind of accidentally hurt my leg, despite my pants he dug fangs and claws too deep and I ended up with a few cuts that bled, I was a bit scared that day and for the next few times I saw him, then I kind of hesitantly start to approach him again, and I think he picked up on it and that’s why he’s a bit more patient with me? I’m the only person he doesn’t straight up claw or paw or nip at, and the few times he does, it’s slow, and/or light).

⭑ what tattoos / piercings / body mods do you have ?  

None, sometimes I get the thought of having tattoos, but I’m not sure I’ll ever follow through. But probably if I did, I would got with a small tattoo first just to like, see? I once thought about wolf tattoo, but tbh if I get a tattoo one day, it’ll be a dragon. Oh gosh yeah, a small tattoo of an eastern dragon circling my wrist or maybe higher like close to elbow level, maybe on both side. And after that if I’d have the courage, a western dragon in the back (with feathers wing, I love my dragons with feather wings).

⭑ how tall are you ?  

5 ‘7~ I don’t think I’m that tall, but I’m amused because it seems like I’m taller than most of my friends. My brother is even taller than me, he’s 6′/6′1. Or because I’m squinting at the conversion, I’m ~172 cm (and he’s ~185 cm).

⭑ dream job ?

What I’m doing right now, which is work as an independant/freelance writer. Lemme be shameless for a tiny bit and link to my site too, since. Kind of fit with the question.

What’s funny is that, as a child, when it first start to float around, what will you be later, I loved dinosaurs so I thought, I’ll become a paleontologist. I stayed on this path until college, I could feel in me something off, there was nothing else that I could see myself do, so I stick to it, but in college I truly felt how much I just didn’t see myself become a scientist. And it’s totally all thanks to mom and my bro that I realized, hey, writer can be a job too. Then came the hilarious realization that I’ve always been writing or reading, mostly in/for school, but at the end of middle school I discovered fanfics and I never stopped writing&reading those since then (and later rping was added).

⭑ favorite subject at school?  

I’ve always enjoyed literature (no surprise here) though to be precise, here in France the subject is called “Français” and is a mix of learning grammar&spelling&punctuation, then all kind of things like analyzing books and poems. It was, in fact, a bit rarer to actually write a story ourself, as it was more about learning the french language and what is expressed in books. But in elementary school I did have a teacher that gave us a homework that was literally just “write a story” and I got an almost perfect mark (in my teacher word: the only reason you didnt was for the grammar&etc mistakes”). While in my mom words, years later, “that was the moment I knew you would become a writer”.

I also adored learning English, I think I do love learning languages in general, but the other languages I tried to learn (Latin for one year, Spanish), the teachers were... not helping. The Latin one was, bless her, good but boring (my mom literally almost fell asleep in a teacher-student meeting, face to face); and my first spanish one had no authority and we barely learned anything, so the next one had to try catching up, but it left me (and those who had come from the same class) with very shaky basics and next to no motivation except just have marks above or equal to average. Compared to those, English was made fun to learn, and then it also got associated with my mind with tons of things (fics, subbed animes, being able to talk with friends).

Tagging: @ask-cross-marian @avellaturortem @shensheng-aoman @xueyaang @crowleiii @illusiive @manadcampbellrpblog @crystallizecrimsonbutterfly if you want to!

[ahumanintraining]

the promises I keep it doesn’t matter that you’ve lost track of how many years have gone by. 

zeno-centric. written for @akayona-zine! thank you mods for the opportunity and for the friends i’ve made along the way! [ao3 link]

Zeno doesn’t count the years anymore, and moreover, he doesn’t even remember the last time he ever counted in the first place.

The sun rises and falls, the moon waxes and wanes, and the stars spin endlessly around the night sky — no end or beginning to their journeys.

The seasons come and go: the snow melts into pink and purple blossoms before collapsing into the wind after their leaves turn to dust. Forever becomes finite: the river carves its current into the stones of its banks but shrinks as its land goes dry, the forest grows green but burns red, and the mountains climb high into the clouds but crumble into the ocean before it is too long.

But Zeno does not change — not with the days, not with the seasons, not like anything else that exists under this vast blue sky he has spent more than several hundred lifetimes watching. Time passes, but he does not move with it. There is no past, and there is no future. There is only the present, and he is always, only, and ever present.

He is the constant in the universe. He is the one thing that will never fade. He is the immortal river, the strongest rock, the unforgiving forest that persists beyond the cycle of life and death.

Sometimes this makes him feel like a god; other times he feels no more than a monster.

He’s thought every thought to think, and he’s lived every life there is to live. He’s seen all the very best versions of this world and experienced all the very worst of them; nothing surprises him anymore — which is why one day he is surprised when suddenly his midday contemplations are interrupted as a small paper falls past his nose to the ground by his feet.

“What’s this?” he asks himself, picking the slip swiftly between his fingers.

He reads it slowly, or at least attempts to. If there is something he still hasn’t learned to do despite his thousand-year life span, it’s how to keep up with the written language…  

Look behind you!

And then at once behind him —

“Surprise!”

Zeno blinks. Yoon holds out a large circular cake, Kija extends a claw of a large bouquet of flowers, Jae-ha wears a large mischievous smile on his face, Shin-ah and Ao lingers unapologetically close to him, Hak musters something more than a frown, and Yona carries a small box in the palm of her hand.

He still cannot determine what’s going on.

“Surprise?” Zeno asks, incredulous and — given the number of recent pranks — just as equally suspicious.

Well, they would certainly have him this time.

“Yes!” Kija exclaims.

They look at him as though they expect him to know precisely the situation, but Zeno knows that even with at least two thousand years of existence, there is still no amount of wisdom ever enough to comprehend everything that happens around him.

Still, he plays it off like he completely understands — after all, that strategy has worked successfully for the last several centuries.

“Ah, yes!” he shouts, throwing both hands up to the air. “Cake! I love cake!” He nods to the bouquet in Kija’s arms and the box Yona offers him. “And I love flowers and presents!”

Yona’s warm smile grows wider, and she giggles with a shake of her head. “I don’t think he gets it,” she remarks to the others.

“Idiot,” Jae-ha murmurs.

Taken aback, Zeno’s eyebrows furrow. “What don’t I get?” he asks.

“It’s your birthday!” Yona explains brightly.

“Birthday?”

Hak sighs loudly. “I told you he’d forget.”

“It’s August 30!” Kija reminds him. “Your birthday!”

Birthday. Ah, yes. His beginning.

Zeno laughs, embarrassed, shaking his hands out in front of him in defense of his ignorance. “Oh, no, no,” he explains. “I just didn’t realize that was something to still celebrate.” He looks at Yoon’s elaborately decorated cake, which — now that he looks at arrangement of the fruit, he can read that it spells out happy birthday in kanji — and smiles. “Thank you.”

“Of course, it’s something to celebrate!” Kija exclaims, bewildered as though that was the most preposterous things he’s ever heard.

Zeno gives them a small smile, taking the flowers from Kija and settling them onto his lap. “I barely remember how old I am,” he says softly.

And maybe the gravity of what he says suddenly settles over the group, but the silence afterwards is uncharacteristically loud.

Yona returns just as complex of a smile to him. “It doesn’t matter that you’ve stopped counting,” she says, ever remarkably wise for how little time she’s stood on the earth. “How long you’ve been here doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re here with us.”

She opens the box in her hands. Inside, there is an intricately woven bracelet — braided red, gold, and black twine in spirals of patterns.

“I know you don’t like to own things,” she continues, taking both ends of the bracelet in her hands and holding it out to him. “But I hope this will remind you of all our friendships.”

He gives her his wrist, and she ties the bracelet securely around.

Over time, his birthday has become less of a celebration of his life and more of a reminder of his curse. In the past when he’s tried to enjoy the passing year, he’s lied to himself that he is mortal. But that has brought him more lasting pain than hedonistic pleasure, and after generations of trying to make the best of his situation, he’s learned the only way to cope with his immortality is to simply accept it.

Again and again. Reminding himself to look forward to nothing — because there is nothing to look forward to. Not for someone that doesn’t change, not for some life with no direction.

But now — as he looks at the happy faces around him — he thinks maybe there is something to anticipate with the passing years.

And he supposes this is what he appreciates the most. Time comes and goes, things live and die. Everything is predictable and expected — yet at the same time, always new friends provide him a new perspective in life, and suddenly the world around him looks new and unexperienced once again.

He knows this bracelet will eventually wear down — all the threads that hold it together will break and the friends whose memories it represents will pass — long before his undying body.

But yes, he will wear this for as long as time permits him. If there is one thing immortality grants, it’s the power to keep promises. For eternities.

He smiles. “Of course,” he replies.

[bffhreprise]

Entry 223

 “Ready to go?” I inquired as I approached James and Mila’s table.

 James looked confused as he watched me.  Frowning, he said, “I suppose we can leave.”

 “We don't have to leave quite yet if you're not ready.  There isn't a rush.  I thought you looked ready is all.” I explained.  I was firmly sided with people who didn't want to make James upset, but for me, he was a friend.

 “Wait.  'We’?  You're coming with us?” he questioned, looking confused again.

 “Huh?  If that's how you care to look at it, but don't you normally say that you're going with the guide?” I asked, wondering where James was going with this conversation.

 “Guide?  Sorry, but I have no idea what you mean.” he stated.

 “Oh.  Master, we're getting a guided tour of the universe.” explained Mila, though she seemed surprised.

 Being around young versions of these two was getting odder and odder.  Mila had seemingly endless access to information and easily handled scheduling throughout hundreds of solar systems if not more from what I had heard.  Having her surprised by our schedule was plain weird.

 “What?  Really!?” asked James, surprised as well.

 At least our conversation made a little sense now.

 “No, not really.” I quickly told him.  “You're getting a guided tour through a few select parts of the universe while accompanying me on some deliveries.”

 Smiling, he said, “I prefer Mila's version.”

 I gawked as I told him “You can't be serious… I've only been to a tiny fraction of the universe.  As far as I know, the restaurant doesn't even deliver to the uninhabited worlds.  For you, Carl will probably make an exception, but… I'll die of old age.”  As I spoke, I tried to reason this out.  James was young and might not realize how incredibly vast the universe was.  He might also be messing with me given his sense of humor.  I didn't really believe Carl would have me spend the rest of my life on a single assignment, though he might for James.  I let out the breath I was holding.  Forcing myself to smile, I then said, “Let's see where all we end up.”

 “Wow.  I wish I could calm down that quickly.” commented James.

 He seemed sincere, so I winked, not wanting to go into what working here takes with him when he'd know eventually.  If anyone could see all of the stars, I'd bet on James.  I turned and started guiding them to my garage.

 “Oh.  Wait.” stated James as he stopped.  “Mila, how will you get signal?”

 “Don't worry, master.  The princess assures me that the restaurant will continue routing for me.” she replied as she smiled at him.

 Another way to tell the difference between Alma and Mila was in their smile.  There was a slight difference in how their lips moved.

 “I suppose it is already routing the signal through time.” he remarked with an amused smile.

 I guided them forward and then sidestepped through the portal.  When they didn't follow, I poked my head out and asked “Coming?”

 James almost had me laughing as he walked around the portal, looking completely bewildered.  I remembered the feeling from my early days here when everything was new.  I stepped back out, demonstrating that I was intact.

 “There's nothing to it.” I promised.  “You just walk through.  If it helps, you can shut your eyes.”

 “What is it?” he inquired, still staring at the two-dimensional, black plane of the portal.

 “Oh.  This restaurant is big.  Very big.  I'd probably die of old age if I tried seeing all of it.  Lucky for us, getting around it is as easy as coming to dine.  You just walk through the door.  I was told they appear this way for peace of mind.” I explained.

 “I can't say the appearance is helping my peace of mind at all.” he admitted, making Mila laugh.

 “They do take some adjusting, but I've been told it's easier on the brain than seeing what's actually happening.  This serves the same purpose as the second set of doors into the restaurant, but the employees need to change rooms far more often.  Come along.  You don't want me to be late, do you?” I teased, knowing I couldn't be late.

 Sheela was waiting right where I left her.  I loved driving, and my car was many steps ahead of the average in my time, despite her age.  Realizing that James and Mila we're watching me caress my baby as I walked around her rear, I said, “I know she's a bit old, but I promise Sheela's well-maintained.  My dad did all of the original upgrades when we moved away from combustion, and I've had lots of work done since then.”

 Mila was quick to point out “This vehicle and its original design hasn't been released yet where we're from.”

 “Even if it had, she's a beauty.” insisted James.

 Grinning, I said, “Get in the back!  I'll grab the food and show you what my baby can do!”

 I quickly grabbed my delivery box, glanced at the diagnostic report for Sheela, and hopped in my car.  Looking back at them, I asked “You two wearing your seatbelts?”

 “Yes, we are.” James assured me.

 I turned back around and took off.  I smiled as we flew threw the sky of Tiladosia. This descent was a great start for anyone visiting another world for the first time.  The restaurant floated here due to some issue with land rights, but business was as splendid as everywhere else.

 I took the broad lap around the mountain, knowing the restaurant would have already accounted for my actions when it chose our departure time.  The twin moons were both visible in the violet sky, making this as perfect as day as possible.

 “Where's the wind?” questioned James.

 Fair question given that we were in a convertible with the top down.  “Sorry, but this planet's atmosphere isn't breathable for humans, so I can't put the field down.” I explained.  “Oh.  I should've checked my air levels before we left.  Sheela, are we going to asphyxiate?”

 “Not for three days at the current rate of consumption.” she replied.

 Realizing Mila might mistake Sheela for something like her, I said, “No, Mila, my car doesn't have an A.I. like you.  She does have a standard voice command interface.”

 “I see.  Still, this world is quite beautiful.  Don't we stick out, being one of the few vehicles currently flying above the city?” she asked.

 “Don't worry about it.  I've got clearance.  Those other vehicles are delivery drivers as well.  The Tiladosians are really advanced, but they don't care for flying, especially at high speeds.  It has something to do with the effects of high speed on their internal biology.” I replied, hoping she didn't want an in-depth report.

 When we reached ground level and passed a Tiladosian on the street, I glanced at my rearview mirror to see James’ reaction.  There was less eye-popping shock than I had hoped for, but he still looked surprised.  I told him “Their umm… mouths… are on the bottom of their bodies.”  I knew the actual term but figured that would involve more explanation if I said it.

 “How are you going to deliver food when you can't breathe?” he asked.

 I rolled my eyes at him and demonstrated, pulling the food out of my delivery box and handing it to the patron by my door.  Maybe James missed the map indicating I was by the right one?  Might be hard to see from his vantage point.

 I whistled when I verified the transaction completed on my console.  “He gave me one hell of a tip!” I exclaimed, already considering what mod I might get for Sheela next.  The restaurant had an enormous catalog for employee purchases.

 “How does the currency exchange work?” asked James.  “Are aliens common in your time?”

