#like I get being mad but for once it’s actually grounded in lore LOL

[kitsunabi]

V funny to me that fandom usually complains about unexpected design choices in the absence of lore, but they also complain with the presence of lore explaining why it is what it is (they just didn’t read)

[andros-paidophonoio]

My other controversial trait is I don't care for but I also don't hate Lore Olympus lmfao. I think it's frustrating to me for various reasons but all of them are completely different from the main reasons I see people hate it and I rarely see MY complaints and critiques come up which is pretty funny. Not that some critiques don't have merit, but a lot especially I remember from several years ago were ur run of the mill "sexualizing fetishizing & the young women r being led astray" from the same people also being nostalgic about their effervescent Twilight phases and problematic cartoon husbandos and it's like, let's be fucking real

I understand the being concerned about it giving the Wrong Impression of the mythological characters etc but it's just visually and stylistically SO different and distinct and basically looks and comes across like Teenybopper Inside Out. I feel like thinking it represents anything realistic to the irl material feels a little idk.....losing chess to a dog-ish. Losing chess to an archie comic. Personally I get more concerned about adapations that have an appearance and sheen of being "accurate" or educational and serious while peddling more misinformation XD So that in mind, most of my evaluation of the story is a bit separate from that aspect, which has already been discussed and analyzed a lot–i generally try to evaluate based on the internal world that a story creates and how it comes across to ME.

More of my thoughts (playing defense AND personal haterisms)

I personally find the main Fantasy of the comic to be extremely vanilla LMAO and Fine...its basically "what if I was a super hot and pretty girl but ALSO sort of underdog-ish but ALSO I had sexy older BF who was kind and listens to me and wants to worship the ground inwalk on and we have cute little fluffy conversations and dates and ALSO I'm super sexy and evil and powerful but ALSO Good and Innocent and Blameless--" it's kind of an incoherent mess, but it's trying to appeal to a variety of fantasies all at once, and I think the desires that are expressed are pretty basic ones lol. I know there's also the rumor (?) of the Hades basically being authors self insert Mads Mikkelsen au crush or whatever which ppl made fun of but like genuinely What is Wrong With That. It's a bit silly but how is that problematic or my business.

I actually liked Perse's character and parts of her arc, I think the strongest parts of the comic was parts like the gentle romance portions where characters got to "be themselves" and just hang out in more slice of life style stuff (before it weirdly delved into therapist talking). There are some really great expressions of emotion and nervousness around sex and desire and shame. And the fantasy of having an understanding person to be a friend and talk to and open up to and speak in a respectful way was pretty sweet, and a lot MORE gentle than tbh a lot of Edgy Romance where theove interest is just Mean and Insulting for a while. So while I find aspects of maybe the characters getting flat, I found that personally kind of more positive in terms of "lessons and takeaways." So it's funny to me when ppl talk about the comic as The Most Evil Fetishizing Ever when so much of it honestly feels sanded down to Niceness lmfao. I also weirdly found that it felt at times very sexually or sensually restrained–like I get it's for more younger audience, but the kind of coy dancing around stuff at times (I wonder from webtoon meddling) felt weirder than maybe being more open about it. In a weird way, the rape scene from earlier on in the story felt more explored in how it had an impact than later parts. I wonder if that's because it was before it became so popular and also started getting more attention and criticisms that then seem to have subsumed into the work in weird ways.

I guess it's overall, in the end, one of those stories that is very much speaking to the modern age and the modern (straight ig) young women; where the OG Story and hymn was about grief of losing child to a marriage out of ur control (and includes the comfort of other mothers or matriarchs), I feel this (clumsily) speaks to a kind of different struggle. Aka the issue of wanting to express and enjoy sexuality freely but being faced with the prospect of interpersonal sexual violence, or people seeking to control said sexuality either out of protection or their own gain, the idea that you become seen as "evil" once u express ur sexual desires or become "tainted" by association with a man in a way that isn't a Socially Sanctioned way. It's clumsy, but it's real, and a lot of stories I see in this subject are grappling with this a lot. Esp for an era where many women do have a lot more freedom to pursue and find partners by choice than in ancient times, but the journey to that kind of happiness can be held up by such adverse experiences and subsequent emotional states/expectations.

I think my problem with a lot of romantic stuff, including this, that wants to balance these twin fantasies–one of being Very Powerful and Dangerous, but also of being Blameless and Good, are often kind of at odds and can result in some pretty Bad Storytelling that often ends up kind of trying to backtrack and do apologism for the Bad Actions in a way that just feels weak And noncommittal (if ur gonna be evil girl BE EVIL), and also kind of gets weird because The Protagonist, and the Couple(tm) must Always Be Good, and this cannot always be the case!!! In fact, it can make characters end up looking worse lol. Solomon's Crown does this too and that I am offended by for the same reasons!!!

Anyways, I haven't finished the whole comic, although I found a lot of the later arcs very intriguing although it took too fucking long to get to it because of the other problems that irritated me which consist of the following in no particular order:

THE VERY UNFUNNY HUMOR. I hated the jokes so much. I feel this is a problem with a lot of serials where they try to stay topical but boy I do not give a shit. That and when characters started speaking more like therapists, it brings the Drama to a screeching halt. And we are supposed to be HERE for drama!!! This is the main reason it always takes me so long to read like there will be an interesting serious scene and then the jokes will be so bad and deflating the impact. Sad!

Minthe. Treatment of her character left a bad taste in my mouth; last I left off I kind of liked more time spent on her, but in general i just felt really weird about the role her character played

Generally disinterested in all the other characters aside from the main couple. Perse is really fun and I feel there's the most "real" experience poured into her mixed with fantasy.

The opening episodes are indeed extremely off-putting to me so I don't blame people for not getting into it bc it starts off with some bro-y behavior that is corny. And it never quite feels "established" in its setting which is an issue to me with a lot of webtoons but for here especially it feels very like I said earlier like Teenybopper Inside Out. These characters are fantastical concepts, but only at times do they feel real as People

Anyways it's one of those things where I can genuinely see the charm in it--i can see exactly why it blew up how it did, but also like most webtoon it invites the most simplified types of comments ever where every single character has to be Good or Bad and if anyone does anything complex everyone throws a riot. So I don't doubt that the environment in which the story was produced affected the way that it is formatted and created. In this sense it's an interesting work to consider culturally and sociplogically. I think it is part of the greater conversation of why such works connect to people for greater or ill at all. Still, the Bad Jokes will keep me from probably having the true knowledge and I definitely will continue going my own way

(I do have a few AU concepts tho I'd like to think about sometimes....infeel like some aspects of the story I think a transmasc perse is interesting to think about, especially the whole weird definitions of the "fertility goddess" and "pure maiden" aspect, and the desire for LO!Apollo to want them to embody kind of an Ideal Wifepartner to gain power and prestige...more disturbing but also interesting implications and stakes to think about. canon LO I see seems to be about moving from maiden to the fertility goddess aspect but what if there were other identity avenues to be explored? Also I was thinking that a lot of the LO haters I get it we don't like cringe heteros that's fair but I know a lot of y'all r reading BL that use the EXACT SAME TROPES but even more corny and it's like.....sometimes humans crave corniness I get it. It would be too many layers of gender for the original to even be considering lmfao but since a lot of the story is about finding the Self and also facing resistance for it, I don't think it would be unthinkable....the fantasy worldbuilding going on is like ??? But sometimes it produces some stuff I think more deeply about)

[moonstruck-muses]

same taste of heaven anon back again :) i have so many thoughts omg. first, your idea of the flashes of memories coming back to yn- that would make me so sick. it's so bizarre the first time that surely it must've been a weird dream that just came back to her or smth. and then she gets more and more and seems too vivid to be a dream. literally would have me throwing up bc wtf do you mean my bf drinks my blood without telling me and then makes me forget. god i would be so scared too LOL. idk if you've developed the lore this much in your head but like, would that mean yn just has blackouts in her memory? like she has no recollection of that night if the venom made her forget? oh and also, does the venom get into her blood automatically and the memory loss just happens to be a side effect? and then once jake realizes she forgets after he's like oh nice i didn't know it works like that i'm gonna keep doing it. or does he deliberately poison her to make her forget? either way he's shitty but like lmao

also i loved the fic btw so this is not hate!! but how shitty is he to literally get into a relationship with her and just keep the vampire part a secret when this man is literally IMMORTAL so like eventually she would have to choose to leave him or stay. because he wanted to tell her the entire time but just didn't. how selfish 😭

i needed to finish the plot before bed last night i imagined that the venom wasn't as strong as he thought it would be to fully make her memory go away, so it's hazy when she wake up but she has enough of it to remember and confront him. so he's like oh shit did not see this coming. and then she gets really upset and mad. like she is SO hurt, the angst is going CRAZYYYY. then she's like you're my boyfriend, how could you do this to me! how could u literally pierce my skin multiple times and drink my BLOOD and deliberately make me forget about it! how could you lie to me the whole time!!!,, i asked for the truth and you promised you would tell me how could you do this! and he's like i'm sorryryyy i was just saur scared ilysm i couldn't bear to lose you :(( and she's like yeah that's real i understand, and ilysm but jakey i do not want to be a vampire i literally do not want to live for eternity :/ i like being a human and there is no reason for me to live that long (it was getting a little personal here, like i think 90 years on earth is enough for me tyvm). and then they get sad and hug it out and wtv. i didn't know how to resolve it so i left it there lul

SWEET SWEET NONNIE!!! I almost cried when I saw this, you have no idea how much this means to me have somebody interact with my art like this <3 I hope your pillow is always cold and your blankets always fluffy.

SO the mechanics of how the mind wipe works (and with the wound disappearing with the lick) is actually a little power I borrowed from Vampire the Masquerade, which is a ttrpg I really love. There's two abilities one called Cloud Memory and the other The Forgetful Mind. Cloud Memory is simple--you simple erase a moment of the memory and the victim will be none the wiser to it as long as they don't press on the memory. Then they'll realize something is wrong. The Forgetful Mind is a little more complex, as in that one you're actually rewriting the victim's memory, and giving them false memories to replace it. I wrote Jake's little stunt as a middle ground between the two. So Y/N would wake up the next morning and she'd know they fucked and boy it must've been spectacular but she'd definitely forget the details of what exactly happened (i.e. the venom). A shitty move of Jake for sure--but alas I am a vampire apologist, and wasn't lying when I said this was self indulgent (God please send me a vampire boyfriend I can make him worse). Two things about me: I will die for Jake, and the only thing I love in this world more than Enha is vampires (as you may guess, me discovering Enha's concept was very detrimental to me. In fact my roommate laughed in my face and said "Good Luck!' when I forced him to watch the Drunk-Dazed video).

And yes sweet nonnie--not interpreting this as hate at all! As a reader, I hate being given very morally black and white characters, it takes a lot of intrigue out of a story, and doesn't give us the tension we seek. Morally grey characters (like my vampire Jake) give us two sides of the story. He's being objectively shitty, and taking away so much agency from Y/N, and yet he loves her, and doesn't know how to face the truth because he is, like you said, selfish! His fear of being alone causes him to act in a way that endangers Y/N and only worsens his case when the inevitable happens. I like to think it adds a little spice, where you can see the sweetness and we see the POV of Jake giving Y/N what she's dreamed of and more, but from his POV we see the selfishness and the monstrosity of what he's doing and the danger he puts her in every time he drinks and then wipes her mind.

And TEEHEE just giggled and kicked my feet. I love your interpretation of the ending. I think it's just so fundamentally sad if Y/N wants her mortality but that doesn't mean she'll always be able to keep Jake, and because of that Jake doesn't have a choice but to let her go. How long will they let this relationship last? People will realize he doesn't age, and what happens when she gets to an age where she doesn't feel comfortable being with him anymore? What if she wants a family and a life? So many thoughts so many possibilities! <3

[enlighten3d]

THEORY UPDATEEEE

im out fishing rn (edit: not anymore lol, im finishing typing this on pc, thank fuck) and i heard some Things about the kenadian stream.. wato has read our posts... so, hello wato! i swear im not THAT insane. anyway, we carry on as usual.... SO NOW: THE UPDATED THEORY ON WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING IN THIS LORE !!

this is actually the third theory update, the other two just never survived for long enough bcs we kept finding new stuff lmao. but, heres my first theory (now very outdated), and here are the other two, copypasted from messages of me explaining the two unposted theories (feat. me speculating wildly as i do): theory 2, theory 3 (mind that both of these were formatted for discord which is why they may be odd)

okay so now! the fourth theory, yet again featuring wild speculation, now with the added spice of me having read too much mcyt fanfic! (that last part prolly makes no sense. dont worry abt it.)

in this theory, i am proposing that evil wifies is like, a LOT more evil, and has done a lot of fucked up Experimentation. which lead to void wifies. explanation below the cut (its prolly gonna be long again T-T) (also, as always: tons of wild speculation ahead. ill try to present all evidence but i forget what those outside of the gc know or dont):

okay so first off, as always, we assume that wato got the mask from killing ken during the train escape. then (evil) wifies somehow got the mask from wato at,, IDK, SOME POINT. before everything happened.

so wifies, corrupted by the power of the mask, starts faking escape rooms and invents cloning in order to do it. now hes evilfies (thank you wifies for calling him evilfies thats so much quicker to type than evil wifies)! and so evilfies, having invented cloning, starts fucking around and Experimenting like the mad scientist ive decided he is.

what does he next Experiment on? the mask! why? why the fuck not. he likes the power it gives him so he decides to somehow try and tie it to himself permanently. he does this by somehow merging a part of his code with that of the mask, and therefore unintentionally giving it sentience (somewhat). evilfies thinks this is fineeeee...

so, to test the constraints of this new form of the mask, evilfies puts the mask in a bunker of sorts, to see if the tie between him and the mask would remain. the bunker is a bedrock room...

also, at this point, evilfies has already asked wato to build that escape room for the video. so wato starts Planning it (and filming the tutorial video that we can assume exists in canon), doing so in the same world as all of evilfies stuff. why? bcs evilfies want to keep an eye on wato and the escape room build. also, why not. i am not discounting the idea that evilfies is forcing wato to build escape rooms for him yet.

so bcs its in the same world.. wato accidentally falls down a chute into the bunker where the mask has been placed (as seen in the wato yt short). now, i STILL cant explain what the fuck that snom is, but.. voidfies (void wifies, now with a shorter name!) is there (for anyone who hasnt seen @fncreatures post: voidfies is the weird void guy with the mask. yes thats wifies too.)... I WONDER WHY.

ysee, when evilfies tied part of his code to the mask, that code and the masks code ended up getting tied together, yeah? well the world needs some way to render the mask in the world (btw were getting into the way that realistic minecraft works in mcyt fanfiction now lmao). and when it reads the masks code, it sees that theres wifies code there too.. and renders the mask as being on wifies. ofc, the code is corrupted, so its not entirely wifies. its just.. the outline of him. the mask remains the only clear thing.

so wato falls down into the bunker where voidfies is, and voidfies/the mask attacks wato - hence the blood (redstone) on the ground. eventually wato makes it out of there, but.. but now he has the mask again. now the mask has control of them once again. oh noes,,, but yeah, the mask now being partially wifies code-wise is my explanation for wato wearing wifies clothes as well. the world just tries to partially render him as wifies and that results in her having the wifies clothes.

but, wato carries on! they keep building the escape room, mask or no. he finishes up the escape room, tells evilfies, and evilfies is like.. 'why the fuck do you have the mask'. yet again,, oh noes! oh well. this is an opportunity for more Experimentation! atp evilfies deserves the whole mad scientist getup, labcoat and goggles and all... but i digress. anyway, wato proceeds to disappear for the next little while. i wonder where they are !! definitely not, and i quote watos tumblr post, "an elaborate array of escape rooms". which i asSUME means the uhhh absurdly big one seen in but there was more. idfk what kind of Experimentation evilfies got up to, but.. we dont talk about it. definitely involved comparing wato to the wifies clones in some way tho, in order to explain wato having the wifies head on.

