#ladies from don’s cutscene

[xxyamaxx]

HEAR ME OUT..

Them as the sapphic couple ✨✨

[strobbylemonade]

canto 7 pt 3 spoilers and thoughts and stuff

i really didn't expect her to be like.. locked up. by herself. its so sad. i feel so bad for her in the lighthouse. also the I WANT YOU poster cracked me up.

vergilius calling her "my lady" was cute. i thought we were going to get more of their friendship this canto but apparently not. maybe later :( but also what's up with his eyes?? who's his old friend??? WHO did he take the eyes from?? it's not don quixote because he still has his eyes, so it's either the bloodfiend moses spoke with, or it's the progenitor?? or there's more first-gen blood fiends we don't know about.

adding more guesses to the dante's identity flame:

dante is bari/the bookhunter

dante is vergilius' "old friend"

dante is the bloodfiend vergilius got his eyes from

dante is verigilius' old friend who IS the bloodfiend vergilius got his eyes from

dante is dante and their old self is destroyed

dante is an extremely powerful unknown character who gets their memories back but after their canto they pull a don quixote and chooses to live the rest of their lives as the dante we know

sanchos expressions were really really awesome. she's just so... augh....

THESE GUYS REALLY PISSED ME OFF.

i'm not smart enough to understand the implications of this. but ??? sinclair standing up for donqui?? yaaaayy!!!! the sign??? and also him paralleling bari is definitely not a coincidence. i wonder what the mark of cain has to do with it all.

i didn't notice while i was playing but sinclair starts blushing when he asks her to open up. they're so cute. and they're trying their hardest to be vulnerable to their fucked up lil family. i love them.

WE GOT OUTIS LORE!!! LET'S GO!!! this was surprisingly vulnerable of her... and dante's response of "I will. As long as they have the will to change, to move forward, I will be there for them." was great. also girl what do you mean TENS OF THOUSANDS??? i'm starting to think outis has a lot more guilt for the smoke war than she lets on.

uhh and speaking of change that's another theme that's popping up more interestingly enough. yi sang, sinclair, and being "unable to change" is what caused heathcliff to distort. interesting narrative theme. (starts side eyeing dante and outis). also change being one of the biggest themes of library of ruina, with roland and angela needing to break the cycle of the City to achieve their good ending.

bari is cool as shit

the cutscene that follows this where they're all talking about how much fun they had with donqui through the stageplay was genuinely both so cheesy and sweet i almost cried.

oughhh i'm not bothered to grab screenshots from every part i enjoyed of the final point so we're doing dot points again!

sancho's backstory of being born alone and wishing to die before don quixote gave her love and life was... holy shit. "That is why you saved my life from the periphery of death... tried to share your love... and made my heart beat again."

again with the themes of suicide. the original don quixote sees sancho as special because she doesn't want to inflict suffering on others and instead simply wishes to "burn myself to ashes like I was never here". and that's how she gets her first family. because she suffered alone. and then don quixote makes his children suffer alone in la manchaland.

"I don't know who I am" lyric in Hero hits really song. YEAH I FORGOT TO MENTION MILI PEAK!!! it really feels like some of their older music, especially something from mahoyaku (the Big Moon in the background during the final phase certainly helped). the second part sounds especially like Cast Me a Spell. or something from miracle milk with the way the instrumentals and sfx sound. i really like it.

DON QUIXOTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE WAAAAAAAAAAA WAAAAA

"She was incandescent, like a brilliant star twinkling in the night sky. / That very brilliance compelled me to reach out and hope." OUGHHH. dante's role in this chapter has been really interesting... they're like her, they're chained to their past but are also playing the role of someone who they don't know who they're meant to be. they have a really passive role in bringing sancho back to the Gang, with the other sinners stepping in to help her moreso than dante themselves, and then at the end, it's sancho who saves them, acts as their star, and gives them their dreams back (of having all the sinners together as one big happy family).

and just. holy shit. this entire sequence.

I DID NOT EXPECT A QUICKTIME EVENT!! big cast a spell vibes... i genuinely gasped when the fireworks went off..

LMAO SHE'S MAKING FUN OF HIM FOR THE ROCINANTE THING. also kyaa hong lu's teaching dante how to smile!!! i'm sure this won't have any terrifying implications next canto!!! definitely!! there's some interesting parallels to what donqui said about dante having an "expression" and what demian said about being able to hear them all the way back in canto iii, because donqui/demian listen to their "heart" and not their actual face/voice. interesting

also new dante sprite please???? please??? new dante pose perhaps even??? please????

interesting we're getting the clock ticking closer to doomsday after canto 7 and not 8. with the trajectory they're on, doomsday will happen during or after outis' canto (and before faust's). fun. can't wait for the random lore drop next intervallo/event where they take turns feeding don quixote their blood. please. please. please???

mili peak. pass on peak. feelings peak. augh. i love my idiot family and their pet Cosmic Horror Entity. although i would argue it's a family of 15 and not 12!!! i love found family!!!!

[firestorm09890]

Okok so, your post gave me some thoughts.

Given DQs arc is most likely going to heavily feature denial of what she is I do find P Corp a rather interesting setting for it. It has ties to Prothetics through both the MultiCrack Office and Skin Care's dad having a deal with it, with prothetics being a way to change ones form near entirely - with exception for their brains - and still be considered human by the Head. As in, no matter how different they look, they remain human, whilst Donqui will remain a human no matter how much she looks like a human.

In turn this then leads to why I think we got the Envy Peccatulla when we did. They are imperfectly mimicking humans. I find it no coincidence that she is the first to find them in the accompanying cutscene.

Plus, this fits in with her obsession with fixers and notably colours, with colour fixers needing to be exceptional in a notable way and unmatched by all others. Whatever she could do to get herself a colour title may very well be proof enough that she is no bloodfiend, no monster, but instead a Star of the City. But I feel I undercooked this angle.

Then comes her familiarity with distortion, wherein a person gives in to their deepest desires and becomes a form made to represent them then after, from Fausts explanation it seems to occur after a foundational belief or 'psychological sustainment' shatters all in one moment. There are also remarkably intelligent ones, as well as no rule of what they have to look like. With all this in mind I raise the crack theory that our Don Quixote is actually an intelligent distortion alike the blue reverberation.

Also in Hells Chicken Meur mentions how he's seen several cases of distortion and so I'm just going to slide that into the What Did He Mean By That Folder.

As for characters that'll be important this canto except the leading lady, there's Dante who I already sent a short ask to you about, Sinclair - given he has still yet to repay her for beating the shit out of him, Hong Lu - who as we all know is a rock in a meat suit /j and Outis - who has previously mentioned knowing of bloodfiends during the war, has little problem trying to kick out sinners from the group, and had a terribly string reaction to the Envy Peccatulla.

And those were my disorganised rambles, good day to thee and I wish thy dreams never end.

I forgot to answer lol it’s sort of too late for me to respond with my own theories now

anyway good points. interesting how Hong Lu has been relevant so far but because of the family angle

[revserrayyu]

2.3 Penacony thoughts [part 1]

***SPOILER WARNING*** for the beginning of the 2.3 story update up until Jade’s solo conversation with Old Oti. At this moment in time I’ve already finished the whole story, so be wary that I may reference later scenes as I ramble on.

Starting off with how glad I am that we get to see more interactions happen between the Stellaron Hunters. This one is especially great as Silver Wolf comments how Firefly is typically donning the SAM mecha suit instead of working as herself.

I also find it sweet how Silver Wolf hacks all the systems so Firefly can further enjoy this special occasion without her worrying about getting caught so she can feel normal just a while longer.

Okay first off, their height difference? Hilarious. Secondly, Firefly didn’t actually experience her third “death,” did she? I mean, she took the Sparkle bomb doll high up into the air and fireworks went off, but then after we get knocked off the ship, she catches us in her SAM suit so like.. she’s fine, yeah? Unless something happens after we return from reality and we just don’t know yet? I dunno, like I said I finished the story all in one go and there was lots of info to take in all at once so chances are I forgot something.

They chat more about buying something for Kafka, Blade’s eerie message about temptation and eating sweets and it all just solidifies my desire to see the four of them actually share a scene together someday like the crazy, dangerous found family they are.

I wasn’t really expecting us to get a POV switch with Topaz. All patches before had a moment with the new Penacony characters, sorta giving us a sneak peak for their banners, so to get a switch with Topaz, who already had her banner and isn’t new or really associated with the land of dreams is a surprise, but I’m not mad about it. Also, Jarilo mention! Let us go back, please!

Now this scene.. oh boy. It had me with my mouth hung open when the 2.3 trailer dropped and seeing the whole cutscene here was quite a treat. I’m not even in a ship kind of mindset right now (surprisingly); it’s just after being teased with simple phone calls from Jade and a single flash back of her to finally seeing this woman in game that made me so ecstatic!

I did of course take notice how scared Numby looked, (and Topaz trying to calm it down, aw!) and while Topaz does have a small smile, it feels a bit forced to me? Sure she could be happy to see Jade and to get the chance to work with her, but if Numby’s shaking like that then obviously Jade is someone we should be cautious about. Or it could just be hiding itself since pets aren’t really allowed at the IPC as far as I remember.. who knows why this little guy is frightened.

Listen here, I don’t mind all the chatter about these two ladies being an item. I’m all for it, even AvenPaz or literally any other paring you can think of in this game. If I adore the characters enough and can make sense of it, I’m in, so while this sudden caress of the face is quite surprising to see for this game and highly intrigues me, I don’t think it’s done in an endearing kind of way? I have the same feeling whenever Jade calls Topaz “little Jelena.” It gives me condescending vibes, like Jade isn’t using Topaz’s real name to be affectionate or show how close and trusting they are of each other but as a reminder that she’s her superior and her orders should be followed perhaps? They aren’t even supposed to be using their real names anymore and I doubt someone as high ranking as Jade would break such rule just to be cute.

I didn’t think too much about this one shot at first other than how beautiful Jade is and how she has her own cornerstone in hand again, but later on during the quest Topaz mentions that not all of the Ten Stoneheart’s abilities are as flashy as Aventurine’s and some could “read your thoughts” or “grasp your desires” and to be cautious of them, so I have a feeling that Jade was using whatever kind of ability she has the way her cornerstone is glowing like that. The whole “you can tell me anything, just like old times” makes me think that maybe she’s the one who can read minds, or force you to tell the truth or perhaps even control your actions in some way. I dunno for sure but with how little we truly know about her she’s definitely someone to be feared.

And to all those saying their relationship is like mother and daughter or master and student, here: equals. To those who will bite back and say she refers to Topaz as her junior during the conversation with Old Oti, I’m sure it was to just prove a point. They���re different in ranks and experience in the IPC, that’s for sure, but the respect is still there.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who thought Old Oti looked like a Legend of Zelda character. It’s definitely the ears. The long beard and green outfit doesn’t help either. Also, golden-haired boy. I miss him. (Aventurine, not Link.)

Bro her face is the definition of “don’t test me,” like how dare he even think the IPC will back off without gaining anything.

Makes me wonder if they’re using Aventurine’s near-death experience as leverage for Old Oti to take the deal with them, like they knew our dear gambler was gonna push himself to the edge, do something dramatic and come out unscathed due to his fabulous luck, so now they’re using the incident to gain some sort of compensation to sweeten their probability of succeeding in regaining some control back over Penacony. If so, then bravo. Can’t say it wasn’t well planned.

Thank you Aventurine for helping out your new fuh-riends.

For a moment I thought we were going to break the news to her about what happened to Gallagher but Siobhan seemed to already know, or at least get the idea that he was missing and wouldn’t return. And I don’t know why I noticed now, but her necklace seems to be painted onto her model instead of actually.. I don’t know, stand out as an accessory, compared to Jade’s or Serval’s or anyone else who has something hanging from their neck of some sort.

I adore smug Himeko.

As I said, I’m a shipper at heart and this conversation is making the little AvenPaz vibes I feel go nuts because yes entrusting someone else to look after something so valuable as your own cornerstone is huge and probably the idea that made me so fond of this pair in the first place. You can argue that Topaz only did so because it was part of the plan that Aventurine invited her to be a part of and she wanted to follow Jade’s example, and I agree wholeheartedly, but it still sets off a light bulb in my mind. We learn that this kind of job isn’t the kind Topaz usually goes for and surely there’s other Stonehearts that could’ve offered up their own cornerstone for the task, but it was still Topaz who was asked among the rest and she who still decided to participate, so it’s like the trust goes both ways, even if Topaz doesn’t wanna acknowledge it because I do remember how her voice sounded during this conversation and she also actively try change the subject from Aventurine back to the task at hand.

We learn later on how serious the deals people make with Jade are, so I’m scared to think of the kind of wager Robin had to give up to fulfill her wish, which I assume was to save Sunday because our idol certainly doesn’t look happy here.

She went from glare to smile so quick here that’s it’s scary. Definitely not a happy face that I’d trust.

Jade keeps saying that patience is one of her greatest strengths but we gotta add determination onto that list as well. Gotta love the confidence.

And using someone’s own words against them.. I love when that tends to happen as well.

I’m not entirely sure why, but I love whenever someone’s eyes are hidden during an intense conversation, whether it’s because we’re behind them, their hair is in the way or in this case, a giant hat. Eyes can showcase so much emotion so whenever they aren’t visible, your mind kinda has to envision the express they could be making based on their words and tone of voice alone. I don’t exactly remember how Jade sounded during this one line, but from the smile on her face you might think she’s acting smug by mentioning how much control the IPC has over everything..

And yet there’s that persistent glare on her face again showing that she’s willing to do anything to make this deal over Penacony, even if it means she has to play dirty.

Oh, shame on me for hearing the word “leash” and thinking about it in a sensual way.. but coming from a woman who sorta steps on you during her ult and uses a whip to attack, can you blame me? (Goes without saying, but I did very much enjoy the brief moment we switched to her POV. Just wish we could’ve entered a battle with her to test stuff out.)

It really is ridiculous how much power money has over people, huh? I get that everyone needs money to survive and that coincides with the idea of Preservation and keeping everyone safe, but extending their reach to so many places would be an impressive feat indeed. (And my mind is a little hazy about this, but Belobog was basically cut off from the rest of the universe for 700 years due to the stellaron, so did they even have credits back then? I know they have shields as their own currency but I don’t really remember if someone in game questioned why they still needed both forms of currency or to use one over the other. Maybe I’m making stuff up, I honestly have no clue anymore.) 

Now color me wonderfully impressed when Jade called for Topaz to bring in Himeko as the special guest. I suppose Jade did mention earlier that Topaz did manage to gain the Astral Express as an ally as a result from the Jarilo-VI case, but I didn’t think we’d team up so soon like this.

