#is this how people who are super into resource games feel like?

[lexyeevee]

it's wild to see myhouse having escaped the orbit of Doom People, because so much of it specifically riffs on doom in a way that is laser-targeted at Doom People, to the point that i just wouldn't have expected it to be nearly as interesting if you don't pick up on that stuff

right from the outset, "my house" is even a recognizable genre, because doom was among the first approachable platforms for creating a 3D space, and if you give random people the ability to create a 3D space then many of them will just try to recreate their own house. (i want to say jp lebreton even made an effort to play through every house map on the idgames archive at one point, though hell if i can find it now.) there was in fact already a "myhouse.wad", from 1995!

frankly it's incredible that someone (or someones) put so much effort into this map and then had the gall to simply post it on doomworld as "myhouse.wad", because that is a thread title that guarantees the fewest possible people will bother to look. there are posts in the thread where people outright admit that they only checked because they were surprised how many replies a "my house" wad got.

so anyway, okay, the "classic" doom wad experience is that you download a wad, it contains exactly 1 map, and it has zero custom textures or music or other frills. most wads from the 90s are like this; if you're lucky you might get a bad midi rendition of a metallica song. nowadays there are texture artists and musicians and everything collaborating on full map packs, but "just a map" is still kind of the default mapping experience and is recognizable to anyone who's been around doom for sufficiently long.

and myhouse riffs on absolutely every aspect of this:

• the music is the MAP01 music, Running From Evil, which is just the music you get if you supply your own map in the MAP01 slot and do nothing else. so a ton of 90s maps had this same track as their background music, so everyone has heard it a zillion times. it is ingrained into so many people's skulls. subtly fucking with it is a great way to fuck with the player

• the house uses only stock doom 2 textures, or occasionally light modifications of them. again this is just what you get if you make a map and don't supply any other resources, so the stock textures are very familiar. only later, with sufficient poking around, does the map introduce new textures, which really help sell the impression of being swept away to Somewhere Else

• if you take the exit, you go to MAP02, Underhalls. this is the expected experience because doom wads replace what's already there — you're not really supplying a "new map pack" or anything, you're overwriting a map from the original doom 2 progression. (there are ways to fiddle with this now, but in vanilla doom 2, the level progression was hardcoded.) so the "ending" of a no-frills single-map wad is always, always to transition to Underhalls. the opening shot of Underhalls is practically like seeing the credits. so roping Underhalls into the experience is completely unexpected, because Underhalls is the sign that you've escaped back to regular doom

• the super shotgun is "hidden" in Underhalls, in probably the best-known super shotgun location in the whole game, because it's the first time you can get it

• incidentally Underhalls itself feels uncanny, because the player camera height is higher than usual to make the house's proportions feel sensible. (part of the trouble with exact recreations of real spaces in doom is that the camera is weirdly low.) i was actually convinced that myhouse included a modified Underhalls, but no, it's stock doom 2 Underhalls, it just feels off when you're slightly taller

but wait, there's more

• silent teleporters are a feature from boom, a very early doom derivative that added a number of helpful mapping features and is basically considered only half a step beyond vanilla. so shifting between two versions of a space without interruption isn't completely unexpected. it's only later that the portal use becomes more obvious

• although if you're especially canny, you should notice that the second version of the house shows both the upstairs and downstairs windows in full, which is impossible — doom cannot do room-over-room. (in fact this is accomplished with a semi-obscure zdoom feature called sector portals — essentially, the whole second floor and the space outside it are a separate area, and the "ceiling" of the yard becomes a view up through the "floor" of that second space.)

• swinging doors are a hexen feature (polyobjects) that gzdoom inherited. (heretic and hexen were modifications of the doom engine, and zdoom started out as a merge of all three codebases into something that could play all three games.) they might also be in other fancy engines (eternity?), but they are very distinctly not a doom thing. if you're deeply familiar with doom's limitations then they'll jump out at you immediately, but if you're looking at doom like it's any old 3D game then maybe not so much

• recreations of other humble real-world locales are also a somewhat common theme, and remind me in particular of Doom City, from way back in 1995

• a very common desire for players is to "uv-max" a map, i.e. reach the exit on ultra-violence with 100% kills and secrets. if you can't do this, the map is (reasonably) considered broken. it is comically impossible to do this in myhouse, and anyone with the skill to create the map would be acutely aware of this

• the extra weapon frames look to be borrowed from the well-known smooth doom, which adds extra frames for everything and is just pretty dang slick overall. so it's not merely "ho ho, got you, smoother weapons" but specific integration of another familiar project

• this might be reaching a bit, but mirrors are specifically a nightmare in zdoom's software renderer because they work by rendering all visible geometry as if it were physically present on the other side of the mirror — and if there be any actual geometry back there, it will also get rendered and you will have a big fucking mess. so a mirror in the middle of a room is a laughable idea. this is somewhat less of a concern now that the hardware renderer is basically the default, but it's still a spectre looming over the very concept of mirrors, so the way mirrors play out in myhouse is very funny to me

there's probably more, like, the way it intercepts noclip is a stroke of genius and not something i've ever seen done before. but i hope you get the idea

[cyberstudious]

✨ 📖 ✏️ studyblr masterpost jam ✏️ 📖 ✨

📌 what is this?

this is a masterpost jam, like a game jam or a hackathon or a writing challenge, but for creating masterposts! the goal is to share knowledge and resources, as well as connect with other cool folks on tumblr! this challenge was born out of the studyblr community, but anyone who loves learning is welcome to participate. each day, share a masterpost following the prompts below and tag your posts with the hashtag #studyblrmasterpostjam so we can all reblog them and share the love <3

🗓️ when is this happening?

the main challenge will run August 12th through August 18th, although you're welcome to participate on your own timeline :)

✨ everyone is encouraged to participate in whatever way is comfortable!

you don't have to be an academic or a professional! tell us about your special interest, a favorite hobby or craft, or something else that you like learning about!

even if you're a beginner, you still have a valuable perspective that's worth sharing (and writing posts for this challenge is a great way to do some research and learn!).

you don't have to do all of the days or share posts on the "right" day! pick and choose your faves if you want, combine things, and take as long as you need to put them together.

you don't have to make super long posts! if you have a single resource or tip to share, please do and we will appreciate it all the same <3

if you don't want to write any posts, you can still participate by reading posts that other people make and reblogging them so we can all learn from each other!

please feel free to interpret the prompts below in your own way and expand upon them! there are so many different topics out there and the questions I've written probably don't make sense for some of them, so take what makes sense and use the rest as inspiration!

✏️ prompts

[monday, august 12th] an intro to your topic or field of study

how would you describe this topic to someone who has never heard of it? what careers are available? what professional organizations/conferences are big? what journals do academics publish in? what are the big questions, goals, or challenges? what are the sub-fields/sub-topics/areas of specialization? what are some resources for learning about the field itself?

2. [tuesday, august 13th] books

textbooks, fiction that relates to the field, inspiring memoirs, biographies, art books, graphic novels, audiobooks… anything that you think is relevant to your topic and helpful!

3. [wednesday, august 14th] free resources

online things! resources that you might be able to get from your library! and and all ways to learn/study/practice that don't require money - feel free to get creative here and come up with some cool ideas beyond just links to websites!

4. [thursday, august 15th] notable figures

who has made important contributions to the field? is there anyone who made big contributions in the past that are now outdated or incorrect? who has done great things but been overlooked because of racism/sexism/ableism/etc.? who is making interesting contributions today? is there anyone in the field that you look up to? this is a great time to do some research if you don't already have some notable figures in mind!

5. [friday, august 16th] study tips

what are your favorite tips and ways to study this topic? are there lots of things you need to memorize or tricky concepts that are hard to understand at first? is there a skill that requires lots of practice? tell us about it and how you approach it!

6. [saturday, august 17th] tools of the trade

do you work with software? lab equipment? art supplies? your favorite pen and notebook? certain analysis frameworks or processes? tell us about them!

7. [sunday, august 18th] beginner's guide

what resources were most helpful when you were a beginner? what are the important concepts/techniques to start with? are there any prerequisite skills? also, include links to your previous masterposts!

remember to tag your posts with #studyblrmasterpostjam! if you want to participate, feel free to reblog this to spread the word. I'll see y'all on August 12th for the first masterpost!

[haunting-heroes-creative-games]

✨ Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About The Haunting Heroes Discord But Didn’t Want To Ask ✨

Are you looking to join this DPxDC server but don't know what it's about? Are you new to Discord and want to figure a few dynamics about it first? Then this is the post for you!

We're Super excited to share with you some of the features you can expect when you join the Haunting Heroes DPxDC Discord server.

🔷 I’m new to Discord. What is Discord?

A noble question. Discord is a messaging/private server application where you can join servers to chat, text, and video call people. Lots of fandoms have servers dedicated to their beloved show/book/comics/blorbos

It’s a popular platform because a) it’s free and b) it’s very easy to organize.

Haunting Heroes, as such, is essentially a private chat room where you can talk about DPxDC with other fans. There are other DPxDC servers, but you can never have too many!

🔷 What do you do on Haunting Heroes?

We do a lot! If you’re here, you may have seen the results of the Writing Games we’ve played, like "Who Wrote That?" as well as "Guess That Fic" (a fun way to give fic recs AND test your DPxDC fic knowledge!).

We also share updates of fanart, non fanart, and fan fics, as well as recommendations to stories we’ve read and enjoyed.

And we have plenty of ways to discuss ideas: from canon resources to headcanons that intrigue you; from prompts to workshopping your story ideas; from asking for a beta-reader to sharing your progress. Sometimes this even happens live while doing a sprint with others.

🔷 What does ‘18+ SFW’ mean?

18+ is fairly straightforward: you have to be 18 years or older to join our server. So why SFW?

We decided to emphasize the Safe For Work aspect not because no NSFW content is allowed—we have a flourishing NSFW category as well as a Dark Category with channels for people to talk about it to your hearts’ content! We welcome more mature content, but not everyone wants to engage in it, or only want to engage on their own terms. Being able to curate what you do and don't see is important to us, hence the separate categories (and having to self-select a role to see the NSFW + Dark channels)

We add SFW when talking about HH because ‘18+’ on its own has certain connotations (just like ‘adult content’ or ‘adults only’).

Why, then, are we an 18+ server? We appreciate the under 18s in our fandom, and there are lots of fandom places that are open to all ages (for example, this blog!). But there are older fans who feel more comfortable in an adult oriented space. We noted that a place for adults only in the DPxDC fandom was missing, and wanted to fill that niche.

🔷 Why Should I Join?

✏️ If you’re a writer, you can find a beta reader or ping the Ideas Helper role if you want some help with your story. You can find and share resources for various things, such as writing, art, and how to use A03.