so anyway, the wifies and ken videos happen as per normal (this is why wato knew the servers ip when he gave it to ken!! cause shes trapped there!!), and then.. then evilfies teleports masked wato into the escape room right before the Confrontation happens.

now, all the Experimentation that evilfies has done has fucked up the masks code even further, and now wato along with it! to say his memories are Scrambled would be.. an understatement, id say. but now, with the masks code being even more fucked, it Glitches sometimes and like, loses the way it manifests (the clothes/wifies silhouette) or its control slips and wato can Think. however due to her memories being Scrambled, when the masks control slips once theyre inside the escape room, the last thing he can remember is falling into that hole where evilfies was. its always the last thing they can remember. every single time the mask Glitches, the last thing she remembers is that hole. its the Final Memory until the mask regains control

but either way, now inside the escape room with the masks control having slipped, wato is confused as FUCK as to where he is. wasnt he just planning this escape room? now its built? and completed (twice)? wild.. so they panic, but the mask unglitches and regains control. masked wato continues solving the escape room in order to get out, uses the wifies head to get out, the norm. but on the win platform,, masked wato Glitches again. this time, its a clothing glitch. LISTEN, THIS IS MY EXPLANATION FOR THIS. I MAY BE MAKING SHIT UP WITH THAT ONE, BUT ITS IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO MENTION. either way, the Glitch happens then goes back to typical masked wato.

then.. things go as usual ! masked wato makes their way to evilfies evil lair, go up to his office, takes one of the wifies heads from the armour stands, put it on, and sits in evilfies chair. now, why, you ask? well... due to the mask being in control, and the mask being partially evilfies code right now, its reasonable to assume that itd have some sort of memory of sitting in that chair, right? that office belongs to the person whose code it is partially made out of. so it might feel like it belongs there. so masked wato sits there. then a Glitch or internal conflict of some sort happens. masked wato paces around, trying to resolve it, but fails and.. jumps out the window.

masked wato goes to the Array Of Escape Rooms that they prolly spent the last while in. its also where his spawnpoint prolly is (yet again, according to watos tumblr post. thank you, wato.), so i suppose the instinct to go there when in probable distress makes sense. there, at the Escape Room Array, wato.. somehow loses the mask. i dont know if she manages to somehow separate himself from it, but the mask is gone and is back to being its own separate being. however, due to wato having had the mask for a while and the code being Fucked Up, it takes a while for the world to stop rendering watos clothes are wifies clothes.

but as with all the other theories, there at the absurdly big escape room, is where ken finds wato, drags them back with her, and then ken and wifies Interrogate wato. watos memories are fucked up, doesnt remember anth concrete, he leaves to go on the 'looking around and having Flashbacks' adventure. during the interrogation, voidfies made its way back to the main area, and is Spying on them through the windows..

so after all this, wato is the one that gets evilfies evil clone factory. he owns it now (this is based off the same post that wato made across three platforms lmao)! woo! cleans the place up, sets her spawnpoint there, and yay they have a home [:

what happened to voidfies tho?

no clue.

BUT WITH ALL THAT OUT OF THE WAY, HAVE A TIMELINE/SUMMARY OF EVENTS ACCORDING TO THIS THEORY (gods i love tumblr having no wordlimit im so sorry abt the length of this post):

- wato gets the mask during the train escape - a long while before any of these videos, wifies gets the mask from wato, which compels him to be Evil and invent cloning in order to fake escape rooms - evilfies likes the mask and decides to tie his code to it via Experimentation, which gives the mask sentience and a physical form resembling wifies - to test if the mask stays tied to him, evilfies puts it in a bedrock chamber far away from him. wato, having been building and planning the escape room wifies commissioned on the same server, accidentally falls into this bedrock room, gets attacked, and the mask gets control of him. masked wato now has wifies clothes due to the world being unable to read the masks code properly - masked wato finishes building the escape room - evilfies finds out about wato having the mask now, and drags her off to the Array Of Escape Rooms for more Experimentation (possibly using her as a comparison point for the clone wifies, hence the wifies head (so he Blends In)) - wifies and ken videos happen - before the Confrontation, evilfies teleports masked wato into the escape room, where masked wato Glitches and the masks control slips. wato, their last memory being falling into that bedrock room, is confused as fuck. mask regains control, masked wato finishes the escape room using the wifies head, Glitches visually at the win platform, and makes his way to evilfies evil lair - at the evil lair, masked wato takes one of the wifies heads and put it on and sits in evilfies chair possibly due to the mask having residual evilfies memories from his code. then there is either a Glitch or internal conflict of some sort, and masked wato jumps out of the window - having made her way to the Escape Room (where his spawnpoint prolly is), wato manages to get rid of the mask - the world hasnt stopped rendering their clothes and those of wifies yet - and is found by ken - ken and wifies interrogate wato. wato does not remember many things. voidfies is Spying on them.. - wato goes on a bit of trip down flashback lane - wato gets ownership of the evil lair

thats that!

tldr: wato is FUCKED - now both on a memories AND code level! the mask is sentient and partially wifies, and no one know how fucked up stuff is

what this theory DOESNT explain: the White Blob (AGAIN. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING.), why theres a chute to the bedrock bunker if the door is the intended exit (we see wato go out through the door in the true creator), how on earth this theory would work if i hadnt read too much mcyt fanfic, when on earth wifies originally gets the mask from wato, how wato remembers 'building most of the escape room' when he got the mask before even starting to build it and hence not remembering building it (this one could be explained by saying her memories are coming back, actually).

is this theory probably wrong? once again: YES! do i care? not particularly! i am bullshitting! this is Wild Speculation!! its fun! evilfies deserves to be a mad scientist!

ty for reading this 2149 word post, and ty to the other members of the theorising gc! @brain-empty @fncreature and @viv-imus-illogic ! shoot me a dm with your discord username if you want to join o7

and.. thats that, yeah. im going to go cry now /nsrs

[violetnaps]

okay here we go

placeholder name - senju

lore - theyre immortal. hell-risen. kill them once and theyll just come back later like nothing happened. ideally they need their physical body externally healed but can go without too. the legend goes that the first senju walked out of hell to serve the soul king, or something. and the only way to really kill them is to physically push them back into hell. which only they themselves can do. their bankai can summon the gates of hell and condemn anyone they feel like into it. also during bankai theyre truly immortal, as in unkillable - cut them and theyll stitch themselves back together with chains. more puppet than person. (kind of reminds of urahara...)

members -

sachiko, the Main Guy, to me. predecessor was old even by senju standards and desperate to die. sired three kids for the purpose of killing her. sachiko is the third. succeeded. doesnt know wtf to do now so goes on to have a chill academy life with hisagi and the others and becomes seventh's lieutenant really soon after graduating. "it's nepotism" it's her and komamura both being freaks and annihilating the training grounds trying to kill each other in lieu of the lieutenancy test or however theyre assigned. hates her zanpakuto and fights most battles with only kido. especially partial to bakudo. sth sth her mom kept killing her over and over and now she'll do anything do never be in pain again.

ukiyo, the second son. failed before he even got started. not a fighter at all. his brother runs away the day sachiko appears (they dont actually know if their mother made them or just found them somewhere, there's never any father in the picture) but he stays and is sachikos actual caretaker, since their mother is only interested in training her.

kofuku, the third gen. sometimes i love the idea of her, sometimes i pretend she doesnt exist. senju baby who was found by a mad scientist. you can imagine how that went. sachiko finds her and sends the guy to hell. sachiko's heir who is most definitely not her daughter, stop calling her that.

ichi-something, the first son. the brothers were named in that usual numbered pattern, it's just ukiyo picks a new name for himself after naming sachiko (bc their mother wanted to name her the third and he already knows how that story goes). running around rukon somewhere.

trivia - idr how the immortal concept started but i do know i want sachiko to die twice, maybe thrice. first is that academy field trip that momo and the others were on, which is just humiliating. she killed her monster of a mother and a fuckass hollow got her? second is aizen in winter war decapitating her in front of everyone. "ive always wondered what would happen if i did that :)" gets a cool neck scar out of it so is it really a loss?

oh and ukiyo is a healer but only for physical wounds. he can't restore reiatsu like the fourth's healers can and he isn't particularly concerned with the patients survival either bc hes only ever worked with fixing corpses basically. i oscillate between kofuku being a healer and just a kid whos whatever. she has a higher selfhealing threshold than the others bc of the experiments on her so that could explain her interest in wanting to heal others but also eh. dunno.

idk what else to add. have a sachiko picrew. desi-coded bc she started out as a selfinsert but then lore happened and i dont recognise her anymore lol

need to post my sachiko/family lore before kubo decides to release info abt the 5th noble clan. its my house until i get evicted

[robinsnest2111]

do you play any games? and if so which :0

currently I only play Animal Crossing 🙈 Trying to check in daily, but even that is hard to accomplish orz

When my laptop still worked properly, I used to play loads of indie/rpg maker games! OFF and Ib were the first two I tried. Eternally Us was nice as well even though very heartbreaking. And ofc I played Undertale (my beloved).

I tried playing Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch once. Sadly I'm not made for these kinds of games, love the characters and lore tho 💕

I used to be suuuuuper into Metal Gear Solid!!! I own most of the games (all releases and special editions for PlayStation 1 and 2) and loved playing them! Also played the PS3/4 releases on friends' consoles to get the full experience. Love the story and characters to this day 🥺💕

Started to get into the Yakuza series but got stuck halfway into Yakuza 2 and kinda abandoned that orz

Friends lent me the first couple Ace Attorney games for the DS a few years ago and I got really into those as well!

Dog's Life, Lilo & Stitch: Trouble in Paradise, and Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil will always have a special place in my heart, and I still play them on occasion. They're kids' games but I'm pretty bad at "grown up" games and I just like to have fun and to actually find out how the game ends without getting stuck and ending up frustrated lol

That's one of the reasons I'm super into watching Let's Plays of titles that sound interesting! The other being I just can't afford new consoles and most games. (Got a DS Lite and the PS2 as a kid and that's that). Still have a soft spot for Haunting Ground, the main 4 Silent Hill games, Fatal Frame, Tomb Raider Legend, Wolfenstein, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Resident Evil 8, the Deponia series, and probably so many others I can't think of right now lol

...I also have an extra soft spot for random arcade games. They remind me of the times I went on vacation in Denmark with my cousin and we used to play Tekken (I won loads by simply going ham on the buttons without a strategy, my cousin was so mad lol) and silly racing games with loads of explosions, a tank/warfare style game, shooting range/zombie thing were the controller was literally a plastic gun attached via a cable, etc. in some kind of indoor playground type thing

Oh, also dancing games (DDR and Stepmania my beloved) and Singstar/Rockband!!! I was always on microphone duty on Rockband at anime conventions. One time I sang for 5 hours straight until the con closed at 1am lol

...

oof that's a long one, sorry for rambling 🙈

[splicejunction]

Please tell me about shatterstar's Childhood

oh my god anon okay I’m assuming in context of what I’ve recently posted you want like... my version of events rather than what’s canon but just in case I hope you know that there’s basically zero canon material that actually describes his childhood/young adulthood beyond “I was a warrior born” or whatever the fuck. if you want to know about that idk go on the fucken... marvel wiki page or something

also--I hate that I have to put this out here and I doubt anyone would actually do this but just in case--I have spent like 1 million hours thinking about this because I have brain disorders and it is very close to my heart so please do not A) use this in fics, etc without letting me know/getting my permission in advance or B) reblog this post

anyways. this is a can of worms so I’m going to do a cheeky lil

first we have to get something out of the way: I hate the “shatterstar’s his own grandpa” paradox. I am sorry if this angers people but it makes me mad so I ignore it. the reason it bothers me is because it means alison blaire essentially married her grandson, which is A) weird and B) bad from a genetics perspective.

in my version of canon ‘star IS the biological child of longshot and dazzler but longshot wasn’t cloned using ‘star’s DNA because..... oh god... another whole separate post can be made about this but... in my head, on mojoworld the way genetic engineering works is not really the same as it is here. here genetic engineering generally means taking an existing genome and inserting or deleting genes. this is how they make, for example, animals that glow, or confer pesticide resistance to plants.

but on mojoworld I think the way they genetically engineer is more like... the way we mechanically engineer. like the entire organism is built from the ground up. there’s a master genetic blueprint which is essentially the “minimal genome” required for a functioning humanoid. this was created by study of Earth humans by arize and the other genetic engineers. they can then go in and customize by adding elements to the genome that code for the signals/building blocks that control things like height, strength, hair color, eye color, having hollow bones etc. so in my head longshot was sort of... designed with ‘star as the inspiration, but not directly cloned. that wouldn’t even make sense anyways because A) different hair color and B) LONGSHOT HAS 3 FINGERS ON EACH HAND and shatterstar has 4!! thats NOT HOW CLONES WOULD WORK!!!!

(side note, the concept of a minimal functional genome is a real thing in biology! some scientists have taken a bacterium that already has a small genome and reduced it to the minimum size required for viability. here is a wikipedia article on it and here is the original paper (DOI: 10.1126/science.286.5447.2165) which I can explain in more detail because I took a class on synthetic biology which this technically falls under and I had to read this paper very closely).

fuck I’ve written 4 paragraphs and not even talked about his childhood yet. I am so sorry. anyways. so the way I think they raise the gladiators on mojoworld is they create them in batches of 5 to 10 identical copies of a certain “model”, place each copy in a different “class” with a set of 2-3 mentors/teachers, and train them to fight until they are 13 or 14. until this time the only names they have are the names that identify the “model”--like for shatterstar that would be gaveedra-seven where the model identifier is “gaveedra” and he is (in the lore that I have come up with) the 7th of 8 total.

the reason they create multiples and put them in different classes is each mentor is going to have a slightly different style of teaching which is going to work better for some and worse for others, so it allows them to have more mass production while increasing the chances of creating a truly great champion. it’s classic nature versus nurture--the genetic engineers create your nature, but you don’t end up exactly the same as others of your model. maybe you get an edge, maybe you don’t.

another thing that happens is different mentors believe in different ways of raising the kids in their care. shatterstar specifically was raised in a class where there was absolutely zero emotional development at all and no attachments allowed beyond fighting alliances. that’s not the case in all classes, and it also had the effect of making him somewhat of an outsider even within the other gladiators as he got older.

at 13 or 14--and yes I realize this is very fucked up but dude its fucking mojoworld idk what you expected--they start participating in fights. the first ones aren’t to the death and they’re as teams and they’re not usually televised they’re more like high school sports games that are attended by scouts (here, they’re “sponsors”--I think that’s a canonical term but I honestly can’t remember) and if you get sponsored you leave your class and join a new “team” that’s really just a bunch of people who all have the same sponsorship. this is where things can get interesting because they’ve all been raised with slightly different fighting styles but more importantly, slightly different degrees of Personhood.

also at this point I should mention that by this time, there are usually only 2, maybe 3 of each model left. either they died or were recognized as not having talent so they were sent to eventually fulfill other roles in the network. in ‘star’s case there was just him and gaveedra-five. once you get to the stage where you’re sponsored and you’re actually fighting to the death one of the first people you’ll fight is any remaining members of your model group.

by the time you’re the only one left of your group, you’re also eligible to earn a stage name. this usually happens if you have a particularly epic fight with a lot of viewers, you win and the commentators will typically say something like “Let’s give this crowd a real name to cheer!” and they’ll have a few candidate names and they’ll kind of just pick one. AUGH I actually have this scene written out in story form but its too long so I think I’ll save it.... :) 

after you get a name you also get a cool outfit and usually some kind of mark or tattoo that serves as a brand. this brings me to another important point--shatterstar inherited the X-gene from alison and therefore he IS a mutant. his mutation is the swords vibration thing and the glowing eye. the star mark is a tattoo and teleportation is benjamin russell’s mutation (how he fits into all this is... for another post). basically after he got his name the costuming department guys were like “hey your eye glows, you look like the Legendary Warrior of Old, Longshot, we’re gonna pattern your look after him” so they gave him the star tattoo and the outfit that’s literally inverse colors of longshot’s.

also this brings me to another aside: you’re probably wondering “if he’s the biological kid of longshot and alison how are there 8 gaveedras?” when the genetic engineers got a hold on him as a baby they were like Sick! free baby! free genetic material! thats our job done for us! so they cloned him (in the traditional sense) and made 7 copies. this was also to kind of conceal his identity as technically being from outside mojoworld, which would make him stick out and thus be a target. they DID edit out the x-gene in the other gaveedra models though. this wasn’t a problem for ‘star because his mutation didn’t manifest until he was already sponsored.

