#its a fun game. too bad about the racism though

[spitblaze]

Yknow the farther out from BG3's initial launch we get the less interested I am in Astarion as a romance option. Like I know, what the fuck, I'm a Therion stan I should be In Love with this morally ambiguous thief twink but he's just not my type I don't think lol. I'm still fully here for Wyll and Karlach and Halsin and am still fucking mad about how dirty they did Wyll. They didn't even give him a sex scene. What the fuck

[seeminglydeathlessredshirt]

Ramblings on Bioshock Infinite

So, I've decided to start writing down how I feel about what I'm playing here rather than wait for my friends to be online so I can infodump at them.

Anyway, Bioshock: Infinite. The original was pretty alright. I didn't get all the way through it because I was getting a bit tired of Rapture and some other little annoyances, but it was a perfectly decent experience. Skipped past 2 because once again, not in the mood for spending a dozen more hours underwater, and went right to the one that people fuss about all the time to see what the fuss is all about.

I shouldn't have gone out of my way to see what all the fuss is about.

Spoilers for an 11-year old game will follow, but I do not recommend going out and checking this out yourself.

To its credit, the game does have a very strong opening. The welcome centre/church you arrive in offers absolutely gorgeous visuals and a strange yet interesting blend of Christian motifs and the weird sort of reverence built up around the founders of America. "Gee," I thought, "maybe this will be a game that finally tackles religion in an interesting and nuanced way that doesn't just feel like it was written by a 14-year old who just discovered Reddit." Unfortunately, it doesn't(if anyone knows a game that does, please let me know.) After a level where you walk around and take in the sights of Columbia(an experience that feels like walking into a veritable wasp nest. Either one, take your pick), you're thrust into your standard action game plot shenanigans. Kill a bunch of guys while someone rants at you over an intercom, go through various setpieces, all that good stuff.

Is the killing actually all that fun? For a certain stretch of the game, yes. You have some okay abilities, a good selection of weapons to choose from, and takedowns are pretty cool as well. The skyrails scattered around some maps are gimmicky, though a welcome addition(the irony of a game like this leaning heavily on what are basically rollercoasters is not lost on me.) But somewhere past the halfway point, it takes a steep nosedive. The weapon list gets bloated to hell and back, and a combination of the carry limit of two plus the tendency to only ever give ammo for everything you don't want to use drags it down. Enemies also seem to get substantially spongier and more numerous, which makes fights incredibly unsatisfying. Bioshock was already firmly in that grey area between immersive sim and combat sandbox, and Infinite is neither of those. Everything feels so much less versatile, there's no thinking outside the box to be done here.

As for the rest of the story, you may have heard about how centrist it gets, and I am sad to report that everything they said was true. What really gets me is how it's already setting up the "both sides are the exact same thing" even before the characters would have any reason to think that. They're literally basing this entire viewpoint off of "oh, the workers are being violent about overthrowing their oppressors, that's super bad, right????" This game also does try to tackle things like racism but I don't exactly have a good eye for whether or not something tackles that matter maturely, so all I'll say is that it feels very surface-level and inconsequential. "Inconsequential" can sum up everything else in this paragraph too because it's all eventually abandoned for !!Dimensional Shenanigans!! This is what the last few levels are taken up by entirely and all it accomplishes is covering over a weak attempt at social themes with an even weaker attempt at sci-fi themes. The ending is certainly a bit more batshit than you'd expect for your standard seventh-generation slop, but it can't salvage this. The fanservice just reminded me of a somewhat better game. I would make a joke about this game only having two characters, but then it goes out of its way to say "yes, there really are only two characters."

I am not playing the fucking DLCs.

[sotc]

Post Veilguard high thoughts

Firstly, I LOVED LUCANIS. Despite my grievances below I can't help but love the game, and I'm high on copium on what potential future DA games could look like if they actually focused more on the fffff FUCKING ROLEPLAYING!!!!!!!! aspect of this game than an action adventure!!! UGH lol. I LOVED playing Armas so much tho and ultimately my affection for this game ties into that. I know I'm wearing red-tinted glasses. I know I am cringe but... I am free. I LOVED LUCANIS. Playing a Rook who was more stern towards people really helped balance the overall 'uwu live laugh love' tone the game was forcing. I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I selected the 'nice' options in this game. You can't be an evil dickhead or anything but it helped and made it far more tolerable and enjoyable. Slap in 'a Crow has to be a little unhinged since they murder for a living' headcanon and I came up with a recipe that tied together nicely. I truly don't think I can play a nice character in this game bc I'd kms sorry LMAO (but maybe that's also just me because I like playing bastards) And did I mention I loved Lucanis?

If you want to read a bit more detailed opinions it's below:

1) I loved the gameplay! The animations and detail to the animations were STELLAR. I feel like they really nailed the gameplay aspect in this game. I loved the level exploration, the specializations/talent system, the companion leveling, and the combat was amazing. I liked a lot of the OST. I really loved playing a rogue SO much I'm really excited to see how warrior feels. I really loved seeing the little codex entries with Dorian, seeing the Inquisitor again, and even Solas 💗 I think the major story missions like Weisshaupt, some companion quests and the last 3 hours of the game with its suicide mission was SO fun. HOWEVER.....

2) A lot of my frustrations with the writing largely comes from lack of nuance and deeper exploration. There is no mature explorations of these stories and topics because it all feels sanitized. There are dark portions to this game (the Blight especially, loved all that) but a large portion of story beats that try to explore its depths simply fall flat on its face because it all comes down to "every bad or evil thing is because of the evil gods and cultists." For example, racism, classism, slavery etc etc is shown to be enforced only by the Venatori and not the oppressive ruling class of mages or even other citizens in Minrathous is my biggest gripe. We walk into a literal police state in the first 10mins of the game where you see a giant beam shining down on a citizen being arrested and none of that oppression truly gets explored afterwards. I digress lol. 2-a) I think this also comes down to the scope of the story getting so large and ahead of itself there was never really a chance to let it breathe. It doesn't ground you or your character to the world where your Rook reacts to these situations more personally. Environmental storytelling is done well for the most part but the game really needed to dig deeper in a more personal roleplaying experience explored in side quests.

2-b) Character dialogue was WAY too modernized, there are few opportunities to talk to them, and conflict with them was absolutely nonexistent or minimal. MY team of people trying to save Thedas would never know what positive affirmation, mental health and group therapy is!! sorry but god dammit what da hell is this!!! Still, I did love all the companions though overall.

3) I expected more out of the lore. Even without worldstates no longer really being relevant (which I am willing to let go of). Like, we had heard so much about Tevinter and Antiva but we never got to really sink our teeth into their societies at all. There is so much rich lore there to explore that gets glossed over. Which again just goes back to 2-a lol.

4) Lucanis romance was SO lovely but suffered from lack of content that left much to be desired. His romance feels unfinished, which makes sense given he suffered from multiple rewrites and his writer was also let go in the middle of production. I have heard a lot of the romances suffer from feeling incomplete or lackluster too.

[outivv]

I would rather not get too much into the wuwa vs genshin vs r1999 because each game has their own pros and cons. But I'll say this much about these three games.

Genshin representation is getting to a point where it's now becoming a racist Fandom, especially on genshintwt. These fuckers harrased and made fun of a Hawaiian because all she did was to show how Maulani is EXTREMELY whitewash. Both her and her brother are no longer on twt due to constant racism. (Doesn't help the fact that Maulani and her tribe are the stereotype of the "nice welcoming Hawaiian"). With every excuse that these racist would always use, "it's fiction it not suppose to be reality". The same can be said for HSR

r1999 does have good representation on LGBTQIA, sexual oritentation, and having characters that aren't just pasty white. HOWEVER, as many people have stated, we have yet to have a black person. They have mentioned Black historical figures such as Louise Armstrong but not yet a playable character. It's also doesn't help that in one city they have an area called "Cotton Club". The last time they had a POC was in 1.3 as of right now, at least in CN service, it is now 2.0 and there hasn't been another Black or brown character. Those who do have brown skin are usually the "ambiguous brown" (take a look a Joe)

Wuwa...I'm just gonna say this much. Kuro games has a history of being generous. We see this in PGR so for veteran players their generosity is nothing new. Representation wise....it's a not that great but its not bad. While they do have some brown and dark skin (really depends if you see their skin as ashy or not with the exception of Vonnegut) characters, they still follow some Oritentalism as well as not having another Black or Brown character for awhile. Seeing how they are open to new cultures and how they listen to feedback we can only wait to see if they are going fix their mistakes or not.

Each game has their fair share if criticism. However to say r1999 has "better" representation than Genshin is a stretch. They have a good set of diverse characters but no Black Characters despite the fact they have entered an era based of the Roaring 20s.

Off topic the only CN game I have see that has Black Characters is Dislyte. At the beginning they did have racist stereotypes but they learned from their mistakes. And there are some ambiguous brown/Black Characters. Moroyama and Yalina for example.