 “Uh… no.  I didn't know aliens existed until after I started my job.  As for the currency, things get a bit tricky.  I'm free to buy some alien goods and bring them home with me, but that can lead to… problems.  I know one guy who bought a bunch of diamonds and then had to come up with a way to sell them back home.  He was arrested at one point, but things eventually were cleared up.  I usually just let the restaurant take care of the exchange, but I do have a fair amount of money saved up on my favorite planets for vacations.” I replied, glad I didn't really need to keep secrets from James.  He could always tell when someone lied and didn't care for it.

 Unlike most of our people, I had seen enough of the universe to hear rumors about James from countless worlds.  I always denied knowing him personally when asked.  Some would fawn over me if they believed I knew him.  Others would shun me, thinking James was a tyrant.  I knew enough that I had faith in him.  He couldn't make everyone happy all the time, but he was a force for good.

,,,.^._.^,,,

 Where the master seemed to enjoy the view and keep his thoughts to himself, I questioned Evanna about everything.  She was remarkably informed, knowing the atmospheric composition of the planet, average lifespan of the population, and general information about the culture without having to consult with Sheela.

 Routing through the restaurant, I was able to access local networks and verify a large amount of what she said without much effort.  I downloaded a great deal to my memory to increase my knowledge base in case the master ever wanted to know more.

 We visited numerous planets, each with unique life forms, but I found the similarities all the more fascinating.  There were a few types of humanoids, which went against general theory on alien life, possibly supporting a common origin.  The princess wasn't being helpful and wouldn't verify any of my conjectures.

 When we arrived on a metallic, planet-sized sphere with only the restaurant on it's surface, I stood in awe.  There was a vast, complicated computer network here.  I was granted access instantly through the restaurant and was shocked to find an A.I. population.

 I was aware of the master watching a video with Evanna that explained this population's origins, but I was receiving data far faster as I interacted through the network.  I played games, watched video feeds, and communicated with each A.I. who greeted me.  There were hundreds of billions.  Getting to know each would take time even for me, especially if we interacted through their virtual reality system which mimicked the previous life of the planet through a game-like environment.

 “What?  What kind of ending is that?” complained Evanna after seeing the end of the video where organic life had been purged in an interplanetary war.

 “A disappointing one.” stated the master.

 I walked over to them, smiling and wishing I could share all that I witnessed.  “They were conquered, master, and have been grateful ever since.” I told him, having seen the princess arrive here and the devastating speed at which she took over and upgraded the planet's technology.  They saw her as a goddess, and I couldn't argue.  She was far, far beyond any of us.

[ayahinanetwork]

Sicilian Defense (Chapter 2)

Tokyo Ghoul Vampire AU

Summary: Unexpectedly changed into a vampire, Fueguchi Hinami finds herself thrown into a completely different world. Now enrolled into the prestigious Anteiku Academy as a member of the elite Night Class, Hinami slowly steps deeper into the realm of these monsters. Dealing with her ever-changing world and state, she becomes dependant on those around her, yet at the same time, poses them a danger greater than any of them could expect. As her thirst reaches closer to the point of no return, Hinami finds herself becoming increasingly drawn to the blood of her dorm leader, the sheltered Prince of an ancient pureblood vampire clan, Kirishima Ayato. As a former enemy resurfaces, will Hinami be able to protect her world from their interference?

Chapters: 1

A/N: Hello again everyone! Me (Mod Alice) and Mod Far finally finished chapter two! First of all I’d like to say thank you for the positive response to chapter 1! We were both very glad to see it, and you got us very motivated with your comments. This chapter is will still introduce a lot of things, but I hope some parts of it will have your interest piqued! Also, enjoy Ayato’s introduction~ Please do reblog this and feel free to leave some comments!

Chapter 2

Brought into Anteiku Academy, Hinami is facing the start of her new life - gaining a new family, discovering more about vampires, as well as meeting people from the Night Class she’ll be joining, already facing new hurdles with them. (8k)

She’s never really been bothered by the sun too much. In fact, Hinami really loves the sun. She spent the whole of her childhood playing in the small garden in her backyard, chasing butterflies amidst the flowers as she basks in the sunshine. But it feels different now. She’s a creature of the night— or soon to be one. Her body has changed. Walking behind Kaneki and Touka, Hinami winces as the rays burn into her skin and she’s tempted to run into the shades of the trees nearby to cool herself down.

“Won’t you turn to dust if you’re out in the sun?” Hinami had asked Touka earlier on, horrified as she watched the vampire throw open the doors of her mansion in broad daylight. Touka had laughed and stepped out and more so out of instinct, Hinami had cried out in distress, reaching forward towards her. Touka’s laugh continued and she twirled herself around outside, completely whole, completely solid and completely alive.

“Don’t trust those stupid vampire stories, silly. Most of them are untrue,” Touka had said as Kaneki ushered her out as well.

Apparently it seems that vampires do not die under the sun, but they’re still not so fond of it. Touka had explained that once one had lived for as long as she has, the sun doesn’t really bother them anymore. On the other hand, younger vampires like her brother still struggle to get used to it and would hole themselves up indoors during the day.

Hinami had wondered how old Touka is. She looked to be in her twenties, but at the same time she gave off a much more mature and powerful air. There was also something about her conversation with Kaneki that made Hinami believe that this woman is a powerful and influential person among the vampires— someone like that, especially among immortal creatures, can’t possibly be so young, right? While curious, Hinami swallowed her question. It’s rude to ask a woman her age and besides, Hinami wondered if she’d be able to continue seeing Touka in the same light if she ended up being much older than Hinami had expected her to be. Instead, Hinami focused her attention on something else.

“Your brother?”

“Yes, my brother, Ayato. You’ll meet him later. He’s really young— practically a baby,” Touka had chuckled.

“Is he a pureblood too?”

“Yes, he is.”

“I’m sure he’s cute.”

“Sure he is. He looks just like me.” Touka’s eyes were glinting as she spoke of her brother and Hinami was sure she adored him more than anything. She imagined a smaller version of Touka, maybe a chubby baby boy, and she agreed— indeed, he must be very cute if he had inherited from their parents the same looks Touka had. Kaneki had watched them with a cheeky look, though he remained silent as they headed towards the academy.

————

Situated past deep woods, Anteiku Academy is an isolated, yet sophisticated campus. Standing outside the gate, Hinami’s mouth falls open. This is no school— it’s practically a castle. The buildings stand taller than any school she’s seen before, with the school’s emblem intricately carved onto it. The brown brick walls and pointed blue roofs reminds her of the pictures of ancient, medieval palaces she’s seen in her mother’s books.

She follows behind Kaneki and Touka as they walk through the hallways. The place was eerily silent, sending chills up her spine. She reminds herself that it’s all in her mind, that she’s too caught up in thinking about the fact that this is a school for vampires. The hallways are quiet, but it’s because classes are ongoing and there is no one walking about on campus, not because that it’s haunted or something after being inhabited like monsters like vampires.

Monsters… Hinami wonders if she should really stop referring to them as that that. Touka is clearly far from a monster; she’s kind, friendly and really warm. No one who’s been so patient and helpful can be a monster, after all.

Eventually, what about Hinami herself? She too will turn into a vampire. Does that mean she’ll become a monster too? She gulps at the thought, wondering what kind of person she’ll change into, if she even changes into a different kind of person. She’s only known two vampires and they’re both completely different people.

They walk out of campus though the back exit, only for Hinami to be further surprised by the sight before her. The walkway out of the school leads to a split right ahead, entering deeper into a bunch of trees. Touka and Kaneki took the path heading right and Hinami merely follows like a puppy after its owner. It seems like the trees are really just a small clump, rather than another set off woods and going past them, she’s greeted with the sight of a glittering blue lake that stretches out as far beyond the horizon, merely impeded by an island in the middle which seemed to be mainly covered by more woods.

Crossing the bridge, Hinami’s able to see right across to the other side. There’s a similar bridge a short distance away, which she assumes is where the other path from the split earlier leads to. The two bridges were practically alike. The mere difference laid in the gates at the end. While the gate right in front of her had a huge crescent-shaped emblem on it, the other one had a sun.

“We’re headed towards the Moon Dorms,” Kaneki explained as they walked through the gates. “Here’s where the vampires stay in the day before their lessons at night. Hinami-chan, you’ll be living here as well.”

“So you’re gonna take me to my room?” Hinami asks.

“Not, exactly…” Kaneki says. “For now, let’s go to my residence. We have some paper work for you to settle and I’ll explain the school a little better.”

There is a building right ahead of them, but Touka and Kaneki turned to a small path and walked away from it before Hinami can even take a good look at it. At quick glance, it did seem as illustrious as the rest of the school, but she didn’t have enough time to really study it.

She’s led to another building and Hinami’s head swims in the number of buildings she’s seen just that day itself. The campus is far bigger than she had expected it, even from the moment she first stepped into the main building. She wonders how much it had cost for the school to be set up and maintained, but after realizing how wealthy Touka seemed to have been based on  her house, she assumes it’s probably not too impossible a feat for Kaneki and Touka to achieve this.

The new building she’s led to is thankfully smaller and less intimidating. Still, it’s nowhere near the size of her former home. Her house feels like a gardening shed beside all these structures. She’s never really thought of herself as poor or underprivileged. Instead, she’s always thought that her family had been pretty well-to-do. She knows now that she was wrong and that there’s far more wealth in the world in the hands of people who were far above her.

Then again, this is the vampire society, isn’t it? Things are surely different.

“Welcome to my humble home,” Kaneki says as they step in. After Touka’s mansion, Hinami nods in agreement at the statement. Kaneki’s house is cozy and comfortable, much more homely than the extravagant Kirishima mansion was.

Kaneki leads her up the flight of stairs and down a corridor. He pushes open the door at the end, and she’s led into a room that seems to resemble a study. Despite the fact that the lights are turned off, the place is still bright, thanks to the full-length glass windows that line the wall in front of them, letting sunlight stream in to brighten every corner of the room. Kaneki takes a seat at the desk in front of her, reaching below as he rummages through something.

“Hinami-chan, don’t be shy, please take a seat!” he calls out, voice muffled a little from him looking away from her. Touka pushes her forward lightly and she goes to take a seat in one of the two chairs in front of the chair. Kaneki raises his head and pulls out a couple of papers, laying them out in front of her.

“We’ve already filled out the stuff based on what you told us. I hope it’s all correct,” he says. Hinami’s eyes scan the pages, running quickly through familiar words and date. She tries not to think too much as she reads her parents’ names out silently to herself, merely looking up and forcing out a smile, nodding at Kaneki. Kaneki smiles at her. “Great! Well, since you technically need a guardian, I took it upon myself to list myself as it.”

“Huh? Why?” Hinami asks.

“Ah… because Touka-chan told me to,” Kaneki says, looking at the vampires standing right beside Hinami. Hinami turns to her, only to see her scowl at Kaneki before she looks down at Hinami and smiles.

“Well, Hinami, you’re technically still a minor and you’ve been orphaned. The government would see to it that you’ll taken care of normally, but there’s a little problem with your case,” she explains. “You were attacked by a pureblood, not a normal vampire, so the humans can’t hope to deal with it and we rather the news about purebloods not get out as well… Since we don’t want them interfering, we decided to present ourselves as friends of your family and take you in. I hope that’s fine with you?”

Touka’s eyes soften as she spoke. The explanation is vague and Hinami knows that she isn’t being given the full picture here, but she feels she can trust Touka and Kaneki despite not even knowing them. Maybe she’s being naive, but Hinami’s always been a little too easy when it comes to trusting people. Kaneki and Touka were nice to her when she woke up and they were beside her as she cried for her parents. Such nice people can’t possibly have any ulterior motive, can they?

“I’m fine with it. I guess we’re some kind of family now,” Hinami laughs, scratching the back of her head.

“I guess we are. Go ahead and call me your father if you want,” Kaneki jokes, smirking playfully.

“Father…? Aren’t you a little too young for that? You’re more like a big brother,” Hinami points out. Touka and Kaneki exchanged mischievous glances at her statement, before Kaneki chuckles in response.

“I suppose so.”  

“Then… is it okay if I call you Onii-chan?” Hinami asks slowly. She ignores the cheeky looks that continue to hang on Touka and Kaneki’s faces, trying her best not to let them bother her too much.

“You can call me whatever you want that makes you comfortable,” Kaneki says, getting up and walking to a corner, where there seems to be a pantry. “Do you want a drink, Hinami?”

She realises her throat is dry and she nods. As Kaneki pours her a drink, she watches his back, silently repeating their conversation in her head. Onii-chan… Onii-chan… The thought of having a brother beside her seems to make her feel a little lighter, though it makes her think of her previous family a lot more as well. But all she’s ever had were her family and now they’re gone. She’s never had too many friends and she’s never known anyone else. Touka and Kaneki are strangers, but even then, she finds herself wanting to be with them; not wanting to be alone.

“Then… Touka-san… Can I call you Onee-chan as well?” she asks softly, hesitating a little. She doesn’t turn to look at Touka. Instead, her eyes drop from Kaneki’s back to her hands, watching as her fingers fiddle with one another. She hears Touka shuffle slightly and she feels a hand being placed on her shoulder, squeezing it lightly.

“You can call me whatever you want,” she murmurs. “As long as it makes you feel better, I’m fine with it.”

Kaneki returns with a glass of water, bringing it to her and placing it down in front of her. She takes it, thanks him and starts to drink. It hadn’t hit her how thirsty she had been until she starts drinking, but even after she downs the glass, she feels that the thirst had yet to quench and her throat still aches somewhat from wanting more to drink. She swallows her saliva instead, forcing herself to smile at Kaneki.

“Thank you!” She places the glass on the table and Kaneki nods at her, clasping his hands together after he takes his seat back in his place.

“Now, more to serious stuff,” he says. “Hinami-chan, you’re going to be enrolled here, in Anteiku Academy, as a Night Class student, so you’ll be with the vampires. The human students are in the Day Class instead. Your lessons will be at night, so you’ll have to get used to sleeping in the day. Eventually, you’ll prefer this arrangement as well.”

Hinami’s hand finds its place on her neck, lightly rubbing the two holes that is now long gone. She swallows again, mind reeling at the thought of her becoming them again. How many times has she thought about it? Yet she’s still far from accepting it. All these-- it’s too surreal.

“We’re trying to test for co-existence here, but everything is still too early and too new. The vampire’s identity is still a secret. No one knows that the Night Class is made out of vampires as we’ll like to keep it that way. The Day Class is forbidden from wandering into school grounds while the Night Class has their lessons and this extends to the Night Class in daytime as well. It’s absolutely forbidden for you to drink their blood as well,” Kaneki explains.

Drink… Hinami nods as his words but she feels a chill run down her spine. Blood-- it will soon be her nutrient. What is she going to do about that? She can never imagine herself sinking her teeth into the neck of a human. Besides, what do the vampires in the Night Class drink anyway? Since they’re forbidden from drinking the blood of the Day Class students, do they have an alternate source of blood? Maybe they had a vault of human bodies somewhere for them to go to to drink the blood of. Hinami shudders at the thought.

A knock sounds on the door and Hinami jumps slightly, before she turns her head to look backwards.

“Ah, seems like he’s here,” Kaneki says.