I think that’s .... pretty much it for macroscopic lore on what it was like to be a kid gladiator on mojoworld. now let me give you some Tidbits of his life specifically:

like I said he was raised in a particularly cold and ruthless class. the mentors that raised him are like well-known by everyone to produce some of the best warriors but also there’s discourse on mojoworld because some people say perfectly emotionless killing machines aren’t as fun to watch. when he was sponsored there were 4-5 others in the same sponsorship and they were like Theres Something Wrong With You LOL

they speak earth languages on mojoworld because they’re imitating the broadcasts they (the spineless ones) used to hear from earth. however, most of the lower-class as well as almost all arena fighters and other television personalities speak cadre or other languages which are native to the planet. the stage names are all vaguely in english, but the gladiators don’t really understand them at first.

shatterstar got his name before he got the glowing eye, and when he learned what stars are, and saw his eye as a little star, he was like wow :) this is Me :) which is why that name is so important to him. it’s also one of the first things that wholly belonged to him.

(you can’t see stars on mojoworld because of light pollution and also because it’s a pocket dimension and there just aren’t that many stars to see)

I hate to bring up the s**ley miniseries but I do think it would be interesting to have him have a sort of ... mentor/first friend, similar to the concept of gringrave but they were NOT in a relationship. it was more like... another kid who was a year or so older than him got a soft spot for him and helped him not be so clueless. she didn’t make as much progress as xforce did, obviously. but they were.... something like friends.

unfortunately she was used by spiral to get shatterstar to murder the first rebel guy who tried to get him out of there. then she got switched sponsors (this can happen) and he had to kill her, and he was like well I will simply never develop any kind of attachment to anyone ever again.

he almost didn’t make it out of the first training session with his sponsorship group (this is semi-canon--there’s a reference when he’s teaching terry to swordfight to almost not surviving the first time he was in a gladiator class or whatever it was).

the closest he ever came to losing was the day he got the name. that’s why the crowds loved it so much.

the double-bladed sword was a gimmick weapon but when he got his mutation they realized it works way better if there’s resonance between two parallel blades so they redesigned it as an actual weapon.

(forgot this but I feel like I should include it) at 17 he escaped the arenas and joined the cadre alliance. two years later he came to earth and joined xforce.

I think that’s going to have to be it for now because it’s literally almost midnight and I have work tomorrow and I did NOT intend to stay up this late but I did. thank you for this opportunity anon :) feel free to ask me any other questions and also I realize a lot of this probably makes no fucking sense and that’s because I am not a writer or anything I’m just a biochemist with brain problems that cause me to obsess over stupid shit

[jesslivesau]

jess au @iloveeverythingwaytoomuch

pre show jess: doesn't know anything except that sam told her some fucked up shit and she didn't really believe him much like amelia didn't believe jimmy but what's clear to her is that sam's upbringing was deeply fucked up in what might've been some kind of apocalypse doomsday cult and she can say "sam, it wasn't real" as much as she can til she's blue in the face but it isn't going to change the fact that sam is Deeply Fucked Up by Shit. and it upsets her and confuses her but he does a good job of setting it aside or knowing when to give in and he's such a sweet and Loving Dude otherwise so she just files it away in her bf trauma bank and keeps cheering him on

s1 jess: your bf's CRAZY brother shows up says he needs help finding your bf's CRAZY dad who may or may not have been part of a doomsday cult and you say, bitch i watched the heaven's gate documentary there is NO WAY i'm letting you leave with him, but he's not gonna Stay cuz he insists it's just for one night (and his brother DOES seem relatively stable, like, as a person), so jess insists she'll go too. while she's in the back seat sam tells dean he told her everything dean's like lol. sure. you believe in ghosts, sweetheart? and jess is like no but i do believe that i'll kick your ass if we don't get home in time for sam's interview tomorrow morning. and then the whole white woman thing happens and she's like oh fuck it's REAL but they DO GO HOME and instead of jess dying on the ceiling there's like idk ghost mary on the ceiling or some shit and they NARROWLY escape the fire together andddd idk they can't go back to stanford cuz it's not safe and their apartment complex literally went up in flames. there’s a more complex reason here but idk what it is. maybe it was brady (demon brady) who died or something IDK LISTEN ITS JUST AN AU

anyway all of season 1 when they’re trying to track down john jess is the voice of reason asking why do they need john in the first place? And eventually sam is like listen we don’t need HIM but if he’s got research on where yellow eyes is, that’s what we need. and dean is mad about that and he’s mad at jess and they bicker like crazy. and sam sleeps on the floor because dean is like dude cmon. don’t make me sleep in the same room as you and your gf together. maybe meg gets replaced by meg possessing jess, and she doesn’t get thrown out the window so when they exorcise her she just needs a hospital and then she’ll be ok. and that would explain why she’s in the hospital and not there for the finale, but can meet up with sam & john & dean in the hospital after

s2 jess: sam is so consumed by grief and fear that jess is actually the first one to notice that dean’s spirit might still be still Around. i’m imagining a scene where sam is asleep next to dean’s bed and jess is awake, and she slowly looks around towards dean and you see ghost!dean Connecting with her for the first time

obviously, all the grief episodes keep happening. maybe jess got seriously hurt as well tbh so she goes back to her parents house to recover; there’s an episode where the boys go meet her parents and dean and sam’s Daddy Issues come out in full force. eventually jess is back and kicking ass and slowly getting along more with dean, partially perhaps because of dean’s Grief Response to john’s death, which is that all the anger and hate comes bubbling up, and jess is like i don’t fucking know this dude, but from what sam’s told me, i hate him, which is not something that sam is in a position to Deal With right now. things proceed pretty much along the course

i am considering now if jess could also be a special child. she also has some kind of psychic abilities but i’d have to choose something cool for her. anyway if she IS then that gets her in the town with sam in all hell breaks loose which i think is the best place for her during that arc? i know all the other special children supposedly had to die but maybe her psychic power was to go inviisble or something lmfao i don’t fucking know. anyway dean has his sad monologue but jess either (a) fully shuts down or (b) just goes STRAIGHT to hunt down whatever the fuck his name is. jake? leverage man? that would be dope actually. and then actually dean, sam, bobby, and ellen actually meet her at the hell’s gate

s3 jess: truly does not understand why they’re hunting. gets into arguments with the boys all the time about how this is pointless, if you’re not gonna try and save yourself then why can’t you just put it down and let yourself have this year?? and dean’s a little bit like you know what jessica that makes a lot of damn sense. but it makes sam mad and they argue a lot about it and jess probably takes off halfway through the season. maybe after malleus maleficarum? partly cuz that’s the ep where ruby more or less becomes part of the team and also when she confirms that she can’t save dean from hell. and i just feel like jess would be like i cannot.... Sit Here.... and watch you both drive yourself into the ground. dean, if you’re gonna die, sam’s coming after you. you knew that. you just didn’t want him to go first.

maybe dean hits her lmfao and sam screams at him for it and jess just Walks Away, tearfully

s4 jess: so jess bailed midway through s3, but when dean wakes up and starts making calls in that phonebooth, he calls bobby and bobby hangs up, so he calls jess. and she comes and gets him.

jess and sam are obviously not together anymore, but jess is totally civil with sam and even with ruby. she’s like we can work together, it’s fine, whatever. and this is the season where dean and jess really bond and become a good Team. and cas is just usually confused why jess is Around but eventually gets used to her. i’ve toyed with jess being jewish which would lend a good and also funny perspective to all the heaven and hell stuff

jess heard about hell first from dean, but not the specifics of the stuff that dean told sam, not until after on the head of a pin. she’s their Lore Expert on seals and is trying to identify as many of them as possible so they can put in place safeguards, and maybe that bumps her up against angel priorities for an episode. maybe we get an episode where cas has to Threaten her 00 and he can say something like sam and dean are important..... you are not. remember that. and then [flappy wings vanish]

uhhhh jess’s siren in the siren episode....... is just like a carbon copy of sam lmfao. which is extremely funny and sam and jess will both kind of awkwardly clear their throats and not address that. i guess jess is just fucking stuck with bobby during the finale because the point of her presence is that she’s so USELESS to both demons and angels

s5 jess:  i’d probably add in an early episode where her parents are killed, probably by demons because the demons know they can’t touch the winchesters due to angel shit but they can fuck up jess as much as they want. then when sam and dean temporarily split up jess would go with dean cuz she’s a hunter now and has nowhere else to go and it doesn’t feel right to just sit around with sam. or maybe she also leaves and splits up and doesn’t stick with dean cuz she’s processing her own traumatic shit. at any rate, early in the season there’s a moment where sam is Gone and dean and jess are drinking together and talking about their feelings and they have a moment where they gaze at each other in the eyes and almost lean towards each other.... then jess goes you know what? this is fucking weird and dean is like oh thank god you said that absolutely this is too weird

in The End, it’s revealed that jess was killed and no one will tell dean more information or talk about her until he finds out that she was pregnant when she was killed (presumably with sammifer’s baby)

in changing channels they get put into a telenovela and sam and jess have an tearful emotionally charged confession scene in spanish. this is about when sam and jess finally get back together [cue cheering]

in the chuck eps it’s revealed chuck rewrote it so that jess died on the ceiling in the first book cuz he was like “i just didn’t think it made sense for her to be alive! it was literary symmetry that’s all!”

in sam, interrupted when sam is all high on meds that’s when he says lots of kooky sweet shit to jess about wanting to MARRY her and have a FAMILY together and it’s sweet and also dean throws up in his mouth a little bit having to hear it

in my bloody valentine the thing that jess is hungry for is Family but i do not know the logistics of how

in dark side of the moon jess does die with the boys but it takes a while to find her, tho they eventually do in one of sam’s favorite memories (probably from the first time they met or something). she’s like what the fuck i’m jewish

no, i have no clue how she factors into swan song. she just does, ok. lucifer can snap her neck along with bobby’s

s6 jess: she tried to check in with dean occasionally at the braedens, and actually had dinner with them once but started checking in less and less as the year went on, and it turns out she knew that sam was back and she’d been hunting with him + the campbells and a couple things

when dean finds out he is truly FURIOUS, but jess is like dean i saw you with lisa and ben! i saw you getting better! i saw you happy, i saw you ok, and hell i’ve only known you since you showed up in palo alto five years ago but it was the most at peace i’ve ever seen you, and i couldn’t take that away from you, and neither could sam.

she’s also like yes, dean, he’s different, he’s colder, it makes me sad but who was the one who put up with YOU when you were spiralling after your dad’s death? or when you were all buttoned up after you came back from hell? he did! so show him a god damn OUNCE of empathy, would you!

and when they find out he’s soulless jess is like. hm. and dean is like i TOLD you there was something wrong with him!!! and jess is like i mean.... yeah....... and maybe i didn’t really want to admit it... cuz.... the sex was So good.........

[soulless sam winks at her]

anyway, s6 happens the way it happens and that’s fine

s7: the only important thing that happens in s7 is that Season Seven, It’s Time For a Wedding! is actually about some sort of monster and the only way to kill it is to cast a spell but the spell must be cast by “two warriors joined before god” which means married and cas is awkward about it cuz he doesn’t want to Presume Anything 

and the whole episode is lots of sam and jess being like “i mean, of course, if you want to..... .like, but if you DON’T, that’s also totally fine, of course.... you know.... whatever you’re comfortable with” until finally they’re in the final battle and cas has to marry them the way barbossa does for will and elizabeth in potc and when dean is pinned against the wall by the monster he goes “DAMMIT JESS WILL YOU KISS MY BROTHER ALREADY” and then sam dips jess in a kiss and the monster is instantly obliterated [heart eyes]

i truly genuinely do not remember anything that happens in s7. anyway jess and sam are married now

s8: sam was with jess the whole year dean was in purgatory. they were struggling to get back to normal life after everything. dean is still fucking mad that sam didn’t go looking for him. i assume everything else goes pretty much according to whatever the fuck happened in s8 except jess at one point has to go to bat for benny cuz sam for some reason hates him so much

i’ve been toying with the idea of jess doing the trials not sam but i mean how can i take that away from my Boy

s9: i do not know anything that happened in this season ):

s10: see above

s11: see above

s12: now i never watched s12, but in this au there is no lucifer’s son jack. instead jess gets pregnant midway through the season; cas finds out first because he can sense it and he’s like why does it feel like there’s an extra being in the bunker, and then he spills to dean cuz he can’t keep a secret, and then dean is like “oh shit what are you gonna do” and jess is like well!!!! sam and i.... talked about this. we were.....open to the possibility. and dean is like wtf how could u possibly bring a child into this world that’s fucked up adn cas is like [wipes tear] that’s beautiful

anyway when they come back from some kind of hunt (probably something that involved claire) and sam and jess are in the bunker, sam goes “jess, seeing claire, seeing jody and the girls.... it makes me think.... i wanna have a family with you” and jess hugs him and then cas walks into the bunker with dean and is like “oh, have you told him about the baby?” and everyone SCREAMS at him

and cas uses his annual miracle allowance to just reverse time about 30 seconds so when he enters the bunker he just goes “i have nothing to say” and Fucking Leaves

the baby is born in the back of the impala in the s12 finale, on the way to the hospital. dean is devastated. he’ll have to reupholster the WHOLE THING. sam accidentally names the baby john but they don’t want to tell dean that so they decide to call him jack.

s13-15 gets to be mostly about how cute it is to have a wittle baby in the bunker. cas is the best babysitter because he loves babies and is very powerful so he can protect him. the occultum nonsense in s15 can be about finding a Safe Place for baby jack, no matter what happens to the rest of the world. sam tells jess, you go with him, you’ll be safe there. dean tells sam, you go with them, you’ll be safe there. all of that good good cute family stuff. was it the best idea to have a baby in the middle of constant apocalypses? maybe not, but like, they are ALWAYS in constant apocalypses, so at some point you just have to bite the bullet

anyway. please clap

[queenofnohr]

Ok so as a brief departure from OC ramblings, tonight I’m gonna talk about Sekiro’s ending(s) and why they were........... not bad, but a little bit of a letdown for me personally? Spoilers abound for anyone who cares about that.

If any of y’all’s interest was piqued at my Genichiro DLC of dreams this might be a good thing to read to see where I’m coming from before I get into that (I also felt the need to make this before I could post anything about what I had planned for the DLC of Dreams).

ANYWAY. (spoiler tag because I talked too much as per usual)

It’s been a couple months so I finally feel, I guess, good about talking about Sekiro’s ending and Genichiro’s role re:the ending since it seemed, from a cursory glance, to be a bit of a Thing back when the game first came out.

For those unaware, the debate went more or less “I’m disappointed because I wanted the final showdown with Genichiro to be better” vs. “Genichiro was supposed to be easy because it’s supposed to cement that he’s a punk-ass bitch who needs gramps to help out”

And...... obviously I’m biased, but I think there’s room for interpretation on how Genichiro is supposed to be read throughout the narrative (certainly, part of the ENTIRE NARRATIVE is “the people and establishments you thought were the biggest and baddest (aka Ashina as a whole) are actually big fish in a small pond and currently wayyyyyyy out of their depth”) but I’m not actually here to debate whether he’s supposed to be “strong” or not.

