#it's not like this is something from ds or fever or something either. no it's in megamix

[puppys-rhythm-heaven]

rhythm heaven canonically has france.

[misslilli]

Felix Felicis

MSR. AU. PG-13. | tagging @today-in-fic | read on AO3

Chapter 48 - A Little TLC Cures Almost Anything

[ DS ]

After our date at the Winter Carnival, I float on my little cloud of sunshine and rainbows through the rest of the week. It's all so exciting and new, every text you receive gives you a start because you pray it's from him and your heart does a little dance when you see that it is. He's so different from anyone I've ever had the displeasure of dating, it's like a fresh breeze of air blowing away the last cobwebs that still remain from the other guys. Finally, it seems like I'm getting what I've always dreamed of but never thought I'd actually find.

My friends shake their heads in amusement at me tearing through the two school days before Saturday in a big ball of excited energy, or more like a little Duracell bunny on Ecstasy, dying to get them over with and counting the hours until he picks me up for our trip up to the Boston Aquarium at noon.

————

[ Felix ]

"Alright, partner, recap, did you find out anything?" Suzie and I are sitting on a small stone wall far away from the others, conducting our investigation. She shakes her head with a frown.

"No… I asked the butcher and the girl at the bakery yesterday and they all said the same thing. They've heard the name mentioned before but they have no idea who he is! I'll ask around at the farmer's market tomorrow, did you find out anything?" Man, this Squirrel guy is so mysterious, I'm intrigued. How does someone go around town and no-one knows who he is?

"No, I didn't either. But I did notice a new mug appearing in our kitchen, from some Winter Carnival… maybe they went there together? I wish we weren't so little and could go to Bridgeport to snoop around there���" There's a long pause while we ponder what to do next.

"I still think it would be easiest to go through my dad's phone, see if there's any pictures in there or something." We've been over this so many times, all I get as an answer is an eye-roll and a "Felix... You're crazy!"

[ DS ]

On Saturday, I putter around the house restlessly with nothing to do, the girls are out with their boyfriends doing couple things, so I'm using my pent up energy to clean the house from top to bottom, singing along to the radio while I wait for Mulder to get here to pick me up for our date.

I straighten and fluff all the pillows, push around items on the kitchen counter and have rearranged the fridge, twice. We’re planning on going up to the Boston Aquarium this afternoon and I’m beyond excited, it’s going to be such a great day. When you're waiting for something, time seems to slow to a crawl and once I’m out of things to busy myself with, I flop down onto the couch to read.

I can’t concentrate on the words in front of me though, too giddy to focus on anything but imagining what the day will bring.

When the doorbell finally rings, I rush to the door so fast I bang my shoulder on the doorframe of the living room, cursing under my breath. Rubbing my shoulder with a grimace, I swing the front door open to take in the sight of my Mulder. He looks so good in a sweater and jeans, as always, but he at the same time, he doesn't look good.

“Jesus… Are you alright?” His nose is bright red and his eyes are slightly glassy, there's an unhealthy flush on his cheeks that I recognize as a sign of a fever.

“I’m dot Jesus and I'm fine-d.”

“You’re sick, Mulder. Why don’t you come on in, I’ll make you some tea.”

“Do I’m fine-d! We can-d go to Boston-d.” I roll my eyes at him and grab his hand, pulling him inside.

“When you can enunciate your n’s properly again, we’ll go to Boston. Now you need tea, rest and some medicine.”

To his weak protests and some more I'm fine-d's, I lead him over to the couch and push him to sit down on it, his bones seem to melt into the cushions with exhaustion and he rests his head on the back, closing his eyes.

Placing the back on my hand on his cheeks and feeling his forehead, I discover that I was right, he must be running a fever on top of his running nose.

“You really shouldn’t have driven here like this, next time you call and I’ll come to you, okay?” Instead of an answer, he only manages a meek nod - no smart-ass reply must mean he’s pretty sick.

He’s a pretty good patient, however, he obediently drinks his tea, swallows down the Tylenol I hand him and follows me up the stairs like a puppy when I tell him he should be in bed. He lifts his arms obediently when I take off his sweater, which is a struggle in itself because of our height difference and crawls underneath the covers, shivering.

After getting the in-ear thermometer from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, I take his temperature, which reveals what I already suspected: a solid 102 fever.

When I place the box of tissues next to him on the bed and turn to leave, he grabs my wrist and looks up at me with glassy, pleading eyes, rasping out a dramatic “Nooo, don’t leave me!”

“Just close your eyes, I’ll be right back, okay?” Pulling my hand from his wrist, I smooth away the hair on his warm forehead and he obeys with a sigh, closing his eyes.

It’s a miracle that we have all the ingredients for chicken soup in the freezer and I put them all in a pot to simmer over the next few hours, I also make a pot of chamomile tea into which I stir some honey to ease the throat ache that comes with a cold.

Teapot in one and cups in the other hand, I return upstairs to find Mulder passed out spread-eagled in the middle of my bed and I have to smile at the innocent look on his sleeping face.

Quietly, I slip into the bathroom to change into something more comfortable and to get a cold washcloth for his forehead. The bed dips slightly when I sit down next to him and I freeze when he stirs next to me, but his steadily rising and falling chest means he's still fast asleep.

I’d be lying through my teeth if I said I hadn’t thought up ways to get Fox Mulder into my bed once I’m ready to take that step. Sick and sniffling with an unsexy yet weirdly adorable red, runny nose most definitely was not one of them. But I'm good at taking care of kids, and men with a cold are said to be more like overly grown children than they'd like to admit.

So I stay right next to him just in case he needs anything when he wakes up, leaning over him to fish my reading glasses and the book from the nightstand and I open it to the bookmark, scooting down lower into the pillows to read.

The book whisks me away on a journey to Venice and the crime-solving Venetian inspector Brunetti, so I don't notice him inching closer and closer until there's a heavy arm draped across my waist and a face snuggled into my chest just below my collarbones. Stiff as a rod, I stare down at the unruly head of hair and wait with bated breath for my hammering heartbeat to slow down. It's beating must be so loud under his ear, he must be really out of it if he doesn't wake up from the jackhammer-sound.

It takes a while to get used to but the weight of his arm and head feels oddly comforting and I relax into the embrace, picking up my book again. Soon, I find myself back in Venice and my fingers find their way into his spiky soft hair, combing through it absent-mindedly.

Once my eyes start to hurt from the strain of reading, I put the book back on the nightstand and look out the doors to the balcony at the sun slowly setting, smiling at the little sigh that tickles my collarbone - I'm wild-guessing he's enjoying the hair thing.

The peaceful moment is only broken by a bad coughing fit that wakes him from his sleep and once it has subsided, he groans into my pajama top. “Scullyaayyy I’m dying!”

I roll my eyes and chuckle at his knack for dramatics, pressing a kiss into his hairline. “You’re not dying Mulder, you just have the flu!”

His voice is hoarse and muffled by the fabric of my top. “Feels like dying!” I guess the effects of the Tylenol are wearing off right about now so I make him sit up and hand him another one with a cup of water. I also make him drink his tea and once he’s finished that and the Tylenol has kicked in, he looks a lot better and even manages a small smile.