🐱 We also share lots of pictures of our pets!

💡 We have fun emojis and stickers unique to Haunting Heroes, many made by people who are part of the server.

⭐️ We have a starboard! If someone says something you find funny, react to their post with a star emoji; if a post gets 9 stars, it gets shared to the board! It’s like the highlights reel at the end of a Mario Kart Race, but user generated. It's a good way to quickly know what's been going on in the server.

🐰 Our Bunny Hutch (AKA prompts sharing category) is always hopping. Enter at your own risk! You may go there with the intention of dropping off one prompt for someone else to adopt, and leave having adopted 4 new WIPS of your own!

And most importantly, we are a fandom community looking to share with each other the things we love doing or seeing in the fandom. You are likely to find writers, artists, and commenters you know from AO3 or Tumblr, but you might also find new friends to hang out with or be inspired by new things while lurking.

🔷 What can I expect upon joining?

☑️ Once you join, you will have to read our guidelines to make sure you agree with them and know what you can expect in terms of how we handle the server.

☑️ There are also roles to be selected so you can customize your experience. Some roles will allow you to give information to other members (such as the pronouns you select), others will give you an aesthetic (such as color roles), others are pingable and alert you for specific activities (such as movie nights ,or a new writing game being set up, or when someone wants others to bounce ideas). Some will also grant you access to specific sections in our server, such as dark or nsfw channels, which won't be visible otherwise.

☑️ Don't forget to also select the 18+ role which grants you acces to the whole server. This one is made specifically to confirm you agree with the guidelines and are 18 or older, since that's our sole requirement to join the server.

☑️ Once you define your roles, you can check our server roadmap to guide you through the many channels we have in the server with descriptions for each of them and the bots we have available to help through the experience.

☑️ Don't worry if you get a few pings upon entering: we have a welcome mat where others will greet you once you're in.

🔷 How can I join?

To join, send us an ask confirming you're 18+ and someone in our team will send you the link. You can find the ask box as "Ask us anything here" at the top of our blog or clicking here. Please make sure you check your inbox for our reply. If you sent us an ask and haven't gotten a reply in 48hrs, please let us know either replying in this post or contacting one of our mods.

We hope you have fun and fulfill your hero-haunting needs💚👻

[utilitycaster]

Daggerheart Character Build thoughts!

I am actually out at work and haven't checked the version that's since come out, but I did participate in the character build beta, and the NDA is officially lifted, so here's my thoughts from that! It's definitely limited since I just made a L1 character and didn't go through gameplay, though I surmise about some aspects of gameplay.

Overall, it clearly seems to be made by people who love a lot of things about D&D 5e but wanted both more flexibility and more simplicity, which is difficult. I think they succeed.

To that end, it takes away some of the crunchier aspects (precise positioning, exact amounts of gold) and I think for some people that will be a problem, and that's valid, but ultimately this game wants to both allow for interesting mechanics in and out of combat while also not being terribly math/map/resource management heavy. It is a hard line to walk; most systems either go hard crunch or go entirely gooey.

The dice mechanic (2d12, Hope and Fear system) is fantastic; look it up but I think it handles mixed successes more gracefully and interestingly than a lot of games.

The playtest was not super clear on armor and evasion choices (or indeed what evasion means; it seems to be sort of initiative but sort of dex save, or maybe more like the Pathfinder/old school D&D varying ACs by scenario?). It was much, MUCH clearer than D&D on weapon choices (part of why I play casters? Weapon rules in D&D are annoying and poorly explained and many people rightfully ignore them) so I'm hoping this becomes clear when there's a full guide rather than just the character creation info.

The character creation questions by class were fantastic and in general, and this is a theme, this feels like it guides people towards collaboration. FWIW I feel like D&D has that information, but the way it's presented is very much as flavor text rather than a thing you should be doing. Daggerheart makes this a much more core part of creation. The Experience mechanic is particularly clear: you better be working with your GM and really thinking about background, rather than slapping it on as a mechanic.

The other side of character creation questions is that it really encourages engagement with the class, which is something I've talked about. I think either subversion for the sake of subversion, or picking a class for the mechanics and aesthetic but not the fundamental concept, will be much harder to justify in Daggerheart, and I think that's a good thing because when people do that, their characters tend to be weaker.

The downtime is designed for you to write hurt/comfort fanfic about and this is a compliment. There are a number of mechanics that reward RP, particularly one of the healing mechanics under the Splendor track. I feel like a weakness of D&D is that when you try to reward RP it's really nebulous because there's not actually a ton of space to put that - you can give inspiration, but, for example, the empathy domain Matt homebrewed actually feels kind of off because it's based on such fuzzy concepts amid mechanics that are usually more rigid. Daggerheart comes off as much cleaner yet still RP-focused, and I'm excited to see it in action.

A judgement of Candela and I suppose Daggerheart might be that it's designed for actual play. I've mentioned before that I know people who are super into the crunch and combat and numbers of TTRPGs and are less story-oriented, and again, that's valid, but actual play is just storytelling using a ttrpg and so yes, a game that encourages RP while also having mechanics to support that and influence it is an extremely good goal. I am not an actual player, but I do like D&D games with a good plot and not just Go Kill Monsters, and I want to play this. (I also have some real salty thoughts about how if you modify an existing game for AP purposes that's staggering genius apparently, but if you make your own game how dare you but that's another post).

And now, the classes/subclasses. I am going to sort of use D&D language to describe them because that's a point of reference most people reading this will understand, but they are not one-to-one. A couple notes: everyone can use weapons and armor. HP is not totally clear to me but it seems to be threshold based - everyone has the same HP to start but people have different thresholds and armor, so the tank classes have the same amount of HP but are much harder to actually do damage to.

All classes are built on a combination of a subclass and two domains. There are 9 classes and 9 domains. This technically means that if you wanted to fuck around and homebrew you could make up to 36 classes (27 additional) by just grabbing two domains that weren't otherwise combined, which is fun to consider for the potential. Anyway I cover the classes and briefly describe domains within them. You can take any domain card within your domain, regardless of subclass.

There are six stats. Presence, Instinct, Knowledge, and Strength map roughly to Charisma, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Strength. Dex is split into Agility and Finesse; Agility covers gross motor skills (jumping, most ranged weapons, "maneuvering") and Finesse finer ones (lockpicking and tinkering, though also it does cover hiding). The really big wins are first, no CON score, so you don't need to sink stat points into something that grants no skills but keeps you alive. The second one is that the "hybrid" classes spellcast from their physical stat. This is fucking fantastic. The thing about ranger or paladin or the spellcasting subclasses of rogue and fighter in D&D is that if you don't roll pretty well you're locked into the core stats and CON and nothing else. (This also doesn't have rolling for stats: you assign +2 to one stat, presumably your main, and then distribute two +1s, two 0s, and one -1.)

Your HP, Evasion, and Thresholds are set by class, and there's a core ability; the rest is all from the cards you take for subclass and domain.

Leveling up is very much based on taking more domain cards (abilities) but has a certain degree of flexibility. It's by chunks: in leveling up anywhere levels 2-4, you can, for example, increase your proficiency by +1 once, so if you wanted to do that at level 2 but your fellow player wanted to wait until level 4 and take something else at level 2 instead, they could. It allows for more min-maxing, but also everyone has the same level up rules and differs only in the abilities on the cards, which is very cool.

Bard: Grace (enchantment spells) and Codex (learned spellcaster stuff; the spells available are definitely arcane in vibes) based, Presence is your main stat. The two subclasses map roughly to lore-style stuff and eloquence. Core class ability is sort of like inspiration but not entirely. It's a bard; I like bards a lot, and this is very similar vibes-wise to your D&D bards. If you like D&D bards you will like this.

Druid: Sage (nature spells) and Arcana (raw magical power spellcaster stuff), Instinct is your spellcasting/main stat. The two subclasses are elemental but frankly cooler than circle of the moon, and a more healing/tranquility of nature focused one. I really think Marisha probably gave feedback on this one, because the elemental version is really strong. You do get beastform; it is quite similar to a D&D druid under a different system, as the bard, but the beastform options are, frankly, better and easier to understand.

Guardian: Valor (melee tank/damager) and Blade (damage). Strength based for the most part (Valor mechanics assume strength) though you could go for like, +2 Agility +1 Strength to start. This is barbarian but like. 20 times better. It is, fundamentally, a tank class, and it is very good at it, with one even more tank-focused subclass and one that is more about retaliatory damage. You do have a damage-halving ability once per day, but really guardian's questions are incredible. I think Travis and Ashley likely gave feedback. Also rage doesn't render you incapable of concentration as that doesn't seem to be a thing, so multiclassing seems way more possible (you are, I think, only allowed to do one multiclass, and not until you reach level 5 minimum, which I am in favor of). Yes, you can be a Bardian.

Ranger: This is what I built! It is based on Sage and Bone (movement around the field/dodging stuff) and it is Agility-based, including for spellcasting, which is a MASSIVE help (as is, again, the fact that CON isn't a thing.) The subclasses are basically being really good at navigation, or animal companion. Most importantly to me you can be a ranger with a longsword and you are not penalized; Bone works with either ranged weapons or melee.

Rogue: Midnight (stealth/disguise/assassination spells and skills) and Grace-based. Yes, rogue is by default a spellcaster, which does help a LOT with the vibes for me. One subclass is basically about having lots of connections (as a spy or criminal might) and the other is about magical slinking about. Hiding/sneak attack are also streamlined. I will admit I'm still more interested in…almost everything else, but I think it evened out a lot of rogue weaknesses.

Seraph: Splendor (healing/divine magic) and Valor. This is your Paladin equivalent. It is strength-based for casting, again making hybrid classes way less stressful. Questions for this area also incredible; you do have something not unlike a lay on hands pool as well. Your subclasses are being able to fly and do extra damage; or being able to make your melee weapon do ranged attacks and also some extra healing stuff, the latter of which is my favorite. Yasha vibes from this, honestly. Single downside is this is the only class where they recommend you dump Knowledge. I will not, and I never will. Now that I don't have to make sure CON is high? I am for REAL never giving myself less than a +1 Knowledge in this game.

Sorcerer: Arcana (raw nature of magic/elemental vibes) and Midnight based. Yes, sorcerers and rogues now share a vibe, for your convenient….less enthused feelings. Instinct-based, which intrigues me, and the core features are in fact really good. The two subclasses are either one that focuses on metamagic abilities, or one that is elemental based. I would play this for a long-running game, though it's not my favorite, and I can't say that for D&D sorcerer (except divine soul).

