#im still in the process of playing the game so no further spoilers

[scamperin-shroom]

Classic Zelda games: "So Link doesn't talk because he's meant to resemble you the player 🥰"

Echoes of Wisdom: "Link doesn't talk because his ability to speak was physically taken from him by a dark force"

(edit: since I need people to understand Link can't talk at all. It was forced out of him. It's not a choice. That part of him was consumed)

[just-a-mod]

I played Soul Void : Redux.

starting this off with : this is a good review and a happy thing

i am putting it under a read more for spoiler purposes uwu

about 5 or more years ago, i first played Soul Void. i found it on tumblr, and thought 'wow, that looks interesting' and showed it to my at the time GF

we both sat down and played it, me watching her at first, before deciding i wanted to play it along side her and go through the experience

getting into this game, immediately i began to see parts of myself in it. struggles i've had, words i've heard from others and from myself. i looked at the characters around me and felt them resonate with me and i felt.

feelings. sorrow, grief. the want to help, compassion and the hopeful feeling of 'don't give up, it will get better!'

i wanted to help them, and in turn by the end of the game, wanted to help myself

that was 5 years ago

i haven't played since, and not for a lack of not wanting to, just not feeling i needed to. i still remembered The Seeker, i remembered how The Leech and The Waiting were. i remembered how it felt, and i continued on.

then i began to forget, but still, i didn't go back. 'not yet', 'i don't need it yet'. it felt like

lately, it's felt like i did. a refresher, a chance to...process? a chance to acknowledge 'hey, these are struggles. these are feelings, but they can be helped. they can get better.

then i saw Redux was coming out. 3-4 months or so ago, i saw the update was set to release July 26, and i waited.

i'd forget for a few weeks, remember, check the date, and then go back to the day to day, only to repeat the pattern a few more times.

yesterday, i remembered. yesterday, i checked the date.

yesterday after D&D, i threw myself into playing again. and it was everything i remembered it to be.

it feels, oddly enough, like a medicine. a kind of salve that stings and soothes at the same time. my mental health isn't (and hasn't been of late) the greatest. victories in some places, loses in others. but progress, i believe, all the same.

going into Soul Void, i get to see all of these people doing their best. encouraging each other, the player and myself to do our best.

seeing The Waiting, The Husk, The Seeker. The Leech. all of them

new faces too, people i hadn't spoken to before! people i had yet to befriend! places i hadn't' seen!

i stepped into the game and hearing new music, reading new dialogue, having a chance to laugh and feel pain and sympathy and 'oh girl, SAME' energy.

getting a chance to stare evenly at the Grim, to find them less scary and more funny this time around.

getting to help The Seeker.

getting to HUG The Seeker.

getting the necklace. having it in the real world. the message behind it.

(ngl i'd pay some amount of money for that necklace as merch, by the way, if not try to juts make it myself. just tell me how it looks and by golly i will figure out some kind of way)

but i sat, and i loved, and i teared up and cried. i felt an ache in my chest that was soothed the further i went in

i listened to my own words being so automatically offered

'you'll be okay'

it'll be alright'

'this will pass'

'you'll get better'

offered to pixels on a screen that held a reflective piece of something i can see inside of myself, and it reminds me to share those with myself.

Soul Void is a game that sits in a special place in my heart. along side shows like Inuyasha and games like Undertale. it is a game that changed my life in an important time, in an important way.

for years to come, i will revisit it. for years to come, i will remember how every one looks at the end of the game, when you've helped them all. when you've helped yourself.

i will be drawing art of Hugging Seeker.

(also i wish we could hug more people, like The Waiting and The Leech. im not upset we cant, i just also wish we could.)

((also also does any one else have such an emotional attachment to The Waiting because i stg i kinda wish we could just sit with him, as the veins stop pulsing? so he's just not...alone..? but idk that's me))

@kadabura from the bottom of my heart and soul, thank you for making this game. Thank you for updating it.

thank you for all the work you've put into it, and for making it a free to play game.

thank you for sharing it with the world, as this game is one of the most beautiful and cherished experiences i've had in my 30 some odd years of life.

thank you for making such a beautiful story and journey that can allow people like me to see kindness for ourselves

i was originally going to send an ask, but tumblr just does not have enough space in one ask for me to express my love for this game.

Thank you so much. i hope your days are filled with the joy and strength to keep getting new ones, and that your nights are filled with dreams of laughter and music

for any one who may be reading this and NOT know what this beautiful game is

and the beautiful soul who made it

Thank you @kadabura

Be safe and Be at peace <3

[okthatsgreat]

3, 23 and 76 (lgowab) for the ask game?

YAYAYAY!!!

3. describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic nothing TOO out there i dont think...... usually i have a very VERY loose outline of like. here is how the fic starts and here is how it will end, here is how these characters start and here is how they will end. yknow. and sometimes that outline doesnt even happen until a few chapters in LMFAOOOO sometimes i really am just making shit up on the fly !!!!!!!!!!!! i didnt have a set second protagonist in mind for lgowab until that fifth chapter lmfao!!!! IM A FRAUD

but THEN once ive gotten into the rhythm of it i usually write down ideas for further chapters/further dialogue down in an empty discord server, so while its still disconnected there is still SOME organization!!! which means i have a general idea of how these next chapters should go :)

23. best writing advice for other writers? ooooooo there are a few tips i would suggest! one of the more obvious is learn when to use line breaks definitely. don't just make it one big chunk of text! hurts the eyes and makes it less appealing for any new readers that are just chiming in!! also learn a bit more on writing dialogue, and remember that you don't have to add a name tag after every sentence of dialogue!! the readers are smart enough to know who is talking (ESPECIALLY IF ITS ONLY TWO PEOPLE) so constantly going back and forth between Person A said, Person B replied, Person A said, Person B replied gets repetitive!

and then one final piece of advice i TRY to follow for multi-chapter fics is the rule that the character whose pov we are reading from shouldnt be the exact same at the end of the chapter as they were at the beginning of the chapter. for example, if i wrote makoto to be tense at the beginning of the chapter, then the end of the chapter could have him more relaxed. if i wrote miu as confident in the beginning of the chapter, i could write her as unfulfilled and irritated at the end of it. this change can be subtle!!!! its a good tip for preventing stagnant characters/action as you move forward from chapter to chapter :)

76. did you have any ideas that didn't make the final cut of lgowab?

LMFAO HMMMMM LET ME THINK. IM DIVING DEEP INTO MY EMPTY DISCORD SERVER FOR THIS ONE also im just gonna throw this under a cut for spoilers GHFDJGB

ASK GAME!!!

a really REALLY early draft of the scene where makoto calls out a bunch of names had shuichi replacing kaede!! ultimately decided on kaede because it made a LOTTTTT more sense with mius story for her to be called, but i knew that i wanted somebody important from season 53 to be nominated in that scene and shuichi was chosen bc he was friends with himiko

korekiyo was also nearly on the list!

there was another danganronpa theatre event planned! i only wrote the title down so im not super sure about any details, but i thiinnnkkkkk this might have been an alternative scene to the himiko danganronpa theatre event we got (the one with rantaro). it would have starred the below characters and they would have been playing some kind of card game in the hospital. scrapped because the other event made a lot more sense for himiko

and then of course theres a whole bunch of dialogue thats just floating around LMAO

[wrxxn]

Some quick thoughts on Obey me! Nightbringer

warnings* possible spoilers for the base game (chapter 40~ish, definitely chapter 16)

notes* honestly a bit of a ramble on what i'm hoping to see, some predictions or what i guess will be in the game and an odd ramble on chapter 16 due to time travel shenanigans

okay first and foremost HOLY SHIT THE TRAILER WAS SO HYPE. it was so well animated and I absolutely love the new song. I'm honestly really happy that they decided to make a whole new game to deliver what, what most assume, is a massive lore dump. I must say that doing it in the base game would probably be a pretty messy experience since the homescreen is cluttered enough as in and we're still getting new seasons for the main story. i have seen some people be sceptical in terms of just how well this will all play out due to some //interesting// writing decisions in the past but im of the opinion that its better to be expectant for now and critize it later down the line since i do think that solmare are putting in lots of effort in terms of the new game.

what i want to see!! please im begging please i wanna see michael it's not even funny. i do think a lot of the game will have to do with the brothers fall and the events leading up/after to the celestial war + aftermath in dealing with their grief, new lives and loyalty towards diavolo. i bring up the diavolo part especially seeing lucifers expression; i really do think most of his anguish comes from taking on the massive task of helping the brothers grieve and get used to their new lives but also trying to figure out how to deal with diavolo and possible belphie. i so want to see lucifer's gradual process into turning into the avatar of pride and putting up the stuck-up, formal personality that he has current day.

oh god i also just thought of this; finally seeing a design for lilith??? i would really like to see interactions with the whole family :(((( dont even care how it happens, flashbacks? just mentioning her pleaaaaaaase i crave it

i also wanna mention how beel looks absolutely pissed in the trailer? i was curious as to why the brothers all had such different expressions but after some further thoughts, it's probably a response to suddenly being thrusted into the powerful urges their sins carry? like, it was probably absolute hell trying to manage their desires at first. might be a bit of an hc, but i do think that beels grief plays a huge part in his gluttony. his emotions dictate a lot in terms of how 'full' he's feeling, it's often shown when he's around MC and he says he feels full just being around them. i think that a lot of his behavior early on will be absolute rage, but mainly towards himself due to his percieved failure in saving lilth.

gameplay! ive seen some talk about how the gameplay might be similar to the ruri-chan rhythm game beta that was released a little bit ago (i played it btw, it was pretty enjoyable). i do think that this might be a route they're going towards since a lot of the existing songs are getting remixes. what im most curious about is how they'll be weaving in the story parts; maybe it'll be a chapter system like the base game?

MC! is MC going to be in the game?! if the game is going to be a massive lore dump theeeeeen i'm a little iffy on if mc will actually have a role to play. it could be like chapter 16 and being sent back in time but i'll save that for a different point. if it's not, then im curious how it'll be presented to us story wise since it is, again, implied in the visuals of the trailer that barbatos is involved with the door motifs and him putting a finger over his mouth real ominous like. i kinda dont want mc to have too much of a presence personally, but i also cant help but think they get sent back in time in some capacity since the cast all look worried? concerned? something to that effect. i can only assume that the trailer doesn't take place in the past since solomon and the angels are all there. so i think something fucked up again and we'll be sent back in time to try and figure out a solution? possibly something to do with the ring of light?

time travel? again? im so hesitant when considering the possibility of more time travel stuff being introduced. i think it was handled horribly in chapter 16, enough to headcanon my own climax and resolve to the whole belphie situation; that man deserved so much more in terms of a resolve to his character arc. if they're going to send mc back in time imma need solmare to whip up the best logical reason as to why and how its going to work out. id also love it if they at least TALKED about what went down in chapter 16, i still feel like none of what was going on there was resolved. im so desperate for belphie to have a better written reason as to why he got over his trauma and hatred for humans as well. the origins of him being put in the attic would be very nice :)

honestly im almost certain there will be a gacha component to the game. idk if itll be the same card system but they have to make money some way some how; i just hope they dont put the lore behind a paywall and just keep it to gacha stuff with energy to managa how much you can do in a day. if the game itself is paid id be a little surprised honestly. idk, im mainly curious how this component will be done since i dont see them doing events in nightbringer like they do in the base game which has me a little worried how it might be monitized. i'd shill out either way lets be honesty but just something swiming around in my mind.

anyway super exicted for the game, just had to vomit this out since ive been playing the trailer on repeat for far too long and daydreaming scenarios in which we get celestial realm scenes cause i just need more celestial realm content please it takes place after the war i can at least have CRUMBS :,)

also just wanted to mention; someone, i think it was satan, was going fucking hard in the song and just wanted to appreciate the va's work and improvements in singing :,). also that final scene in the trailer? most definitely straight after the fall for sure

ao3 *** about me

[sleepygenie-o]

UNDERVERSE X GENSHIN SAGAU, IMPOSTOR AU

So we all know the sanses right? Self aware and stuff including some of the frisks and humans here and there in the mix.. even papyruses--

So what if your one of the humans who were self aware? That and you had the ability to travel to different universes without the aid of people who can already do that? (i.e: Ink, Error, Nightmare, etc) Also having similar powers to them such as regeneration, Determination, etc its your choice ^^

(THERE WILL BE NO MAJOR SPOILERS TO THE UNDERVERS AS 1. Im kinda dumb and cant keep up with the lore rn and 2. I dont know if im caught up with the episodes)

Warning! There are insults to the reader, some blood here and there, death (not to descriptive but it's still death) swears i will be censoring(edit, apparently i did not put swears. well good to be safe i guess--?), and maybe some torture...?