What I’m saying is, as the final fight stands, he isn’t desperate enough. I understand why they essentially didn’t change his boss fight - Isshin is the true final boss and they wanted this cinematic seamless flow between Genichiro and Isshin, and if Genichiro was too hard or too different, it would’ve been a pain in the ass, even for a FromSoft game. Still, Genichiro’s unchanged moveset is a huge disappointment on two fronts:

1. He has a reused moveset in a game where 2 other major bosses have largely reused movesets (Guardian Ape and Corrupted Monk) with some added gimmicks thrown in (I’ll give the True Monk’s third form a pass since that did legitimately change it up, although the other two phases are more or less the same (no, her shadow clone intermission does not count))

2. Even if the takeaway you get from him isn’t that he’s supposed to be “powerful,” if anything, the game consistently frames him as desperate. The fact that he can’t use his lightning, his Mortal Blade strikes are just some of his regular moves with added range that don’t even do anything extra, and he doesn’t even pull out his bow even though that’s his defining feature and definitely one of the trickier aspects of his moveset (not to mention the thing he is in-game known for - c’mon people, it’s even in his name) just..... does the exact opposite of giving him that feeling of desperation. He’s an easy fight, he doesn’t even pull out all the stops, and then he hands it off to gramps after what feels like nothing more than a light tussle. For FromSoft, whom I trust with my life with storytelling through gameplay, it feels like a ball dropped even if Isshin is there afterward.

As an aside, I’ll also add in that I really liked how Bloodborne handled its multiple endings. That is, how each ending was punctuated by a different final boss depending on your decisions/what ending you got. Even though the Moon Presence is definitely easier than German, I feel it’s still a battle that leaves a satisfying impact to lead into the true/secret/at the very least hardest ending to get.

In Sekiro, a lot of things are mirrored between each other. We have all the forms of immortality that might stem from the same thing, but are fundamentally different in their mechanics (and all bad in their own ways), we have different types of waters with corrupting influence (Rejuvenating Waters, Fountainhead waters), and even our main characters reflect each other (Okami, Emma, and Genichiro were all orphaned sometime during or very soon after the rebellion, adopted by some of the greats, and have a kind of legacy to uphold).

And, on the last note, the game goes out of its way to have Genichiro mirror Okami, right down to him receiving a Mortal Blade of his own. He also punctuates each phase of the game; The Iconic Sekiro scene is the showdown with him among the silvergrass, his fight atop Ashina castle is more or less when you learn How To Play The Game if you’d simply been geetting by however (like I did lol), and all the details leading up to the end - the cutscene right after you beat him, eavesdropping on Isshin and Emma, the Black Mortal Blade, the time of day slowly changing with the anticipation building for that final showdown under the moonlight among the silvergrass once more..... - make for what at least Should Have Been another punctuation, even if he isn’t necessarily the final boss. But for all they talk of him shedding his humanity, for all Isshin and Emma show both concern and (at least in Isshin’s case) almost admiration/respect (we’ll go into their complicated relationship another day) for his resolve to throw everything away for Ashina, the gameplay takes all of it and throws it out with his mediocre showing. It doesn’t even feel like a bait-and-switch of which good ones have some foreshadowing, some bent to know what will ultimately happen even if it angles hard in another direction (so, when it happens you’re stuck mouth agape holding your head in your hands just like “OF COURSE!!!! I SHOULDVE SEEN IT COMING!!!!), but this..... doesn’t do that. All the information we get goes in one direction - the only thing that’s a giveaway is his association with Ashina itself - but even then, we see Ashina grow desperate, we see Nightjar take the Rejuvenating Waters (and the awful, awful descriptions of their “custom” Bite Downs), we see the Ashina Elite below Isshin’s room apologize to him and take it as well, we see the last stand of Ashina ashigaru, we see soldiers who once stood against us begging us to save their fellows - and we see none of that from Genichiro.

The thing is, I don’t think he needs to be difficult to be able to have impact.

Before getting into his fixes, I’ll note what I did like because, under certain circumstances, I do enjoy the ending in its most vanilla form.

That is, Genichiro having a lackluster fight, admitting his own shortcoming, and taking off his own head to bring back gramps to both metaphorically and literally bring Ashina back from the dead is actually.......... really, really good and - dare I say - Cinematic Poetry........ but only in regards to the Purification Ending. Because he and Okami remain mirrored - Okami refuses to allow the cycles that have persisted to continue and has it end with him as he sacrifices himself to save Kuro. The reason the ending feels too easy aside from Genichiro’s actual gameplay mechanics is because there’s all his talk of shedding humanity, all the talk of Shura...... But him admitting his own shortcomings and passing the torch to someone else is extremely....... human? It’s not that it’s not desperate, necessarily, but it’s so..... controlled. Those are not the actions of a man who downed stuff that would potentially drive him mad and consume him with rage and make him unable to tell friend from foe for the sake of saving the very same people that would be put at risk from his potential madness. But I like it in the context of the Purification ending because Okami himself becomes more human in sacrificing himself, and so it fits that Genichiro would wrangle his humanity in some small way and behead himself, just as Okami does, to save what he loves most.

Even so, I still think that the fight that in the fight that comes beforehand he should at least pull out all the stops, even if it means cutting down his health and/or posture bar to make the fight less obnoxious. (Although the other option is literally just........ don’t make the player fight Genichiro again if they beat him. Just have Isshin there already.)

As for other endings......... I’ll detail the Dragon’s Homecoming Ending in my DLC of dreams post because that, at least, is highly dependent on that lore. But for the Severance ending? That end is all about cycles being repeated, falling prey to what you commit yourself to even if you have to “shed your humanity” for it. Kuro is the only thing it seems like Okami truly cares about, and yet because he is duty bound to follow his lord’s orders no matter what, he kills a part of himself along with Kuro when he performs the Severance. Kuro represents his humanity - their bond is the only way Okami does have different endings to pursue should he indulge that humanity. And so, for Genichiro....... why not have him commit himself fully to becoming a monster? He doesn’t necessarily have to be strong/difficult, but seeing that transformation is key. In fact, give him 5 health bars and make the last three easy as sin. Have him buckle down and commit himself to this even though some part of him knows it won’t work, because he doesn’t know any other way to be. Have him die pitifully, in disgrace, as the player takes out his third health bar, and before he can land a hit in, his fourth, and before he can even get up, take his fifth. Have him desperately becoming more monstrous as his body won’t allow him to die, to no real difference. Land the final blow with the mortal blade while he’s writhing on the ground, willing himself to get up. If he was supposed to be pitiful, if his decision to throw everything away was supposed to be pathetic, with a miserable showing, then make him pitiful. Don’t make him easy. Make him the sorry sight he’s supposed to be.

[applekitty]

ive noticed that a LOT of fanfics that try to redeem dedede really dont try. like its not like the author is lazy but the way its executed is

i have never read a fic wherein dedede is given a satisfactory redemption arc, he’s usually just nice from the beginning and very flat with the same personality every other ‘game’ dedede has, basically just ‘i am loud, i’m not mean or cruel im just loud and also im very sassy and a dad dont mess with me im epic’ which seems at first like it might substitute for his evil nature but it doesn’t

or he’s just really outrageously stupid, which is more anime dedede. 

i do agree with you, though i think dedede in and of himself is a hard character to do perfectly ‘correctly’. because when it comes to game canon, there is no correct way to write him. because dedede has no personality. he has hints of personality. which is not replacement for a personality. you are left entirely to your own devices when it comes to dedede’s flaws and his entire mindset in general, because canon supports absolutely everything you could ever put onto his canvas. i could say dedede is a hostile matriarch with no care for anyone other than himself and his kingdom and it’d be supported, because the only times dedede has been forced to act out of good is to defend his planet from something (potentially, in magolor’s case) hostile. or i could say he’s just a cozy uwu dad who’s done some wrong but he’s fluffy and cute nao and canon would sort of shakingly support that.

i went out a LOT about this on the hnk discord server. i’ll leave the entire transcript below but it’s about how people write game canon / why i don’t read game canon fics / the intrinsic, EXTREME difficulty with writing game canon fics. had this convo with @sociallyunacceptableorb , @toon-kirby , and azuranaito

i’ll tl;dr it here but: the reason why game fics seem a little strange while going in is because the games themselves lack a solid personality for the characters. fanon personality exists for them, and usually when writers write for them, they step in such a way which may not align with you, the viewer’s expectations of the fanon personality. it may seem inherently unsatisfying, to you, but for others, it’s very satisfying. the status of game canon and fandom canon makes it harder for you to be satisfied by the fanfics you read unless they are very surface level, boring sorts of fanfics. 

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:40 PM

kitty’s opinion time

most writers cannot go without incorporating the anime in some regard to kirby content due to how much the anime had bled into the interpretations of the games. people will write spanish meta knight as a game thing, people will write kirby being babyish / saying poyo being a game thing, as well as dedede being southern a game thingthe writers who decry the anime as bad / only good ‘at the time’ yet use anime personalities / interpretations make me lul extremely.(edited)

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:44 PM

Galaxia was from the anime.

Girlaxia was from 4Kids.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:45 PM

kirby saying ‘poyo’ is an anime thing, galaxia is an anime thing, to pick and choose from the anime shows that the games and their lack of writing cannot stand on its own without having to take from the very franchise that’s being decryed to help a worse written franchise

(edited)

no writing / intrigue writing ≠ good writing

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:47 PM

To be fair, it’s probably for the best that anime bleeds into the games or else we’d be stuck with oceans of edgelordery KIRBY IS EVUL AND EATS INNOCENT LIVES… though that’s already on AO3.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:47 PM

looks at matpat

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:48 PM

He ignores all canon to make people mad on purpose.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:48 PM

honestly if removing anime canon / anime’s bleed into the video game’s interpretation = writers to go 'KIRBY EVUL’ then idk what to say other than lul

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:49 PM

I mean, I don’t think the games writing is shit, but I also don’t trust edgy people with Void Termina.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:50 PM

i think saying 'game writing > anime writing’ is just blatantly.. wrongbecause that’s just saying 'little to no writing so that way you can focus on gameplay > a literal 22 episode made for television with themes and lessons’

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:51 PM

Oh! Yeah, that I agree on.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:51 PM

i also dont trust edgelords with kirby or void honestly

or any kirby characters

i dont trust edelords period

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:51 PM

I thought you were saying that all game lore was trash.

It’s crumbs.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:51 PM

i used to be one and i made EVERYTHING baaad

it’s comparing crumbs to a loaf of bread

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:52 PM

“Well, I hate pumpernickel! So the entire loaf is bad!”

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:52 PM

uerGHERUG

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:53 PM

“But you haven’t even eaten it.”“IT’S BAD.”…this metaphor is getting lost.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:53 PM

honestly it’s why i just.. dont read game fics, because there’s little to no ground for writers to stand on and write stuff with

things get too wild and they feel just.. weird ig

i dont know how to put it into words, really

AzuraLast Wednesday at 12:54 PM

That kinda makes me mad with what happened with one of my friends. People got onto her for crossing the anime and games together, which, when she wrote it, it wasn’t bad at all, but because the anime was involved people wanted to bitch at her for it.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:54 PM

interps of game canon are based purely off the person who writes it and all the people reading said thing all have different interpretations which inherently makes reading a game fic unsatisfying and ooc for you personally because your hc filled in the void the game left differently than the authors did. but for the writer it is ic.(edited)

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:55 PM

Like gijinka fic?

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:56 PM

reading mirror fics also, inherently, can be unsatsifying i think

for the same reasons

people have so many different interps of how mirror world works that reading anything about it, just on its core basis that the author uses to define a 'mirror world’ can feel unsatisfactory

gijinka as well suffers from this

AzuraLast Wednesday at 12:57 PM

My friend didn’t write gijinka. But she self projected quite a bit onto Meta; her HC for him was that he was an engineer trained under Haltmann.Which also ended up writing out the actual irl problems her major has which is an aerospace engineering.Hoo boy, with the Mirror World, there’s no clear line with it but the majority is usually edgy.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:58 PM

people have different interps, and because of how the western world works, we all think our interpretation is the best we can possibly have. usually when we read things we suspend our disbelief, and when it comes to kirby fics, game fics, gijinka fics, i don’t think people can really.. deeply get involved in them.it’s a problem fics i suppose in general have. but it’s especially bad for game canon writers, or gijinka writers.people have hugely different adaptations of the same subject. with the anime there’s clearly written rules and characters defined over the course of 100 episodes. there’s a clear cut story with lots of dialogue and content there to be tackled. but even still, it can be interpreted differently by different people because thats how life works. only the existence of a canon episode cannot be refuted; a fic can be

game canon is harder to do because yes you have the games, and a lot of them, but there is no writing. it is all gameplay. which means that personalities and dialogue and whatever else is not the focus. people can have extremely varying interpretations of canon because of this, which is what intrinsically makes game canon harder to write for. with anime canon it’s easier to write closer to canon because there is a clear cut one. but with game canon, there is no clear cut canon.

AzuraLast Wednesday at 1:02 PM

That’s also why so many people also freak out about all the supposed lore the games have, right?

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:02 PM

the lore in games is very open ended is the thing, so it leads to people’s speculation and very different extrapolations of the lore and canon, yes

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:03 PM

Yup! It adds to their own things; it’s satisfying less for the confirmation and more for the new content to tinker with.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:03 PM

kirby is very, VERY dry in terms of story telling in the games, so any piece of lore given is EXTREMELY important for content creators / theorists(edited)

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:04 PM

I can’t really fault people who build off lore since it’s such a personal thing. Other people get huffy and whine about them “not really appreciating the game” but I find it is appreciation, just in a different fashion. It goes downhill once people get childish and argumentative, though.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:05 PM

the thing is people can also do that ^ for the anime too

remember that one server you were talking about in #newbie-chat

lol

in the end we are the people going 'you are not appreciating the anime right and the way you write for the games is going to intrinsically be unsatisfying unless you go onto the crutch of anime lore'i do anime/game fusion because i know the games can’t stand on their own

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:08 PM

Aheh. But of course.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:08 PM

[snobbish laughter]

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:08 PM

I actually don’t for the same reason. It feels cheap, like I’m forcing a square peg into a round hole.The barebones of the games doesn’t mesh with the backstory of the games that well for me.

StarRodPiplupLast Wednesday at 1:09 PM

So, like, if I wrote a fic with a sentient Galaxia, and then threw the rest of anime canon in the trash, it wouldn’t be cool?

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:09 PM

it’d be relying on the anime canon in some regard, showing that the game canon can’t hold its own

StarRodPiplupLast Wednesday at 1:09 PM

Too many plot holes

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:10 PM

it would be a tad bit jarring, at least in my opinion because im the local brutal 4kids anime stan

but for other people it wouldnt be, i’m just a person with too much time to complain about kirby

StarRodPiplupLast Wednesday at 1:11 PM

I’ve been really curious if “a nightmare of a galactic crisis” was just a coincidence or a deliberate lore inspired word choice, hence why I’ve steered away from capitalist idiot nightmare….it’s fun to write him like that though.

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:11 PM

Also, if it’s a prequel… where the hell does Tiff go? The Cappies? Cappy Town? Dedede just abandons everybody for no reason and there’s a fountain powered by something that Kirby had to create by eating?

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:11 PM

schrodingers cappytown

AzuraLast Wednesday at 1:12 PM

I would like to know my own headcanons give my own appreciation to both the anime and the games. Games can’t stand alone with their bare bones and the anime can always be expanded upon. Nothing wrong with having fun while writing, that’s all it is, isn’t it?

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:13 PM

honestly i think the best way to write kirby stuff is anime/game fusions

i wonder if it’s because thats what i write HMMMMMMEIUGUIERGHERG

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:13 PM

I fuse. I go by manga lore.

Novel, whatever.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:13 PM

novel lore or bust

AzuraLast Wednesday at 1:14 PM

I fuse because it feels the most natural for me.