So this is the nice surprise mommy Himeko was being all hush about, becoming a member of the board of directors for this deal between The Family and IPC, as if she truly needs more money. She doesn’t though, clearly, and doesn’t want fame or fortune from all this either, just a promise that this tragedy won’t happen again. We truly love our faithful navigator.

I believe I’ll stop here for the moment. I believe the rest of the 2.3 will be another three parts of various lengths but this is probably the longest.

[cerastes]

May I request a review of general coolness and awesome of the horses we saw during the event?

Right, Maria Nearl event!

I liked the event quite a lot, though I do feel like it dropped the ball at the end. That aside, I had a lot of fun the entire time!

First of all, the cast was wonderful. Maria is explicitly not a powerful or skilled fighter to any degree that matters in the frame of strength the story takes place in, being definitely more skilled than the average person and even the average nameless knight, but being woefully outclassed by practically anyone that has a name in the Major. A humble mechanic with a heart drenched in justice, Maria doesn’t even like to fight, and adheres to a knightly ideal and a duty she must fulfill instead to justify her participation in these commercialized bloodsports, which carries the narrative. She is joined by a lovable cast of rambunctious family and family friends, who serve as her mentors and support: Her aunt, who is more akin to an older sister-slash-maternal figure, Zofia, who we are immediately shown is so close to Maria that the moment Maria made a big decision (the participation in the Major) without confirming with Zofia first, she immediately chastised her, wondering why she did not consult with her beforehand. Aunt Zofia is her aunt only due to technicality, as she’s a lady-in-waiting (or, in other words, belongs to a branch family of the Nearl clan, and is actually only 5 years older than Maria) and, more importantly, a decorated, retired competition knight who earned enough in her career that she can live comfortably for the rest of her life, ironically far outstripping the main Nearl house in terms of wealth. There’s also Kowal, an old Ursus mechanic, engineer and smith who mentors Maria in the ways of the wrench, willing to pass his workshop to Maria with her as his successor any day of the week, who himself also used to be a squire to V, an old, retired knight of old who served as Grandpa Nearl’s peerless sharpshooter and who trained Zofia back in the day. Finally, we have Old Marcin, owner of the cast’s favorite hangout, a little bar where he and Maria mediate the infinite squabbles, fights, and arguments that Kowal, V, and occasionally Zofia spark between one another. The event does a great work of introducing the dynamic between these five characters as something extremely domestic and comfortable: You can tell these five are tight and that they have spent a long time together. It’s just another day in their low profile lives when, suddenly, Maria dons Margaret’s old armor and decides to take arms for the main Nearl house, which is currently on the brink of ruin and about to lose its knighthood and nobility titles.

And this decision, and everything this decision means, informs everything that happens afterwards: Zofia tells Maria that if she’s worried about being left homeless, then that’s just foolishness, since Zofia is absolutely 100% ok with Maria moving in with her. She’s loaded. They can live comfortably for the rest of their lives without a concern. Kowal, likewise, insists that Maria is a good enough mechanic that she can earn a living by doing that. But, see, it’s not about a livelihood for Maria, it’s about preserving that for which Margaret and Grandpa Nearl fought and stood for, it’s never about the wealth, it’s about the name, the principle, not the glory, the weight of ideals that blood was shed to nourish and maintain. Maria is not even sure if she’s doing the right thing, but she’s got to do something. Why? Look no further than Uncle Mlynar. A bitter man, a corporate slave, spitting bile at her niece and apologies at his bosses. And the fact that it is very clear that this guy can kick some serious ass -- we never see him without his trusty blade hanging on his hip and, at the end, tells Margaret to square the hell up -- makes it all the sadder: In any other context, Mlynar might be a knight’s knight, hell, Margaret herself says she respects him still, but the Mlynar we see now is an unimportant cog in the capitalist system, just another grunt apologizing to his phone every time his lips part, who gets in hot water just by making small talk because, whoops, your workload accumulated again, better get chop chopping. Mlynar is a very telling character, because he represents everything Maria resents about the current state of the Nearl family: Disgraced, meaningless, existing as an extension of other bigger conglomerates. He is what she wishes to never become, and what the Nearl house cannot be any longer, if she has any saying on the matter.

Maria is not a good fighter. This is important and delightful, because she wins not due to aptitude, strength, or experience, she instead uses her knowledge as a mechanic, her “pegasian sight” (what Grandpa uses to refer to Maria’s incredibly powerful investigative faculties, being able to analyze situations and catch even the smallest details quickly) and the sheer heft of her brass pair of metaphorical horse balls to pull through with clutch victory after clutch victory. Zofia trying to cram as much fundamentals as she can on Maria in as little time as possible so she can survive also helps a lot.

Maria’s victories earn her the possibility of sponsorships, which would, superficially, fix her problems: The main Nearl house would retain status, she’d get a Title, and she would not have to fight anymore. But, see, this is not the point of Maria’s fight. One might say “Maria should’ve just taken the sponsorships”, but that’s not the point of Maria’s fight. She is pushing back against this highly commercialized view on “knighthood”, just like Margaret before her did. Margaret had a clear intent and her passions made her act mostly in anger, as she makes no secret: She hates Kazimierz for what it has become. Maria’s intent is less clear, even to herself, but she’s very much aiming for the same thing, but instead of Margaret’s anger, Maria has her determination. To have taken any sponsorship would have superficially kept the Nearl house afloat, but Maria is not looking to keep the house alone afloat, she’s looking to keep the house and the ideals in which it was built afloat. It goes beyond mere status.

In a world as bleak as Arknights’ and specially Kazimierz, Maria is no doubt naive to the point of frustration... But it is that which we call naive that makes a knight’s knight: Chivalry forged from ideals, sacrifice’s blunt borne from beliefs. The easy way out would’ve ultimately doomed her story, hence why she did not just move in with Zofia, hence why she did not just succeed Kowal and accept his workshop, hence why did not accept a sponsorship: It never was about that.

The very first event of the game, Grani’s Treasure, takes place in Kazimierz as well, but in the isolated outskirts, and we see hard-working, honest people, inhabitants of a nice little scenic hamlet. Now, we see what Kazimierz really looks like: A sprawling megalopolis of neon and concrete where the system shamelessly feeds on whoever sticks out their neck. The contrast couldn’t be harsher, and any hell is upheld by its demons: Czarny was a fascinating character, in that he very clearly held a lot of influence and power... And was extremely replaceable. The moment he messed up badly enough, he was instantly replaced by just whoever the hell picked up the phone next. It’s chilling. One puppet performed poorly? Irrelevant, there’s an endless supply who’ll take his place, provided enough fear and funds. Fear and money. The two currencies of Kazimierz. When a shadow council can just appoint you as the next Spokesman just on basis of you having picked up a phone without any real background check beyond “the previous Spokesman likely intended for this next sack of meat to pick up his phone in case he messed up”, well, congratulations, you’ve crafted a terrifying capitalist hellscape. No wonder Margaret hates Kazimierz so much, given the rot brewing in its underbelly and upper echelons.

And to all this, I have to say: It’s lovely. I loved the world building, implicit and explicit, I loved the cast, I love the themes explored and how characters were used to juxtapose these.

I feel it kinda drops the ball at the end by just... Not having a conclusion? It just sort of ends, which is very weird because events tend to be good at concluding themselves. I assumed we’d get some post-Challenge stages cutscenes to tie everything up like in the past but... No, not really, it didn’t happen. Margaret swoops in, the sisters perform the Ultimate Kamehameha on the Sarkazian Knights, and then it sort of ends one brief talk later. It needed a bigger epilogue, for sure. But this doesn’t ruin the event or anything, just a bit of a weak ending, everything else is still delightful and I loved it very much.

So yeah! The horses sure were wonderful!

[monsterqueers]

Semi-Liveblog of Xenogears

Finally getting around to this crunchy 1998 jrpg, watching it on youtube because ive been told the UI and game mechanics are really ass in places, this will be copypasted from my carefully largely spoiler free discord ramblings to my platonic partner in batches so no spam.

I know a few spoilers for this that were specifically why I wanted to witness it- IE that I can ‘Same Neurotype!’ a character, and its Really Dark. The Mindfuck stuff goes without saying its the monolithsoft staff.

Copypaste from last night under the cut

Ohhh man the screen resolution and menu sound effects very crunchy ps1 shit The low res anime&cgi  cutscenes with 90s dub voices... -chefs kiss- Very crunchy Man I think I recognize this fucking random extras voice.

(...)

but the dubbing pool of voices in 98 was pretty small so chances are I HAVE heard it but oh man this is a tense moment and the VAs sound like they are discussing the weather this is great

-juicy Space Bullshit happening- Some dude: Im evacuating the ship (said like im ordering coffee)

The graphics are pretty impressive for the ps1 I think. The cgi is hysterical tho Im sure it looked better on a crt tv because the spacing and blurring or the lights makes the shading look less fucky on a lot of older stuff The detail on the 2d animation is really good tho for a ps1 anime custscene

oh naked lady dubiously censored naked lady yes this is a xeno game there must be boobie. Contextless boobie Oh man now I gotta read a lot of white text on black screen lol but the music is nice never heard it but it sounds nostalgic 'look at this cute village with cute music!' ok 'it is now on fire!' That sounds about right oh my fffuninkg god that screen transition windows movie maker shit ohhh yes this is good the screen is still wobbling and flashing oh lord the eyestrain lol

First thing the protagonist does is swear we are getting off to an excellent start Awwwe he paints thats cute

oh god the iu direction hud THATS AWFUL(complementary) thats very 90s 00 Weird Shit Before They Codified Whats Expected With A Hud design

Fei(Protagonist) has a sparse room with just a fuckton of art supplies in it where he seems to be only drawing self insert fanfic lol. Hes got his priorities in order. oh man that low poly cow

They did good to make a fully 3d  'move the camera around' game in 98, as low poly as it is I can see the 'sort of squeezing out everything you can out of the game engine' effort that went into xc1 in this

This girl and also this whole village totally has death flags I can smell it on them they are to happy and cosy Fei dodging conversation he doesnt wanna have like Naked Dunban

Oh what the shit you can talk to an npc while you talk to another npc??? lmao CRUNCHY gameplay that sounds like you can cause problems for the ui and fill the screen with textboxes I hope they thought of that and don let let you endlessly add more text boxes this town music really sounds like music ive heard a million times before for hours but I know ive never played this game maybe its background music for some video essayist or something very cosy tho

KITTY OMG IF YOU TALK TO THE CAT IT MEOWS??? CAT SPOTTED AND IT IS ALSO GREEN FOR SOME REASON KITTY KITTY they better not kill the cat (they will probably kill the cat) you can make him(the protagonist not the cat) jump in a well for no reason lol OH PUN "'well' done! you found an item!" "Alls well that ends well." Ok this is a good localization

'bearcows' Oh so that isnt a cow its some fucked up chimera thing oH GOD ITS MOUTH OPENS LIKE A BEAR GOT IT OK

its got canines..... This animal is almost certainly one of the most dangerous.... Bulls kill so many people every year and this one has TEETH

'We got -list of a bunch of combo fruits and veggies- and turnips!' turnips, the universal constant I guess

no dont drink fertilizer fei apparently drinking miracle gro will heal you Dont Worry About It

The space lazer sounds for messing around in the menu lol

There is just no combat tutorial AT ALL HA oh hes got voice acted lines in battle lol!!! Thats a higher voice than I expected

completely incomprehensible battle hud fans really werent lying there it is Super Crunchy Can barely read this lol and at the speed the person playing is buzzing through it I cant tell if its turn based or not Dont know what that bar is either I THINK its turn based with a time limit? Yeah seems to be Head so hard you can kill a wolf by headbutting it I guess sorry its a two tailed jackal lol thats cool monster design tho

its a chicken in the house how cute! -talks to the chicken and it makes a horrible staticky noise- ah Fei, while pleasant bg music plays: hm wonder where the doctor is :) -explosion noise- -all music stops-

found him!

Ah yes For No Particular Reason This Is Shaped Like A Cross And Has A Winged Person Statue In It

This game is under NO CIRCUMSTANCE epilepsy or motion sickness friendly lol

Also yes the windows movie maker wobbly screen effect is EXACTLY what dissociation feels like thats right.

Knowing the special spoiler that I do about this game makes this part unintentionally funny. Dude its your alter. Crack ur plural egg. The childs VOICE ACTOR OH MY GOD LMAOOO OOF Things are already going ‘fun’ directions

Oh I think im getting whats going on with combat, you do fucking button combos in your turn??? is that whats going on? Oh GOD the platforming..... Oh thats the real content warning for this game.... Oh wow. Thats really bad. oh! Is that a conlang or another real language I cant tell its cool has anyone tried to make a language bible for it if its a conlang? conversations like Fei: If ur gonna kill me at least try to aim for the vitals attempted murderer: What The Fuck We finally get a full name for our protag! Rejoice! HAHAHAHHA OH MY GOD WHO IS THE MCS VOICE ACTOR LMAO OH MY GOD THIS IS VERY MUCH EARLY DUB HMGJFDjgh

oh hey his va was an extra in avatar the last airbender

The voice cracks in the kid version of the character ohhh my god this is excellent horrible 00s english dub

the music is really good though very nice atmosphere

Yeah it seems to be different button presses use some energy on the bar and you combo them in an attempt to puzzle that together for your turn with some combos being special and will do lots of damage or something???

Also you can really hear the music vibe being very xenoseries. Them violins set to mental break downs <3

'the lip synch in xc2 is bad' Observe Xenogears Lip Synching in the anime cutscenes Oh man its Bad Lip Synching (in a good way)

wow thats a lot more blood than theyd get away with in a t rated game today! well its 2d so probably actually thats fine but

Jesus christ Feis english VA is unintentionally hilarious Its a 14 year old anime boy voice and hes Beefy Like it would be one thing if it was a good 14 year old boy voice, but it sounds like a grown man trying(badly) to do a 14 year old boy voice for a beefy man which is why its funny good thing hes mostly crying and screaming in the cutscenes and not talking

Random t rex in a xeno game we meet again!

LMAO deus es helicopter

Dropkicking sharks in the desert... Yes. Normal activities

Ahhh yes, time for the talking about god again! This is a xenogame AND a jrpg after all. Gods are hunted for sport. I think I kinda like the 1.25 speed versions of some of these songs more than the regular version but that might be because ive now listened to them that way for 2 hours

Oh yeah this is a game that if you played high would be a very bad time. Some real mindfuck shit is happening (complementary) HIM! The dude the internet really likes! Blonde himbo spotted! BART XENOGEARS,,,

wow the doctor guy can do a full split his wife must like that

HHHEXCUSE ME???!?! Word for word quote: 'Is there anyone who is almost dead, with no arms and legs, or in need of an abdominal operation!? No one...? Well that's depressing..."