Your someone who got involved with this war and in an attempt to get out of it, you end up in a much, much worse situation..

"IMPOSTOR!"

"You have committed a grave sin Their grace will never forgive.."

"SINNER"

"HERETIC"

"You do not belong here"

"Die."

From the amount of times you've died and came back, you just laugh at everyone's attempts to hurt you and get under your skin. Literally. They have tried to skin you alive but you were able to get a hold of one of the weapons and kill yourself in the process.

You made it your personal goal to NEVER let them kill you, if you are ever, ever at the brink of death, YOU must be the cause. You won't give them the satisfaction of killing you themself.

Very few helped you, the children hid you, Kaeya would give you supplies, Albedo let you rest in his camp, Dainsleif and the travelers would keep you company time to time. Bennet, Razor and Fischl didn't really care if you were an impostor and hanged out with you!

In short only Benny's adventure trio, the children, and the Khaenri'ahns (i spelt that wrong didn't i?) helped you.

Genshin was a game you loved so much, but now it was nothing but crumbs to you. You soon found a way to take their stuff away so you did just that.

Their weapons, their artifacts, stripped away from them.

They think this is punishment for not getting the "impostor", so they try harder, waiting for the time they get their stuff back in the meantime.

But it never comes.

Yet they never noticed.

Soon, during one of the chases you find a... very familiar ink puddle....

Your acolytes, thinking it's a ditch, chase you to it. Which is something you use to your advantage. Calling upon the person who opened your eyes to the multiverse.

"INK!!"

"*huh...WAIT A SECOND KID, YOU WERE HERE?!"

Quickly using some of your abilities, you knock down the acolytes to make sure they dont follow you and your friend.

But Lisa, who was chasing you, has put a tracking spell on you so she can see what your doing. (I dont think a spell like that is canon but now it is--/hj)

When the acolytes with her see a 3rd person point of view, they notice something when Ink fusses over your wounds..

"*Kid... these wound look bad, your bleeding gold for g-!... Wait your bleeding GOLD?!?!"

The acolytes have made a mistake. Not wanting to watch any further, Lisa stops the spell. Reporting everything to Jean. And word spreads.

Soon the offerings, sacrifices, the everything in your name is upped ten fold. All In attempts to gain forgiveness. So many things flood into your inbox while playing the game, simply staring at the place Ink found you. You simply deleted the message. You didnt need what they had.

The acolytes were panicking, were you not satisfied?! Before anything happens, Albedo and Lisa bring them over to show what they see from the spell Lisa still has on you.

"Hey Dream!"

"Oh, heya! Did you need anything?"

"Well Cross texted saying he had a message for ya, is your phone on mute or something?" (Who was "Cross", and who is this.. "Dream" you're talking to? Lesser gods maybe? Was what the acolytes thought)

"OH SHOOT! I MUSTVE FORGOTTEN IT AT BLUE'S HOUSE!"

"...Uhh why are you panicking..? The 2 people who live there are aware of your existence it'll be fine" (..So this "Blue" must be a trusted mortal of their grace..! The acolytes were shocked, how long did you trust them?)

"Ok... you better be right. Also did you try the game i recommended?"

"You mean that childish cookie game?"

"It's not childish!"

"Mhm, ok ok I'll get it, I'll get it. What was the name of the app?"

"Cookie run Kingdom!"

"Ok... oh shoot."

"What's wrong?"

"I don't have space.."

"Maybe delete that one game, the one that was scaring you and giving you nightmares? What was it's name...." (Just what were you 2 talking about? The acolytes stared in confusion)

"Genshin Impact..?"

"Yeah! That one! Just delete that and get cookie run." (Genshin what now? And cookie... huh? Albedo and Lisa, didn't like the sound of that)

"Ok, ok, welp, Bye to Teyvat ig- I'll get it next time when I'm over my fear for it now"

The acolytes' eyes widened, they were going to be erased! They need to find a way to appease you. Now! Until..

"Hey Dream, is there a way to bring the kids of Teyvat here? Including these people?" You asked the positive guardian, showing him the people you wished to save.

"It's possible. I'll get ink to try, if you feel comfy to do so you could come with him!"

"Sure sure, ill do that"

Now they could only hope you would bring them with you. But it would be nothing but fantasy to the true heretics

[goldstargloww]

i just ranted in my friend group discord server about 3ld life and im just gonna copy paste it all here

spoilers for: 3rd life, last life, double life sessions 1-4

story trigger warnings: trauma, suicide, abuse, exclusion, bullying, insanity portrayed negatively (all in universe, except the swearing is from me lol)

typed trigger warnings: swearing, caps

all characters are c!, not cc! !

okay, ffs, why is friends messing around with small light roleplay sO EASY TO MAKE DRAMATIC

grian just

causing chaos because its fun and he isnt hurting anyone (...debatable)

aND THEN KILLING 2 PEOPLE AND WATCHING 2 OTHERS GET SHOT TO DEATH-

"im still kind of in a little bit of shock because i was just playing the fishing rod game" nah what you mean is "so i just committed murder while having fun and now im traumatized"

andthefucking- like- desertduo just happening by chance every single season

and grian slowly going insane while scar has already accepted that he's chaotic

but them only being able to lean on each other in the end

and the first time that happened they had to punch each other to death

the second time they were separated in the chaos of last episode war and both individually died

and now theyre gonna be forced to die together

and then fucking flower husbands

scott (canonically) sobbing over jimmys last death as he had been shot in the middle of a war that scott also died in, and scott had no time to process it until everyone finally left him alone and he just built a grave and broke down

then latching onto pearl in last life and them being the one duo that never broke up in any way as they had agreed to not go face to face in the final battle

and then in double life, scott latched onto cleo as that was the only other person he had any sort of positive personal history with, and they went looking for pearl and by the time they found her they were pissed that her and martyn had just ignored looking for them

so pearl was left on her own, martyn wanted revenge but also wanted to be with cleo, cleo and martyn had beaten each other up, and scott was just like yeah no bye

and then pearl, at first going into some sort of hiding, as she stays awake longer, 5am pearl our beloved loses her dog and just takes it out on the world, freezing herself in a snow bath purely to hack away at scott's health and openly being suicidal just to get back at scott because why should she care? she has nothing left, nobody cares about her, and scott hurt her for (from her pov) no reason. she has nothing to lose and may as well get revenge

scott's view of pearl is just changing for the worse as pearl isn't with it and nobody knows how to handle that, describing her as having gone batshit psycho and wanting nothing to do with her, so much so that he tries to break up other couples (and in the process, having to have ren also be openly suicidal due to a failing relationship), yet still caring for pearl, because one, he kinda has to as he doesn't wanna die, and two, he knows pearl, they spent and entire lifetime together from day one, she's not in a good headspace and scott knows it's his fault

grian's going crazy trying to keep scar from being chaotic as hell, all the while causing his own chaos, subtle enough to not be recognized until the damage is done and even then nobody learns their lesson. he's seen scar be suicidal ("you can slay me and take the enchanter") as well as pearl ("do you want to die?!" "YES!!"), he's seen scar slip further out of touch with reality, talking people into doing things that isnt worth it in the slightest, and he's seen scar latch on to things that they can't give attention to right now. he's seen scar take every risk possible and not realizing the dangers of it - and if he does, he couldn't care less. grian's seen jimmy be excluded and tossed aside and made fun of, and while grian does this too, he sometimes feels bad for him. he's been preyed on for is gullibleness, he's been excluded just because he's jimmy, and he's been tossed into rivers and left to drown just because it's funny

grian's gone to bigb as an escape, and the two want to do something about it, but their universally decided soulmates and the stigmatization of others make it hard - bigb doesnt want to be the reason ren's suicidal, and grian doesn't want to be either - grian also doesnt wanna just up and leave scar, as he's gonna get himself and therefore both of them killed or worse

enjoy my rant, 3ld life lives in my brain rent free every weekend

[cloudcoveronclearnights]

okay so im gonna talk about dramatic irony, specifically how it appears in arcane. spoilers below!

so! for those who dont know, dramatic irony is a specific literary technique which basically boils down to: the audience knows something the characters dont. the most well known example of this is probably in romeo and juliet, when the audience knows that juliet isnt actually dead but romeo doesnt. it is an incredibly versatile technique and can be used for anything from tragedy to comedy, but can be hard to pull off without feeling like its cheating. it relies heavily on theory of mind and suspension of disbelief, which is part of why it can be hard to do right.

now, lets look at arcane through the lens of dramatic irony. arcane is, ultimately, a prequel to the game its based on. this means its gotta be chock-full of dramatic irony, since anyone who has played the game (not me) or has read into the lore of the game (me) knows several of these characters and where they end up already. specifically, we know that jinx HATES vi in lol, that jinx, caitlyn and vi (among others) all survive long enough to become major players in lol, and that silco doesnt. that tells us a lot of the WHAT, but not much of the WHY. that is the core of good dramatic irony, in my opinion. when the audience knows the what, but not the why or the how. 

with all that in mind, lets take a look at the tea party scene. 

the basic setup is jinx kidnaps vi, cait, and silco. its just the four of them in that entire scene. from a narrative standpoint, we know that someone is going to die. its a standoff between several of the main powerplayers in the show, and the only one who has any real control in the situation is dealing with some serious psychosis and a jumpy trigger finger. someones gonna die. its also the season 1 finale, so its gotta be big, whatever happens. the narrative also tells us that this scene is going to be what causes the final split between powder and jinx, and thus jinx and vi. 

the dramatic irony comes in because we know who has to die - the only character who isnt in the game. so silco has to be the one to die in order for the narrative to maintain itself. we have the what. 

in this scene, we see vi refuse to kill caitlyn, which jinx sees as a betrayal. we see caitlyn break free and threaten to kill jinx. we see silco grab the gun and fire it, presumably at either cait or vi. that gunshot is, in a display of situational irony, the reason why silco dies. jinx hears the gunshot and responds the only way she learned how: by raining bullets everywhere, and ultimatly killing silco. 

and THAT is why the dramatic irony is so good. because we knew that silco was going to die. we knew it was going to be in a way that further separated jinx and vi from each other. it would be easy to assume that this would be by vi (or cait, to a lesser extent) killing silco. but by having jinx kill him by accident, the narrative takes a different direction. jinx is still able to blame vi. if vi had just shot caitlyn like jinx asked, cait wouldnt have been able to escape and the shootout wouldnt have happened. (not saying jinx is in the right here, just laying out her thought process.) BUT, jinx is also partly to blame. she is the one who shot silco and killed him. this cements the idea in her head that she IS a jinx, that anyone she cares about will die BECAUSE of her. this adds several other layers to jinxs hatred of vi - vi is now the only person alive that jinx ever considered family. vi managed to escape the jinx. but, but, this means that either the jinx doesnt apply to vi, OR that shes just been lucky. so jinx cuts herself off from vi, both out of anger, and possibly out of a desire to protect vi. if she was just jinx at that point, it would have been so easy to just shoot vi and cait. but she didnt, she left them to escape. 

why? in my opinion, its because theres still some powder in there, trying to protect vi the only way left. get her away. keep her away from the jinx that killed the rest of powders (and jinxs) family. this could very well be powders last act, letting her sister go to protect her from jinx, but now im getting into theory and speculation. 

anyway, i just love how the dramatic irony is handled in this show. its so GOOD

also also!! the juxtaposition of the end of the tea party scene with the counsel voting for peace is another example of dramatic irony! because theyre voting for a peace that *can not* happen. the counsel is voting for a peace that hinges on silco handing over jinx. silco wasnt going to do that, and besides, he was dead by the time they voted. jinx actions at the very end may be what kick off a full-scale war, but peace was never going to happen. the vote was ultimately meaningless, even if jinx didnt blow them up. 

and that, my friends and anyone who read this whole thing, is why i love dramatic irony. 