Warrior: Blade and Bone, and the recommended build is Agility but you could do a strength build. Fighter! One subclass is about doing damage and one is about the hope/fear mechanics core to the game that I have NOT talked much about. I will admit, the hybrid martials and Guardian are more interesting to me but you do have good battle knowledge.

Wizard: Codex and Splendor. Wizards can heal in this system; farewell, I will be doing nothing else (jk). Knowledge-based, and you can either go hardcore expertise in knowledge, or be a battle wizard.

Other scattered thoughts: healing is not as big a deal here; there is no pure cleric class! There is also no monk, warlock, or artificer. There is not a way to do monk as a weaponless class really though you might be able to flavor the glowing rings as a monk weapon and play a warrior. Wizard, meanwhile, with the right experiences and high finesse, would allow for some artificer flavor. Cleric and Warlock are the two tough ones and I will admit those are tricky; I feel like you'd have to multiclass (which you cannot do until level 5) between perhaps seraph and a caster class and you're still going to come off very paladin.

[hollowtones]

first yiik impressions?

Hi. Thanks for your message. I've been thinking about this for days. I wrote paragraphs. Here you go!

Everyone talks up how the game is bad, but I've never looked into it much myself, so I went in with an expectation along the lines of "people whose opinions I often agree with think it was an awful mess, I'll likely think something similar". Expectations were low. Even then I wasn't really ready.

"YIIK" is a game of tedium. I don't think it's a game about tedium, that's something different (though it could be, if it was a different video game altogether; "what if the world was made of pudding" etc). To some degree I think the tedium is by design but I'm not really sure what it's in service of.

I don't think tedium in a video game is a bad thing. "Morrowind" and "Breath of the Wild" are two video games I like very much, and some of my favourite memories of those games are of slowly wandering through empty expanses, or having to suddenly deal with equipment degrading or supplies dwindling because I forgot to prepare. Moments like that feel thoughtful! They're interesting moments of reprieve or of tension that feel thoughtfully and intentionally designed! "YIIK" feels like trudging through chest-deep molasses so it can shout "hey did you know you're stuck in my molasses right now? that's weird, why are you stuck in my molasses right now? did you notice?" directly into your ear.

You'll notice this is a pattern.

Combat is turn-based and involves completing little minigames, timing button prompts or hitting targets or some such. It's a cute idea that wears out its welcome when you start realizing how long every single one takes to resolve, especially when you have multiple party members, and sometimes multiple enemies (I'm told this part specifically gets more egregious as the game goes on). I don't think it's awful or unsalvageable but I'm not super into it as of the point we're at.

This is a pattern.

Leveling up is a manual process that you have to unlock, and it involves going to a save point (any save point? we didn't check), to enter the Mind Dungeon, to enter the actual Mind Dungeon, to walk down a set of stairs and enter individual doors one-by-one, so that you can choose how you want to allocate stat increases, so that you can walk down a different set of stairs to commit your choices and spend your banked experience to level up. I think "you can only power up at specific points / times / locations" and the granularity of stat growth are interesting ideas, and the environment they made for it are a charming idea, and I don't think it needed to be a "Hotel Mario" level that you had to slowly walk through. It could have been a menu. They could have used the resources for a nice background or backdrop for a menu that accomplishes the same thing.

This is a pattern.

I haven't really mentioned anything about the story or writing yet. The protagonist's name is Alex and he's a very self-important nerdy misanthropic dickhead white man (a very specific kind of guy that I've definitely met at least once or twice) who is obsessed with a paranormal message board populated by people like him and desperate to find out more about the disappearance of a woman he witnessed. (The woman & her disappearance are based on the real life death of Elisa Lam & aren't handled with a whole lot of tact, IMO, but other people have put this into better words than I can right now. It sucks. It keeps coming up and it makes me bristle every time.) Alex is a bad person. I know he is. You know he is. The game knows he is. I've seen some reviews say a negative point of the game is "the main characters aren't likeable", which I don't really get, because that's the point of the characters, as far as I can tell. The issue, then, is how much time the game takes to exposit at you how bad the characters are. It's exhausting. Every time Alex has a monologue, it feels like it sums up to 10 minutes of "I am a bad person. I am a bad person. Alex is a bad person. This character is a bad person. Do you get it? He's a bad person. Alex is a bad person. Do you understand yet, player? Alex is a bad person. You should know that he's a bad person. Do you get it?"

This is a pattern.

(I don't know how interested I am in bringing up the game's lead writer right now, if at all, but there's a well-known anecdote where he talks about wanting to write a story about a bad person who is forced to grapple with himself and do better, and how the reason why his game wasn't well-received was because people who play video games didn't get it & weren't ready for a story like that. I dunno. I can understand being upset about negative reception to something you poured time and sweat into, and saying something hasty because of it. "Final Fantasy 4" is a beloved RPG classic, though, and "Disco Elysium" came out the same year to overwhelming praise. I haven't played either of these yet, though, so I'll admit maybe I'm off the mark here.)

The characters we've met so far (i.e. the ones that aren't unnamed NPCs) are… well. There's a smarmy younger kid who idolizes(?) Alex & also made the aforementioned paranormal website. So far it seems like he mostly exists to go "hey fuck you Alex, you dickhead" and immediately say something even more insensitive. There's the insensitive based-on-a-real=ass-dead-woman elevator woman, who immediately disappeared from the narrative while still being an essential part of the narrative. There was a dead(?) robot in a bedroom, who had a choir of ominous hooded people monologue about how weird and sad and strange and uncanny the scene is. What the!? There's a woman who works at the arcade and has Powers. Her design's cute. (I feel like, generally, the game's visuals are Fine. The audio, too. That all ranges from Just Fine to Surprisingly Neat. I don't really have much issue with those aspects of the game, but I don't have much to say about them either.) Alex and Kid Whose Name I Didn't Care To Remember are constantly very uncomfortable to her, because she's a woman and because she isn't white, in the 15 or so minutes we've seen her on-screen, and she gets to tell them off, but then immediately kind of goes "well whatever I can smile and put up with this and hang out with you". It feels misogynistic. I know to some degree Alex is misogynistic on purpose, because the game is bludgeoning your skull in and yelling "ALEX IS SHITTY TO WOMEN! AND PEOPLE OF COLOUR! DO YOU GET IT? HE'S SELF ABSORBED IN A SHITTY WAY! DO YOU GET IT, PLAYER? YOU UNDERSTAND THAT ALEX SUCKS ASS YET? MAYBE 10 MORE MINUTES OF THIS WILL MAKE IT CLICK?" But for a woman of colour (the only one we've seen so far who isn't Probably Just Dead) to finally tell him off for being a shithead, only to turn around and go "well it's ok, you're cool now, let's hang out now because it's narratively convenient and you're the protagonist" is pretty damn egregious!

This is a pattern.

Writing in general feels stilted and long-winded. Most of the main characters feel like they don't talk like people do. Alex gets to feel like a person but that's mostly because he gets to talk to himself so damn much. Most of his monologues feel like overly flowery prose, like someone padded it out with identical adjectives to meet a school essay word count. There's an interesting idea or premise or setpiece every now and then. There's a spark. A glint of something compelling. Every single time this has happened so far I find it immediately snuffed out by an over-blown "oh my god!!!!!!! how weird!!!!!!', or a very long plot dump, or a Joss Whedon-ass quip. There can be no small moment of joy. No story element or visual element can stand on its own legs. There can be no room for ideas to breathe. No space for the player to wonder, to dream, to play in the space. The narrative is compelled to suffocate iself on itself, to take up all space, to swallow itself whole in its making. One very minor (so far?) side character has some interesting dialogue in this one dream world, and I think "oh that's neat", and then I learn they're lines taken wholesale from a book (and I think that's fine, reference is fine, but I have a bit of a chuckle over the fact that this character is the reason why the game has a giant REFERENCES option in the main menu). The literal first minute of the game is a bird telling you "oh my god, the title of this game, right? why'd they spell it like that? so fucking dumb, am I right!" It feels insecure. It reads like the writing has no confidence in itself. It has to make a comment about how silly and video-gamey it is, roll its eyes at itself, mock itself for the thing it's doing while continuing to do it without addressing it or discussing it or doing anything with it.

This is a pattern.

There's a specific part of "YIIK", at this early point in the game (we're only around the start[?] of chapter 2), that feels emblematic of the thing as a whole up to this point. Alex is getting phone calls from a stranger. They're confusing and weird and sound a little like something you might hear in a dream. They make references to some shared past, some childhood, some understanding of Alex, or maybe of you, the player. They've come up a few times. Every single time, I'm left thinking about what it could mean, how it fits in with everything we've seen so far & what the game seems to be talking about, with regards to connecting to other people and to yourself. It's a neat little thing. It's a neat idea. I'm charmed by it. As much as my thoughts on this game are largely negative, I still try to look at it fairly, to understand it, to talk about it, to let myself be surprised by it. As soon as I find myself thinking about this, my thoughts are immediately drowned out by Alex telling me how weird the phone call is, how random and uncanny and dumb this is, and how he's rolling his proverbial eyes about it, in spite of all the other paranormal happenings around him, for another period of Just Too Long. And I am sapped of all strength and I crumble to dust.

I'm genuinely transfixed. I'm transfixed! Maybe the fact that I wrote Paragraphs about the 4-or-5 hours I've seen of the game can tell you as much, even if you skip everything I wrote in them.

I can't wait to see more.

This, too, is a pattern.