LMAOOOO We found a dude in a cave who doesnt believe in evolution and thinks space aliens brought humans to the planet and hes probably right lets be real this is a jrpg. (edited) Guy In A Cave: -proceeds to belt out straight up bible stories when asked about what ‘myth’ he believes in- Ok this is a xeno game he is almost certainly right if hes yelling about god

Just three dudes in a cave, two himbos with hair past their ass and an old man yelling about god and his skull collection. Lovely.

There is one brain cell in the party and our other guy has it who isnt in the party right now. We are talking to the old dude. We should not be talking to an old dude who collects human skulls even if he is friendly but thats just me

This customization menu is atrocious oh wow INCREDIBLE,,,

Wow Bart really is proto-Zeke from xc2 no wonder xenofans are rabid for himbos. WHY must the customization window zoom to the asscheeks of the not-gundams every time you refuel them What, are we piping fuel up the robots asshole? Is that whats happening?

Oh new himbo is kind to children no wonder people think hes husband material lol

-insert 'sand is coarse and rough and gets everywhere' star wars joke here- also new guy has pirate music and pirates are cool so like.

its a fucking prOJECTOR HEHEHEHEH LIke the ones that project light on a viewscreen from above omg you can taste the 00s

Man I can see exactly why xenogears people are so obsessed with Bart. Pretty, beefy, friendly but distinctly weird to mildly unhinged, pirate-cowboy-prince, whips. wait a minute wait a minute. Robots, mindfuckery, sad protagonist who Doesnt want To Get in The Robot.... When did NGE come out old on- I thought so it came out in ‘95 I feel this is a bit of a love letter to NGE

omg omg Bart does a little hopping animation when hes excited thats adorable

does... does this bad guy really just straight up have a giant cross tattooed on his face??? Theres heavyhanded symbolism and then theres whatever that is (edited)

ok I have to stop watching these and go to bed but thots so far: - The fandom darling is as good as advertised. Excellent man lemmie give him a headpat I want to eat him like a croissant. - Charming and Weird And Fucked Up in equal measure which is good - You can smell the crunchy 90s sci-fi emanating from this game(complementary) - The music sounds deeply nostalgic like ive heard it for hours a million times before but ive 100% never heard any of this game. Good stuff. - I am intrigued how the funny 'jump in the well' gag has progressed from funny pun hole with items in it if you jump down it a few times into using a well to sneak into some shitheads lair and unkidnap a little girl. Wonder if this is gonna keep being a thing.

[bloodborne-guide]

Novice’s Walkthrough of Bloodborne: Yahar’gul the Unseen Village

Yahar’gul the Unseen Village is where you have to traverse to next to advance the story. After Rom’s death, the world has been drastically changed. The moon is now red and you can now permanently see the Lesser Amygdalas around the world. Arianna and Adella will no longer give you blood. Any NPC you haven’t sent to Oedon Chapel is now no longer accessible. You can now finish Eileen’s questline. The old lady will give you sedatives if you ask her for them. Gilbert has turned into a beast and will drop a tier 2 Clawmark Rune. Snatchers will no longer spawn in the world.

Clawmark Runes increase the damage of your visceral attacks

I will only go over the path I usually take when I play through this area and as such I will have missed stuff.

Eileen is found at the entrance of the Grand Cathedral, severely wounded. She will tell you to turn back. Going inside the Grand Cathedral is a single hostile hunter NPC donning the Cainhurst Helmet, gloves, and leggings, along with the Crowfeather Garb. He wields the Chikage and Repeating pistol

This fight is likely one of the hardest non-boss fight encounters in the game.

While his Chikage is intimidating, his pistol is the main threat

It deals massive damage and if he manages to land a parry, then you are likely to be killed by it outright.

He also utilizes the Old Hunter Bone and Numbing Mists to give himself an edge in combat.

He will heal once or twice when his health gets below about 50%

He will always shoot after doing a roll.

He has a massive health pool

He drops the Tier 3 Blood Rapture Rune when he is killed.

Blood Rapture Runes grant you health when you perform Visceral attacks

After you kill him, Eileen will give you the Hunter of Hunters Covenant Rune and the Crow Hunter Badge

Hunter of Hunters rune grants increased stamina recovery

The Crow Hunter Badge unlocks the Blades of Mercy and Crowfeather Set in the shop

After this point, Eileen disappears from your world without a trace

In Yahar’Gul the Unseen Village, you encounter

Almost every variant of Huntsman Enemy

Chime Maidens: The Chime Maidens here will respawn every enemy you killed until they die. Killing Chime Maidens will stagger their summons and will leave them weaker.

Brick Trolls

Cramped Caskets: These enemies spawn in the later half of the Unseen Village. They can’t be parried but are vulnerable to Fire Damage. They are fairly dangerous even on their own.

Some of the Cramped Caskets can fire projectiles at you.

Every variant of Graveyard Hags

Hunting Dogs

Scourge Beasts: They are basically the same as previous Scourge Beasts except they look incredibly different.

Wheelchair Huntsman

3 Hostile NPC Hunters.

Two of them are wearing the Yahar’gul set and one of them is wearing the Iron Yahar’gul helm

The one wearing the Iron Yahar’gul helm wields the Beast Claw

The one located near the exit of their encounter wields a Rifle Spear and Cannon

The one located on the stairs wields the Threaded Cane and Flamesprayer, as well as the Tiny Tonitrus

The Tiny Tonitrus is a Hunter Tool which you can find in the Unseen Village. It requires 25 ARC and 6 QS bullets required to use. It shoots an arc of lightning in a straight line.

From where you spawn in after you have killed Rom, go through the door with the Lesser Amygdala hanging over the door. This Amygdala will take you to the Lecture Building if you have the Tonsil Stone the first time you get grabbed.

On the path to the Yahar’gul Lamp, two Huntsman will be summoned for you to fight. After that, you have to go down a set of stairs with a Frenzied Coldblood in a corner nearby. There will be a Huntsman waiting to ambush you here.

From the Lantern, there will be a small troupe of Huntsmen who are proceeding down to where you have to go soon. To the right of that group is a single Bloodstone Chunk and stairway that leads to the Iron Yahar’gul helm. There is a Wheelchair Huntsman nearby and a single Yharnam Huntsman.

Back to where you're supposed to go is a large set of stairs filled with various Huntsman. There is also a Lesser Amygdala who will try to grab you on your way down. I recommend trying to run past these enemies as this part is particularly dangerous. It is perfectly fine, however, to lure a few of these enemies out before heading down. Do take care as the Chime Maiden will revive them shortly. The Chime Maiden is inside the building the stairs lead into, as well as a couple of Rifle Huntsman. There is a cage near the Chime Maiden with a Waning Bolt Gem inside.

The next building will have a locked door and you will have to enter through a hole in the wall. The Chime Maiden in here will spawn in a Brick Troll in front of you and a normal Yharnam Huntsman behind you to catch you off guard. There is a corpse in here with a Tier 2 Heir Rune. The Chime Maiden will also spawn in a Wheelchair Huntsman and a Torch Huntsman when you get to her area inside. There is a corpse inside a cage with a Frenzied Coldblood on it. You can open the locked door from earlier from this side.

When you exit this building, you will hear the distinct sounds of Graveyard Hags. There are quite a few of them in this next small section. A group of them is off to the right of the door. In the area with the trees in the center of it, there is a corpse with a single Bloodstone Chunk on it. There is a gap in the fence which you can drop down to. There is a Frenzied Coldblood here and an entrance to another building. Inside, there is a Chime Maiden which you should quickly dispose of as there is a Brick Troll on this floor. Down below, there is a cage with a corpse inside it which you can drop down into. This corpse holds the Upper Cathedral Key, which is used to access an optional area. There is also a chest guarded by a Brick Troll and a Wheelchair Huntsman. This chest holds the Tiny Tonitrus.

To advance, you have to descend down some stairs with a Lesser Amygdala hanging over. This one will fire beams similar in nature to those that the Amygdala boss shot at you. Inside this building is another Lantern which is marked as the Yahar’gul Chapel Lantern. Right outside a different door, there is a Scurrying Beast which drops 2 Chunks.

In the next area, there is a Rifle Huntsman on a ledge which you can drop down on. There are also 2 Hunting Dogs below him. Their Chime Maiden is nearby, so don’t worry about them reviving so soon as you can quickly dispatch of the Maiden. She is hiding in the corner opposite of the stairs. There is a group comprised of a Rifle Huntsman, a Pitchfork Huntsman, and a Brick Troll nearby. After you deal with them, there is a lone Huntsman guarding 8 Blood vials. Going inside the nearby building will introduce you to the Yahar’gul gank squad.

They are all particularly tough, and you may need to take them out one at a time, which is easier said than done as they are all aggroed at the same time. You will likely need to find a way to separate them using the environment.

In total, they drop a Madman’s Knowledge, tier 1 Clawmark, and 20 QS bullets.

After you have dealt with them, exit the building through the door the Rifle Spear Hunter was near. There you’ll meet your first Cramped Casket. There is also a burning corpse nearby which you can lure the Cramped Casket onto to deal a lot of damage to it.

Side Note. if an item is on a Snatcher’s Corpse, it’s Bloodstone Chunks.

There will be a Rifle Huntsman nearby which will take some shots at you nearby. His Chime Maiden is in fairly short walking distance to him so be sure to take her out quickly. There will be an elevator very nearby which you can access. There is an area which you can get off the elevator early. This area which there are 2 Hunting Dogs, a scurrying beast which drops 2 Chunks, and a Scourge Beast guarding 1 Chunk. Most importantly there is a bath which you can inspect for a shortcut to a later part of the area.

From the other side of the bath, going straight will lead you to your objective, but going left will lead you to a better Radial Blood Gem for your weapon.

There is a Scourge Beast at the entrance of the building which the Blood gem is in. Inside said building is a Rifle Huntsman and another Scourge Beast guarding the Blood Gem, which grants +18% physical attack.

From the Bath, going straight will lead you to a Chime Maiden who will quickly spawn a Yharnam Huntsman for her protection. There is a ladder which you have to go down. You will see a large area which is empty. Going near there will increase the sounds of the whispers that have been playing. Entering the area will play a cutscene and start the boss fight.

The One Reborn is a massive amalgamation of flesh and bones. It has been summoned by a multitude of Chime Maidens.

The One Reborn is weak to fire and bolt but is strong against Arcane.

It is assisted by Chime Maidens who will heal it and shoot fireballs at you. You can kill them off by walking up some stairs located on the opposite side of the entrance.

This boss is one of the easier late game bosses.

This boss does not have a second phase or at least does not have a noticeable transition into the second phase.

It mainly attacks with flailing its limbs around and with arcane attacks.

You can break its limbs to stun it for a while for some free damage.

The corpse on top seems to take extra damage.

It also takes extra damage from plunging attacks.

It has an incredibly dangerous vomit attack which can deal a lot of damage.

Avoid this attack by walking up some stairs.

Killing this boss gives you 3 Yellow Backbones and unlocks Bloodstone Chunks at the Insight Shop

Yellow Backbones are a Chalice Dungeon Material.

This has been Yahar’gul the Unseen Village.

[imjustthemechanic]

The French Mistake

Part 1/? - A Visitor Part 2/? - The Kulturhistorisk Museum Heist Part 3/? - Cutscene Part 4/? - The Marvel Cinematic Universe Part 5/? - Breathless Part 6/? - Escape at Last Part 7/? - Fox in Socks Part 8/? - Things Go Wrong Part 9/? - Downey and Out Part 10/? - Road Trip Part 11/? - Temptation Part 12/? - An Awful Reunion Part 13/? - Unreality Intrudes Part 14/? - A Call for Help Part 15/? - Loki’s Guests Part 16/? - Stan Lee Cameo Part 17/? - Reassessment

This chapter is mostly things I just thought were funny.

With Bettany and Connelly gone, that left Natasha looking at Downey, still in handcuffs.

“Are you gonna make me promise to stay before you untie me?” he asked plaintively.

Nat thought about it for a moment – or at least pretended to, in order to make him squirm.  “No,” she decided finally, and got to work on his bonds with the cheese knife.

Meanwhile, Loki and Thor were still arguing.  “Why must you ruin everything?” Loki demanded. “Every time something is within my grasp, here comes Thor with his ridiculously costumed friends to take it away from me!”

“Maybe you should stop grasping at things that make you look like a villain!” Thor retorted.  “And I don’t need my friends, costumed or no, to thwart your silly schemes. Jane Foster could do it with no weapon but her Wellington boots!”

“Hey!” the girl in the bandanna barged in between the two men.  “That’s mean!”

“Yeah, why do you have to be like that?” asked the one in the costume.  “Haven’t you figured out yet that he just wants you to love him?”

“It’s not his fault your father lied to him his whole life!” bandanna girl agreed.

“You’re nothing but a big bully with a hammer!” said the one in the raglan.

Loki smiled proudly, arms folded across his chest. “You see?  These mortals understand!  Why should you have a throne, while I do not?”

“If you were worthy of a throne, you would not need to seek validation from teenage girls,” said Thor.

Steve gently steered the three women out from between the arguing brothers.  “You ladies…” he began.

“Chloe,” said the one in the costume, assuming he was asking their names.

“Christine,” said the one in the raglan.

“Wendy,” said the one in the bandanna.

“Your name isn’t really Wendy,” Chloe said.

“Yes, it is,” said Wendy.  “I had it changed.”

“Ladies,” Steve repeated.  “I think you’d better go – this may take a while.”

“But it’s Loki,” Christine protested.  “All this time we thought he was just having fun in character but it’s actually Loki!”

Loki was shaking a finger under Thor’s nose.  “I remind you,” he was saying, “had you not broken the rune stone before I finished programming it, we would be in a proper universe right now, instead of this magic-less nowhere!”

“I remind you,” Thor said, “that if you hadn’t stolen the tesseract and run off, not only would we not have had to come after you, Thanos wouldn’t be looking for you!”

“You still broke it!  You break everything!” Loki said.  “Remember when Mother gave me a toy flying ship big enough to ride?  You said you would play with it for five minutes, and you crashed it into a wall!”

“We were six!” said Thor.  “Are you going to hold that against me the rest of our lives?”

Hayley took Christine’s arm.  “Chris is right,” she said.  “Let’s go.”

