#man do not read this if you liked the gameplay if i see vaguing on my dash i am just blocking people i swear to god

[v-arbellanaris]

UR NOT INSANE EVEN THE UI LOOKS LIKE GOD OF WAR AJDJKSHDKSNDKDGH ik they listed it as one of their man inspirations but guys guys this feels a little too similar 👁️ idk if you’ve seen the warrior gameplay but there was a move that looked sooo much like using the blades of chaos i felt insane !! not but i can’t get over the ui 😭 like the first few pictures we got of it look just like gow’s menu in a purple gold font and i was like is anyone else seeing this. all the general slashing in gameplay and whatnot…very similar for sure

oh so they fr say it??? there were a few other features i felt were gow-ish as well, like the camera angles don't feel Typical of a rpg, the way you can only control your party members to let them make 1 or 2 actions (like atreus and freya as support charas), those little things suddenly diving in the sand, and the blight stuff that targets you & blows up during combat definitely felt familiar... and im like... ok gow was an amazing game, right, but what i personally really enjoyed about it was that the gameplay elements was not divorced from the narrative. is vg gonna go out of its way to justify these gameplay elements or are we just handwaving the entirely new mechanics by going 'ohhhh idk ghilain'nain i guess' lmfao.

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

@buckysleftarm replied to your post:

After reading this, I happened across this video: https://youtube.com/shorts/-X5l5GFeg1k?si=H2lrsmx0pv60wn1h They're not in our camp anymore and I wouldn't know how to view the non companions anyway on PS5, but it feels like she definitely is taking some time off from Selune without breaking her oath full?

I sure did use this reply as an excuse to mash out a giant post! Hope you don't mind.

I do actually love that you've brought this up, because I keep seeing variants of it around and have been wanting to comment on it, if for nothing else than to make me feel better. The gist of it goes something like this: after killing Lorroakan, Aylin's "Child of the Moonmaiden" ability no longer shows up when you examine her character sheet, meaning her immortality has been taken away, she is being punished by her mother, has broken her paladin oath, or is feuding with her in some other way. Now... people in the comments of that video sure have takes on Selûne and on Aylin and on paladin oaths and aasimar abilities in general that make giant question marks spawn above my head. 

Personally? I dislike it immensely and think it makes zero sense for a variety of reasons, both in-universe and out! To be fair, as with most headcanons and theories, I'd genuinely love to see someone get creative and do something interesting with it. But I have this knee-jerk reaction to it because so far I've only seen it in the context of people parroting it completely uncritically, just regurgitating it on endless reddit or forum or discord threads and what have you, and actually shutting down or completely derailing Aylin-related discussion. Which frustrates me, obviously, because I want cool, detailed, thought-out takes on my fave, always, and - to be really petty for a moment - since my fave isn't the fandom darling, I only get crumbs to start with! It grinds my gears because so very often I'll want to read this potentially interesting thread about a character I love, but nope, instead here's a dozen comments how "nah man she broke her oath and there's special oathbreaker paladin dialogue with her about it" - no there isn't. That's a very easily verifiable fact, my guy. You made that up, my dude. How dare you just go and make things up on the internet. 

A ton of BG3 discussion has been flooded with a weird wave of statements that are just put there as well-known fact but in reality read like "I heard from a friend whose uncle works at the Nintendo Larian department and he told him Halsin went on a special mission and killed Isobel a century ago because he wanted to emotionally compromise Ketheric but then playtesters reacted badly to it and Wizards made them take it out but it's still hinted in the game, and also if you use an Elixir of Hill Giant Strength and do an unarmed attack on the cart at the entrance of the Emerald Grove you can get Mew" and I find it so grating. And then people waste time debunking this and arguing in the same circles and nobody ever moves on to more interesting stuff. I say this, as if I haven't been an active participant of internet fandom for decades and have literally anyone but myself to blame here, hah.

For instance, the way you phrased it here, as Aylin herself taking a break or trying to step away instead of the "being abandoned and punished by her mother" angle from the video and the comments? That's something I think has potential and something I want to rotate in my mind - would she do it? Could she do it? What would this entail and what would it mean for her? What would actually be enough to prompt her to even try? And it's cool that a little gameplay mechanic thingy prompted that! However - and I'm keeping it kinda vague because I don't want to spoil you on things that happen after the point you seem to be at - if we're talking purely established canon things and not brainstorming an AU or a post-game trajectory for this character, there is nothing actually in the game to indicate Aylin is taking a break from Selûne or her duties, especially not to the extent of having any of her abilities suspended. Quite the contrary, in fact. Everything we get from her and Isobel after the Lorroakan situation is handled shows she is, for better or worse, very much resolved to be her old self and very righteously angry and smiting evil in her mother's name as the Sword of Selûne and actively engaged in protecting Selûnites Realms-wide, and she has her full set of powers and blessings while doing so.

In this essay I will In the rest of this post I will try to be less cranky and I'm going to get a bit technical to try to actually explain what is going on with the "Child of the Moonmaiden" ability.

TL;DR: the buff is disabled as soon as Aylin enters the wizard tower, before any fight or backbreaking or feelings of loss and sadness, likely for the purpose of you being able to win or lose the fight no matter if you side with Aylin or betray her. It is a purely mechanical contrivance and has no narrative meaning, nor is its presence or absence mentioned or reflected in the narrative at all.

Here's Aylin in camp just before being told about the wizard:

Here she is at the start of the fight, when she is sided with:

And here she is, when you side against her:

The above is an oversimplification, however, because the actual implementation of Aylin's immortality is a bit of a mess.

There are two implementations of her resurrection active in the game, and both are implemented as a Status: "GLO_NIGHTSONGRESURRECTION" and "GLO_NIGHTSONG_RESURRECTION". Now, I don't know what was going on there and I'm certainly not a Larian dev, but that underscore situation there is... weird. I also don't know enough about BG3-specific scripting yet to come up with an explanation on why there would be two variants of it at all - if anyone does, please let me know! I'm very curious. However, these two implementations of her resurrection ability work very differently, and you can see the effects of both of them in-game. 

The first one, GLO_NIGHTSONGRESURRECTION, is named "Moonmaiden's Reconstitution" and is tied to the "Child of the Moonmaiden" Passive (itself called SHA_NightsongResurrection, side note: GLO is the "global" prefix and SHA is a prefix that signifies the Gauntlet of Shar area in Act 2). This ability makes Aylin auto-stabilise when downed instead of rolling death saves, go into the kneeling stabilised animation where she can be helped up or healed just like your party members - you know the one, with the little asterisk hovering above them. Then on the start of her next turn she heals for exactly 1HP (unless she's under a healing-disabling effect, such as Bone Chill, which is why people have trouble with her in the Myrkul fight) and she has only her Bonus Action, the same as any other previously downed character.

Mechanically, it applies the "GLO_NIGHTSONGRESURRECTION_DOWNED" Status to her which modifies what happens when she is Downed to implement the above non-standard behaviour, and also does stuff like turn off her Moonbeam if she had it active.

The "Moonmaiden's Reconstitution" Status itself is completely invisible in-game: it has properties such as "DisableOverhead;DisableCombatlog;DisablePortraitIndicator" aka doesn't show up as that little text popup above the character, doesn't show up in the combat log, and doesn't have a visible indicator icon anywhere.

The description for "Child of the Moonmaiden" is:

"Blessed with the favour of a goddess, Nightsong cannot be permanently killed. When unconscious, [at] the start of her turn she recovers 1 hit point."

The second one, GLO_NIGHTSONG_RESURRECTION with the extra underscore, is a Status called "Nightsong Soars Eternal", and that one doesn't have any other Statuses or Passives tied to it, it simply resurrects her immediately when she dies, and at full health. When it triggers, you can actually see her portrait drop out of the initiative tracker at the top of the screen as if she completely died, and then she gets put in again. This one is active even when the first one isn't, so you can see it in places like camp after she comes back from Lorroakan, and after she comes back for the finale all the way until the end of the game - and by "see it" I mean since it doesn't have any Passive ability connected to it, you have to actually get Aylin killed to see it trigger (I'm so sorry Aylin, it was important for the post, I swear).