[shoezuki]

i think silvermane guards are very very protective of gepard and they don't even try to hide this like if someone says any shit about gepard they would be like, just instantly go into defensive mode and just shut them up. They definitely dont play about him and every one of them so grateful towards the man who constantly stands tall between the endless enemy and them,even the most old/veteran ones, like he is just like a little fucked up son for them

Actually i was going insane thinking about the relationship between gepard and his comrades THEY ARE JUST A SECOND FAMILY FOR HIM UGGGGGGGHHH

oh my god yes yes absolutely i think bout the silvermane culture n gepards relationships w em So Much like.

i imagine when he first started riding up the ranks, super young and how as landau it was very much just Expected he would become the captain, that silvermanes were much more. sour with him. but hes Genuine. hes a captain that cares bout the guards and the people and he is right there at the frontlines and facing the fragmentum with them. he makes sure they are okay after it all and actually visits the wounded and checks up on them. its a mixture of bonds being forged when your life is on the line together but also just how unwavering and Present that gepard is as a captain in a way that is more than just. being tactical and resourceful. beyond maybe some old retired bastards who resented gepard rising the ranks quickly ahead of them you know the silvermanes LOVE his ass.

i imagine the decorum and concept of ranks that are rigid in the city are somewhat thrown out the window in the restricted zone or outside the city. like gepard ignores when some of the guards smuggle booze to the outposts as long as he gets a shot or two and they play boardgames and card games on rare nights that they arent dog tired (they let gepard win poker still). New guards get the memo quickly on the vibes when the older dudes are like 'yep thats gepard our captain we would all die for him (dont let him hear you say that he doesnt like when we talk like that)' and gepard is all PLEASE dont do that. theres weird superstitions around gepard like if he wakes up and gets out of his tent even a minute past 6am it's going to be a horrible day. gepard is always putting on a strong front and conscious of his guards wellbeing even when he's coked up on sleep deprivation but the guards know when hes not gotten enough sleep and try to coax him into resting. often when theres nothing too pressing theyll ask gepard to spar and try to knock him out literally because thatll work right? but nope even when Gepard has bags under his eyes and looks like shit he clobbers everyone.

its just. silvermanes have often been seen as dispensable and i mean sure they often die young and those that live to get old have their own scars but its worth it to protect the city right? but gepard Does care about the silvermanes too. a lot. he knows them all by name even when they are all wearing the same helmets and are indistinguishable and he often takes part in training new guards even though its technically not his job. the guards all feel the same way for him too yknow

[alatismeni-theitsa]

https://x.com/CorenLaVolpe/status/1787971755027612092

As much as a Greek enjoyed the Hades game having people literally taking for granted the designs of the gods as legit is problematic.

No Hermes isn't Asian coded. He's Greek like every God. Literally what does the word Greek next to Greek gods mean to them? An accessory? Give me a break

I got a few asks like this, so I will try to answer them here. This is the post the asks are referring to, and this is the post that started the whole discussion afaik:

This is a whole phenomenon that has lasted for decades in the US, first with USians presenting the gods as North Europeans and now as "everything but" North Europeans to combat the previous racist trend. However, they are still completely tone-deaf, self-absorbed, and privileged because while they do this "correction" they're ignoring actual Greeks, and Greek depictions (and depictions of Greek gods in various areas in the past). Westerners might not be aware of this, because they don't know how badly the Greeks have been treated by powerful countries in the past (including their US, thank you for the Junta and our recent fighters' deaths, honey) but the protests about the gods' design are anti-colonialist.

I want you to imagine this trend with whatever pantheon you want from Africa, Asia, South America etc. Imagine that for centuries they are presented as super White North Europeans by certain powerful nations. Now the same nation who did this racist shit in the past comes around and does more racist shit, by NOT presenting these ancient gods as their people view/viewed them but they present them as everything BUT the appearance they had in all their depictions by the locals. All the while NEVER listening to what the people of this culture tell them, all the while comparing the locals to these gods and finding them uglier and savage. Why would this be acceptable? And why are people so comfortable to forget their cultural sensitivities when it comes to Greece?

(I am aware the US racism also expanded to other pantheons but it didn't happen in this exact way so all I'm asking is to walk in our shoes for a bit, to experience a different flavour of colonialism)

This blog stands for absolute equality and it's heavily anti-racist and anti-fascist, with various resources and support links for minorities in Greece. Everyone is welcome here. This blog believes that if you are of Chinese, Pakistani, Nigerian, Roma descent in Greece you must have the same rights as everybody else and the way you look is not "lesser" than anybody else. I just ask people to consider - especially if you are an immigrant - how you, your parents, your grandparents would feel when seeing your important cultural figures treated like this by the US.

As you have understood by now, changing the depiction is not suddenly okay when the Greek gods now have the palest skin with blue eyes and blond hair. No, that's still racist, and Greeks have been repeatedly told that they are lesser for not looking like the beauty ideals these northern countries projected onto our gods.

Asking for accurate god depictions is a matter of wanting your culture to be treated like.... not a prop, for once. Everyone is free to interact and relate with the Greek culture but when you take the Greek culture and its depictions out of the equation, then the whole thing becomes "playing with dolls", and a fandom (as is the case already for the US).

The Greek gods have been used by Westerners in the past to promote White supremacy, and today they are used by Westerners to combat it; but it still happens in the most divorced sense from the Greek culture. USians are still sooo hesitant to REALLY look at another culture that they'd rather lose common sense (aka, depict gods as the locals see them for millennia) than not white-knight for their fellow Westerners. It's actually infuriating that progressives in the US still miss the mark when it comes to combating US neo-colonialism, and whatever elements left in their culture from colonizing European countries.

And how can we tell the Greek gods are used as props in this US political climate? Simple. They themselves will tell you "It's okay to depict those gods however you like because 1. They can transform 2. They have been worshipped by people of different appearances 3. Greeks can have more than one appearance 4. They are not real. " Then, you tell them "Then why don't you depict Chinese, Indian, Nigerian pantheons whoever you like today? These pantheons all have the above four conditions apply. (No. 4 depending on your beliefs)" And when you strip those first layers, they tell you the actual root cause: "But Chinese, Indian and Nigerian people are still oppressed. Plus, non-white people need to see themselves in media, so here is the chance!"

So, they admit that their only guide for how disrespectful they will be to one's heritage figures is actually the oppression status of that minority (just!) in the US. (Which shows they still don't give a shit about Greeks, cause otherwise they'd still know that Greeks still face bigotry in the US for how they look, how their names are, their customs) . To POC in the US: The moment your oppressors believe your oppression is gone, expect your pop culture to forget (again) all respect for your ancient gods and treat them like cool "new" products for their capitalist game.

And the above discussion paints the Greek culture and Greek figures as a culture-less empty slate, that can be made to represent every person in the whole world. It's US culture, even! But Greek culture is hideous actually, and the Greeks are racist brutes who get in our hair the whole time. Fuck the Greek people and their ancestors' depictions. Greek mythology is a product of no culture, actually, and we can treat the gods like self-inserts in our favorite fanfic. And this is totally not a colonialist mindset! Greeks are not robbed and genocided anymore, and we gave them "white" status in our country a few decades ago (but these ethnic hairy people are still not the same as us, obviously!), and the strings we pull to control Greece are not visible anymore to our own people, so we're good 😊

And, just to be clear: Greek gods are ethnically Greek, as every other [insert cultural descriptor] gods are from that certain culture. The Greek people consider themselves literal progeny of those gods. The first Greeks were born of the gods. Even today we call ourselves Hellenes because one of the first Greeks, the man Hellen, who was born of the gods. If the Greek gods don't express Greek cultural norms, and POVs, and ways of thinking about the world, and are not part of Greek history, what the hell are part of?? Cantonese culture? Do they represent Scandinavian ancient values perhaps....? Do they follow the philosophy of a First Nations tribe?? (This is more a matter of culture, not appearance since various people can be part of a culture. However, it needs to be said, because Westerners are willfully blind to common sense at this point.)

See this video from a Greek Canadian on Greek gods being ethnically Greek

To address one last thing: One person said "why didn't you say anything about how the gods were designed in the first game?" Well, I had made a post about it but some told me "noo they didn't change their race, they just have different colors like green, blue, pink, dark brown, and grey for an artistic touch". I was like "whatever, nobody knows, I have a life to live" so I deleted that post and didn't dwell too much on it. But the anti-colonialist message was the same as in this post, so that's another chance to highlight it.

[recreationalfanfics]

Twisted Night At The Museum HCs/Thoughts/Concepts:

These are brain farts but ya'll are making me feel like I have the biggest brain so-

- If the Daley! Reader had a Unique Magic it'd be: "Alive for the Night" where basically any statues on display and stuff can come to life. Including the ones of the Great Seven but they can only do it at night. (Idk if you guys want them to have it or not, ya'll can fight about it in the notes)

- The Daley! Reader was also adopted by Larry after Nicky moved out and became a DJ, Larry is still a super protective father whose very anxious and is looking through various museum archives to figure out if something can be done about his child whose stuck in Twisted Wonderland. He requires you to check the mirror and talk to him at least 4 times a day to know you're alright and if you miss a time, YOU BETTER HAVE A GOOD EXCUSE-

- No but parent teacher conferences and you have to hold the mirror so that your teachers can talk to Larry through it.

Larry Daley + His Relationship with the Staff:

- Crowley: No, he's been in this game long enough to know that Crowley isn't trustworthy and while you KNOW he isn't trust worthy, he is the reason that Larry wants you to check in 4 times a day. Crowley tries to paint it like everything is fine and Larry pretends to believe him. Crowley is just a bit off put by Larry because you're already such an odd and resourceful individual, that he can't imagine what your father (the man who raised you) must be like and while he laughs whenever Larry promises to bring you home, Crowley slowly starts to believe him. Like, bro, he deals with a magic tablet and brought a family of old Egyptian pharaohs together, Larry Daley is getting his child back.

- Crewel is the only man in this school that Larry trusts, along with Trein, but Larry does notice that Crewel seems a lot more concerned with your safety and has a soft spot for you. Crewel will also give Larry due respect and while he's not sure about his bland outfit choices, he's very much aware that your father loves and is worried for you and so, Crewel will make sure you are well behaved and taken care off until you're able to reunite. It's bittersweet for him because he does grow to get attatched to you but soon realizes that he's never gonna be your father back home. (SPLIT CUSTODY IS ALL I'M GONNA SAY).

- Vargas: Larry hates him so much. Like in the movies, he's always snarky and closed off from people he dislikes so their conversations are always so passive aggressive. Like, Vargas is all: "Ha, no wonder you look so wimpy! Look at your dad!" and Larry is all: "First of all, they're adopted (but still my kid) so neither of us can really say anything but second of all, I went face to face with a triceratops, so, yeah. Not sure if they have those in your world, but thats pretty impressive." and Vargas just brushes him off and he HATES IT.

- Next is Trein, who is like a strict grandpa to you and one of the other teachers who get along with Larry. As a father himself, he admires Larry trying to protect you as best as he can while he's in a different world, and he couldn't imagine what it would be like if his own children where stranded in a place he couldn't protect them in. So yeah, while your dad is awkward, Trein tries to help him out and ease both his and your anxieties. I also can totally see Dexter the Cappuchin Monkey and Lucius fighting across the mirror.

- Sam is one that Larry doesn't see to often aside from Larry trying to find old spells in old archives that require magical ingredients that he doesn't know about so he'll ask Sam about them or see if he can find any suitable substitutes and Sam will do it of course, for a fee. He really admires your dad's dedication but he also admires the relationship and bond you two have. Yeah, you might come into his shop to rant about how protective he is and some other flaws but you love him dearly. Sometimes he'll throw in a few freebies because at the end of the day, you two just want to be with each other again.

NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT SOME STUDENTS AND HOW I FEEL LIKE INTERACTIONS WITH THEM WOULD GO.