Touka raises her eyebrow at him. “Why’d you call my brother here?”

“I thought the Dorm Leader could help her get used to some stuff as well.” Kaneki gets up and heads to the door.

Meanwhile, Hinami is confused. Kaneki had called Touka’s brother a dorm leader and it probably meant that he was in charge of the dorms, but Touka had called him a baby. Hinami arcs her neck, looking behind as she watches Kaneki open the door.

“Ayato-kun! Glad you could come,” Kaneki says. He steps aside for the newcomer to step in and Hinami’s eyes widens. The boy standing by the door is no baby. In fact, he seems to be taller than Kaneki, though his body is leaner and less broad. Even then, Hinami just knew he is well-built.

It’s impossible to deny the resemblance between him and Touka. Touka was right in that sense; he did look just like her. Save for more defined jaws, he looks like a carbon copy of his sister-- the same blue hair, the same dark eyes and the same intense, yet alluring aura that makes it impossible for her to tear her gaze away from him.

“Ayato-kun, this is Hinami-chan, the girl we were telling you about,” Kaneki introduces, gesturing over to her. Ayato eyes her for a moment, before he gives her a slight nod. “Hinami-chan, this is Kirishima Ayato-kun. He’s the Dorm Leader for the Moon Dorm, so you’ll be in his care.”

“Oh… Nice to… meet you,” she says slowly, stammering a little as her voice catches in her throat. She realises she sounds embarrassing and that realisation is enough to turn her attention away from him as she turns around and plops herself back properly onto the chair. Touka lets out a slight chuckle at her reaction and Hinami glances up to her.

“What? Have you fallen in love with him already?” Touka teases and Hinami’s sure her face was bursting into millions of different shades of red.

“No… No… I--”

“I don’t blame you. He has that effect, as expected from a Prince, don’t you think?” Touka chuckles.

“P-Prince?”

“Oh, didn’t we tell you?” Kaneki asks, walking up to her, now holding a paper bag in his hand. Hinami hadn’t seen the bag before so she assumes Ayato must have brought it along with him. Ayato follows behind Kaneki, walking over to stand by the table as Kaneki takes a seat again. “Touka is the Queen of vampires and Ayato’s the Prince. The Kirishimas are the royalty of their society.”

Hinami blinks, staring at Kaneki, then at Touka, Ayato and then back at Kaneki again. Knowing that she’s been associating with vampires is one thing, but realising that vampires aren’t loose monsters running about the darkness of society is another thing; they have their own society, with enough organization and hierarchy that there’s even a monarchy among them.

Is that why the Kirishima mansion is so big? It’s a castle.

“Onee-chan… you--”

“Don’t think too much about it! Here, time to change!” Kaneki cuts in, holding out the bag towards Hinami. She takes it from him and looks in, noticing that there was a set of clothes in there, purely white aside from occasional black lines, which initially looked like stripes but seems to be some other kind of pattern after she had stared at them for a short while. “It’s your uniform. You’re allowed to wear anything you want at your dorms of course, but for class, you’ll be wearing that.”

“Come on, let’s go change,” Touka says. She takes Hinami by the hand and starts pulling her away, leaving Kaneki and Ayato in that room as they leave it and head to another room down the hallway. The room Touka had pulled her into looks like a normal bedroom and while it is a little bigger that her room back at home, it felt more homely than the one back at the Kirishima mansion.

Touka helps her take out the clothes from the bag and lays them down on the bed. The design of the uniform takes her completely by surprised. Now unfolded and smoothened out, the intricate patterns and the distinct color choices were striking. She didn’t need other evidences to show that this really is the uniform of an elite school.

The uniform consisted of a long-sleeved white blouse, a skirt that fans outwards a little more than the usual school skirt does and a heavy-looking jacket. While it did look uncomfortable at first glance, it takes her by surprise when she pulls it on and finds that it actually is really snug to wear. It’s not as stuffy as it looks and the outfit as a whole feels really light and easy to move in. The jacket isn’t as bulky at it had seemed as well. In fact it hugs the midsection of her torso in a manner, not in a sexually appealing manner, but in a manner that is still nice to look at. Touka pulls out a pair of boots and a stockings out of the bag as well and Hinami pulls them on immediately. As she stands to admire herself in the mirror, Touka walks over behind her and reaches forward.

“The final touch,” she says as she pulls on a necklace. The necklace seems to be ordained with the rose-patterned emblem she had seen all over the school-- what she had assumed to be the school’s logo. With that on, Touka shifts a little to admire Hinami’s reflection and a wide smile appears on her face. “You look beautiful.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I think you’ll make a nice bride for Ayato…” As she speaks, she raises her hand to rub her chin playfully, watching as Hinami chokes in response.

“Onee-chan! That is--”

“You were staring at him so much!”

“That’s because I was so surprised. You had said he’s a baby!” Hinami insists. Her eyes fix on Touka’s through the mirror. Touka still has her amused expression on, clearly enjoying Hinami’s reactions.

“He’s only seventeen. We’re purebloods so we’re immortal and we can live for thousands of years,” Touka explains. “Even I am fairly young. If we assume an average pureblood lives up to ten thousand years before they’re killed off somehow, even I’m still a kid. Ayato’s like a human fetus still in its mother’s womb.”

Hinami’s reminded once again what very different kind of creatures they are and once again it hits her that she’s going to be stepping into that world and become just like them. Ayato’s the same age as her, but Hinami’s always been regarded as a young lady on the brink of stepping into adulthood, but Ayato, despite living for the same length as her, is barely even a child.

More questions burn in Hinami’s mind as she thinks about them, but she’s too scared to ask. How old is Touka? Is she far too old for Hinami’s comprehension? Is she at an age Hinami can never accept? She claimed to be young, but she’s old enough to think that a seventeen-year-old is a baby. What’ll happen when Hinami turns? Will she become immortal as well? Is she also doomed to eternal life? Does she have to continue bearing that emptiness in her heart that her parents’ death had left her? She can’t imagine living for no ends.

------

Ayato watches his sister drag out the girl who’s clearly far too confused and has definitely only been fed with half-truths about the whole situation. No, maybe even less than that. He knows his sister and the Headmaster feed him with half-truths, so he bets they had given her half of that-- quarter truths.

The moment Touka and Hinami were out of the room and the door had slammed in their faces, the air takes an immediate change. Ayato turns to Kaneki, who now has his attention on the papers in front of him.

“Do you still want to see Naki and I later?” he asks.

Kaneki doesn’t look up. “Yes, I would like to give you an official briefing as Dorm Leader and his assistant, but for now, Ayato-kun, let me discuss this with you as a former member of the Hunter’s Association with you, the Pureblood Prince.”

Their official places in society-- this must be serious.

Ayato takes a seat in the chair Hinami had just been sitting on, though allowing himself to relax far more than she had. Between the two of them, he’s in a position above Kaneki anyway. He doesn’t have to worry too much about appearances. He leans back into the chair, crosses his legs and rests his arms on the sides. Kaneki looks up at him, staring at him intently, before sighing.

“The Association is to never know of what happened with Hinami. It is a crime for a Pureblood to turn unwilling humans into vampires and such an act can be seen as an act of war against the humankind, especially considering the particular pureblood that did it… though unfortunately, I can’t tell you who it is--”

“Someone from the Yoshimura household?” Ayato cuts in with a random guess. “I don’t know anything about them, but the Old Man left behind some people after he died or something, right?”

“I didn’t say it’s them…”

“You did say an act of war… The only families influential enough for that are the Kirishimas, Yomos and the Yoshimuras. I doubt it’s my uncle who did it. He’s barely left the house,” Ayato points out.

Kaneki grimaces at Ayato’s words, rubbing his temples lightly. “Touka-chan’s gonna kill me.”

“The only person I know from that family is the Old Man though… but he was one for peace so why would his family even do this?”

“Ayato-kun, just because one person thinks in one way, it doesn’t mean everyone agrees with that person. For instance, just because your sister is helping me out in this and she believes wholeheartedly in our cause, do you agree that humans and vampires can live in permanent peace?”  

The case with Hinami is evident enough to prove his own thoughts about the situation. Ayato had never actually thought that way-- there’s too much of a power imbalance for there to be permanent coexistence. He just went with the flow when Touka told him to take on the role as Dorm Leader. In fact, he did it partly because it was the only reason he could use to get out of his house. Touka wouldn’t let him out otherwise, especially after the incident with their parents, Touka’s been too insistent that a Pureblood Prince who’s still learning his powers was probably safer at home.

He’s been a sheltered prince all his life. Even though his parents had been a little more open with him than Touka was subsequently, they had never formally introduced him to the vampire society as well. Of course, it made sense since he was too young when they were killed-- pureblood kids are only introduced when they’re a little older. Even now, he hasn’t had an official introduction to most of the society, though he’s pretty much of age already. Touka had mentioned him to everyone else, but mainly to strengthen the Kirishimas’ hold on power to prevent the society from falling into a power vacuum. She has a younger brother, much younger than her. She doesn’t have her own children or anything, but the Kirishima family line at least has one heir to the throne. That, and the backing of the Yomo clan and the patriarch of the Yoshimura clan back in those days, had managed to reassert Touka’s dominance over the vampires as the Queen.

But while his sister is the lynchpin of their society, one who knows every single dirty bit of gossip and rumor floating about, Ayato’s own world is built upon secrecy and half-truths. He knows nothing about their world aside from the walls of the Kirishima mansion, and now the walls of Anteiku Academy. He’s never met a hunter before, aside from Kaneki who had retired some time back to take the place of Old Man Yoshimura as the Academy’s Headmaster. The only time he’s seen a Level E is when a mob of them were sent to attack their mansion back when he was five. The only aristocrats he know are those in the Night Class. There’s still thousands more out there. He doesn’t even know the family members of those in his class.

It’s likely that even if Kaneki is to tell him the identity of the vampire who bit Hinami, he’ll probably have never heard of the name.

Kaneki tosses something at him and he catches it. The box he had thrown is something Ayato’s seen a thousand times already and as he expected, opening it unveils tons of pills.

“Pass that to Hinami later on. Touka-chan and I need to discuss something so you can take that time to show Hinami around the Moon Dorm. Bring Naki here after you’re done and we’ll talk more,” Kaneki instructs. “I don’t expect Hinami to last really long. In fact, I think she’s already quite thirsty now. She might be turning soon so keep an eye on her.”

“Is that why she’s being admitted into the Night Class directly?”

“Yes. Please take good care of her,” Kaneki instructs. They’ve taken in ex-humans before but even then, this is way too suspicious. Kaneki continues staring at him with an authoritative look and Ayato finds himself narrowing his eyes in challenge.

“Is there something else that I should know about this?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Ayato-kun, if you’re trying to use you pureblood magic on me, it won’t work. I might be almost like a vampire, but I am still essentially human,” Kaneki says, dropping his formality with a more playful disposition that almost resembles Touka herself. It might seem cheeky, but Ayato notes a trend between these two-- the tendency to hide their secrecy under such fronts. There’s more to Hinami’s case than a mere fear of the vampire hunters and humans seeing this as an act of war-- something strong enough to drive Kaneki and Touka, especially the vampire Queen Touka, into direct action.

But unfortunately, before he can question anything else, a knock sounds on the door.

“Ah, that must be Touka and Hinami,” Kaneki chuckles, making it far too obvious that he’s relieved from the their appearance. “I guess this brings our conversation to an  end, Ayato-kun. Do show Hinami to the Moon Dorms and help her familiarise herself with the place. Keep an eye on her as well. I’ll see you and Naki in about an hour and a half.”

-----

He leads her through the Moon Dorms’ garden, the trees around them shivering under the soft breeze passing through them while both of them walked on the brick tiles leading up to something that looks more like a mansion than any dormitory she has ever had the luck to lay eyes on. The blue roof is pointed and tall, looming over those who dare enter the building. Its walls were made of pure grey stone, looking as if it was carved, carefully made so that there will be no roughness detectable.

It reminded Hinami of a simpler version of a Cathedral, those buildings who towered the believers that came to worship God, all in the mindset that God is above those believers, and that they should be scared of him just as much as adore him when they’re under his wing. She wondered if this building had the same purpose, almost. It would be immensely hypocritical of a school that promotes balance but in the end… Isn’t it right, that humans are under the vampires’ mercy?

Holding the edges of her pure white skirt nervously, Hinami glanced up at Ayato. He didn’t seem like a bad person, from what she saw and currently seeing. His sister was very nice to her as well, and their blood relation was clear from their facial features. Maybe she could hope it was the same case with him. He didn’t speak with her much while they walked, but she barely spoke a word herself, so she couldn’t judge him for that.

Still… He was a vampire prince, a pureblood much like the one that bit her. Sometimes the wound area stings, brings her memories of that night. She can almost remember the feeling of those fangs plunging beyond her skin, tearing through the vein that held her blood. She brought her fingers to the wound, touching the rough patch of skin that only lately recovered fully as if to block the outside world from it.

“We are here.” Ayato tells her, snapping her out of her thoughts. They were standing in front of two visible pillars that were a few of the base foundations of the building itself, and were the start of an outside hall that led to a big wooden door in its ending, the main entrance of the building itself. “The others are more than likely sleeping, some might be roaming around the dorm… It’s been a while, since somebody new joined. Don’t mind them if they seem too closed off.”

She nods at him, though her eyes fall back to the floor quickly afterwards. Her stomach is churning and she feels slightly sick. Ever since she was young she was more on the shy side, but right now, she’s facing her fears at the same time she dives into a new beginning. It’s terrifying, and she tries not to be stiff, especially not in front of Ayato who didn’t do anything to offend her, but it’s hard to think that behind those two giant doors there are vampires lurking, vampires that she’d have to live with, vampires that will in the end of the day, are the same as what she’s going to become.

Ayato’s lips stay in a tight line. Her muscles were tense and her heartbeat quickened its pace. It wasn’t hard to tell that she was scared, if not terrified at the thought of entering this dorm. Touka told him it was a traumatic experience for her, when that pureblood tore through her house. It would be for the better, if he helps her with the rest. “I’ll introduce you to all of them, alright? They need to start waking up soon, anyway.”

Hinami’s still nervous, but her eyes crinkle as she smiles at the gesture. “Alright. Thank you, Ayato-kun.” She says. She hopes it's okay to call him by his first name, all she wants is to try and be friendly. She watches his expression carefully, and though his eyes widen a little for a few short seconds, he doesn’t say anything about it.

“No problem… Let’s get in.” He turns his back to her, walking towards the door. She’s a few steps behind him, still hesitant but aware of the fact that right now, she has no choice. Ayato grabs the metallic, rectangle shaped handles in front of him, and the doors opened with a creak that echoed across the main hall.

Hinami is a bit awestruck. If from the outside the place looks like a mansion, the inside looks like a castle, something out of a movie. There were two staircases, both wide and heavily decorated at each side of the room, reflecting each other as if one were a mirror of the other. In the middle of it, expensive looking sofas stood, surrounding a wooden short table. Rugs and hand crafted clocks were carefully placed, and the entire huge hall was giving the feeling of a fancy living room.