[chuuyagum]

Here's a writing process question - you have been writing WGYTR with regular updates for like 3 months now and you said you had the overall plot planned out beforehand, so what I'm wondering is how long did it take to make the outline for the whole fic/basically how much prep work did you do before posting the first chapter. Did it take a long time to decide on everything that will happen? Not just WGYTR, the other fics too, and are there some fics that are easier to plan out and then some that are harder because the plot doesn't come as easily? Thank you so much for your wonderful fics and good luck with whatever personal things you have going on🤗💓

thanks so much for this question!! to be honest, i do very little prep before posting my first chapter! clearly this is all in relation to writing multi-chapter fics, as i haven't tried my hand at one shots lately. in that situation i think my process would be different, so keep that in mind!

i like to let my first chapter dictate the tone for the fic, so i tend to start writing it as if it's a one-shot then make sure i end it in a way that gives me room to keep writing. then my second chapter is where i do my real plotting and create my solid outline for the overall fic so the process tends to go like this;

[the explanation below does have mild spoilers for WGYTR however it's nothing specific, only vague plot elements]

come up with an idea - can be very specific or just a vague concept

ex: "Mecha Senku and the magic of lying" just came about because i saw several fics where Gen is Senku's robot and i wanted to try the inverse

decide on tone - will it be fluff, angst, ect?

write the first chapter! i just type this out quickly and with little care for details, its a rough draft so it's just meant as a mental starting point. overall i spend maybe 1 hour total on this draft - i type furiously and just let whatever comes out flow onto the page

outline! now that i have an idea of where i want to go, i can lay out my plot points. but first i jot down overall vibes in no particular order - it can be specific lines of dialog i want to use, specific scenarios or events.

ex: WGYTR - the title itself, "Who gave you the right?" i wanted this one line to define the character interactions. ultimately it's Senku who says the line, but in my outline it was originally Gen! but when i got to the chapter it made more sense for Senku to say it. this fic is all about the characters opening up to one another and allowing themselves to be seen as they are. so, in a sense, Gen was only able to fall in love with Senku because Senku allowed himself to be seen for his true self. and the same applies to Gen. Senku only fell in love with him for the same reason, Gen allowing himself to be seen in turn

plot! this is the easiest part for me in terms of outline, but my explanation may seem kinda daunting. first i lay out a general order of events. this is easier when the fic is canon compliant like WGYTR, but much harder when it's an AU like Mecha Senku. with events i always like to consider what actions logically lead into one another.

ex: WGYTR was quick for me to plot events since it's canon compliant. i chose where in canon it would start, and where it would end, then filled in the rest.

my overall outline looked like this;

- Gen joins the KoS

- Gen plots how to manipulate Senku for everyones benefit

- Senku largely tries to ignore Gen, too focused on his work

- it's still storm season, they get trapped indoors, forcing them to spend time together

- Gen makes a game to play (hadn't decided what game)

- Senku starts to relax as they spend more time together

- Gen develops a crush on Kohaku at the same time he develops a crush on Senku. deliberately squashes the feelings for Senku down

- Winter prep aspects

- Senku accepts Gen as a friend

- Gen accepts his feelings for Senku

- Senku faces his trauma

- Senku accepts his feelings for Gen

- Christmas

- Observatory & Gen's confession

- Finish the phone, fake Lilian

- Chrome is captured & the car

- Stone Wars

- ends just after Stone Wars

start writing chapter 2! now that i have a general idea of where i'm going, i go ahead and write my second chapter. here is where i make any necessary corrections to the direction of events to better fit my general outline

go back and edit chapter 1! nows the time to fix any problems in consistency, tone, direction, ect!

after i have my general points and have started writing, i break it down even further! this is where i start looking for symbols i can use to further my plot, and do research on more specific topics i plan to touch on

ex: WGYTR takes place largely within a huge time skip in canon. they literally jump from late Summer directly to Christmas of all things. so i thought about everything they had to do to get from Summer > Winter. they do show us some of what they did in between in canon, but they really gloss over it quickly, so for my fic i buckled down on the winter prep aspects that took the entire Fall to get done. from there, i broke it down further. if you look at each invention, it follows a process.

- Gen remembers paper is a thing

- Senku sets him up for the process

- the process brings Gen closer to some of the villagers (Ruby, Garnet, Sapphire)

- Gen starts fooling around with the paper and makes pinwheels for the children

- this action signifies to Senku how kind Gen genuinely is

- Gen makes a log book for Senku and a notebook for himself

- Gen uses his notebook to help Ruri and later to do the math for calculating Senku's birthday

if you follow that process linearly, you can link it to three upcoming canon events related to the paper making which tie it all together. since this chain of events begins with Gen, it'll end with Senku. can you guess what he's going to do with the paper next to wrap up this up? ;)

continue writing! i always have one buffer chapter, so i'll have chapter 11 written before i edit and post chapter 10.

now to answer some of your other questions;

did this take long? not really! this whole process, minus the last two steps....takes me maybe 1 day to 1 week total. WGYTR took me 2 days. by day 3 i had my first two chapters ready and the first one was posted! but those last two steps? i do those as i go along! which probably sounds insane now that i think about it lmao

as for fics that are harder to plan - any type of modern AU is much harder for me! im not sure why, but i struggle with it a lot. my soulmark AU, although i haven't felt inspired to write for it lately, was easy for me to plot out since it fits within the larger canon events. so was my short TsukaSenGen AU. but for a modern AU to make sense, there's a lot of elements to consider that aren't provided by canon, like professions and events and existing dialog, which is why i haven't worked on Mecha Senku in months rip

thanks again for your questions, anon! i hope i did well answering them all!! ♡

[dear-hikikomari]

[READ ME; ASK RULES]

This is my policy on incoming asks; make sure to take a read through these before sending anything. Asks that break the rules will be deleted on sight, so keep that in mind!

All asks will be assumed as directed to Mari unless otherwise specified.

If you send an ask to the blog, I’ll answer it IC with a little Mari doodle to accompany the response. This is open to anybody, so long as you abide by these rules! That said, if you want to interact with her through a character of your own, make sure to refer to my roleplay rules first; my guidelines for that are a bit stricter. If you’d like to talk to me, the ‘mun,’ directly, make sure to address me in the ask so I know it’s to me! My IMs are also open, but I will not be answering them IC; those are for mun talk only.

Be respectful to the blogger!

Remember that this is something I’m doing for fun; I’ll do my best to get to all the asks and give fun responses, but I can’t make any promises. It’ll largely depend on what I feel up to answering, what art I get inspired for, where stuff fits best in the narrative, etc etc. If I take a while to get to your ask or wind up not answering it, please don’t take it personally. You’re always welcome to send something else! You can ask if you’re worried an ask got eaten, but please don’t try to pressure me into answering faster; that’ll just result in it getting deleted. Additionally, absolutely do not attempt to drag me into drama of any kind; I’m not here for that.

Absolutely no NSFW, but other dark content may be present.

Expect canon-typical levels of disturbing content; psychological horror, body horror, character death, self-harm and suicide, mental illness, etc will all likely be present here to some degree. That said, I am not at all comfortable with sexual content and will not be accepting any asks of that nature directed at the mun or muse. Please do not send them here. Offenders will have their asks deleted and/or blocked, depending on severity.

Don’t repost or use my artwork without permission.

Unless otherwise specified, all icons, promo images, sidebar images, and other artwork utilized in asks or the blog itself were drawn by the mun. Please do not repost it elsewhere or use it off the blog without asking me first. If you’d like to use it for roleplay icons or something I might be okay with that, but let me know and make sure to credit me somewhere. I do reserve the right to say no, though.

Please don’t reblog roleplay threads you’re not a part of.

Most of my content is a-okay for anybody to reblog, but I ask that ‘threads,’ (written interactions between two or more roleplay blogs) are NOT reblogged by people outside of them. This can mess with thread trackers and often is considered really rude to roleplayers, so be respectful of this boundary! If I see this happen, I will be coming to ask you to take it down. That said, liking a thread to show your support is 100% okay!

Crossovers with other ask blogs won’t be canon.

I’m open to doing little cameos and stuff like that with other ask blogs, but bear in mind that they very likely will not be canon to the blogs themselves; they’re just for fun and shenanigans. If you’d like to discuss trying something like that feel free to drop by and ask, I promise I don’t bite! I’m sure we can come up with something.

Some additional notes to keep in mind:

Remember that this Mari is specific to the Hikiko AU.

For reference, the Hikiko AU is an AU of my own design; it’s loosely based on Omari, but with some pretty significant tweaks and story changes. As such, these are the basics you should know; Mari is still alive here, 19 years old, and attending a Junior College a few hours away from Faraway Town. If you’d like to know more, feel free to check out the about and AU pages for everything that’s been revealed thus far! And if there’s anything missing there that you’d like to know… Well, you can always try asking Mari. Just keep in mind that this AU is quite a bit different from the canon timeline or classic Omari, and Mari won’t have knowledge of any of the events that didn’t happen in her world. Likewise, this blog is not affiliated with the Hikki or Omari projects in any way; honestly I can't even keep track of who it is that's actually making them, let alone be in contact with the creators.

This blog is not spoiler free!

If you haven’t played the game or know the story, I highly recommend doing so before interacting with this blog or reading any further. While there’s plenty of divergences, the blog also contains some parallels to pretty significant spoilers and will definitely give away some big twists. Omori is a pretty intense emotional roller coaster of a game so I definitely would suggest experiencing it for yourself if you can handle the content it entails. It isn’t necessarily mandatory to interact here, but will probably add to your experience.

Guest characters may pop up from time to time.

On occasion I might let other characters from the AU participate in an ask or pop up in art. That isn’t to say it’ll happen every time, but I figure that’s a fun way to switch things up– and possibly provide some details Mari herself might not be as keen on discussing. That said, I can’t guarantee that an ask addressing them will always make it to the intended recipient– that depends on how likely they are to be able to find it. But do feel free to try if you’d like! You might just learn something interesting in the process.

Mari is an unreliable narrator.

Much like Sunny in Omori, she’s not always going to be honest about what really happened or how she’s actually feeling. Her experiences aren’t always true to reality, often laced with hallucinations, delusions, and dissociation. After all, Mari is someone who strains herself very hard to maintain an image of perfection and stability– and that’s one thing which has remained a constant here. It’s going to take quite a bit of effort to peel back that mask of smiles.

Check here for the dedicated tags!

I have a handful of dedicated tags for different content; feel free to blacklist anything you don’t want to see. I also track the tag #dear hikikomari, so feel free to use that if there’s something you’d like me to see!

#asks - the answered ask catch-all. #threads - the roleplay thread catch-all. #main; dreaming of you - the tag for main ask blog content. #side; pure imagination - the tag for non-canon side content. #my art; through her eyes - mun art tag (posted or reblogged) #reblog; strange reflections - others’ art tag (promos and etc) #mun post; the music stops - ooc posts from the mun.

And now, meet the mun!

Hey, thanks for reading this far! Feel free to call me Timey. I’m 25, and use she/her pronouns. I’ve been roleplaying across various platforms since 2010, so this is just the latest in a long series of experiments; I’ve had this AU in the works for quite a while, so an ask blog felt like a fun and interactive way to share it with folks. Here’s hoping you’ll all enjoy it as much as I do!

[h-sleepingirl]

“9 Persisting Misconceptions About Hypnosis”

A zine by sleepingirl and GleefulAbandon

(Access the downloadable and nicely formatted Google Doc here!)

Hey, there! Have you been turned on to the wonders of hypnokink? Do you feel like you've just had a bucket of shibboleths and tips and bits of wisdom dumped over your head, and they are now slowly dripping down your back? Are you thinking to yourself, "OK, I am finally getting the hang of this erotic hypnosis thing?"

Not so fast! Odds are a lot of the information you've received is, while given in good faith, mired in assumptions about the nature of hypnosis and the human mind that are not empirically true! And the kicker about a practice that takes advantage of suggestibility is that buying into these can make them more true! How’s that for a mental rut?

Here are 9 myths about hypnosis you are likely to encounter in your freaky journey!