I agree, I should probably word myself better when talking about the games as to not seem so- like putting one on a pedestal cause they all have their pros and cons (though genshin is bottom of the barrel dogshit in terms of rep)

I love Dislyte though, they genuinely seemed to have improved a lot in terms of how they represent characters, and people, and just overall cultures- and I’m honestly really happy with that. The Dislyte fandom is like… microscopic I feel BAHAJHAHA, so I haven’t heard much in terms of criticisms for them, so I won’t speak on that because I don’t know- and I’m just not aware :’)

[ataraxixx]

Hey oomfieeee !!!

Since u want more asks than just art reqs, what are you favorite and least favorite:

Seasons

Episodes

Soundtracks

Villains

Main Characters

Side Characters

Hope u have fun letting this ask rot and decay in your askbox for like half a year or something (pls dont do that i actually rlly want the answers to all of these) >:33cc

youre so lucky im procrastinating an assignment rn so im goingto answer it immediately

fav season: sons of garmadon

least fav: skybound

fav eps: tick tock, snake jaguar, game of masks (embarrassed about how much of harumi's dialogue i know by heart here), cursed world part 1+2, return to primeval's eye

least fav eps: once bitten twice shy, literally everything in skybound that isnt echo zane, like the first half of roots..(tbh a lot of s16 i hate)also every ep of the show that includes weird racism stuff like s11 the island etc

fav soundtracks: like the entire s8 ost is so fucking good guys .....i particularly really like mr e vs snake jaguar and garmadon's true potential. i also really adore falcon chase / zane's theme. no least favorites really its hard to dislike ninjago music but i do get annoyed how often they reuse the overture in tracks that dont really need it :P

fav villains: besides harumi and mr e.... and garmy poo... i really like aspheera and unagami my sillies. AND RAS!!!!!!!!!!RAHHHHH

least fav villains: i actually really hate how morro is executed in canon sorry guys i think they made bad writing choices i could do it better. hes fine though obviously i like him as a character just not his writing as a villain. and the obvious Nadakhan and the weird personalityless villains like overlord and omega or whateva.

fav main chars: zane <3 forever my top fav ninja but i like lloyd and cole too. and pixal my WIFE ever since the day i saw her i was a pixal stan from day 1 from minute zero. she has my whole heart

least fav main chars: im kind of a jay disliker..hes like fine sorry i just dont care abt him that much and his arcs are always executed really poorly LOL. fanon is carrying him hard i fear

fav side characters: skybound is good for giving us the most banger side characters (echo and the sky pirates) and thats it. clancee nation forever

least fav side chars: i dont like shade why does he randomly flirt with nya in s9. girl we are in the apocalypse. also dorama is annoying

[wirewitchviolet]

Have I done any serious Lovecraft bashing in the last year or two? I feel like I’m overdue.

I’m almost positive I’ve sat down and written at least one big long post on the general subject of how there is nothing redeemable or interesting about H.P. Lovecraft, but I’ve also definitely seen another like hundred examples of people misrepresenting his influence and talent since, so, here’s another one.

See, there’s this popular myth that H.P. Lovecraft, despite being one of the all-time most virulent racists and quite open about it, was some kind of grand visionary who made all kinds of super important contributions to the horror genre, and... he just didn’t. Honestly I’d kinda want to burn down his legacy even if he did, because no for real, the racism was absolutely astounding. People’s jaws were on the floor about it even when he was alive. I feel pretty good about just completely throwing the whole output of right wing extremists in the dumpster like nazi game devs and such, so I don’t see why this should be different, but also for real, nothing of value is lost in doing so.

Like, first of all, he’s just a really bad writer. Really formulaic structure to all his stories, they all have basically the same protagonist and he sucks, tons of purple prose setting things up and then just kinda glossing over the main events, and dude really did just abuse the hell out of a thesaurus. And the subject matter’s not great either! In pretty much everything he ever wrote the big scary thing is kind of always just privileged white dude anxiety. “What if I’m not the center of the universe? What if I’m not actually a pure and noble white guy but I’m secretly the product of the dreaded race mixing? What if, like, a trans woman was kind of into me? What if I ad to deal with some other culture doing stuff I’m not comfortable with? There’s a couple that are more “starfish are just creepy” but it’s not a huge element in those and also I mean that’s just true.

There’s still the big influences though, right? Well, not really, no. Evil cults trying to bring back evil gods/monsters was totally ubiquitous way before Lovecraft. Super advanced space weirdos were too. Big freaky monsters doing sexual stuff with tentacles simply does not happen in any of his stuff. There’s no cool monsters really. Or people doing cool magic rituals. Just glancing at things and running away really. Like, guy wasn’t just unpopular in his day because he was a white supremacist scumbag, he also just couldn’t write well. I’m always pointing this out, but you realize Cthulu isn’t even actually much of anything in Lovecraft’s actual stories? The Call of Cthulu is mostly just this all build-up kind of story, with a couple people piecing a few random incidents into a vague semblance of an investigation, and at the end some big goofy sea monster starts to wake up from a coma and then... promptly has a ship plow into its head causing it to pass out again. That’s it. That’s the whole story. No big evil plans or minions or eating 1d6 investigators, no referencing in other stories. Basically everything in the pop culture “Lovecraftian” bubble is fan fiction, mostly tracing the route of “someone made a tabletop RPG vaguely inspired by other authors’ playing with this guy’s stuff which ended up being popular enough in Japan to be name dropped in some porn VNs, and people just kind of assume tracing that all the way back must lead to something good.”

This all made a lot more sense before/in the early days of the internet, where there was a sort of weird nerd elitism in knowing certain bits of obscure trivia and catching the right references. A lot of actually really talented horror people back in the day kind of got in the habit of referencing some memorably weird terms this one old racist tossed into stories that sometimes showed up in one of the oldest horror magazines one could find copies of if they really looked. In particular people found it really fun to keep referencing “the necronomicon” as like a pokedex for weird ancient monsters and occult stuff and made it enough of an in-joke to mislead people into thinking this was a real book. But the whole idea was you had to have access to this magazine from the 1920s to really be in on the joke. Stuff just kinda doesn’t work that way anymore. Wikis kinda killed being in the know on weird trivia connections.

The other thing though is people used to just do a little name drop of a book or a monster while doing their own stuff, and that’s fine, but now you have so damn many people doing “Lovecraftian” stuff where they more directly reference his better known stories, and there’s kinda this whole subgenre where people just run down that checklist. There’s dozens of “Lovecraftian horror” games where ooh, you’re some reedy nerd or detective and you go to this town called Innsmouth and people are suspicious and oh no they’re like fish people and they chase you around and you pass out or maybe find some weird idol and somehow or other you’re on this big mystery island and we’re directly quoting that “even death may die” line without context, and whispering voices tell you to poke at 7-pointed star symbols and oh no, you woke up Cthulu and he comes and eats you, credits. And like... it’s just running through the same checklist every time. It’s never informing a more original work, or putting interesting twists on things. It’s like how you used to have nerds just quoting whole scenes out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail or quoting catch phrases from Austin Powers or Borat. Just so incredibly tedious and pandering to people who don’t ask for anything more than having the references they know quoted back endlessly.

Anyway, point is, we really wouldn’t lose out on anything if we just freaking buried this one old racist hack. If you want to do some referencing and name dropping to weird spooky stuff that’s maybe from space or the ocean or whatever, there’s plenty of stuff you can shout out that’s actually good, and isn’t giving a certain kind of people to start grinning smugly and referencing what this guy named his cat. Like for real, any time you feel compelled to drop in some kind of Lovecraftian reference somewhere, just namedrop Junji Ito instead, or directly reference a short story of his. It’s all way more interesting and fleshed out and you’re just throwing a spotlight on someone who as far as I can tell is just a really nice talented artist who likes cats. Cats with names you can say out loud, even.

[byfurries4furries]

Shelter (Fantasy Visual Novel)

Shelter, made by Rausmutt, is a complicated game. It doesn't neatly fit into any particular genre. It's a dramatic fantasy scifi action porn comedy, if I were to label it, which, as you can tell, isn't an easy task. There's a lot to like about this game and a lot of disparate elements that come together to form a tight cohesive whole, but one that's not too tight for a knot.

Shelter is about a human named Luke who helps run a shelter where canine adventurers can stay and relax at. A holiday called Skies Ablaze is coming up and for various reasons, Luke spends it alone every time, but he finally finds a way to celebrate it with his closest friends. He plans to spend that night with them, but until then, he needs to pick someone to spend the rest of the day with.

Now... I could make an entire essay about what makes Shelter so good. I'd say it's probably the first furry visual novel not mostly or entirely written by Howly, who wrote Adastra, Arches, and most of Echo, that has felt this thematically and tonally rich. But unlike a lot of games in this genre, it does not try to mimic Howly, but still manages to tap into his strengths. There's strong messages about racism, exoticism, the meaning of freedom, the harms of hero worship, the difficulties of fighting hierarchies both in practice and concept, self-care vs altruism, and the fear of mortality. There's also hints at autism allegories and anarchist principles that may be unintentional, but are so well integrated into the setting and story that they feel like natural extensions of the more prominent themes.