Now back to some general headcanons:

- Okay so have you guys seen the Stuart Little movies? Where he has a bunch of ladders and stuff around the room because he's small and can't get to places faster, thats kinda what you have to do for Jedediah and Octavius. They sleep on your nightstand after Deuce and Jack either made tiny beds for them or you made them in a wood work class or something.

- I can also totally see that after the first winter break, your first year friends bring back some old childhood toys that maybe Jedediah and Octavius can use to help or to help them travel faster around the campus.

- Deuce brought back an old remote controlled Magic Wheel (the motorcycle thing he likes) and gave it to them so not only can they ride around in style but they also have a tendency to drive recklessly and trip over poor unsuspecting students who are just trying to walk to their class. They'll do it especially if they mess with you.

- Ace brings them back like, tiny weapons from his old toy soldiers and stuff and while they might not do much, he just thinks its so funny how serious Octavius is when he's all: "Thank you, Child of Trappola, for I now have an arsenal to defend Fort Ramshackle!" and Jedediah rolling his eyes.

- You try to keep them on higher ground, especially due to the rats but I love the idea that when you're away on classes and you trust them not to do anything stupid, they're riding around on Grim and throwing toy spears at any rats running around and defending their home. Like to them, it's an intense battle where they could possibly die but to the ghosts, it looks like they're just annoying the rats that they eventually just give up and leave because they're so annoying and rambunctious.

- Out of all of your friends, they like to use Jack as a mode of transportation. After all, he's HUGE and when they sit on his shoulders, they're absolutely amazed by how much they can see. Jack tries his best to remember they're on his shoulders but if a class is really boring and he forgets, he'll lean on one shoulder which causes them to lose balance and almost fall but hed got quick reflexes and apologizes to them.

- THE WAY EPEL AND THEM WOULD GET ALONG. Like, Epel will walk in all roughed up because he got into a fight and walk past you to rant to Jedediah and Octavius and talk about how some kids were picking on him for being cute and little and Jed and Oct are all: "YA BETTER HAVE SHOWN 'EM THAT WHAT FOR!" and Epel is all: "COURSE I DID!" and you just sigh because you know that Vil is gonna ask to keep Epel away from your "little raggedy friends".

- BELIEVE IT OR NOT, SEBEK ACTUALLY RESPECTS YOUR LITTLE CREW. Especially after he finds out you want to be a Night Gaurd and mistakes your words and believes that you come from a family of noble gaurdians who keep the ancient relics of your world safe (which is kinda true but its not that dramatic) and when he sees you defend yourself with a mere flashlight, you become his idol.

- IN NIGHT OF THE MUSEUM TWO, THERE'S THIS SCENE THAT FITS PERFECTLY WITH YOU AND SEBEK FIRST MEETING, HERE'S THE LINK BUT GO TO 1:57 BUT THAT'S HOW I IMAGINE YOUR FIRST MEETING WITH SEBEK GOES.

You, whispering as your faces are squished together: "Listen, fae boy, you do not know who you're dealing with. I've seen things in my world, stuff you can't even imagine."

Sebek, whispering back: "Like what kind of stuff?"

You: "I'm not gonna tell you, but you're gonna drop your sword-"

Sebek: "The way you said it just made it sound like you were gonna say something really cool-"

You: "Yeah, you don't get to hear it, drop the sword-"

- OKAY BUT YOU BEING DEEMED THE NIGHT GAURD OF NIGHT RAVEN COLLEGE. Like idk, maybe you don't need as much sleep as everyone or during weekends, you just hibernate and then survive on naps and energy drinks throughout the week (it's such an unhealthy habit, all of the Dorm Leaders are concerned and Vil might trick you into drinking a sleeping potion if your eyebags get too prominent) but I love the idea that the bullying rates go down. Hell, even the Savanahclaw dorm kids don't try to start with as many fights with you around because they know you'll finish them with your flashlight. Like they're all cornering you and you blind one of them temporarily before you do some cool fighting moves. Your quick wit and training as a night gaurd is the only thing you've got to give you an edge in this world and by God are you gonna use it.

-And even if that fails you, you've got friends who've got your back. Like you get cornered by some bullies and then they feel something stab their feet and Jed and Octavius are bravely stabbing their shoes and the students are hopping around in pain.

- But yeah, the Night Gaurd in you just makes you walks around Night Raven College and look at all the various statues and history and you read and do your research on Twisted Wonderland.

- Like in the first movie, the thing Larry did after his first wild night at the museum was do research and by God, do you dedicate yourself to doing research on Twisted Wonderland and the study of magic.

- ALSO MALLEUS JOINING YOU DURING YOUR LATE NIGHT PATROLS OF YOUR SCHOOL GROUNDS and telling you everything there is to know about the magic here. You know how Ahkmenrah calls Larry "Gaurdian of Brooklyn"? I feel like instead of Child of Man, Malleus would call you "Gaurdian of the Night" because you tell him that's your dad's job and you want to fill in his shoes.

- MALLEUS AND SEBEK TRYING TO GET YOU TO JOIN HIS GAURDS BUT YOUR DUTY IS TO EVERYONE BUT HE'S ALL: "You know, just in case you might have to stay for longer, there will always be a spot in my court for you. As either my gaurd or my spouse-"

- "What was that last part?"

- "What?"

Feel Free to Send in any Thoughts/Asks/or Questions about this AU!

[toadallytickles]

Hey there! Your content is so fantastic and I really have enjoyed utilizing some of the resources you have proved for newer members of the community or for people who want to start branching out like myself! I am going to AUNT and and so excited (and admittedly a bit nervous) to actually meet more people in our community! Any tips or things you’d give to a first time event attendee?

Hello! Thank you so much for enjoying my content! I’m not here as often, though I like to pop in from time to time, and it’s warming to see that my blog continues to be enjoyed and act as a resource! 🥰

Aww, yay! That’s super exciting you’re branching out into the in-person scene and attending your first gathering! That can be a tough first step for a lot of people, I’m proud of you! 🎉

Clay and I will be at AUNT too! :)c

Connect and get to know attendees online before the event! If you’re attending AUNT, you’re likely in the AUNT Discord Server! You can interact with other members throughout the Server, though if you’re registered you can interact with attendees in the private event channels! Check members’ roles and see if they have Open DMs! Navigating a gathering helps when you know people! You can also start pre-planning your AUNT weekend, if you want to play board games, video games, JackBox games, watch movies, go out to do tourist-y things, and/or session/play with someone!

@jerjero and @sugarsoakertkl are newbie coordinators, and are happy to welcome you into the scene!

Write an introduction! It helps people get to know you and what you’re looking for! You can take inspiration from someone else’s introduction, feel free to copy-paste the format they used.

It’s one big hang out in a hotel! NEST is a very scheduled event. The smaller gatherings have a few things scheduled, though other than that the weekend is yours to do what you’d like! I believe AUNT’s “big” scheduled events are the group swim, jam circle, and watching the Super Bowl (not in 2025).

Attend other attendee’s events! With an open schedule, some members host their own events, like going out as a group for dinner, hosting board/video games, hosting movie/tv show watching, or inviting people to party/hang out in their room!

Treat others how you want to be treated. It is a tickle event, though no one wants to be treated like a kink dispenser or their kink role. Treat others like you’re meeting them in a public vanilla setting. Introduce yourself, be nice, be welcoming, be polite, be curious, open-minded, and interested!

Meet and greet everyone you can! Don’t just talk to people you want to play with. Getting known and established in the community can go a long way!

It’s NOT a Pay-to-Play event. Going does not guarantee play. Gatherings are community-oriented ; attendees are real people with boundaries and feelings, they’re attending for community, and to make genuine connections.

Interested in playing with someone? Some people do pick-up play after some conversation! Some people, like myself, like a closer relationship before playing! It doesn’t hurt to ask, and it’s okay if they say no- don’t take it personally (receiving a no is a good skill to practice). Once you’ve asked, don’t ask again; keep the ball in their court, if they’re interested they’ll reach out to you.

Someone is interested in playing with you? Either give them a yes or a no, try not to use “maybe.” It’s best to be as clear and honest as possible.

Vet people before playing with them. Get your references. Ask around. Members going are welcomed to the gathering because they’re friendly or know a regular, but they are not vetted for play. Most members I’m sure are kink educated and care for your wellbeing, but unfortunately I personally know a handful who are not good or safe players. Feminine-presenting afabs especially need to vet.

Tell a host if someone makes you uncomfortable. It is best if you can confront and correct them yourself if you’re involved; some people don’t know they’re harming others, and we’re all capable of making mistakes, and growing from them. If you can’t do it, please tell a host, or a friend you trust to help you. It’s better for a behaviour to be corrected than for it to never be acknowledged, and harm continues. Speaking up protects others.

Don’t be hard on yourself if the gathering didn’t go as you thought. Be proud that you took that huge step to get involved in-person. A lot goes on when you’re new and unfamiliar. Most members are longtime goers, and are in established friend groups and dynamics. You may feel it’s hard to find your place initially. I think everyone, even regular attendees, have had a mediocre gathering at least once. I have! It’s okay if this gathering is just you scoping it out and meeting the in-person scene!

How to approach people in the community

How to be approachable in the community

What tickle parties (gatherings) are like

Play party etiquette

Getting to know someone online

Dos and Don’ts of Play / Bondage

[sahonithereadwolf]

Can I tell you about the very queer game I made this Pride?

In A World That Hates and Fears You, Living Becomes an Act of Rebellion.

Exceptionals is a game inspired by X-Men about and for the spaces and communities marginalized peoples make for themselves. Play as a Geno, one of little less than 0.5% percent of the population that has gone through a mysterious process called Claremont-Simonson mutation, as you try to navigate a world that won’t make room for you. Exceptionals is a game about what the mutant metaphor means to you and the different lenses through which we view it. Punch back and build something of worth together in this narrative tag-driven tabletop role playing game. 🧬Features Open-Ended Character Creation🧬 Mix and Match between (23) open-ended but guided protocols. Answer questions to create high concept and unique super powered characters where the only real limit is your imagination. Get invested in who you make as a whole person, and not just a set of powers. Build a Community 🧬Create a living and dynamic community space full of colorful characters. 🧬 Grow your base as an anchor for other geno and help fill it with the resources they and you need. Understand how your actions effect others and gain trust through the bonds mechanic. It’s a game where you get stronger by growing your community and heal by being part of it.

🧬Comic Book Storytelling 🧬 Play as a creative team of writers and editors working to tell the best version of the story you can over time and storyline-based experience to model changes of the status quo and creative direction. Enjoy panel based action pacing and the ability of characters of all power levels to coexist and carry the same amount of story weight.