Together they escorted the young women to the door and gently but firmly showed them to the elevator, then returned to the hotel room to make sure the door was closed and locked behind them.  Meanwhile, Natasha finished getting Downey out of his cuffs – he thanked her, then sprinted for the exit.  Steve and Hayley moved aside to let him through, but instead of leaving the suite he dashed into the bathroom and didn’t even bother to close the door.  Steve closed it for him, and then he and Hayley stood awkwardly in the little hallway while Thor and Loki argued.

“So, ah…” Hayley looked sideways at Steve.  “You really are Steve Rogers, then?”

“Yes,” said Steve.  “Yes, I am.”

“Did you really come to our Q&A panel just to ask me that question?” she wanted to know.

“Yes,” Steve repeated, then realized that wasn’t true. “No.  I wasn’t going to say anything at first, I just… I wanted to see what you looked like.”

“Surely you knew what I looked like,” said Hayley.

“Yeah,” said Steve.

“Well… I probably ought to apologize,” Hayley said. “I’m sure you were hoping the answer would be a bit more romantic than a scolding.”

Steve shook his head.  “No, don’t apologize.  The scolding was… you’re right, that’s exactly what she would have said.”  She would have cried while she said it, too, but they would have been happy tears.  The future he could have had with Peggy would have been full of happy moments – but he’d denied himself that, because it didn’t feel right that he ought to go home and live happily ever after when Bucky was dead.  Bucky himself would have been the first person to tell Steve that was stupid.

“She never stopped thinking about you,” Hayley added.  “She always thought of you as the love of her life – everything she did, she always tried to live up to your legacy.  I know it probably doesn’t help to hear that, but the fans do love the tragedy.”

Steve wanted to think of something to say in reply, but before he could, there was the sound of a flush.  Water ran, and then Downey came out of the bathroom, zipping up his jeans.

“Okay, that’s done,” he announced.  “Let’s see what’s left of Loki’s dinner.”  Downey went to the dining table and grabbed a leftover roll, taking a bite out of it as if it were an apple.  Then he started picking bits of crab meat out of the remains of a shell.  “Mmm… he likes good food, anyway.”

Natasha came to join Steve and Hayley.  “So much for your romantic moment,” she observed.  “We have to figure out what we’re doing next. If this Stan Lee guy is right and magic can’t help us…” she frowned.  “Hey, Bob?  Who is Stan Lee and why does he know everything?”

Downey made some muffled noises, his mouth full of food.  “Stan Lee? He’s the guy who wrote all the comic books they based your movies on.  Kind of the creator god of your universe.  Whatever he has to say about this mess, my money’s on it being true.”  He stuffed the rest of the roll in his mouth and shook his head.  “Listen to what I’m saying!  It’s finally happened!  I’ve snapped! Just plain lost my mind.  Somebody ask me.”  He pointed at Natasha, Steve, and Hayley.  “Any of you, I don’t care.  Ask me if I’m Tony Stark.”

Steve looked at the women.  They seemed worried.  “Are you Tony Stark?” he tried.

“No!” said Downey, and then sighed with relief. “Okay, good, I’m not that far gone yet.  Susan might still take me back.  I should write this stuff down.  The Russos… no, no,” he shook his head.  “This meta shit is more Joss’ speed.  We can get around to it when we’re done with Avengers: the Musical.  Oh, or better yet!  Wes Craven!” He grinned.

Thor and Loki’s argument was winding down, but it was not quite over yet.  “If we can find a way to return home, I will go with you,” Loki said, “but if we are trapped, it is because of you.”

“We are not trapped,” said Thor.  “The universe is infinite, and all things are possible.”

“Indeed,” said Loki.  “Some things are merely very, very difficult.”

“If we cannot pass between worlds by magic, then we must seek another way,” Thor said reasonably.  “Downey, what do people in this reality know of other universes?”

Downey was stuffing more food in his mouth, including the lettuce leaves the crab claws had been sitting on.  He had to pause to chew and swallow.  “Not much,” he said.  “There are a lot of smart people who say they exist but nobody tries to get there.  NASA’s probably playing with some stuff but I doubt any of it works.”

“NASA?”  Steve perked up.  “Romanov – remember when we had lunch on the film set?  Maddy told one of our co-stars that he had a call from his friend at ‘Actual NASA’.”

“That’s right,” she remembered.  “That’s an ‘in’ we could use.  Have you got his phone number?”

“I don’t know,” said Steve.  “I might.”  He took a look.  Chris and Donny were evidently at least casual friends, since Donny had invited Steve to go bowling with him.  When he flipped through his contacts, however, he couldn’t find a ‘Don’ or ‘Donny’, and he couldn’t remember the man’s last name.  Several of the contacts were identified only by nicknames, but he didn’t want to call them all one by one and ask.

“It’s getting late anyway,” Hayley said.  “Maybe you should stay the night and figure it out in the morning.  You look like you could use a good night’s sleep.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Downey.  “We could have dinner, too.”

Natasha frowned at him.  “You’re already eating,” he pointed out.

“This is scraps,” Downey said.  “I missed lunch!”

“We can’t just stop, not when there might be an alien invasion at any moment!” Steve protested.  He hadn’t stopped when he was in boot camp, he couldn’t do it now no matter how tired he might be.  If his body were failing him he’d just have to push it harder…

He looked at Thor and Loki, and found Thor yawning.  That was right, wasn’t it?  In this universe, they were all just ordinary human beings – no powers, no enhancements. Captain America could go a couple of days without sleep, Thor probably longer, but these actors had no such abilities. If they were planning to return to their own bodies, which they were, they had a responsibility to keep their borrowed ones in good repair.

So they did stay for dinner.  Downey went through the room service menu and ordered them a great big pepperoni pizza and pasta carbonara, and then demonstrated how to make sandwiches out of it by layering the pasta in between the pizza slices. It was the sort of thing Steve would ordinarily devoured, because his body demanded so many calories.  At the moment, it looked kind of disgusting.  He tried it anyway, as did Thor, while Hayley, Natasha, and Loki all stuck to the pasta and vegetables, which they ate with forks.

“Barbarians,” muttered Loki.

“I’ll give you all a ride back to Los Angeles,” Downey said, “since there’s room in the van and I’ll be going there anyway. I’ll also warn you, if we run into Mark or Tom – the other Tom – don’t tell them anything.  Bruce Banner and Peter Parker can keep secrets, Mark Ruffalo and Tom Holland cannot.”

“Who is Peter Parker?” asked Steve.

Downey paused in his chewing and a moment of terror crossed his face.  “Never mind. I’ve already said too much.”

“It’s the kid in the spider costume,” said Natasha.

“See, now you’ve ruined it,” said Downey.  “What if in a future movie it’s a big plot point that Captain America finds out Spider-Man’s secret identity?  But now he already knows!”

“Then it cannot be a plot point,” Thor said reasonably.  “I’m sure these things allow for themselves.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Downey.  “This isn’t the kind of thing where anybody knows how it works.  They put a lot of effort into those scripts, they don’t just write down whatever occurs to them in a dream.  They’re already writing Thor 3 and Avengers 3, and what if the stuff you guys know when you go back changes that?  I mean, would it change the movies, or does your universe diverge from the movies there, or what?”

“Does it matter?” asked Steve, who didn’t want to think about it.  It was one of those things, like time travel, that made his brain feel weird.

“Not really,” said Downey, “but I’m curious. Come on, don’t you have any questions about this mess?”

Steve had one, and it popped out before he could stop himself.  “Did Stark really think the apology letter was douchey?”  It wasn’t something he could ask Stark himself, after all.

“Right now?” Downey asked, shoveling neopolitan ice cream into his mouth.  “I’m pretty sure Tony Stark thinks you’re the douchiest douche ever to not actually be sorry. Like Prince Geoffrey levels of douche.”

“I told you so,” said Natasha.

[bryyo-data]

Okay I'm pretty sure I swore off discourse when I started planet-bryyo but hey, it's Christmas!

With regards to the Samus-out-of-her-suit discussion, it seems to be a pretty subjective matter. I keep trying to put my opinions into words, and I think I've narrowed down the issues I have. So this is JUST my personal take on the entire thing: what I like from Samus, what I think works well and doesn't work well. Feel free to disagree and even drop a comment in the replies, I'm open to a change of opinion!

(FYI I stole all my images off Wikitroid to break up the text)

Seeing Samus outside her suit is a neat reward. In the original Metroid, it lead to the very significant reveal that Samus was a girl. A lot of games tease the woman-behind-the-suit with stuff like reflections in her visor, or a view of her eyes and expression during a cutscene, so the game culminating with her completely out of her suit can be very rewarding and awesome if done well.

While I have a bit of a preference for stuff like badass suit shots or Fusion's lore endings (which I think were Japanese exclusive so I've only ever see them via the wiki) it can be really fun to see Samus just chilling in her spare time. Zero Mission does this pretty well; she dons regular outfits, goes back to civilisation, and does normal stuff like drink at bars. It's nice to see her get some down time, and hint at what her life is like beyond her missions.

On the other hand, blatant this-scene-only-exists-to-show-off-her-boobs scenes aren’t my thing. Y'know, I’m willing to say a bit of sexiness probably doesn't do much harm. I'd argue that some of the scenes we see in the likes of Zero Mission and Fusion endings (like the above) are acceptably, as youtuber ShayMay puts it, "sexy not sexualised" and detract far less, if anything, from Samus' portrayal. Samus is pretty without it being obnoxiously sexualized. And hey, we're all human, loads of us like a bit of boob. They aren't of much interest to me but plenty of people love 'em. In Metroid, though, it just feels a bit excessive and unnecessary at times, and I think it can impact how Samus and certain scenes come across.

The zero suit segment of Metroid: Zero Mission was a really interesting part of the game, with that stealth mission being challenging and fun to play. That's just about the only thing I ever liked regarding the zero suit, because almost every other instance of its appearance (including cutscenes in Zero Mission itself) is used to scream "HEY LOOK GUYS, SEXY BUTT." Personally, I just don't think those shots mesh well with what Samus is generally portrayed like. There's better ways to go about showing her suitless, like the variety of civilian outfits she's been presented in, or even simply taking off the helmet as in Prime. She can look very beautiful in these shots, without it looking blatantly sexualised and a bit ridiculous. Compare the above bar scene to this thing which always really bugged me because it's literally just butt and sideboob and the way it's posed looks really weird.

I find it a bit jarring when we go from the imposing figure of the power suit to the zero suit, which tends to be used to scream boob and not much else. For the most part, suited Samus carries this gravitas that makes her very impactful as a character. Unfortunately, that gravitas pretty much instantly evaporates when she's put in a blatantly sexy shot on screen, no matter what she's saying or doing. Note that there IS a difference between "blatantly sexy shot" and "shot where Samus is not in her suit" and the latter would be no issue. We see that in the likes of Other M's ending, where she's in civilian clothing and can look nice without the camera lingering on her rear end too long and killing the impact. I have my issues with how Other M did things, but at least IIRC it didn't derail that ending moment with Anthony by making it weirdly sexy, unlike a few other parts of the game which I'll come to in a bit.

I don't think sexiness is automatically bad- see Bayonetta for what I guess is an example of sexiness done in a good, not-disempowering or disrespectful way? I guess? I haven't played those games. But sexiness in Metroid is put in places where it feels out of place. Zero Mission and Other M are bad offenders; the latter two Primes only have like one scene of it, so it's odd but can be more easily passed over if you aren't into the uncanny valley robot tiddy look from Prime 2 that haunts me to this day.

Hunters did the out-of-suit thing quite nicely too. Hunters stands as evidence that even the zero suit doesn't have to be inherently bad (though let's be real, it was designed for tiddy and it will probably be used for tiddy until the end of its days). Hunters was actually my intro to the franchise and the first time I personally saw the face of Samus Aran. If you beat Hunters before developing carpal tunnel syndrome, and if you access the hidden ending by fulfilling the Alimbic prophecy, the monster Gorea is destroyed in its final form and the Alimbic spirits telepathically contact Samus to thank her for what she has done. There's a lack of obnoxious proportions or questionable camera angles, so the scene comes across as meaningful as it's supposed to.

Prime did well in combining the thrill of "IT'S HER, IT'S THE PROTAGONISTS FACE" with the badassery of suited Samus, giving the scene quite a good impact. People remember that scene with fondness. It's a shame that so few scenes with non-suited Samus have managed to capture the same thing- like, imagine Samus standing on a hill in a long coat or some other awesome piece of apparel, gazing over a futuristic city like a watchful guardian. That would be sweet.

I personally liked the more realistic look they went for in Prime, despite technical limitations on the face model; it suited the tone of the game and the personality of Samus better than the weird anime kinda thing in Prime 3. You can get away with that look in the 2D games where everything has that art style, but all the other humans in Prime 3 were more realistic so it just looked out of place (we don't talk about Echoes...) but that's verging on a different issue entirely.

Zero Mission is one of my favourite games, possibly my favourite 2D game on par with Samus Returns at the minute. It did really well in a lot of stuff, but it also has a degree of booty with bad timing. The moment after Samus crashes and is left with nothing should be a fairly serious one- the situation is bleak, the task up ahead is daunting. The only hope you have is Samus' confidence and skill- and your skill as a player, which, if you're anything like me, you're starting to question in a moment of utter oh shit. This is also one of the few moments where Samus actually has some dialogue, which is all pretty straightforward with a hint of her good humour and personality.

That entire scene is framed over a very blatant butt shot. Maybe it's just me and I ought to care less, but I find it a bit harder to take the scene seriously because of it. Sexiness isn't inherently bad, there's a time and place for it, but is this serious scene really the time and place? I'm not even gonna pull up big words like objectification and such, I don't really know enough to say about those things, I just think it looks really silly there. If it needs to be included, couldn't it stay as the under-five-hours reward as per usual?

I could just be really bitter about that one, though.

Buff Samus is another related issue. I've seen loads of people saying "Samus looks good as she is!" and there's nothing wrong with that. I just thought I'd try and justify my own reasons for being a bit let down with Samus' current out-of-suit design. It's not so much the design in itself, nor the fact that she's not what the fandom fantasizes her being like. It's more related to the design's history and trends of change.