(Full disclosure: We are experienced hypnotic players who are constantly exploring and growing, and we recognize that not everyone may share our perspective on all of these. But when we accept the oft-repeated principles we hear as incontrovertible truth without questioning them, we risk building a wall between us and further learning about the amazing, weird things we can do with our brains! This is not meant to disparage any person for their beliefs or experiences, and we welcome feedback and discussion!)

1. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis.

Yep, and all pain you feel when someone punches you in the thigh is your own brain making pain happen. CURSE YOU, BRAIN!

This tends to be an idiom that can cause more harm than good. It’s clearly not an empirical statement (how could it be?) though it is often taken as one. On the surface, it’s well-intentioned and trying to convey that subjects have agency and hypnosis isn’t mind control like you see in the movies. However, while it's good to know that subjects have the ability to cultivate a real sense of self-sufficiency, it minimizes connection with the hypnotist and the power that can be exchanged. Hypnosis is collaborative, and the hypnotist’s behavior absolutely affects trance, whether positively, or in bad situations, negatively! It takes two to do hypnosis with two, full stop.

When you hear this phrase, ask yourself, what is really being communicated here?

2. Hypnosis is distinctly different than meditation, subspace, etc.

Different how, exactly? Sexiness is not sufficient here, kids.

Well, here's a whole can of worms: Hypnosis as defined by hypnokink practitioners tends to be a wider umbrella than the clinical definition of hypnosis. There is also the concept of hypnosis as an altered state and then the concept of hypnosis as a set of practices. Pretty much any altered state could be called hypnosis when kinksters use it in hypnokink to commit dastardly deeds. Same with the (extraordinarily broad) set of practices that we take advantage of to fuck with brains.

Here’s the thing: hypnosis isn’t just one solid thing or state with one solid set of rules. Trance and brainfuckery are dynamic! We don’t really even have a great way of defining suggestibility, because we know that shoving someone into an altered state and then telling them, “You will experience xyz” is not really sufficient. And of course, a lot of stuff can get done outside of a traditional “trance.” Where is the line?

Spoilers: Any line we make is subjective. Meditation, when you potentially put yourself in an altered state and change the way you focus pretty much fits under that umbrella, too.

3. You can't make someone do something they "don't want to do" or go against "core values" with hypnosis.

We do things we don't want to do all the time, starting each day from when we wake up when our alarms go off. People drink alcohol and do things they wouldn't have otherwise done. People are talked into buying things they don’t want or need, or making complex decisions that don’t always have their best interests at heart. Not to mention that our broad-strokes “core beliefs” are changeable, sometimes with just a simple shift in perspective.

Human beings are dynamic and complex and exciting creatures, and we don't have a black box inside of us with ideas that are immutable to us. Change in belief and behavior is a part of how we function, and that’s WITHOUT hypnosis! Once again, this myth is well-intentioned, but an oversimplification that can backfire if someone is trying to process why they experienced a hypnotic scene differently than they thought they would.

4. Depth is the key to suggestibility.

Here's an idea: A swear jar but you have to put money in every time someone asks if they were "deep enough." Depth is a metaphor, but it's a useful one! It relates to your own subjective trance experience and how you experience intensifying it, which is hugely important self-knowledge. But it is not quantifiable, and there is not a simple correlation between depth and ability to access more trance phenomena. As with many things in hypnosis, it’s different for everyone and can be different at different times based on a huge number of variables.

And on that note…

5. Suggestibility scales are legit.

"But wait!" You might say, "These have been studied! What about things like the Stanford Susceptibility Scale?"

They're bad.

Academics, in good faith, tried to impose objective rules on altered states that run on the subjectivity and diversity of the human mind. People are different. Subjects are different. Alas, researchers at Stanford in 1959 (yes, that long ago) were mystified by this concept. And still, so are some today.

Really, Stanford peeps, amnesia is the most hypnotized a person can get? Some folks lose memories in trance right away but won't take to certain hallucinations. And some hallucinations are easier for some folks than others. Trying to create hypnotic rules for how hypnotizable you are is a losing game.

But speaking of different kinds of hallucinations...

6. Working with someone’s “primary modality” is the key to effective hypnosis.

The idea that of the five senses we each have one primary one that aids in our learning and that is best used to create hypnotic states and phenomena is not only limiting, it’s been debunked time and time again. The concept of “modalities” that is so prevalent in the erotic hypnosis world comes directly from NLP, where Richard Bandler and John Grinder stated that we had primary modalities — a “Preferred Representational System.” However, just like with learning styles, study after study after study has found no supporting evidence of this. In fact, in the ‘80s (yes, that long ago), Bandler himself said that this idea was no longer emphasized in NLP (regardless of the fact that it is still pervasive today).

And beyond this, yeah, you could spend your time using only visual cues and visual words and creating visual hallucinations, or you could actually utilize multiple senses, because spoiler alert that is how human beings experience the world. You're not trying to find a secret code that unlocks a shortcut to being a better subject, you're Dora the Goddamned Explorer and it's not just about finding the thing at the end; it's about chilling with Boots and Map.

7. “iM tOo AnAlYtIcAl To Be HyPnOtIzEd”

Also going in the swear jar is anyone saying they have trouble being hypnotized because they're "too analytical." Bruh. Hypnosis is not a game of chess wherein the hypnotist out-logics the subject to get them to comply. It's engaging your brain and letting you do more with it than you thought possible. This is definitely not downplaying the experience of people who have had a difficult time getting the experiences they are searching for, but more about The System(ic misunderstanding pervading hypnokink culture) getting us all down.

Being “thinky” doesn’t mean someone can’t be hypnotized (hypnosis =/= not thinking or altered thinking), it just means that you both use what you’ve got — hypnotist AND subject. Analyzing something doesn’t make it impossible to trance. Hypnosis should not be synonymous with “letting go.” It’s about changes in focus and engagement, oftentimes really subtle, especially for subjects who have preconceived notions of what it’s going to feel like. It’s dynamic, it doesn’t mean laser focus, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean blank-minded.

Subjects: Learn to love the way you analyze; notice shifts and changes, use it to be open to learning about how hypnosis feels for you as opposed to what you expect it to feel like. Understanding what your real subjective responses are is key to growing.

Hypnotists: While it might be helpful for some people, stop assuming that you necessarily have to overload or confuse them to get to the holy hypnotic grail of mindlessness; utilize their internal responses for the trance!

Here's a secret: If a hypnotist calls someone a "difficult subject," they mean they failed to connect with their partner in a way that they deemed hypnotic enough. This is on them, not the subject.

8. Your subconscious is like a quiet roommate chilling inside your head.

The metaphor of your subconscious (or unconscious mind) as someone with whom you can communicate is a useful one for a lot of people! It can put you in touch with how you're feeling and processing, and create fun surprises no one might expect. But it's just that: a metaphor. Your brain is not a director and an actor; it’s a beautifully complex amalgam of experiences and observations. You can play with treating your subconscious as a person, but recognize that there's not literally a man behind a curtain, and recognize that your interpretation of it might be flawed (i.e., don’t use your “unconscious mind” to negotiate under the assumption that this conscious personification is faultless and somehow knows better than you do).

9. Abreactions.

This is a huge one, and another one where the hypnosis scene has deviated from psychology (sometimes a good thing!). Clinically, an abreaction is a response with some emotional connection, and is in fact often used as a tool to create breakthroughs in therapy. In the hypnokink Scene, “abreaction” has also become a boogeyman, a synonym for "freak out.”

Can folks freak out during a hypnosis scene? Sure! Can they freak out during an impact scene? Of course! Can they freak out in the dairy aisle of the supermarket because the wrong song starts playing on the loudspeaker? Also, yes. But an abreaction isn't technically synonymous with freak-out. Technically, a giggle-fit during hypnosis can be an abreaction.

Here’s the thing: it might even be OK to appropriate the term “abreaction” to mean “negative reaction” in the hypnokink community, but we have to stop making that interchangeable with “unexpected reaction.” Of course a negative reaction is unexpected. But that doesn’t mean all unexpected reactions are negative. They happen absolutely all the time in hypnosis; demonizing all of them is unhealthy and unrealistic.

Well-intentioned practitioners of erotic hypnosis have put all their safety eggs in one basket: Caution against causing an abreaction, end the scene when you do, and you've accounted for the worst. But this is a scene that traffics in suggestibility; when you make out abreactions to be this looming, awful risk, you bring them to the fore, and when both players assume that that means an unexpected reaction is cause for panic, it creates unwarranted anxiety and problems. Not to mention that it greatly hinders the breadth and depth of what you can achieve together.

In short, you can and should learn to navigate emotional vulnerability and be confident and flexible in handling your partners’ responses, no matter how unexpected or intense they are. We're here for those reactions, folks, and not all of them are to be feared and fixed.

Sleepingirl is a switchy writer, presenter, and podcaster who joined the public kink scene in 2012. She’s had a life-long hypnofetish and is way too interested in brainwashing. She did the doodles for this zine, and look out for her Brainwashing Book coming soon! Check out her hypnokink podcast at twohypchicks.simplecast.fm and follow her: Twitter @h_sleepingirl, Tumblr @h-sleepingirl, FetLife @sleepingirl

GleefulAbandon is a queer, submissive hypnofetishist. She joined the BDSM/Hypnokink Scene in 2012, and teaches and writes about hypnosis from the subject’s perspective. She’s a sucker for a pocket watch. @gleefulabandon

[wallstagram]

june - july fic rec: month(s) in review

hello & welcome back to the june - july edition of fic rec: month(s) in review! we have a L O T to unpack this time, so let’s dive right in! throughout june & july, we have been blessed with the majority of @larryabroad, as well as the bulk of @hlsummerexchange2019, all of @wordplayfics, wanker’s day fic fest, and many more that i’m probably forgetting. summer was a great time to be a fic reader for sure, thank you to every author who contributed!! 

**disclaimer: not all of these fics were written in june/july, it is simply when i read them. however, a lot of them were. ***note: as always, if you do take my recommendation and read any of these works, please bookmark, comment, and leave kudos for these authors!! it is so important that we support the creators in our community. as an author, i know a sweet comment will often spur me to keep writing when i’m stuck. but, without further ado, here’s my recs below the cut!

J U N E : :

You Were Made To Be Mine by lovelarry10 (@chloehl10)

Louis Tomlinson takes his 6 year old son Jacob to see Harry Styles in concert. Jacob has been a huge fan of Harry's for as long as he can remember, so it's a dream come true when Harry notices him in the pit. But Jacob isn't all that Harry has his eye on...

Louis is a bit embarrassed when Harry picks on him from the stage, but when he's invited backstage after the show, he wonders what Harry Styles could possibly want with a single dad and his kid from Manchester...

This was such a cute read! At a whopping 580k, there is a LOT to sink your teeth into. Though I started it at the beginning of June, I haven’t even nearly finished yet, but it’s so good that it’s made it onto my rec list!

Get Off and Vote by haztobegood (@haztobegood)

Niall lets out a loud laugh, “Hey, listen to this. You know how elections are Tuesday? It says the Babeland on the edge of campus is giving out free toys to the first 100 people that show their ‘I Voted’ sticker.”

“How patriotic.” Louis laughs. “Maybe I should go.”

Haha! This one was great. At 3k, it’s a perfect quick read for some sexy, patriotic fun. 

Surprise Me, Space Boy by jacaranda_bloom (@jacaranda-bloom)

Louis is a solo officer on Space Station Zeta and the isolation can present many challenges, not least of which is that it’s really bloody hard to date. He’s pinning his hopes on that changing with a fellow solo officer, Harry, from a neigbouring station who gives great banter and has a gorgeous smile. Maybe online dating has its benefits after all?

OR The Space Wank Fic.

Oh, this one was so good!!! The thing I love about literally anything Dee writes is that she just thinks completely outside the box. I feel like I never quite know what’s going to happen (in the best way!) and her originality totally made this fic amazing. (7k)

rivers ‘til i reach you by embodied (@crossnecklace)

Louis can’t begin to understand how he’s always this close and still can’t manage to make Harry his. He stands up and gets another beer. AU. Louis studies astronomy; Harry studies Louis. They spend their summers on the water and it shouldn't be complicated (spoiler: it is).