But this isn't to say Shelter is entirely serious. It's also an extremely silly and horny game, full of dog puns and meta humor. That fact is obvious if you play the first hour or so, especially if you manage to get a bad ending. And to that end, it's really effective. It's very funny and charming and silly. And that in itself is integrated into the more serious elements. Rune is by far the silliest and horniest of the route characters, but he got that way because he fought and sacrificed A LOT to have the freedom to be that way, and you can see that from the beginning as he's the most physically scarred character in the main cast. His hedonism and goofiness is his way of enjoying the freedom he fought for.

But if there's one thing that stands out about Shelter, it's its gameplay. I know it's weird to praise a visual novel with mostly dialogue choices, quick-time events, and one somewhat confusing minigame for its gameplay, but most furry visual novels often only have dialogue choices as opportunities for interactivity and even some really good ones like Arches and Remember the Flowers don't even have that. I'm not criticizing those games for doing that though, as focusing on story and even abandoning dialogue choices has many of its own advantages, but the fact Shelter branches as much as it does really makes it stand out a lot, especially since it's still so tightly written. Because of that, I rarely use any save slots at all. I certainly save sometimes out of a nagging feeling I should, but even then, I rarely load up a saved state ever. There's so many branching paths of events to do. A lot of side quests and unlockables and hidden scenes. My favorite thing to do is boot up the game from the beginning and do slightly different dialogue choices until I get to the part I left off at in my last session. I have nearly completed everything available in the last update (v33) and I only very recently got through enough branching dialogue to safely keep a save file of the moment right before the route split. It's truly fun to have a visual novel open ended enough that I can have unlockables and completionist challenges to do. It's really a fun game on top of being a great story, especially since diverging branches are written around each other later. There are a handful of continuity mistakes, but given how complicated that is to keep track of for a story of this nature, it's impressive there aren't way more. And that's all without sacrificing the story or the core themes. In fact, I believe those act as the anchor for the game's narrative.

Overall, Shelter is an amazing game. If it weren't for how extremely NSFW this game is, I would give it my highest recommendation. In fact, I will, at least for anyone who's 18+ and isn't squeamish about gay sex and descriptions of gore. It might be my new favorite game, at least depending on how it ends up. It's currently unfinished, but it is possible to get to Burry's and Rune's good endings and Max's route is shaping up to be my favorite one with some surprising themes of mutual aid, capitalist realism (or maybe more broadly hierarchal realism), and the meaning of justice. Both of the multi-route side quests have unfinished best endings, and there are a few more unfinished branching dialogue choices. But you can go 30 hours without running out of stuff to do as it is and it might be more if you're not like me and don't skip action and sex scenes because you just can't get yourself to enjoy them when they're written out in most media, mostly due to issues with visualization skills and not really due to any fault of the authors. And with that rant about oddly specific personal stuff out of the way, keep on yiffing.

Links

Itch.io

Side Tangent: This game is so shockingly gay that the biggest twist that shook me the most is the singular instance of a feminine pronoun. There's no female characters and although even tamer characters still tend to talk about sex a lot, straight sex doesn't get mentioned at all and neither do any females, with the sole exception of this reveal. Or at least there were no other incidents that stood out. But it's safe to say Shelter fails the Bechdel test hard, so much so that it's a mystery if there are even any women in its world at all.

[skythesnake]

Tell tumblr about the unnamed book…

Oh, I could go on and on about my current wip. I love it so much and I hope to publish it one day. It started as simply worldbuilding practice, but a storyline pushed its way through, and I decided to turn it into an actual book.

The base idea is that it's set in a world where eight of the nine countries were made by different gods and then kind of mashed together into the Preimyr Continent (known to mortals as Elat, though Elat is actually this world's word for 'Earth' and also a god). The ninth country is a set of three islands created later by a different god.

An undecided number of years before the beginning of the book, one of the countries, Tsabal (A country on the west coast) discovered a new continent in the seas west of the Matanal Islands. There, they found a new race, but this new race unknowingly violated one of Tsabal's deeply held moral rules and so Tsabal declared war on the Junifrati people who live on the Sycandram Continent. Eventually, all countries except Kinan (the southernmost country) joined Tsabal in it's war effort and that's where we are when the story starts.

The book begins by introducing Kishan, a book smart, anxious, young woman from the northern-most country, Alanae. He talks about his genderfluidity and the fact that he feels very out of place in flat Tsabal, where he's used to the high mountain ranges back home that block Alanae from the rest of the continent. They become squad captain of Squadron 13 (a very unlucky number due to it being prime, but that's just superstition... right?) which holds a self-righteous, easily angered Fijari man (Fijarin is another country on the west coast, just south of Alanae), a strangely powerful Tashikan (Tashik is a country on the east coast and is the second most southern.), A very introspective Vishali spy (Vishal is right next to Fijarin on the east coast), and a handsome, quiet, Tsaballan man.

The book features themes about racism and discrimination and the overall themes of the book are 'just because this person doesn't act and/or look like you, doesn't mean that they're bad.' and also 'Not everyone who looks the same is the same.'

Eventually, a bubbly young Tashikan by the name of Kira'is is introduced as well and she joins the squadron after they've been transferred to a war camp on the West Matanal Island just before they make the trip to the Sycandram Continent to help the war effort there.

I have so much more lore, from the mythos (specifically the gods, but I'm working on making some more specific myths too), to character dynamics, to lore about each individual country and the cultures I've made, it's all really fun. I can't fit it all into the book, especially a lot of the mythos, so I'm thinking about making a game about the mythos and/or just dumping a bunch of it on Tumblr.

Also as a side note: I've started making music for it, I have a lullaby that originated in Ancient Tashik, and a character theme song for Kishan. I'm currently working on fleshing out the lullaby and making a instrumental theme song for the god of death and madness who plays an extremely big role in the book. I hope to flesh all these song out and then maybe release them somewhere (probably YouTube or smth) sometime in the next year or two.

This got longer than I anticipated lol. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask away!

[anosci]

Media Thread

im making a list of media ive watched/played/etc this year with brief thoughts. its going to be far less featured than my music list, but still a bit long. again mirroring twitter except this time because fuck twitter.

list below the cut

～January～

1/ Princes Arete (2001) I was sold on this movie under the premise that it's similar to Kino no Tabi. and… it is. kinda. Kino and Arete would be cool pals. Every character is interesting, which seems rare(?) Only real drawback: the hostage situation kinda really sucked.

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2/ Time of EVE (2008/9) the classic tale: androids indistinguishable from humans as an allegory for racism. but unlike DBH, this is actually really good. its a story that feels like a single thread in a vast tapestry that'd be fascinating to explore, but too bad: you only have 6 eps

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3/ Spice & Wolf (2008) i remember loving this show. i don't remember understanding the economics. I took notes this time. I still struggled. (spoilers for ep3) regardless: wow this is a good show. weirdly, I saw myself in the relationship portrayals. I guess that means its realistic?

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～February～

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4/ Spice & Wolf II (2009) i feel like this kinda fell off? :( like it tried too hard to be action-packed. and that worked sometimes. but that first arc was just… :( it feels like a case of "just needs an editing pass. needs a bit more focus" i'll treasure S1 more, after all

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5/ Double Fine PsychOdyssey (2023) absurdly captivating. i say that it's a miracle that any video game gets made ever. this shows that Psychonauts 2 was several miracles in succession. it's simultaneously illusion-shattering and inspiring.

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6/ The Owl House S1 (2020) finally sat down to watch this. it's GOOD. lots of worldbuilding to chew on, and then it picked up quite nicely. im immediately pouncing on S2 and feeling glad i was late enough to be able to marathon

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～March～

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7/ The Owl House S2 (2022) stumbling down the boulderest mountain and hitting every rock on the way down. the rocks represent engagement. i am engaged. i adore this show. it is a little weird to suddenly freeze mid-tumble.

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8/ Broken Age (2014) (Dr. Mick's LP) delightful start! brilliant, even! then the big bad is revealed and…. meh. I watched Dr. Mick's playthru tho, and holy shit that's some really cool commentary.

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9/ Double Fine Adventure! (2015) its a little unfortunate that the nature of gamedev means that the ending is kinda anticlimatic but good lord what an amazing journey. i'd watch a million of these.

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10/ Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) ok ok fine ill [finally] watch it …oh its good. like really good. its rly funny but in a way that fascinatingly beside the point? yeah I can see why some ppl didnt like this but i think its super fun

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11/ Nichijou (2011) a nice and cute slice of life thing… that occasionally breaks out some quality jokes. though only half of them landed for me. i feel like i would've gotten more out of this if I caught it at the time.

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～April～

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12/ The Owl House S3 (2023) i had a lot of reservations about the collector initially but having seen the entire arc: that came together nicely! still sad that it's The End, but like. good overall!

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13/ Penguindrum (2011) i DONT think i followed 90% of the themes and their connections. that said, i DO love the way metaphors are treated as "literal". confusing maybe, but i adore the idea of "paint what you feel not what you see" applied to storytelling.

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～May～

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14/ From the New World (2012) this has a mess of an opening (several) episode(s), but it eventually found its footing and became quite a cool action adventure… thriller i guess? i do take some issues with bits and pieces but it was a good watch overall.

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15/ GinGitune (2013) fluff. the lightest, fluffiest of fluff. melts in water. there are several elements that couldve been mined for drama and intrigue but they were all treated as background elements. (this isn't a bad thing, but it's not what you might expect.)