“Thank you, you’re a really good doctor. I just hope I won’t get you sick too!” I switch out the teacup with some nasal spray for his stuffy nose and shake my head.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ve been sneezed at and coughed on by thousands of kids, I’m immune to all kinds of bacteria and viruses. Are you hungry?”

“Starving. You got any pizza?”

“Nope, just chicken noodle soup, sorry. I’ll go fetch us some!”

Downstairs, the girls are peering into my soup curiously and turn their heads towards me when I enter the kitchen.

“Hey D, that’s a pretty measly dinner you made for us!” Holly motions to the soup with raised eyebrows.

“That’s not for you, Holly. It’s for the whiny, dramatic, sick man in my bed upstairs.”

“Mulder’s here? In your bed? Oooh that’s a first, if I remember correctly, no man has ever glimpsed the insides of your bedroom before.” I smack her arm and roll my eyes.

“It’s not like that, he’s sick and I’m just taking care of him.”

“Look at you going all Martha Stewart, making chicken noodle soup, from scratch, and taking care of your sick man - how very girlfriend-y of you!” Shooing them away from the pot, I fill two bowls and give them a look.

“Oh shut up, I’d do it for you guys too, if you ever got sick.”

“You’ve never, not once, made chicken soup for me!,” Sarah laments with a pout and the others nod in agreement.

“And I never will if you keep bugging me about this!” I put a spoon in each bowl and with another pointed look at the girls, I head back upstairs.

“Mhh this is really good soup, where did you order it from?,” Mulder asks around his spoon as we each eat our bowls of soup, sitting cross-legged on the bed, facing each other. I look up from my bowl with a raised eyebrow. “I didn’t order it, I made it!”

“Oh wow, where did you hide that Michelin star?”

“It’s just chicken noodle soup, Mulder, not exactly haute cuisine!”

“Best damn soup I’ve ever had, that’s for sure!”

——————

[ FM ]

I wasn’t lying when I said it was the best soup I’ve ever had, though I’m not sure if it’s actually the taste or the company I share it with. Even though I feel like dying, it sure feels nice to have someone take care of me for a change, getting me tea and feeding me soup. I wonder if I get to be the little spoon again, I never tried it before and it seems like I really enjoy it. Maybe I can even get her to do the thing with my hair again, that was nice.

The soup combined with the fever spike in the evening has made me sleepy and I realize that I might actually have to ask her to lay down with me again if I want a repeat from before. The look on her face is mildly surprised when I do ask her, but after she puts the bowls away, she lays back down with open arms. Once I’m snuggled back into her side with my head on her chest, I can feel my eyes drooping already. “Can you do that thing again?”

“What thing?”

“The hair thing… that was nice.” I sigh blissfully when I feel her fingers in my hair again and I’m asleep faster than I can even mumble my thanks. But still, not fast enough to notice the proximity of what my cheek is pressed against with a grin, after all, I am a guy and while I'm feverish and my throat is sore, I'm not dead. Yet.

I wake several times during the night and she’s always there, with tea, thermometer, Tylenol and the comforting strokes of her hand. If this doesn’t miraculously cure me overnight, I don’t know what will.

[misora-msby]

2:43, tsukki, fluff🥺 (congratulations!!!!)

「重ねた唇の微熱がまだとけ残ってるのさ」

“the slight fever i get from our stacked lips still hasn’t melted”

i’m terribly sorry this took forever!! i really hope u enjoy ><

study dates with your boyfriend weren’t uncommon. whether it was in the library, at one of your houses, or in a cafe nearby the school, students of karasuno knew they would almost always find their volleyball team’s main middle blocker spending his free time either with his best friend or lover.

of course, studying for hours on end could get tiring. hence why you were currently laying on your bed playing a round of mario kart on your nintendo 3ds while your boyfriend continued working on some math problems.

you crossed the finish line and sighed in relief at the very close first place you achieved before looking at your boyfriend, still working on his stuff emotionlessly. “i got first place,” you spoke up, breaking the silence in the room alongside the cheers of your character.

“that’s great,” tsukishima replied, not even looking up. you pouted at his reaction, or rather the lack of one, and shuffled to the edge of the bed so your face could be near his.

“spend some time with me, tsukki. at least one game. your DS is in your bag, isn’t it?” you ask.

the blond looked over at you and shook his head, “firstly, stop calling me tsukki. kei is fine. secondly, yes but no,” before returning to his work.

“but ‘tsukki’ is so much cuter! and i just want you to take a short break with me!” you whine and roll off the bed to sit beside him, “i promise just one circuit! i’ll study with you after!”

“we’ve been dating long enough for me to know one circuit always ends up as three,” tsukishima sighs.

you couldn’t argue with that.

“fine... but since you’re here, i wanna do something with you!” you pout.

before you knew it, his cool hand was on your cheek and his lips were pressed to yours. you were in too much of a shock to do anything in return as he moved his lips against yours. his rough thumb gently stroked your cheek, as if coaxing you to part your lips for him, which you did, allowing his tongue just the slightest bit of entrance before he pulled away with a slight smirk on his face.

you were still wide-eyed, red-faced, and breathless as he reached forward and wiped at the corner of your lips with his thumb.

“w-what are you doing?!” you gasp and scoot away from your boyfriend who was acting like he hadn’t suddenly made out with you.

“who was it that wanted to do something with me?” the blond hummed as if he didn’t do anything.

“not as- not like- i just-” your words were tripping over each other in a poor attempt at forming a coherent sentence.

“let’s get back to studying,” tsukishima said nonchalantly and turned back to his book.

“oi, tsukki! how the hell am i supposed to focus on my work now?!”

[kopawz]

3, 5, or 22 for the ask game <33

great news gamer, i did all of them 3 - Best game you’ve ever played? the best game i've played in my life that was literally the best experience ever was nintendogs! sorry i don't make the rules <3 oh to take care of a little dogy like it is your whole world <3 i think the series really stagnated after the 3ds, because that Little Friends: Dogs & Cats for the nintendo switch game was really disappointing, it had way less content, and was very limited in what you activities you can go on compared to previous games! it didn't even take advantage of the switch's software; the parks, outsides areas, and even the rooms look like they're from skyrim. -shrek voice- they don't even have Robo-Pup. 5 - A popular series/game you just can’t get into no matter how much you try? i could never get into those FPS (first person shooter games). who cares about being some generic guy who lost his family/wife/kids/suburban home in colorado and wants revenge or something now? gacha games are like that too, i just don't get it, but i hope your get your five-stare hottie, buddy! but an actual series i see a lot of, think it's neat, but could just never really get into? sonic the hedgehog is so cool but there's So Much. i just like to think of him and the games as the funky neighbors i see through the sonic blogs i follow. i think it's important that i follow blogs of video games and other media that i am Never going to play, because even though i don't have any interest in the sonic games, i still wanna see the lil' guy going ham, y'know? 22 - If you could immerse yourself in any game for one day, which game would it be? What would you do? please please PLEASE put me in the pokemon world, i want to speedrun my way to the hall of origin to beat up god (arceus) with my team of dog pokemon, and wake up like it was all a fever dream either that or nintendogs, upload my brain into a nintendog ds cartridge if i were to ever pass away