The description for "Nightsong Soars Eternal" is:

"Nightsong will be resurrected by the powers of Selûne whenever she dies."

In Lorroakan's tower, BOTH of these are disabled, and if downed, Aylin will just lie there as if she died for real with the little red skull and the "Dead" status until she gets rezzed for a cutscene after the fight or, if betrayed, you go to long rest and then come back to see Lorroakan's progress, at which point she will be up and in the cage with a total of 1HP and that "Soul Caged" status instead. 

Note again that she visibly has "Child of the Moonmaiden" disabled as soon as she enters the wizard tower area, betrayed or not, before she does anything to anyone. It's a way of making sure the Lorroakan fight is actually winnable/loseable/concludable without her getting stuck in that revive with 1HP at the start of her turn loop. "Nightsong Soars Eternal" also obviously doesn't trigger. Instead she says her "I will rise again!" line and stays down. She has every other ability and buff active normally, even ones that explicitly mention coming from Selûne, like her iconic following Moonbeam, for example, or her fancy unique Smite.

Again, significantly: she does not have her immortality buffs if you fight against her, either, betraying her and causing Selûne's wrath and desire to protect her daughter to manifest physically in the room, including empowering Aylin herself with buffs that are called things like "Moonmother's Embrace". See what I'm getting at?

Interestingly, she also doesn't have it when you first meet her:

What does this all mean? Well, I'd say that if we took every gameplay/implementation thing about this game as in-universe gospel, Aylin herself would look a lot different and be far more scaly, for one.

(Makes me chuckle every time.)

In all seriousness, though, if something as big as this happened to a side but still fairly prominent character, the game would tell us about it. Or at least make a bigger deal of it than the deactivation of a passive ability visible on the Examine screen that many people sadly don't really tend to look at and read.

And here's the best thing: nobody has to take my word for any of this, you can see for yourself, without actually knowing how to unpack game files or having my frankly ridiculous amount of hard saves! I think this is super helpful in general, especially for people playing on console:

Here's a link to a truly amazing and consistently updated resource - every bit of dialogue in the game, nicely parsed and laid out and super readable (as well as some additional tools to play around with). 

Here's a website where you can search inside BG3 scripts and other files and take a look at a lot of the nitty-gritty implementation stuff in a convenient way.

I recognise that I go way too deep into things and overstuff my brain with minutiae, but that's just how I work. I take forever to post anything anywhere on the internet because I just physically cannot click a post button without triple-checking everything and quoting and screenshotting things, even if it's the same thing for the twentieth time, and that's certainly a me problem. I very much don't expect people to do things my way, but I also find the games of telephone these things so rapidly become really frustrating, you know?

But my biggest problem with this particular Aylin thing - beyond the annoying preponderance of it, as I've already whined - is that in-universe it just makes no sense and I, an aasimar paladin enjoyer, personally dislike it.

Oath of Vengeance paladins abide by the following tenets: Fight the Greater Evil. Exerting your wisdom, identify the higher morality in any given instance, and fight for it. No Mercy for the Wicked. Chasten those who dole out their villainy by wiping their blight from the world forever.

Putting the rest of this post under a cut because it's long and ranty and you didn't actually ask for it.

My first problem: the common argument that Aylin is in the wrong for killing Lorroakan like she did because he has "done nothing to her yet", and that she breaks her Oath of Vengeance because she attacked him preemptively.

The man put a price on her head and sent violent mercs to beat her up and kidnap her. He tries to (temporarily) kill her and imprison her as soon as she refuses to cooperate by… demurely waltzing into the prison and putting the chains on herself? He knows exactly who she is, what has been done to her, and he wants to do it again - no, doesn't want to, he is actively doing it again. The fact that (if you side with Aylin) he fails mid-attempt doesn't make him innocent of it. He refuses to stop and, if denied, gets violent and murderous. 

Player: Have it your way. I'll bring her here. Lorroakan: Good. I was growing scared for you. The last person who disappointed me is suffering for it still. Do not return without my prize. Do you hear me? Good day.

Player: I'll think about it. Lorroakan: You aren't the only one who knows what's on offer for the Nightsong's retrieval. Consider carefully whether you'd like to see your fortune in someone else's hands. Someone who might slip into your camp at any moment, or harry you through street and inn until you're run ragged and surrender. The choice is yours: fortune or imminent death. I know you'll choose wisely.

Mark my words: the Nightsong is mine. With or without your help, she will ascend to her grand fate here, in this tower.

Player: You heard me. The answer is no. Lorroakan: Pity. Then again, perhaps word of your agonising death will draw your little friend to me. Myrmidons - imperatum!

He is fully equipped for it and has set up a whole magical trap and is just waiting for her to show up to trigger it, or for someone to drag her there against her will. He says she will go into the cage "kicking and screaming" and really, this is who she is wrong for "picking a fight with" and "attacking preemptively"? Surely nobody actually thinks that Aylin is at fault here or that she actually overreacted by killing him? I don't really want to go into some people's really, really shitty attitudes towards Aylin for sadly entirely predictable reasons but… man. She went over there and threatened him with violence, demanding an explanation after he sent cronies to attack her in her sleep? Wow, what a weird thing to do. Also, he literally is the one to attack first! She is there threatening and goading him, doing her little "face me charlatan" bit, but he is the one who sics the myrmidons on her (or the player) and actually starts the fight, every time. To be clear, I don't think this is very relevant at all, but people do seem to love bringing it up.

Is Aylin brash and reckless and clearly struggling after her captivity, dealing with rapidly flaring up anger and outbursts of violence - only ever, may I emphasise, towards actually horrid people, and she is really rather shockingly forgiving and tolerant of the player character messing with her? Yes! Does she seem to have that classical aspect of "she might go too far one day" or "she might lose herself in the anger and vengeance if she focuses on it exclusively"? Absolutely! Do I think she could have been, say, a Devotion paladin before her imprisonment and it might have been the betrayal and century in the Shadowfell that made her change to Vengeance instead? I love that idea! I also think it's likely she has just always been a very zealous, very smitey and offence-oriented Vengeance paladin, called Selûne's sword for a very good reason, fulfilling a very important role in the ongoing struggle against Shar.

And the whole problem is… Lorroakan will, as we've seen, not stop trying, and people like him will always be around and never stop coming after her especially now that the cat's apparently out of the bag after Balthazar, and Aylin needs to live with this, forever. That is why she is so messed up about this one rando wizard she's never met before. That is why this specific incident is so triggering for her. She has just escaped torment on a timescale that's not something the normal human mind can really grasp. "In this moment, I want for nothing." ended up lasting, indeed, barely a moment! Her mum is a powerful god and right now it seems that what Aylin actually gets from it is having a target painted on her back and, to quote Isobel, she can be hurt just like anyone else, she just gets to suffer longer! She keeps being dealt these shit hands and, yeah, it'd make anyone go… why? Seems unfair, right? What exactly is the point of this? 

The various dialogue options you have while warning her about Lorroakan's intentions and which include trying to convince her to just leave him be include her being so, so frustrated, and so understandably, it makes me feel horrible for her. 

She always ultimately goes to confront him, because she has no other real choice. He will keep coming after her, he will keep sending people after her, and she will never, ever get a bit of rest, and she's, what, supposed to go live in hiding somewhere if you convince him she's dead? Until the jig is inevitably up or this guy dies by someone else's hand? And there's also the element Aylin herself will point out if you keep her in the dark about the plot and Aradin and his cronies come to attack your camp: how long until someone hurts Isobel during one of these attempts or actively goes after her as a bargaining chip?