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～June～

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16/ Space Dandy (2014) dropped after ep4, but on good terms i guess? fun animation, funky vibes, sometimes even funny! anime johny bravo…or I think i saw a Dirty Pair comparison, which feels right. but im not meshing with the silly wacky high nrg antics rn. maybe another time.

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～July～

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17/ Death Parade (2015) rly misleading intro (i was ready to drop lol) rly rly promising setup by ep4 RLY good development and mildly biffed ending, but hard to fault considering its a 12ep. i love the aesthetics, worldbuilding, characters. overall i really really liked this!!!

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18/ One Punch Man S1 (2015) i forgot how fun this show is! and the great worldbuilding! i dont plan to move to the second season again tho. i thought about grabbing the manga instead but good lord it's way longer than i thought. oh well.

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19/ Flying Witch (2016) slicest of life with a la croix touch of supernatural. the normal slices didn't do much for me 90% of the time. but the supernatural slices? choice. (…mostly.) tbh i just want an entire season of that cafe.

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～August～

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20/ Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto (2016) i was skeptical, but this actually worked rly well. for moment. a short, beautiful moment. most of the potential here was stifled by trying to add high school drama/plot. the comedy tho, at its best, had a vibe i havent felt since hayate

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～September～

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21/ Saiki Kusuo no Psi Nan (2016) it is VERY EASY for a comedy show to slide from "absurdity = funny" to "this is just annoying". somehow, this never crossed that line, which was weirdly refreshing? not always a winner, but overall a good mix of laughs and superpower exploration.

21b/ edit to add: oh this was right after Sakamoto! Man. The two feel kind of kindred but Saiki is leagues better at staying fresh.

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22/ Viewfinder (2023) short but very sweet mind-bender puzzler thing. the story had a cool foundation but fumbled in execution imo. but the gameplay? top notch. felt great through and through. never too difficult. beautiful idea and beautiful execution.

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23/ Flip Flappers (2016) uncertain about the show at first, and then, after watching… im still uncertain. i did enjoy it, but I also felt outside the audience ig? a case where I can imagine a version of this show that knocks my socks off, but as-is it's just a fun ride

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24/ Fionna & Cake (2023) my expectations were very low and they were VASTLY exceeded! think this show is at its strongest when exploring characters w short stories, which was most of this. the ending felt slightly fumbled…i think it couldve rocked me but instead it was just :).

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～October～

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25/ Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye (2021) i already played and loved this game, but happened upon About Oliver's playthrough and fell in love again. truly that is The Most outer wilds playthrough. good lord.

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26/ The Amazing Digital Circus (2023) interesting and filled with style… but not for me. i'd list complaints but basically all of them are strengths and favorites for someone else. yknow?

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～November～

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27/ Little Witch Academia TV (2017) as the credits roll, i find myself with two thoughts: croix was done dirty and wow this is SPECTACLE. aptly magical. oh also! it was quite fun to follow along with contemporary discussion

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～December～

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28/ Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (2023) oh it's like. really good. i dont remember the movie so i cant compare but this stands well on its own and i love the character exploration, even if i dont like some of the uhh… what would you call that? scifi jokes? (spoiler territory soz)

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29/ Land of the Lustrous (2017) FLOORED by how much I loved this. qualms about the CG turned into admiration, the shading drawing me into the world. worries about annoying characters melted away to find admirable layers. THE USE OF SYMBOLISM kept me SO well fed. and the pacing!

29b/ cont: my only complaint that isn't a nitpick: i hate how it left so, so, so many threads loose. i faceplanted my dashboard during the decelerating pace between the first 10 eps and the final 2. i get that it's from an ongoing manga but that still felt maximum bummer.

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30/

[utilitycaster]

So you've decided to play low combat or low magic D&D:

You probably should not.

If this were a video then I'd do a fake-out fade before coming back but unfortunately my medium of choice is "long tumblr text post no one asked for", so we must soldier on.

Here's the thing: if you are a person on the internet in TTRPG spaces, and particularly if you are a D&D player, you will, at some point, hear from someone with all the misguided zeal and smug dipshittery of a missionary, though to be fair usually significantly less of the violent racism, preaching the Good Word of Indie TTRPGs that you, stupid D&D player, simply must not have heard of.

Usually, I tell these people to fuck off, because they do not have any understanding of what game I'm trying to play, ie, D&D. However, if you want a game that's not full of combat and magic, I strongly advise you actually do check those indie TTRPGs out. PbtA isn't my jam but it is almost entirely RP and simple checks, ie, the sad husk of D&D when stripped of two of its three best qualities. Not that I'm biased. Savage Worlds, also not bad. Basically, if you want to play a game that doesn't do the core things D&D does...play a game that isn't D&D.

Ok but we want to play D&D though

If you absolutely must: pick one of low combat or low magic. You can't have both. It can, technically, be done, but only by Brennan Lee Mulligan and even then it was one of the weaker Dimension 20 seasons and also 4 of the 6 players had to be rogues. Also make sure your players are fully onboard, and both you and your players should have some experience with more standard D&D. Because here's the thing: the balance of D&D - what different classes can and can't do - tends to assume a decent amount of magic and combat. A ranger might be much more useful out of combat, but a barbarian's skill set is really skewed towards the battlefield. When you mess with the balance of gameplay, you also unbalance the classes.

(continued below the jump)

You also absolutely need to have your players on board, and this might mean "we play for 3 weeks and if it sucks, we stop, reroll, and play D&D normally," because I think a lot of people are into the concept of adding these challenges without realizing that they are actually harder and often less fun to do.

If you're new to D&D, again, I need to ask: why aren't you playing a different game that is more suited to your needs.

Ok! I've picked low combat.

Ohhhhh my god u picked low combat? should we tell everyone? Should we throw a party? should we invite the dalai lama

Now that I've gotten that out of my system: You can do this. Here's what I'd advise.

make a plot heavily dependent on intrigue, mystery, or discovery. You still need stakes and a goal, and turning this into something political, investigative, or centered around creative problem-solving.

Steer players towards what are typically known as the high-utility classes, depending on what kind of plot you've picked. If it's intrigue and politics, classes that favor charisma and stealth would be wise. If it's mystery, it's time for intelligence and high perception. If it's discovery, ranger skills are helpful. I would advise people lean towards the full casters, hybrid classes, and rogues, and even then, talk through the subclasses; war clerics are going to have a rough time of it.

It's low combat, not no-combat, and if the players snap and decide to murder hobo 1. all bets are off and 2. they're valid, and dare I say correct. Let the game evolve, and don't be too closely wed to your choice of low combat if the situation no longer makes sense for it.

I've picked low magic.

I don't have any jokes for you, just a withering glance.

You can do this, and honestly a lot of high fantasy is low magic; it's just, again, D&D has wizards in it. This situation is somewhat rife for the one character playing a full caster, if you permit that, to end up with disproportionate attention, because the other thing about high fantasy is that it has chosen one narratives, which are bad in D&D. Anyway, here's my advice.

Continuing with the high fantasy aspect: you know what high fantasy has, when it doesn't suck, is really good worldbuilding. Can you do this? No? Maybe don't play low magic. I'm not only being mean here: you better have a very good reason why there's not much magic but there is some. If magic is frowned upon, why? How is this enforced? Why didn't they stomp it out entirely? If your player is a full caster, how did they become one? Even if you burned all the arcane textbooks, if you still have things like gods and the echoes of creation and draconic bloodlines, you're gonna get some sorcerers and and bards and clerics. Why haven't they killed the people controlling magic? Is that the campaign? That would rule actually, and if you're not doing this you should....but even if you're not you really do need to do a ton of extra work on your world. You did this to yourself.

Also TBH "magic is illegal" is tough to do well and "not many people have magic, they just don't" is much easier, so like, do that. If you want truly no magic, then don't allow magic. Also play Blades in the Dark or something.

You do at least have more flexibility with general plots, so that's nice.

Do NOT skimp on combat if you've gone low-magic, because most of your PCs, unless you're doing the "we are special magic users" route (in which case, technically, the world is low magic but the game isn't), will be uh, low-magic, which means their abilities are all about fighting.

To that end: steer your characters towards martial classes unless the plot is Bringing Magic Back. Hybrid classes are good options if you'd like some magic but not too much.

FOR REAL THOUGH while a low-combat game can be framed as "these characters aren't in a place with tons of violence", a low-magic world needs the worldbuilding to support it. Are you up for the task?

[mandareeboo]

Do you have any game recs?

Always!!!!! A quick note that I am, as I've mentioned many times before, not great at video games, even if I play them a lot. Which means that while I've beaten all listed, I've certainly not gotten enough skill to give a professional opinion rip:

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (any)- Look. Look. You like RPGs? You like Pokemans? Buy one of these bad boys. Most of the used copies range between twenty to thirty dollars, and they're all over 15 hours of story content plus extras. This was my first experience with Pokemon. This was my first experience with a storytelling video game. Playing them as an adult, you'll spot the twists and turns, but as a child I DIDN'T and it's partially what got me so into writing. I don't have a time gear tattoo fer nothin'!