[onceuponaloonatic]

baby ~ dubchaeng

you gave all been waiting for this so here you go 🥺 this is too long to do in one part so this is part one

dahyun has been firm about not wanting to have a third baby. it wasn’t that she didn’t love chaeyoung any less than before or didn’t want to have more kids with chaeyoung. she just couldn’t. daehyung has been a difficult pregnancy to say the least. her symptoms had been much worse than kihyun and his birth took a lot longer, it was almost a whole day. she felt like if she had another baby it would just be worse, and she wasn’t sure she was strong enough for that. plus, now that the boys weren’t babies she could start focusing on her career again. they were still her priority but being a rapper was her dream job. she worked so hard her whole life for it, she couldn’t just quit now that she had kids. besides, dahyun was happy with kihyun and daehyung. she had the dream family she didn’t know she needed. a loving wife, and two adorable and sweet boys.

but there was always something eating at her though. every time she watched her friends kids, it intensified. she wanted a daughter. she loved her boys so much but seeing all her friends with their little girls just stung a little bit. she wanted to brush a little girls hair and put it up in little pigtails every morning. she wanted to buy tiny dresses and dress a little girl up like a little doll. she wanted to have tea parties with imaginary tea and wearing princess dresses. she never told anyone this, she was ashamed of it. but chaeyoung, being her wife and all, figured it out over time. she noticed how every time one of the girls came to stay over dahyun would always want to play with them and take care of them more than anyone else did. she noticed the painful look in dahyun’s eyes when the girls left.

it had started with ai and yuna. when they would watch them when momo and jihyo and nayeon and jeongyeon were busy dahyun would always braid their hair and dress them in the morning in the most girly dresses their friends had packed. then she got pregnant with daehyung, and she told chaeyoung she really wanted to have a little girl this time. she had been excited when they were told they were having another boy, but chaeyoung saw the look on her face when she was alone. then momo and jihyo had eunji, another girl. and then sana mina and tzuyu had the triplets. dahyun was the only one without a daughter. and that hurt. but dahyun was able to surpress it for her boys. it never truly went away though, and overtime it ate at her. it started to be painful for her to take care of the girls when they baby sat. she used to crave it but it just got harder and harder overtime. chaeyoung hated seeing dahyun like this, but she knew dahyun didn’t want to have another baby. so she let dahyun be. she let her slowly destroy herself on the inside.

dahyun didn’t want a third baby. she made that very clear to chaeyoung. so when she found herself throwing up in front of the toilet, she couldn’t help but cry. dahyun had tried birth control after daehyung was born but it made her really sick, the doctors said she could keep experimenting and that she was likely very sensitive so finding the right type would be hard. dahyun just deicded to stop it. she had gone almost thirty years without using it and had only had an accidental pregnancy once and that time it had all worked itself out. plus condoms weren’t that bad, even if they made chaeyoung a little pouty she understood the necessity for them. her and chaeyoung had talked about one of them maybe getting a procedure done so they wouldn’t have to use condoms or even worry about it. it was safer for chaeyoung, so they had agreed she would do it when daehyung turned six. he was five when it happened.

she tried to convince herself it was something else. she could have a stomach bug or maybe she was sick. she didn’t have a fever though, and when it happened every day for a week she couldn’t deny it anymore. she was pregnant. again. she waited to tell chaeyoung. she had been so adamant about not having a third child and now...

chaeyoung found out when she found her on the floor of their bathroom in the middle of the night crying. dahyun wasn’t sure if her tears were out of joy or sadness.

“baby? what’s wrong?” chaeyoung asked, quickly laying on the floor next to dahyun and enveloping her in a hug.

“chaeyoung... i’m pregnant.” dahyun told her.

“you are?” chaeyoung asked, trying to conceal her excitement in case dahyun didn’t share it. “are you sure have you taken a test?”

“my period is late and i have been throwing up every morning for the past week.” dahyun informed.

“you don’t know it could be you have some crazy sickness that’s stopping your periods and making you sick-”

“chaeyoung.”

“yeah i know.” chaeyoung nodded. “how do you feel?”

“i don’t know...” dahyun trailed off. “i didn’t want to go through this again. i’m scared this will be worse than daehyung. i’m scared i won’t be strong enough to do it this time. i’m scared...”

“your scared you will miss out of having a daughter again, arent you?”

“i would love another baby boy.”

“i know you would.” chaeyoung nodded. “but i also know you want a girl.”

“i do. and i know it’s probably stupid but i just, i want to have a little girl.” dahyun turned around and buried her face in chaeyoung’s neck. “and i don’t want to get my hopes up only to have another boy.”

“baby... think about it this way. we could have another awesome little boy, you said you would love him and he would probably be just as cool as our other two. plus we won’t have to buy much because we already have boy clothing and toys and stuff. or we could have a giggly adorable little girl. either way, we get an awesome new baby.” chaeyoung explained. “besides. you are the strongest most perfect girl i know. i don’t care if you think sana or nayeon is stronger because they aren’t. neither of them had a nearly twenty four hour labor and still had the ability to smile and move around after. you can do this dahyun. and i will be by your side the entire time.”

“thank you chaeyoung... i love you.”

“i love you too.” chaeyoung kissed the top of dahyun’s head. “we have a talent for making babies by accident.”

“you have a talent of not being able to pull out when i’m in heat and we don’t have condoms. this is the second time it’s happened.” dahyun teased.

“hey neither of us regret kihyun, so it really was a blessing in disguise. just like this time.”

“yeah. i hope your right.”

xx

kihyun and daehyung were starting to get suspious with how sick dahyun had been and how her normally flat stomach had been getting softer and rounder. chaeyoung had taught her sons to never comment on a woman’s body if it was mean, but they were both just confused. their mother had been skinny for almost their entire memories.

“why is mommy sick?” daehyung asked as he waited for his mother downstairs. “is she dying?”

“she’s not dying dae.” chaeyoung nodded. “she’s just, sick.”

“but she doesn’t have a fever.” kihyun pointed out. “plus she’s still going to work.”

“yeah and still picking us up from school. sick people don’t pick us up from school.” chaeyoung sighed. her kids were too observant.

“mommy’s just... it’s a girl thing.”

“a girl thing?” they both asked at the same time.

“why has it never happened before?” daehyung asked.

“it only happens sometimes.” chaeyoung explained. she wanted to tell the boys but dahyun wasn’t ready to do that yet. she was just happy kihyun didn’t remember much of dahyun’s pregnancy with daehyung. he had been two for most of it, so it made sense he didn’t remember much. “hey boys, who wants chocolate chip pancakes?”

“chocolate chip pancakes!” the two boys giggled and chaeyoung sighed, getting the stuff to make pancakes. she couldn’t survive this constant questioning from the boys. she really wanted to tell them, but dahyun has told her not to.

when dahyun fianlly comes into the kitchen, the boys start questioning her. she shares a look with chaeyoung who just gives her a shrug.

“should we tell them?”

“i think so.” chaeyoung smiled.

“tell us what?” kihyun whined.

“kihyun, daehyun, you guys are going to have another little sibiling soon.” dahyun explained.

“a little sister?!” kihyun asked excitedly.

“we don’t know if it s a boy or a girl yet buddy.” chaeyoung laughed. “but how about this you can come when we find out?”

“yay!” daehyung was sitting silently, and chaeyoung and dahyun were worried about his silence.

“dae? what’s wrong?”

“i don’t want a little sibling!” daehyung protested. “this isn’t fair!”