This was such a good read! It’s written in such a way that you’re utterly sucked into the verse so much that you’re a bit sappy when the fic is over. Kinda makes you feel a bit lovedrunk just from reading it. (29k)

Found My Hallelujah by crimsontheory (@ireallysawanangel)

As an engagement gift from his parents, Harry and his fiance receive an all expenses paid cruise trip for two. But one week before they're set to sail, Harry walks in on his fiance cheating on him. Newly single, with the cruise tickets in hand, and his bags already packed, Harry brings along his sister instead. And maybe the cute bartender on the ship might just be the person Harry needs to help him put back together all of his broken pieces.

I have so much to say about this one! I had the absolute honor of beta’ing this 35k work (which im pretty sure i just cheerlead you bc nicole you know grammar isn’t my strong suit...lmfao) and honestly it has become a fic that i love so much! nicole is such a talented writer; everything she writes just brings out so much emotion from her audience, and she has such a great sense of characterization! if you liked this one, check out its sequel, Now I’m Moving Up because it’s great too!!!!

J U L Y : :

Whisk me off my feet by allwaswell16 (@allwaswell16)

When Louis locks himself out of his apartment in just a pair of novelty underwear, he hopes his new neighbor can come to his rescue.

Haha! This one was so cute! What a darling fic! (5k)

The Charles Compass Trilogy by SadaVeniren (@sadaveniren)

Louis Tomlinson is a successful writer who rents a beach house on the Cape to try and finish the final book in his successful Charles Compass trilogy.

So I’m convinced that any rec list I make will not be complete if Sada isn’t on it. Here’s the thing - I fell in love with this story before she was revealed as the author, and honestly I had no clue. She’s got this amazing way of being able to change her style to fit the kind of story she’s trying to tell. This is such a good look at the writing process, highly recommend! (9k)

From The Heart series by jacaranda_bloom (@jacaranda-bloom)

Every Tuesday, Louis spends his day off holed up in his favorite coffee-come-bookshop, writing his little stories as part of the WordPlay challenge while daydreaming about the resident barista, Harry. Each week a new word prompt is revealed and Louis adds to his series of short stories about Henry, the owner of a B&B in the Cotswolds who has curly hair and dimples, Lewis, his long term guest who just happens to be a writer, and Tigger, Henry’s cat.

As Louis and Harry’s friendship develops, could his fantasy world spill out into real life? And how does that reader who leaves the lovely comments with the teacup emoji seem to be able to read Louis’ mind?

Okay, Dee really killed the game this time. Because I was OBSESSED. I mean honestly checking my phone at work to see what the newest installment was. This series is so fulfilling and so so hot to think about as an author! (25k)

blue eyes, black jeans, lighters, candy by delsicle (@emperorstyles)

Harry is in Madrid and Louis had a hard week.

So, the whole dom on tour series is really good, but this is my favorite work of the two. I love basically anything Delaney writes but this was extremely hot! (4k)

Could you love me anyway by SadaVeniren (@sadaveniren)

Dear Mistress Lorin: I’ve been reading your blog for a couple weeks now and was hoping you’d give me some advice for something that happened with me and my boyfriend. I’m really worried that I hurt him.

aka Harry and Louis begin playing ping pong during the X-Factor Tour. It quickly gets out of hand.

Okay. If you know me at all, you know that the way to my heart is either spanking, kink negotiation, or both. This just delivers on it all, and it catches on some main parts of BDSM-for-newbies and kink-gone-wrong that people often pretend never happens. I could gush so much about this, but go ahead and just read it yourself because it’s too good to miss!! (13k)

you are half of me (and I am all for you) by angelichl (@angelichl)

One Direction, an obscure indie rock band, is about to embark on their first cross-country tour, living out of Louis' beloved van named Patricia.

Harry is in love, and Louis is oblivious. Or is he?

Featuring skinny-dipping in Texas waterfalls, getting lost in the desert, stargazing under the New Mexico sky, performing in front of crowds that grow in size each night, and falling in love on the road during the greatest summer of their lives.

Okay WOW. I have so much to say about this one!!! So first off, the biggest thank you to adri for writing this fic for me for HL Summer Exchange!!! Honestly I feel like you spied through all my hopes and dreams and loves (including parenthesis in fic titles??? love it) and squished it all into this fic. it’s just the best fic, and it feels like warm summer air and tracing constellations in the stars and falling in love. if you haven’t read this already, please do!!!! It was so good I teared up when I first read it! (25k)

Heading for Limbo by kingsofeverything (fullonlarrie) (@kingsofeverything)

Childhood best friends who’ve fallen in and out of touch with each other since Louis’ family moved away when they were thirteen, Harry and Louis find their paths crossing again and again. Each time, no matter how many miles apart or how many years it’s been, it’s as if no time has passed. They fall back into their easy friendship, until life intervenes and sends them on their separate ways once more.

When Harry discovers some life-changing things about himself, Louis is there for him, however he needs. But it’s all temporary because Louis has plans that will move his life from New York all the way to L.A. and the distance isn’t the only thing between them.

The pieces of their twice broken hearts are scattered from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Okay. Okay. This fic literally is one I will remember for the rest of my life, and i’m not even being dramatic about it! So, I really do enjoy leaving authors detailed comments about their fics, but that just wasn’t enough... I really had to message Lauren this whole essay about how Heading for Limbo helped me deal with a lot of emotions I was feeling in my own personal life, and it helped me fully realize that i’m bisexual. (did i just come out?? yikes) it was nice to see a fic where things weren’t perfect over a long stretch of time. It was amazing to see Harry realize his sexuality later in life, because that was one of my main struggles. this fic is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. Literally, Lauren, thanks for changing my whole life!!! (101k)

Tell Me This Is Paradise by QuickedWeen (@becomeawendybird)

Harry Styles has been lucky in love but unlucky in the bedroom with all of her previous boyfriends. When her best friend Niall finds out that she's never had an orgasm, she knows just what Harry needs: Louis Tomlinson. Niall sets Harry up to get sorted out.

Okay, if you’re new around here, this fic was also on one of my previous rec lists, but then Molly had to ruin my life and write another chapter of it. Jesus Christ!!!! I literally could read this fic every single day and die happily. It’s so hot, and the characterization is so good. So, I guess this rec is specifically for chaper 2, but you’ve gotta read chapter 1 also! For the betterment of your life, of course. (9k)

Abstract by Star55 (@star55)

After Zayn draws a naked Harry for her art class, she finds that she can't stop drawing Harry and Louis' naked bodies, usually engaged in some form of sexual activity.

Literally - this was hot as balls. Loved it! (8k)

alright guys, that’s it! if you read all the way to the bottom, you deserve a sticker. i hope you guys enjoy some of my favorite fics i’ve read! don’t forget to go bookmark, comment, and give kudos! and just remember: we are all human. if you read a work, and loved it, and didn’t comment, it’s never too late! give your author some loooooooove. my life has been super busy and i really haven’t been in the place to leave the thought-out comments i like to, so most of these authors can expect comments from me soon. thank you to all the authors listed above, have a nice day everyone! also, feel free to send your favorite fics into my ask - maybe they’ll end up on my next list!!!

[magdalyna]

so im plotting out the next bit of “Flasbang” [which is what ive decided to call the dialectic between the concepts of a time-travelling Maul -- played for humor in ‘Ripples’ and more straight edged in ‘More Like a Flashbang Than a River Stone’ but both Mauls are ready and willing to pan to the 4th wall like in ‘The Office’ and directly @ the Force for whatever situation they feel warrants it.]

and this is the part where Obi Wan is still restrained but Before Maul starts in on his Team Kill Sideous spiel bc Maul would like to get away/travel enough distance where he can find a Force vergence that can mask breaking Kenobi’s training bond with his master and Maul can further disentangle the web of coercion Sideous has left in his head in relative peace. Both things require a subdued Kenobi, not one lit with the zeal of the newly converted and self-righteous. Such ... passion would undoubtedly draw the master to his dear Nemesis like a moth to the flame.             

Jango doesnt care about Maul’s Force mumbo jumbo rationale but he does acknowledge the wisdom of a tactical retreat. A tranq’d Jedi padawan is an easily transported Jedi padawan, as far as he’s concerned.

The problem with this plan, Maul finds, is his relying on the resource streams he frequented in his youth, as per Sideous’ dictates: black market networks where a Force suppressant is not liable to raise any eyebrows or other species-appropriate signals of surprise or interest. One can never be sure of the contents of ones’ purchases, if they’ve been somehow adulterated with some scummy admixture.

and then wacky shenanigans ensue where idk, basically Obi Wan’s Jedi version of the Avatar state shows up after Maul manages to Force wrangle the substance Obi Wan was allergic to on a speedrun of the metabolic process.

[sidebar conversation before Things Get Weird

Jango: you were stalking the twink. how did you know what he was allergic to if you werent stalking the twink

Maul(remembering Afterlife Pay-Per-View of bb Padawan Obi having a reaction to Hoi broth and almost causing a Diplomatic Incident): I can see how you would reach that conclusion]

As I see it, this is Obi Wan’s Force sense-as-superego kinda, which is distinct from The Force writ large as the ground matrix of the universe. this involves glowing blue eyes and a creepy echo-y reverb voice that totes does not remind Maul about some of the Sith spirits that Sideous used to conjure up for kicks.

turns out that Obi is a ~~~favorite of The Force bc he innately is The Heart, maintains his compassion, his kindness in his Worst Timeline etc which made the Jedi nervous bc having a boundless capacity to love/care about others just means more chances for Attachment(im going with GL’s hot take where A = boiling down to greed) which Avatar State is cranky about since Obi Wan’s whole deal is the opposite of greed or jealousy.

Jango needs a minute to sit with the Jedi as a group getting in the way of this softboi twink  Obi Wan being a good(better version of himself) person. spoiler: he wont get it and his day is just gonna get longer.

Maul is trying to be polite but he has a nerd boner over this which he’ll discover when he stops mentally freaking out. that also isnt gonna be any time soon either.

Avatar State isnt done bc guess what the Jedi were specifically worried about Obi Wan since as far back as he can remember, hes been having Dreams/Visions about two individuals who are going to be important parts of his life, above all others. Obi’s managed to keep it zipped on exactly who but the Jedi know theyre out there and have been making Obi doubt himself about it.

Maul at this point is bluescreening and Jango is probably regretting all his life choices once the Avatar State shakes off the restraints and gets up in their collective grille to gossip about Maul’s OG timeline and boys with them.

anyway, i was just trying to write about Obi Wan being tied up I did not invite Obi’s Subconscious Who Really Likes Sleepover Games to the party but here we are.

[meggannn]

im a fuckin mess rn thinking abt how much i love FMA and ME at the same time, my love for both these stories could move mountains, and i remembered when i first played me3 last year, i realized that i thought ME is the second-best story i’ve seen that explores humanity for... what it is, and what it’s worth, with fma being the best. i’ve been meaning to revisit that idea for a while, because i was so busy playing in the moment i didn’t really think abt why. so anyway here’s some dumb meta. mild spoilers for ME and FMA

(this isn’t a post meant to make the argument that FMA is better, though imo since FMA is like... quite likely the closest a human being has ever come to making a perfect story, that might color some of my meta here.)

i ran into this quote the other day that really sums up my ideas abt what i think both stories are about: "If you are writing any book about the end of the world, what you are really writing about is what’s worth saving about it." — Justin Cronin

both stories involve a protagonist serving in the military. both stories involve humanity doing terrible things to itself, either to survive or in the nature of supposed “evolutionary progress.” both stories involve very tough discussions on morality and the value of human life (or in ME’s case, sentient life at all). both stories use the theme of body horror, and “swallowing” people (souls or genetic matter) to create “the next stage” of humanity under the guise of “the betterment of the world/universe.” both stress the emphasis on personal relationships being one of the strongest reason why life is worth living.