I guess I just genuinely do not understand the arguments about this guy who has been deliberately constructed to be a horrible, hateful piece of shit with exactly zero redeeming qualities, to an almost comical extent. He beats his apprentice and uses his assistant for target practice! He's a sick, sick asshole! His life's dream rests on kidnapping and enslavement! The guy is conspiring and trying to ally with Ketheric and Balthazar of all people: 

Lorroakan,

I have responded out of respect to my counsellor, Balthazar, who advises me that you may prove a loyal ally in the coming fight. I understand you wish to know about the soul cage which binds the Nightsong to me. Details, I cannot and will not provide. But the magic itself is necromantic in nature, designed by my aforementioned counsellor. I hope your curiosity is satisfied.

General Ketheric Thorm

This is who people think a vengeance pally will break her oath over? Over what, a technicality of who struck first? "Desecrating a corpse"? No, it was Ketheric she did that to, and nothing happened. She just finished this guy off in a violent and dramatic fashion. 

While you can play a paladin yourself and kill so many people in so many ways without anything happening, this is more of a consideration if you play Oath of Devotion or Ancients. It's also one that makes parts of the game harder - comically evil cultists torturing and executing prisoners cannot simply be attacked out of nowhere, and instead you need to announce your challenge first. You need to walk up to them and start talking, establish their villainy, and then fight "fairly". This is also partially an issue arising from the implementation of hostility flags and game logic, by the way. However, Oath of Vengeance gives precious few fucks about this and is a really hard oath to break. In fact, in a very similar situation to the wizard tower, in the House of Grief, you break the Oath of Vengeance if you spare Viconia - at that point lying on the floor soundly defeated and bleeding out much the same way Lorroakan was. Viconia who, may I note, never "did anything to you" but did harm a friend of yours.

Also, and this is a whole separate discussion, but... it's a FR DnD game. You kill bad guys in it. You kill vaguely morally grey, or even good guys in it. You and your friends kill so many people before this point. Multi-act quest arcs conclude with "go to place and kill someone". You mete out "justice" personally, repeatedly, and can harp on that fact, especially if you're playing a paladin. You don't exactly call the guards on people instead, even in the middle of the city. Ludo-narrative dissonance or no, why would this one wizard suddenly be different, and why would this one woman be singled out for a thus far completely typical approach and set of actions? 

My second problem: a great big "Selûne wouldn't do that". I understand Forgotten Realms "lore" is a giant unwieldy self-contradicting mess of a beast and I'm not saying people should be scholars of it to participate in the discussion, far from it, but I would like them to engage with what is presented in the game itself at least.

For the most succinct possible example, look at what Selûne does when Aylin is betrayed. She buffs her in order to enable her to violently and zealously win that fight. Literally empowers Aylin to smack her enemies around more and with greater strength and also burn them alive in holy fire. Not after she's imprisoned and well and truly "wronged", but during this fabulously absolving "mere attempt" on Lorroakan's part.

Also, may I point out the sweet little shielding- and healing-focused cleric of the same goddess is actively disappointed that you and Aylin won't let her come with to hit the guy a few times herself! This goes for the entire party of assorted weirdos, goody-good or otherwise, who firmly believe Aylin should just obliterate that guy. Like, c'mon, my man Wyll! (Super sad and touching exception: Karlach, if you've killed Gortash already. When she begs you not to tell Aylin about any of it at all and go deal with the wizard yourselves, just so Aylin can have a bit more peace and keep her sword sheathed for just a little while longer. Ow, my heart.)

In summary, basically, my twofold beef:

"Selûne punishing and abandoning her daughter for over-zealously defending herself" - nonsensical and uninteresting. Stops people from actually delving into and discussing the complexities of that relationship.

"OoV paladin broke her oath by killing an evil wizard who is actively trying to do horrible things to her and attacks her" - nonsensical and uninteresting. Let's instead actually engage with the material and discuss Aylin's trauma and how she might deal or not deal with it in good or bad ways. What would recovery even look like, for her. How does the way she intrinsically ties her entire being into being a smite-happy moon-magic knight play into it. Let's actually consider the weight and role of duty in her life and the wombo-combo of being an aasimar paladin, an existence with a very "purpose-made" aspect to it. You know, the good ol' Being A Sword thing, including being born into it. Combined with being rather suddenly rather intensely humanised by a loving relationship with a mortal woman, with all sorts of ticking clocks, unique challenges, and both past and pending tragedy there.

Or let's talk about the dissonance present in Aylin's cool and badass scenes of smiting deserving evil. Scenes that go into very violent and very over the top territory, that make you both cheer and cringe, that make a point of showing the other characters reacting in shock. Because I genuinely feel so bad for her and deeply worried for her, all while my silly little brain goes fuck yeah smite him shiny lady! Ooooh look, a flashy Aylin scene, ripping a deserving villain to pieces! But at what cost to herself? Feels so good to have someone deliver some justice! But if I think about it for 5 seconds I don't actually want her to - no, no, I do. I don't want her to have to, is the thing. (It's kind of like that one Gundam meme.)

I will conclude this mess by doing a salty little yeah. It's fine, this is fine, this is sadly pretty much part of the standard experience of liking a female character in fandom. God forbid women do anything indeed. Outside of a few select, narrow and highly dedicated circles, half the (scarce) posts about her are something that's either flat-out wrong, or just assumes the absolute worst of her and reduces her to two and a half shitty stereotypes, and half the fics tagged with her are actually about fandom's favourite two dudes and barely feature her at all.

And on that note, I'm off to actually be a positive force and poke at my own fic some more.

[revserrayyu]

2.2 Penacony thoughts [part 5]

**Major story spoilers** as we’re finished the main story here. Going to be chatting even more about Acheron and our time in the Horizon of Existence, the real final boss, as well as all cutscenes that follow, so if you haven’t finished the whole story yet, I encourage you to come back and read this all later if you wish to do so after you experience everything for yourself first.

I gotta start off by saying that I absolutely love how this scene looks. Yeah it’s upsetting to learn that Acheron’s companion here is actually dead, but all the rain falling upon that red glow is just really nice to look at. Of course Acheron is slaying as usual too. I even dig the shadowy look of this man despite his circumstances.

Is Acheron kinda of like a grim reaper of sorts? At least that’s the feeling I’m getting when she says she’s guiding lost souls. And correct me if I’m wrong, but he is the one who wanted flowers on his grave, right? He just doesn’t remember I assume? It also seems that “Acheron” is just a river and I vaguely remember Acheron mentioning one during her conversation with the “Dreammaster” inside the park.

So I guess this is what all that red text meant? It wasn’t something we should have feared but a way to guide us forward, onto the right path? That’s how I’m interpreting it. Anyways, name drop reveals that this man was actually one of the Nameless buried at Dream Flux Reef.

Soon enough we arrived at the Horizon of Existence with Acheron and I’m like 99% sure this set of questions she asks us are close to the same exact ones she spoke of when we met her inside that first dream. I wish I remembered my choices to her questions from back then, because with the game only giving us one option to choose for each question, I wonder if it’s giving us the same option we picked when we first answered her because that would be amazing.

SHE. SAID. THE. THING!!! Acheron real name confirmed!!! Even though it’s pretty much what we all expected from the very beginning, it’s great for it to finally be true and not be a total secret.

A big ol’ cutscene begins and it reminds me of how little we actually received about Boothill, like yeah he shoots that fancy relic bullet up into the sky because he’s the only Galaxy Ranger around who can do so, but he didn’t do much else? I mean I absolutely enjoyed seeing him interact with Dan Heng and everyone else but to not even get the chance to fight a battle with him seems weird after 2.1 gave us the chance to really use both Acheron and Aventurine and test our their gameplay whenever we switched to their perspectives. Same thing happened with Robin too. We walked around as her and Boothill for brief moments but that was pretty much it, making the switch seem kinda pointless to me.