“look dae... you need to understand the baby isn’t going anywhere. they are going to join this family. and trust us, when you see it you will love it. they will play with you and probably even like dinosaurs! your getting another playmate.” dahyun tried to explain.

“but younger kids are so annoying.” daehyung scrunched his face up.

“dae this isn’t like your younger cousins. this is your little sibling. they will love to play with you and you can even show them how to not be annoying and how to play dinosaurs with you.” chaeyoung explained. “trust us. your younger sibilng will love you and look up to you.”

“fine... whatever.”

xx

“i’m so nervous.” dahyun whispered to chaeyoung as they walked i to the doctors office.

“you don’t have to be. it might make you throw up again.” chaeyoung laughed at her wife’s pouty face. kihyun was dragging his little brother into the hospital, daehyung playing on his ds.

“very funny. what if-”

“no what ifs!” chaeyoung quieted her wife. “happy thoughts. today is a happy day.”

“i suppose so.” dahyun sighed, rubbing her little baby bump. she was four month along now, and the baby was ready for them to find out the gender. chaeyoung checked them in while kihyun and daehyung both played on daehyung’s ds. when they were called back chaeyoung held dahyun’s hand and gave her a kiss on the temple as they went to the room. dahyun laid on the bed and took a deep breath.

“are you ready to find out the gender?” the doctor asked.

“yes.” chaeyoung answered for dahyun, knowing she was too nervous. kihyun and daehyung both looked up from their video game when they heard the question. the doctor started the ultrasound and everyone in the room was clearly on edge, even daehyung, who still wasn’t entirely sold on the idea of a little sibling.

“your baby is...” everyone waited with baited breathes. “a girl congratulations.” dahyun couldn’t help it as tears came to her eyes. she had wanted a girl so bad. she was finally going to have a baby girl. her own daughter.

chaeyoung was crying too. seeing dahyun get what she had wanted for so long, seeing that they had finally made the little girl of their dreams, the were so happy.

they couldn’t have asked for anything better.

[klug]

Klug or Ringo for the character meme?

Under the read more, I did both of them since they’re quite good characters and it got a bit long due to my infodumping.

Klug

First impression

Well I first played Puyo Fever when I was like…10, on DS. My initial impression of him was neutral? (If you must know my first favorite character was Lidelle/Rider). I leaned a bit to disliking him because my brother would play him (but he also sucked at the game like I did so it was okay).

Impression now

I still think they’re annoying but I appreciate the depth of their character, granted I dislike fanon interpretation a …lot. I think they’re an interesting character that gets watered down to one or two tropes and isn’t written or portrayed accurately by fans.

Favorite moment

Hard to say, I like their role in 7 and in 15th anniversary though! I think their characterization in 15th was really funny and accurate to their condescending personality, calling Satan a cosplayer was iconic to say the least.

Idea for a story

I’ve had a few, I have a pretty good AU set up where they’re the one corrupted by his demon blood and Sig’s the one with the record of sealing. In the AU they’re a bit more obviously malicious because of the demon influence but they’re a bit more in control of things than canon Sig is.

Unpopular opinion

I… think fanon interpretation makes them too soft and cute. They’re often babied and the fact that they’re genuinely a bit of a jerk is overlooked, but I believe this is also a fault of a change of writing direction since about 20th anniversary.

Favorite relationship

I love their relationship with almost all the Primp kids but the one with Raffine is my favorite. I don’t pair them together as a disclaimer but they make for a fun rivalry duo and I like seeing how despite their different personalities as a whole, they balance each other with key similarities.

Favorite headcanon

God I have too many, either my nonbinary one or my Pinoy one. Also that they’re from a rich family and childhood friends with Raffine.

Ringo

First impression

She was my favorite protagonist compared to Amitie and Arle, I thought she had a much stronger character than the two of them.

Impression now

I appreciate all the protagonists now, but I feel like Ringo lacks the most in terms of complexity and character development that’s presented in the games. However I think she’s the most competent of the three, but unfocused and a bit oblivious to her friends’ feelings.

Favorite moment

The point in PP7 before fighting Ecolo where she unites with everyone to fight him off. I genuinely thought that part was awesome.

Idea for a story

Considering that she’s from Japan, I’d like to see her, Maguro, and Risukuma in a more casual setting where they’re removed from magic. I like seeing them hang out, and I think it’d be funny to see her doing a D&D campaign or something similar with Maguro.

Unpopular opinion

She’s one of the underdeveloped characters in Puyo, and requires more fleshing out. 

Favorite relationship

Maguro, hands down. I pair these two together a lot but I love how they complement each other, they’re both zany but in very different ways. I like how they both have a wide variety of interests but are able to ground each other when one is panicking or distracted from the task at hand.

Favorite headcanon

Ringo is autistic and ADHD, considering one of her key traits is her obliviousness to other people and the fact that she’s curious and easily distracted makes this one of my favorites.

[adam16bit]

Dr. Mario

Call the Doctor. Mario.  Oh-oh.   In the later days of the 8-bit video game era, puzzles were a big deal.  Once Tetris hit big, everybody else was coming out with a puzzle game or bringing back an old one from a few years ago in a new form.   Pipe Dream, Daedalian Opus, Columns, Hatris, Puyo Puyo, and countless others were reskinned, tweaked, or rebranded - but Nintendo’s branding is strong.   Their Dr. Mario game in 1990 was released on  both GameBoy and NES, giving you virtually identical gameplay before doing a 16-bit upgrade on the Super NES a couple of years later.   Thanks to Nintendo’s marketing might, this game was right up there with Tetris on some gamer’s lists, and on the same cartridge in the case of the Super NES ports.

As a kid I only had the GameBoy port, because it was $19.99 as opposed to the (correct me if I’m wrong here) $39.99 NES version.  Since I had a GameBoy pretty early on (1990) it seemed pretty obvious that if a game was on both platforms, it probably made the most sense to get it on the cheaper platform since my house growing up had an endless supply of “AA” batteries.  (I have a lot of games for the GameBoys.   A lot.)  I only played the NES version on in-store demos until I got the NES Classic Edition, and I have to say both are pretty much the same as far as playing goes.

Dr. Marketing

Nintendo’s TV marketing ranged from pretty good to pretty forgettable in the 1980s, but by 1990 they started to really nail it with bigger and more memorable campaigns.   One employed the “David Seville” classic song “Witch Doctor,” with visuals that... uh... well, it was 1990 and just before people started to think about what kind of ways you can or should represent people on TV and in the movies on a more regular basis.  It was memorable and seemed more adult (or at least family) in nature, because parents would probably recognize the song and the cultural shorthand which kids might recognize from old cartoons or sitcoms.  Maybe.

There’s another ad more driven to kids, with contemporary pop sounding music that is so screamingly 1990s that you just have to see it.  The squiggles.  The music.   Also, dancing bottles of pills in an ad that addresses kids directly - but that’s more one of those eyebrow-raising things about the game itself and not necessarily just the ad.  I saw both consistently and both drilled into my skull so much that I knew it would probably be the first thing I’d want to tell you poor souls about when talking about this one.