(i feel like i’ve blabbed a lot about how shepard/garrus themes remind me of mustang/hawkeye too, which may be one of the reasons i’m so attracted to it, but that’s a post for another day)

ultimately what i like abt these stories is that they line up all of the reasons why humanity can be terrible and inhumane and selfish, it lines up the very worst that we do to each other, and yet for every reason why, they give edward and shepard reasons to find double that many reasons to fight to preserve it. there is no question that for all their valid criticisms against humanity, the reapers and father must be stopped.

for example, the reapers harvest genetic matter in every cycle in order to continue their function. it’s a matter of continuation for them; every cycle is a fight for their survival as well. but there’s absolutely no question that they are in the wrong.  if peace were an option, it should be taken, but it isn’tt. the reapers don’t know the meaning of peace, however much they think they were built for it. and maybe that’s why the ME3 ending irritates and also fascinates me. the catalyst shows up and makes one last-ditch attempt at convincing shepard that synthesis is the correct path forward for all sentient life in the galaxy, because the reapers are scared of dying, too. they don’t want to be destroyed. they want to convince shepard that destroying them is against her better interest. for me, the answer is still obvious: i chose destroy because i believe any species whose very nature requires active endangerment and widespread destruction of other life forms is not a species worth saving. (maybe on earth, nature conservatists will say that says something about my bad politics, but for the sake of fictional species in scifi, that’s my stance.)

and we... kind of have a similar thing in FMA, but on a different kind of level, with the homunculi. at the end father is revealed to be a relatively simple thing that is absolutely terrified of confinement, of losing the individuality it has gained with its human origins (that it enjoys rejecting). it was extracted from the gate of truth and given the material properties of a human, including all of human’s flaws, and very human desires: knowledge, power, wealth, with the means to achieve them and absolutely no ethical code. i think what i like about father as a villain is that... he was born from humanity just as much as from the essence within the gate. he is everything that’s wrong with us spruced up with the power of a god. and he is defeated by the best of us who come together to say “humanity can and must be better than you” and decide that they’re going to make it that way.

obviously with ME it’s less of an emphasis on humanity and more of a “our differences make us stronger” story. substitute in humans for aliens and humanity for sentient life and the sentiment is much the same. one thing that actually irritated me when i first played ME was the fact that there was so little difference between humanity and most alien species. the asari and turians and salarians etc are not particularly stronger or smarter or more advanced, however they sometimes acted like it. they could be just as petty and arrogant and violent. then i realized that’s kind of the point of the story (not to mention what drives the necessity for a protagonist in story-world): what if we make it to the final frontier and... everyone else out there is just like us? within the sake of the story, it means that no one else is going to solve our problems, and when the reaper threat comes, we can’t count on someone else to save the day. we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves and do it ourselves.

father consumes human souls to create philosopher’s stones for energy he uses to keep consuming souls. reapers convert humans into husks and break down their genetic material to create more reapers. both of them see themselves as the apex of life, the top of the food chain.

there’s this great set of lines from van hohenheim to father in the climax of the show: “you insist on treating humans like a lower life form. but don’t you see? only through them can a philosopher’s stone be created. and only through a stone can a homunculus arise. but what does a homunculus produce? what do you create? creation is all, and you’ve done nothing but destroy. you may think you’ve reached a perfect state of being, but all you are is a dead end.”

like, what kind of an awesome fucking message. a huge insult, but he’s right. what’s the point of a species that doesn’t give back? what did the homunculi ever offer to the world that humans weren’t already? and what did the reapers give back to the universe? they took and processed and recycled people but they never changed the status quo; the universe literally remained static. life had no chance to grow beyond fifty thousand years. the reapers’ programming assumed that self-destruction was an inherent trait in organic life. they considered themselves the betterment of all life for accepting this inevitability and for destroying civilizations before it became a reality. and it’s possible they were right, that it is an inherent trait and our biggest weakness, but without the chance to evolve beyond it, like, how are we ever gonna know for sure? the reapers’ are the pessimist’s solution to solving modern civilization! and shepard is the stubborn optimist’s response to the reapers! i love that.

and also, about the military aspect... god this post is so disorganized... so i’ve been thinking about how both stories tackle the fact that, by necessity their protagonists are part of the military. (i’ve been meaning to write some meta about how bioware specifically uses the military in ME/DA as, like, a prop? but i always forget.) first off, i actually love that shepard is a soldier. for me, it gives me something to latch onto about the character, and it tells me a bit about who they are. thanks largely in part to the writing and hale’s fantastic voice acting since i always play femshep anyway. but in a larger sense I just... i love how FMA talked about the military while simultaneously being wrapped up in it. it was a story about that openly discussed imperialism, genocide, warmongering, and the dangers of military states. in ME, there was none of that, because i guess nobody wants to see real life politics in a video game, people would throw fits. so they don’t want to hear criticism of the rl military within a game that features a badass commanding officer like shepard, who has devoted their life to the alliance.

again, for me... this is not a bad thing for shepard’s character. i like it. it makes sense that shepard is a marine first. we need a war hero who cannot hesitate when making tough calls. but i have to admire that FMA went further. edward is in a position to see the military’s faults more clearly; shepard is a top agent who often has to find the best possible solution to a problem with her hands tied behind her back. edward is part of an organization with a centuries-long history of abuse that he finds himself unable to defend or stand buy the more he learns about it; shepard is built by the military, rebuilt by a paramilitary terrorist group, and then used by both and forced to fight for others with no promise of help in return. god where was i going with this. anyway i like FMA just that bit more because i feel like wherever ME was going... FMA hit the high score, then kept going and going until it doubled that high score. and maybe also at FMA’s heart is a glimpse at the ME3 ending that could’ve been. i don’t know.

anyway what is the point of this post. the new point of this post is that i just remembered greed didn’t deserve to die and im gonna fucking call arakawa about it right this second

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/im-playing-now-table-top-racing-animal-boxing-far-cry-4-still/

What I'm Playing Now: Table Top Racing, Animal Boxing and Far Cry 4 still

This week, I hit the tracks with Table Top Racing: World Tour on the PS4, got the hell out of Kyrat by finishing Far Cry 4 (spoiler warning), and wrapped my hands to strike with Animal Boxing on the DS. Let’s take a look at what I’m playing now! Table Top Racing: World Tour I don’t play very many racing games (Mario Kart and Modnation Racers being the recent exceptions), but for whatever reason, I had the urge to do so this week. I thought about placing an order for Mario Kart on the Wii U, until I saw Table Top Racing sitting in my digital PS4 collection (it was free with PS Plus some time ago). Given that it was already on the console and that there would likely be enough players to find online matches (because the game was free for a while), I dove into Table op Racing, starting first with the cup missions. Once I found my bearings and remembered how to properly control an in-game car (Far Cry 4’s over-simplified one-stick control scheme was still messing me up), I quickly found that Table Top Racing is an awesome and imaginative title. Admittedly, there isn’t really much room for racing games to further revolutionize their content; whatever innovations and improvements barbecue, the fact remains that vehicles or persons of some kind will need to try and reach a specific point faster than their opponents. With this considered, logic indicates that racing-game developers would simply focus their creative efforts on improving fun. Although I’ve once again not been particularly close to the genre, it doesn’t look like many games do this (instead focusing on features and layered depth). Table Top Racing, however, does. Sure, the controls boasted by the title are solid, and similarly to the way that it doesn’t “drift” too far from traditional mechanics in this sense, the power-ups in the game are also pretty normal. Where Table Top Racing really shines is in its stages, which create an undeniably impressive quality of character and atmosphere. During my relatively limited time with Table Top Racing, I cruised through a fancy barbeque setting, the bedroom of a run-of-the-mill 80s child, a well-stocked sushi restaurant, and an auto factory, amongst others. Each of these stages is littered with cool and eye-catching decorations and items (Simon Says in the bedroom, the waving cat in the sushi restaurant, etc.), and the attention to detail is remarkable. These immersive environments—which make watching the road and other drivers a challenge—are what push Table Top Racing above the competition. Despite playing only a few online matches (partially because everyone else is so damned good), the multiplayer functions of Table Top Racing worked well, for the most part. The fun within the title can be easily found by players, as can its lesson to the industry: you’re not going to break any new ground with a racing game, so you might as well focus solely on making it enjoyable to play. Far Cry 4 I wrote extensively about Far Cry 4 last week, so I’ll try and keep the following final impressions brief. It should be noted that it DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS. I don’t know what Ubisoft was thinking when they created such infuriating story characters, allowed them to trample all over the player (defying logic and reason in the process), and then didn’t bother to include any revenge path. I chose to kill Amita only because I assumed she’d be an issue in the future, and I was hoping to overthrow and execute Sabal with as little trouble as possible (I was nearly certain that Ubisoft was going to include one of these missions at the end). The two went from being fundamentally split on core issues to ordering the main character around and saying the dumbest, most nonsensical dribble in imaginable. This same sensation, in my opinion, was found in the game as whole—especially during the last third (that jail sequence was awful). Sure, with the crazy and deceiving ending, Far Cry 4 was different than many other titles.  But it leaves the player (or this player) feeling so unsatisfied, confused, and frustrated that it’s not worth the shock value Different doesn’t always mean better, especially when the components that need to be switched-up—the missions, healing style, controls, activities, and much more—are the same as always. Animal Boxing When I purchased Animal Boxing for next to nothing from Best Buy’s used game sale a while back, I admittedly didn’t expect much. I was intrigued by a game that seemed crazy and relatively obscure. Its low price of roughly $2 was also appealing. Much to my surprise, Animal Boxing is actually fairly good! The story is predictably weak and not even worth mentioning, but you get to play as a human and compete in the Sweet Science against all kinds of animals. In the bronze cup, I faced the likes of a chicken, chipmunk, lizard, and another couple animals I can’t quite remember. Like its core concept, the gameplay found within AB is unique. I was very skeptical at first, but to play, you turn the DS completely upside down. Then you use the touch screen to select your strikes. Throwing straight punches (simply tap), hooks (slide towards the target from either side), or an uppercut (slide vertically) is very responsive and straightforward. Believe it or not, the tap-based gameplay feels excellent like this. In fact, it’s hard to imagine playing any other way; using the touchpad with the system situated normally would be cramped, given the frequency with which strikes (taps) must be utilized. The top screen also displays some imagery when the system is upside down, and the control pad is used to block punches and dodge left or right. If you’ve ever had the urge to try and outbox a chicken, I wholeheartedly recommend Animal Boxing. It’s not the best game ever, but if you play with an open mind, you’ll find a lot to enjoy—especially for the price. Purchases Because I complain so much about my backlog, I figured  that I’d add a feature to each “What I’m Playing Now” piece that highlights my video game purchases for the week, to demonstrate the essentially indestructible force that I’m forced to tackle whenever I sit down to play a game—something much more powerful than in-game enemies and multiplayer opponents. Mass Effect 3: Special Edition on the Wii U—$6.17 Shipped Because I have a free month of Walmart’s Shipping Pass until the end of August, I went ahead and ordered Mass Effect 3 on the Wii U. I’ve only played the first two games, I don’t use my Wii U enough, and this version received pretty impressive reviews. The free shipping and low price also helped. Motor Storm: Arctic Edge, Socom Tactical Strike, and Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow on the PSP—$9 Shipped (Total) I was on the fence with this purchase because I don’t play the PSP very much anymore, but the free shipping, low prices, and new condition sealed the deal for me. I ended up getting all three of the Sony-developed games for around $9 shipped ($2.81 each and tax). It might be a while before I tackle them, but this price was too good to pass up. Brothers on the Xbox One—$5.30 Shipped I don’t know much about it, but Brothers has always looked appealing. I missed the game a while back during a Microsoft Store sale, but this is roughly the same price it was available for there. Next week, I’ll play through Ether One on the PS4 and some other games which I haven’t quite selected yet. I can’t believe No Man’s Sky is almost here (while I’m excited about the game, the basis of my disbelief is mainly the fact that it’s already August), and I’ll be playing that upon release as well. Enjoy the games!

Movie TV Tech Geeks News

[vidoxi]

just finished mystic messenger and i just wanna write down my thoughts. major spoiler warning + i-might-talk-shit-about-your-fav warning. if you want to discuss with me any of the points i bring up here, go for it.