I got no words for this. It’s just an incredibly beautiful screenshot of her. I’ll never get tired of seeing all that red whenever this monochrome world takes over. Makes me regret skipping her every day but next time I’ll pull her for sure.

Yet another line she told us during our first encounter with her. Also, if this is the last time we see her in the story, I’m gonna be sad.

The crew!!!! I’ll admit it does look a little silly that we’re only armed with a hat while everyone else has a reasonable weapon, but I love each one of us so much!! It felt perfect for me to have Himeko in my team during the upcoming fight too.

While I figured we were gonna be blessed with Robin’s appearance and one of her songs during the fight, can I just say that I was not expecting the assist mechanic to be the mother-forking Express?? I had joked somewhere sometime ago that if Pom-Pom were to ever become playable, that their ultimate would be running the enemy over with the train and color me surprised, because that’s pretty much what happens!!

So the final battle itself went pretty well. Took a bit more damage than before but still an easier fight overall than how Aventurine’s went for me. I knew I didn’t have to bring in our dear gambler in since the fight itself granted us shields, but his helped me just fine along with all those follow up attacks.

I think my Trailblazer managed to do pretty well too? I stressed so hard to break that 145 on speed to access that secondary buff of the Talia planar ornaments, so that’s why other stats may be a bit lacking. At least I have break effect at 197%.. is that reasonable?

Anyways, as much as I adore Serval, I had to use the train to deliver the final hit.

Pfft, ain’t no way. Sunday is really over.

Look at us protecting March, aww!

Trailblazer pulls off some last minute talk-no-jutsu to get through to Sunday’s head and with a heartfelt embrace from Robin, I think it’s time to start crying.

C’mon, look at how gorgeous this is!! Such a beautiful sunrise to witness after all the chaos is over.

Surprisingly, the credits roll again only this time it actually feels like a proper ending to the story. It even lists Acheron’s true name, yet March still remains a mystery. When will we ever learn? Who knows.

Final cutscene of the patch begins and what do you mean Argenti saved Aventurine??? When and how and why didn’t we get to witness such a moment with two of Star Rail’s most beautiful men!

Aventurine betting his own life once again.. oh dear, you never learn. Then again, it seems you never lose either so, go ahead sweetie. Go get that promotion you so rightfully deserve!

This scene also bums me out a little because I was really hoping we would actually get to see Jade arrive in game this time around, but it seems we’ll have to wait even longer. Cutting it a bit close to her release with it being in the same patch but at least she’s phase two. I’m pulling for her day one though. I don’t care what happens in the story, it won’t change my mind about her! (to be fair, I’ve seen some leaks about her gameplay and, oh my god..)

Boothill unexpectedly enters the room after knocking out the two IPC guards outside the door and we’re left with yet another cliffhanger. Definitely not as strong as a final scene as the previous two versions but no way a random name drop could match a sudden surprise death either.

And finally, that’s all for now. Penacony remains to be a story full of mysterious twists and there’s plenty more to see.. hopefully. We still have no clear idea what happened to Firefly, then there’s all those bombs Sparkle was handing out to everyone, we still have to officially meet Jade and see what she and Topaz have planned. Sunday and Robin were last seen falling from the sky so they gotta land safely and I haven’t a clue if we’ll even see Acheron again. Here’s hoping 2.3 ties up all loose ends and gives Penacony the finale it deserves!

[yakuzabrainrotlive]

SO; turns out the reason I've felt like a dying woman for days on end is that I have had bronchitis this whole time! Don't wait for 10 days to see a doctor if your lungs feel funny! ✌🏻😌

Anyway, more gameplay! Finished Saejima's part ^_^

I love how openly and unashamedly Saejima expresses his emotions. It feels like a nice change of pace. I adore stoic characters like Kiryu as well, but this is very refreshing.

I admire Saejima's bravery in how he yelled at those bloodthirsty people and refused to budge under pressure. This is clearly a man who thoroughly sticks to his code of honor, no matter the consequences. He was willing to let the Florist's information that would take him closer to reuniting with Sasai, slip through his fingers, just to stick to his beliefs.

Saejima is honestly climbing the ranks to be one of my top favourite characters - and I feel like I barely know him yet!

Oh, okay. We're doing this now. I'm fine!!! I'm not scared!!! I'm SOOO ready for this!!!

....not. SEND HELP.

Actively chewing on my fingernails in fright like a cartoon character. What I wouldn't give to hear Majima's thoughts right now...

First with Kiryu in Y3 and now this? Majima really loves to flex the sheer amount of manpower his family has, huh?

Okay, I truly do believe that this is to keep the cops away, just funny to me how this is the second time we see the entire family surround the perimeter of a building in a vaguely threatening manner.

Ouch... he does NOT want to have this discussion right now. Or maybe he does, but he's trying to collect himself a bit. Can't get a good read on Majima right now. I really wanna see this chat happen but I also dread it.

Saejima.... what a man. He could have let his rage take over, take Majima's whole "Yeah, I betrayed you" at face value and... idk? I don't think he would have killed him? Then again, they made that promise... but I don't see it.

I love how much emotion Saejima has and shows, but he also has a cool enough head to wanna hear Majima out instead of immediately lashing out.

Majima looks so... peaceful? here. Like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. And it's really no wonder - Saejima decided to hear him out, he still calls him "bro" and they're already kind of joking around.

I can already tell I'm gonna LOVE the dynamic between these two. As long as Saejima doesn't end up in the Side Characters We No Longer Need Void™, that is. But I kind of doubt they're gonna pull that with him.

YAYYY!! I CALLED IT!! Welcome back, Puppy Eyes Detective!! I hope you're as good as I'm expecting! Glad to be able to put a name to the face. I'm eager to see how you fight!

[averyangrytissuebox]

I'm going to level with you for this campaign. I am very biased because I love this campaign. I have lots of fond memories of playing this campaign with my friends by the seaside. Passing nervously as we did the last scenario or doing absolutely busted shit because we didn't realise how overpowered double or nothing can truly be. This doesn't mean you should take my review with a 3 autofails worth of salt because I stand by what I say, I just wanted to gush first.

Path to Carcosa: The perfection of the base formula

This is a big claim to start the review so let me explain what I mean. Path to Carcosa is the quintessential arkham campaign which every future campaign will deviate from in different directions with stuff like Edge of the Earth's large maps or Scarlet Key's open world. If you loved the base game set up in Night of the Living Zealot and Dunwich Legacy then Carcosa is for you.

Path to Carcosa follows our investigators as they investigate a bizarre performance of a mysterious play which pulls them across the world to France as they try to understand exactly who they face before venturing to Carcosa in an attempt to escape their influence. This campaign spans a variety of locations from high society parties to the streets and catacombs of france but always followed by the Man in the Pallid Mask.

The campaign plays with an interesting dynamic where depending on whether you believe what you see or doubt its very existence changes how the campaign is played with whole scenarios being inverted depending on the route and even the final boss being changed. This is a formula which other campaigns follow suite on to varying levels of success (Scarlet Keys doing it well while Forgotten Age's only matters if you want the secret ending / which companion you want and Circle Undone changes some stuff but not noticeably in my opinion.) This does make saying a favourite scenario hard because there are lots of variance.

If I had to choose a best scenario (and I am writing a review here with a specific format so I sort of do), I'd name the last one but this will require some spoilers. Skip to my complaints to dodge spoilers. Dim Carcosa is the culmination of the decisions you've made across the campaign because depending on whether you had conviction or doubted all that you see. If you doubted the existence of the other world, now you have nowhere left to run because he is all around you but if you hold to your convictions, now you must face him head on at his strongest because you fed his power.