I’m sure there was a direct mail campaign but heck if I can remember it.  There was a rather lengthy Nintendo Power feature on it, which always struck me as odd for games where one screen shot showed you pretty much everything the game could do.  I get why you’d want pull-out maps for Life Force but the extended instruction manual for Dr. Mario always seemed odd.  Then again, Nintendo did push a lot of paper to promote Tetris as a pack-in game for the GameBoy, a shrewd move that was uncharacteristically mercenary given their love of first-party, wholly-owned characters.

Dr. Gameplay

The game itself was pretty simple - Mario got a medical degree on some island somewhere and is now treating diseases by throwing pills at them.   Red, yellow, and blue (or grey, white, and black on GameBoy) pills are thrown out in combinations of one or two colors.  Match four colors in a horizontal or vertical row, and they vanish - taking any viruses in the chain along for the ride.  It’s really easy, and it ramps up as you go.

Graphics are simple - pills are pills, and the virus characters have a little personality with big eyes and nasty mouths.  The exaggerated features are in line with Ed “Big Daddy” Roth imagery and the gross-out style of toys that were popular in the back half of the 1980s - see Madballs, etc.  Mario looks like Mario in a Halloween costume of a doctor, and the screen has a bright, chipper design that looks like it was trying to recapture a sort of whimsy of the 1950s via the 1980s.

The same can be said of the music - it sounds more than a little like EarthBound games, and for good reason as they share a composer.  The title screen music has a hint of some familiar pop songs, and the two in-game songs “Fever” and “Chill” both have an aftertaste of previous decades.  If you heard either on a variety show in the 1970s (minus the chiptune aspect) it wouldn’t surprise me.   They may grate on you after a while, so thank your lucky stars that Nintendo actually had a music select option instead of just one song forever and ever.

Given that the game was marketed to children, the premise was a bit of a stretch - candylike pills gave rise to fears that kids might raid the medicine cabinet.  The same was said about M&Ms and Skittles, so take it as you will - there was a lot of unfounded fear in the 1980s because fear sold books and booked Donahue appearances.

Dr. Ports

Dr. Mario is a game Nintendo wants you to play.  The NES and GameBoy version were ported to the Wii and DS family via Virtual Console.  A quasi-remake called Dr. Wario was an unlockable game in the original - and still fantastic - WarioWare Mega MicroGame$ for the GameBoy Advance.  Nintendo made Dr. Luigi as a Wii U-only downloadable spin-off with new game modes.  The Super NES got a twofer cart called Tetris & Dr. Mario.  And of course, the GameBoy Advance also got a $20 cartridge port of the NES Dr. Mario as part of its lovely (and overpriced) NES Classics Series around 2004.

Oh, and Dr. Mario 64.  How could I forget that?  Quite easily.  And the 3DS got Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure as a downloadable game.   Knock-offs are also out there, as I had a shareware game called Dr. Macinto on my Macintosh IIsi - but all traces of it existing seem to be gone.

Dr. Finale

I never did beat the game - every few levels, you get an animation congratulations screen involving the viruses on a tree with some music and other surprise animations depending on how far along you got.   It’s not much of a reward, but it’s something.  This is a game you play for its own sake, which was something I had a problem with back then as an only child who a) couldn’t take advantage of the two-player mode very much, and b) preferred games that you could finish - so I knew when to move on to the next one.  “Oh I saw the end credits?  Great.  Time to save up for a new one in a few months.”   Games like Dr. Mario and Tetris are still fun to play because of this sort of thing - you can pop them on for five or ten minutes and enjoy them just as much as you did 25 years ago, and if you get the hang of the puzzle and controls you’ll immediately ignore the outdated graphics and sound.   It just works - there’s very little to it, and perhaps that’s why.

As these kinds of puzzlers go, it’s more entertaining than Yoshi.  Remember Yoshi?  Of course you don’t... Nintendo left it off its classic console memory box for a reason.  Dr. Mario was a little more memorable thanks to the soundtrack and strangely compelling characters, making it one of those games that - if the price were fair - you probably wouldn’t mind buying every one or two console cycles just to have it around.   I’m sure everyone would have preferred to include Tetris, but Dr. Mario was a fun one to revisit on the NES Classic Edition.  It’s fun, I’ll probably play it again before this goes live.

[skinnylittlelesbian]

Is there any way I can get a sympathy prompt? I am in the hospital recovering from surgery. I have ulcerative colitis, a very severe intestinal disease with no cure except invasive surgery that is a last resort, for the last three years. The doctors tried every medicine possible and nothing worked. It involves a lot of pain, anemia, very disgusting gastro symptoms that I won't describe in detail, blood loss, and if you're sick enough, fevers. Can you write a SQ story where Henry has my disease?

Remember, I will write anything for you forever. I am sending you all my good feelings forever and ever.

--

Although the sun was shining brightly, Henry wasn’t playing outside with his friends. Instead, he curled onto his side in bed and squeezed his eyes shut. He felt as though his stomach were being snipped apart by scissors, so he weakly called out for help. He wasn’t sure if either Regina or Emma were home, but he couldn’t sit around and do nothing. Calling a little louder, he unwrapped an arm from his middle and fumbled for his cell phone.

He shot a short, desperate text to Regina and then resumed wishing for relief.

-x-

Regina sat in the waiting room of the hospital and fidgeted. She hated fidgeting. When she was young, her mother had used magic to show her the errors of her ways, and even now, she feared there was some retribution coming for rubbing her fingers together over and over again. Instead, nothing changed, save for lone nurse who traveled down the hallway and around the corner.

“He’s going to be okay,” Emma whispered, touching her elbow to get her attention. “He’s a tough kid.”

“He hasn’t had a flare up like this in years.” She dipped her head and frowned at the tile floor that smelled strongly of cleaning solution.

“He made it through before.”

“There’s no cure. Not even with magic. I checked.”

“I don’t think Henry would want you to use magic anyway,” Emma replied. She leaned back in her chair and surveyed the sterile walls with their nondescript, pastel artworks.

“No, I suppose not.”

“People live with chronic illness all the time. I’m not saying that this isn’t something to worry about--”

“The first time he had an attack, I thought he was going to die. He was such a small child, and he lost so much weight so quickly. I had to drive him to Boston to get the quality of healthcare he needed.”

“But he lived.”

“I just wanted him to have a good life. Nothing like what I had when I was his age.” Regina sat very stiffly upright until Emma’s arm looped around her shoulder and drew her close. Unable to resist the offer of comfort, she rested her head on against Emma’s chest. “He was supposed to be happy.”

“He is,” Emma murmured, running her hands along Regina’s arms. “Thankfully, physical health and emotional well being aren’t tied together like that.”

“Health helps.”

“Sure, but so does having a kick ass mom who cares. And a mom who snuck him in his DS. Plus, I think my parents are bringing him some stuff from his room to brighten up whatever hellish white landscape they put his bed in here.”

“Your mother is probably bringing him his homework, as well.”

“Probably.” Emma laughed. “But I bet Henry will be thrilled when you tell him he doesn’t have to do it.”

“Thank you, Emma.”

“Nothing to thank me for.”

Their conversation was interrupted when a nurse approached with a smile and a wave. Henry’s condition was stable, and they were welcome to go in and see him.

[mysticmysterywrites-blog]

Prompt #9

My character is rude and crass and kind of a bitch, and when she see's an obvious run away with a fever sick off their ass on the bus she absolutely does /not/ have them come home with her so she could make sure they get better. Or well, if she does she is absolutely kicking them out the moment they get better.