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:14 PM

Because the novels actually build on it! They don’t pop backstory in everywhere! It’s just a Kirby game with more explanations for stuff in it!

StarRodPiplupLast Wednesday at 1:14 PM

I just wanna write about an evil vampiric wizard for some reason

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:14 PM

the games do need something to help them, i believe. when it comes to content creation of the purely fic type, anywayscourtesycalling does great one-shot comics and what not, they do game lore to the t because their comics are.. well.. oneshots. they’re satisfying by themselves

anyways i’ve got a lot of feelings on people decrying the anime as bad or cool to hate then taking things from the anime and putting it into game lore. that’s mostly what this is about

AzuraLast Wednesday at 1:17 PM

It seems kind of hypocritical in a sense too, doesn’t it?“Oh, I hate the anime but love the games but I’ll piss on the anime as I write my fic because even though I love the games I need to strong bones of the anime to hold me up as I write my fic.”

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:18 PM

yeah that’s sorta what im on about here thank you for summarizing it for me

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:18 PM

Yep! I joke about it a lot myself.Especially people using 4kids voices when they say 4Kids is trash.

AzuraLast Wednesday at 1:18 PM

Same, all it seems to be is a freaking joke.

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:18 PM

Sorry for turning this into a Steven Universe-esque debate thread.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:19 PM

i instigated it

:v

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:19 PM

:v

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:19 PM

it’s an interesting thread anyways so

[moonraccoon-exe]

More thoughts about DA: I so far!

I said I’d do this like a week or two ago but lol. Have mercy on me ;u;

But yeh! Just a lot of random thoughts to share about my experience so far:

EPIC

SO FUCKING EPIC OH MY G O D THIS HAS TO BEO NE OF THE MOST EPIC STORIES I’VE PLAYED OR SEEN/READ, THIS IS JUST SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO COOOOOOOOOOOL

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

*HYSTERICALLY SQUEAKING*

Honestly from beginning to the point I’m in, it’s so EPIC, like- the SUMMIT of epic!!

The story and the lore and the world are all so vast, so impossibly vast, it’s mindblowing. The writers of this are true masterminds and I must applaude all this work, they created a full whole new universe that’s real and breathes and lives. Holy. Fuck. It’s truly mindblowing and mesmerizing, I can’t even put it into words so I won’t even try.

Leliana and Cassandra, though? FUCK ME, THEY’RE GLORIOUS.

I’m SO in love with this game’s portrait of women, because there are SO MANY, and all in actual PRACTICAL and realistic armor! Like, no giant anime tiddies protected only on the nipple, it’s full armors not even shaped to make them look attractive or “like women”. And not just your companions; throughout the story, you find women enemies and allies in armor, it’s AMAZING.

I love Cassandra’s accent/voice color. I want her to fuck me. But DAMN me, I went with female elf in the end, after SO MUCH thinking about every choice (as in, gender, race, and class. I took SO LONG picking one of everything).

DO WE AGREE THAT COLE IS A MISUNDERSTOOD SOUL AND HE  NEEDS PROTECC AND I LOVE HIM SO DEARLY AND SO MUCH HE JUST WANTS TO HELP DEAR COLE I LOVE YOU I’D TAKE A BULLET FOR YOU

Blackwall is charming? Like...I don’t know. I didn’t like him in a beginning but then he just. Went and spoke and FUCK HE’S CHARMING.

I really feel like praising more the lore and story-telling/writing but there’s just no putting it into words goddammit.

THE WHOLE SCENE OF THE ATTACK ON HAVEN AND THE ESCAPE TO SKYHOLD THOUGH?

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

E P I C

LIKE SOOOOOOOO EPIC THERE ARE NO WORDS ENOUGH TO DESCRIBE IT!!! BEST, MOST EXCITING, MOST EPIC CUTSCENE SO FAR AND ONE OF THE MOST EPIC I’VE SEEN LIKE HOLY SHIT, IT WAS GLORIOUSLY EPIC!!!!!! BEYOND WORDS! I STILL THINK ABOUT IT AND STILL GET ALL HYPED AND WORKED UP AND AKSLJDFAKGLJ

From the moment the attack starts I was like HOLY SHIT THIS IS SO COOL

Watching Cullen in action was GREAT, too! He gets so little screen time (in my opinion), like, he could have been given a bigger role, it’s sad to watch all his potential just standing there doing nothing. What I would give so he was a party member! But yeah, that’s why it was so cool to watch him act in that part.We’re used to Cassandra and Leliana by that point, so it was good to see Cullen in charge for once. Watch him give orders, raise the voice, command the army, GAWDS, IT STILL GIVES ME CHILLS

Surviving the whole thing was AMAZING, the thing with (I forgot the english word lkasjdlakdg) “bombing”/attacking the snow mountains to Mulan the whole thing and bury the bad guys in the avalanche was SO GLORIOUSLY EPIC.

And then Super Bad Guy appears and I was like ZOMG FUCK I AM GOING TO DIE AHA HSADJFAHDGJAD ZOMG THIS IS SO COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

I couldn’t save the people of Haven, though! I saved...the lady in charge of the...the one table that requests random things. Lady in armor? Forogt her name. Also saved Adan, I’m SO happy he made it!!! But Minaeve died lmao aah :’( And I think I lost someone else, but not sure who.

AND THEN WHEN YOU DECIDE TO GO BACK AND GIVE TIME FOR THE PEOPLE TO ESCAPE??? OMG CULLEN BEING THE ADORABLE MATURE IDIOT THAT I LOVE AND ROLLING WITH IT AKLSJDADKLGJ

AND THAT WHOLE SCENE WITH CORIPHEUS

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

*EXPLODES INTO A THOUSAND SNOWFLAKES*

AKSLJF KAL GJAILSJF ALKJF ALKJGALDKGJADLGKJ

SO

BADASS

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

*HYSTERICALLY SCREECHING*

IT WAS SO EPIC! SO SO DAMN EPIC OMG IT WAS SUPER COOL!!!

I wasn’t too scared of him, like, the design doesn’t look that scary. But he’s got a nice air of villain! And the way he grabs you and picks you up, and then when you fire the thing to cause the lastavalanche?

I WAS LIKE

ZOMG

HOW AM I GOING TO SURVIVE OH MY G O D NO WILL I JUST RUN!?!? PLS RUN LITTLE ELF YOU CAN DO IT I BELIEVE IN YOU

AND THEN YOU JUMP INTO THE GROUND AND YOU 

YOU ACTUALLY M A K E IT

AHA SADHGAD

*FANGASMS*

AND THE WHOLE WALK THROUGH THE SNOW DESERT episode Prompto anyone I WAS LIKEK OMG YES THIS TROPE I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS ABOUT THE HERO SURVIVING, BUT NO ONE KNOWING, AND MAKING IT THROUGH A SNOW DESERT ALONE BARELY SURVIVING BUT KEEPING ON

AND THE TROPE DIDN’T FAIL THE “HERO COLLAPSES WHEN THEY SEE THEIR FRIENDS AND THEIR FRIENDS YELLL “THERE THEY ARE!!!” AND RUN TO GO PICK YOU UP AND THEN

FUCK

FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

LIKE THE LORE AND WORLD AND UNIVERSE WASN’T MY JAM ALREADY

THEY THROW THIS AT ME!?!?!??!!?!?

PERFECT

BRILLIANT

GENIUS

I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS ONE BIT, I HAVE A SAVE JUST TO REPLAY ALL THAT SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE, THIS IS SO E X Q U I S I T E

And the best part personally is that it’s Cullen teddy bear who spots you aaah ;A; <3

And the next bit? When you wake up and the advisors are arguing. So you decide to chime in to try and ease it. But you have no idea what to say, so Mother Giselle comes in and starts singing?

And then Leliana joins?

And then Cassandra

And then CULLEN

AND THEN EVERYONE

AND EVERYONE IN CAMP GATHERS AROUND YOU AND SING THE MAIN THEME OF THE GAME AND YOU DISCOVER “OMG IT’S THE MAIN THEME OF THE TITLE SCREEN, OMG IT HAS LYRICS” AND THE WHOLE VISUALS LIKE AFTER THE TRAGEDY EVERYONE THAT SURVIVED GATHERING AROUND YOU AND SINGING AND SOLAS WATCHING IN ADMIRATION EVEN WHEN HE DOESN’T BELIEVE IN ANDRASTE/THE HUMAN RELIGION AND

GOOSEBUMPS

LITERAL GOOSEBUMPS AND CHILLS ALL OVER MY BODY, LIKE A DAMN BOLT, OM HY GOD THAT HAS TO BEO NE OF THE MOST IMPACTING SCENES SO FAR, IT JUST GIVES ME SO MUCH GOOSEBUMPS AND MAKES ME GO AKSLJF AKLGJADFLKA

*FANGASMS AGAIN*

OKAY BUT I FORGOT

THE WHOLE TIME TRAVEL THING WITH DORIAN!?!?!?!?

*sHRIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK*

So I went mages instead of Templars. Because ya know, it felt better? Like, yes, I know mages have done bad things before, but templars are hunting for them like they’re “things” or beasts, so I felt that it was best to support mages instead of Templars.

Okay but sidenote; I thought Cullen was going to be upset at me, like MAD. Because, you know, he used to be a Templar, and he still is so in love with the Templars and always talks so nicely and excitedly about them, and tried to encourage you to go with Templars. So I chose Mages thinking he was going to rage at me.

And what did he do? “Oh well, yes, the mages are good, they may be able to help us close the rift. They’re good allies :)”

AND I LOSE IT

CULLEN. MY DEAR. MY LOVE. MY STUPID IDIOT, I LOVE YOU.

Seriously, I’m SO IN LOVE with how mature he is. That and his shyness are what convinced me to romance him. He took it so nicely, like, he doesn’t throw tantrums or argues; he knows what’s at risk, he wants the best to turn out of everything, and when things happen, he knows to just get over it and take it to his vantage and see it in a positive way and fUCK GODS HAVE MERCY ON ME, IT WAS GREAT

OKAY SO BACK TO TPOIC

MAGES

SO YOU GO TO THIS CASTLE and well I guess you know the whole thing already lmao, SO THAT TIME TRAVEL WITH DORIAN? 

FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK IT WAS THE SECOND OR THIRD MOST EPIC THING IS WEAR TO THE HEAVENS DEAR LORDS AOVE IT WAS GLORIOUS!!!!!!!d

Exploring the castle alone with him wasamazing (gotta talk about orian ina sec). And when you learn you were transported a  whole year into the future? I was like HAHAHAHAHAHAHA LOL TRY WAITING TEN (was definitely thinking about FFXV OTL these poor babies waited so much... :( ). I felt bad finding Cassandra and Varric poisoned/consumed by the lyrium, but when you find Leliana?

LIKE HOLY FUCK WHAT DID THEY DO TO HER ZOMG SHE AGED LIKE 90 YEARS IN JUST 1 IT WAS INCREDIBLE

AND THE WHOEL SCENE OF YOUR COMPANIONS DECIDING TO GIVE THEIR LIVES TO GIVE YOU TIME!?!?!?

SO EPIC. SO FUCKING EPIC GAWDS DAMN ME, ONEO F THE DEMONS CAME THROUGH THE DOOR WITH VARRIC’S CORPSES AND IT STILL HAUNTS ME

FROM AMONG EVERYONE THEY KILLED DEAR VARRICAND I DIE

AND THEN LELIANA...PROUDLY STANDING THERE, FEARLESS, BRAVE, SO BADASS AND SO COOL, SHOOTING ARROWS WHILE PRAYING AND GIVING YOU TIME

FUCK ME

I WANTED TO GO AFTER HER BUT I ALSO KNEW I DIDN’T HAVE TO FUCK UP BUT LIKE IT WAS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

EPIC

*sHRIEEEEEEEK*

*EXPLODES AGAIN*

AND DORIAN!?!?!?

FUCM KE M Y HEART HE’S ADORABLE AND I’M SO ABSURDLY IN LOVE WITH HIM

I had regretted making a female avatar int hemoment I learned  Cassandra doesn’t romance female. But I moved on. But when I learned Dorian only romances male??? INSTANT REGRET.

DORIAN THAT FUCKING IDIOT, I’M SO IN LOVE WITH HIM. There’s somethingabout the “guy that loves himself so much, it’s narcissistic”, because they’re fun. And like, eh’s not selfish, just narcissistic. Loves himself, but is kind and supportive. He’s so intelligent, wise, he’s so kind, he’s lots of fun, damn me, he’s elegant, and he’s a MAGE. I LOVE MAGES.

I love his voice, too. All of him is GREAT and I love him. Sassy little shit that loves himself, GAWDS. I have to romance him someday!

Also loved the whole thing with Solas when he’s like “I just casually happen to know this huge abandoned castle nearby here, maybe it can be of use c:” Solas you adorable idiot. But honestly, watching the Inquisitor and Solas lead the way to Skyhold was PHENOMENAL and so beautiful. I’m in love with snowy scenarios so I truly loved it, and Skyhold? MAGNIFICENT. A PIECE OF ART. SO BEAUTIFUL SUCH A BREATHTAKING SIGHT AKLSDJFAKDLGJ ALKFJA

The game sort of tried to incline me to romance Solas multiple times, and I for sure will do that in a second playthrough, because GODS HE’S CUTE. I love how profoundly wise and mature he is. And he has an air of melancholy that sort of attracts me, not like “ooh sexy!” but like...I want to comfort him, and love him, and clean him. He feels like such a melancolic character. Even Cole says Solas is sor tof a “sad creature” or something. It breaks my heart when Solas says bye because he says it so sadly like omg no pls ;A;

I LOVED going into the dream with him. It was just natural to go and kiss him but I didn’t aksldjdagk, I wanted to romance CUllen so badly XD But it was amazing!! And the way he asks the next day if you enjoyed your dreams, it was so cute. Solas is such a good and nice friend!!

I loved his quest rescuing his spirit friend. I felt sad in the conversation afterwards because, as I didn’t romance him, he ended the conversation with “It means I respect you profoundly, Inquisitor. And that I’ve taken too much of your time already” and left I was like NO SOLAS DARLING PLS I SWEAR INA  SECOND LIFE I WILL LOVE YOU AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

But yeh. Solas is amazing.

Also, Iron Bull and Dorian are flirting and I love it. There was a point, Dorian tried to argue with him about the Qunari attacking Tevinter and he was like “So would you prefer to see me ona leash?” to which Iron Bull replied “I’d take you out for dinner first”.

Omg Bull. Omg IRON BULL OMG THAT IS PRIVATE XD And today Dorian was like “Can you PLEASE be careful with that pointy thing and not direct it towards me?” and Bull was like “Lmao kkinky”, so Dorian was like “JESUS CHRIST, I meant your weapon!”

I WANT THEM TO FUCK. if I can’t fuck Dorian, then may the Bull fuck him for me DAMMIT

Josephine is adorable and so kind. I almost romanced her, too. Talked with her at the balcony and she was all gratitudde and joy ad shyness. 

Also Vivienne? First time we meet her I was like OH MY GOD SHE’S SO BEAUTIFUL. OMG SHE’S GORGEOUS. SO FIRM, SO REGAL, SO MIPOSING, SO INDEPENDENT, SO BADASS.

Then at Haven when she’s finally off-mask I was like omg she’s bald AND SHE’S ROCKING THAT LOOK OMG SHE’S SO GOROUGES, LOOK AT TAHT SKIN COLOR, IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL, AND HER WHITE DRESS AND OMG I LOVE HER

And now it’s like “omg Vivienne cAN YOU PLEASE STOP! >:’(” because hahaha, BOY! She’s gorgeous and strong, but so difficult!! We just disagree morally. I’m all hero-like regarding “Everyone deserves peace/a chance/freedom, love and peace, do the right thing, spirits are friends” and Vivienne is all “WE NEED TO BE STRICT. LIKE IRON FIST STRICT. TELL THAT SPIRIT TO FUCK OFF. KILL THIS PERSON. FUCK THE MAGES” and like nooooooo!!! Vivienneeeeeeee, that’s not how you show mercy!!!!