Far Cry Games- Far Cry games are racist. I'm not lying or ignoring that, and I never recommend giving money to these people when pirating is possible. But if you care about gameplay over a shitty, repetitive, bigoted storyline, Far Cry games are massive, sprawling, and beautifully rendered. You can do basically anything in them. You wanna steal a truck and run it off the road? You wanna hunt? You wanna play shitty poker? Go off majesty, it's there. One of my first FPS experiences.

Psychonauts and Psychonauts 2- You ever read A Series of Unfortunate Events? You know the vibe of 'I have a vague time period where this set in, but this is not how the world acts or people act but it's so compelling'? That's Psychonauts. Set "loosely in the 80s", the games star an acrobatic lad as he uses his psychic powers to enter minds and stop evildoing. It's twisty, it's twisted, it's FUN, and if you aren't sure it's ten dollars at full price for the first one, so you're basically in no real risk of losing out. If you like platformers and are looking for a hella fun time with interesting mechanics, definitely give this a try. (Though, fair warning: Psychonauts 2 has a fair amount of vomit in one mission. So if that squeezes you out, maybe watch a playthrough and skip the goats)

Bioshock 1 and 2- A staple, I know, but I just got to play them for the first time last year, and I loved them. Period-accurate sci-fi that is filled to the brim with POC with plotlines, backstories, and aren't just "lol isn't racism fucked up" fodder? Yes, please. You can pick between a myriad of power-ups and do battle however you want with them. Hack machines or freeze your foes or send bees after them. It's all available. I've not beaten Bioshock Infinite yet so I can't properly recommend it, but I've been told a lot of the fun mechanics are still there.

Celeste- Another platformer, Celeste has gorgeous graphics, challenging but fair gameplay, and lots of memorable characters. Climb a mountain and fist-fight your own mental illness. Each screen is its own sort of mini-level, and you start at the beginning of that when you die rather than the start of the level. It's on basically all your handy consoles AND steam, too.

Fran Bow and Little Misfortune- fun fact about me, I love weird little horror games like these. Full of imagery and psychedelic ideas, you're allowed to write your own story in the characters.

Fran Bow is the tale of a very disturbed little girl- or, perhaps, a girl who can see demons. It's all up to you. Set in the 1940s, Fran has been entered into a mental asylum following the murder of her parents. Desperate to find her kitty, you must guide her out of the jail and into the unknown, facing off with demons, ghosts, skeletons with lovely tophats, and your own uncertainty on what is true or fake.

Little Misfortune is about Misfortune, a little girl who wanders away from home to find Eternal Happiness for her mother. This one is more concrete in real-vs-fake than Fran Bow- you meet foxes with staffs, rats hosting clubs, and the pain of saying goodbye. (Warning: both games are very dark, but Little Misfortune in particular contains some vomit)

Night in the Woods- hey, you wanna question your own mortality? If god exists- and, if he does, if he even likes his job? The downfall of small town America? Cults?? Untreated mental illness? Possums? All with great humor and dialogue?? This may be your JAM! NITW honestly changed my life. It gave me a lot of perspective. And I've wanted a tattoo of a whale with the words "I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people who do." on my right forearm ever since. 

What Remains of Edith Finch- a walking simulator, walk through the tale of the Finch family, all cursed with bad luck, as Edith returns to her childhood home and writes it all down. Each story is told with amazing flair, interesting stylization, and horrible death.

[scripttorture]

One of the central characters in a fantasy story I'm writing has torture as part of her backstory. She was captured by an evil race, and one individual in particular put her through a "training" regime designed to turn her into a useful/trustworthy slave. Specifically the goals of the training were:

- destroy her sense of self / agency

- overwrite her ingrained response of healing herself when injured (she has magical healing powers)

- an affectionate or worshipful disposition towards her captors

- immediate obedience to any command

I feel like both physical and psychological torture / mental conditioning are probably appropriate, though I'm leaning away from including sexual abuse. I honestly don't know much about torture at all and the only things that come to mind as producing a result similar to what I'm looking for are the Game of Thrones torture sequence and the use of obdience collars in the Codex Alera book series. The latter is very interesting to me because it is a magical device that inflicts pain in reaction to disobedience but also inflicts pleasure to reward obedience.

I guess I'm just wondering if you have any advice for what kinds of methods would be good to include in a process designed to produce obedience, rather than torture for its own sake or to extract information, as well as if there are any common pitfalls I should try to avoid in writing about such a thing.

The training itself won't be in the book, but I need to be familiar with it for backstory purposes because later in the story this character encounters her torturer again, and is subjected to some further abuse before she finally overcomes her fear and kills him.

Alright well I’m going to be straight up with you: the scenario you’ve presented is a very common torture apologist trope. It’s incredibly unrealistic. And it’s unrealistic in ways that support torture by claiming it can be ‘useful’.

 Which probably means that you’re new to the blog and haven’t heard me give this talk before. That’s OK, we all learn sometime and it’s not my intention to shame you for the fact you’re not as obsessed with this stuff as I am or couldn’t afford to shell out for the books.

 Torture does not produce obedience. The best evidence we have right now suggests it encourages active resistance.

 If you got a lot of your inspiration from Game of Thrones then frankly I’m not surprised you came up with apologia. The torture in that series is incredibly badly handled. And a big part of the point of running this blog is that most people are getting their information on torture from shows like that. Which happens because the research is inaccessible and hasn’t been popularised the way fictional tropes (sometimes fictional tropes literally started by torturers) have been popularised.

 The important thing is what you choose to do now.

 I’m going to break down the problems here and make some suggestions for what you could do instead.

 Firstly: there is no torture or abuse that will guarantee obedience. Pain does not make people meek or compliant or willing to follow commands.

 Torture survivors are not broken.

 They are not ‘controlled’ by their torturers and the suggestion that they are is used in the real world to bar real survivors from treatment. It is also used to bar them from entering safe countries and to argue that they shouldn’t be allowed visas or passports.

 The best statistics we have for any sort of compliance under torture come from analysis of historical French data where torture was used to try and force confessions (something we know torture can sometimes do).

 The ‘success’ rate averaged at 10%. Under torture 90% of people will not comply long enough to sign their name.

 Secondly: torture does not and can not ‘make’ a victim feel ‘worshipful’ towards their torturer. The suggestion is kind of like asking if someone can tap dance immediately after removing the bones from their legs.

 Torturers have no control over a victim’s emotions. They have no control over their symptoms. They have no control over their beliefs.

 And there is no such thing as a torture that can change someone’s mind in a way torturers can control.

 Once again, this fictional trope is used by politicians and the media to justify marginalising real torture survivors.

 I have read hundreds, possibly thousands, of accounts from torture survivors. I’ve read historic and modern accounts. I’ve read accounts from all sort of people from all over the globe. I have never seen a survivor say anything positive about their torturers. I have never seen anything close to toleration.

 A lot of survivors are blisteringly angry at their torturers. A lot of them feel overwhelming levels of spite and some report literally putting themselves at risk of death in order to spite their torturers. And yes, a lot of them are afraid too. None of these emotions are mutually exclusive.

 Affection is impossible. We are not wired that way.

 Thirdly: I understand that ‘evil races’ are a long standing fantasy trope but it would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention the racism inherent in that idea. That some people are ‘born bad’.

 I’d strongly suggest you look up the Black, Indian and First Nations people that I know are on this site critiquing these kinds of fantasy tropes. Because they will be able to explain it better then I can.

 Fourthly: the term ‘psychological torture’ is a pretty common dog whistle for torture apologia.

 Most of the time tortures that people dub ‘psychological’ are things with real, physical effects that lead to lasting injury and death. They just don’t tend to leave obvious external scars. I use Rejali’s term ‘clean torture’ for these techniques. Researchers distinguish them from scarring tortures because they are harder to detect and prove in court.

 The majority of survivors today will have experienced clean torture. They will have no obvious physical scars. But they will still be disabled. They’re ‘just’ less likely to see any form of justice for it.

 Fifthly: torture is a terrible training method because it decreases a person’s ability to learn.

 Torture causes memory problems. It also often causes lasting physical injuries that make performing basic tasks more difficult. And it causes a lot of serious psychological problems which make performing basic tasks more difficult.

 A trained person who was never tortured will always out perform someone whose training involved torture.

 I probably sound quite angry here.

 I write fantasy and I also write about torture a lot. But I can’t imagine that it’s just flavour for a fantasy world or some artefact of the past. Torture is a real, present threat in the country that I grew up in. If I was to return now I could, literally, be tortured and executed.

 If you want to include torture in your world, in your story then you are committing to telling someone else’s story. You are representing an incredibly marginalised group of people and you are presenting that representation to a third group, one that has never had contact with real torture survivors.

 Are you comfortable with the idea of telling your peers that survivors are still controlled by ‘the enemy’? That they’re passive? That they don’t have the capacity to make their own decisions?

 Are you comfortable knowing that the popularity of this message keeps millions of genocide survivors in refugee camps, blocked from citizenship, aid and safety?

 I understand feeling attached to a story and a character. And I understand that this information is hard to find. Hell I’m probably going to end up with the only English copy of one of the pivotal textbooks because I’m shelling out to get it translated.