Obviously she's not gonna grow attached, let them stay through the new year, and then unintentionally basically adopt them.

Obviously.

I'm thinking your character is somewhere in the 9-15 range, because I don't think a five year old has the emotional or mental competence to be a runaway. Also, I set this in the middle of winter, Christmas time, because the human mind wants for what it cannot have. The same reason I write beach episode roleplay prompts in the middle of winter.

Regardless, my character has two partners she lives with, a man about 2 years older then her and a trans man thats been on T for about 7 years at the time of the roleplay, and has had top surgery. The first partner has dark skin, with long dreads and vivid brown eyes. He's a bit reserved, if not a bit of a nerd. The second has blonde hair he keeps in a mohawk, a few tattoo's scattered up his arm and back, and pale skin with a sharp Boston accent. He's a dumbass. A big ol' dumb boi who has done a lot of stupid shit in his life. She personally has long, black hair, with toned skin and green eyes. She walks and talks a big talk, but also is a massive fucking hypocrite in that regard. Like, mind you she'd probably stab a bitch is she was cornered, but she has her soft spots.

Also, names. Those are important. The woman's name is Laius. Partner with dreads is Osamu, and partner with the mohawk goes by Ari.

God, riding on the fucking bus sucked.

Riding on the bus especially sucked when her stop was the last of the night, and she had to ride for a fucking hour to and from her job. It was a twenty minute drive there from her house, and she knew it was a twenty minute drive because normally she had a fucking car. But Some asshole thought it was a good idea to go street racing in the middle of the night, on possibly some of the worst roads she'd seen in years. Like, really- It had practically been a blizzard for the last week or so.

And you know. It wasn't like she was about to get her car out of the shop until the end of the week. Which was- fine, completely dandy, she supposed. She was off for the next- What, week or so, so that wasn't the issue. And no, money wasn't really the issue. Now, mind you she was peeved that she HAD to pay what she did for her cars repairs. But for the most part, what did annoy her was that she had to spend an /hour on the fucking bus are you kidding me./

She huffed. She'd spent most of the ride indulging herself with a shitty old pink DS and a copy of Pokemon Emerald. Perfect shiny hunting opportunity, even if it felt like she was getting absolutely nowhere with her hunt. Shame on her for picking Mawile, of all things, she supposed. But she WOULD have Cherry-Vore by the end of the week she could feel it-

Still, there was another thing preoccupying her mind. Near over the entire bus-ride, she'd been sitting across from a kid. which, in itself, wasn't a miracle. She'd seen many'a'kid in her day. Most of them were brats, But this kid looked like. Sick. Like, genuinely sick. It was the kind of sick that she'd stay home from work for. And she didn't stay home from work for shit. She could see the way their breathing seemed to labor and heave, and how bright red their face was under the hood of their jacket.

Just a jacket, she noted. It was like 5 degree's out, and they only had on a /hoodie./ Also, they'd been here since this morning. That was a huge, big ol' red flag.

Not that any of it was really any of her business. So, some shitty parent let their child wander off too far, or forgot them on the bus. It wasn't something she needed to concern herself with.

Except, she had vivid flashbacks to- What, 7 or 8 years ago? 18 years old with only the cash she could shove in her pockets, and a shitty van with just herself in it. She'd gotten so sick at some point that she needed to stop at a motel in the middle of nowhere, heaving her stomach out into the toilet with the poor minimum wage worker rubbing between her shoulder blades. Notedly, she'd later end up fucking the dude, and he was kind of living with her now. But still, the memory in itself was bitter, and she'd made a few stupid choices that could have ended worse then it had that night.

She pursed her lips.

It wasn't any of her business, It wasn't any of her business.

She spiked up the volume on her headphones, and turned her attention back to the game at hand. She clicked her tongue.

Another Golbat.

--

Here's the thing. She would have been completely fine just leaving the kid on the bus and tricking herself into thinking they would have just been fine. After all, it was pretty damn easy to fool yourself when you didn't have to see something straight on. It was a completely different ball game when the last stop of the night was yours, and they were forced off of the bus with you.

"Hey," The bus driver would nudge the kid, looking something between peeved and concerned, "Last stop, you need to get off now."

The kid wasn't any of her business. Especially not as she shuffled off the bus, and watched at the poor groggy thing was forced to follow her. It was not her business, as they both stood and watched the bus drive off. And it was not her business, as they seemed to fall dizzy while still standing in their spot.

It was, absolutely one hundred percent not her business.

She breathed out.

Fuck it, tomorrow was Christmas Eve.

"Hey kid, do you have like- A place to go tonight?"

---

A shiver went down her back, and not because she'd shifted over the large, faux fur coat she'd worn out today over to the kid, letting them wear it over their backpack and shit. That is absolutely, under no means something she'd so. Still if it was, by any chance of the means, something she would have done, she would be entirely too eager to get inside her apartment.

But that was, of course, not her, and the fur coat wrapped tightly around their shoulders was not something she'd given up about half way through their walk home.

"'Lright kid, here's house rules," She turned heel to look at them, an eyebrow raised and a frown on her face, "First of all, if you steal anything and run, I will personally come and find you. I gotta lotta shit sitting around, I know. But I /will/ notice if something is missing," She pulled out the key to her apartment let it fall through her fingers a few times, "Secondly, you're in like- goddamn quarantine right now. I got way too much shit to do to get sick within the next week. We're gonna get you hooked up with a room, and you're in there until you leave," She huffed, "Finally, and most importantly, talk shit about either of my partners and you will be out of here faster then I can say howdy do. No trans jokes, especially under this roof. I know thats like, cool and hip with the kids, but Absolutely none of that shit, got it?"

Finally, she turned back around to the door, fucking with the lock and key for a good few seconds. It always got stuck, shit, "Other then that, you're free to the food in the kitchen, Tv has too many channels but literally nothing fucking on, and the password to my tablet is "1985," one hundred percent based on the Bowling for Soup song. Are they past your Era? Shit," She seems to consider it for a moment, though the shit seems more based on he fact that the door won't OPEN then it is the thought. Almost immediately, she seems to be going back on her original statement, with a sharp, "I don't know, maybe you can hang out and watch some shitty Christmas movies with us tonight if you want... Kids are into that, right? Fuck, I'm an adult and I'm into that. But like- After that, you're quarantined. Oh, /fuck/ finally."

"Now," She opened the door to her place, finally managing to just bump it open with her hip, "Merry Christmas kid, into the apartment."

[scitydreamer]

I’ve mainly played visual novels for the past few weeks and I do love them, even though it makes me “a weeb, a gamer and a fucking nerd all at once.” But sometimes, I like to sit down with something more arcade-y, so I decided to hit up something I saw in my feed a while back.

The 7-in-1 Morning Toast Mega Pack is by Morning Toast, a developer that mainly dabbles in Pico-8. The mega pack is a collection of arcade games that they have previously released in one package, plus a game that they haven’t released before.

BuzzKill

  I actually wrote about BuzzKill before and it was the game that got me to follow this developer. I gave it another go in the collection and honestly, my thoughts still stands.

Yes, I am indeed shamelessly using the pictures I took before.