That being said, there are some complaints to be had with this campaign. Echoes of the Past snowballs one of two ways: If you get the cultists under control, it is easy but if you don't, you will struggle to get it back on track. Secondly, Dim Carcosa is harder than most other scenarios. I don't have that many complaints about the campaign as a whole if my gushing doesn't make that clear enough

In terms of investigators, brain is the name of the game. Mental damage is way more common than physical so having a decent sanity is needed unless you plan on buying Elder Sign Amulet. Keep relics and spells handy because there is an enemy which can't be beaten quickly unless you use them. An investigator capable of evading is also super useful depending on the route you take. Finally Calvin Wright can achieve godhood in this campaign so yknow go apeshit if you want.

Overall, I love this campaign. It is classic arkham perfected where the scenarios themselves aren't complex but the theming is rich and gameplay is interactive. This is the perfect introduction campaign to try with friends. If you are reading this and are even vaguely interested in trying it out, try it out (If you know me personally, message me pls pls pls pls). Finally the end of review ranking, this is the best campaign so far with Dunwich Legacy 2nd and Night of the Zealot last

Other reviews in this series:

Night of the Zealot: Let's start at the Beginning. It is a very good place to start

Dunwich Legacy: Good but with Growing Pains

The Forgotten Age: Flawed but interesting

[arcane-strangeness]

alright, why the FUCK is no one talking about the new demo for the game Fractured Mind by ACID

You start in the car of a train, deep beneath the earth in some sort of metro, you assume. You walk forwards, find a gun abandoned on a seat, and pick it up. There's something wrong here, wrong, as you walk through the doors opposite from you and find yourself in the room you just left. You take a minute to examine your surroundings, reading posters and checking flyers, and as you walk through the next door things have Changed in your surroundings. its minor at first, posters are different, things are a little dirtier, and then a few cars later suddenly there's blood on the walls, splattered across the ceiling. A few more and everything reverts back to "normal", and the speaker on the wall next to you crackles to life, detailing the gruesome murder committed by a seemingly ordinary man in a news report type fashion. You trek forwards, taking in all the little details, and suddenly, you're not alone anymore

People, unmoving, with their faces pixelated out like they're on security camera footage populate the next car. you expect them to move, and jump out at you, as gorror games tend to do, but they never move, so you press cautiously onward. the blood returns, this time lining up behind these "people" and the speaker once again begins to make noise, calling you over and over again.

you are a goddamn murderer. you are a goddamn murderer. you are a goddamn murderer. you are a goddamn murderer.

with the gun in your hand, maybe you are a murderer.

it loops, tone and cadence slightly different every time. still you press onward, even as the seats begin to clip in and out of reality, poles twisted over like some hulking creature threw a tantrum. even as the "people" suddenly turn to look at you, pixelated masks gone and wide smiles on their faces, even as the floor becomes a writhing mass of blood and guts, even as bloodied figures begin to haunt you, even as the lights go out.

this truly is a nightmare

as far as gameplay goes go there is a reason this game is a demo right now, it has some major polishing that needs to be done in terms of bugs. but graphics animation and sound design are PERFECT. it really does feel like a nightmare in the way that everything seems to twist around you, all dimensions just slightly off. and its scary, the few jumpscares there are, really got me in just how overwhelming they are. you see, the game is quiet, quiet in humming lights and low ambiance. it feels like you're on a train, late at night, with no one else around. so when something vaguely flesh colored and humanoid jumps at you and screams for far longer than it should, after 15 minutes of near silence, its horrible. I love it. and the implied story is fantastic, but I wont spoil more than I already have here. you really have to put the puzzle pieces together. and I think what really makes this game a good game is just how uncomfortable it makes you. in every car you need to check every little detail in order to gather clues, and in cars where there are incredibly uncanny "people" staring at you, or spasming uncontrollably, that is the last thing you want to be doing. but it makes you get up close and personal, if you miss something you simply walk through the next doors to find you right back where you were. it loops. all in all I cannot wait for the full release to come out this seems very, VERY promising.

[some-pers0n]

For the ask game: 1, 8, 10, 14, 23

Oh boy quite a lot. Let's do it.

1 - The Character Everyone Gets Wrong

For Wof no joke it's gotta be Qibli. So many people write him off as a goofy silly guy who thinks a lot and is really smart when honestly he's a massive overthinker with horrible social anxiety and uses a cocky and confident persona to a) cope and b) try to make friends. He's not a joke-spewing machine that can't read the room and stop when somebody is in distress.

For TF2 it's probably Saxton Hale. Yeah he's funny and cool, but he's not really a good boss like. at all. Not even a good person before the comics. He was characterized as a guy who liked hunting endangered animals and selling terrible and cheap weapons to keep the Gravel War going. It's 500% more funny when he's got jokes about how unions and workers rights are a nasty thorn in his side.

8 - Common Fandom Opinion Everyone is Wrong About

[Insert character] being a Mary Sue. Typically it's Glory or Moon. Glory is a victim of poor character writing and favouritism on Tui's part and Moon's entre character is reduced to a plot device. Those aren't Mary Sues but just poorly written characters in ways different than a Sue. Plus I also just Hate the term and would rather people like...elaborate more on what they say as opposed to using vague buzzwords.

For TF2 it's probably that Engie is boring, both in gameplay and lore. For starters, put on the Gunslinger and Rescue Ranger and stop turtling in the same spots every round. Secondly, Engie's personality is one of the most fascinating due to it kinda being a little cover up. Not even to mention his whole family. So cool and interesting....

10 - Worst Part of Fanon

Hmmmm,,,flanderization is always terrible. I hate it especially with Qinter stuff since a good chunk of it horribly misses the mark of who Qibli and Winter (and even by extension Moon) are and what makes them click. Their whole this is that they have a persona and I feel Qinter as a whole should be based on them putting aside their exaggerated personalities and finding solidarity and comfort within being around each other as their pure selves. This and also the infantalization of characters like Whiteout. All my homes hate that.

Same thing can be said for TF2. Me and my homies hate Nazi Medic. Medic likes his coworkers, he just is a bit silly like that.

14 - One Thing you See in Fics all the Time

For WoF, it's gotta be swearing. I literally don't know why it kinda irks me, but it feels weird when you're writing something serious and straight-forward while the dragon characters say the fuck word. Nothing against it, I just...I dunno.

For TF2 it's always the goddamn shoe-horned in racism/queerphobia. Please man I don't need you to get up on your soap box and tell me that the 60s wasn't good for queers and people of colour I'm trying to read Old Man Yaoi. It's especially annoying when certain characters (ex: Soldier) only exist to really fulfill the role of being the person who make it "period accurate" by including 12 extremely harmful and horrible slurs in every sentence they speak.

23 - Ship You've Unwillingly Come Around To

For WoF: Cleril somehow. The "Cleril is good :)" -> "Peril is toxic and this relationship will never work" -> "Cleril is good :)" pipeline is real. Peril HAS been getting help and is vastly improving. She is doing so incredibly well. She uses Clay as a moral compass, but she's aware of that and trying to change. It's not that bad of a ship ngl.