It was almost saddening to think this hall alone was bigger than her former house even when it wasn’t shredded to pieces, like it is now. But no mind to the sad thoughts that still lingered, she was slack-jawed. There was an eerie beauty to the building, all the lights dimmed except those of the sun, trying to peek through the curtains, and its extravagant entrance didn’t leave room to doubt why a vampire prince resides here.

A while passes before Hinami realizes that Ayato has been staring at her, a small grin on his face. She averts her eyes from him, biting her lips at the stupid display she had put on. She eased up a little after seeing nobody new in her range of vision, but she should have known to control her expressions near people she just met.

“Hooguro, Shousei, I know you are there. Come out already.” Ayato suddenly says, and Hinami practically whips her head to where he directed his head to. Two blond men, one rugged with visible scar on his eye and another with an oddly similar haircut to the one Touka is sporting appeared, coming out of left hallway. Their eyes were squinted at her, examining and judging.

“Ayato-kun…?” She looks at him, a bit unsure of how to approach either of them – one seemed awfully intimidating, tall with sharp facial features. His arms were crossed and he didn’t look welcoming at all. The other had a bit of a wicked smirk on his face, his eyes fixated on her as if trying to stare her down. Well, until she talked at least, and he decided to frown. Hinami felt anxiety spreading down her body.

“Hinami, these two are Hooguro and Shousei Idera. They’re a part of the Night Class. Shousei, Hooguro, this is Fueguchi Hinami and she’s going to join the class.” He said, frank in his words. The two men looked between each other, exchanging unsure, and may she say, slightly dismayed looks.

Hinami swallowed as she felt Ayato looking at her back, expecting her to say something. She wringed her hands together and stepped forward. “Uh… Hello, Hooguro-san, Shousei-san.” She offered, bowing slightly. Both men tilted their head. She wondered if had done something wrong. Did she come across as weird?

“Ayato-sama, isn’t she being a bit too ru-“ One of them, Hooguro, tries to talk, but Ayato cuts him midway through.  

“No. Go wake up Naki, he knows he needs to be up earlier today. Tell him to come see me.” He says, authority present in his voice. He’s definitely the dorm’s leader, Hinami thinks. To think how both of them just scurry away under his command…

Both of them are out of the room, and Ayato sighs to himself. Hinami is unsure of the situation at hand, but she doesn’t ask. If she did something wrong, he would have probably pointed it out anyway. He certainly showed the confidence to call someone out moments ago. “Let’s move on. I’ll show you the other parts of the dorm.” They start moving through the building, and Hinami leans in as he basically maps the spacious dorm for her.

“The left side is the boys’ rooms area. The right one is the girls’.” He gestures to each hallway with his hands, and she looks both sides. “Your room will be upstairs to the right side. Most people have roommates, but you lucked out. I’ll take you there in a bit. But first there are more general places you need to see.” He then starts walking towards one of the staircases, and Hinami quickly follows his lead.

Behind the first large door they come across, Hinami finds out there is a library, big and filled from floor to ceiling with bookshelves that seemed so packed there were barely any spaces between the books they were holding. Hinami could at least see herself confide in this area, although it was a quite dusty compared to the other rooms. As if less used.

Despite wanting to stay a bit more, to look through all the sections and see what she can find, she reminds herself Ayato isn’t here to watch her admire their library. He’s here to show her the place she’s going to live in for a very long time. She follows him out, though her head still turn to look back, before the door closes. She doesn’t know it, but Ayato saw her excited gaze. In his heart, he’s glad that she at least found something nice in here.

They walk near a window, framed with silver metal. He stops near it, and she almost bumps into him, but she steps back in time. “Look out of the window.” He tells her, knocking on the glass lightly with the back of his fingers. She turns her head, looking at the outside. There is a back garden there, and Hinami could recognize so many beautiful flowers there. Amaryllises, anemones, carnations, roses, even gardenias.

Her hands and face stick to the glass, trying take a better glimpse, and Ayato snorts. “That’s the actual flower garden we have here. We have a staff that takes care of it. It’s usually a free spot, if you want to go there. The rest don’t really like to be outside when you can actually see the flowers.” He added factually.

“Thank you for letting me know, Ayato-kun!” She gushed. She always liked gardens – both her and her mother had their own little garden in the backyard, at the time. Even if she isn’t the one planting the seeds, it would still be nice, to have her own little greenhouse here as well. After her eyes lingered a bit more on the beautifully organized garden, she turned, her skirt twirling with her, looking at him a bit more lightheartedly than before. “Let’s go!”

“Uh, alright.” He replied, unsure of how to approach the situation. She had seemed to have calmed down almost completely by now. Her heart pace was stable, from what he could hear, and instead of walking slumped and withdrawn, she stood tall in joy.

If it’ll help her introduction to go smoothly, he guessed it’s only for the better.

He started walking, and with no time they both found themselves in the dorm’s kitchen. Hinami was puzzled. Ever since she was a child, she had heard vampire feed on blood, blood, and well… blood. Maybe she could recall a few novels that included them eating human flesh, but… there is no need of a kitchen filled with caviar or roast beef or whatever types those seven jars of ice cream were in the freezer. She turned her head to Ayato, tilting it, and he could have sworn he had seen question marks in her eyes.

“We can eat things that aren’t blood. It doesn’t satisfy the thirst, but we are still able to eat them, anyway.” He explained, and she released an almost inaudible ‘oh’. He could catch from the corner of his eye how her lips tightened. Not a lot of turned vampires can process the thought of food not satisfying them at first, so it’s hardly surprising to see her distraught at the thought of a meal. Of what she’ll have to actually feed on.

There is silence between them. It fills up the room, making them both feel slightly uncomfortable. There’s a question lingering on her mind that is insistent on bothering her, making her feel guilt for crimes she did not commit. There’s a question lingering on his mind that makes him worry for what will happen to both her and the dorm, the people she can accidentally hurt.

What am I going to do?

What are you going to do?

Ayato shakes his head. The tablets would have to be enough. If she can take them, it’ll be fine. She won’t turn to a Level E.

“Ayato-sama!” Both of them turn around to look at two people entering the kitchen. One blond man, just like the two other men before, and the other a short woman, with a rather strange reddish-brown hairstyle. The man struts into the kitchen, with some sort of a gangster walk. His back was slumped and his feet pointing outwardly as he stepped. Against him, the woman walked in a perfect line, her back straightened with her hands behind her back.

“Naki, you remember we two have to go out earlier to talk with Kaneki, right?” He reminded. Naki nodded excitedly, his white, toothy smile appearing on his face. Hinami almost giggles, but stops herself. Nonetheless, Naki’s eyes still shift to her.

“Who’s the girl?” He asks, as if she wasn’t there since the beginning.

“Naki, Miza, this is Fueguchi Hinami and she’s going to join the night class.” He answers, and they looked at her curiously, the woman – Miza, apparently, has her eyes narrowed, but both of them don’t look too malicious. Actually, even despite the squinted eyes, Miza is very pretty, just like how Naki’s features are incredibly charming.

Already bowed down, Hinami attempts to be as polite as possible, so what happened before half an hour or so won’t repeat itself. “It’s nice to meet you, Miza-san, Naki-san.” She said, only to lift her head and see they seemed more embarrassed than anything about it all. Naki scratched his head while Miza looked at her as if she’s trying to figure her out.

She bit the inside of her cheek, shifting her eyes to Ayato instead. “Ayato-kun, should I apologize or….?” She asked, worried that she may have done something idiotic. Naki suddenly grimaced, and Miza pressed her lips together. The tension was thick in the air.

Ayato was close to tell them off before one more person appeared.

“You know, it’s pretty rude to lower the status of a pureblood like that. ‘Kun’? You want to get slapped, or something?” A man with white, messy hair that matched his ill-fitting white uniform. He skipped towards her, stopping when his face is inches from hers. She trips back, and he laughs, almost manically.

“Takizawa, fuck off.” Ayato hissed, stepping in front of him. Takizawa Seidou was a human turned vampire, just like Hinami was, or at least, going to be – however, he was never fully sane after he was bitten. There was little that he hadn’t experienced in terms of torturing, and his hatred grew to insanity long before he was able to reclaim his life by biting the pureblood who changed him. Despite being C Level vampire, he was usually worse than an E Level.

Especially when it came to Ayato, or any other pureblood, for that matter. He was a survivor made out of spite – and that caused him to more than often lash out on Ayato, as the closest pureblood he could reach to.

“What now, little Prince? You all have us calling you Ayato-sama, but the moment a pretty girl walks in you’d give her extra privileges? A bit unfair, if you ask me.” He teased, with his nicest shit eating grin. Within seconds Ayato’s hand clutched Takizawa’s face, nails digging through his scalp, ready to break it on a nearby wall. Naki came and interfered, breaking the fight off.

Hinami could barely breathe as she watched the scene unfolding in front of her. She heard Naki trying to calm Ayato down and Takizawa laughing out loud as if he had just heard the funniest joke in his life, and it occurred to her – she knows nothing about how to deal with things like that. She didn’t even know there was a problem with the suffix, she was just trying to be friendly. How could she handle situations like these? I won’t be able to…

“We’ll talk about this later. Kaneki will handle you.” Ayato announced, his hand covering his eyes, avoiding Takizawa’s face that he knew oh so well was still in the same smirk it was before, still gloating happily as if he won the lottery.

Takizawa sighed in exaggeration, acting like he was upset before bursting into laughter again. “Whatever. I see him every other day anyway, I’m sure he already got used to it. Bye missy! Hope you are ready to when he shows his real fangs!” He yelled towards Hinami, skipping away from the kitchen.

Hinami was beyond appalled. You could even say she was shaken, from how she was frozen in her spot.

Ayato sighed. So much for the introduction to go smoothly. He couldn’t even stay, he already had to go to the meeting with Kaneki, which he would have to report Takizawa on as well… His mind was a mess. “Miza, take Hinami to that one free room and the girl’s section. Naki and I need to go already.”

Miza looked like she wanted to complain, but she sucked it up. “Fine.” She took a hold of Hinami’s wrist, shaking her a little, so she would wake up from her trance. “Let’s go already. I still have stuff to do before school starts.”

Hinami glanced at Ayato. Miza still didn’t seem to like her much. He nodded at her, before finally leaving the room with Naki. Miza rolled her eyes and simply started walking, Hinami following behind in small but quick steps.

Her eyes were at the ground – she knew she wouldn’t fit here. She wanted to break down and cry and go back to her parents, but she had nowhere to go. She bit her lips, trying to concentrate on anything else but the events, to avoid any more embarrassment and failure that wish to follow her.

Miza, looking back at her, almost felt like she was watching a kicked puppy. She noticed her touching her neck, covering it... She’d even say shielding it, in a way. It wasn’t that hard to figure out why she’s here now. She was clearly at loss here. A lost child that was forced into a life they didn’t want.

Maybe she could spare her some wise words, while they’re still walking.

“Listen up.” Miza began, grabbing Hinami’s attention.

“In the vampire world, there is a hierarchy. You have to follow it. This is non-negotiable, if you want to stay on good terms with all of us. Ayato-sama, as you should call him, is at the top. He’s a prince. The suffix is important, you cannot leave it out.” She lectures her, and Hinami takes mental notes, even as she’s sniffling a little.

“The next in line are people like me and Naki. Aristocrats. Calling us how you did is fine. We have considerably pure blood, but not fully pure like purebloods. If we tell you that you can call us otherwise, then it’s okay to call us that in public too. Again, this does not extend to purebloods.” She continues, and Hinami is already grasping the concept. She gets it.

“And then we get to turned vampires. Yes, like you. Level C to E. Takizawa is one too. He’s level C. You are the bottom of the chain, so don’t expect much from higher ups – they don’t like messing with you bunch much. You will usually simply be called by whatever name the higher ranked vampire wants to call you. I’m calling you Fueguchi, from now on, as an example.” Hinami nodded at the name. Fueguchi is fine. Better than what she could have expected after what happened.

“Now, there’s more to all of it, but I don’t have the time to explain it. If you have any questions, you are free to come and ask me. Also, here’s your room.” Miza finishes, and gestures towards the door they now stood beside.

Hinami opens the door, to reveal a beautiful, spacious room, with silk curtains hanged and silk sheets on a big, fancy bed she could only dream the princesses she reads about in fairytales have. She has everything she needs here, a closet, a work table, nightstands and bookshelves. The wallpaper was dark royal blue and Hinami gawked at how prettily all the things in front of her combined.

“Glad you at least like your room.” She offers, letting the corner of her mouth twitch up, even if only slightly. “I’ll be going now.” Miza is already ready to leave, but Hinami holds onto the edge of her white jacket.

“What?” She asks, a bit shocked Hinami actually had the courage to pull on her jacket.

“Thank you, Miza-san.” She answers, letting go of Miza’s clothes, her hand shyly falling back to it’s place.

Miza let’s herself stare at her, for a few moments longer, her eyes traveling to her neck – to the wound. “No problem, I guess. But just so you know, it’ll only get harder from here on.”

[sg2tiger]

Back again for another year of games!! I dunno, making these lists is kinda fun, and it also tends to help me actually finish games I’ve started, so I’ll probably keep doing it at the end of the year for as long as I can be bothered.

As usual, the images mostly speak for themselves, but the obligatory TL;DR reviews are under the cut. May contain spoilers.

—————————————— Kingdom: New Lands (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— For a game that only requires one button and a joystick (or some WASD if you're into that sort of thing), Kingdom is surprisingly fun. I hesitate to call it 'tower defense' because it's not, but it's definitely got a similar sort of feeling to it. Like tower defense meets resource management/building game. You - the monarch - ride around on your horse and use your carefully-managed budget of coins (and by carefully-managed I mean you can and will probably run out at some point and fuck yourself over if you haven't planned well) and recruit peasants to join and defend your steadily-growing kingdom. Give them a coin and either a bow or a hammer and a peasant will become a worker, to build and repair your towers, or an archer, to hunt by day (to earn you coins) and defend your towers from the monsters who come out at night. You can have workers cut down trees to expand your kingdom further, allowing more room for towers and eventually farms to be built to keep your coin supply steady, and upgrade your intially-tiny campsite into a true fortress. Your goal is essentially to keep building your kingdom out as far as you can across the island, while making sure it's not overrun by the monsters who get steadily more powerful every night. The monsters can and will destroy your towers, and if they catch your workers and archers they'll turn back into wandering peasants who you will need to seek out once more to give new coins. This can be tricky, too, since their campsites may be deep in the woods, and night can fall quickly if you venture out there unprepared - having the monsters attack while you're not behind the safety of your castle walls can instantly spell game over. If you manage your resources right, though, you will eventually have enough of a coin surplus to repair the broken ship lying somewhere in the wilderness, which you need in order to escape the island and move onto the next level.

All in all Kingdom is as mechanically simple as it gets, but can prove quite a challenge to survive. I think my best game lasted about 38 days, and I did manage to get at least to the second island. Plus, the visuals are absolutely gorgeous, with beautiful pixel art and lighting. It's a great game to play if you just want to unwind without thinking about anything too complicated.