Invader Overload

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Invader Overload is partially inspired by Space Invaders Extreme, an updated, flashier version of Space Invaders that was originally released on DS and PSP that has also recently been updated for Steam a few months ago.

Those doofy invaders do what they always do, shuffling back and forth while shooting down wiggly lasers. What’s different is that they now drop different colored squares, and getting all three of the same color gives you a temporary power-up like a laser beam or an explosive weapon. Occasionally, a little UFO flies at the top of the screen that drops a gold power-up that activates a fever mode where enemies start dropping golden squares. Pick up enough of them and you’re thrown into a hectic boss fight against a huge invader that throws down huge beams and its tinier fellows. It’s all very fun and a nice take on Space Invaders.

What keeps me from fully enjoying the game, however, are the backgrounds. Now don’t get me wrong, the backgrounds are actually cool to watch, but from a practical standpoint they can be too distracting. It’s especially bad with the boss battles for me, because the screen is very busy with falling green lines of code that get mixed up with all the actual shots you have to dodge. Honestly, if it went a bit easier with the backgrounds, this would have been my favorite game in the collection. With that, Invader Overload is fun yet flawed.

Alien Harvest

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Alien Harvest looks like if Alien had a tie-in game for the ZX Spectrum and feels like a tie-in game that would have been pretty okay for its time. The grandson of Burke plans to finish his work and you, as a faceless entity, are tasked with collecting alien eggs to prevent the legacy from coming to fruition.

Your main goal is to collect 12 eggs (or 20 on Terror Mode) to unlock the final level. You don’t necessarily have to collect every egg on a level, because if you leave an egg lying around long enough, it’ll hatch and evolve into a proper alien. You have a scanner that shows all the biological stuff scattered throughout the maze environments, showing you the locations of eggs, dead bodies that can give you power-ups and fully grown aliens. To stop you from just letting you walk to your doom, you also have an audio scanner that starts beeping the closer you are to a threat. As there’s no music playing in the main game, the scanner makes for a tense atmosphere.

Personally, I didn’t get into the game because it’s not what I look for in an arcade-y game. However, that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Sure, I sometimes got stuck on walls while moving around, but the it’s otherwise a solid survival game. In fact, I’d say that it’s the most unique game out of the bunch.

Bustin’

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Bustin‘ continues the movie based Pico-8 action with a game based off of the new Ghostbusters. The Ghost Lord is out and about trying to unleash slimy ghosts into the world and it’s up to one of the gals to stop him.

Gameplay has you moving between four rows, blasting your photon pack at ghosts and the portraits they’re coming out of. You move on to the next stage after destroying all the portraits, with portraits getting repositioned to give you less breathing room while the latter stages have the portraits move on their own with the Ghost Lord himself stepping in to hassle you. I wasn’t into the game initially, especially since the first few levels are at their hardest in the beginning, but it settles into a frantic pace in the later levels that I really got into.

The photon pack can overheat, so you have to be careful about its usage. Or you could just move into a different row, which resets the overheating bar in what is certainly a glitch, but I’m not complaining. You can also deploy this thing that sucks up ghosts in a row for a few seconds, so you don’t have to worry about dealing with it for a bit. Touch a ghost and you can’t do anything for a few seconds, which can make a major difference. I kinda feel that you’re stunned for too long, though the game is still manageable.

The music can get a bit repetitive and the beginning is slow, but Bustin‘ made me feel good.

Mass 360

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Stepping away from the games based on other properties, Mass 360 is based off the real life story of the developer’s dad’s fight with cancer. Mass 360 has you control… something to fight off your dad’s growing cancer. I guess it’s metaphorical like Edmund McMillen’s stuff except tasteful and not gross.

You rotate around an arena while shooting inward, which is an interesting way of playing this. You progress by shooting apart cores, which are protected by cancerous masses that branch out when left alone and some virus things that shoot at you. It initially starts out slow, but it soon evolves to bullet hell levels, colorful sprays bursting out of the center.

Your dad starts out with a mere two minutes to live, but you can get more time every time you destroy a core. You don’t lose lives if you get hit, but you do lose your precious time. Ideally, you should focus on building up a time bank so you can spend the latter parts of the game focusing on destroying the turrets, because you’ll probably waste more time trying to dodge their nonsense.

Honestly, this may be my favorite game out of the pack. My biggest issue was that I kept getting disoriented playing this, but that’s a personal flaw more than anything.

Bullet Cave

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Bullet Cave is another shooter game with an interesting gimmick. Bullets fly toward you, but they’re completely harmless. Unless you let one of them fly past. A wall of spikes appears behind you, threatening to get closer with every bullet you let slip by. You think, “okay, I’ll just shoot them down.” You do that and suddenly the cave is getting more cramped in a different way, the cave walls below and above extending with every bullet you shoot down.

The game is an interesting take on shooters in that the difficulty comes not from dodging intricate patterns, but managing the environment around you to live as long as possible. You may be tempted to let bullets pass by you to avoid the cave walls from growing too far out or you may risk getting crushed by the walls to prevent the spikes from getting closer. You can collect an item that fills up a gauge that lets you freeze time and flip what the bullets do. Bullets will now hit the spikes back and destroying bullets also destroys parts of the wall, but now, you’ll be asking yourself which is more important to destroy.

You can also collect power-ups, which manage to be a blessing and a curse. Sure, you can shoot down bullets more easily, but also, that may not necessarily be what you want. Spread shots are important because they could shoot bullets that are blocked by walls, but that just risks bringing that wall closer. Then there’s the power-up that just shoots one slow big bullet, which actually kinda sucks no matter how you cut it. They can’t all be winners.

I wish that you could turn off your time freezing ability mid-use in case you want to conserve it, but otherwise, it’s a solid game with a neat concept.

Bunyan’s Rage

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This last game is the only fresh one out of the bunch, exclusive to this collection. The title screen is evocative of a fighting game, but in reality, it’s another shooter.

Bunyan’s Rage puts you in control of a jetpacking lumberjack shooting at hostile squirrels, ending in a fight with a bull piloting a UFO. It’s definitely the wackiest game thematically. However, from a gameplay standpoint, I actually consider it the most boring game out of the collection. It is a straightforward shooter, which comes off as disappointing after playing the more ambitious Mass 360 and Bullet Cave. You go through a gauntlet of enemies, you pick up power-ups to increase the power of your shots, the only thing different from a standard shooter is that you have unlimited lives and you’re held to a time limit that gives a score bonus for beating the boss at the end.

It’s still kinda okay, though the game lacks music and I think it’s hard to get a read on the character’s hitbox. It’s not terrible, but it’s not terribly exciting either.

Overall though, the 7-in-1 Morning Toast Mega Pack is a good collection, providing a series of arcade games with different ideas. The collection is pay-what-you-want, though I suppose nothing’s stopping you from checking out the games’ individual pages.

Checking out a collection of Pico-8 games by @morningtoast! I've mainly played visual novels for the past few weeks and I do love them, even though it makes me "

[puppys-rhythm-heaven]

probably unpopular rhythm heaven opinions

i’m bored so i’mma do this. please do not commit kill on me, thank.