 You say you want to write a torture survivor. With respect I don’t think you know what a torture survivor looks like.

 I think the most helpful, and kindest, thing I can do here is describe what torture does to people. Because I can’t tell you whether that’s something you want to write. I could try and rebuild this scenario for you (and if you decide you’re interested in that after reading all of this and all the links then I suggest looking through the blog tags for ICURE, torture as training, Black Widow and Overwatch.) But I think you need to decide whether you actually want to write a torture survivor first.

 Here’s a post on the most common torture apologia tropes.

 Here’s the post on the types of memory problems torture commonly causes. I strongly recommend picking at least one.

 Remember that this would never go away. Improvement and recovery in torture survivors means learning to live with symptoms. The symptoms themselves are permanent.

 It’s a hundred different alarms set up on their phone to try and make up for the forgetfulness that makes them miss appointments. It’s the little bottle of perfume in their pocket to bring themselves back to reality when they get intrusive memories at work.

 Here’s a post on the other common symptoms.

 You want something in the range of 3-5 of those, though more are likely if your character is held for years. Each of them should be severe. Every single symptom should have a large, negative, impact on the character’s daily life.

 Do you know anyone with chronic pain? It warps their world. Work can become impossible. Basic household tasks like getting dressed, cooking, cleaning the dishes are done through gritted teeth or not at all. Hobbies and ‘fun’ activities dwindle as they struggle to find a way to do them that doesn’t hurt. Interaction with other people, even loved ones, can easily become barbed.

 Because the pain makes everything more difficult. It means everything takes more energy, more effort. Which means that things fall by the wayside, whether that’s by a pile of mouldering dishes in the sink or snapping at a child. It means tears and the social judgement that follows them. It means the world narrowing as it gets harder to go out.

 Do you see what I mean? Every part of life.

 That’s an example for one symptom. You need to work out at least four. Then figure out how they interact. Then figure out what the character can do to make her life better.

 With chronic pain that can mean painkillers but it’s always more then that. It’s re-learning how to do things; how to put on trousers without aggravating the bad knee, how to sew with one hand. It means learning to cut down on what they do and it means learning a new sort of flexibility; accepting that there are days when the pain is too much.

 It can mean having the same conversation about disability over and over again. With family, with friends, with colleagues. ‘I can’t do that.’ ‘I can do that sometimes but not always.’ ‘That will hurt me.’ ‘I can’t use that chair.’ ‘I can’t get my arms that high above my shoulders.’ ‘I need help with this.’

 And that sometimes means learning a kind of patience that is really barely held back rage. Or perhaps I’m projecting a little with this last one.

 If you’ve never met a torture survivor, if you’ve never looked at a survivor’s work, then all this is difficult. You’re trying to imagine something from first principals with nothing to fall back on.

 So let’s bring some survivors into the discussion here. Some reality.

 Who’s listened to Fela? How about Bobi Wine?

 Fela Kuti was the father of modern Afro beats music. He was tortured multiple times and during one attack, which destroyed his home, his mother was murdered by the military. When he got out of jail Fela marched her funeral procession past the biggest barracks in Nigeria’s biggest city. He wrote two songs about this attack and he doubled down on his opposition to the military government.

 Fela’s music started causing riots.

 You can read what I have to say about him here. You can listen to his music on youtube.

 Here’s an interview with Bobi Wine, which was conducted shortly after he was tortured in Uganda. He talked about how he was determined to go back and continue fighting. Which he did. He even ran against the president.

 I’ve also got a short piece on Searle who was a cartoonist captured by the Japanese during World War 2. His drawings of what happened in To the Kwai and Back are worth seeing. Especially if you want to write atrocities on this scale. They will show you the scale and how to focus on the small, human elements despite that overwhelming scale.

 Alleg’s The Question is pretty much a must, it’s one of the most thorough accounts from the Franco-Algerian war.

 Monroe’s A Darkling Plain is also a must, it’s a series of interviews with survivors of various different conflicts and atrocities. Some are torture survivors. Some are not. It is essential reading because it shows the variety in survivors as well as giving a sense of their lives beyond the symptoms.

 Finally Amnesty International has literally hundreds of interviews and studies available for free online.

 The most important decision for any story with regards to torture is whether it should be there at all.

 So much of this topic is intimidating and so much of it is difficult to write. Not just in the ‘oh this is horribly effecting’ sense but in the ‘I have twelve things to juggle in this simple scene’ sense.

 Ask yourself what torture adds to this character and this story. What does this backstory actually give this character?

 Because if the point is to have her vulnerable and then ultimately triumphing violently over her attackers I don’t think you want a torture scenario. You could get the same thing from a bad guy trying to drug her and having the kidnapping fail when she fights him off, clumsy but effective nonetheless.

 And she could still come out of something like that traumatised.

 Right now I really don’t see this adding anything but torture apologia to your story.

 Handling torture well in a story means accepting that it can’t be the same story without it. It means watching the characters and narrative warp under the weight of it. It means lasting effects, for all the characters and for the world itself.

 I believe you are capable of writing that if you want to, pet. But this ain’t it.

Edit: I’m having trouble seeing the beginning of the answer here. Can anyone let me know if there are formatting issues again please? The first word in the htmal is ‘Alright’ but what I’m seeing on tumblr starts 8 paragraphs in.

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[myrmica]

(answering this here to keep my art blog clean! also this got a little long because offering me a window to infodump is a dangerous game)

SHORT ANSWER: i think it’s a lot of fun for what it is! what it is being "extremely badly written” which is par for the course considering uh... its aphmau. it's nowhere near as bad as mystreet (it's hard to be worse than mystreet)

LONG ANSWER:

this is a hell of a question. I have a lot of honest thoughts on minecraft diaries, which is funny considering i didn't even watch aphmau as a kid! no joke, i sat down last year and started watching aphmau for the first time and i would like to ask myself one thing: WHO DOES THAT?

my thesis is basically that mcd is bad but i like it anyway. mcd has a lot of things i like about it! the format of season 2 is really good, it hits this sweet spot between how rough season 1 is and how overproduced season 3 is and i find it way more enjoyable than aphmau’s later stuff. even though i didn’t watch aphmau specifically as a kid the style of her early videos still evokes that feeling of early mcyt nostalgia in me.

i also loveee how well mcd demonstrates this sorta unique quality mcrp has where the medium shifts as the story goes on. it goes from modded lets play, to completely scripted, to mystreet style voice acting.

it’s hard to fault the quality of the writing too heavily when you know how insane the production schedule was. aside from the catgirl racism.. no excuses for the catgirl racism. or the normal racism. or the fact that her writing somehow got WORSE over time. maybe i’m being too nice to aphmau? i hate aphmau.

as far as narrative/characters go, minecraft diaries has a lot of elements that make really good jumping off points to expand upon (because they’re so underutilized) and that’s what's interesting about it to me. i LOVE the shadow knights conceptually, i think there's so much to explore with them, + with shad as a villain, but aphmau never really does it justice. back when my mcd phase was at it’s peak i wrote like 50k words fleshing out zenix as a character + his relationship with garroth + the shadow knights as a concept. i came VERY CLOSE to doing a whole season 3 rewrite but i’m not that crazy.

my favorite part of mcd is hands down the characters + character dynamics. or rather what those things Could Have Been if they were written well, like you have the whole love triangle thing which against all odds i think is interesting in theory.

laurance's character arc needed to be about letting go of aphmau. he and garroth have this similar "i would die or go to hell or suffer forever if it meant you'd be happy/safe" thing going on with aphmau.

a relationship between aphmau and either of them has this element where they're her guards first and foremost. its almost at a point where she transcends being a friend to them and becomes a symbol despite them being some of the only people who know her for who she is and not as lady irene. they would do things for her she could not do for them in return because she has responsibilities to so many people that it's inherently unbalanced. laurance and garroth also doesn't work out because garroth is too obsessed with selflessness, he just doubles down on the We Only Exist To Protect Her mentality. enter: vylad. also lest we forget zoey, aphmau’s poor forgotten housewife. and the whole thing ties into what guards and lords even ARE on a cultural level and what that role means which is interesting to me.

and all of this could have been something! but it wasn't, aphmau spent too much screentime on werewolves and now we’re here.

side note it’s hilarious to me that laurance had cat ears in all of these scenes ^ the nuances of falling in love with a guy you know nothing about while imprisoned in the nether because he promises he's going to help and then he disappears and you're stuck there for 15 years and when you meet again the first thing he does is apologize for leaving you there. and he’s a catboy.

as far as an overarching plot goes mcd is fucking nothing. with such highlights as “oh no we have to stop the big mean monarchy! to solve this problem i'm going to instate the big nice monarchy instead”

in conclusion: “mcd sucks and i hate it” says the guy who just wrote all of this shit talking about mcd. heres my favorite part of that zenix fic i never posted anywhere

[oops-prow-did-it-again]

I’m back!

So, I kinda quit using this blog a while back. There are some notes about it in my old pinned post and probably on my fanfics, lol, but basically, I felt overwhelmed by fandom and everything going on irl and I crashed. I just withdrew from like, everything. I still logged in on Tumblr but I just liked things to later view them with the boyfriend or laugh at them again myself.