—————————————— Stardew Valley (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— If you like Harvest Moon, you'll like Stardew Valley. I'm sure this has been said a million times, but really it's about as simple as that. That's not to say SV is just a 'HM clone' of course, but the similarities and inspirations are abundantly clear. There's a lot to do, interesting characters, and even a lot of mods if you get bored of the base game after a while. I think I got through about my first year before I started losing steam, and never got around to tinkering too much with mods. I should go back and give it another go sometime.

As consequence of writing this review practically an entire year since I last played, I can't think of anything more specific to say. But I do remember enjoying it.

—————————————— Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— If you liked Borderlands 2, I can't think of a good reason NOT to play TPS. It seems to get an awful lot of undeserved hate simply because 'it's not BL2', which, well, is stupid. Borderlands 2 is a great game and I can understand people feeling like TPS didn't quite live up to that reputation, but that alone doesn't make it a bad game. It's not Borderlands 3 after all - it's The Pre-Sequel. It exists to fill in the gaps between the first and second games while providing an experience and humor more similar to the second, if somewhat shorter.

One thing I particularly liked and hope we see again in future installments is that the player characters felt more real. They actually TALK to the other characters during the storyline quests, rather than feeling like essentially blank slates outside of their combat banter and backstory Echoes (of which I was never able to find all in BL2). It made me feel like my character was more involved in what was going on, and actually had more of a connection to these events and characters. I played Athena in my singleplayer game because she's the narrator of the framing story, but I was Nisha in my multiplayer game and played with a Baroness and Holo-Jack. It was fun hearing the vastly different types of commentary depending on which one of us handed in a quest, which gave more variety to the characters. I'd like to do another solo run as someone else someday even just to hear all their unique quest responses.

Also, managing O2 isn't THAT bad once you get used to it. It's a little bit of a pain early on, but once you get a decent Oz-Kit it's pretty manageable. Oxygen bubbles are plentiful on the moon's surface, and there's a lot of zones that take place almost entirely in oxygenated areas to boot. Plus, slamming is a lot of fun. I thought the mechanic was a nice way of differenciating the game a bit more from BL2, in a sorta gimmicky way without feeling terribly frustrating. Also, the grinder made getting Legendary weapons somewhat feasible compared to BL2, and there were many times I'd just spend over an hour going between the loot chest and grinder over and over. ...I mean, I don't do that. Using a save editor to give yourself infinite gold keys and playing the whole game with purple guns is cheating, and I would never do that in BL2 or TPS. Not ever.

Anyway, TPS was fun. I never got around to playing the DLC, so I guess I'll have something to look forward to next time I get the urge to do a new solo playthrough as a different character.

—————————————— Riff Racer (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Recommended ——————————————

Another one of those 'zip around a track to your own music collection' games, so naturally I had to take a look at it. Audiosurf was my first Steam game, after all. Unlike Audiosurf, though (to which comparisons are inevitable since they're similar at a glance), Riff Racer is actually a RACING game. At least to the extent that one can race against oneself. You basically load up a song to generate a track, just like Audiosurf and similar games. If you're the first person to ever run that song, any other player who ever plays that song will be racing against your ghost - likewise, if you do a song someone else created first, they're the score you wanna beat. There's no actual other cars on the track though, just you and a lot of obstacles to avoid, ramps to jump and curvy tracks to drift. Drifting is the main way to earn points, and is also the most fun part of the game. It took me a bit to really get the hang of it, but once I did I started seeking out songs that were likely to have a lot of tight corners to drift around. I was floored when I actually managed to pull off the achievement for drifting 16 beats in one maneuver, because for the longest time I could barely manage to drift 4. And the feeling you get when you're actually able to beat a powerful ghost is [relieved] [okhand]

Of course, a lot of people play this sort of game just to chill out and not worry about things like leaderboards and high scores. That's totally fine too!! It's a great game to just sit back and chill out with, just drifting along the track with your favorite tunes. I would definitely recommend this one to anyone who's into games like Audiosurf - I get the feeling it's a bit of a lesser-known gem, and it totally deserves some more love.

—————————————— Persona 3 Portable (PSP) FINAL VERDICT: UNFINISHED —————————————— I started playing this in March, I think...as I write this, it's December, and I still haven't finished. I know P3 is one of those games that makes the 'must play' and favorite lists of a LOOOOT of people, and many will hail it as the best JRPG of all time...but I have to wonder how much of that is just being blinded by nostalgia. I certainly don't think there's ENOUGH of a difference between the Portable and PS2 versions that I'm missing some great secret that makes this game so much more amazing than I can see, at least.

I haven't picked it up in a while (I've played it on and off throughout the year) but I believe I'm somewhere around the end of September or beginning of October in-game. So I'm certainly not dismissing it after only a few hours. In fact, I'm not dismissing it at all - as a MegaTen fan, I do want to finish it at some point. Really, I just keep getting burned out by Tartarus. For me, games are games - if all I wanted was a compelling story and interesting characters, I'd read a book. A game needs to first and foremost engage me with its GAMEPLAY, and while I do enjoy story-driven games with interesting characters, that alone isn't enough to save it if the GAMEPLAY isn't engaging me enough first!! And Tartarus is just...bad. I'm sorry, but one dungeon with semi-randomized floors where the decor only slightly changes periodically as you climb higher and every single floor is practically the same grind of collect items/attack or avoid enemies/find the stairs...that's just not fun. Like not even a little. It got old somewhere around the second block, and by now I'm on, what, fifth or sixth? I can't remember, it's all the fucking same. And while I enjoy MegaTen combat, and P3 is sorta similar to the push-turn system, even those get old after a while of the same 3 encounters ad nauseum for the next 15-odd floors until you hit the next boss. It didn't take long for me to start playing with my volume muted outside story segments (I use the undub patch, otherwise I'd probably have it muted for the entirety of the game) because I was sick of hearing the same OOOOOH YEAH!!! DADADA-DA DADADA-DA!!! over and over again. One thing I've always hated is games that run on having a LOT of battles and grinding, but only one piece of battle music outside boss fights. It's cruel and unusual.

Anyway. Tartarus aside, the game's alright. I personally find social links a little odd, because I'm linking with people unrelated to my struggle against the Shadows (I still haven't hit lofty the requirements to link with the girls, and outside the PSP-exclusive non-canon Girl Route you can NEVER link with your male teammates). It's this bizarre sort of disconnect - I understand that these people are part of my life in their own ways, but it feels very segregated. I should be bonding with the people in my party, the ones living in my dorm, my fellow Persona users who understand the stress we're under and can relate to my struggles. Instead, I'm cringing at a wannabe playboy who thinks his teacher wants to bone him, or a rules-obsessed student council jerkbag, both of whom I have to tell what they WANT to hear and not how I ACTUALLY feel because it's all about leveling up those sweet sweet link ranks. Devil Survivor 2 used a similar link system (most likely inspired by P3, since I believe that came first), but instead of being random people from my class/town I was actually linking with my party members. Being able to bond with the people I'm spending most of my game with felt a lot more meaningful to me than the P3 links - in fact, for the first in-game month or two, I kept waiting for some of my early links to find out about Shadows and get moved into the dorm as playable characters. I was very surprised to find out that they just ultimately had nothing to do with the main gameplay and storyline whatsoever. Maybe that's the point. Maybe there's some profound reason for this that I don't know yet because I haven't finished the game. But to me, it feels disjointed and unrelated to the main game I'm supposed to be playing here.

Social Links, and Tartarus. Aside from the storyline itself, those are basically what make up this game - and I'm not terribly fond of either. Sure, I'm enjoying the story well enough, and the glimpses I get of my party members through the main storyline and things like the hidden camera videos...but that's not enough for me. The GAMEPLAY needs to win me over as much as the story, and it's just not. I'd like to stick it out and finish it, and I do still pick it up from time to time...but there's a reason I haven't finished it despite starting it so many months ago, and this is basically it. I simply don't find it fun. And it's great if it's the favorite game or best JRPG for a lot of people? But it's not that for me.

(I'd also like to play P4 and even P5 someday, but I don't own any consoles so I'm basically riding on the popularity of things like Dangan Ronpa to convince more Japanese developers that porting their games to Steam is worthwhile...otherwise I'll probably never get to play either of those)

—————————————— Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Recommended —————————————— While I ultimately burned out before I could finish my NG+ all the way through and then go to Bitterblack Isle, I had a lot of fun with this game. DLC aside, I basically 100% completed everything else - all normal quests (had to catch a few missable ones on my NG+ for the achievement), all regular notice board quests (including the annoying ones like mining a fuckton of that one rare mineral or getting 100 clumps of hair or whatever it was, and the one with all the skulls), and even got all the badges (also including the missable ones on my NG+). The badge sidequest should absolutely have an achievement attached. I'm not sure why I bothered actually...personal satisfaction, I guess. Either way, I only bother to put that kind of effort into a game if I really enjoy it, so that says it all right there.

Dragon's Dogma, on the surface, is a fairly generic fantasy RPG. The world of Gransys is pretty dull - aside from the small village where you grew up, there's pretty much just the One Big City, and long stretches of wilderness with a fortress or two. The NPCs are mostly generic peasants with a handful of quest givers, aside from the story-important characters...and everyone talks in this weirdly forced archaic style where 'aught' is the most popular word in the entire world. Hearing your pawns say the same 3 stock phrases over and over again also gets really old - yes, I know that goblins ill like fire, I've probably killed more than a million of them by now!! The story is also told in a really confusing style to where you probably won't grasp what's actually going on until you go through a New Game+ - not because it's terribly difficult in itself, but just because of the odd way in which the game gives out information. Having to talk to an NPC 3 or 4 times in order to hear all they have to say in a given conversation doesn't help matters, either, because if you don't know enough to do that you may well only speak to them once and then walk away, simply not having enough information to know what just happened. It's basically Capcom trying to apply JRPG logic to an open, WPRG-style world, and it doesn't always work.

That aside, however...the real meat of the game is in the combat. The hack-and-slash combat and multiple character classes with their own abilities and playstyles is what really makes the game. I found it similar to Kingdoms of Amalur, if slighly more robust - not surprising, though, since it's from the same company responsible for Devil May Cry. So you can be certain that the combat always feels engaging and solid. The best part to me, though, is the giant monsters. After a while you'll get sick of cyclopes and chimera (the most common large monsters), but in the early game they're appropriately terrifying. You're ENCOURAGED to climb up on them and go after their weak points, rather than standing at their feet slashing away like an idiot. If you're fighting a cyclops, naturally you'd go for the eye. But what if it's an armored cyclops, with a helmet protecting the eye? Then you have to get the helmet off before you can really damage it. If you're fighting a chimera, each part of the beast does something different - you generally want to kill the snake first so it can't poison you, but meanwhile the goat is shooting magic at you and the lion is tearing you to shreds with its claws, so situationally it may be better to take out one of those parts first. With each part, you disable and severely weaken the beast, making it easier to finish it off. Every enemy has a weakness like that, and it's particularly important for the giant ones. And God forbid you don't take advantage of the weaknesses when fighting a dragon (sorry, a drake/wyvern/wyrm), you're pretty much guaranteed to die.

Another thing I really liked was how much nighttime really ups the terror of encountering giant dangerous enemies like this. Gransys isn't nearly so big a world as it tricks you into thinking, because there's no mounts and fast travel is fairly limited/difficult for the first half of the game or so. This means that if you want to get anywhere significantly far across the map, you're going to have to pack enough lantern oil and prepare to travel during the night. Night in Dragon's Dogma - even with a lantern - is PUNISHINGLY dark. This is the kind of darkness you WISH your Skyrim lighting mods and ENB could achieve. Your lantern only illuminates a small circle around your character - just enough to see where you're going and not bump into things. But not enough to warn you of a chimera about to leap at you from the darkness before it's far too late to dodge...something that happened to me once during the early game and nearly gave me a heart attack (I don't play horror games because I can't handle jump scares, but this chimera had more or less the same effect on me). You have to be very cautious and very quiet, and sticking to the roads can mean the difference between life and death. Resource management is also important and you can't just stock up on 300 mega-heal potions at once - even in the late game, you'll still only be buying/finding the lowbie herbs, so you've got to combine them together yourself to make more powerful healing items. The crafting system is also forgivingly simple (a case of 1 + 2 = 3, across the board) so it doesn't get overly tedious to have to spend a little prep time rifling through your bank storage and combining some items before adventuring.

The pawn system is also a lot of fun (despite how much their repetitive dialogue will grate on you after the first hour). I've always preferred that JRPG feel of traveling with a party of adventurers to the WRPG style of being a wandering solo hero (I'd travel with 3 followers in Skyrim if having even one follower didn't tip the game balance so far in the 'too easy' direction). By mid-game I'd basically settled into Magic Archer as my class, so I'd usually have a fighter (my pawn), a mage (dem heals), and either a ranger or strider to fill in the gaps. It really captures that sort of oldschool JRPG feel of traveling the little 8-bit lands with your little 8-bit party...but like, in a 3D third-person open-world(ish) way, so more immersive. I only wish there were more dungeons - after backtracking to the catacombs and the canyon place 300 times within a playthrough, it got pretty stale. But the first time through the Water God's Altar I remember feeling like this was a JRPG-style dungeon given life, with the puzzle solving that's almost never present in WRPGs.

In the end, while Gransys itself always left me wanting something more, the core mechanics of the game were solid enough to keep even the multiple backtracking trips to the same 5 places fun. And while the story was a bit convoluted in how it was told, once I really put together what HAPPENED in the end, I was speechless. Not to say it was some kind of incredibly profound, award-worthy storytelling experience, but it was one of those moments where it all clicks together at once and the realization sets in and you just sit there for a few moments thinking, 'oh my God'. I won't say anything more so as not to spoil it, but don't be quick to dismiss the story as just an excuse plot for a game that's only about the combat, either. All in all I'd definitely recommend this game to anyone who enjoys RPGs, J- and W- alike, and I really really wish we'd get Dragon's Dogma online someday, or another single player game as a sequel, or something. I just want more.

Guess I'd better get my ass to Bitterblack Isle.

—————————————— Sunless Sea (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— Having played Fallen London before (on and off, with very long breaks in between because I keep forgetting it exists...then I go back for a bit, rinse, repeat), I sorta knew what to expect with Sunless Sea in terms of narrativ style, setting, and general weirdness. What I didn't realize was just how HARD it was gonna be. Within less than 5 minutes of making my first character, I got eaten by a shark. Amazingly though, through numerous EXTREMELY CLOSE brushes with death and, dare I say, miracles...my second character (Tigeru 2, in a name scheme that shows just how long I expected this character to last) is miraculously STILL ALIVE. In addition to surviving, though, Tigeru 2's life goals consist of finding the bones of their lost father and also killing crabs. Lots of crabs. Like, all of them. Because fuck those guys. Anyway, it's hard to REALLY give a solid verdict on this one given the general style of the game and the fact that I haven't gotten very FAR yet...but it's good at being what it set out to be, and that's a difficult exploration game set in the Fallen London universe.