I think she’s the only one I won’t be able to befriend...she’s disapproved of almost all that I’ve done... OTL

MORE NOTES

FIRST OF ALL

WHY THE FUCK CAN’T WE ROMANCE CULLENW ITH A MALE INQUISITOR!?!?!?! WHY. THE. FUCK

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

IT WOULD BE SO CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE

Also WHY CAN’T WE ROMANCE LELIANA!?!?! THAT IS A PUNISHMENT FROM THE HELLS, SHE’S AMAZING. And gay.

Also WHY THE FUCK CAN’T WE ROMANCE CASSANDRA WITH A FEMALE!?!??!?! ;^;

Also, why can’t weromance Varric with ANYONE? Honesly, he’s one of my favorites! He’s so charming, outgoing, so lighthearted. He’s so understanding and mature. I love that he has the heart of an artist and dedicates to writing. I love how he doesn’t take things personally. I love his sensibility. Honestly, he probably would have been my option 1 of romance if only he was romanceable. I’m so upset he’s not an available option!

SPEAKING OF ROMANCE

I JUST ROMANCED CULLENT ODAY AND 

HONESTLY I REGRET NOTHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING

IT’S SO ABSURDLY ADORABLE, SUCH A VANILLA LOVE OMG IT WAS SO CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The reason he was my first option was because of that first reaction you get at Haven. When he goes all excited talking about protecting the weak and innocent and saving the world then he is like “Haha, sorry, I ranted and you’re not here so to hear me talk :)”

And you go “But I like your enthusiasm”. I picked that because I REALLY thought his enthusiasm was nice.

And his reaction??? HIS REATION!?!?!?!?

Like...you look at him. And you think “Oh, it’sa pretty boy. Charming and outgoing. He’ll probably just laugh it off, your casual, stereotyped Romeo”.

But???

TURNS OUT HE’S A DORK.

A DORK MADE OF SHYNESS THAT GETS EASILY FLUSTERED AND HAS NO IDEA HOW TO TALK TO OTHERS

THIS

ABSOLUTE

IDIOT

AKSJDFA KLGJA SKLDJAGL KAJDGALKDJA LKSJDA

THAT IS WHAT GOT ME

IT JUST

GOT ME

IT GOT ME SO BAD, I WAS ISNTANTLY HOOKED AS SOON AS HE CAME OUT AS THIS SHY DORK.

BECAUSE HONSTLY

THAT IS SO CUTE

I HAVE A SOFT SPOT FOR SHY, QUIET PEOPLE BECAUSE IT CAN BE SO CUTE AND CULLEN DIDN’T DISAPPOINT.

The way he just stared at my elf like .____. *brain death* zomg what do I do what do I say pls halp I’m lost and he just stuttered and went shy and looked away and PANICKED

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HE’S SUCH AN IDIOT

I LOVE HIM

And all throughout the courting process with him, he’s all shyness and adorableness, I swear to the gods, I AM SO WEAK

I think at some point of the War Table, he’s staring at the Inquisitor? Like, before you are the Inquisitor. Because Leliana goes “So, you were telling us.........Cullen?”, and Cullen goes all “HM? OH- AH-...YES- AH...”and talks about something else, so like. Was he daydreaming OR was something in sight range, hm?

And then at Sky hold? That ADORABLE conversation when he’s staring and staring and tries to not say bye and right before you walk away he goes with what he has been containing about “You stayed behind, at Haven. You could have...” and then he swears it won’t happen again and he’s there for you AND I DIE, GIVE ME MY FAIRY TALE VANILLA LOVE, I LOVE IT.

And stuf stuff blah blah, AND WHEN YOU FINALLY ROMANCE HIM?

HONESTLY I’M JUST SO HAPPY BECAUSE HE’S THIS SHY STUTTERING IDIOT, YOU WOULD EXPECT HIM- LIKE YOU KNOW, strong warrior archetype, with the big armor, strong and badass, you would EXPECT him to be charmming, confident, utgoing, charming, flirty. But instead? Stuttering shy idiot that gets nervous. AND HONESTLY THAT MAKES ME FEEL SO HAPPYAND INLOVE WITH HIS CHARACTER GAWDS DAMN ME IT’S SO CUTE

So when you ask him to talk alone with him, is he confident now?

NAH MAN

He just stares away, gets nervous, and stutters” I-IT’S A NICE WEATHER, ISN’T IT? AHAH” like bruh. You nervous, anxious idiot PLS KISS ME ALREADY.

And that almost-kiss. IT WAS ADORABLE. And then the kiss-kiss. EVEN MORE ADORABLE. And they even give you soft piano music, aaaahhhh, I DIE ;A;

SO YEH. LOOKING FORWARDS TO MORE, BOTH ABOUT THE WHOLE STORY AND THE ROMANCE WITH CULLEN.

I could make the one quest...Wicked Hearts, something Eyes (I’M NOT PLAYING IT IN ENGLISH I’M SORRY), I think you go to a ball? But I have this habit of trying to complete as many sidequests as I can so you know. I’m taking long and doing it slow OTL

But enjoying it!!! And anyway, I spent too long writing this and now I feel guilty alksjdfkladjga

But yeh! My experience so far! C:

Thanks for reading!

[neogandw]

NOW IF YOU ALLOW ME TO SHILL FOR A MINUTE HERE.

Presenting one of my favorite steam games, now entirely free to play, AWESOMENAUTS.

Ever felt like playing a MOBA-like game, but felt intimidated by steep learning curves, memorizing meta builds, going for optimal strategies and just plain affraid of being shouted at by your team mates because you didn't go for that specific thing at that specific time and now the entire base is on fire because of your blunder?

Yeah, me too, DOTA and LoL are great, but sometimes one does not feel like dealing with that ammount of preassure, for people like me who prefer their games simple, fast paced and chaotic, boy do i got the game for you.

GAMEPLAY

Awesomenauts prides itself on being a simplistic MOBA style game, in fact, its not even traditional in that sense, as it prefers another approach: if you are fan of megaman-like games you'll find this one great, because the gameplay is very much jump and shoot style 2D platformer gameplay!

As it is a team based 3v3 game, you can join up with random people online or friends to duke it out in splitscreen, online or even against bots, you are not limited on how you want to play your game, even giving you power to edit the configurations of the private matches if you so desire: want to give everyone all the upgrades at once? would you prefer for an infinity of creeps to fill the battlefield? how about a random character per death? the choice is yours to take.

It is also very simple to learn, you don't need to learn the meta mindset of advanced players to play the game, as the shop system only requires you to pick your 3 favorite upgrades -tailored to each specific character- for each of your abilities, and these abilities take effect not by numbers, but by altering the functionality of their abilities to your favor: want bouncing dynamite sticks? slowdown on top of healing? a faster shooty gun or a stronger shooty gun? Big double buzzaws that cause a slowdown on the enemy? You got them.

STORY

The game is also filled to brim with lore, though unlike most games out there, the lore of the awesomenauts is mostly a comedic epic, the game is self-stylized like a 90's cartoon where everything was build to be incredibly awesome.

In awesomenauts, you control the titular squad, a ragtag bunch of misfit aliens from across the galaxy, each one with a reason to fight:

“Riding his combat walker onto the battlefield, comes Derpl Zork. The nephew of Blabl Zork, president of Zork industries. Derpl Zork lacks his uncle's business-smarts. In fact he lacks any kind of smarts, managing to get his IQ rated under the level of plankton in the official galaxial IQ test.

Nevertheless Derpl is the heir apparent to Blabl's galaxy-spanning business empire. This is something that doesn't sit well with Blabl, not well at all. Dreading the day Derpl would inherit the company and run all the hardfought accomplishments into the ground, Blabl put Derpl in charge of fieldtesting the new Specialized Universal Secretary Interface (S.U.S.I. for short) in one of Zork Industries' combat walkers. Asking Derpl what form of devastation should be issued forth from his vehicle of destruction he simply drooled and said: "I wuv cats!"

Now Blabl is anxiously awaiting the day that Derpl would suffer a fatal blow on the fields of battle but as of yet Derpl's combat walker has proven to keep making up for its dimwitted driver. “

”Once part of the soviet space program, Yuri was a monkey, experimentally shot into space during the 1960's cold war spacerace. Mysteriously, monitoring soviet scientists suddenly lost track of monkey Yuri's spacecraft.

Puzzled by its sudden disappearence, Soviet space-command wondered what had become of their beloved test-pet Yuri. Little did they know that Yuri's spacecraft had entered a warpfield anomaly and was transported hundreds of years into the future!

Also, the warpfield's radiation boosted Yuri's mind to superintelligent levels. The new, more intelligent, mad and slightly sadistic Yuri quickly grasped the situation and modified his broken rocket into an equally mad timetravelling supercomputer jetpack.

With the jetpack translating everything Yuri says and does, enemies are never quite sure who is in control, the mad scientist monkey, or the computer it created? “

“Ted McPain was one of the great heroes of the first AI Wars, a long time ago. He has led his squad of elite super soldiers, the Killer Koala’s, against many opponents and has been decorated as an outstanding soldier a hundred times over. His ultimate achievement, during the climax of the First AI Wars, was a solo operation onto the AI’s battle station Starstorm. This mission ended in Ted McPain single handedly unhinging all of the station’s crucial power couplings, effectively making sure the station wouldn’t be completed before the end of the war. Ted McPain eventually died when he sacrificed himself to save the Sunny-Daisy Alien Orphanage from a band of bloodthirsty dinosaur zombies in 3021. Ted’s heroic deeds would never be forgotten.

He lived on as he became the star of various video games: Ted McPain I through XVII, Ted McPain: Zombie Blast, Ted McPain vs. evil Ted McPain and Ted McPain Unicorn Dance Karting.

When Voltar The Omniscient learned of the violent dimwitted video game star, he brewed up a plan that would backfire horribly. He created the Materializotron XT8000 with which he wanted to bring back the war hero of old to be his personal assistant. Extracting Ted McPain’s digital essence from his video games, Voltar managed to materialize a life-size flesh and blood version. The Ted McPain that appeared though was missing his pants for unknown reasons. Voltar waved the issue aside saying “Stop asking stupid questions! He looks fine to me.”

“Yoolip has been a scientist for the greater part of his life on the transistor planet Calias. Creating wondrous inventions and contraptions like the dog aura reader, the nightmare-to-VHS recorder, the random number phone, the cereal-to-milk ratio calculator and an actual time machine. One day after combining the time machine into some comfy slippers, he teleported to the Mesozoic era and found himself surrounded by some scientist hungry velociraptors.

Barely escaping the predators he lost one of his slippers. Being stuck in time he spent years to craft a new slipper to travel forward in time to return to his beloved granddaughter, Ayla. He joined the Awesomenauts team to finally spend some quality time with her and eat some over-engineered pancakes. “

This is a game that does not even attempt to take itself seriously, as the characters will crack a joke or a reference in the middle of battle to your ears' delight.

MUSIC

speaking of ears, how about checking out the sweet tunes of the awesomenauts?

Extended Theme Song

8-bit Yoolip

Electronic Supersonic Cybertronic Rocco

Ted McPain's Theme

I'll make you a star

Nibb's Killing Spree

Sentry's Killing Spree Theme

Deadlift's Killing Spree

Eye of Aguillon

Chucho Krokk’s Killing Spree

Lonestar’s Killing Spree

Raelynn's Killing Spree

FREE TO PLAY? MORE LIKE FREE TO PAY AM I RIGHT

Actually no, awesomenauts's Free to Play system is actually very simple, similar to other MOBAS of its kind it uses the standard 3 hero rotation, but a a bonus, you can try all of the characters in full whenever you want against bots, see who you like from the get-go and decide who you want to buy next.

Adding on to that, the game gives you the in-game currency by doing what you do best: play the game, and it doesn't even have to be vs online opponents, you can just pop it in with 3 of your friends (or even alone if you're lonely) and fight against an enemy team of bots, win experience for your characters to unlock their upgrades and songs, and parts to obtain cosmetic upgrades.

The only real aspect that requires money is merely cosmetic: costumes for each character that are simply visual, add voice lines or change their theme songs.

The things that matter can be obtained through gameplay alone, but one can opt to buy the all nauts pack on steam, this merely unlocks all the nauts to be played at any time though, not their upgrades, which require XP.

But if you get the game on steam and use one of the following codes (don't worry, they can be used up to 50 times each)

WVHE-9CLM-9KPH 9MQT-3JS7-NMCR CHCP-3HHX-X5Q5

You'll get a character entirely for free: the elite sniper raelynn.

These codes can be obtained if you play the game long enough, if you use your own code to invite people, their achievements give you loot too, free loot for everyone!

So feel free to jump into the action, there is nothing to lose and tons of fun (and salt or memes) to be had, bring your friends, bring your friend's friends, bring your grandma even.

It's time to get awesome!

[rumikothefox]

Favorite Monster Hunter Monsters, Elder Dragon Edition

Alright, so here is the list of my favorite Elder Dragons. Once again, this is in no particular order. 

Please keep in mind that Elder Dragons are usually hidden or story-based monsters. There are bound to be spoilers for these games due to the nature of these monsters. If that concerns you, best to skip this list.

Let’s get this show on the road!

Ceadeus

As far as Elder Dragons go, let’s start with my first love. Ceadeus was my first Elder Dragon, before I even really understood the classification in reference to the series. He was epicly huge, really powerful, and honestly didn’t give a crap about me until I started being more than a mild annoyance to him and broke his beard. Fighting him was surprisingly fun for an underwater fight, albeit a bit frustrating at times, but I think it was the story aspect that really sold me on him. The beautiful music, the lead up to his fight (including the Lagiacrus fakeout), and the fact that this village’s future is riding on you at least driving this Ceadeus off, if not slaying it outright. It just made it feel ridiculously grand. The Goldbeard Ceadeus was kind of awesome too, but it didn’t have the same impact as fighting Ceadeus in the village quests did.

Oroshi Kirin

When I try to figure out if I like a monster or not, it usually comes down to the fact that monsters both frustrate me and enthrall me. So in which ones does the second happen more than the first? Kirin and Oroshi Kirin ride that fine line where it was hard to say. Both are frustrating as all hell, but they are such amazing monsters that it’s hard to stay mad at them. Oroshi in particular has an awesome-looking coat and I’ve always been partial to ice elements in RPGs. 

Kirin and Oroshi are fast and have really tough hides. They were the type of fights that made me glad I was a gunner mostly in MH4U, because bouncing is never a fun time. I sat back and let loose the pew pew right on that horn of his. To be honest, I initially kind of thought of Kirin as a joke. What is this tiny little horse monster gonna do to me, right? Theeen the carting began and I realized this horse got the title Elder Dragon for a reason. Despite the frustration though, I just felt more compelled to take him down.

Plus... I mean... you know... the armor?

Yeah... >.>

Gogmazios

Gog was our hidden Elder in MH4U. There wasn’t really a lot to him lore-wise, just a balls-hard fight. This is a monster covered in a very sticky, very flammable oil. So sticky, in fact, that this monster starts with a portable dragonator stuck in its back. If you can manage to dislodge it, you can use it against him in addition to the dragonator already in the arena.

Gog is surprisingly mobile for his size. Some of his movements remind me a little of Fatalis and he shares that annoyingly long tail trait. Gog fires explosive fire beams from his mouth that will burn you if you’re too close to the initial fire and, if you hang around the contact point too long, it will explode and send you flying with a ton of damage. He is also capable of flight, despite his size, and he occasionally goes into an enrage phase that involves him flying around the area firing his beam of death indiscriminately in every direction. If you can’t use the binders to bring him to the ground, you generally have to leave the battleground until he’s done rampaging.