For TF2: Jagerbombs (Demo/Medic). I'm God's strongest aro/ace Medic enjoyer so I like them best as friends, but honestly they're just great together. Literally written up like 19k words of these morons. Never would've thought in a million years I'd do it (especially considering how I'm the No. 4 Science Party person ever) but they're just wonderful. Honestly like them better than HeavyMed– *gets shot*

[apple-pecan]

Super Mario Bros. Wonder (2023)

MINOR SPOILERS

when this game first got revealed in june my response was honestly a bit mixed. it certainly looked nicer looking than the swathes of """"new"""" super mario bros games that 2D mario was solely relegated to after yoshi's island all the way back in 1995, but i personally always wanted to see a hand-drawn style for a 2D mario along the lines of wario land shake it, and this wasn't quite it. i was also convinced you couldn't really do anything new with 2D mario, at least modern nintendo. the devs of wonder apparently read my mind and made it their goal to prove me specifically wrong.

you probably don't need me to tell you this game blows the NSMB games out of the water, aesthetically. if those games were sonic 4, then this is sonic mania. characters actually have expressions and the animations are lively and well... animated. gone is the obnoxious BAH sample used every ten seconds in the soundtrack; the music is all pretty distinct from each other with not many tracks that repeat. there are now talking flowers with real voice acting for some reason. mario is an elephant. there are sentient pipes. it's got it all.

the big thing that sets the game apart are the wonder flowers; when you touch one, either out in the open or hidden during a stage, crazy shit happens. you can walk on the background. you can turn into a goomba and embark on a stealth mission to not get eaten by the other enemies in the stage. all the enemies will stop trying to kill you and break out into a musical number. it fucking rules. each stage has a different wonder flower effect and very few of them repeat: it's worth playing just to see what kind of crazy thing they'll subject you to next.

another cool thing are badges, which give you either new action abilities like being able to use a parachute for further jumps like in SNES aladdin, a higher, floatier jump, and the crouching high jump from SMB2, or passives like being able to start the course with a mushroom, or a radar that goes off when your close to a secret. you can swap out abilities when you die, so if one badge isn't cutting it for your current stage, you can try again with a new one before you respawn. the only thing that kinda sucks is that in multiplayer, everyone must share the one badge.

i guess my only other main complaint is that, despite the aforementioned musical numbers which are all awesome, the actual music in the game is not really as memorable as i hoped. this could change as i play the game more and do post-game objectives, but so far nothing wowed me like say, 3D world or odyssey. i guess the music isn't as bipolar as a certain other $60 2D platformer game that came out the same week, but sadly i wasn't that impressed. that said, and being as vague as possible, the final boss uses the music to the gameplay's advantage and was the highlight of the game by far.

in short, it's good to finally have an actually interesting 2D mario game again, after years of it playing second banana to the 3D games in terms of scope and personality. i dunno if it should join the ranks of SMB3, world, or yoshi's island just yet, but it was certainly a breath of fresh air after 17 years of BING BING BAH BAH WAHOO PIZZA GO THAAT'S A SO NICE OH GOD HELP THEY'RE INVADING MY BRAIN IT'S SO FUCKING RETRO GOD FUCK MAKE IT STOP HELP ME

5/5

NOTE: one of the badges let's you perform the wall jump from mega man x. yeah hello, based department?

[blazehedgehog]

Has Earthworm Jim aged well?

No. Once upon a time I was going to do a video about this, I don't know if it's the right time for a video about Earthworm Jim.

Earthworm Jim is a victim of a lot of things. A lot of Shiny was born out of Virgin Games, right. Guys who worked on Disney games like Aladdin for the Genesis.

Some of those Virgin Games guys have been very forthcoming about the culture back then -- about the rental market being this big scary boogeyman. So developers would deliberately insert difficulty spikes in to their games. Things that were arbitrarily SUPER difficult, just to stump players who were on a rental, to make sure they couldn't finish the game in a weekend.

Because that's how you added length to a game back then. You just made it harder. The harder the game, the longer it took to finish. Once you realize this, it unlocks a lot about why older games were "Nintendo hard." (Sakurai very recently touched on this!)

Earthworm Jim has the unfortunate position of being one of those games. There's a very specific level -- the "Tube Race" segment -- that feels like it was added as one of those rental-blocking difficulty spikes. The idea is that you've been in this underwater facility for a while and there's a glass submarine you can pilot. Since its glass, bumping in to walls cracks it, and too much damage will cause it to implode and kill you. You also have an oxygen meter you have to refill too.

You play a pretty normal level that's a mixture of fighting enemies in the base with a couple of simple submarine segments. Where the level would normally just end, you get this Tube Race segment, which is one very, very, very long submarine maze where you have a minute and a half to make it to the end without running out of oxygen or damaging the submarine so badly that you die. It is ten times harder than everything to come before it, and one of the hardest parts overall.

But that's not enough to spoil the game, no. Earthworm Jim in general is also just... one of those games that is so in love with its own artwork that it kind of hurts the experience. It's one of those games where the animation and the jokes and the character comes before everything else, even at the cost of gameplay.

Video games have something called a "hitbox." Basically, what you see is not what the game actually understands as being your character. When you see this:

What the game is seeing is this:

These are the hitboxes around characters in video games. If blue touches green, that's a floor. If blue touches red, take damage. If blue touches purple, instantly kill the player. If blue touches yellow from below, grant item. That's how the game logic works.

And you may notice that a lot of early games have characters that very easily fit in to a square for this very reason.

From a technical standpoint and a player standpoint, it is extremely easy to read when and how things collide with each other.

Earthworm Jim (and to a lesser extent, Aladdin) is a game that says "Screw that! We've got REAL CARTOON ANIMATION!" And that's the priority: showing off the animation. Not playing well.

What are the hitboxes here?

In practice, it shakes out to something like this. There's no clear line to denote what you can stand on, because the background is drawn like a cartoon show, where characters are placed in a kind of slightly angled view, inside of the floor.

There are margins of empty air on everything -- Earthworm Jim can overlap objects and not actually touch them, and the same happens in reverse. That rigid, readable collision detection from games like Mega Man and Mario don't apply here. There's a little bit of guesswork in every action Jim takes.

Now, of course, with the advent of polygons, a lot of games have more vague hitboxes. It's harder to judge what is touching what, and we've developed a better sense for it, so maybe it's not that important, right?

Well, yes and no. Earthworm Jim was trying to show off, you see. It was one of the first games of its type. It's not doing this because it's a better way of handling collision detection (it isn't), it's doing it because it's trying to look flashy. It's trying to impress you. And that's all its using it for. It is deliberately and intentionally putting itself at a disadvantage in order to say "this is an interactive cartoon."

That thinking sabotages the entire game. I can guarantee almost every idea in Earthworm Jim started with pitching the characters and how they animate with the gameplay being left as the final afterthought. To Earthworm Jim's credit, it's not a total disaster, it's just very loose and unbalanced.

Do you remember The Order: 1886 for the Playstation 4? It was lauded for having beautiful graphics, but in practice there wasn't a whole lot else. It was more like a 5 hour QTE. A lot of great tech and incredible visuals, but not a lot of deep or engaging gameplay.

That is exactly what Earthworm Jim was in 1994. Except in Earthworm Jim was beloved, because nothing really looked or sounded like it did. Aladdin was a big deal for Sega, but Earthworm Jim was a clear and definitive next step, and it was on everything.

Nowadays, after a lot of its more technical ideas have been better solved, its problems stick out more, and more, and more. It's not unplayable (that right is reserved for Earthworm Jim 2), but it isn't great.

[delicrieux]

☆ﾐ 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚊𝚢 "𝚘𝚑"

PART 8: CAT BOYS 

... it’s late into the night and y/n is streaming with one of her new friends, sykkuno. running on caffeine and redbull is apparently not enough because she falls asleep on his shoulder 45 minutes into their cyberpunk gameplay. at that exact moment, twitter goes up in flames.

─── corpse husband x reader, sykkuno x reader (because i was threatened by thirsty anons) ─── soc. media + written fiction!  ─── word count: 1.8k author’s note: here it is...what yall been asking for. literally had to add a new part for this but i loved this idea sm i couldnt just nOT NOT do it. i tried writing this with the same energy as the smau lmao so expect chaos as always. hope you enjoy it and as always lmk what u think! hopefully yall wont go too feral, but tbh thats prolly too much to ask for xx EDIT: srr for the fucky format tumbler dot com is being lame 

ultimate masterlist.  ҉  myso masterlist   ҉   previous.   ҉   next.