Personally, I'm just a little bitter that they felt the need to change Samus from the design they gave her in Super, because of WHY they changed it. In Super Metroids manual- and visibly in-game- Samus is toned and tall. These days, the media is gracing us with more tall and buff lady characters (Zarya from Overwatch, Brienne of Tarth from GOT, etc.) but when I was a kid I don't think I could name a single muscular lady outside of joke cartoon characters. Maybe sportswomen, but even then I can't think of any popular ones whose names I haven't learned in just the last few years. Doesn't mean there weren't any, just that I never came across any widespread ones, and I'm inclined to believe there weren't many around in popular media. Which made a taller, buffer Samus a little bit more of a revolutionary concept, important for the sake of seeing varied body types and such. It's important for people with those body types as much as it is for everyone else SEEING people with those body types and lifestyles.

Basically, as far as I can tell, Nintendo decided that "sex sells" and their major lady protag wasn't good enough without the sex appeal that comes with being skinny and shapely. They decided buff wasn't attractive, so they had to do things like cut her height down, slim her waist, bring out her chest, and make her ass stick out half the width of Zebes. Everything she was allowed to be before was stripped away and swapped out for your standard sexy woman's frame so people could titillate over her.

This only increased over time. Going from Zero Mission to Other M and the Smash Bros franchise, you can see this increasing trend of Samus getting promoted in-game and in pre-release material as sexier, up to Smash Bros 4 where so many Zero Suit promotional screenshots had her bent around like the token sexygirl in a forgettable Hollywood movie poster, posed for good view of her assets, or even put in freaking bunny ears which have their own set of connotations. Then there's the whole heels debate, which I'm not even gonna get into.

Her boobs are orbs.

If I'll say one positive- Samus Returns didn't do badly. Actually, big kudos to Samus Returns. All of its ending poses were all nods to other stuff for fans to recognise and they took time to make three different out-of-suit Samus outfits. Samus genuinely looks pretty cool in each of them. I really dig it!

I think some people in the fandom have the misconception that me- and others who share my opinion- don't like the idea of sexy women, or feminine women, being badass heroines. And that's simply not the case. People bring up Bayonetta as an example of "you can have sexy/pretty heroines" and while I can't really say a lot about her, as far as I can tell, her game really works well with it and is designed around her having the appearance and personality she has. Metroid is designed around a different sort of protagonist, in a different sort of atmosphere, and the sexualisation is kind of jarringly different from the surrounding material.

If Samus had always been a shortish, big-breasted woman with a strong personality and whose ass and boobs were never/scarcely highlighted in a sexy way, indicating that they exist just because she is a shapely person rather than because people won't survive the game without a boner, that would be sweet. In fact, I could really get behind that because I'm short as hell myself. It's secretly every short person's dream to have a cyborg suit which makes you tall enough to reach the top shelves and fight off everyone you're otherwise too small and weak to handle.

(Had Samus always been a sexy Bayonetta-esque character, I think the franchise would be very different in general. If that was part of the design, it would’ve worked, I guess.)

It's not Samus' size, shape, and proportions in themselves that have the effect of changing the scenes and character portrayal; it's the blatant fanservice and the way they're framing of these features to obviously have a very sexual appeal, and to me that doesn't sit well alongside the rest. When serious scenes are played over what looks like a SFW alt version of a porn pic you glance over while scrolling down the Metroid tag, it’s hard to see any of the impact that Samus had one scene earlier in her power suit. (Okay, I'm exaggerating a little for effect, but the point still stands.)

This peaks in games like Other M (disclaimer: I'm not a fan, apologies to fans of the game) where tragic and meaningful scenes are played over shots of Samus’ butt… like, it’s obvious what they were going for here. I’ve never been a straight male member of the obvious target audience for this so I can’t attest to whether the dual boner-and-tears method works at making a scene memorable, but for the most part it just looks silly from my point of view.

When Samus loses her suit in Other M- e.g. when Adam dies- and all the subsequent shots focus in on her rear end, it really doesn't feel like just about any suited shot in any Metroid game ever, and not in a good way. Like I think I said before, it strips Samus of a degree of gravitas that is integral to her character. Then it tries to play the moment off with a degree of seriousness and dignity that framing her ass like that just doesn't quite have.

(Then again, Other M Samus' lack of gravitas comes across even in the scenes where she's in her suit; this time it's nothing to do with sexualisation or anything, just that her postures and movements don't display any confidence in what she's doing, which is weirdly different from her normal presentation but persists throughout the entire game. Some people like it, I don't think it works, each to their own.)

I've sorta lost track of where I was going so I'm gonna round off here. I'll emphasise that this is all my opinion and interpretation, I don't expect everyone to agree and I completely respect that. I think it's absolutely fair to love Samus while being critical of how her designers portray her and the wider impacts of those choices- at the end of the day, she is fictional and doesn't make these choices for herself. As the audience, we are the ones who feel those choices, for better or worse depending on your own view.

I'm a bit salty about how Samus is portrayed outside of her suit and wish the Samus on the inside was allowed to carry the weight that Samus in the suit does. That doesn't mean she can't be beautiful, but the active increase in her sexy traits and highlighting of those traits over the years is a little bit infuriating, especially considering what they were willing to do with her design early on in the timeline.

Feel free to drop comments, I'm going to try and steer clear of my own salt for the rest of the holidays but I'm keen to know what other people think!

[lumina-star-okochi]

Lumina’s IC outfit thingy.

1. Casual Friday (Casual wear) [Any Job/Role] Items used. -No weapon -Non-La (Undyed, Headwear) -Eastern Lady’s Togi (Pure White, Chest piece) -Claws of the Beast (Undyed Hand-wear) -Bridesmaid’s tights (Undyed, leg wear) -High house Halfboots. (Undyed [Though they’re supposed to be pure-white.] Footwear) -- As elegant as she is, Lumina likes to dress like a spoiled brat; lavishing herself in fancy silks, glimmering jewels, all with an eastern flare to represent her heritage 

2. Rogue-like Pirate (Combat/Training - Casual).  [Ninja] -Antiquated Nagi. (Weapon) -Prototype Midan Goggles of Scouting (Hidden, headwear.) -Diabolic Dolman of Scouting (Chestpiece.) -Replica Dreadwrym Bracers of Scouting. (Jet Black, Handwear.) -Indigo Ramie Sarouel of Scouting (Snow White, legwear.) -Antiquated Kage-Kukushi Kyahan. (Footwear.) -- While she is much used to dressing to impress, Lumina takes her body, and her health seriously. She dresses in light armor, to keep herself light, and quick on her feet. Using daggers crafted by a friend, she trains to become, hopefully, strong one day. Despite her irregular heart’s protests. 

3. The Hero No-one Knows. (Combat -- Formal). [Paladin for the wep, any tank for the outfit.] -Sharpened Sword of the Twin Thegns (Weapon)* See explanation. -Scion Rogue Bandana (Headwear.) -Prototype Midan Coat of Fending (Chestpiece) -Augmented Shire Custodian Gauntlets (Shale Brown, handwear.) -Legacy Warrior Breeches (Ash Grey, legwear.) -Sky Pirate Boots of Fending (Kobold Brown, Footwear.) -- Lumina idealizes herself to eventually grow and become somewhat of a proud warrior as her family once was, she yearns to prove that her family holds honor in combat. Virtuous and dignified, a true noble family that Doma would be proud of. By becoming an adventurer, and saving others in need. This set of armor is what she will wear into battle.

4. The Doctor Knows Best. (Formal wear.) [Astrologian for the wep, Any healer for the outfit.] -Hyperconductive Deneb (Weapon.)* -Replica Dreadwrym Hood of Healing. (Undyed, hidden, Headwear.) -Replica High Allagan Coat of Healing. (Undyed, Chest-piece.) -Star-Velvet Long gloves of Healing. (Jet Black, Handwear.) -Replica High Allagan Coat of Healing. (Undyed, legwear.) -Scion Healer Highboots. (Leg wear.) -- Professional as she can be, Lumina is at heart a medic over all. Finding herself worrying and offering her medical services despite being “retired” after assisting in the Resistance for Ala Mhigo as medical staff. She wants to be seen as such when doing her work. That, and the outfit is just very regal, fitting for this spoiled Raen.

5. Cute Librarian (Formal/Casual wear)  [Any Job/Role] -No weapon -Reading Glasses (Undyed; head-wear.) -Ao Dai (Soot/Jet Black, chest-piece) -Far Eastern Noble’s Armlets (undyed, handwear.) -Fair Kohakama (Jet black/Soot-black, legwear.) -High House Halfboots. (Undyed, foot-wear.) -- Lumina is a woman of Luxury, this is no secret, this outfit was designed for lounging in rather than formal wear, however, she believes the outfit itself can serve as something to wear on a date or out in a more formal event.

6. Tough Customer (Casual/Combat--Training.) [Dragoon] -Ao Oni Halberd (Undyed, Weapon). -Reading Glasses (Undyed, head-wear.) -Guardian Corps Jacket (Jet black, chestpiece.) -Serpentskin Armguards of Maiming. (Undyed, handwear.) -Fair Kohakama (Jet black/Soot-black, legwear.) -Scion Healer Highboots. (Footwear.) -- Lumina is much rather fond of a look that screams cute, but tough. She likes to pretend what she isn’t, strong. Perhaps there’s a bit of wish fulfillment being done mentally?

7. A proper Princess. (Very Formal.) [White Mage] -Antiquated Seventh Heaven Circlet. (Head wear). -Antiquated Seventh Heaven Top. (Chestpiece.) -Antiquated Seventh Heaven Fingerless Gloves (Handwear.) -Antiquated Seventh Heaven Bottoms (Legwear.) -Antiquated Seventh Heaven Thighboots. (Footwear.) -- Only donning this outfit for very special occasions such as weddings for others, or herself, Lumina treasures this replica of her mother’s wedding dress. As it’s one of the few things that can connect her to her deceased parents. 

8. A Dancer’s Blues. (Very Casual.) [Bard] -No weapon  -Makai Markswoman’s Ribbon (Metallic Blue, Headwear.) -Faire Joi (Metallic Blue, Chestpiece) -Augmented Torrent Armguards of Aimming. (Metallic Blue, handwear.) -Augmented Choral Tights (Metalic Blue, Legwear.) -Thavnairian Sandals (Metallic Gold. Footwear.) -- Feeling like it would boost her confidence, Lumina has started to learn how to dance and preform, and is absolutely crummy at it. Please, anyone, someone teach this dumb raen how to dance.

9. A lover’s Gift. (Formal/Casual.) [AST] - Rigel (Weapon.) - Antiquated Constellation Turban (Headwear.) - Antiquated Constellation Top (Chest-piece.) - Antiquated Constellation Armlets (Handwear.) - Antiquated Constellation Gaskins (Legwear.) -Thavnairian Sandals (Metallic Gold. Footwear.) -- Lumina’s lover, A member of the Borlaaq tribe wore an elaborate gown, being as vain as she is, Lumina commissioned a weaver to craft her an identical set, pinching no penny to match the Xaela’s style of thread. When said and done with the dress itself. Lumina would pour even more gil into the decorative gold, expensive gems, and fine furs to the Goldsmithing guild of Ul’dah. This treasured dress of hers is something wears often, as it reminds her of her wife to be when she is away. 

Whew.. Something I thought was going to take 15 minutes to put together turned out to take 2 hours.  I have two things to address. --Anima weapons I am iffy about including these in my IC glamour stuff, as I don’t think Lumina would own one, or if she could? It’s very dependent on whom you RP with I guess? I believe. Don’t quote me on this. I *BELIEVE* that the Cutscenes suggest that Rowena was/is marketing them as very expensive weaponry, cause if so, Lumina would undoubtedly own them, as she is a very materialistic, and vain enough to purchase said items. However, if that is not the case, I do have replacements for the two mentioned anima weapons. -Rigel [Lvl 69 AST globe from Castrum Abania] and -Enchanting Sword [Lvl 69 PLD sword from Castrum Abania] Two, uh. The tagged thingy. I-I forgot whom may have tagged me. Tagging: @sylvie-clos @foxlike-ffxiv @astromancy @mihookochi @vayduh @bryterbythenight @missmeioh @silent-dragon agfsdgh  I hate tagging people in things. It makes me feel desperate for attention ; ;

[add-to-inventory]

Gav played: Transistor

The game: Transistor by Supergiant Games

Score: I loved it

I’m sorry, is that a game about hitting things with a big sword, in a sci-fi world inspired by the work of Gustav Klimt? YEAH IT IS

{Red, the player character, strikes the ground with her sword to perform a distance attack on one of several enemies surrounding her in a richly-patterned courtyard. A large poster advertising a performance by Red overlooks the scene.}

No wonder you liked it! Right?! But there’s more to it than that. This is a game about Red, a singer who pits herself against the Camerata, a clique of evil roboticists taking over the city of Cloudbank. The Camerata have killed Red’s boyfriend, but his consciousness has been preserved in the sword that struck the killing blow: the Transistor. The pair quickly realize that the Transistor has also taken Red’s ability to speak, but communicate creatively as she takes the giant sword and sets off.

Sword boyfriend (”Unknown,” or “the Boxer,”) narrates the game, chatting with Red and giving her--and the player--advice. He often responds to the player’s choices, and generally provides a pleasant and reassuring presence throughout the story. If you’ve played Bastion, another Supergiant title, you will be familiar with the running commentary on your actions, some remarks fixed and some dynamic.

The story of justice and revenge is fun, and serves primarily as architecture for combat play. This is a big part of what makes the game special. As Red explores, she encounters other victims of the Camerata and helps them join the Boxer in the virtual world of the Transistor. Each person shares their unique skills as combat maneuvers, which can periodically be switched out and combined. Experimenting with combinations and variations is highly engaging, and the game wisely gives you frequent cause to do so. For example, Crash() is a basic hit attack, while Mask() makes Red invisible for a short time. But if you equip Mask() as a boost to Crash(), it renders Crash() more powerful when backstabbing...but you can also do it the other way around. Crash() boosts Mask() by rendering the user invisible and dealing area damage when used. The player has to try things out to find the combinations they like best--and, because taking too much damage sends functions into repair mode for a bit, you also must be flexible, trying different attacks when your favorites aren’t an option.

The other unusual feature in Transistor‘s combat is the option to freeze time and plan your attacks, using an ability called Turn(). I love this. It means I get to more fully appreciate the skills available to both Red and her enemies, and I personally do much better in combat games when I have a chance to strategize. Usually in this game, I queue up as much as I can in Turn(), let it play out, and then dodge to a better position while it cools down to let me design a new barrage. Between the need to be creative and this relative freedom from getting overwhelmed assessing my enemies, Transistor would always rate highly with me, but the details are well-designed and carefully refined, making it the most fulfilling combat game I’ve played.

And you love the setting? It has fabulous diegetic worldbuilding! Aside from the technology of the Transistor and Red’s robot foes, the player also learns interesting things in little ways, like a computer terminal allowing Red to vote on the weather she wants...and then the player gets it, because Cloudbank can control the weather, apparently! And it’s gorgeous, every single bit of it.