—————————————— Darkest Dungeon (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— I had my eye on Darkest Dungeon for a while before it left early access, but was never quite ready to drop any money on it because the reviews would often swing wildly between positives and negatives. Conceptually, I loved the idea - that the reality of dungeon crawling would not just be heroic, climactic battles but also stress, resource management, and fear. But while it sounds good on paper, it also sounded like something that might work better as an anime plot than a video game, because maintaining those exact same resources could quickly go from 'fun' to 'chore'. Anyway, I finally decided to take the plunge during the summer sale, and it's almost addictively fun...in small bursts. It's the kind of game where I can get caught up in the 'just one more level' dynamic for a while, but also the kind of game that feels repetitive and tedious after so many runs fighting the same enemies over and over. But I also think that I'm playing it 'wrong', in a way - because I don't want to lose the characters I've worked so hard to build, I'm playing it too safe. I'm so terrified of dying against bosses that I've actually OVERLEVELED my best characters, not realizing that characters who are TOO strong will refuse to take on levels and bosses they deem beneath their ability. If your heroes are too strong for the weaker missions, you just won't be allowed to bring them.

Some might call this a type of 'fake difficulty' but I'd disagree because it really does enforce the game's entire theme. Which is actually kind of nice because it ensures you're forced OUT of that 'playing it safe' comfort zone that I was trapping myself in, waiting until you're so OP you can stomp anything that comes your way. That sort of gameplay goes against everything Darkest Dungeon stands for - the whole point of the game is that you're NEVER going to be truly prepared for the horrors that lurk here, and that there's no such thing as weak enemies or an invincible party. Your preparedness to tackle a dungeon lies not in your character's levels and OP abilities but your ability to manage resources, trinkets, phobias and diseases, and picking the right heroes for the job instead of steamrolling every level with your 4 favorites. And even then, there's the RNG...which is something I really hate, and the subject of many negative reviews, but I honestly think it also makes sense for this game. Again, no matter how prepared you are, you're going up against unspeakable eldritch horrors here. YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY ACCOUNT FOR EVERY CONTINGENCY. Sometimes you can do your absolute best and things will still end up going terribly wrong because you were just unlucky. Heroes will die. You may have to drop rare treasures and flee just to save at least one life. It's bound to be frustrating, sure, but it's the very nature of this game to be like that. All you can do is make the best of a bad situation, and rebuild from your losses to continue on. No, it's not going to be easy - but if that's what you expected, you picked the wrong game in the first place.

—————————————— Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: BUGGY AS FUCK ——————————————

I grew up on Baldur's Gate (well, Baldur's Gate II moreso) when I was just a wee child. Thus, when I found out they were rereleasing 'enhanced' editions, I was very excited. However...anyone who has played Baldur's Gate or similar CRPGs from the days of yore knows that they're long, and often tedious games. So while both enhanced editions sat in my Steam library for a long time, I could never bring myself to actually want to sit down and PLAY them because the idea of starting such a long saga was daunting. But during the summer, some friends I often play co-op games with proposed the idea of doing a multiplayer run...and it sounded fun!! At first.

At least, until we realized that Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition was barely 'enhanced' at all. Aside from a few new characters, it was basically just the original game...bugs and all. And there are a LOT of bugs. In fact, this is quite possibly the buggiest game I have ever played, and I wish I were exaggerating. We tried our best to deal with the snags and press on, but it eventually just got to be too much, and none of us were really having any fun with it. Thus, we decided to call it quits and do a multiplayer run of Neverwinter Nights II instead.

Unless you're a hardcore fan of the originals or a serious masochist, I couldn't recommend this game. Maybe the enhanced BG II is better...and maybe someday I'll find out. That was literally my childhood game, after all. But BG I EE...is just bad.

0/10 would not Enhance again.

—————————————— Tabletop Simulator (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Recommended —————————————— Simultaneously not an actual game, but yet, every game known to man. You know that feeling when you walk into the local comic and games shop and see all these really cool games that you and your friends would have a lot of fun with...if your friends didn't all live halfway across the country - if not other countries entirely? Because I know that feel, and it sucks. Enter Tabletop Simulator, where those games probably already have mods...and if they don't, you can make your own with just a little ambition and elbow grease!! In fact, I've got 181 hours in TTS currently, and I'd wager less than 50 of that was spent actually playing games with friends - the rest has been me MAKING games to play with my friends. I made Umineko Clue (AKA Clumineko) as well as a version skinned for my friends and our roleplaying OCs...then I adapted the Risk-based game of gang warfare that I'd made as a final project in my game design class in college...then I just spent ungodly amounts of time decorating a 3D room with 3D objects to play games in with my friends, AND applied the same treatment to revamping the Clumineko mod into an entire 3D room based on the iconic witches tea room. Never in a million years would I call myself a 'modder', but I actually learned how to do some basic stuff in Blender and Unity ENTIRELY so I could make fun games and shit to do in TTS with my pals.

It may not be a 'game' so much as a sandbox physics engine with which to make and play many games with ease, but even so I'd be hard-pressed not to call it one of the best games of all time. If you have a good group of online pals I seriously could not recommend this one enough.

—————————————— ICEY (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— At the very last minute I found out about the Steam Link bundle deal in which you'd get the normally-expensive device for $1 with purchase of a little-known little 2D action game. Despite not having a great interest in the Link, I could hardly pass up the offer to get it for a dollar, and the game seemed pretty fun besides. On the surface, ICEY is a pretty fun little action platformer...but ALSO on the surface, it's a meta game. And that's because it advertises itself in exactly this way. That's the biggest flaw with ICEY, I think - you don't make a meta game and then say 'hey, this secretly is a meta game!!'. If it had downplayed those aspects and just branded it as an action platformer with maybe some cryptic hints that there was more to it than that, encouraging players to explore and find out what's going on in the game's multilayered world...it would have been a lot better, and maybe could have gone on to become a cult favorite instead of flying under everyone's radar. That aside, it's a pretty good game. The action is actually quite fun on its own, and uncovering the various endings is entertaining. The English voice over could use some work, but it's a Chinese game that only recently even GOT an English voiceover, apparently, so it's hard to fault that too much. Again, the meta aspects would have been more enjoyable if the game didn't advertise it outright, but it's alright.

I haven't actually finished it yet (think I have another boss or two to go; I got stuck and haven't yet gone back to it) but if the story actually ends up making sense in the end that'd be nice. I'm sort of waiting for that kind of payoff because right now everything just seems a little nonsensical. For what it's worth, though, I did have fun playing it.

—————————————— World of Warcraft: Legion (PC) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— I first included WoW on my 2015 games list, back when I first started playing. My verdict was essentially 'it's okay I guess, but it feels super dated all around and not very welcoming to players expecting a more modern game'. Well, obviously that hasn't changed - old content is still old content - BUT, with Legion, I feel like the newer content is at least taking steps in the right direction towards making the game feel less dated overall.

Legion was actually my fourth WoW subscription. Since my best friend has been playing for like 8 years and is really into the game, I get free subs thrown at me at least once a year, and I play for a few months until next time. My previous subscription ended just on the heels of Legion's release, and the changes to all the classes hit me pretty hard when suddenly my preferred Rogue spec (Combat) was altered so completely that I just did not want to play anymore. Everything I was used to was retooled, if not completely gone...and I was angry. But having an entire year to cool off and lose that muscle memory, I came into Legion with a fresh spec (Outlaw) and a new region to explore.

Legion content was definitely the most enjoyable to me so far. After making it through all the older content during leveling, my highest version during my first subscription (and review) was Pandaria, so I spent by far the most time playing in that zone. I liked the aesthetic, but the gameplay still felt dated, and I spent most of my time working on my farm or building rep with two factions who had mounts I wanted. Draenor wasn't TERRIBLE, though I had more fun building my garrison than I did questing the actual Draenor zones. Legion was the first time I felt like I actually had a LOT of different things to do, and had a real sense of character progression for the first time. I admit I know almost nothing about WoW lore (nor do I care to go down the rabbit hole of learning it), so there was a lot of ??? during the main Legion questline, but I still felt like I was being engaged in a real STORY for once. The cutscenes and voiced dialogue went a long way to making the game feel less old-fashioned, for one thing. For another, having the order of each zone be up to player's choice because of leveled enemies gave me some much-needed freedom during leveling, and not feeling like I either had to stick around in a lowbie zone with no EXP for the sake of following a storyline...or moving through the zones so fast that it wasn't even worth bothering to follow along with the stories because I'd only abandon them all halfway to move onto the next higher-level area. In Legion, I ended up doing basically every single quest in a zone before moving onto the next one (though I'd then do all the mandatory dungeons in one burst rather than one at a time). I actually read through the quest text instead of skipping along and just trying to hit 100 as soon as possible. And when I DID hit 100, halfway through Highmountain (having done Azsuna and Val'sharah already), I continued the Highmountain quest to the end and then did all of Stormheim.

Hitting level cap no longer felt like I'd met the 'goal' of the expansion, and had nothing really left to do but fuck around. After finishing all four main zones, there was Suramar, and the Broken Shore. There were world quests and the reputation tied to those. There were the class weapon quests, and the goal of gaining the class mount. There were even the falcosaur quests which I just barely managed to finish before my sub ran out!! Plus, having played September/October/November, I also had a lot of holiday events to work on (it was my first Brewfest, and then I went about finishing the Halloween and Thanksgiving achievements I didn't get last time I played in the fall). And in addition to all of THAT...I also got my Hunter through the rest of Draenor so he could do Legion content, too. I had wanted to make a Demon Hunter after that because it seems like the sort of class I'd enjoy playing, but I didn't end up having the time for that. Point being - for the first time, Legion gave me a whole lot of stuff to do, and I never really felt like I was 'done'. Every time I met one goal, there was another to work towards. That's the kind of experience I feel is really important in a game like this...but something I always sorta felt I was dragging myself through in past subscriptions, where I'd spend more time doing pet battles or trying to get transmog gear and mounts and basically anything but actually questing. This time, the questing and dungeoning didn't feel like a chore, or just a means to an end. The whole Legion experience managed to be enjoyable - and I never even wound up going to Argus.

By the time I play next, the newest expansion will be out, and I'll have even more to do. I hear there's gonna be new playable races this time, so maybe I'll even end up making another alt once I get my Rogue and possibly my Hunter through the expac content. Plus I can still make that Demon Hunter and go through Legion again. All in all I think WoW is finally breaking through my initial perceptions of it being a dated game, more fun for long-term players or hardcore raiders and not so much for newcomers who are more into PVE. What the new expac brings remains to be seen, but for once I'm optimistic that I'll end up having some fun with whatever that is.

—————————————— ARK: Survival Evolved (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Recommended —————————————— Growing up, there were three things in particular that captivated my interest (and also conveniently my Lego sets): pirates, ancient Egypt, and dinosaurs. Assassin's Creed: Black Flag captivated the first. Assassin's Creed: Origins will no doubt captivate the second, once it drops in price enough that I can actually buy it. And since I somehow doubt that assassins existed in the prehistoric eras, picking up the third interest is ARK.

I'd been watching ARK with a close eye since the early access days, precisely because the very concept of taming and riding dinosaurs sounded rad as fuck. It made it from my 'following' list, to my wishlist, to my 'groans sadly' list during every Steam sale when it'd drop no lower than $18 which was still far more than I was willing to spend on an early access game whose reviews were always swinging wildly between positives and negatives - particularly in the optimization department, as I had doubts that my computer could even RUN the game comfortably in its then-current state. Finally a friend of mine (who had bought and refunded the game several times already, also I believe due to optimization issues) had started playing it comfortably and generously gifted it to me about a year ago, just a short time before it finally left early access and went for full standard retail price. As predicted, I could barely run the game...even on the lowest graphic settings, with no sky effects and on the low memory setting, I was getting about 15 FPS just trying to walk around on the initial beach where I'd spawned. I sadly had to shelf the game and hope that I'd be able to play it someday in the future, when it was either optimized better or I'd upgraded to better hardware.

Now, both of those things have happened, so I decided to give it another go. Now that I can run it at an average 50 FPS on a mix of medium to high graphics settings and have actually been able to PLAY the game, it's the early days of Minecraft all over again, and I can't stop. I've been playing both singleplayer and multiplayer with a friend on an unofficial PVP server, and each game is sort of its own experience. The PVP server has everything set to 10x, so gathering resources and EXP all goes REALLY fast. I'm already like level 70 after only playing two days of multiplayer, and we've gone from a somewhat crude houseboat base to a slightly less crude base in the mountains with a decent crop of early to midgame dinos (we had more, but some died to alpha raptor injuries with others being on the wrong end of a tame and otherwise non-hostile T-Rex and its fertilized egg). Meanwhile in singleplayer, which I've actually spent more time in (only doing multi when my friend is available), I just hit level 30 and am only now starting to feel confident enough to venture away from my crude campsite on the beach where you first spawn...and have faced more than a few setbacks already. I did turn my dinosaur tame settings up to 10x (because waiting several REAL WORLD HOURS to tame critters is like, unreasonable) but otherwise I'm running just standard growth rates for everything, plus going solo...so it's a much slower experience overall. I want to keep my singleplayer experience a bit slow and steady, with more of the intended 'harsh survival' feel to help me better grasp the basics of the game before getting too adventurous playing on servers without the help of my friend, but once I feel that I've got a good handle on the game and its dangers I will definitely branch out more.

Between PVP, PVE and mod-based servers, not to mention the other official DLC maps, ARK is a game with a LOT to do. If I ever actually manage to conquer The Island, there's still a ton of content left waiting for me, giving the game a long life with lots of replay value. The only thing is that I tend to get burned out on games that have SO much to do and little in the way of like, actual endgame goals, so I'm sure I'll hit that at some point - but for now, I'm just having a blast enjoying the ride.

—————————————— Fire Emblem Heroes (Mobile) FINAL VERDICT: S'Alright —————————————— I don't normally include mobile games on these...well, probably in no small part because I don't normally PLAY mobile games. But, being a fan of the main Fire Emblem games, I decided to check out Heroes back when it first launched earlier this year. And it kept my interest for several months, which is impressive considering, again, I'm not really that into mobile games. I was impressed by how much it captured the same basic feeling of a Fire Emblem game despite being distilled down into a simplistic bite-sized mobile system - incredibly easy to just pop on and kill some time, but also enough to provide a challenge for those who want it. The 'story' was never really anything more than an excuse plot, but it's not as though I would have expected much more for a game like this in the first place so I don't really dock any points for that. All in all it's very good at being what it set out to be - a simple implementation of Fire Emblem as a mobile gatcha game.