My favorite part of him was mounting. I spent half my time in MH4U gunning and the other half with an insect glaive in my hand. And this guy was super easy to mount. It wasn’t uncommon to get a multiplayer room with at least two glaive users in the fight because most people knew that was his weak point. Mount him, bring him down, everyone does damage. Rinse and repeat. It turned a monster that was almost too hard to consider farming despite his amazing-looking weapons into a monster that was tough but fun. 

Lunastra/Teostra

Okay, so, I’ve only fought a Teostra, but I just love how the Lunastra looks and I had to include her with her hubby at least for that and the fact that in their original game, they fought almost the same way.

I love this lion-like, chimera look to them. Lunastra’s coloration speaks to me more, but I do love Teostra’s firey appearance. They look very regal in how they hold themselves.

In fourth gen, they added blast to Teostra and it is both awesome and sucks. In combat, you can get blasted around a ton and you practically have to have an enrage timer handy in a browser to time when he’s going to do his supernova move, because if you’re in melee range when that goes off, it’s gonna hurt. His blast weapons are some of the best in the game though, so I got used to fighting him pretty quick since we farmed him for weapons a lot. They tend to have less top-end than, say, Brachy’s weapons, but they have such an obscene amount of blast on them that with a quick enough weapon and enough hunters, you can just kind of chain explode a monster and cause them to flinch their ass off.

Edit: As of Monster Hunter World, I have now fought a Lunastra. I still love her, but that first unlock quest... well... I could have gone without that entire experience. lol

Hallowed Jhen Mohran

Jhen is yet another Elder that I fought early on and got that special sort of place in my heart. Monsters had always, until that point, been a toe-to-toe fight with the monster in question. Toe-to-claw? Anyway, it hadn’t even occurred to me that a monster this large could exist in this game. So when the villagers were like, “Hey, we wanna take on this monster, but we need to ready a ship to fight it with, can you get us some mats?” I was kind of perplexed but went with it anyway. The result was a ridiculously epic fight that involved firing cannons and ballista at a giant sand whale, climbing on his back to break parts of his spines, and a showdown with the monster creeping ever closer to the boat with only me between them. Having the MH main theme kick in when you use the dragonator on him during the showdown was also an amazing touch. It makes you feel like “omg yes!! I can do this!! LET’S GO GENTS!!!” I didn’t always get all my carves, but it was a fun ride.

Hallowed Jhen was definitely tougher, but god he’s pretty. Jhen has just this sandy, rocky look to him that is cool, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not all that fancy either. Then out struts Hallowed Jhen in G Rank, looking like some swaggering geode that says “Yeah, just try it.” I didn’t fight him often other than when I specifically needed mats, mostly due to his difficulty and also due to the fact that the epicness of the fight sort of starts to wear on you when you have to do it over and over for certain parts, but it was definitely amazing when we did fight him.

Akantor

Okay, first thing is first. Akantor is a Flying Wyvern. Yes, technically this monster isn’t an Elder Dragon. He USED to be classified as one, according to lore. You fight him alone in a volcano arena. He’s ridiculously powerful. His weapons are Elder Dragon levels of powerful. He’s an Elder Dragon, I don’t care what classifications say. :P

Akantor is like if you took a Tigrex and made him spiky and fire-based. He has most of Tigrex’s basic moveset when he moves and attacks. He has the added ability, though, to burrow into the ground and pop up elsewhere. Thankfully this is usually done rather slowly, so you aren’t likely to get too caught off guard unless you are just not paying attention. Which is bad news because if you’re not watching, you can end up with Akantor pulling himself out of the ground behind you and firing a beam that will absolutely devastate you. I guess I just have a thing sometimes for these big, slow, but intensely powerful monsters. He just looks like something you definitely don’t wanna mess with and, really, he isn’t. But he’s a fun fight. Certainly a lot more fun, imo, than his rival, Ukanlos. Shovelface can take a hike.

Alatreon

Ugh, okay, it pains me to break combo like this. I’ve been using the backgroundless renders of all the monsters so far, but I couldn’t do it this time.  I couldn’t find a proper render of him that didn’t either make him look much darker than he actually is, or make him look like he came straight out of a “brown game”. So you get this screenshot from the wiki instead.

Alatreon is a headache to fight. I hate fighting him. But he has some cool lore and his weapons look amazing. Sadly, I didn’t fight enough of him to be able to make his weapons in MH3U. They all have this theme of being black with glowy purple accents with some pretty cool shapes.

The idea behind this Elder is that he can use FOUR of the five elements. That’s Dragon, Ice, Thunder, and Fire. The only one missing is water. The problem is this makes him highly unstable. Monsters aren’t meant to have that many affinities, I guess. He uses all four against you in some capacity, though he can only use one at a time. The arena has a ballista binder, which is good because sometimes he will go into a flying phase where bringing him down is the better option to letting him fly around and have his way with you. In some ways he resembles the body shape of Kushala Daora and even has some of his moveset if I recall.

Chameleos

Okay, so you have that endgame set you really like, right? Got it all nice and gemmed up the way you like it with optimal dps skills? Yeah? Okay, cool. Now open five of those slots up, shove some anti-theft decorations in those slots, and suck it up. No, I said suck it up. Stop crying, you can have your skills back later.

Your enjoyment of Chameleos can be inversely proportional to how many of your items he’s stolen with that long tongue of his, as well as how rare those items are. The more he’s stolen, the more you want to cry and possibly throw something. You will not be getting those items back. R.I.P.

That being said, as a whole, I highly enjoy Cham. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I had to farm him excessively, both for my status blademaster set and for several of his top tier poison weapons. But I got pretty used to his antics. A dedicated anti-theft set specifically made for fighting him helped. I still had to contend with his poison stupidity, but it’s a small price to pay.

I think Cham may be one of the only goofy-looking Elder Dragons. He just has this expression that makes you wanna laugh. Like Kirin, he’s one of those monsters that if you don’t take him seriously from the outset, he will surprise you with the amount of ass kicking he gives you.

My favorite part of fighting him was his mist. He creates mist in the area that he can vanish into unless you’ve broken his horn (at which point he’s very visible when he THINKS he’s invisible). When the mist kicks in, it does this awesome effect where his battle music become muffled, like the mist is blocking your hearing somewhat.  I liked the effect a lot and it kind of added to that immersion, like you were surrounded rather than your hunter character. His music is also ridiculously awesome imo. 

Dalamadur

I’m not sure if I’d put Dally as my absolute favorite, but he’s very much up high on the list for me. Dalamadur is the largest monster in the series so far. As far as I’m aware, anyway. He sits at 44039.7cm (1444.8 feet) long and is fought with his body wrapped around a mountain. At any given time, you can only reach a couple of his claws, his tail, and his chest. You can hit his head if you’re ranged or an insect glaive user. He occasionally will move in such a way that you can hit his body for a minute or two.

This guy is so big and powerful that his movements can shape the landscape. When you find him, he’s covered in this layer of stone, just kind of sleeping wrapped around a mountain peak. He wakes up, cracks the layer off himself, and comes down after you. I love his roar in particular, it just adds to this whole idea of his monster so much bigger than you. It reverbs around the whole area.

Initially, I hated this guy.  There is a lot to remember when fighting him and if you’re unfamiliar with the fight, expect wipes. Our group watched videos about how to fight him before we took him on (WoW raiding habit) and we still got toasted a lot early on.  Once you learn his phases and tells, though, he becomes manageable and kind of fun.  You definitely want to be working on different things than other people. Have someone break his tail while someone else goes after a claw. A third person can be breaking his chest, while someone else could be trying to get on his head and set bombs up there. Learning to Superman dive through his beam of death helps as well.

He’s a difficult one to carve because his body takes a long time to settle during its death throes and you could end up somewhere where his body isn’t actually landing.  That takes practice as well.  Still, taking him out is extremely satisfying.

Honorable Mentions

There are some Elder Dragons that didn’t make it on this list, but I feel like deserve a special mention, or at least an explanation as to why they didn’t make my list.

Fatalis: Fatty just never appealed to me much. I mean, he’s a large dragon and kinda cool looking, but he doesn’t stand out to me. It might be partially because I never played the original game and don’t have that nostalgia for him. I also played MH3U first and so Fatalis feels more like a more plain clone of Dire Miralis, even though I know Fatalis is the one that came first. Crim and White are too frustrating to even consider.  I don’t really have fun fighting any of these three and only really fight them when one of my friends (or myself) needs his parts.

Dire Miralis: Speaking of this guy, he almost made the list, purely based off him being the first hidden Elder I ever came across, but... he was just too aggravating for me to actually like him. There were underwater parts for no real reason other than I guess he needed to cool off his body? He also seemed to home in on you with his projectiles, even when you were doing your best to avoid them. I don’t know, I guess he just leaned too heavily on the frustrating part of things for me to love him all that much. Still, he looks pretty awesome.

Kushala Daora: This was an odd one. I juggled the idea of adding him to the list, especially with his rival Teostra making the list. But I guess rather than anything being bad about him, it was just that he didn’t stand out for me quite enough. I love Daora, don’t get me wrong, but he is a metallic, regular-ass dragon model. He uses ice and wind and his methods of using them are pretty awesome. I also like that he’s one of the Elders that has part of his mechanic crippled by poison. But in the end, I felt like I didn’t want this to be a mile-long list like the normal monsters were and in a lineup of standouts, he just didn’t stand out as much for me? Sorry Daora, I still love you. Rusted can go to hell though.

Amatsumagatsuchi: Amatsu looks fantastic and I love how his armor looks. But... while I’ve played Portable 3rd, I never actually finished it.  I never even got far enough to actually fight an Amatsu myself. So, as much as I would have liked to include him, the fact is that I haven’t fought him and also know very little about him as a monster.

Nergigante: Very similar to Amatsu.  I’ve tangled with Nergy a few times, but it’s only really been in the beta or in a few quests I don’t want to speak of where he invades for a short time and you drive him off. I have yet to get a quest to actually take him out, nor do I know anything about his lore. I feel like Nergy might become a monster I truly love once I get to know him, but for now, he’s just too much of an unknown factor to include on this list.

And that’s the end of my posts on my favorite monsters. If any of the Monster Hunter World monsters really stand out to me, I may make separate posts for them later to gush about them a bit. 

I am still considering a favorite music post, but there’s a lot I need to consider and re-listen to before I make a decision on that. Thanks for reading!

[evajellion]

Part 5, Richie tries to write a scenario for the villain characters

.… He doesn’t do a too awful job at it.

He still can’t write Ganondorf and Bowser. But Heihachi and Zeus, on the other hand, are somewhat okay.

Sadly, we have to start with the ‘dorf and Bows.

Ganondorf, King of Evil, noticed the many conflicts going on in a distance and that many fighters entered the fray, even Mario and Link. He also learned of the Hands being controlled by an all powerful being whom was the one behind the battles. After much deliberation, an evil smile spread upon Ganondorf's lips.

"With that power, this world and everything shall become mine" Ganondorf sneered.

I think Ganondorf would sound a bit more serious about this situation, like contemplating on what to do. As in, he refuses to let Polygon Man take Hyrule for his own, therefore wishes to not only rid of Polygon Man, but also take his power, so that Link and Zelda won’t be in his way any longer.

OOC Counter: 15

Ganondorf decided to enter the fray himself to take the power from himself. He requests that the King of Koopas, Bowser, to accompany him.

"Why not. Sounds like fun" Bowser said who agreed to Ganondorf's request without a word of their mistangled past during the Subspace Emissary "But I'll do things my way."

"Soon this power will belong to us and all of our enemies will be destroyed" Ganondorf laughed evilly.

Really? It’s not because Polygon Man may take the Mushroom Kingdom, and Princess Peach, so he and Ganondorf have a common ground? He’s just doing it because it’s fun?

OOC Counter: 16

Besides, we all know what happens to those who work with Richie’s depiction of Ganondorf…

(in case you’re wondering)

And that’s only what happened to Mewtwo, as for Bowser…

Surprising, two others have made it to the arena before Ganondorf and Bowser did. Zeus stood perfectly still with his eyes closed and Heihachi looked around. Suddenly, Ganondorf appeared behind him and threw a punch at Zeus which Zeus grabbed from behind.

"Heh, for an old Greek God who was betrayed by his old son, you sure have a lot of power" Ganondorf smirked, amused.

Zeus, still holding Ganondorf's fist, turned around to face him. "You have a death wish, mortal?!" Zeus snarled.

Wait, why does Ganondorf know this? Is he studied up on his God of War lore? Zeus should have asked him why he knew about this.

If Ganondorf knew Zeus was a Greek God, he wouldn’t have to comment on his power either, he would have known right away, and be amused to see that a God was choosing to get involved in all of this.

OOC Counter: 17 (we’re gonna get a handful for these two..)

While I’m at it, like how Zelda is the reincarnated, mortal form of Hylia, Ganondorf is Demise, reincarnated as the lone male Gerudo that’s destined to take the throne. Not a single poke at this either? So Ganondorf could make a remark on his borderline immortality?

What am I expecting at this point, really?

Heihachi spun around to see what happened. And then Bowser appeared besides him.

"A human? I bet you look tasty" Bowser smirked licking his lips.

… Ew.

OOC Counter: 18

Someone actually pointed out-- in the reviews for this story, of all things-- that this quote is kinda ripped from the rival scene in Street Fighter x Tekken, where M. Bison and Juri confront Heihachi and Kuma.

Difference is, Juri is already fucking weird, and she was threatening to eat Kuma. I believe she’s crazy enough to eat a damn bear if she could.

With Bowser, him threatening to eat a human is awkward, and just gives flashbacks of Richie’s weird fetish artwork.

Nothing too much on the Polygon Man scene. It’s just “we’re here to crush all of you”, and Polygon Man is like “lol kay, you guys are just insects”. Moving on.

Polygon Man laid down defeated as both villains looked down on them.

"Humph. Now his power is mine!" Ganondorf said. Suddenly he blocked a punch from Bowser. "So... you wish to betray me after all."

"You're right. Sharing that power with you is meaningless. Once I get that power, I'll dispose of you and rule the universe" Bowser cackled.

"Fool. Words have consequences." Ganondorf laughed as he pushed Bowser back. "I have anticipated your treachery from the start."

"Smart King. Enough talk! Prepare yourself!" Bowser cackled as he glowed blue.

Ganondorf glowed blue as well. "Time for your punishment, you fool!" The two charged to attack.

I think there would be more bickering than this, with Ganondorf playing the straight man for it. Bowser should be saying how he wants to take everything in the Mushroom Kingdom, and then the world, so the pesky plumbers won’t get in his way ever again. 

Ganondorf then would have pointed out how he would have just fumbled with such power, and can’t be serious enough with the world in his palm.

Alternatively, they never betray each other, take over the world with their new power, until they realize there can only be one. And as it ends, Bowser turns into Giga Bowser, and Ganondorf becomes Beast Ganon, leaving things up to the reader’s imagination on what happened to the world.

… That would have actually been interesting though.

--

Okay, let’s see how much better Heihachi and Zeus fair off.

"There is trouble in Olympus, and great turmoil in the mortal world. Souls from across the universe amass to do battle, including my own son. All in service of a self-proclaimed god, an imposter who lays claim to the very creation of all. He has returned and he has some back up this time. I have forbidden the gods from interfering in the affairs of mortals. Olympus must remain removed from the clamor below. But Kratos has shown what can happen when those not born of Olympus attain too much power. I will put a stop to this madness. And to anyone who dares stand in my way" Zeus narrates looking down from Olympus.

Yawn, copypasted from Zeus’s intro--

"But to do so, I was forced to team up with this mortal." He turned to see Heihachi Mishima behind him.

"Spare me the lecture" Heihachi said in Japanese "I don't care much about your point of opinion. Once this is over, I will settle things with my son and grandson."

Pfft, okay, I chuckled a little bit. Richie, it’d be nice if you reversed my expectations more often like this.

"This? This is the handiwork of the pretender again?" Zeus said "It looked more like a mortal child's plaything!"