Honestly, it’s not that fun, just doing that, and not really that fair to people who put effort into their posts like art, music, writing, etc., or even just people who are very passionate about a subject and may want it to reach others that are the same. Because I know I’m like that!

But anyway, this is going to be my new pinned post. So! (More under the cut, please keep reading!)

About Me

You can call me Prowess, I’m a FtM transmasc (he/him please)! I use this space to elevate my personal works, such as art or writing, while also occasionally posting about topics I am passionate about. I realized I was trans in 2020 at the age of 19 years old, in the midst of a pandemic and college fallout, so as you can imagine, I’m still riding the rollercoaster of emotions that come with that. I’m also ADHD... so expect some posts about those sort of things.

But that is hardly the focus! I am big on art and writing. While I am mostly obsessed with Pokemon, I am a lover of stories, and so generally, I love most fiction, even the really bad stuff. Along with my Pokemon stuff, you can expect posts involving ARK: Survival Evolved, The Tales of Miraculous Ladybug & Cat Noir, animated movies (Luca, Toy Story, Spirit - you name it, I probably love it), and plenty of other stuff.

While I have too many older posts to go through and try to sort out the unclean tags, going forward, I am going to use these sort of tags: subject (whatever the post is about, for example, Pokemon), characters depicted, media (whether it’s art, writing, animation, or a mix), and any warnings that may need to go with it (for example, cussing when stronger language is involved, or racism if racism is getting discussed, etc). Memes or one-off posts will likely be tagged with simply “memes.” While this is pretty true for most any blog, this is so you know if you need to block certain tags! For example, if you hate Miraculous Ladybug, you’d just blacklist ‘Miraculous.’

I will also reblog a lot of posts asking for help or boosting awareness. I will try not to inundate the blog with these, but as I will likely have to make a post asking for help at some point myself due to unfortunate irl circumstances, I want to pay it forward in advance. These will be tagged with simply “help needed!”

Below are some projects I’m working on + what you can expect from this blog.

Pokemon Retold

By far, my biggest project to date, is Pokemon Retold.

This is an expansive written anthology of all the pokemon mainline games as far as generation 8. Red, Heart of Gold, Omega Ruby, Platinum, Black, Black 2, Y, Ultra Sun, and Sword are all intended to get rewritten and posted on both my FanFiction.Net and Archive of Our Own accounts. I may also post some chapters here, but I admit Tumblr makes that difficult sometimes.

These stories are very personal to me, as I started writing them when I was struggling in college with undiagnosed ADHD, and felt like my life was falling apart and I was alone. I started writing a retelling of Sword, but the more I wrote, the more disappointed in it I felt, so I started writing Black instead and scrapped Sword altogether.

I’ve had some rough road since, but Black is complete, Black 2 is also complete, and Ultra Sun is (mostly) complete (but with plans to be heavily altered), while Red is underway!

WARNING: These stories can get DARK, and I would rather my readers be over 18. They are not dark with the intent to squick out or upset people, however; they are dark with the intention of exploring thoughts and ideas I find too difficult to think about directly. There are more personalized warnings at the beginnings of each story. With that out of the way, please just try and move on if you find yourself disliking a specific story or part of a story of mine... If you want to give constructive criticism, you are more than welcome, but tearing into me and my writing just because you didn’t like something helps nobody. Keep in mind I write these for fun and as a form of self-therapy throughout some of the worst years of my life.

Furthermore, I edit them a lot. And I do mean a lot. My FFN profile acts as a “changelog” for what has changed in the stories over the course of the time they’ve been posted.

Pokemon Retold posts are tagged “Retold.”

My FFN Profile

My AO3 Profile

Pokemon Retold: Black has been added to TVTropes! I honestly don’t even care that this person digs into it a couple of times, I was so incredibly flattered they took the time to do that at all. (But be warned the page does have some spoilers!) I have no idea if you enjoyed the story or not upon reading over that page, kind stranger lol, but I really appreciate that you took the time to do that nonetheless! <3

Creatively Destructive

This incredibly well-titled story is an idea I have for a retelling of Miraculous Ladybug. I know, I know - absolutely never been done before /s

While I know there has got to be a thousand retellings of this show by now, based on just how.... terrible, the writing is, I want to try anyway. Because I genuinely love the premise of the show! I’m just constantly disappointed by how it seems to never go anywhere with its plot or characters.

So, Creatively Destructive will be a fanfic, and when I have more information on it, I’ll post it under the tag “creatively destructive.”

Roleplays

Me and my boyfriend love to RP a lot. From Monster Hunter to Pokemon, we do a lot of different stories. Sometimes, I really get inspired by what we come up together and I want to share it with others! Be it quick art based on a scene from the RP or a quick rundown of what occurred in an RP, you can catch these in the ‘Prow RP’ tags.

Currently, we are having a lot of fun with an RP based on the Hoenn pokemon games that I am sure I’ll be posting about!

I may also be open to RPs with others in the future :> Don’t be offended that I’m not open to them already... I’m just a very easily overstimulated person.

The Ballad of the ARK

ARK: Survival Evolved is a lot of things. It’s an amazing concept, an open-world game where you befriend dinos and fight alongside tribemates against other tribes, or work together to survive the hostile environment. But the true tragedy of this game goes so much deeper than that, and I want to explore that in writing, starting with my story, my experience, and then graduating to where I think the issue primarily stems from. 

This strange memoir will be posted under the tags of “Ballad of ARK.”

Commissions

I hope to take commissions for art and writing in the future!

However, I need to figure out the parameters of what I’m willing to draw (and what I can feasibly draw), as well as what I can promise when it comes to writing, not to mention pricing.

That’s not to say I’m not open to ideas though! Feel free to message me/send me asks anyway and we’ll see if we can work something out. :)

Although I am not in a financial disaster just yet, I feel like I am not far from one. This is why I hope to try to build on commissions in the future. I know they will never support me, but I would still like to try to be useful and helpful to some. I currently live with my grandmother, having left my abusive home with my father, and although she generously allows me to live with her for the low cost of merely helping with some electricity and my own food, I struggle to remain abovewater financially due to difficulty finding work (thanks to issues with ADHD and physical problems following a bout with COVID in early January 2021).

If you would like to help anyway, feel free to subscribe to my Patreon, or make a one-time payment via PayPal. I promise no matter what or how much it is, your generosity is greatly appreciated!! <3

My Patreon

My PayPal

My Ko-fi

(Note that my Patreon is... very outdated and needs to be updated. I will do that soon!)

[arcxnumvitae]

A non-numbered list of Tales openings (of the games I’ve played) that I think either are good or bad

Good

T.ales of Zestiria: Absolutely my all time favorite one solely because of that Jrock. Do I think it really fits Zestiria well? Not at all! Does both the Japanese version with the lyrics, the English version with the electric guitar, and Ufotable’s pretty animation absolutely slap though? Yes!

Tales of Xillia 2: Also a great song and the visuals are so pretty. I’m also a sucker for media that brings back its opening theme in OSTs and leitmotifs later. TO YOU, YEAH

Tales of the Abyss: My favorite up until Zestiria’s came out and if I had to speak objectively, the more fitting and better one of the series. Bump of Chicken is just good in general but something about karma is great because while it feels like a classic opening to like a shounen, it doesn’t feel generic. And even now years later it still feels fresh. Plus, the scenes shown I feel do great to build up intrigue for the story without spoiling too much. And avoids the fatal flaw of ‘ just character shots battling monsters/lineup of the baddies looking menacing, and not showing anything interesting’. I’m starting the game and I see Luke blow something up, short-haired Luke, and Luke and Natalia being surrounded by guards in their hometown? I’m intrigued! But not spoiled! And my gosh. My gosh, Meaning of Birth. My gosh.

Tales of Vesperia: Okay, the shots are ‘character battling’ but-- Repede, Yuri, Judith, and such a unique song are enough to boost it up in my opinion. What can I say, I love to watch that man work and truly the person who designed Yuri Lowell put their foot in it that day.

Just okay

Tales of Xillia: Now let me clarify-- the song is great. The best part of the opening. But also...the only notable thing about it. All of the visuals basically are the aforementioned character shots battling and baddie of the week lineup...and not much else. A shame. And no Yuri Lowell to at least elevate it. Tragic.

Tales of Berseria: You have a compelling revenge story featuring a cast of morally gray “villain” protagonists and this is the generic stuff you go with? I joke that Zestiria and Berseria should have switched opening themes because Zestiria’s hardcore electric guitar would have fit this so much more, and vice versa. I’m tempted to put it in bad just because I’m so affronted by this being the opening to one of my favorites in the whole series.

Tales of Symphonia (PS3): It’s okay. ....That’s all I can say about it. I know part of the fun is the subversion of the usual Chosen One tropes, and the surprise subversion is part of the fun, but for such a non-traditional story I wish they had teased that more in this opening. I just think of a basic shounen anime. Like, death, slavery, racism, body modifications to the point of body horror, some real messed up stuff but I’m watching them instead fight the monster of the week. Buddy. I wanted better for you.

Tales of Graces f: Pretty song! And it does actually involve story stuff! Maybe it’s just cause I find the game itself “meh” that this opening is also here. Maybe it just feels slower paced to me too.