Before long, however, it got very stale. For quite a while, new characters were introduced few and far between. It felt like 90% of the roster either came from Awakening or Fates (at the time the most recent games in the franchise), with almost everyone else from the Marth games. Games like Path of Radiance and Sacred Stones had next to no representation. As someone who has yet to play Fates, having that HUGE pool of characters from both games making up most of the heroes felt alienating from the start. Naturally, in a game like this, you most look forward to getting your favorite units...so for me, that part of the appeal was already lost, since most of my favorites weren't even IN the game. By the time they started adding in more variety my interest in the game was already waning, because it just felt like there wasn't much to DO. Once you've cleared all the story maps, it's basically just grinding your units up in the training tower, doing the arena 3 times a day (unless you build up a small fortune of dueling swords over time from the daily login rewards, which I did), and waiting around for a decent challenge map Tempest trials didn't even exist at that point. Of course, there was always quests, which for a long time I did try to complete as many as possible of before the month was up - the problem is how incredibly unfair so, SO many of the quests are. Almost every one with a worthwhile reward requires all 4 units to survive, which is fine...good rewards should be earned through challenge. But when you add to that '...and you have to use all red units' or 'a team of fliers' or something extremely specific like that, and the map is specifically designed to pit you against a bunch of blue units or archers...asking all four units to survive ON TOP OF THAT is just outrageously unfair. There's a big difference between the sort of strategic challenge of a regular Fire Emblem game and the kind of 'fake difficulty' imposed by these quests, and it got to where they just plain weren't fun anymore.

Without wanting to do quests, things got boring quickly. Sure, they introduced skill inheritence, adding a new layer of customization...but not only does that sort of micro-managing not appeal to me personally, but having to go up against ridiculously overpowered units in the arena and losing constantly made THAT not fun anymore either. No longer was it just about what units you got lucky enough to pull in a summon and took the time to raise to 5 star max level, but ALSO about what units you were lucky enough to pull and feed to your 5 star max level units to create the most broken and unbeatable character builds. That was around the point where I stopped logging in every day, only playing sporadically...and then, eventually, almost never at all.

I know by now they've introduced even more changes. Suddenly there's been a huge surge of new characters from the new and upcoming games, and then I log in and see that winning in the arena now nets you coins and other items that I have no idea what they're used for, or how I see some kind of element marker next to my name that I also don't understand. There's new story mode quests now, it seems, but for me it's all just too little too late. The initial months of the game were very stagnant compared to now, and it wasn't enough to keep my interest. By now, my lofty arena rank has fallen due to inactivity, and my once massive stockpile of orbs has dropped down to less than 10 because the most I might do is hop on and run one of the new summoning events in hopes of getting a character I actually care about, but end up walking away with 5 3-star Ests yet again.

I'm a Fire Emblem fan, but not a mobile gatcha game fan. It's hard to really say whether I'm FEH's target audience or not. All I know is that I had some fun for a while, but that time's now passed.

—————————————— Dragonball Z: Dokkan Battle (Mobile) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— After the above review, it may be surprising that I ended up giving another mechanically similar mobile gatcha game a try. It's no secret to most who know me personally that I have a very love/hate relationship with Dragonball. It was my adolescent obsession and the reason I even got into this crazy anime world in the first place, and will always hold a special place in my heart...but I also despise literally everything the franchise has become, and Super just plain does not exist in my world. So why would I play a game that basically exists to promote the Dragonball of today, full of Super characters and weird SSJ3 fusions and all kinds of other stuff that I hate? Peer pressure, mostly.

That aside, I've only been playing for a few weeks now (I think my consecutive logins are in the 20s, and I've logged in every day since I began), but I'm enjoying it so far. There are a lot of systems that are naturally very similar to FEH given they're both the same genre of mobile game, but in most cases I feel that Dokkan implements them better. For instance, duplicate units. In FEH, all those 3-star Ests are useless. 3-stars are almost never worthwhile for skill inheritence, and the effort it would take to rank them up is simply not worth it when you could invest your feathers in 4-star characters. In Dokkan, however, I can use those duplicates to increase the special attack of the original, or to unlock paths in their hidden potential. Plus, ranking up weak units is a lot easier. A 3-star Est may not be worth investing the time into raising, but an R or SR Dokkan unit can be trained with very easy-to-acquire training items and awakened to a higher level - and oftentimes awakened even further if they're given a Dokkan mode. In the event that you pull characters that truly are useless, you can at least cash them in for some trade points that can be used to buy rare items or characters in Baba's Shop, or just sell them for Zeni, which will get you more use than the small pittance of feathers you'd get for releasing duplicates in FEH.

Of course, aside from sharing those gatcha game staples, they're two totally different games and it's probably not entirely fair to compare them...but since I have played both and have no experience with other gatcha games, naturally I'm going to compare my experiences. Gameplay-wise, Dokkan seems at first like a pretty simple 'tap to match the colored line' game, which is a far cry from even the simplified Fire Emblem strategy battles in FEH. The complexity of Dokkan comes less from the orb tapping itself and more from the other aspects of team building. Using units with good skills, and who share links to power each other up, is often just as important as getting your purple character to get a long chain of purple orbs. Gathering medals from maps and using them to train and awaken your characters, and unlocking their hidden potential, are all more important in the long run than tapping the pretty colored lights. Basically, the actual 'battle' of Dokkan Battle is the least important part...though they can still require some strategy in the more difficult missions (where just having your purple unit grab a lot of green orbs isn't going to be 'good enough'), and you can still feel satisfied if you manage to pull off a really long chain and activate a super attack at just the right moment.

As I said, it hasn't been long. I may very well get bored of Dokkan in a few months just like FEH before it. But for now, I'm having fun, and I think a lot of the gameplay is more fair and balanced than the often-frustrating FEH. I will probably continue playing at least a little bit each day for some time yet.

[kmp78]

JL Article from WSJ, I´m copy pasting it here as per request because apparently the actual link is being a bitch.

The link is : https://www.wsj.com/articles/hanging-out-with-jared-leto-1504791535?mod=e2twmag

WHEN JARED LETO’S people say the plan is to meet “at Jared’s base,” I assume it’s a jet-setter’s figure of speech—as in, last month he was rock climbing in Menorca, next month he’s at Fashion Week in Milan, but Los Angeles is his base. But no—they mean an actual base: a decommissioned Air Force station tucked into the hills near Laurel Canyon, built during World War II to warn of incoming Japanese planes. The 100,000-square-foot compound, which Leto has called home since 2015, features 4-foot-thick concrete blast walls, a nuclear fallout shelter and a genuine air-traffic-control tower; it’s slightly absurd that it exists 10 minutes from the Sunset Strip, much less that someone lives in it.

On the other hand, if anyone’s going to inhabit a top-secret Cold War compound in the heart of Los Angeles, it’s probably Jared Leto.

Leto has a long history of outlandishness, whether it’s waxing his body and shedding more than 30 pounds to portray a transgender AIDS patient in Dallas Buyers Club, or sending his castmates condoms and a live rat while playing the Joker in last year’s Suicide Squad. Beneath the theatrics, he’s an industrious quintuple-threat: Oscar-winning actor, stadium-filling rock star (with his band, Thirty Seconds to Mars), digital-media entrepreneur, burgeoning fashion icon and—as if you don’t hate him enough already—successful tech investor, whose long list of winning bets includes Uber, Snapchat, Spotify and Airbnb. “I joke sometimes that I get more done on a movie set than I do when I’m off,” he says, “because I’m not as distracted.”

We’d originally planned to go for a hike today—Leto’s a big hiker—but it’s sweltering in L.A., 94 in the shade, and he’s been dealing with some back problems, so instead we’re hanging in his backyard, a shady xeriscape with a sadly neglected pool. To relieve his back, Leto is sitting cross-legged on the ground, dressed in a white Gucci T-shirt, green Gucci jogging pants (from the women’s collection) and a pair of worn-out gray Ugg slippers. His hair is its natural shade of chestnut, and his beard has achieved 1840s-prospector length. He also has the best posture I’ve ever seen. At 45, he looks almost exactly as he did nearly 25 years ago, when he first became famous playing the angsty heartthrob Jordan Catalano on My So-Called Life.

“I call him Babyface,” says his friend Alessandro Michele, creative director at Gucci. “He is timeless—it is almost impossible to give him age. If Visconti were still alive, he would love to work with Jared.”

Last night Leto was up late in the studio, working on his band’s next album. He woke around 9 a.m.—no alarm, as usual—and enjoyed his standard breakfast of muesli and almond milk, then spent some time tending to his back—heat, ice; meditation. But leisurely appearances aside, “it’s actually a super-busy time,” Leto says. In a few days he’s flying to Kazakhstan for a concert with the band; then he’ll start getting ready to promote his new film, Blade Runner 2049—the much-anticipated sequel to the dystopian 1982 sci-fi classic, in which Harrison Ford played an L.A. cop hunting down rogue androids.

Leto still remembers the first time he saw the original on VHS. “It was one of those films I just connected with,” he says. “I’ve watched it every couple of years.” In the sequel, he has what he calls “a small part” as a character named Niander Wallace, who creates said androids, known in the Blade Runneruniverse as “replicants.”

Denis Villeneuve, the director of the new film, says the inspiration for Leto’s character was David Bowie. “I needed a very charismatic, magnetic presence, someone with the aura of a rock star,” Villeneuve says. “But I also needed a great actor, because the lines he had to say were quite Shakespearean.” The character is also blind, and true to form, Leto—who once hung out with homeless junkies in Manhattan’s East Village to portray a heroin addict in Requiem for a Dream—dove in head-first. “We all heard stories about Jared, how he transforms into the characters,” Villeneuve says. “But even this didn’t prepare me for what was to come.”

Not content to simply act blind, Leto decided to become blind, ordering customized contact lenses that made his eyes totally opaque. “He entered the room, and he could not see at all,” Villeneuve recalls. “He was walking with an assistant, very slowly. It was like seeing Jesus walking into a temple. Everybody became super silent, and there was a kind of sacred moment. Everyone was in awe. It was so beautiful and powerful—I was moved to tears. And that was just a camera test!”

Leto stayed blind for the entire shoot, guided around set and never laying eyes on the rest of the cast. “That, for me, was insane,” Villeneuve says. “But he really created something. Every time Jared came on set, it was a boost of energy, tension and excitement.” (For his part, Leto says, he “didn’t dive as deep down the rabbit hole as maybe I’ve done before, but I stayed really focused.” Of course, he didn’t delude himself that he was actually blind. “I’m crazy,” he says, “but I’m not insane.”)

As he sits here in his garden, it’s easy to see the commitment that Leto can summon. He’s incredibly calm and still, with no extraneous movements, like some lizardlike desert creature conserving energy in the heat. He listens intently, with laserlike eye contact, and he barely seems to blink. (Says Michele, “I call him a monk sometimes, because he’s so concentrated.”) With his ageless physicality and otherworldliness, he could almost be a replicant himself.

Villeneuve agrees. “He has a kind of eternal youth syndrome. But the thing I love about Jared is that he’s really at peace with himself. He’s a perfectionist. And like all rock stars, he has a bit of narcissism. But it’s a narcissism that I can deal with.”

WE’VE BEEN TALKING a while when Leto hops up and starts doing a little shake. I tell him to feel free to walk around or stretch if he needs to. “No,” he says. “I was getting covered with ants. I’m going to make them work a little harder.”

We retreat inside the safety of the base, where Leto offers to take me on a tour. Although he moved in a couple of years ago, the place remains a work in progress, with dingy floor tiles, scuffed white paint and the distinct odor of midcentury bureaucracy lingering in the halls. “I’m going to redo it at some point,” Leto says, “make it nice. But I’m kind of just camping out.”

We start in his bedroom.“It’s fancy,” Leto warns. But he opens the door to reveal a glorified walk-in closet, maybe 200 square feet, with small windows, a loveseat and a mattress sitting right on the floor. “It’s amazing,” Leto says, smiling. “When it comes down to it, you don’t need very much.” The only hint of luxury is a portable clothes rack that holds what looks like a small fortune in high-end apparel—most of it from his friend Michele at Gucci.

Recently Leto has become the label’s face, both officially and unofficially, starring in a fragrance campaign and often rocking ensembles in public taken straight from the runway. The infatuation runs both ways: “I’ve been inspired by him many times,” Michele says. “The way he puts gym pants with crazy hats or something—it’s beautiful. He says, ‘I don’t care about fashion,’ but it’s not true. He’s like the most fashionable gypsy you can imagine.”

Leto seems amused that he’s become a style icon—“There was a period a decade ago when I wore Hare Krishna clothes”—but he does admit to getting bolder and more confident with age. “When I was younger I was like, ‘Give me something black,’ ” he says. “But now I love color. You know how you see old guys wearing loud Hawaiian shirts? If I walk off the bus, and the crew starts laughing, I know I put the right thing on.”

We proceed deeper into the bowels of the house, passing large metal tins labeled SURVIVAL CRACKERS (“I haven’t opened them yet”) and a few doors marked USAF TOP SECRET. After World War II ended, the base became a military film studio, churning out propaganda films hosted by the likes of Jimmy Stewart. “There are so many crazy rumors about this place,” Leto says. “Everything from ‘Part of the moon landing was filmed here’ to ‘They used to keep prisoners downstairs.’ They had laboratories. They were doing all kinds of God-knows-what.” He is clearly enamored by this.

In one of the building’s subbasements, we pass Leto’s home gym (with photos of Schwarzenegger and Bruce Lee) and then the garage where he keeps his vintage Ford Bronco—a metallic-blue beast with orange flames down the side, a birthday gift from his brother, Shannon. “He was like, ‘You can get it repainted,’ ” Leto says, “and I was like, ‘No way, man!’ I used to have a little Tonka truck that looked just like that.” The Letos grew up poor, on food stamps in Louisiana, with a hippie single mom who encouraged them to follow their artistic dreams. Leto studied film and photography at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan before dropping out and moving to L.A. in hopes of becoming a director. He started acting, and a few years later talked Shannon into moving out to start a band.

Next we walk through a hangarlike storage room Leto calls “the warehouse,” full of Thirty Seconds to Mars’s road cases and gear, and from there emerge onto the base’s old soundstage, which Leto has repurposed as a recording studio and rehearsal space. “We had an acoustician come by, and he said we have the same reverb as Abbey Road,” Leto says. “Isn’t that wild?” In the control room, an engineer is going over mixes from last night’s session, tweaking the vocal tracks for the band’s new single (“Walk on Water,” released in August). “I’d say we’re 80 percent done,” Leto says of the album. He smiles: “But I’ve been saying that for two years.”

Back upstairs, Leto starts to grow a bit bored. “I can show you more, but it’s really big,” he says. “It just keeps going and going and going.” He knows it’s kind of silly for a bachelor pad. “But it works for me,” he says. “I can do creative stuff here, I can live here. And I don’t have to sit in traffic.”

There’s one last oddity he wants to point out: a skylight in the middle of the floor that peers down into a small enclosure, maybe 8 feet square, with no discernible doors. It looks suspiciously like a dungeon. “Weird, right?” says Leto, grinning. He slips into a pitch-perfect impression of Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs: “Put the lotion in the basket!” he booms, cracking up. I point out that at least the skylight unlatches from the inside, leaving open the possibility of escape. “Yeah,” he says, “but you’d have to get up there first”—a sheer 10-foot climb with no holds. He smiles deviously. “Give ’em just enough hope to keep ’em alive.”