🧬Not Pain Tourism 🧬 While Exceptionals offers a number of places to push back, we understand and recognize that the most important part of a punching bag is that you choose to hit it, even if it’s not at all. We recognize not everyone gets to set the issues that the mutant metaphor is used to talk about down when they leave the table and offer many ways to tell stories outside of a lens defined by pain. We also put an emphasis and mechanical weight on the importance of joy and celebration. 📚You can buy the Core Book here:📚 https://bramblewolfgames.itch.io/exceptionals 📚You can buy the Expansions here:📚 https://bramblewolfgames.itch.io/exceptionals-expansion-bundle 📚You can buy the bundle with everything here:📚 https://bramblewolfgames.itch.io/exceptionals-expansion-bundle I didn’t go out with the intent of making this a very queer game. Not explicitly. I started making games because  I got frustrated waiting to feel seen or acknowledged. Another game got me mad about using my peoples stories to be transphobic, to be racist, to be ableist. Nevermind my people have more than two genders traditionally and faced a genocide. That was too much for me. I said this was enough and the quite indignities I suffered to feel included wasn’t worth it. I could do better myself.  So I set out to make a superhero game. I hated just about every comic book game on the market. It never seemed to capture what I did like about big hero comics with high concept storytelling and powers and couldn’t care less on a mechanical or narrative level about who this person was outside the mask. More focused on bashing action figures together and golden age pastiche that doesn’t really reflect the decades of character and genre developments that have happened since then. I later found games that do it better, but I was dissatisfied... I chose x-men for the homies. I’ve always been an x-men fan. A lot of people my age were. My first action figure was one of rogue I got at a garage sale, where she then went on to fight many a play-dough monster. But for many of us it was the first place we were allowed to be heroes. There are no natives on the 90′s x-men team. But I had uncles and older kids all too eager to tell me about Forge and Warpath (I hate that name) and my favorite Dani Moonstar (I ain’t the biggest fan of that name either, but she’s the closest thing mainstream hero comics have to a good NDN).

After that, things just kinda flowed from there. The X-men have such a focus on community. It’s “comics greatest soap opera”. It can be messy, complicated, beautiful and life-affirming all at the same time. They take the time to play basketball, go to the mall, and have birthday parties as they grow. Two of my favorite x-men comics aren’t about fighting at all. One is framed around a sleepover some students have, and another is about a wedding and framed around everyone filming their part of the wedding tape.

So I started thinking about the communities I’ve been a part of. A big core of the game is informed by my time and the people I met in these sort of spaces. As a native, as a queer person, as a disabled person I’ve been both someone who needed them and someone who gave back.

Which suited x-men just fine. X-men has cared about that sort of thing from about X-men #3 with the first appearance of The Blob, establishing it’s tone of sympathy and mutants as a minority analog.

I just kept going and I didn’t stop. And apparently I did a good job. Someone out there has been using my game as game-therapy and community outreach in a gender health center out in California. I got a lot of kind words for the game too (which is good, because I spent 3 years on it).

KUDOS

-As featured on; io9/Gizmodo, Kotaku, Listen to Theses Nerds, Team-Up Moves, Yes Indie'd Pod, Team-Up Moves, and The Voice of Dog -#1 Best Seller and Popular on Itch.io in both Analog & RPG Games, Sept 2021

Listen to the Team-Up Moves AP Here!: https://teamupmoves.com/runs/exceptionals "Exceptionals is a beautiful, brilliantly designed superhero RPG. It's truly a masterpiece, and if you haven't checked it out, do yourself a favor." -@PartyOfOnePod

"This thing COOKS, Sahoni doesn't just tap into the queer/minority readings of mutants, but also ties in the weirdness that really gets my mind racing when it comes to X books." -@froondingloom 

"A refreshingly different game, that strikes a good balance between unlimited player freedom and solid guiding handrails. Really gets at the full potential of what the ;mutant outcast heroes' genre should be about: found family, building communities, and lives lived to the fullest despite being lived in defiance." -@guywhowrotethis 

"The whole game oozes love for its inspiration while also going further than they dared...." -@Phoenix24Femme

"Astonishing! Uncanny! All-New! And all other X-Adjectives available. This book gets why one would want to play the Mutant Metaphor in an RPG. It cleverly weaves the power fantasy of powerful individuals with the drive to do good for one's community. It's well-researched, well-written and, well, so much fun to play! This is the superpowered game I've been wanting for a long, long time. I can't wait to tell an Exceptional story of my own!" -@Kokiteno Team-up moves even made a recommended comic reading list. It has some of the best x-men has to offer and then some. It even includes that  New Mutants comic with the sleepover. They read me for filth and I love it.

I hope you play my game too. I hope you like it. I hope you tell queer stories and build community around you. I hope it’s messy, complicated, beautiful and life-affirming all at the same time. Thank you for reading this. Please reblog if you can as well as share it with x-men and rpg fans in your life.

[not-the-red-mist]

Sometimes I use my knowledge for good. Other times, I feel like I’m on the War Thunder forums and someone’s making a stupid argument about my country’s tanks.

Anyway, here’s a quick summary of the discussion:

An acquaintance of mine thinks Lobotomy EGO looks too fragile to be effective as equipment. They aren’t necessarily wrong; Lobotomy EGO is comparable to Workshop equipment. Sometimes a little on the weak end, sometimes a little OP (cough Paradise Lost cough). I tried to explain this to them and how in some cases Workshop technology outperforms EGO.

This unfortunately resulted in a completely different debate about why one would train their Virtues to use EGO without corroding when you could just train your body and buy augments and Workshop gear.

To summarize why you might want to use EGO for those aspiring Fixers who might be leaning one way or another, Lobotomy EGO comes with all the knowledge of how to use it baked into the equipment. So long as your mind can withstand the strain, you could pick up Gold Rush or Mimicry and be just as skilled with it as the Red Mist herself. You trade the potential from growth for an instantaneous access to the skills and knowledge necessary to wield your weapon effectively, meaning even a talentless hack could make for a good Fixer if they have the fortitude to wield EGO. And, as far as I’m aware, any knowledge you have accumulated outside of using the EGO is fair game too, so there’s really no drawback if you have the training.

Catch is though, Lobotomy EGO is rare, dangerous, and meant to arm swathes of peons, not high-level Fixers. If you’re sufficiently trained already, you might not learn anything new; Just have a really durable and high-power sword, or a gun that doesn’t need bullets. A convenience, but easily outperformed by things like Allas’s infamous speed-enhancing equipment, or YuRia’s absolutely lethal instruments, when in the hands of a trained professional.

Now, there are other forms of EGO that are, in contrast, maybe more useful to a Fixer than Lobotomy EGO. Take, for instance, the Red Mist’s body armor. Sleek, dark, imposing- A crystallization of her will, hard to break through and enhancing to her already peak performance. Something sustained and self-made has little risk of corroding oneself, although it can shave precious minutes off your life if you aren’t careful with how you use your EGO. You are, after all, bludgeoning people to death with what could be described as an emanation of your fighting spirit. Damage to your EGO may as well be damage to your soul.

There’s also those sort of “single use” EGO manifestations seen from Limbus Company and the EGO pages used by the Library. These seem to have drastically enhanced effects compared to standard Lobotomy EGO. But, they’re bursts; Super moves from a fighting game. Decisive use of this EGO could turn the tides for even a rookie Fixer, but it’s unreliable as a tradeoff. You won’t always have the resources necessary to deploy Fluid Sac, and you could even risk corroding, since the EGO tends to be less “extracted” from the Abnormality and more “borrowed” from it. Sort of like… Donning a mask of an Abnormality! Much more dangerous, with much more immediate short-term benefit.

In any case, I don’t think it’s really a good idea to say EGO is in general better or worse than Workshop equipment. It all has its ups and its downs. A lot of it will come down to the needs and preferences of the enduser. If you have the money to buy one, and are willing to take the risks associated, I don’t see why a Fixer shouldn’t at least experiment with Lobotomy EGO. But, if you think you’d prefer safer gear from a Tres-regulated Workshop, there’s always tons of good craftsmen out there waiting to sell to you. Think about what kind of work your Office usually does, and gear up accordingly. No need to rush to make any decisions.

[theamityelf]

I finished mid terms and am still exhausted but I'm curious on what you think a mini makoto but it's normal hopes peak academy

Like before the killing games when it was normal but one thing led to another and makoto became a mini now his class has to take care of him until one of the other ultimates find a cure

Perhaps makoto would be able to meet hajime or class 77 through his luck?

Chai anon-

Wonderful. I love it. And I hope midterms went well!

(Mini Classmates AU Masterlists)

This feels like a prequel to the Mini Senpais AU. Like, in the same way Junko canonically had to test the memory stuff for the killing game, something had to happen with the shrinking technology before she put the mini senpais in the killing game with her classmates.

Either Makoto shrinking was a standard Hope's Peak accident that ended up giving Junko the idea for the Mini Senpais AU, or Junko was already planning the mini senpais and she deliberately did something to cause Makoto to shrink as a test subject for her plan. Either way, we get Tiny Makoto.

Hope's Peak staff largely treats this as an opportunity for the Ultimates to practice problem solving...or is it that the school just doesn't care to waste resources on helping a luckster get back to his right size? 🤨

Whatever the case, it's left to Makoto's class to determine how to help him and who to tell about him.

His family hasn't even been informed.

There's a lot of bickering over how to handle the situation.

Taka and Hiro have a kind of dad energy about it, in that they often disagree about whether or not Makoto should still be expected to do schoolwork.

"I've found a smaller pencil!" Taka declares one day. "Here, see if you can hold this one."

Makoto manages to get both hands around the small pencil and hold it upright, though it's clearly heavy for him.

"Perfect! Now you're that much closer to taking notes again."

"For serious? You're still trying to make him take notes?" Hiro protests.

"Of course! I refuse to let my good friend lose his chance to pursue his studies. He won't be falling behind on my watch. Any true friend would agree."

"Isn't Mini-Makoto suffering enough? He deserves a vacation."

They both feel they're standing up for Makoto, when they argue their respective points.

Besides that, a lot of people want a chance to hold Makoto. Ideally, they'd come up with a rotating schedule where everyone who wants to gets to take care of him for a day. There's probably an unofficial rule that no girl takes him home for the night.

Leon, Sayaka, Hifumi, Junko, Taka, Celeste and Hina are all openly eager to take their turn carrying Makoto around and stuff.

Sayaka is the most considerate out of all of them, handling him carefully and checking in to make sure he's comfortable and doesn't need anything, without making him feel too weird about things.

Celeste treats him as a novelty and also puts him to the task of grabbing her things; he's in charge of rummaging through her makeup bag for her eyeliner or lipstick, so she can freshen her makeup between classes, or her coin purse when she wants to buy something, etc. And she likes decorating him with accessories and stuff.