Richie, boy, there’s no need for copying what Zeus said in PSASBR unless you’re going to have him say “it looks the same as ever”.

Heihachi turned around to see Bowser coming up to him. "And speaking of a mortal child's plaything, here comes a giant turtle."

"I am a Koopa!" Bowser roared "And I shall teach you the meaning of fear."

Listen Bowser, not for nothing, but with how Richie depicts you… Heihachi isn’t far off, I’m afraid.

"HAHAHA! I wonder how turtle meat taste like after I'm done with you" Heihachi cackled.

Gonna take a wild guess and assume this is also ripped from Street Fighter x Tekken. I think “turtle soup” would have been more creative, but whatever.

After Ganondorf and Bowser are defeated, the Polygon Man appeared with the Hands. Zeus and Heihachi turned to face him.

"The pretender! So you have returned!" Zeus said "This time I will destroy you with my own hands!"

The Polygon Man seemed angry. "I have just about enough of you! No one calls me a pretender!"

"Pretender or not, your life still ends here" Heihachi said "And that goes the same to your little hands friends."

Oh wow, Polygon Man showed more than his smug nature for once… and the bolding of silly typos has continued.

"Hmph. Once again, nothing but an pale job" Heihachi said as he turned around to face Zeus. "Now it's just you and me!"

"What?!" Zeus was surprised by the change in Heihachi "What are you're doing?!"

"I cannot allow you to have this power" Heihachi snarled "It's mine."

"So you dare betray me?!" Zeus angered "How dare you! I make you grovel at my feet!"

Both Heihachi and Zeus began to glow.

"Die!" Heihachi said as he charged.

"Know your place, mortal!" Zeus roared as he charged towards Heihachi too.

Even though I’m sure this is ripped off from something… it’s pretty in-character, other than the typo.

This is definitely something Heihachi would do, and Zeus would react in this very way as well. So Richie completely fucks Bowser and Ganondorf to being bland, but he does “alright” with Heihachi and Zeus.

So, what can be changed?… Besides the obvious plagiarism of both PSASBR and Street Fighter x Tekken, which is going to be a thing no matter what so I can’t add those to the bullet points.

Bowser and Ganondorf acting more like themselves, and not being so bland. Like I said, maybe a fight scene of Giga Bowser and Beast Ganon at the ending would have been cool.

Make Polygon Man maybe more afraid of the idea that both the reincarnated Demon King and motherfucking ZEUS are after him. Even with Polgyon Man’s ego, he should seem concerned about the idea of other villains taking his power.

Not too awful. Maybe it will get better from here…

Next, the Earthbound characters against Evil Cole and Radec and then Cole and Raiden against Sonic and Snake. Stayed tuned.

Aahaha…

Haha…

Oh boy, I’m going to have fun with this. Like I said before, I wanted to tear that one to shreds.

Bonus because a friend on Skype pointed out some interesting ideas, none of which make it into his story, of course.

I’ll have to be careful and watch my sodium levels, because I might be a bit salty.

[kendrixtermina]

So I found a walkthrough of “The Phantom Fable” and its reaction time

But don’t take my word for it click here to form your own opinion and thank the hero that made this possible

I like how connie has no patience for the townies.

It also has just a lil bit of plot like lore about the various magitech artifacts (It's interesting that gems from Peridot's generation aren't really that familiar with them anymore) and Steven is still recognizeably in his season 4 slump. Also even though the book is supposed to be super old there's a lot of those triangular sigils around - is the book so old that it's from before PD came to be?

arcane acropolis

Really excited about the potential for lore speculation from these new locations! So they were researching magic in this place! It does look like your archetypical mage tower with all the bookshelves and aqueducts though the apocalyptic log on the computer says "mad science", and it seems like some mage gem went behind the Diamonds' backs because even they thought this was too dangerous. One always wonders how the weird magic artifacts from the early seasons fits into the greater canon. 

Video games tend to be good at this "environment-based storytelling" but this is actually presented pretty well in a sorta melancholy haunting manner between the BGs, the music, the "ghost" of that unfortunate Pearl, various scattered hints that only sort of form a whole. Perhaps the uppity mage gem was Lonely Pearl's master.... 

...

OUCH from what I'd read it seems like they just "forgot" her/ didn't care enough to go back for her before the corruption attack but this seems like a way more complex story, like more of an individual act of cruelty/ deliberate punishment. 

The mage gem deliberately "forgot" her while leaving the outpost, but it was HER who betrayed the empire. The mage gem was deliberately cruel, too, telling her that she would be coming back. 

Lonely Pearl was basically being an upstanding citizen, reporting foul play to the Diamonds. 

That is, if they even had the right "traitor" at all. Did they just assume it was her because of something like a “gossip hen” stereotype?

But from how she acts she seems pretty devoted like her master was her whole world - maybe they got the wrong traitor and she was innocent all along. Or she tattled because she was concerned about her master's own safety. In any case they really done her dirty

In any case I’m not even sure this took place on Earth. Did she just go nuts/feral all by herself? If so this is the first time we’ve seen that, seems like it was more some recording of wherever the magic book was made. Was this a recording? Is the real her still trapped out there or did the book absorb her out of pity? Where is she now if she’s anywhere at all? Or was it all an illusion?

It’s a nice Detail that it couldn’t capture Steven and Connie because, as Lapis and Peridot theorize, it doesn’t know how to ‘categorize’ them. 

The taglines for the GUYS and GALS were genuinely funny IMHO

Buried Bastion

The Ruby Squad!

Though I do not quite get what Steven and Garnet are theorizing there.

Is it ‘our’ Rubies but in the past? Them inserted into some older memory of CG Ruby being deployed somewhere?Gah I love trippy stuff but you gotta give me a hint so I can work it out

It does seem to be earth tho. The desert too. Come to think of it, were the structures in the desert Pink Diamond’s former palace? Since she parked her ship there and was lurking around there without telling the others. Eyeball DID use to be part of her guard. 

If this all takes place on Earth this means Lonely Pearl is either still at the research facility or in the bubble room/ set to beuncorrupted. 

The rest of the squad was Era II tho none of them had really heard of PDs shattering, Leggy was implied to be fresh from the ground. (Which implies that both Rebel Ruby and Eyeball are in fact relatively old for Rubies. As footsoldiers it figures that they’d have one of the higher attrition rates)

And as usual their lines are comedic gold and full of personality Sand in my shorts lol

Perhaps in reality it was actually eyeball, but with a different squad of Rubies that are now long dead. 

Maybe i’s an erised/ Xion type situation. Steven sees the Ruby Squad, Garnet might be seeing CG Ruby’s old comrades. 

In any case they seem to be guarding an artifact - presumably the book - so it “wont fall into rebel hands”. Interesting. 

This whole level has a very zeldaesque feel to it, there’s even pots to smash! I suppose the first one could then be likened to final fantasy. 

No wait that’s the era II sigil. So this here is definitely late in the war.

“Glyph of Illusion”, hm? So now the trippyness shall become interactive

The broken computers make me so angry. I want more apocalyptic logs damnit

YEAH Late war, the screes show fusion experiments and its full of those tubes they emerged from. 

And they found some magic bombs, too

Ohhhh boy, it WAS the fusion experiment lab. We know what it actually looks like now. Also was it just implied that they started with living dearth row inmates? Ouch. 

UGH there’s bits of uncessesful specimens all over. 

Note that there’s those red, vein-like “powerlines”, but they look more like the ones in the temple than the ones seen in various Era II structures

So they were sent to gather the last remaining research data and leave not witnesses - I mean clearly the Rebels never found out until Peridots arrival

Too bad we won’t know which of them said which of the Megaruby’s lines

In the end our heroes are not sure how much of this was real - but we all know there were fusion experiments. Maybe even the book only knew so much

Interim

Kinda curious where Amethyst has gotten to. Since we did both the distant past and the middle of the war. The sequence breaking in the forest and the beach is also kinda interesting.

Mysterious pillar saying “avoid the light”. Fascinating.

is that a nest full of donuts?

Aww you can find the hidingplace of onions friends in the forest

whoha its just like that one temple in breath of the wild!

Lost Labhyrinth

Looks like somewhere cold. There’s some random Quartzes but otherwise not much plot here. It’s like they ran out of ideas

ooo exit holes... in ice? Okey I possibly take that back plot might be forthcoming

I like the common theme that for each level the first half was named something vaguely mystical as it might look to an outside observer, and then the second bit is a crisp, spartan designation once the MCs figure out what it is. The duality of man gemkind, I suppose, though they really are kinda spartan as whole at least the mainstream/monarchist faction. 

Figures that there would be more kindergartens than just the two since we haven’t seen he one where the earth-grown Rose Quartes came from. Since this is delta that one must’ve been Gamma. Might not even exist anymore. 

That would mean there were four. One orange, one purple, one pastel, and one for the actual!rose quartzes. 

There’s a mean Jasper but it’s not OUR mean Jasper. Why are eye gems all.. like that?

Ahhh I see. They’re hunting a group of off-colors. Possibly rebellious off-colors. 

“You’ve sucessfully rescued all my Crsystal gem sidekicks” I can’t even

But of course they were only distracting us until the antagonist finally shows themselves and inevitably napps greg

yet more sequence breaking then

Interesting that you get the white sigil pieces in beach city

Final Dungeon

whats this zerg slime? re we doing starcraft now

though i suppose its also a tad like the blight ganons from breath of the wild where you had to shoot the eye

the musics also getting interesting

so its motive rant o clock. Coool voice, too

this is indeed getting breath of the wild-y. the korok forest anyone?

So far I was thinking that maybe the book spirit, excuse me, Fable, decided to record shameful occurences or maybe parts of gem history that were not so great aside from just recording the glory, perhaps even out of sympathy/emphasizing with the outcasts but as of now it seems more like she’s simply lonely

Poor Steven, it was mindfuckey how she offered to let him see his dead mom. He sorta feels pretty ambiguous about her so he’d probably be more frighteed by that prospect, but I’d say this would have worked on many a Standard Protagonist, like if this were Harry Potter or Shinji Ikari? napped.

Book-ception?! Fairly typical twist at this point but it would’ve been a waste not to do it. So they were napped after all, and put with all the humans in beach city

It’s interesting that she perceives Steven as “being unable to resist an adventure” but framed more in terms of the thrill than just chronic-hero-syndrome.

Now we are getting bullethell-sy for the final battle. Even the music is vaguely undertale-ish. i mean with how you have to get the one green bomb to defeat her that does kinda seem deliberate

So he talked her down of course, by promising to tell her some less awful stories for a change. 

And she winds up as Steven’s diary because of course

Nice enough from a design standpoint I guess cant realistically expect more than this from a spinoff game

[canaryatlaw]

okay I should write and get to bed. today was pretty boring. I woke up for a little at like 9:50 but managed to fall back asleep till like 12:49 at which point I actually got up. One of the first things I did was check my email with my fingers crossed that I would have something from OPG since they had asked about my availability for next week and my most recent email was in fact from them saying I have an interview scheduled with them for 10 am on Wednesday, March 27th. I’d kinda had a feeling they might’ve ended up scheduling it on my birthday, but the day after is pretty close. I’m both excited and nervous and probably a couple million other emotions about it. I’m relieved that it’s set and good to go after going back and forth over email about oh we’re gonna schedule one then oh no we’re not then oh wait yes we will but I’m not going to tell you when yet which started in like, February, so finally having a solid date and knowing it’s set to happen is a massive relief. As long as it was still in the air I was concerned that something might happen (again) that might have them call it off again and of course I really did not want that to happen. So I’ll bide my time over the next week since I don’t really have anything I need to get done and try to be as prepared as possible, and just pray for the best. There’s really so much riding on this for me. This is basically the only career path forward at this point that actually has me doing the work I want to do, the work I came to law school to do. It really means a lot to me. So I guess we’ll see how my feelings about that play out over the next week. After I got up I had a bagel for breakfast (I only have one more in the freezer, all things considered they lasted a fairly long time) and then got changed and grabbed my cart and headed over to the grocery store to pick up a few things, namely toilet paper and dry cat food, plus a few random other things like ground turkey and shredded cheese. I initially thought I could fit the toilet paper and the cat food (it was a 16 pound bag) in the cart so I was gonna put the toiler paper in first for the flat section of the bottom and then kinda have the cat food curled around it, but once I actually tried to put the toilet paper in the bag with the help of like two store employees I realized that was definitely not going to happen, and it would be a very stupid idea to put the toilet paper in the cart and carry the 16 pound bag of cat food when I could just do the reverse, so I wheeled out of the store and out of eyesight of the store employees who helped me get the toilet paper in (sorry guys) and pulled it out again and placed the cat food and the rest of the groceries in the cart and carried the toilet paper home, which worked out much better. Once getting home I put stuff away and finally got around to fully cleaning out the metal bowl for my kitchenaid mixer since it was so covered in chocolate after the twix bar making I’ve had to get it off little by little over the past few days. After that I decided to just chill for a while, so I decided to watch a few episodes of The Americans. I’m trying to make sure I mix it up a little so I don’t just binge straight through Reign and not watch anything else. Eventually I flipped over to the news and watched that for a bit until it was time for Arrow. This was of course the flash-forward episode, so pretty much all of it was set in Star City 2040. I have to say I liked it more than I thought I would. I’m still not like totally crazy about the plot, but their storyline tonight was well executed and had compelling character moments, so they get points for that (and I mean, there was little to no Oliver in it, so that’s always a plus). Went straight into Black Lightning after that for their season finale and holy shit man, this episode was wild and just all around amazing. Like everything in it was so damn good. I love Jennifer and Anissa so much and I was dying at the end when Jennifer just straight up flies into Tobias’ lair and just starts jolting him and he’s totally powerless to do anything about it and I’m just like yes you go my girl 😂😂😂 love her so much. I always thought the Markovia metahuman aspect of the story was interesting, particularly because they're doing a substantially similar storyline in the new season of Young Justice that’s been coming out this year, so it’s very interesting to see where they both go from the basic DC lore. And yeah, overall it was a really strong episode and solid finale, I knew in my heart they weren't gonna end up killing Tobias but I still really would've liked for Jen to be able to do that, lol. but on that note Khalil!! Maybe not dead!!! I mean I thought he got buried but you never know with these people I wouldn’t put it past them to go grave digging to get a body back 😂 so we’ll have to see where that goes next season. After that I switched over to The Resident which I had recorded to watch, and they also had a fantastic episode. I was so mad after last week’s ending where they made it look like Conrad’s dad was about to betray him and be a really gross SOB so I was extremely relieved to find out that was not in fact the case and that they were actually working together in this. I thought the medical aspects of the plot were very interesting mostly because I happened to have googled what “echo” was just a couple days ago after hearing about it being used in one of the parent’s of sick babies that I follow on instagram, their sweet girl had been on it for some time and when they took her off of it she passed away. So I had been curious to what exactly this was and when they brought it up tonight I knew exactly what they were talking about, so that was kinda cool (albeit caused by unfortunate circumstances). As far as the other guy goes, I definitely thought it was going to have been a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but they had a point that the guy was a doctor, if he was going to attempt suicide he would’ve known to at least aim for the heart or just go for the head. That was a hell of a car chase at the end, which ended in a ridiculously bad car wreck which then exploded just for good measure, so I think we can safely say there were no survivors there. but yeah, very good episode. After that I watched the news and then Jimmy Kimmel (he had the Queer Eye guys on so of course I wanted to see that) before starting to get ready for bed and after some procrastinating now I am here. Tomorrow I don’t have any concrete plans for most of the day, I’ll probably try to catch up on two more shows that aired tonight that I didn’t get around to watching yet and possibly make this recipe for homemade cheezits which is similar to one I’ve made before which turned out really well. And then I’m supposed to get “coffee” with a guy at 7 so I guess we’ll see how that goes. But right now I am super tired since it’s past 2 am and would very much like to go to sleep now, so that is what I am going to do. Goodnight darlings. Hope your Monday didn’t suck.