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

Such a back and forth continues for the better part of the day as you get ready. Corpse only whines a bit when you forget to text him back - you are packing, and your prestigious cat ears you bought from Amazon for 10$ deserve exquisite care - which only fuels your seemingly bottomless hunger for mischief, leading to you sneakily ignoring him more. When your phone lights up with a message, you giggle, giddy with excitement. Your laughter only gets louder and more erratic, to the point where Rae had busted down your door and threw her Hello Kitty plush at you - one you’d gotten her, mind you! - and told you to just “Shut the fuck up!”

Ungrateful. You know not everyone can appreciate your sense of humor, or stand your hyena like cackle, but that was uncalled for and you told her as much. Noting the mess your room is in (more than usual, that’s for certain), she leans onto the door frame, crossing her arms over her chest, pretty brown eyes twinkling curiously, “Where you off to?”

“So I had this idea-” You start, but are promptly shut down with a raise of her palm.

“Already know it’s a bad one.”

Insulted, and hurt, you clutch your heart. As if she had not mocked you enough today, “Rae...The hell, that’s so mean...” You mutter, face scrunching into a soft frown, “I only wanted to tell you what me and Syk thought of.”

“Oh?” Intrigued, she raises a brow, “Continue.”

“Gee, thanks for letting me this time.” You mumble, rolling your eyes, “So. We thought we’d stream together. The catch? In the same room! We’ll be playing Cyberpunk. Gotta cash in while the hype is still up.” You add, making her snort, “And, ya know, the whole cat boy business...We’ll be wearing matching cat ears. Admit it, I’m a genius.”

She’s quiet for a moment, mulling over your words; you can practically see the gears in her head turning. She glances around the room, then briefly at you, strangely apprehensive. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

Well, that is definitely not what you expected her to say. You figured it’d be more along the lines of you’d be one ugly cat. “Huh?” Is all you manage to stutter, “What do you mean?”

She gives you a look, one all people give when something is so plainly obvious, “Y/n. You do know the stans will go wild, right? And you do remember our conversation involving Corp-”

“Nope!” You exclaim cheerily with a bright smile to match. You don’t want to think about that. The relationship between you and Corpse is strictly platonic, and besides, seeing Twitter loosing their shit is always funny, and you never miss an opportunity to mess with your fans. Sykkuno is also a good friend, albeit a new one. This supposed flirting from Corpse’s end Rae deduced was nothing more than her projecting her feelings onto the situation. She always liked shoujo anime and was probably thinking one was happening right in front of her. Not a chance. Corpse was just being a friendly crackhead. Your energies mesh beautifully.

Like, beautifully in a strictly friend way. Absolutely nothing more than that.

She gives up, naturally, arguing with a wall would be more productive than arguing with you. You’re such a (Zodiac sign).

“Well,” She mumbles, ticking her head to the side, leaning off of the door frame and turning to leave, “Don’t say I didn’t tell you so.”

Your grin melts as soon as she leaves. Glancing at your bag, you shove your last necessities in with newfound hesitance. 

Nothing bad will happen, right?

...Right?

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

It is well past the generally set “appropriate” time to hang out, but since quarantine, what is appropriate anymore anyway? You’ve never been in Sykkuno’s apartment, but now that you’re here it’s...strangely him. Every corner seems tailored to his specific requirements. It’s cozy, and pleasantly warm - it’s a bit chilly in LA, as surprising as that is.

He’s even shyer than you remember him being. And a whole lot more awkward, but in an endearing way, a way that makes you want to laugh and try to reassure him that it’s just you and he has nothing to worry about. While you hung out only once, the history you share is rich and tender. From him following you on Twitter and subsequently prematurely ending your stream, to kidnapping a stray cat affectionately named Juan. His long lost brother, Juan (no the Second, just Juan), lives in your Minecraft server. 

His stream room is sadly bare. There’s an appalling lack of merch or fairy lights. Not even led-lights. It’s a good thing you brought your own. As you try to decided which color would be best - his signature lime green, reminiscent of his adorable Among Us astronaut, or, perhaps, mischievous violet? - he boots the game and tweets out a quick “streaming with y/n in ten mins! come one come all!” 

“You should probably tell your fans, too.” He mumbles, looking somewhere above your shoulder. You settle with cherry blossom pink. Glancing at him, you shrug.

“Ah, do it for me, please?”

“Oh!” He hiccups, “Uhm, I wouldn’t want to pry and I don’t know your password and-”

“It doesn’t have a password.” You had removed it, knowing something like this would happen. Bless your foresight, you did not want him to know it was demonspiitinmymouth. Before he could protest further, you rush to the nearest mirror to put on your cat ears and make sure they aren’t crooked. You look absolutely adorable. The cat boys in your dms will go feral. Hell, you might just go feral looking at yourself! Sykkuno is not ready. No one is. This will be a stream to remember.

When you return (with flourish of course), he’s anxiously fidgeting by his computer, his own little cat ears, one’s he wore for the Halloween stream, peaking out from his silky brown hair. You have to suppress a squeal. When he catches you gaze he gives the kindest, sweetest little smile.

“They, uh--” He points at you, then decides it’s rude to point, bringing his hand back to his lap, then clutching his mouse, lastly releasing a sound stuck between a chuckle and a wheeze, “suit you, uhm, a lot!” He finishes with a resolute nod, quickly spinning in his chair and away from you.

This is the reaction you desired. All is going according to plan. Is this what God feels like? If not, then you pity her. She’s missing out.

Taking a seat next to him - he had been gracious enough to haul you a spare chair from the kitchen - you draw closer, and he, instinctively, shrinks away with another nervous chuckle. 

“You have, uhm... I-I didn’t look!” He quickly chimes. You raise a brow, “Uhm, unopened messages? From Corpse? He texted you when I was tweeting! I didn’t mean to look, I’m sorry-”

Instantly, you recall the famous vine with the scandalous “daddy chill” line, though refrain from saying it aloud. You love havoc, but you’re not evil (Rae would ardently disagree with you, though). Instead, you just shrug, “’S fine, don’t worry. I’ll text him back later. Let’s start?”

He nods, but doesn’t look at you. Granted, you don’t think he glanced at you even once since you returned, “...Okay. Ready?”

“Ready!”

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

You’re much too immersed into the game and Sykkuno’s twitch chat to even check what’s happening on Twitter, but your estimated guess is that everyone’s going crazy. The stream chat is unruly as well, but missing the signature Twitter spark. Most of the chaos is bravely lead by your fans. Sykkuno’s, much like the man himself, are too nice to scream so unabashedly.

Perhaps you excitement had been a bit too taxing, perhaps drinking 5 coffees and 2 energy drinks today and not enough water are to blame for the sudden drowsiness you’re feeling, but you can’t focus on the swimming chat or the abundance of cut-scenes at the starting point of the game. You steadily draw nearer and he, more composed in front of his audience, doesn’t react. About ten more minutes of hoovering by his shoulder and muttering soft commentary, and you feel yourself slipping.

The last coherent thought you have is a few choice words directed at caffeine itself for having the opposite effect of you at the worst time possible.

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

You float in oblivion for perhaps ten minutes at best. Once you awake with a startle, you shower Sykkuno in shy apologies and he quickly reassures you that it’s fine and that he didn’t mind at all!

“Though,” He adds after a thoughtful pause, “not sure if it was very, uh, comfortable?”

His stream chat spams uwu and variations of similar kind. The stream continues for a few more hours before the both of you wish everyone a good night. 

While you planned on wreaking absolute havoc, this sudden falling asleep was unexpected. You pondered the consequences of such an innocent, unplanned act whilst ubering home, fearing to check your phone which by now was blowing up with not only Twitter notifications but also Rae’s angry messages that vaguely read “what the fuck y/n”. Within the past two hours she had left 57 messages on all platforms collectively, including 7 calls. 

Corpse’s last text was over three hours ago.

Now that’s strange. Worry festers quickly. Briefly glancing at your surroundings - the pretty glimmer of passing street lights, neon signs, familiar buildings - you decide that it’s time to check what kind of nuclear explosion you’ve caused.