{Cutscene in a painterly style with Klimt-like motifs. Red, in an evening gown torn off at the knees, dons her boyfriends coat. He is slumped against a fence in the foreground, the Transistor sword glowing in his abdomen.}

Wait, you didn’t talk about the music! It has original music by Darren Korb, and I’m in love with every track. It’s just...it’s a really good game, y’all.

Any drawbacks? It does need a sizable content warning for depiction of suicide! I also suspect that players who do not thrive in planning attacks may get frustrated. Turn() isn’t necessary, but more challenging battles assume you will use it, so a purely spontaneous approach may not work.

Try it if you like: Combat strategy, art nouveau and symbolist art, headcanoning protagonists as trans for the puns, swinging a sword as big as you are, swinging a sword as big as you are that is also your boyfriend with a nice voice and a good sense of humor, pretty ladies riding motorcycles to get revenge, funky level design.

[icecreambat]

Story time: Dating everyone in P5 turned Joker into a sociopath

The first time I ended up dating more than one girl in a Persona game, it was an honest accident. I’d already imprinted on Chie in Persona 4, and had no idea comforting Yukiko during her social link would turn me into a two-timing douche. A quick save-state reload rectified this mistake, but it taught me an important lesson: in Persona games, monogamy is not the limit of your teenage life.

As Persona 5 rolled around, I grew fond of Makoto on my first playthrough. With her on my side I experienced the Phantom Thief thrill ride, maxing my social links while gently turning other girls down. It wasn’t until the NewGame+ that I wondered: wouldn’t it be interesting to try the multi-dating thing? That way I could fast-forward all romance scenarios and not watch them on Youtube later like a loser, duh. If this game was intentionally giving me the opportunity to be Tokyo’s biggest Don Juan, then by Mona, I’d do it!

Little did I know, though, that as I embarked on a quest to bag all the single ladies* the whole atmosphere of the game changed. What had been a more or less generic adventure about truth and justice took on some… rather disturbing undertones, ones that went beyond the actual dating scenarios. In fact, the game turned out to be such an interesting social experiment that I wanted to write about it, so here I am. So, this is a recap of how dating multiple people in Persona 5 turned my Joker into a sociopath.

* except for Makoto, because a) I already romanced her before and b)…. it didn’t feel right, her being my first and all. SO SUE ME I’M A LOSER AFTER ALL

So. Here we are again, moving to Tokyo, whoop de doo. NewGame+ means not having to waste days on working out the ropes, so you can focus on the stuff that matters: getting as overpowered as you can in the least amount of time possible. For me, this meant maxing out Kawakami’s social link as fast as I could, because her bonuses are pretty swank – I really could have used the post-Mementos or post-palace massages during my first playthrough too, but kinda forgot about her right after Operation Maidwatch. Well, no more! I was bringing that teacher home left and right at every possible instance, so obviously I ended up maxing her link first. Ergo, we entered a relationship. 

I’m not gonna lie: the Kawakami romance is some weird (and arguably illegal) shit. Maybe that kinda set the tone of this adventure from the start, giving me an mc who was 100% ok with romancing his homeroom teacher slash part time maid. Uh… huh. Given that my suspension of disbelief went out of the window right about there, it was easy to pick the “omg i totally like, care about you and stuff” dialogue options that went with it; I mean, I was doing this for science and stuff, no big deal.

That’s why it surprised me that when it was time to romance the next (un)lucky girl, I felt like shit about it. Not because of Kawakami, but because Ann wasn’t some ludicrous dating option pulled out of the “lol what if we let the players date everyone!!” shitpost book. Instead, Ann and the mc had already been through Some Shit together, best friend suicide attempts and sexually abusive PE teachers included, and she was a teenage girl looking for her place in the world. So when Ann confided in me about her feelings and told the mc she loved him, “returning” her feelings –while knowing I was already dating my…. uhh, homeroom teacher slash part time maid– genuinely made me feel like the absolute scum of the earth.

“I can’t do this,” I thought at this point, “Even if these are fictional characters in a fictional game, I feel like shit lying to these girls that I care about them, because obviously that’s not true if I’m so callously dating someone else behind their back. How can people do that in real life if I can’t even do it in a video game? Oh, naïve me! Because my lesson in the callousness of man had only just begun.

Anyway, so. Here I am, dating Kawakami and Ann. I think I figured that lying to my teammates didn’t Feel Very Good so headlining for randos seemed like the better choice to make next: Ohya the reporter ended up being the third girl I romanced, and it was relieving she seemed to understand the unlikely nature of our relationship. “I get that we probably won’t stay together forever,” she was telling me, almost like she knew she was only the third wheel in my extended trailer truck, headed to nowhere fast; the same kinda goes for Tae, the punk rock doctor, whose reservedness somehow made it easier to ignore the serial cheater vibes in the dynamic.

Chihaya, on the other hand, was different. Seemingly a little younger than the other grown-ups, she was already a lot more straightforward about her interest in the mc, and harbored all sorts of weird fantasies about them staying together forever. Which is exactly what I told her would happen. Not! Funny that for a fortune teller she couldn’t see I was also spouting this same shit to four other girls, huh? Chihaya reminded me of Ann, in a way, which is why the Bad Feels actually started to resurface here – it’s one thing to lie boldly in the face of girls (women) who aren’t really that invested in you to begin with, but when it’s people who actually believe said lies… well.

Now, I know, I know. There’s no actual reason to feel guilty, because these choices don’t affect the gameplay in any way. Whether or not the mc is an asshole in some ways will still result in everyone loving the shit out of him, and being sad when he leaves. Sure, there’s the scene after Valentine’s Day where you get beat up for being a cheater and the girls kind of call him out on it, but that’s about it; this isn’t Mass Effect, you can’t go full renegade, etc. etc. But even if the game barely acknowledges the clear disparity in the mc’s words and actions, it’s really hard to overlook as the player, and as I said, it kinda changes the tone of the whole game.

You see, during the course of the story the mc ends up establishing a whole bunch of social links: Ryuji, Yusuke, Mishima and even Sojiro are but few of the guys you end up making heartfelt bonds with too. Only problem is, once you go the Lie Route with the girls, the mc hardly comes across as any more honest with the guys – and this is what really puts a spin on his reliability. Everyone’s always going on about what a great guy he is, but none of them know what a quadruple-timing, lying asshole he is at the same time. And why would they? All he does is tell people what they want to hear!

Apparently the devs of Dream Daddy wanted to challenge the notion that this kind of behaviour automatically leads to “good endings” in visual novels, because it only makes the mc seem a little sociopathic. Sure enough, that’s exactly the word I would use to describe how my mc started to come across in all his social interactions in P5. Well, not all, actually; there was one character whose exchanges with the mc came across as genuine even when virtually nothing else did. Yeah, you guessed it: Akechi.

I’m taking a brief interlude here to talk about Akechi, because my social experiment with the mc’s romances actually ended up underlining how similar he and Akechi are as people. It’s what the game hints at continuously with the whole ~two sides of the same coin stuff anyway, but the point really gets hammered home when you repeatedly watch the mc fake his way through life just like Akechi puts on his own double persona (pun not intended). In that sense, it’s only natural that the two would recognize each other as equals, and that their interactions ring more sincere than any other discussion they have in the game.

But back to serial dating, if you will. After Chihaya, I started dating Hifumi the shogi girl, but to be completely honest I sort of mentally fazed her out; with every new girl I tricked into dating me, the initial unease seemed to diminish until I couldn’t remember what had made me feel so disgusted in the first place. I mean, I was already lying to so many people, what did it matter if I lied to one more, right? It’s not like I actually hung out with anyone ever again after I “entered a relationship” with them, and it’s not like my actions carried over to pre-scripted cutscenes, so who cares, right? Nobody (well, apart from a physical game engine) was forcing these girls to believe my bullshit, so really, the fault was theirs for being so gullible, right!!11

…Well, I might have been able to go along with that type of douchebag logic if I’d only kept dating randos. Since I skipped Makoto, the next girl I got cozy with was Futaba… and this is where the skeezy-ville started to nag on my consciousness again, because like with Ann, you know that Futaba’s been through A Lot: she basically spent the past couple of years as a hikikomori, convinced that her mother committed suicide because of her. Trust is a really big thing for her, so throwing a cheating mc into that equation gets really ugly when you think about how he gains that trust just to betray it. When you add in Sojiro, you’re essentially screwing both of them over while pretending to be a happy little family. If you take these events at face value, it kinda makes you wonder: seriously dude, what on earth is your damage?!

If that wasn’t disturbing enough, we finish with Haru. She is also running from one abuser but, if dating a cheating mc, kind of ends up in the arms of another. Although she enters the story fairly late in the game, it’s no less shitty to listen to her be so grateful for your “support”, knowing you’ve sat through variations of this scene with half a dozen other girls already. I just kind of kept staring at the mc’s poker face (pun not intended, again) while wondering how much worse it seems that none of these choices affect anything tangible in the game, even when the whole theme is helping other people (and shitty authority figures, sure, but mainly helping people).

And you know, it’s really that endless poker face that gives the whole thing such a weird ass vibe: this is a 17-year-old kid who’s moved to Tokyo for a year, and ends up constructing a meticulously crafted fake personality that has everyone treating him like the greatest guy on earth. If you perceive this as the intended story (as opposed to the mismatch of a fixed script and optional gameplay choices that it actually is), Persona 5 suddenly becomes a story much darker than its original premise. Who is the real mc, and why is he doing any of this? What is his actual sense of truth and justice, if he spins it so grotesquely to suit his given situation? How troubled does he have to be for this kind of behaviour to emerge, and what caused it?

I know getting busted on Valentine’s Day is played mainly for laughs, but when you put all this together it’s obvious just getting dumped doesn’t even begin to cover the actual consequences of the mc’s actions should have. For the 100% fake personality he’s clearly constructed up until this point, how anyone can still follow him into the depths of Mementos is beyond me. But hey, I know we’re not operating on earth logic here.

Still, as I mentioned, this levels the mc with Akechi a lot – suddenly it’s very hard to condemn Akechi, even in theory, for the route he ended up taking in life, because isn’t the mc basically doing the same thing? Taking advantage of as many people he can to advance his own ends, with the only difference that he ended up on the winning side? Not only that, but it makes it harder to root for the “good guys”, knowing that you’re not a good guy – you’re just some guy with a big enough charm stat to make people follow your fake ideals, whatever those might in reality be.

Personally, I was also surprised at how easy it was to go from “this is horrible I hate this I can’t lie to these girls” to the “eh whatever, I’ve done this long enough that I’ve distanced myself from giving a shit”, then back to “oh shit oh shit this is so wrong” over the course of a single game. I know this sounds like a hyperbole, but in that sense I’m… actually not that surprised at how people find themselves ignoring those same patterns in real life. Which is why it’s so disheartening there’s only one scene dedicated to the consequences; it would be so interesting if there was something more tangible to remind the player that yeah, you’re entitled to picking these options, but it does turn the mc into someone pretty damn messed up.

I mean, damn – by December I’d maxed out all my social links, and suddenly had shit all to do, and because I couldn’t sit through a single fake date with one of my fake ass girlfriends again, I ended up making my mc train every day and night just so I had something to occupy my time between going out and murdering things in Mementos and/or a palace. Watching him do shirtless pull-ups in his room I sorta realized: Oh my god, I turned my mc into a high school version of Patrick Bateman. This game sure took a turn.

So I suppose the point of this story time is that while dating anyone in P5 (and most Persona games, I’d assume) is ultimately only a gameplay element meant for the player’s extra entertainment, sometimes those seemingly superfluous gameplay elements can turn into unintentional story elements – in this case, an experiment of how easily lying to one person turns into lying to everyone, and how sometimes it’s not that easy to tell at what point you stop being genuine at all. Wow, them video games, huh? Always a source of profound inspiration.... or something.

[katrielles]

Professor Layton asks

Rank the games from favorite to least favorite.

Which game has your favorite soundtrack?

Favorite theme song?

Favorite character design?

Least favorite character design?

Favorite antagonist?

Least favorite antagonist?

How were you introduced to Professor Layton?

First impression of PL?

First impression of Layton?

First impression of Luke?

First impression of Flora?

First impression of Emmy?

First impression of Aurora?

First impression of Desmond?

Thoughts on Eternal Diva?

Favorite scene from Eternal Diva?

Thoughts on Layton Brothers?

Favorite Layton Brothers character?

Favorite Layton Brothers case?

Favorite minor character?

Favorite location from each game?

Favorite cutscene from each game?

If you could change anything, plot-wise, from any of the games, what would you change?

Hopes/predictions for Lady Layton?

Any puzzle in particular you remember having trouble with?

Hardest game?

Easiest game?

Favorite minigame?

Least favorite minigame?

If you could choose any character to make an appearance in Lady Layton, who would choose?

A character you relate to.

A character you can’t understand.

A character everyone likes that you can’t stand.

A character you wish were more popular. 

A character you used to dislike but like now.

A character you used to like but dislike now.

Favorite ship?

A ship you can’t stand?

A ship you wish were more popular.

Keats, Granny Riddleton, Beasly, or Puzzlette?

Aldus or Stachenscarfen?

Chelmey or Grosky?

Don Paolo or Descole?

Thoughts on PL vs PW:AA?

Thoughts on the 3D models?

Favorite Bostonius destination?

Favorite thing about the games?

Least favorite thing about the games?

Tell me any headcanon you have about the game!

Favorite AU?

Saddest game?

Game that was the most fun to play?

Have you ever looked up the answer to a puzzle?

Favorite quote from any of the games?

[easy-win-games-blog]

STILL GOOD? — GRAND THEFT AUTO III

This is ‘Still Good?’, an editorial series in which I look back at both favourites games of mine and classics that I somehow missed, working out how these titles stack up today and whether or not they’re worth going back to.

tl;dr — has <insert game> aged well?

That said, let’s dig into Grand Theft Auto III.

Originally released in 2001 for the PS2 GTA 3 was hailed by critics and fans as a landmark in video game design. Its core gameplay mechanics — driving, shooting and navigating an open world — had all been seen before, but this marked the first instance of these mechanics being put together in a seamless and (for lack of a better word) good way. Mix this with elements of The Sopranos and the popular gangster movies of the time and you’ve got one spicy meat-a-ball.