(under the cut as always)

bon odori isn’t that difficult.

remix 3 tengoku′s the best tengoku remix.

remix 4 tengoku′s the second best tengoku remix.

by process of elimination, remix 5′s the worst tengoku remix. i still like it tho.

ds’ first set is the most difficult first set of games. built to scale’s pretty strict, glee club’s lenient with timing but it’s hard to tell if something’s a superb or a just ok because of invisible barelys, fillbots isn’t that hard, and fan club basically requires no misses.

i like thrilling! is this love?

moai doo-wop is, as a lot of ds’ games tend to be, hard at first but easy once you get the hang of it.

love lizards is really difficult.

i like love ooh ooh paradise.

dj school is difficult.

drummer duel is like the most difficult non-sequel game.

big rock finish is difficult.

i like young love rock ‘n’ roll.

lockstep isn’t that hard. maybe at first, but once you get the hang of it it’s a breeze.

rockers, on the other hand? fuck rockers.

remix 6 ds is the best non-remix 10 non-remix 8 remix in ds.

haven’t really heard anyone talk about it either way but i like that’s paradise.

the dazzles 2 is better than the dazzles 1.

rhythm rally 2 is the best ds game, and the overall best game.

remix 8′s hard at first, but once you get the hang of it it’s one of the easiest remixes.

munchy monk 2′s pretty good but it’s not the best.

remix 10 ds is the best medley remix.

ds’ remixes are all really good and i don’t see how they’re forgettable.

fever can be pretty difficult at times.

tambourine’s not that hard.

working dough’s one of the hardest repeat-after-me games (shoot-’em-up’s harder tho).

built to scale is one of the best fever games.

air rally is one of the hardest fever games.

love rap’s difficult at first but once you get the hang of it it’s easy.

set 7′s one of the most difficult sets.

night walk fever isn’t that great. it’s fun tho.

remix 8 fever is the hardest remix 8.

remix 10 really isn’t that hard once you get the hang of it.

megamix is really difficult. though for the most part, that’s just since it’s all over the place so it’s hard to know if a game’s just strict or you just suck at it.

cosmic rhythm rally, especially when compared to rhythm rally 2, is really easy. though rhythm rally 2 in general isn’t as hard as people make it out to be once you get the hang of it.

not unpopular but like the shop really wasn’t executed well. it’s a good idea theoretically, but then they put in almost every game from fever due to it getting four pages of the shop, while tengoku and ds only get like sixteen each with only one shop page. even if they didn’t want to do dubbing for tengoku, they could’ve added showtime, wizard’s waltz, polyrhythm, tram & pauline, fireworks, i could probably go on. and for ds, they could’ve even just added splashdown, space soccer and heck, even moai doo-wop or something and i’d be happy.

while i do miss dj school, i am kind of glad it didn’t get in megamix because i feel like it’d be boring without actually flicking.

love lizards and love lab are really the only games i can think of that’d be potentially incompatible, due to the sliding.

uh yeah. feel free to ask about any of these, i have nothing better to do honestly.

[reynewcw-blog]

Name: Abraham Jared Hart, Abe for short.

Face Claim: Milo Ventimiglia (In the younger years)

Age: Died at 15 in the year 2000, eternal baby face

Height: 5’4

Hair: Dark brown

Eyes:  Dark brown

Species: Ghost.

Powers: Has the typical ghostly powers. Invisibility, Intangibility, Teleportation. He possesses not people but objects from time to time if he wishes to expand the breadth of places he wishes to travel. He is also linked to Cyrus and therefore uses his own powers to at times amplify the ones Cyrus has and therefore creates a barrier between Cyrus and the rest of the world. Before his death he was a medium and could talk to the spirits. Now that he is dead he tends to have an aversion to communicating with other ghosts simply because he does not want to feel as if he could potentially lose himself to their energy. Little does he know that he has the ability to take in their power if the situation called for it. Luckily his loner status does him well to bring him away from those situations though.

Weaknesses: Holy lands. Priests. He can get weak if he exerts his energy too much or too quick. Can be kept out of areas not only with holy items but also sulfur and can be trapped with salt. He also does not like to hang around witches or necromancers. The only sort of person with any abilities he wants to linger around is Cyrus. He could be “killed” through certain religious rituals if they wanted to get rid of his spirit.

Personality: Abe has always been a touch aggressive. He’s ready to fight for his right and all that jazz. But most of it is all bark no bite. He’s a kid in personality still, excitable over certain things and with an initial desire to resist since he had always been a rebel. But he’s pretty open minded and will come around on certain issues if given the time. He wants to stick it to the man but he also wants to lie down in a field somewhere and listen to music until the days drift into weeks. He is also prone to playing pranks sometimes. Just now and then. And he has a love for puns. Bad puns. But on certain days, like anniversaries, full moons, or the day he died he tends to disappear for a while. Either he chooses to fade into the surroundings or he goes elsewhere and watches a movie in the dark. The only good thing about being a ghost is free admission to any film he wishes to see. Same with concerts.

Birthday: April 15th

Role/Occupation: Friendly Grunge Rock Ghost reporting for Duty

Registered: No Origin Story: Abraham Hart was born with a silver spoon wedged in his mouth. His parents are filthy rich publishers and bakery owners. Kerry and Jared Hart were in the early years of their empire when Abraham was born and so he never knew what it was like to go without. Growing up in the late eighties and nineties meant he was exposed to all sorts of emerging trends, cultures, and styles. Being in a private school meant that he did have a uniform he had to wear but on the weekends he could go to pricy thrift stores, buy ripped up jeans, used up band tees, flannel button ups, Doc Martens, and any CDs he could hope for. The problem was that during this emergence of his own youth and the desire for a grunge lifestyle things got…complicated. When he was twelve it started as a whisper. Just a voice that kept talking to him at the edge of midnight, asking questions or just speaking his name. Abe entertained the voice for a while, answering little questions about his home or his life, and letting the voice get louder. But it became harder to balance when the one voice was soon accompanied by others. Abe’s grades began to plummet from their steady B minus to Ds and Fs as he began to hold whispering conversations with the voices that would not let him be. His teachers and classmates reported his behavior to Kerry Hart who was concerned for her son. She held a few secret seances to rid the house of evil spirits but the voices were still there. She was convinced then that her son was not host to spirits but mental illness instead. Abe was diagnosed with schizophrenia after three sessions where he discussed how he conversed with these different voices. Abe insisted he was not sick but that he was just being harassed. He knew things after all. About history, about current events, about the details of a moment of a crime because someone in his head had been there. He was not sick he was just being followed. The psychologist thought otherwise and put him on pretty strong medication. For a while the voices stopped, whatever was in the meds had closed off a part of his mind that could block out these visitors and his sensitivity to them. But they never left. They just kept pressing, and pressing, and pressing. They wanted him back. They wanted his words, his ear, they wanted to be known. They never asked to remain on earth and they found some boy in Seattle who they could talk to. How dare that witch and that doctor take away their boy? How dare they… A month after splitting migraines, fevers, and constant medication. Abraham died. The details of which Kerry does not and will not discuss and Abe does not remember. But he does know they had to remodel the house after. It was different when he visited as a ghost, that much he knew.

A couple years later the Harts brought in a new boy. Cyrus. And while at first Abraham had been jealous to know that his parents had found a replacement son there was something about him that drew Abe to the boy. It took a while but when he finally figured out that Cyrus had a psychic inclination he knew he had to protect him. After all, boys like them tended to be wrung out to dry in the world their parents claimed to be apart of.