Jaehee “No Homo” Kang

so when i first heard that her route was just a friendship route i was hella disappointed and thought that sounded like a total bullshit cop out, but after playing it i feel a little differently. i think it makes sense for jaehee’s character and narrative that she would value a friend over a relationship at that point in her life, but also its pretty clearly said that she does have romantic feelings for you but she needs time to process them, which is especially understandable since you can infer that before she met you she thought she was straight and also she’s catholic. her after ending was the perfect time for her to confess or for there to be the implication that you two are in a relationship, but instead it’s the only after ending where we DONT get to see interaction between you and your partner, which is a bullshit cop out. i do like that in the christmas DLC things got a little more romantic but i’m still wanting more. jaehee and the fans deserve what the male characters get, a CG of a kiss on the lips and a confession of romantic love. i hope that if more DLC gets released, cheritz will push the envelope a little a lot more. but i have heard that korea is still really conservative and for all i know making it more explicit could be illegal so i might be being unnecessarily harsh there lol;;

about her actual route though... it was good. nothing really exciting happened. it was definitely the chillest route i thought, but it was really sweet and she’s absolutely adorable and it warmed me to her a lot. her bad ending 1 (the one where you end up with zen) is so depressing, fucking hell. it feels like you betray her. it’s so ugly. ;_; i never want to do that ending and i’m glad there isnt a unique CG to tempt me into it either. her bad ending 2 (where you push her to work so hard that she ends up in the hospital) is pretty terrible too. after ending was hella cute though, i love the thought of mc and jaehee having their little coffee shop together and jaehee getting to actually work on something she’s interested in and being with her “best friend” all the time. oh and yoosung becoming jumin’s new assistant was interesting and i need me some fics, u feel?

something i also feel a little robbed about is that jaehee never blew up at jumin. she drags yoosung like theres no tomorrow and you just know she could say some venomous shit about jumin so i was hoping there’d be a big confrontation between them where she gets a dramatic The Reason You Suck-type speech but there wasnt really a moment like that.

however, seeing jumin all bitter about it at the end was a little gratifying (sorry jumin)

i love their emojis and you cant stop me from using them

also on this route where 707 has yoosung hunting for the LOLOL expansion pack (how is this boy so naive? im worried) and he finds a buried picture of rika’s dog sally instead, i at first thought that he had dug up sally’s corpse and i was like “wtf the fuck seven”

also wtf @ v saying he has terminal cancer. this is presumably a lie, right? before reading the secret endings i thought he was going to commit suicide but now im thinking that (seriously if you havent played the whole game you need to stop reading this rn) maybe he knew that rika was going to dispose of him soon and he didnt want jumin to investigate his disappearance? iirc yoosung’s good ending is the only one that he’s present in, so is it meant to be assumed that he’s killed off camera in every route possibly?

everyone else under the cut

Zen

the worst tbh. i dont like saying it but there it is. possibly this depends on who you are as a person but to me it didnt really feel like MC and zen had much chemistry except during that scene where youre on his roof together. most of your interactions are just you praising him and fellating his already huge ego. and jaehee was exceptionally annoying with all her “muh zens reputation” shit and feeling like i was taking zen from her was really awkward and unpleasant because it does seem like she has repressed feelings for him. fuck and the whole story with echo girl was super predictable and generic and feels like something i’ve seen 100 times before and probably have. my overall feeling about this route can be summed up by this emoji.

i feel like it could have been improved by either removing the echo girl stuff or at least putting an interesting spin on it. i think they should have made zens’ childhood abuse and family problems and maybe his past as a gang member as well an actual conflict instead of it just being a thing of happenstance. it’s an interesting backstory that as far as i can recall didnt end up having an impact on the current day situation. it would have been interesting if he had some sort of emotional issue you had to help him through like jumin, like secret crippling insecurities due to his family telling him for years that he’s ugly and inadequate, and thats why he tries so hard to be perfect so that people will give him the love his parents didnt. also his elementary school teacher was implied to be a pedophile(??? i dont remember what was actually said in the conversation i just remember the pedo-vibes) so they could have made him a CSA survivor but maybe thats too dark even for mysme lol.

also his bad ending 1 confuses me. the first time i saw it it felt really rapey but rewatching it now, MC does seem to consent but its after being cold and refuting his advances so it seems really weird. MC seemed genuinely disinterested, but i guess she was just playing games, testing him to see what he’d do? since theyre in a relationship a year later. and his bad ending 3 (the one where youre both kidnapped by saeran) is pretty bizarre lol.

so yeah this is the weakest route imo. maybe its different for people who are zen fangirls but i personally felt like i was being super fake the whole route, which was especially jarring coming off of yoosung’s route where the dialogue choices felt very organic to me. also his responses to mean things arent even interesting lol so thats frustrating too. and this route felt weirdly short. all the others felt like 11 days but this one felt more like 5? and when i missed chats on this route i just let it go most of the time instead of spending hourglasses. i wasnt feeling it, mr krabs. by far the best part of his route for me was the relationship development between zen and jumin.

now that ive spent 4 paragraphs just complaining you probably think that i dont like zen but actually i think he’s is a fantastic supporting character and i do like him a lot. that picture of him sneezing was my phone wallpaper for quite a while lol.

Jumin

me at the beginning: i fucking hate jumin han. fuck him. fuck his cat. i hate this type of asshole love interest.

me after zens route: i guess he has some hidden depths... i’m curious...

me after jumins route: *loves jumin han so much i cant breathe*

this guy... this cat man...... where to start? i’ve had a while to think about this route and i’m still not totally sure how i feel. “i feel complicated” is a term i’m going to start using because its just too handy for situations like this.

i guess i dont like that to get the good end you had to be passive and compliant and act like you were walking on eggshells. your relationship with him is undeniably a little scary and abusive. i think jumin needs more in his life than just you. but mysme is an otome game so of course youre the one that “fixes” him but thinking about it more realistically its worrying and jumin should be in therapy cuz the dude undeniably has some issues.

winning his heart by being understanding and with gradual, slow-growing trust was pretty touching. something i really appreciate was him opening up and his true self actually being hard to accept sometimes, instead of whats expected which is “oh youre secretly a perfect, beautiful soul”.

i do really wish they would have opened him up further though. there isnt ever a point where he completely loses control of his emotions. not to be gross but i’d do anything to see him crying, honestly.

i hope people are joking when they say that his bad end (you know the one i mean) is a good end. just because its hot doesnt mean that its good lol. its actually really tragic and shows the deterioration of his mental state and how he’s just accepted that he’s a fucked up/defective person.

“I was worried that the loneliness inside me would pile up and explode some day.” FUCK. dont do this to me jumin. ;_; this line is heart breaking.

something thats kind of interesting and worth noting maybe is that even though the other rfa members arent privy to the VNMs and you can give them little indication that he’s acting so worryingly theyre all still alarmed and concerned and thinks that jumin is going to hold you hostage/abuse you, which makes me wonder if youre meant to infer from that that theyve noticed red flags in his personality that he’s potentially kinda crazy.

and man, zen is always complaining about how jumin seems to have no emotions, but jumin finally opens up about his feelings and zen calls you laughing hysterically about how pathetic he is for being emotional. i was kinda hurt on jumin’s behalf during that call lol. he is so supportive to zen on zen’s route. just... shut the fuck up you albino freak. dont make me whip out yoosung’s “hyung, what’s wrong with you?” emoji. i wont hesitate, bitch.

there. you asked for it. feel those judging purple oblongs pierce your soul.

man, just reading the dialogue options that treat him like a psycho make me cringe. usually i’m tempted by mean dialogue options but not this time. i want to protect jumin han. ;_; i want to untangle his threads. i dont want him to feel like a mutant ever again. i want to love and accept him. i am now the president of the jumin han protection squad. jumin han did nothing wrong. shameless jumin apologist. that’s me. no but seriously he did a lot wrong and is pretty morally grey but thats one of the reasons that i love him. if you love jumin for pure reasons (that arent just “daddy~”) then youre automatically my friend and i love and appreciate you.

just to love on him for a minute: he is so damn funny, for real. he’s such a sass master, its great. him being terrible with technology is funny. his social awkwardness is funny. his shitty jokes are funny because theyre not funny. he should be the poster child for gap moe cuz goddamn. he’s such a ham. an absolute goofball dressed as a billionaire CEO, and i dont think he even knows it.

also every time elizabeth meows i fucking lol. its literally just a woman saying “meow”. every time jumin says “elizabeth is just a cat, she’s not human” i’m like “ARE YOU SURE?”

Yoosung

this is the first route i got and i assumed that i had already peaked at the beginning and no one was ever going to top yoosung for me, and that assumption was correct. i love this boy. do you hear me? i love him. “perfect” has seven letters in it. “yoosung” has seven letters in it. coincidence? i dont think so. i have feeeeeeelings over this character. he is so darling. i just adore him. i’ve opened the app many times just to look at his album. his voice is like a choir of angels. i have so many screenshots of conversations with him on my phone. he is so selfless and caring and adorable and kinky and pure and i want him to be real so i can marry him irl.

i’m not even sure how to give a critique on his route because i feel so emotionally close to the situation lol. i was very, very invested. ah. gosh. this boy. his good ending is absolutely beautiful. you know youre playing a weird otome game when the good ending has your boyfriend tortured and disfigured. he really earned his happy ending, not quite as much as seven but its up there.

i really love how for better or worse, this boy is like putty in your hands to be molded and what you say to him effects him so deeply in a way that doesnt quite get as extreme as with the other characters. obviously your words majorly influence the other characters but i feel never to the extent where theyre hanging on to every little thing youre saying like yoosung does. which makes sense because he’s young and impressionable and doesnt know what to do with himself and he says he wants to be controlled lol.

MAN, speaking of that, i love his bad ending 3 so much. it’s so twisted that he’s technically getting what he wants in a lot of ways. he’s a masochist that loves the idea of being kept as a pet and controlled, and he gets all that and more with saeran. that ending is so fucking hot, slkdfljsf. i might write a fic. i have a couple ideas.

oh shit, using that seven gif just reminded me. there’s a chat thats on the first few days of common route that ive always participated in before, but when you dont participate in it and yoosung has time to ramble, it gets really kinky. he says “i wonder what it would feel like to be locked up? just a bit.... curious lolol” which i think is what he says when youre in the chat too BUT THEN HE STARTS GETTING OFF ON THE IDEA OF SEVEN BEING LOCKED UP TOO. “Imagine the super smart Seven all flustered. and not knowing what to do.” AND I’M JUST LIKE BOIIII;;; HOW YOU GONNA JUST TALK ABOUT THAT IN FRONT OF ZEN AND JAEHEE LIKE ITS NOTHING? if he would take the obvious hints that seven hits on him he’d probably be willing to roleplay that scenario. 707 strikes me as a fetish friendly person lolol.

ummm... well, to get back back on track, ahem.... him confusing you with rika was creepy and interesting and they didnt take it far enough. even on the yandere bad ending he’s still fully aware that you arent rika. it seemed like it was building towards him having some kind of psychosis where if you feed into his desire for you to be rika he’ll really think youre rika but that doesnt happen so theres no real pay off, and he doesnt have time to do anything yandere-y to you before the bomb goes off so i found that ending to be pretty disappointing and unsatisfying. it felt like someone waving a delicious cake in front of my face but only giving me a crumb of it in the end, do you know what i mean? aaa. maybe i can find a fic that runs with the ideas set up here. when youre desperate, turn to fanfiction lol.

speaking of disappointments, i’m not over the last line of his good ending being “youre not rika, are you?” like... at this point we’re past this arent we omg stoppp. this line is a blight on my happiness. fuck rika and fuck whoever thought that was a good last line.

i noticed that yoosung is the only rfa member including v and rika that doesnt have childhood trauma. his trauma all happened recently. i think that lends to him being the most fragile and child-like character. the other rfa members are so strong because their pasts molded them that way, but yoosung has no such constitution and rika’s death is undoubtedly the worst thing thats ever happened to him.

something thats been on my mind concerning bad ending 3: does rika know that saeran is torturing yoosung? saeran must know that yoosung is his savior’s cousin because he’s hacked the chat and presumably has read messages where yoosung mentions being her cousin, correct? therefor wouldnt that make him hesitant to harm him? i think rika must have consented to yoosung being tortured then. maybe his ultimate fate at the end of bad end 3 is that he’ll be brainwashed and become part of mint eye.

man he’s such a bad judge of character lol. he hero worships rika, loves echo girl, thinks that jumin isnt potentially dangerous, and even you can fall into this category if you choose to play it that way. the one person he really dislikes is v, and v has nothing but the rfa’s best interests at heart lol.

something i love about him is how quick he is to call everyone out on their shit. like, his finger is always on the “whats wrong with you? :>” emoji, just waiting for someone to say something he doesnt approve of lolol. he’s so empathetic and naive but he still has such a strong sense of right and wrong and isnt afraid of standing up to his older friends and i think thats great.

ahh. this boy. he might be ranked #2 on LOLOL but he’s ranked #1 in my heart.