Upon its release it received fantastic reviews across the board, sitting on an aggregate score of 97% (Metacritic) for the PS2 version. It was called, "a luscious, sprawling epic,” a, "technological marvel ... that captures the essence of gritty city life in amazing detail,” and "on a scale that's truly epic” (quotes lifted from Wikipedia). From here on out, aided by various other releases of the time, the gaming landscape was irreversibly shifted towards a focus on cinematic storytelling and open-world settings. It’s become difficult to not find traces of GTA 3’s DNA floating around a most modern releases.

It’s also very easy to get ahold of today. A mobile version was released for its 10th anniversary, but if you prefer something more solid it’s also available on the desktop App Store for Mac, Steam and on Xbox 360 through backwards compatibility if you can find a hard copy.

This sure is a celebrated classic, but it really hasn’t aged well.

If you’ve gone ahead and put in the work by reading my About page you’ll know I go hardcore with the GTA series. GTA 3 especially introduced me to mature video games in a way that I’ll never forget, but unlike other classics of the medium like the 2D Mario games it’s really tough to go back. I finished the game in high school on a MacBook using a trackpad, and recently bought it and Vice City on eBay for Xbox (these versions received various graphical improvements over the PS2 version) and have played maybe half of 3 so far since then.

But it’s hard, man. I love GTA but I’m honestly struggling to continue. It’s a weird case because I can look past its dated graphics and the driving is fine, but nearly everything else is just frustrating. My major gripe with playing this game now is that the controls are absolutely shitted. Locking on to enemies is vague, both in the sense that it only sometimes works with certain weapons and that the lock on rectangle is very transparent. Combat lacks any kind of possible finesse and relies upon a lot of dumb luck and blind button mashing, and moving Claude around feels like I’m controlling a marionette puppet.

And the camera…

There’s a strange feature I’ve found both in GTA 3 and Vice City on Xbox, and I’m not exactly sure if it was apparent on PC or PS2 (but I’m probably wrong). The option to rotate the camera around your player, whether you want to focus on enemies or check out the scenery, is gone. Completely. Instead, when you move the right stick, the camera jumps into a first-person perspective from which you can’t actually do anything. No walking, no combat. Its only really purpose is to change what direction you’re looking (duh), which is just slow and painful. Especially in combat because you have to stop, change the camera, and then move or perform some kind of action to go back out to third-person.

Imagine, if you will…

A mission tells you to go into Chinatown.

Easy, you get there.

But uh oh, you’ve been ambushed by gun and baseball bat-wielding Triads!

You pull out your Uzi and pump a clip into one guy at your 12 o’clock, but three more guys on your 6 you have opened fire!

You act fast, and duck into first person mode.

Five seconds later you’ve turned to face your foes, and have lost half of your health in that time. Now, to lock on.

In a daring move, you lock onto Triad #1 on your right, shoot two rounds and wait for another three seconds while you automatically reload (something that can’t be done manually).

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

You got him! Well done! You’ve also got next to no health.

Time to aim at the next pistol-packing Triad.

But uh oh again, you’ve locked onto someone with a baseball bat instead. You can’t switch your target on the fly, silly, and now you have six guys in total all around you shooting and beating you to death.

You’re dead, good luck next time.

As 2K18 gamer bro, this is frustrating as hell. And this happens constantly. A lot of combat scenarios, in my case at least, came down to me trying over and over again and succeeding only by shepherding the AI into a tight pack and using up the five molotov cocktails I’d scrounged to burn them all alive like a pack of zombies.

I was too young to be involved in the original hype of this game, but I imagine there was a big emphasis on strategy and player freedom in the marketing leading up to the game’s release. I get that, and GTA 3 sure is revolutionary on that front, but by today’s standards it just isn’t good. When the game at hand has a focus on combat and action it’s not a good thing when success comes from manipulating the infrastructure of the game itself. I don’t feel like I’m playing it the way it was meant to be played, but I don’t see any other option.

To make my point clearer, take the example of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. There are a lot of points in this game where you’re surrounded by enemies, who mostly all have guns. There’s no cover-based shooting or anything of that sort in San Andreas, but the fluidity and freedom of the movement with the ability to crouch, walk while crouched, jump and vault over obstacles, strafe, free aim and lock onto and attack enemies without having them in your immediate line of sight really make the difference. Just the ability to freely rotate the camera around CJ and switch lock-on targets make combat scenarios infinitely more strategic and playable than GTA 3.

Sure, San Andreas only exists because of 3’s legacy, but in three short years so much of the Grand Theft Auto formula was refined by intuitive but glaringly obvious improvements for San Andreas, making it now so much easier to go back to than 3. I would put San Andreas, a now 14 year old game, in front of any gamer in 2018, tell them to play it and be confident they would have fun and play with a full sense of control.

The other area where GTA 3 really lacks is in its narrative elements.

In the game you play as Claude, a mute blank slate of a man who wasn’t actually given a name until a one-off skippable phone call in San Andreas. At the beginning of the game we find Claude robbing a bank with his girlfriend, Catalina, who betrays him as they make their getaway with the line, "Sorry babe. I'm an ambitious girl, and you're just small time.”

Immediately, there’s confusion. Stylistically, it’s cool for sure. There’s shotguns and convertibles and action, but who is this lady? Why do her ambitions stop her from robbing banks with her lover (something they have been doing together for around nine years)? She must just be psycho or something, because she jumps in a sports car with some other guy, so to her it’s more beneficial to share the money with the getaway driver than with your long-term boyfriend. What’s more, Claude can’t explain any of this because he can’t talk, so these questions linger for the whole game and never get answered.

You can see here by making Claude the blank slate that he is that it’s likely the intention from Rockstar was to let the player use the mute as a vessel through which they could project themselves, personifying the game with their own personal flavour. Only, there are numerous and very definitive displays of Claude’s character throughout the game that the player might not agree with.

Character defining moments for a character who isn’t meant to have character.

For Christ’s sake, it’s implied he shoots a woman point blank at the end of the game because she talks too much.

It’s a weird half measure. It feels like Rockstar were trying to toe the line between an open world RPG packed with player personalisation and a fully scripted cinematic experience like Goodfellas. They’ve learned since, and their campaigns have been largely compelling ever since, but this feels like a big misstep.

Also, a minor issue I have; the cutscenes and cinematic moments of this game look like dog shit. The direction, cinematography and pacing of nearly every cutscene is awful. Claude will walk to someone’s door and knock, only to be answered an instant later by immediate talk as if this other character intuitively knew he was there. The shots will cut out parts of character’s faces, sometimes ending at their forehead or mouth, and as the cutscenes conclude it isn’t uncommon for Claude to start heading for the exit as the mission boss is still mid-sentence, as if he also intuitively knows the conversation is about to end. Even if the mission parameters haven’t been outlined yet. It’s almost as if the residents of Liberty City have been endowed with psychic abilities (but only in 2001 because Liberty City Stories is much more aligned with the rest of the series in this regard [maybe it’s something in the water]).

Coming from later GTA games, this just doesn’t feel like GTA.

The story overall is also just bland. It’s the most generic revenge plot you could imagine, with some out-of-nowhere betrayals such as that of Salvatore Leone — the local Mob boss.

After completing a number of tasks, both extremely dangerous and tedious, the Don congratulates you on your achievements and your loyalty to the Leone family. This feels pretty good, especially since the missions immediately preceding this moment are a hellish cluster fuck full of shoddy AI and stupid mission design. And you know what? He’s right. You have been loyal to him. You’ve done literally everything he’s told you to do and more. As this happens, he asks you to collect a car parked somewhere Downtown. So, like the good little Mafia errand boy you are, you skip down the hill to get it, only to be sent a page from Salvatore’s girlfriend of all people that the car is a trap and that you’re about to be murdered. Surely enough, the car is rigged with explosives, so your only option is to actually betray Salvatore and flee the first island with his girlfriend as you plot your (second) revenge.

It’s simply not good writing. There’s no cause and effect, no setting up of any kind. You are blank man. You work for blank Mafia man. But blank Mafia man turns on you, because he is bad Mafia man after all. You get blank revenge. It’s high school shit.

Just like Catalina. Take that blank man example, but substitute ‘black Mafia man’ with ‘blank girl’. It’s bad writing.

When it comes to games and movies it becomes hard to define what is good, especially in cases where legacy and nostalgia are involved. Super Mario Bros. 3 or World or whatever might be a better game than OG Super Mario Bros., but you might see OG Super Mario Bros. as the better game because it gave birth to what came after it. In my opinion that’s a really weird viewpoint to have, especially since gaming culture is so focussed on iteration and improvement. Some see it as sacrilege to say an old classic just doesn’t play well, but that’s the case because games as a medium inherently get better as we improve the craft and polish the development process.

With this in mind, and everything else I’ve already said, Grand Theft Auto III is not a good game in 2018. It’s not fun and it doesn’t control well. The story is bad and the moment-to-moment writing is no better. From a historical stance, I think it’s definitely worth playing, but if GTA V was your first introduction to the series and you want to explore its past GTA 3 is not the place to start.

STILL GOOD?

Not really, no

Am I completely wrong? Is my subjective opinion too subjective? Did I forget to mention how much San Andreas fleshes out both Salvatore Leone and Catalina and their character arcs in this game? Shoot (pew) me a message up top through the Ask Me Anything link OR hit me up on Twitter @easy_win_games.

Illustration left-to-right: Catalina, Maria, Asuka, Kenji, Donald Love, Toni, Luigi, 8-Ball, Salvatore Leone. Claude in the foreground.

- Editorial & illustration brewed in-house -

[goddess4302]

Paine is armed with a one-handed sword and a lukewarm attitude. It seems she joined the Gullwings because of something that happened in her past. However, none of the Gullwings know exactly what that might be. The often ridiculous antics of the Gullwings tend to prompt sarcastic remarks from Paine, but the others don't seem to worry about it much.—Booklet description

Paine is a playable character in Final Fantasy X-2, and the most reserved of the girls. Her past is a mystery and it is up to the player to discover what happened to her two years ago during the events of Final Fantasy X.

Paine's manner of dress is different from that of other Spirans, and the cultural distinction implied by her clothing and appearance is never explained. The only known citizen of Spira who looks or dresses anything like her is Lulu, but no other relation is known between the two.

Paine has red eyes, making her resemble Lulu. She has short, silver hair, and most commonly wears a black leather ensemble complete with high-heeled boots, elbow-length gloves and a folded top. She wears a silver pendant threaded with a barbed wire chain. Paine's swords have a skull-motif at the base of the blade that also appears on the belt buckle of her Warrior ensemble, as well as the swords hovering over her head in her special dressphere, Full Throttle. In a bonus cutscene where the girls spend time in a hot spring in Mt. Gagazet, Paine wears a black and white bandeau bikini swimsuit with additional wrist, ankle and neck bands.

Paine's swords are unique in her Warrior, Dark Knight, and Samuraidresspheres, while in her White Mage and Black Mage dresspheres she wields the Malleable Staff and Enchanted Rod respectively. In the Gunner dressphere, she wields Yuna's Tiny Bee pistols and wields an indigo variant of Rikku's dagger blades while in the Thiefdressphere. Her deck theme for the Lady Luck dressphere is diamonds and her Mascot dressphere is a Tonberry. Most of her footwear are high-heeled. When applicable, Paine's dressphere outfits incorporate boyish designs; e.g. her Psychic outfit is based on a typical Japanese schoolboy uniform.

Paine's personality resembles Auron's in the way how she is cynical and reveals information only when she needs to. Not much is known about Paine except that she is quiet and keeps to herself. Paine is tough and loves a good fight, but she is sensible enough to smell trouble a mile away. If she feels her fellow Gullwings are getting overenthusiastic, she uses sarcastic cracks to jolt them to their senses, and despite Rikku's constant prying, she refuses to divulge information about herself, except for always wanting to fly on an airship and hunt for spheres containing records of Spira's past.

In spite of her dry wit and demeanor, Paine values her friendship with Yuna and Rikku, but it is only after spending three months traveling around Spira by herself that she is able to express these feelings. Her physical mannerisms are boyish, perhaps a side effect from her past adventures with Nooj, Gippal, and Baralai.

Paine's childhood is unknown but she grew up during the time of Sin's reign and came to join the Crimson Squad, an elite group of soldiers set up by Yevon. Around the time of Operation Mi'ihen, Paine worked as a recorder for a group of three men: Nooj, Baralai, and Gippal. When the other Crimson Squad members were killed in the Den of Woe, Paine's group survived but were put up for execution soon after by Yevon for having witnessed images of the weapon Vegnagun in the cave.

After Operation Mi'ihen, Paine got separated from Gippal, Nooj, and Baralai and searched for them, passing by Yuna while she was sending the dead. Finding each other, the four stayed together for a while, with Paine still recording their travels, while learning how to speak fluent Al Bhed from Gippal. They decided to go their separate ways on the Mi'ihen Highroad, but Nooj betrayed the group by shooting each of them in the back. The Al Bhed came across the fallen Paine, Baralai, and Gippal, and tended to their wounds and kept them out of sight from the temples, thus separating them.

Two years later, Paine joins the sphere hunter group, the Gullwings, to uncover the truth of what happened on that day in the Den of Woe, but whenever any of the other Gullwings ask Paine of her reason for joining she claims it was for the chance to fly on their airship, the Celsius. Shortly after Paine joins the Gullwings, Yuna also joins the group. As the Gullwings perform missions, they are frequently opposed by the Leblanc Syndicate—their rival sphere hunters, led by Leblanc.

Leblanc steals Yuna's Garment Grid to impersonate her and perform a concert in Luca. While the real Yuna dons a moogle costume as disguise to keep a low profile, Paine and Rikku infiltrate the concert to capture the "impostor Yuna". Rikku and Paine confront Leblanc and chase her out to the docks until being confronted by her two chief henchmen, Logos and Ormi. Yuna joins the fray and reclaims her Garment Grid and begins dancing uncontrollably as though against her will.

During their tracking, they come across the Machine Faction and its leader Gippal, but Paine acts as if they have never met before, confusing him. After obtaining enough uniforms, the Gullwings infiltrate Leblanc's headquarters and find one of Paine's Crimson Spheres that details the events leading up to, during, and after the incident with the Crimson Squad, but Paine remains silent about its significance. YRP discover Leblanc already had the other half of the broken sphere, and stole their half to make it whole.

After watching the restored sphere, it is learned Vegnagun hides Bevelle, and Paine is unsurprised that Bevelle "still has its fondness for secrets". Realizing they are on the same side, the Gullwings and the Leblanc Syndicate form a truce. Together they infiltrate Bevelle and enter the underground passage formed after the fayth's disappearance, finding the Bevelle Underground, an ancient secret complex filled with machina. They fight their way past Baralai to an empty room where the sphere had shown Vegnagun to be. Instead of finding Vegnagun, the group fights the Dark Aeon Bahamut and Vegnagun is gone with a large hole left in its place.