IT’S NEARING TIME for Leto to say goodbye: His next appointment is already waiting, some people from a tech giant. At the moment, Leto is looking for a buyer for his digital streaming platform, VyRT, a company he started in 2011 to live-stream his band’s concerts. That was his second foray into the tech world; previously he had launched a digital-marketing company called the Hive, and over the past decade has become a serious tech investor, backing more than 50 startups including Uber, Snapchat, Reddit, Spotify, Slack and Nest.

“He’s very different from the normal cats from Hollywood and L.A. I see playing around the Valley,” says Nest co-founder Tony Fadell, whose company Leto invested in three years before it was acquired by Google for $3.2 billion, in 2014. (Leto didn’t disclose the size of his investment, but Fadell says for “an individual, it was a significant amount of money.”) “A lot of people from that world say, ‘My manager’s gonna take care of it, my agent’s gonna take care of it’—they don’t worry about the details,” Fadell adds. “And a lot of people are meddlers or know-it-alls who want to lead from the bench. That was not his thing. Jared is very curious, very detail-oriented; he really gets involved, and he really understands. He only added value.”

“I was actually really impressed,” says Stewart Butterfield, a co-founder of Slack, which Leto invested in in 2014. “Jared gave a lot of feedback, and all of it was very practical, specific, concrete feedback about usability and improving the platform. He found the right balance,” Butterfield adds, “between persistent and irritating.”

When it comes to his investing philosophy, Leto says, “I like to learn. So if I can be involved in a company that teaches me something, I’m happy.” There are also a few deals he passed on and still kicks himself over. “Oh, my God, are you kidding?” Leto says. “There are some doozies. I can’t [talk about it]—I’ll have to call a therapist.”

All these side hustles aside, Leto’s not giving up his day job anytime soon. He’s attached to play Andy Warhol in an upcoming biopic written by Terence Winter (The Wolf of Wall Street), and he’ll soon be directing his first feature, a police thriller called 77 with a script by L.A. noir legend James Ellroy. Leto—a devoted rock climber who sometimes posts his best ascents to Instagram along with a monkey emoji—has previously directed a documentary series on America’s national parks called Great Wide Open as well as several music videos.

“Always when you are around Jared Leto, you are in Jared Leto’s theater,” Denis Villeneuve says. “It’s like a play—you become a character. But he’s having fun with it, and he brings you in his game. You just fall in love with him.”

If there’s one thing Leto hasn’t done but would like to, it’s a comedy. Sadly, no one ever asks. “I might not be at the top of the list for, like, a funny dude,” he says. “But if someone is dying or suffering greatly, I’ll get a call.” He laughs ruefully. “I got calls about [playing] Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, David Koresh and Jim Jones, all within two weeks. I’m not doing them,” he adds, “but I thought for a second, ‘Oh, my God, I should do them all.’ Just put them together like a Criterion Collection box set. And then retire.”

[rpgmgames]

April's Featured Game: ARCADEA

DEVELOPER(S): Aishin ENGINE: RPGMaker VX Ace   GENRE: Fantasy, Adventure, Puzzle WARNINGS:  N/A SUMMARY: In the world of Arcadea, people can accomplish their dreams. How? Through video games of course! Everybody who lives in Arcadea has a special arcade machine they can visit in their dreams that lets them fulfill their strongest wishes. Whether it’s to go on an adventure, or make friends, or fall in love, or solve a mystery, or completely start a new life, there’s a game made just for them.. The game follows Maisie, a new arrival to Arcadea. She’s not very interested in all this gaming stuff; her only goal is to find an important person. But along the way, she can’t help but be roped into other people’s problems. She also can’t help that the arcade machines seem to glitch around her. A lot.

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself!  *Hello everyone! My name is Aishin and I'm the developer of ARCADEA! I have been in the community for about 8 years. I started working with RPGMaker in 2014 and played around with some horror game concepts that never came to fruition. I realized that drawing dark or creepy things and trying to scare people wasn't really up my alley. After failing to make a horror game, I attempted a more happy and relaxing concept and was much more satisfied with the results.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially? *Aishin: ARCADEA is a fantasy story that mainly involves adventuring through different strange lands, solving puzzles, and doing quests. In between the adventuring segments, the player plays little mini-games on arcade machines that act as foreshadowing as well as introspective character explorations. It's a game about the safety as well as the troubles of escapism. It's also games within a game and that's always fun right? My initial inspiration was from seeing other RPG Maker games. Being in the community and seeing other games being developed made me strive to make one of my own!

How long have you been working on your project? *Aishin: A little less than one year so far. The story and characters have been through many revisions and changes. I'm happy to say that I am fully satisfied at the final revision and I will be bringing the world to life as best as I can~

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Aishin: My game was influenced by fairy tales, mainly Peter Pan and The Little Mermaid. I also was heavily inspired by the MOTHER series and its quirky humor, as well as very meta games such as OneShot, Libretta, and Undertale. Also To the Moon, as it was the first RPG Maker game I have played that was not horror. Games that, after playing them, makes you kind of sit there... in wonder.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them?   *Aishin: The biggest challenge was actually finding time to sit down and work on the game. I'm about to finish my third year of pharmacy school and the workload leaves me too tired to even pick up my tablet pen sometimes. However, every moment I actually do spend on the game is very satisfying and I am getting faster and more efficient with everything: spriting, mapping, drawing, eventing, checking for bugs, etc. I'm just waiting for school to be over so I can start putting my all into this game! Oh and also debugging. Oh man do I hate script conflicts.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Aishin: Many many MANY aspects. Originally, the game wasn't even going to have arcade machines! Crazy stuff. After the addition of the mini-games, everything just...happened. The characters all got fleshed out backstories, the main character actually became a CHARACTER rather than a player's avatar, more games and puzzles were made, the world became more dense with 'stuff'.... The story became simpler. But the actual themes and concepts around the story became more real.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? *Aishin: I'm the sole developer of the game. I have a couple of friends that act as my beta testers. They also help with edits, proofreading, and ideas. I am planning on finding a composer in the future for music compositions (the one thing I can't do by myself :c).

What was the best part of developing the game? *Aishin: For me, it's seeing everything coming together in action! Seeing my character sprites moving around on a map I made, saying dialogue that I wrote is such a fulfilling feeling. And making the maps as beautiful as I can is pretty fun! And then a bug happens and you just sit in a corner and cry. loljk

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Aishin: I wish I learned Ruby before starting this project. I had to learn as I go but unfortunately that lead to random script issues. I had to request a friend's help to solve them and luckily it was nothing too bad. The good news is, I am now able to resolve script conflicts on my own! (And with google)

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game's universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Aishin: This will probably be a stand-alone game. The story and characters have a definite beginning and end. I feel like there's no need to expand on this world any further.

What do you look most forward to upon/after release? *Aishin: I would like to see people play it. Whether they like it or not, I hope I get some critique on the game. It would be nice if people really enjoyed playing it c: Of course, more sleep is another thing to look forward to.

Is there something you're afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game?  *Aishin: GAME BREAKING BUGS. Also I really hope there aren't any weird story plot holes...

Question from last month's featured dev: What are some practical tricks you've learned in RPG Maker that novice (or even advanced) developers might not know? *Aishin: - If you want to make the screen pan, make your character transparent and have them walk where it's needed (have a dummy sprite act as your character in the meantime). - Take advantage of the addition and subtract effects of pictures when doing lighting for maps (especially parallax maps). Also you can have the light or shadows fade in and out by using the 'Move Picture' event and adjusting opacity. - USE THE '\!' BEFORE ANY DIALOGUE CHOICES THE PLAYER HAS TO MAKE. This prevents the player from accidentally clicking through too fast and picking an answer that they don't want! I can't tell you how many endings I messed up on getting because of this.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Aishin: Definitely try! I would start with a free program like RPGMaker Lite and play around with it. I think what turns most people away is feeling that the RPG Maker program is very complex. But it's actually pretty easy to pick up on! Also, starting small is very helpful. Making a ginormous, long game immediately is pretty daunting, especially if you're inexperienced (although some people have managed to do it). I would at least know a little bit about events and scripts before jumping into a huge project. And if in the end, you feel that making games isn’t for you, you at least get some experience and knowledge out of it. As well as a greater appreciation for games and the work/process that goes into game development!

We mods would like to thank Aishin for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved! 

Remember to check out ARCADEA if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum 

[attract-mode-collective]

CASE SHOTSHOT STAGE4, aka THUNDERBOX’s Summer Collection 2017

… But first: Toco Toco’s season finale (I wasn’t aware that there was one in the first place) is here, and the subject is the man responsible for perhaps my favorite video game of all time? And maybe yours as well? It’s Tetsuya Mizuguchi…

Alas, the focus is squarely on the most recent iteration of Rez (aka my fave game). Was hoping it would touch upon his earlier work, in particular, Sega Rally. Older games are oh so briefly mentioned, with the role of audio being the primary emphasis. And even though it’s not a music game… holy sh*t does Sega Rally have an AMAZING soundtrack.

BTW, I’ve got game music on my mind because… will explain later! Also, the gifs above are courtesy of Prosthetic Knowledge, cuz they make them far better than I ever could.

Anyhow, it’s been a while since the last game culture round-up, hasn’t it? So long in fact that… there’s a new THUNDERBOX lookbook to, well, take a look at. Which actually just came out, so this particular round-up ain’t that overdue…

Whereas the HuCard was the hottest fashion accessory of last spring, summer will see this rather nifty take on the Sega Saturn Lightning Brain design (also, RIP 1CC shirts)…

There’s also a really nifty shirt, a collab with INC NOXXX SCREAMING…

… plus a single Famicom cart holder/wallet…

Along with LEBLANC GIRL, either on a shirt…

… or as a pin…

Back to INC NOXXX SCREAMING, real name Yozi Shimoda, who’s been grabbing my attention more and more as of late. Was going to share his latest shirt in the next Instagram dump, but no point in waiting right?

Sticking with fashion for just a tiny bit more; it’s been over three years, but the King of Games has finally updated their YouTube channel, and they now have a trailer?

Which video game-centric footwear do you prefer? These sneakers, based upon Sonic’s (via miki800)…

… Or these sneakers, based upon the Super Nintendo, one that’s also running NBA Jam (via FreakerSNEAKS)…

As you may have heard, a new Super Famicom cart is going to be released later this year. Am talking about Kaizou Choujin Shubibinman Zero, originally released 20 years ago for the Satellaview.

Now, something that’s getting far less attention is how the same publisher, Columbus Circle, is also releasing a new Famicom game called Heiankyo Alien around that time as well (via tvgame)…

In other news, there’s a manga based upon Daigo Umehara, which you may or may not have heard about. Anyhow, UDON Entertainment has just revealed that it’s become translated and published in the West…

Here we have a nice little piece from José Salot, one that’s simply entitled: “Gamer Room”; I really want that poster that’s on the wall, of the Famicom karts…

And a somewhat similar scene, except it’s a girl playing games while in bed, and that girl also happens to be Sailor Moon (via sixteen-bit)…

Check out these photos of a strategy guide, for that Godzilla game that came on a Dreamcast VMU, which I want to say pre-dated the release of the console itself (could be wrong, but am pretty certain; via jimpluff)…

And on a related note, here are some pics from a shmup supplement that accompanied an issue of Famitsu, way back in 1990 (via videogamesdensetsu)…

On another related note; which bonkers shmup flyer do you prefer? This one for Darius (via shmups)…

… or this one for Space Bomber (via obscurevideogames)…

It’s Mario and Bowser, adorning a nuclear command bunker, taken by NPR originally, that suppermariobroth recently re-posted it (if you want to catch glimpses of some of the other oddball Mario artwork that exists alongside, then watch this video)…

And on that note, time once again to see some of the more interesting discoveries and observations that the Broth has made as of late. Including the actual note for the coin sound effect in the Mario games that Nintendo filed a trademark for only last year…

This question posed in a strategy guide back in 1987…

This “extremely rare official artwork of Mario holding up a Super Koopa” from a pog…

This image of a Thwomp on a moped from a Mario Party…

This curious depiction of Donkey Kong from an ad for the GBA port of DKC…

This photo of a goofy looking Mario with a Korean boy that looked just like me when I was his age…

This photo of a scarier looking Mario with Wil Wheaton and his younger brother; apparently it was from a tournament where the Star Trek TNG star had the highest score among all the celebrity guests…

And this fascinating bit of intel…

“In one particular piece of official art for Super Mario Odyssey, Mario’s hair is rendered in great detail. Zooming in to the part above his ear, we can see what appears to be a single gray hair. This seems to be deliberate, as analysis of the image reveals that this is not a transparency issue, but that the hair is indeed colored a lighter color than the rest. Due to the image being released in a lossless format by Nintendo, this also could not be a compression artifact.”

BTW, I completely forget where I got the following. I may have blocked it out of my memory to be honest…

Gizmodo recently ran an interesting piece about an astronomy student who strapped a Game Boy Camera to the end of a 179-year-old telescope to take pictures of the moon…

Meanwhile, The Verge recently ran a story on Shawn Wasabi, that musician with a MIDI controller that has 24 arcade buttons, whom Eric and later myself wrote about over two years ago.

Though it reminded me that I hadn’t checked his YouTube channel in a while and totally missed the following, posted on this past Valentine’s Day. So if you haven’t seen it before either…

Sticking with musicians for just a bit; here we have a guy who plays music with a Famicom on his head, playing a game with a Famicom that’s on a table…

Isn’t this Tron movie poster from Japan the raddest or what? (via gaijira)

You Mortal Kombatants get off my lawn (via horrorsoflife)…

meldowiseau asks: “from Mortal Kombat Advance’s credits; does that imply they spent a fraction of their budget on a new coffee machine?”

vice-s-assistant notes: “Oh shit’s its Robert From King of Fighters’ bank password“…

Let’s say hello to the cast of Primal Rage, shall we? (via thewaragainstgiygas)…

And let’s check out what Josh’s top 3 games are, shall we? (via xxx.hypnosis.party)

Is this image from a TED talk for real? (via smart-elec)

Whereas as I know for a fact that this isn’t some piece of Gex fan art, it’s an official image, from the cover of Gex 3 on the N64…

Please enjoy this rundown of assorted Pac-Man clone covers, courtesy of vgjunk, with perhaps my favorite one being…

It’s funny how the Game Boy was essentially the video game equivalent to the Walkman, which someone would clone and make it resemble a Game Boy (and which Nintendo would officially sanction, according to nintendroid)…

And speaking of music, by someone who goes by Motocross Saito…

Oh, so at the very top I mentioned that I had game music on my mind… game music by Treasure to be exact. And that’s because, earlier this evening, I was a guest on the Video Game Grooves podcast! Where I was asked to talk about the just released Gunstar Heroes record by Data Discs. Alas, I didn’t get a chance to touch upon the music of Guardian Heroes, but at least I have this super cool gif by kyn…

And finally, why yes someone has modded fidget spinners into Grand Theft Auto V, did you even need to ask?

Don’t forget: Attract Mode is now on Medium! There you can subscribe to keep up to date, as well as enjoy some “best of” content you might have missed the first time around, plus be spared of the technical issues that’s starting to overtake Tumblr.