Hifumi is super excited to have a figurine-sized friend. He does a reverse of Celeste's thing, in that he acts as Makoto's servant. He is suspiciously eager to pamper tiny Makoto.

Junko is obviously not fully unrestrained, but she's still Junko. She's doing all kinds of things to make the situation weird and overwhelming for Makoto. She's always talking loudly, walking fast, poking his tummy, and just picking him up for no reason. He frequently has her huge lipstick kiss marks taking up his entire face. Sometimes she squeezes or tosses him around a little. Not in a way that actually risks harming him, and she always says she forgot she was holding him and thought he was a stress toy, but it's definitely nerve-wracking. Doesn't help that when she carries him from place to place, it's in her shirt pocket, so he's just kinda...on her. And it's...jiggly...in there.

Hina is mostly normal and does her best to be accommodating, but she also sometimes just forgets Makoto places. On her desk, on her lunch table, by the pool. Maybe she sets him on a bench or trash can while she bends to tie her shoes and forgets him there. (That's one way the 77th class might find him.) Other than that, she often uses him as a timer when she's about to do a run or swim.

Leon mostly just thinks the whole thing is cool. He says something about using Mini Makoto as a conversation starter to get chicks, but really he's excited about his friend being like four inches tall.

Byakuya, Chihiro, and Mukuro are also eager but aren't as open about it. Byakuya manages to engineer things in such a way that he ends up being the one who keeps Makoto in his dorm room each night, mainly because he says that everyone else's dorm is trash. He spins it as him taking pity on Makoto for his sorry state.

Kyoko and Mondo don't think they want to, but they do. Like, Kyoko acts like she's more interested in the mystery around Mini Makoto than the prospect of interacting with him in his tiny form, but all someone has to do is place him on her desk and she's lowkey obsessed.

(Which leaves Hiro, Toko, and Sakura who don't really mind all that much either way. Hiro maybe suggested that they sell tickets to see Makoto, or something of the sort, but the group voted against telling anyone because they've been tasked with fixing this and if they have trouble doing that, they don't want a bunch of people to know. These Ultimates have reputations to uphold!)

[assassiowl]

Some Outer Wilds themed Sprites - About four months old for the hatchling and fish, the Undertale one is just under two months old.

There's also a landscape pixel scene at the end of the keep reading.

I lost my will to connect with art until I discovered the joy of making sprites. I think there was something about having something tangible very quickly that was super appealing. I think as an artist that is just starting out it can be very discouraging when you're measuring up against people who have been doing what they have been for such a long time. You don't see the years of experience that happened behind the scenes of whatever is in front of you.

But sprites, most importantly you can get something pretty decent with enough dedication, issues that are too expansive to understand all at once become much more accessible.

You don't have to have perfect anatomy to have a workable sprite.

You don't have to understand colour theory nor composition to lay out something fun to look at.

When I was learning how to make games they would always tell me pixel art was like art for non artists.

Sprites are wonderful, especially now when we're not constrained by hardware, you can do some wild stuff.

Art is so fascinating, I think different ways of working make you think about different aspects that can flow into other areas.

I use these to push my characterisation now, you have such a small canvas (I work at 96x96 and expand to 288x288) you really need to think about a hierarchy of importance. It's all about distilling the essence of what you're trying to convey.

That being said this isn't how I started, my first sprites took days, endlessly worrying about every single pixel. Learning how to sprite took a few months of really dedicated creation. I learned by creating for Pokemon fangame Infinite Fusion (Most of them can be seen here: https://www.fusiondex.org/artists/assassiowl/), there's a dedicated community of artists, with a huge list of base sprites that you can paint over.

When you're not confident in what you're doing, having access to resources like that is a wonderful thing to be grateful for. You can forget about things like anatomy and colours (to an extent) while you pick it up along the way. Even better when you meet encouraging people who teach you things you might have missed along the way.

The problem as a beginner I always had was, nothing I made looked even ok, it was beyond frustrating not being able to make anything look even passable. It's super disheartening that when you put so many hours into something and you have nothing to show for it.

It put me off art for such a long time. But the wonderful thing when you're editing something that already exists, is you can still get it too look pretty good. I mashed two pokemon together, someone else has already worried about what their key features and personalities are, all I have to do is find a way to bring out both halves.

But really, I think the most important thing for creating in general is to find what you actually enjoy doing, yeah that's vague and it sucks while you're looking, but there needs to be something that makes you want to keep showing up on the days where you don't feel like it.

I play games a lot, so this was just putting into practice everything I've been passively absorbing for such a long time.

I still make sprites and pixel art, but not nearly as regularly as I used to. I made this landscape using the familiar tools of pixel art, but I really wanted to start exploring some more complicated ideas, which aren't really possible with just a small character canvas.

Asking a friend about why they stepped away from sprites, they said something similar, that they wanted to create backgrounds for their characters, I suppose I get that sentiment now.

[auspicioustidings]

Ok, please bear with me for a moment while I talk about moving to Ao3 for now.

The thing I liked about tumblr was the community part. I now cannot re-blog or comment on a lot of stuff publicly because I don’t want it to become an issue for people that they haven’t blocked me since a lot of people believe I am an explicit racist. I have just seen someone get attacked over re-blogging something of mine and then go on to block me which is absolutely fair because I imagine they got dragged for defending me and they are trying their best to listen to POC.

I feel like given that me engaging with others or them engaging with me on here is just going to wind up with someone getting dogpiled, it's probably best for me to stick to Ao3 so that's where I'll put my writing from now on.

I genuinely am really sorry if my fic hurt anyone. While I feel terrible that people sent shitty anons to people, that part is not my responsibility and I actively discouraged it. What I will say is I am sorry that I didn't try do more to stop it and I really hate that people got abuse, it was not ok.

Once again, none of this is an excuse to go into other peoples inboxes and be a dick. It is also not an excuse to go into POCs inboxes and try to get their opinion so you can use them as your moral compass instead of developing your own. If you have feelings about this just put them in my inbox and move on please.

Now this part is entirely my opinion and is going to be influenced by the fact that I got dogpiled and got incredibly sick with stress over it which I am very embarrassed about so may be me being hurt rather than being fair. There is a difference between trying to encourage active anti-racism and just being cruel when someone makes a genuine mistake and tries their best to fix it. A lot of people absolutely do the former and I appreciate them for that, but if you engage in the latter, I'd encourage you to try practice more empathy because otherwise that's exactly how you push people to the right. Is what you are doing actually an attempt to make things better or is it an attempt to make yourself feel better by hurting someone else? I'm not great at expressing this but I do like this tiktok and this tiktok as they both helped me sort of assess the way I treated people around me because I have absolutely engaged in that sort of thing before.

I also did want to put this resource here. It is a really eye opening look at the characteristics of white supremacy and how to overcome them which we should all be learning. Melanie Walby has some excellent art about this as well. I wanted to share this a while ago but was ironically falling into the 'fear of open conflict' characteristic as I thought it was likely to get me attacked for trying to look not racist rather than trying to share a resource I found useful.

If I'm coming off as a dick here then just ignore me, I'm a tiny fan writer for a specific corner of the war criminal video game fandom and it really is not that serious. If you are taking it super seriously, put that energy into your local community where you can actually enact change.

I do finally want to highlight that I re-kindled my love of writing and it was the people who were excited to read my stuff that did that, so thank you. I’m going to leave everything up and change my pinned to just be a masterlist so if you want to re-read anything you can. Be good to one another <3

[gyarustarrr]

LORE LORE LORE!!!🗣️🗣️🗣️ (This is super long and my English is horrible for a native speaker so bear w me)

ILL BE REAL I DIDNT PUT MUCH THOUGHT INTO A REASONABLE BACK STORY but bcuz shes a self insert i had to make a mention for my bestie who can EASILY be in the pressure universe fr <3

Pre-lockdown: I think itd be unique that if Sebastian was used to give humans gills then Phanny can be used to find immortality cuz who doesnt love when a corrupt corporate entity tries to find the cure for death, happens all the time lol. I say for the important parts shes fused with an immortal jellyfish, my favorite jelly which im extreme jelly of 😼😼😼😼, and i would say that its possible that she could live forever IN THEORY with the dna of that jelly but that would have to be tested lmaooo.

I believe because shes also able bodied (mostly) she would be given similar jobs as Sebastian so shes not depressed, rotting, or lashing out. Not sure if they'd work together but she's observant and being a psychologist, she def psychoanalyzing the hell outta everybody in the facility out of boredom. She seems happy but ofc its a coping mech to make the best out of the absolute horrors around her, still emotional unstable and freaks tf out frequently. Once Sebastian frees everybody, she's free to roam and sees what Sebastian is doing. She asks to assist him in his goal but she only plays a part once Seb handles BIDNESS on land during lockdown. Post lockdown she scavenges for data and whatever here and there but shes mostly left alone or out of most of his operation, yk,,,working with Mr Lopee and all. She really tries to get close with Sebastian (despite emphasizing hes a married man, YEAH SURE BUDDY YOU'RE LIKE 32, WHATEVER MAKES U FEEL BETTER💀) and being the drama fiend i am, i think having a "moment of weakness" would lead to their complex semi romantic possibly toxic dynamic.

Fight: And as i did my research its highly debatable if Sebastian is telling pAInter the truth about getting them both out. Phanny would believe this without question cuz if he can make a plan and has all these skills and resources, he should be able to take everyone (this also includes other peoples inserts and ocs who are experiments because it makes the setting more lively and interesting). I even thought of a cool ass line my homie thought was cold asf for argument dialogue between Phanny and Seb about taking everyone back up to the surface.

Just to summarize: Phanny mentions how noble Seb is after making progress with his escape plan, assuming that he'll take at least as many people as possible including Phanny. Sebastian at this point is already trying to push her away post weakness moment and he know damn well he's just doing this for himself and never accounted to leave w/ a whole damn facility of sentient experiments. He just wanna see his mom again and hes already working in private with Mr Lopee i mean this is a one man escape plan. This ofc shatters Phanny cuz from what hes saying, nobody and he mean NOBODY is getting out of here with him. Hes not a savior and hes not responsible for people he dont even know or fuck with like tf?? And Phannys like OKAY? Nobody's asking you to be JESUS but can you at least be Moses?? Free us so we can all get justice! Explain why you can't take a handful and come back once u take this damn company down?? What about your promise to pAInter? To ME.

Ofc it ends in a big brawl, think Mark getting his shit rocked by his own dad (Omniman from invincible) and they just have this heartbreaking dialogue and they split ways.