With the mission completed, the Gullwings return to the Celsius and continue sphere hunting until they steal an "Awesome Sphere" from Kilika that records a mysterious machina and an unknown man mentioning someone named Lenne. Upon returning the sphere to either the Youth League or New Yevon, it is learned from Nooj or Baralai that the colossal machina is called Vegnagun. They discover the Leblanc Syndicate had stolen the half-sphere the Gullwings found in the Zanarkand Ruins, forcing them to infiltrate Chateau Leblanc in Guadosalamto reclaim it. To do so, they track down Leblanc Syndicate groups around Spira and steal their uniforms.

Returning from the escapade, the Gullwings learn that Nooj, Gippal, and Baralai have disappeared, and are soon caught fighting fiends and Dark Aeons in the Besaid, Kilika, and Djose Temples. Yuna falls through the hole in Djose Temple's Chamber of the Fayth and into the Farplane, where Nooj and Gippal give Yuna two more Crimson Spheres, telling her to give them to Paine. Back on the Celsius, Yuna tells everyone about her encounter with Shuyin while on the Farplane, learning that Lenne wore the Songstress dressphere over a thousand years ago.

Only when pressed on the deck of the Celsius does Paine reveal a little of her past with Nooj, Gippal, Baralai, and the Crimson Squad, telling Yuna how the four of them dreamed about having an airship, traveling Spira. Later, she assists with finding Tobli to set up Yuna's concert in the Thunder Plains, as a way to calm the tensions rising between the Youth League and New Yevon. During the concert, Lenne's spirit appears and it is revealed she and Shuyin were lovers who were gunned down by Bevelle soldiers after she stopped him from activating Vegnagun. Lenne was a famous songstress and summoner from Zanarkand, who was called to the front lines during the Machina War and Shuyin tried to use Vegnagun to save her. The Gullwings receive another Crimson Sphere, this time from Leblanc herself.

With the final Crimson Sphere obtained, Paine, Rikku and Yuna enter to the Den of Woe and discover the truth behind the events two years ago involving Paine's team. Den of Woe is the place where Shuyin's spirit lingered for a thousand years, and his painful memories and anguish were imprinted on the abundance of pyreflies in the den. When the Crimson Squad entered the den the pyreflies possessed them driving the squad members to kill one another. Shuyin escaped the den by possessing Nooj, which was why he shot his comrades in the back, severing their friendship. Emerging from the den with renewed purpose, Paine is determined to free her friends of Shuyin's influence. Realizing that during their meeting under Bevelle with Baralai and Nooj, Shuyin's spirit left Nooj's body to possess Baralai, Paine asks the Gullwings to help her face Baralai and defeat Shuyin. Now knowing the holes in the temples lead to the Farplane, Yuna plans to tell Shuyin how Lenne felt before they died to calm his spirit.

The Gullwings and Leblanc Syndicate enter the Farplane and, with help from Nooj and Gippal, defeat Vegnagun and Shuyin in a joint effort. Lenne emerges from Yuna's Songstress dressphere to console Shuyin, convincing him to rest in peace before they return to the Farplane together. The Gullwings drop Nooj, Baralai, and Gippal at Luca but leave to return Yuna home to Besaid. When Rikku worries about missing a big party back at Luca, Paine says they party enough on their own. Paine later joins Rikku in watching Yuna and Tidus reunite with each other.

[goddess4302]

Before the events of Final Fantasy X, Rikku's mother died in an incident involving a faulty machina. Rikku's father is Cid, the leader of the Al Bhed faction, and she has an older brother named Brother. Cid's sister (Rikku's aunt) married summoner Braska, Yuna's father, thus making him Rikku's uncle. Rikku and Brother are Yuna's maternal cross cousins.

In Final Fantasy X, Rikku is the first friend Tidus makes in Spira, and she becomes Yuna's final guardian on her pilgrimage.

In Final Fantasy X-2, Rikku convinces Yuna to become a sphere hunter, and accompanies her on her personal quest that evolves into a bid to save Spira again.

In Final Fantasy X, Rikku is fifteen years old and has medium-length blonde hair in a ponytail and braided pigtails with orange feathers. She has the Al Bhed trademark green eyes with swirled pupils, although in FMV cutscenes in X-2, Rikku's eyes have normal pupils instead.

When she is first met aboard the salvage ship, Rikku wears a full Al Bhed combat diving suit that conceals her identity. When she joins Yuna's pilgrimage and sheds the suit, she wears a pair of flared green short-shorts with an orange belt and an orange sleeveless tank-top with side straps and two long blue ribbons hanging from the back. She wears a pair of goggles around her neck, a pair of boots, a gauntlet and arm guard for her right arm and a large protective forearm mitt for her left. Around her right thigh she keeps a pouch for her alchemy materials and equipment. Rikku's nails are painted yellow. Despite carrying goggles around her neck and wearing them while salvaging and piloting machina, Rikku never wears her goggles again after she takes them off on the Moonflow.

In Final Fantasy X-2, the now 17-year-old Rikku wears her longer hair loose and braided, tied atop her head, adorned with colorful beads, and held by a blue bandanna. Rikku has unique outfits for each of the thirteen dresspheres used in combat with details that distinguish her from Paine and Yuna. Rikku's default look is the Thief dressphere, where she wears a yellow g-string bikini and an olive green mini-skirt, carrying two pouches at her waist and ruffle sleeves. A long yellow and red scarf hangs loosely around her neck. Wearing the Thief dressphere in combat, she wields two red dagger-like blades designed for rapid attacks.

In other dresspheres, she wields Yuna's Tiny Bee guns and summoning staves El Dorado and Spiked Rod, as well as Tidus's Crystal Sword, Auron's Katana blade and his Masamune katana. Her deck theme for the Lady Luck dressphere is clubs, and her Mascot dressphere is a Cait Sith.

In Kingdom Hearts II, Rikku's hairstyle remains unchanged and her default Thief dressphere has a minor changes: she wears a yellow tube top and an orange skirt with two yellow ribbons and white ruffle sleeves. Her long scarf is now red with an orange tint. She now wears white knee-high socks and her boots are white with blue folded sleeves.

During Rikku's childhood, a machina went on a rampage and her mother was killed. Rikku was attacked by a fiend while playing on the beach and Brotheraimed a Thunder spell at the fiend to fend it off, but the spell missed and hit Rikku instead, leaving her with a fear of thunder.

After Tidus is ambushed by a fiend in the Underwater Ruins, he is rescued by a group of Al Bhed led by Rikku. While the others believe him to be a fiend in human form, Rikku objects to killing Tidus and instead knocks him out so he can be taken to the Al Bhed Salvage Ship. As the bilingual member of the group, Rikku enlists Tidus in reactivating an underwater power plant to salvage a sunken airship. Striking up a friendship and surprised by his claims of hailing from Zanarkand, Rikku promises to take him to Luca so he can find someone he knows. The two are separated when Sin attacks the ship and Tidus is washed overboard.

Tidus drifts to Besaid and ends up joining Yuna on her pilgrimage. When Yuna's group crosses the Moonflow via Shoopuf, Rikku pilots an underwater machinato kidnap her and stop her pilgrimage, but Tidus and Wakka dive in after her and save Yuna by destroying Rikku's machina. Ejecting from the damaged machina, Rikku washes ashore and Tidus finds her. Rikku discards her Al Bhed uniform to move about incognito and joins Yuna's pilgrimage as her final guardian. While the others know of her heritage, Rikku's status as an Al Bhed is concealed from Wakka, who does not approve of the Al Bhed for personal reasons. Though she enjoys the hospitality at Guadosalam, Rikku stays out of the Farplane while the others go for a visit, saying that the images of the dead Farplane conjures for its visitors are mere memories, and she prefers keeping her memories to herself.

Rikku's astraphobia is revealed while the group cross the Thunder Plains, pleading with the others to rest at the nearby Rin's Travel Agency. Auron's harshness causes an upset Rikku to momentarily overcome her fear by the time they reach Macalania Woods. On the way to Macalania Temple, Rikku defends Yuna from her brother when he attempts to kidnap her. When she tells him she will protect Yuna using her native tongue, Rikku finds herself insulted by a shocked Wakka. She retorts by telling him to think for himself for once without Yevon's influence, and show proof of his claims that her people are to blame for Sin. If Tidus rides a machina sled with Rikku to Macalania Temple, she reveals she is Yuna's cousin and articulates in a roundabout way that Yuna will die if she continues her pilgrimage, but Tidus is oblivious.

At Macalania Temple, a guard, disbelieving an Al Bhed could be a guardian to a summoner, denies Rikku entry until Auron comes to her defense. After the group confront Seymour for his role in murdering his father, Jyscal Guado, which escalates into a battle that kills Seymour, they are pursued by the Guado and fall to the bottom of the frozen Lake Macalania, where they are whisked away by an encounter with Sin.

The party regroups on Bikanel Island but cannot find Yuna. Rikku leads the others to the Al Bhed Home that is under attack by the Guado. They locate Rikku's father, Cid, and Rikku reveals to an unaware Tidus that Yuna will die if she performs the Final Summoning. They escape on the airship the Al Bhed had restored from the salvage operation Tidus participated briefly in.

At Bevelle, the party drops in on Yuna's forced wedding ceremony to the now-unsent Seymour but are forced to watch it continue while held at gunpoint. After Yuna escapes on Valefor, Rikku tosses a flash bomb to blind Seymour and the warrior monks so that the group can retreat into Bevelle Temple. After Kinoc holds them up, Rikku tries to warn Tidus not to exit the Chamber of the Fayth with Yuna, but it is too late, and they are arrested and held on trial for treason.

Rikku is thrown into the Via Purifico with Tidus and Wakka but they escape from the dungeon's monster and reunite with Yuna and the others. On Bevelle's Highbridge, Seymour transforms into Seymour Natus and confronts the group. They defeat him and flee to the Macalania Woods where Rikku hopes Yuna would quit her pilgrimage now that they know the truth about Yevon's corrupt ways, and although Yuna is set on continuing Rikku and Tidus decide to come up with a way to save her. During the group's climb up Mt. Gagazet to the Zanarkand Ruins, Rikku becomes increasingly distraught over Yuna's impending fate and pleads with her not to go through with it. Yuna comforts Rikku and thanks her for her help, but Rikku refuses to accept Yuna's choice.

Within the Zanarkand Dome, the party learns of the Final Summoning's true nature as a continuation of Sin, and Rikku is overjoyed when Yuna rejects it as a false rite. The party decides to fight Sin via other means and Rikku tells Shelinda to spread word of the plan to pacify Sin by using the "Hymn of the Fayth". They fly the airship into the calmed Sin and traverse its innards to reach the core. After Wakka makes his peace with her people, Rikku joins the others in defeating Jecht in his Final Aeon form to destroy Yu Yevon.

As Yuna sends her aeons, Auron dissolves into pyreflies and departs for the Farplane. With Yu Yevon no more, Sin, the fayth, the aeons, and Tidus begin to fade. The party returns to the airship and Tidus says his goodbyes to everyone, but Rikku does not accept his departure, saying they will meet again. Some time later, Rikku is present with Lulu, Wakka, and Kimahri as Yuna delivers a speech in Luca Stadium to announce the onset of the Eternal Calm.

Final Fantasy -2

The Gullwings gain a rivalry with the Leblanc Syndicate, another sphere hunting group, led by Leblanc. One day, Leblanc steals Yuna's Garment Grid and performs a concert in Luca while posing as Yuna. Rikku and Paine crash the concert while Yuna dons a moogle costume to keep a low profile. Rikku and Paine chase Leblanc out to the docks and Yuna joins the fray and reclaims her Garment Grid.

The Gullwings explore the recently discovered Floating Ruins at the peak of Mt. Gagazet and claim the treasure sphere that contains images of Zanarkand. At the Zanarkand Ruins they find half a sphere. The Gullwings travel throughout Spira and encounter many old and new friends, including the three most influential Spirans: Youth League leader Nooj, New Yevon Praetor Baralai, and Gippal, leader of the Machine Faction. Gippal, a ladies' man and an old friend of Rikku's, embarrasses her with a crack about the two of them having "made quite the couple". News spreads about an "awesome sphere" found in Kilika, which draws the attention of both the Youth League and New Yevon. The Gullwings seize the sphere whose footage displays the mysterious man who resembles Tidus standing before a large weapon, mentioning someone named Lenne.

The awesome sphere is returned to either the Youth League or New Yevon, and it is learned from Nooj or Baralai the colossal weapon is called Vegnagun. Leblanc broke into the airship and stole the Gullwings' broken sphere from the Zanarkand Ruins, and in Leblanc's headquarters, Chateau Leblanc, the girls discover Leblanc already had the other half and stole their half to make it whole. After watching the restored sphere it is learned Vegnagun lies hidden underneath Bevelle. Forming a truce with the Leblanc Syndicate, the sphere hunters enter the underground passage under Bevelle formed after the fayth's disappearance and find a secret complex filled with machina.

When YRP reach Vegnagun's lair, they face an antagonistic Bahamut and the girls are forced to fight it. Vegnagun is gone and a large hole is left in its place. Fiends pour out of the temples, and Nooj, Baralai, and Gippal go missing. After defeating a possessed Ixion in Djose Temple its surprise death blow attack sends Yuna falling down the hole in the former Chamber of the Fayth and into the Farplane. Rikku, Paine, and the others soon hear from Yuna again when she emerges in the Bevelle Underground.

Back on the Celsius, Yuna tells everyone about Shuyin and Lenne who lived during the times of the Machina War a thousand years ago, and Lenne's spirit coalesced into a sphere, which the Gullwings now use as the Songstressdressphere. After learning about Shuyin and Lenne from Maechen after Yuna's 1000 Words concert, Rikku pities Shuyin, as two years ago, she, too, went to great lengths to try and save Yuna from a tragic fate. Now knowing the holes in the temples lead to the Farplane, Yuna plans talking to Shuyin and tell him how Lenne felt.

Rikku feels that people are always leaving her behind, but Yuna thanks her for 'kidnapping' her and letting her join the Gullwings. YRP descend into the depths of the Farplane in search of Shuyin and Vegnagun. After destroying Vegnagun and defeating Shuyin, Lenne's spirit puts Shuyin's hatred to rest and they return to the Farplane together. The Gullwings leave Spira's leaders at Luca and ride the Celsius to Besaid where Yuna reunites with a revived Tidus.