Bad

Tales of Arise: This opening personally offends me. It walked into my house, sat down at my table, and spat in my cereal. What is this song? Ufotable, why are the visuals so boring? I watched it and immediately forgot nearly everything that took place in it, heck I could barely even remember what most of the party looked like. The only saving grace is Dohalim’s absolutely beautiful face. Oher than that? My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

[frecklef0x]

Mass Effect 1: Playthrough Masterpost

At last, I have finished Mass Effect 1!

I have heard some mutuals say they wish they could play it again for the first time, and you kind of can--through me! I’ve been posting little “episodes” of live-tweet-stream-of-consciousness as I play, and now I’ve compiled them into one post to make my life easier.

Anyway, here’s the first one, the rest are under the cut. :)

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode one

My ass looks great in this uniform, first of all

Impaled robo zombies, yikes

Cheap shot, Saren, smh. How will I pass my spectre test now?!

Why does he have robot eyes? Is he like, Geth-Turian? Why? Is he a robo zombie also? Was it the beacon???

Cool beacon nightmares, I'm sure this is fine

This Kaiden guy has implants? ORTEGA?!??!?

"Call me princess again and you'll be picking your teeth up off the floor" lol obliterated

The citadel elevators are very realistic, five minutes of tense silence huh

Ya girl got a PROMOTION and a DOPE SQUAD time to catch a TRAITOR

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode two

First things first, gotta go find the blue scientist to join the gang

This galaxy is HUGE! How many of these places will I actually be able to go?!

Only two friends at a time????? D:

Ah, a distress signal, let's see wha--A DESERT CENTIPEDE NOPE ABORT ABORT

Robo aliens? In MY Theronian mining facility? Its more likely than you think

Running over dudes in my Mako is extremely satisfying tbh

*runs over geth troopers* *runs over geth armature* *runs over geth colossus* ... *backs over geth colossus*

Working elevators in the ancient ruins ✔

Oooooooh man hope this nerd is gay

Wrex, a friend of yours? Nope, not a friend, too murdery

"ShAaaAame about the ruins Shep, sOooOo much collatoral damage, SHEP" stfu Council, "ruthless" was in the resume when you promoted us, 10/10 would shoot lasers through archeological digs again

When Kaiden calls us "ma'am" I am, uh, into it

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode three

Time to talk to the gang! Gotta meet the fam proper

Oh dear seems we got a shmee of racism on board, compatriots

Wow Raina, good foot-in-mouth moment with Wrex there huh...sorry about the eventual extinction of your race, lost this round of Pain Olympics

OH SHIT OH SHIT BLUE HOTTIE BIGENDER? THIS IS NOT A DRILL???

“hi I’m Kaiden wanna hear about my last crush ;)” “hi I’m Liara wanna hear about Asari mating rituals? ;)))” damn we really slidin right into the DMs no chill

Garrus: fuck rules and red tape amiright Raina: oh u right ;)

Guess I’ll actually do a mission now LETS GO LESBIANS LETS GO

Honestly rolling out with Tali and Liara is a mood, squad goals

Raina @ every corporation on Noveria: I would sell you to satan for one(1) corn chip

This reactivation puzzle is some shit

I see some Mistakes were made

We already killing moms at this stage damn BioWare

FUCK FUCK BENEZIA KILLED ME AND I LOST A FUCKTON OF PLAYTIME

THERES LIKE NO AUTOSAVE IN THIS BITCH FUUUUUUUUU

fuck fuck fuck god damn it gotta shoot a bunch of deranged baby bug people again god DAMN IT

Okay we killed Liara’s mom in front of her hope that’s fine

And we let mama bug go free because after talking to Wrex, Raina’s like “this galaxy is a little trigger happy with the genocide, good luck out there bug mama ❤️ be cool please”

I have literally watched the scientist in the hot labs get killed three times now

So far the debreifs with the council have not gone very well

“You let bug mama go?! How many generations until they take over everything???” “My money’s on two :D Place your bets now assholes or stfu :DDD”

Asked Liara if she was okay and she seems pretty Cool With It

I hope to one day return to Noveria and Death Star it into oblivion

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode four

Talked with Tali and this situation with the Geth and the Quarians is giving me an existential crisis

You “inspect” my beautiful ship? You got somethin’ to say about my crew??? Talk shit get hit, bitch I will kill you

Yoooo my old earth gang, yeah what the hell, I’ll help ou—oh nope nvm he’s a xenophobe, you hang him and I’ll shoot his friend in the face, thx for your time

Went to the citadel to finish some assignments, left tasked with twice as many

“dOn’T cUt CoRneRs” fear not dear Kaiden, I have a permit: this piece of paper that says I do what I want

Still with the elevators, I really cannot with this

“You make it all sound so...dangerous...” ;) ;))))))

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode five

Headin’ to Virmire to rendezvous with the Salarian team

A cure for the genophase?!?!?! :D

Oh wait oh no are we for real gonna talk about destroying the cure like Wrex isn’t standing right here omg

SHIT GUYS NO NOT LIKE THIS WREX PLEASE

Phew for a conversation that basically started with guns drawn, it went pretty well... “What Saren has isn’t even a proper cure, he’s just fucking with the Krogans at this point. Are we gonna stand for that? Or are we gonna murder?” “Damn Shep, you right, we gon’ murder”

Okay Ashley, go join the aliens, try not to die

Shadow Team!🎵 tearing through the base 🎶 disabling all the     defenses 🎵 (you gotta sing it to the tune of the Trogdor song)

We free the prisoners!!! :)

We shoot the prisoners??? :(

“Raina? How can you shoot them where they stand?” So it’s more merciful to let them explode? NAH FAM

This scientist is responsible for the mind control stuff? For Benezia? Fine     I’ll let her go but I hope she explodes

We did not learn our lesson concerning beacons I see

Wait if even Saren is worried about his mind control ship does that mean there are larger forces involved here?

Oh. Oh fuck

Ugh Ashley I EXPLICITLY TOLD YOU NOT TO DIE

(so we really never found any info about that genophase cure huh? disappointing)

Oh Seren, you dumb dumb. You absolute fool. Clown man.

When Raina slings Kaiden over her shoulder to carry him to the ship—mmmmmmmmwoooow I am very bisexual

Bruh Raina takes every council call and she disconnects pissed off every time

WAIT I literally just hung up with the council, ASHLEY is DEAD, and Kaiden needs a DTR RIGHT NOW?!?!? Boy, NO, READ THE ROOM

This has been a stressful day

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode six

Shepard will avoid her feelings and go to Faros instead

Seeing Ashley’s figure greyed out and her locker inaccessible makes me sad

Wrex and Garrus, let’s go shoot some geth 💪 

A mind controlling planet—of course!

Shep gets all her renegade points shooting capitalists

Saved, uh, about half the colonists

If I have one more bad acid trip I stg

Oh nope here’s another one

Shep needs a nap

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode seven

Ah, the council. Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal.

At least Liara is good at pep talks ;)

Joker, you cockblock

Haha DUDE we airborne, you THOUGHT

Now that I am exiled from the Citadel, guess I’ll run some galactic errands:

o   Killed corporate scientists who though we would rescue them lol

o   Destroyed a bunch of geth camps helping Tali on her pilgrimage

o   Disabled a nuke and killed some pirates

o   Shut down some evil Cerberus experiments

o   And illegally traded information!

Okay time to get back on track

So we may or may not be flying to our doom

OH GOD LIARA LOVES ME!!! RAINA, YOU DISASTER, YOU DID IT AAAAAH ❤️❤️❤️

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode eight

You know what I love? Being murdered by geth armatures

All these Ilos ruins be looking the same

Security panel is only kinda helpful

Oh, luckily I know Prothean now!

“CANNOT BE STOPPED” wow very encouraging, thanks

After that super motivating message and disabling security, its time to go down, down to goblin town

Vigil? Oh word?

My girlfriend is GEEKING out

I knew something what wrong with that fucking Citadel

Vigil: information is power. Also Vigil: What does it matter why they do what they do? All that matters is you stop them

“non-essential” personnel die first, huh? GROSS, VIGIL (gotta be honest that hits different in 2020)

Garrus gets it, I knew we liked that guy

Okay, find conduit, save galaxy, break millennium-old genocide cyle, nbd

Ugh Mako you gotta do me dirty one last time I see, I hate this thing

THE CONDUIT STRAIGHT YEETED MAKO

The citadel robot says we’re doomed : )

This shootout is SO fun, seriously

Saren get it toGETHER

Renegade Raina can kill with a conversation apparently, well done then

Concentrate on the Sovereign—why am I gonna save a council that hates my guts, sorry, but I have a JOB to DO that you ACTIVELY HINDERED

Great, zombie husk Saren, just what I needed as I mull over the possible consequences of my galaxy-altering decision

GO JOKER GO

Humanity-only council seems…questionable. Raina didn’t love the council but this sits wrong. Couldn’t we just appoint a more diverse council, including a human?

Anderson seems like a good enough dude, so…we’ll see.

TIME FOR WAR BOYS, GODDAMN WHAT A GAME