707

before playing his route i thought seven was an obnoxious tryhard and that jumin was way funnier, and after playing his route i still think that he’s an obnoxious tryhard and that jumin is way funnier.

HOWEVER.

however. i can definitely see why he’s the most popular character. that hot and cold drama, i-cant-be-with-you-because-it’d-put-you-in-danger, dark childhood backstory, sad clown type shit is a recipe for a lot of fans to be in love with you. he personally doesnt make my kokoro go doki doki like i kind of expected because of the fan response but i do really like him as a character.

he’s similar to zen in the beginning in that you have to constantly stroke his ego and i was like uuuuggghhghghghghg nooooo. “god seven” kill me lol. at least that only lasts for the first few days though.

i liked his bad end 2 where youre really sexually forward with him and he keeps snubbing you until you just snap and push him down lol. (“why arent you pushing me away?” “...i dont know. the floor is comfy.”) seeing him finally just give in and be hedonistic and decide to run away with you was nice. god i want fanfics based on like every bad end, theyre just so interesting

the chat where he tells yoosung that their friendship doesnt matter was paaaainful. also that part on day 10 when youre leaving mint eye and he says horrible shit to v. what was it, “if this is what youre really like i can see why rika blinded you”? like... goddamn, dude. i would never want seven mad at me lol.

one of the moments on this route that got me the most was in the flashback when saeran is being brainwashed and is speaking of or thinking about seven and says something like “please come back. we dont even have to be happy. just as long as we’re together i can endure anything” and then he’s crying about how he misses him and.... augh... *clutches at chest like the heart attack guy meme* i want to give saeran 52 hugs and a box of cupcakes and a puppy. i want to adopt him even though he’s older than me and be his mom. saeran.... saeran...... ;_;

THE ZEN AND YOOSUNG DRUNK PHONE CALL AT THE END OF DAY 10 IS THE BEST FUCKING PHONE CALL IN THE GAME. i called yoosung again after they hang up and he answers and its so great too. i need fanfiction R I G H T N O W about that night. nsfw or sfw, i just need more drunk yoosung antics and zen trying to handle him. oh and if you also call seven at this time he picks up and its really sweet and i think it should have been an incoming call so more people would hear it. the fact that the first time he tells you he loves you is in an optional phone call kinda sucks.

oh fuck his fucking after ending. at first where mc and saeyoung are in bed and talking about going to rescue saeran i was like “GDI CHERTIZ” thinking they were going to leave it open ended, and then in the chat where saeran joins in i fucking s c re a med i was so happy and relieved omfg. seeing the rfa being so inclusive and nice to him warmed my fucking heart. and when they asked him if he has the same taste as saeyoung and he says “ive never been interested in women” and zen is like “oh? where is jumin lololol” i fucking died. i can see now why ive been seeing yoosung/saeran shipping stuff and its romantic and not the abusive stuff based off of yoosung’s bad end 3 like i was expecting. but of course it turns out to be a fucking dream and ruins everything. the second that creepy music box music started playing i was like “fuck you cheritz”.

707′s voice actor in the free talk part is great. saying all these cheesy romantic lines makes him want to “rub sandpaper all over my skin” lmao. and he hopes that it becomes a series with new titles like “Strange Messenger and Thankful Messenger”? fuck yes mate, fuck yes.

does seven not actually open a toy store? :c i kind of want this to be an actual thing. its a good fit for him. maybe the fact that he dreamt about it means that it’s something he’d been thinking about.

oh and BI THE WAY, SEVEN IS BISEXUAL. this makes me so happy. bi visibility is so important to me and the fact that he’s the face of the game, the fan favorite, the canon route, etc, is so delicious. thank you cheritz.

on the subject of the secret endings.... man. i knew it was going to be crazy but i still wasnt prepared. these were a trip and a half and genuinely had me feeling shook up emotionally. if there’s ever a time in my life when i’m too happy i’ll just think about v. definitely the most tragic character in the story. he’s not an angel and he’s pretty much culpable for his own suffering but he did not deserve that.

something of note is that jumin was in love with rika but after learning what she did to v, he has such a grudge against her that he wants her arrested even when she’s completely lost her mind and he even thinks about chasing her down to alaska. he loves v so, so much, augh. it hurts. i’m in pain.

it’s pretty fucked up that jumin (and yoosung and zen and the rest of the world) are still being lied to about v’s “suicide”. jumin spent a lot of money and went to a lot of trouble to get help for saeran, who is his best friend’s murderer and he just doesnt know it.

the fact that yoosung in particular never knows the truth about the cult and drugs and brainwashing and everything is a good thing though. just seeing his hero come back from the dead and be reduced to someone so mentally ill that she cant communicate and needs 24/7 care would be extremely distressing and i imagine would worsen his depression. knowing the truth would be too much i think.

i think this game fucked up v and rika’s VA’s too because both of their free talks quickly derail into too-serious territory. v is like “i once hurt my wife so badly and the guilt was unbearable” and rika is like “im going to die some day and i have no idea when...” and im sitting there like “i need a fucking hug, oh my god”

it’s amazing how quickly the secret endings shot saeran up to being one of my favorite characters. he’s so good. ;_;

okay but what was mint eye’s plan? i know they wanted to end the world’s suffering but like, how exactly? through brainwashing + drugs? rika could clearly see that saeran was miserable though, couldnt she? also some of the things saeran said made me feel like they were going to do some sort of ritual group suicide or something. maybe thats how everyone is going to be happy. and the doctor says that saeran was on peyote, shrooms, AND meth? god damn, what a cocktail lmao rika doesnt fuck around.

i love rika. she’s thoroughly disturbing and a sickening person and i can see why she’s so hated now in the fandom but even she is deserving of sympathy (abused adopted child with severe mental illness) and also has good qualities (high emotional and social intelligence, genuinely sweet, and extremely empathetic). one of my favorite villains from anything in recent memory. she’s terrifying and i absolutely love her.

we never learn her real name, which i thought was intriguing. i get the feeling that she’s meant to be mysterious and unknowable, even with all her power stripped from her as it is at the end.

im so happy that the game ended on a hopeful note, with saeran seeming like he's starting to recover and he's either grown out his hair or dyed it back. he still has literal mint eyes though, which makes me wonder if theyre not contacts like i was thinking and are actually some permanent body mod he had done. he got a tattoo of the mint eye logo, so i wouldnt be surprised if that was the case.

stray thoughts (this part is super disjointed and im just saying things as i think of them)

with the exception of 707 (if you count the secret endings as being part of his route), sometimes i get the feeling of these characters being like big fish in a small pond. mysme is already head and shoulders above what i thought a mobile game could ever be, but that doesnt change that i still feel hungry for something more. i want to see this cast in more situations, under different circumstances. they all feel like fleshed out characters full of potential that are just waiting for something more and bigger to do, like maybe something thats not restricted by being a mobile otome game. but maybe thats one for the fic writers, i dont know. maybe cheritz could work them into another project somehow since mysme got so popular.

i love that the characters have actual flaws. all of them have unattractive qualities that really make them seem human. and all of their relationships with each other are entertaining too. they are all multi-faceted and interesting and i really do adore this cast.

so 707 is the canon route but i hate the thought of any of them being canon because that means the others arent canon. all of them needed you. i want a harem route. give me all of them at the same time.

i feel a spiritual connection with vanderwood. he just constantly looks so done. his gender confused the hell out of me at first. i thought maybe he was a trans woman at first because of the hair and name but then he responds to seven referring to him as a woman with things like “i’m going to taze you”, so i was like “okay, he’s just a dude with a girls name and haircut for some reason” but then seven tripped me up again with the fact that even when the scene is really serious and seven isnt in a joking around mood, he still refers to him with female pronouns. but i guess this could be explained as this is just what seven’s used to. @aouba brought up a really good headcanon that i believe actually is canon because it makes too much sense which is that “mary vanderwood” is just the identity that he’s assuming at the moment, like saeyoung being “707″. its even noted by one of the other RFA members (yoosung?) that the name is weird and sounds fake.

i’m never more thankful to be a pale girl with long brown hair and bangs than when i’m playing this game lol

also i love this game because it feeds into my pathological need to help people without me actually having to do anything lolol

is it just me or do the full portraits of the characters look weird? like when you look at them on the wiki and you can see their legs. i cant tell if it looks bizarre because you just never see their legs in the game or if their legs are drawn weird or both lol.

i love the character designs. 707 in particular is very nicely put together and distinctive. and i love how angelic rika looks. that one taylor swift song thats like “darling i’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream” is totally her theme song.

... okay now that im listening to that song it really does fit rika a lot.

oh and Take Me To Church is def v’s song for rika.

the two guests i was unable to get throughout all the routes is @god and @star. star’s is just so counter-intuitive and god’s seemed like such a crapshoot that with two chances for both i made the same mistake on their first email both times lol.

it surprises me that religion is mentioned so frequently and openly. maybe its not as big of a deal in korea or something? i’m thinking thats the case since two of the VAs mention their religion in their free talk (i forget who but one said they were an atheist and another said they were christian). it just seems like an oddly serious and potentially alienating topic to bring up in a dating sim. also jumin and yoosung are so inconsistent with what they believe. jumin says that he’s christian on one route and then firmly says that there’s no god on another. yoosung says he doesnt believe in god multiple times and that he has no interest in having any religion but he also talks about praying and refers to rika as being “up there” and watching over the rfa. i think zen is actually the only character that doesnt ever say where he aligns.

was anyone else suspecting that rika was the one that blinded the dog, sally? i’m glad that turned out to not be the case.

i love the voice acting so much. i think quality of voice acting is sometimes harder to discern when its not a language you speak, but the quality of the voice acting here shines even to my english-only ears. yoosung’s voice is straight up one of my favorite sounds, 707 has an impressive range and is overall just always entertaining to listen to, i love the way zen’s VA delivers his lines when zen is surprised and his howls lol (which were apparently ad-libbed by his VA), jaehee’s voice sounds so sweet and lovely, and jumin is so very... jumin-y and nice and relaxing to listen to.

zen and the twins were so fucking cute in the flashbacks i want to scream. i know we get to see yoosung as a teenager but im not satisfied and i want to see jumin and jaehee as little children so bad too, augh.

rika and yoosung are the only two characters that get the creepy ass yandere eyes where their eyes get all dull and flat when theyre being crazy.

i never cried but i got pretty close on yoosung’s good end and during the secret endings. i still feel shook from the secret endings lol.

why are there still bad end relationship endings for 707 and zen and jumin that no one has found? its almost february of 2017. its surprising considering the games popularity and how long its been out. is datamining not a thing with mobile games? or does the fandom not have anyone who knows how to datamine, or what?

ships im particularly interested in: jumin/v, jumin/zen, jumin/yoosung, yoosung/seven, yoosung/jaehee, yoosung/zen, yoosung/saeran, seven/saeran because i have no shame, mc/everyone, like literally just every ship tbh because i love every character hnnng

i had no idea that buying the christmas DLC gets you another free talk with the VAs. yoosung’s VA is so cute. “please get your flu shots if you havent already”.

not sure what to do now. i definitely want to replay yoosung. and i want to hunt for all the CGs and phone calls too, but i dont want to spend $20 on the calling cards lol. would buying them even be a better deal than just spending the same money on hourglasses? $26 gets you 1000 hourglasses which is more than you’d ever need, right? it seems like the better deal, unless youre not using a phone call guide for some reason and want to try to just discover them all on your own.

i’m super excited for more DLC. i definitely think there will be more because when you open the DLC folder, the christmas DLC is shoved off to the left, making room for at least one more. also just the nature of it being a DLC folder and not a direct button to the christmas DLC.

... i guess thats all i have to say lol;;; bless cheritz. this game is fantastic and has consumed my life and ruined my sleep for the past almost three months and i had so much fun and i hope they get even more ambitious with their future projects.