Post fight + breakdown: After this, Phanny is basically losing it. I even have a vision for this if it was actually in game and she was an actual character with weight to the gameplay. Like crying and wailing in the vents and pipes, shit breaking, Phanny not being seen for a majority of the game until shes physically stopping u from going through doors and rushing the player. Not to kill them, she loves the expendables and protects them but if she really has to if it means Sebastian can get out/she gets to see another day then...

Plus i drew what that would look like in my last post where shes just standing in the dark in the corner blocking the door. Even if shes not blocking the door she's obviously going through something and can't be interacted with, she just follows the player with her eyes and breathes heavily. If its not that then shes crying by the the water and interacting with her gets the player a DEVIOUS side eye or no response.

Pre-breakdown + if she were actually in the game: I can't really explain why she would help the expendables WITHOUT knowing removing the crystal will indirectly end their lives, i actually havent evaluated that yet but shes friendly to expendables, takes free trade in exchange for shiny objects, and can be seen hanging out with or talking to Sebastian, or passing by in the water/halls. She's capable of killing the player entirely by accident due to her tentacles hanging from the ceiling which she chills in and dying to her makes her scream or apologize (before Sebastian says something snarky) since shes strictly against killing and never willing.

Announcing ur presence helps her know shes in the way. Typical interactive npc shenanigans. Maybe even saving expendables from certain attacks but these are rare interactions in the game. She's overall friendly and if she were real, she'd prolly be a fandom fave (ofc not on Sebastian's level, LETS BE HUMBLE YALL😭) because shes so polite and her tragedy comes near the end where the player isnt even aware of how she became hostile in just a few hours of the run. Her story would hardly happen in game and itd be one of those things a creator would have to mention outside of their game for fans to know abt yk?

Its typical for creators to just drop the craziest lore ever about a character but they're purposefully vague or literally like oh yeah time constraints so we scrapped it lol.

ALRIGHTY CLASS, ANY QUESTIONS? (typing this on my phone was so crazy guys ik its a lot but trust me its DECENT lore </3

[artist-issues]

Screentime For the Prince

You know how in the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, each character's true nature is revealed by what they choose to treasure?

You know, Grumpy treasures safety because his true nature is vulnerable, the Queen treasures beauty because her true nature is ugly, and Snow White is the only one who's treasure is as true as her nature: pure love?

And how the Prince only gets around 5 minutes of screentime, and in those 5 minutes, proves that he A) treasures Snow White's true nature of pure love and B) keeps his promises?

Well, I was thinking. In the new Live Action, they're basically writing in a different male character in place of the Prince and not focusing on any kind of love story. So it's not actually "Snow White." But what would a good, faithful, beautiful adaptation of Snow White look like? (You know, one that actually does adaptations correctly--like Cinderella 2015?)

What should they be doing with the Prince?

I have a general idea below.

I mean, they can't introduce him in the same way they did in the classic animation. Obviously modern people aren't used to so much nuance in their big-screen fairy tales anymore; 5 minutes of screentime isn't enough, we prefer Mr. Darcy & Lizzie Bennet-levels of couple-building interactions, at least. And that's okay.

But it means we have to fill in a lot of the blanks about where this Prince comes from and why he values Snow White's "pure love nature" so strongly.

So I figure, in my head, it might look something like:

The Prince (let's call him Walther, German for "Walt," since basically everybody who worked on the original movie agrees that it was Walt's big brain child, and the popularized "Ferdinand" is not only fan-made but makes me think of a kindhearted bull) is the heir to a neighboring kingdom's throne.

Prince Walther isn't King yet, not because his parents are still King and Queen (they're dead,) but because tradition states he can only take the throne once he's come of age. Prince Walther's like 17, turning 18. So instead, his kingdom is essentially run by this council of busybodies, with one Regent holding the throne until he's old enough to take it. Something like that.

(the picture is of Dean Stockwell who's the son of the original voice actor for the Prince, I think someone who looks like him ought to be cast.) Prince Walther experienced pure love from his parents, who treated him like a normal boy and didn't place much emphasis on courtly manners or politics when raising him. But then they died tragically, leaving their honest and innocent son to be raised by a bunch of old people who put way TOO much emphasis on those things.

Because everyone in Prince Walther's court has had to handle being next-door neighbors to the Wicked Queen's country. They're all super political, and afraid of appearing weak, and therefore, very insincere. That's what I'm saying.

Everyone he interacts with on a daily basis never comes out and says what they really want. Nobody is genuine. He lives a life of hearing words like, "good morning Your Majesty, I hope you slept well. The Grand Duke could certainly stand to sleep better; the poor fellow looked run down at breakfast." but learning that what they actually mean is, "The Duke is getting old and ineffective and when your birthday passes you should decree that he give his land and resources away to me."

And he misses the genuine love the court used to feel from his parents' kind, simple way of ruling. No political games, no complex feuds. Plus, he misses the personal love they shared as a family, genuine, uncomplicated. He missed the days when people just say what they really want, unafraid, so that their rulers can take care of their needs.

Then there's the problem of why Prince Walther's in the Wicked Queen's realm in the original movie--that's not his territory, if he has his own kingdom.

So I think it would be neat and interesting if the Queen wants Walther's land. Maybe she invited his parents, way back when, to a kind of audience to negotiate an alliance. Then she got jealous of his mother's beauty, maybe even tried to seduce Prince Walther's father, and assassinated them both when he rebuffed her. Oo, maybe even the Huntsman (her FAITHFUL Huntsman) helped her do it all those years ago.

But she didn't realize they had a young son, so she couldn't just raise her hand and say, "Hey Neighboring Kingdom, it's too bad your monarchs both mysteriously died--don't worry, I'll be your new leader" because Prince Walther's council suspected foul play (they always do, they're suspicious people) and were preemptively like "NO NO WE HAVE A PRINCE, WE HAVE A PRINCE! We're fine, we don't need help, everything's fine."

So she sort of had to stew on that. Maybe she even tried a couple more halfhearted attempts to get their throne, and they just never worked out--then eventually her attention was occupied by how much older her stepdaughter was getting, and how much prettier.

Anyway, Prince Walther asks for an audience with the Wicked Queen; he's about to become King, and he knows that the council fears their neighbor, and he sort of wants to go over and size the next-door ruler up for himself. So he rides over with a little delegation of the members of the Court he can actually tolerate the best, and is visiting.

It's not fun. They're only there for a day, but the Wicked Queen is definitely scary. For one thing, she's unnaturally beautiful and everyone he brought with him is either stupefied in her presence or terrified. He himself is very confused by her; he's an open-hearted guy, with a touch of naïveté even though he was raised with good intuition and doesn't trust the Queen. All audiences with her are full of all the formal, double-and-triple meaning conversations that he hates back home; except worse, because she makes everything seem more sinister.

So after a particularly weird conversation with the Queen where he can't decide if she was flirting with him or threatening his kingdom, he goes for a ride around the courtyard to clear his head. And what should he hear, like a breath of the freshest air since his parents died?

A pure, beautiful voice. A young girl singing--and not just singing about anything, but singing about what she really wants. Genuinely. Her heart's fondest desire--and it's not power, or land, or even freedom. Just love. She's singing loudly, like she doesn't care who might hear such a vulnerable longing.

And he climbs over the wall and sees this scullery maid. She's absolutely beautiful, even though she's dressed all in rags, and he loves the picture of her: sharing her heart with doves, who feel completely safe with her, and not having to worry about what anyone thinks of her.

He sort of eavesdrops on her for a little bit, and in this part of the movie, maybe we learn how impulsive he is. He just jumps over and tries to join in. Maybe it's even a little funny. And we can stretch out the feelings behind the part where Snow White runs from him--that feeling of her being unsure of a stranger, not because she worries about what he thinks, but because it's so surprising that anyone is taking notice of her so abruptly at all. And she doesn't know him.

Maybe he asks to extend his stay at the Queen's palace and keep negotiating or whatever, but he really just wants to get to know the scullery maid better.

Then the romance is sort of still fast, but built in a way that the audience can sink their teeth into. The Prince and Snow White have a few more mutually-agreed-upon meetings, not necessarily hiding them, but just in breaks between courtly audiences with the wicked Queen. They're both enamored with each other: she's never been treated so kindly by anyone and his whole faith in pure, innocent love and uncomplicated, genuine people is being restored just by talking to her. They bond chiefly over missing their parents.

Eventually he learns that she is the Queen's daughter--maybe from the Huntsman, maybe from Snow herself in an innocent way. He's stunned that she's treated so poorly, but the second he learns it, he confesses that he loves her and he wants to take her away from there. Plus, this solves the whole "will my kingdom go to war with the Wicked Queen or be allies even though we can't trust her" diplomacy thing--Snow White is her heir, so it would be a beautiful twist of Providence that the girl he has fallen in love with can also be the alliance of peace for the kingdoms through marriage.

Snow White accepts his proposal, but she's afraid for a moment that her stepmother won't allow it. The Prince urges her not to be afraid: he'll take her to his castle and they'll be happy no matter what: he promises it, he gives her his word, he encourages her not to worry because he won't let anything stop him. It's lovely. She finally has someone she can gift her superpower of pure love to, and someone who can treasure her like she deserves.

Problem is, the Queen overhears this last conversation, right after learning that Snow White is the new "Fairest of All" from her mirror, just like in the original film.

So while the Prince is convincing his council that he's proposed to Snow White, the Queen's largely-unknown secret stepdaughter, and is going to reveal the fact to the Queen tomorrow, the Huntsman and the Queen herself are plotting the assassination attempt that eventually leads to Snow running for her life and living with the Dwarfs before she ever gets the chance to see her betrothed again.

Then the movie unfolds largely the same way it did, but with more dialogue and nuance strengthening the original's main themes: Snow White is pure love in nature, and that's everything the Prince has been missing, and he fulfills his promise which she has total faith in. And along the way, the Dwarfs learn to care more about protecting an innocent girl than they care about protecting themselves, and treasuring a person over jewels. Grumpy in particular. And the Queen dies because she's a jealous witch who's self-love has twisted her into something ugly.

Basically, what I'm saying is, there's a way to make the Prince compelling for audiences who are now used to more fleshed-out interactions in movie couples. Just give him a background that is longing for pure, uncomplicated, innocent love. Then when he runs into Snow White, who's never been treasured and valued since her parents died, they give each other everything they've been longing for--and then they have faith in one another when circumstances, both funny and sinister, force them apart.

It's like the Notebook (just in story structure)--you build up romance in the first act through a few poignant scenes, but then the rest of the movie is about waiting for that romance to be fulfilled.

Anyway. I guess I could've said all this more succinctly, but I was kind of making it up as I went. 🤷‍♀️