Your heart drops to the bottom of your stomach as you scroll past the hundreds of tweets and mentions. Scan through Rae’s messages. 

You had failed to prepare ahead. Every explosion of such kind is followed by nuclear winter. And Corpse’s lack of messages feels especially cold.

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

Not you smiling like a fucking idiot reading his last message! You shrink into the backseat, afraid the driver will accidentally look into the rear-view mirror and see you a bit too happy before asking questions. Good news? Yeah, but it’s not like it’s his any beeswax! In the words of Rihanna, just shut up and drive. 

This argument had not yet happened, but you’re preparing, just in case. 

As you think up of potential scenarios, your eyes drill into Corpse’s goodnight text. You’ve looked at it enough. Time to turn the phone screen off. Leave the app, at the very least. When the screen dims you instantly press on it to wake it up. This is embarrassing. Maybe the deadly amount of caffeine really did mess you up, big time. Your heart races in your chest, painfully almost. You feel a bit sick. Worst of all, you can’t stop smiling.

A notification from Rae makes you snap out of it. Ah, one more demon to deal with. 

However, before you talk to her, you really need to tell Twitter that you’re not with Sykkuno. And apologize to Sykkuno as well. 

At least Corpse doesn’t hate you.

Fucking hell, just exit the chat you idiot!

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

tags (in italics is those i couldn’t tag! make sure all’s ok w your settings!) : @littlebabysandboxburritos - @fairywriter-oracle - @tsukishimawh0re - @ofstarsanddreams - @bbecc-a - @annshit - @leahh19 - @letsloveimagines - @bellomi-clarke - @wineandionysus - @guiltydols - @onephootinfrontoftheother - @liamakorn - @thirstyfangirl - @lilysdaydreams - @pan-ini - @mxqicshxp - @tanchosanke - @yoshinorecommends - @flightsandfantasy - @liljennyx3 - @slashersdream - @unknown-and-invisible - @sinister-sleep - @fivedicksinatrenchcoat - @mercury–moon - @peterparkerspjsuit - @unstableye - @simonsbluee - @shinyshimaagain - @ppopty - @siriuslystupid - @crapimahuman - @ofthedewthesunlight - @mythicalamphitrite - @artsyally - @corpsesimpp - @corpsewhitetee - @corpse-husbandsimp - @hyp-oh-critical - @roses-and-grasses - @rhyrhy462 - @sparklylandflaplawyer - @charbkgo - @airwaveee - @creativedogs - @kaitlyn2907 - @loxbbg - @afuckingunicornn - @fleurmoon - @yeolliedokai - @truly-dionysus - @multi-fandom-central707

more tags are in the comments bcs tumblr only allows me to tag 50 people max 💙

[glapplebloom]

Not everything From the Research Bin will be specifically for Death Battle.

Before Death Battle, I enjoyed reading through things like Wikipedia or TVTropes to learn more about a subject. I was even helping out Factpile (an old Debate Website) before becoming a Researcher for Death Battle. Not to mention I had ideas as articles about who would win in a fight against who. So looking through my Google Docs I found an old one.

I’m pretty sure you don’t need me to tell you who Sans the Skeleton is. Undertale is a frikkin popular game. So popular that Sans and Megalovania got into Smash Fighters as a Costume. So of course he’s going to be a popular pick for Death Battle requests. The problem is, how do you present him? Undertale is a very vague game. Depending on the researcher, you got someone who can see him as being extremely weak and another thinking he’s universal in scale. So finding an opponent for him is difficult because of how Undertale works. Is it magic that makes attacks against monsters so strong or any strong emotion behind the swing?

Now what about Kid Radd and why did I put him against Sans? Well, Kid Radd is the star of an old Pixel Comic where a game character is forced to leave his game and try to live a seemingly normal life, only to once again save the day from an evil entity who wants terrible things to happen. The fun thing about it is he fights like he does in the original game: 4 hits before being killed while being able to maneuver around like your average platformer. So for this fight, I decided to not have it be feat based, but gameplay based.

Sans is a powerful opponent gameplay wise. Gaster Blasters that he can summon at any time and any place, bones that can hurt you when you’re standing still or even moving, and the ability to control your gravity by messing with your SOUL. Combining all of these throws you to a gauntlet of bones, platforms and lasers to avoid. And if you’re hit, Karmic Retribution can attack you even when you're Invulnerable. Even going through the menu is dangerous as he can attack you there as well. But he gets tired and after 24 shots (or 25, it was a long time ago when I wrote this and may not have added the dodge then attack that killed him) he is easy to take out. Not to mention being an RPG, he’s more prone to letting people take turns.

Kid Radd can only take 4 hits. Luckily for him every hit gives him a brief bit of immunity. With the Lucky Penny, he can take an additional hit beyond the 4 and with a code can access his Raddboard to grant him better maneuverability and flight. And like Mega Man, he fires small bits of energy called Radd Beams and charges it up for a Mega Radd. Now here’s the messed up part. Since the game programmers coded him to use the max bits available, his Mega Radd can be charged up to be even more powerful than the base game. It was even capable of destroying the internet. Problem is any hit, no matter how minor, does the same damage to him. So if his opponent is smart enough, they can attack him with no miss attacks and he can’t do anything about it.

Ultimately, I gave the win to Kid Radd. Platforming and recognizing patterns is his bag. That’s how he was able to beat his Rival Slash Brother Gnarl while avoiding armies going against him. I also suspect his Invulnerability is superior to Karmic Retribution since other games' abilities wouldn’t work on him when invulnerable, while KR is coded for specifically Undertale’s hit system. And even if it does work, his knowledge of platforming and his Raddboard can negate Sans’ ability to control the target’s gravity. And if anything, he can just continue to charge up the Mega Radd so much that Sans can’t avoid it, since after destroying the Computer Network he did the attack in (long story), he was still there.

Has things changed since 2016? Honestly, no. Deltarune is a mystery on how it's connected to Undertale, with Sans being there but not doing anything. While Kid Radd ended a long time ago, concluding its story. Maybe if a future Deltarune game showed how Sans connects them both this could change, but I would still back up Kid Radd when it comes to gameplay Vs gameplay. Though I definitely prefer Wreck it Ralph Vs Kid Radd. Did that for a Discord Community Death Battle.

[something-very-special]

"Yeah, I'm... kinda special that way."

Minding my own business, working on another observations/impressions post, and then I realize I've accidentally spent half an hour theorycrafting based on twenty seconds of dialogue.

This got utterly out of hand. NieR conjecture, possibly spoilers, presumptions of deep lore knowledge.

This bowled me over: BroNier goes to visit Emil and they have an entire conversation about how Emil hasn't aged. I mean he hasn't (don't know if you noticed, it's hard to spot) but this was insane to me for two reasons: one, they didn't discuss this at all in Gestalt, and two, has Brother NOT been visiting him?! Popola mentions the letter with a familiarity that implies that Emil's name has become a regular part of the parlance between herself and Nier. Presumably they've kept up correspondence regarding un-petrifying Kaine, but I got a feeling from Papa Nier that he had been regularly visiting Emil, not just writing letters. Maybe it's because Papa Nier didn't even mention the difference so it just felt verboten that obviously it had come up some time in the last five years and they both just shrugged, but... Obviously the two still have a really good relationship so at least they've been keeping up correspondence (between Emil's insanely upbeat letterhead and the warmth with Brother greets him, which really hits in a whole different way by contrast to Brother's constant, simmering anger), but it was peculiar, and I don't believe that line was in the original. I still can't read Japanese so I'm talking out of my ass here, but I just feel like the entire exchange was much shorter (fitting with the conversation Papa has) and like it was added for the benefit of the audience. Kind of a 'no, we didn't forget to give him a new model, this is deliberate'. It does vaguely upset me that there was apparently a need to clarify. One of my favorite gameplay experiences was going through this with my friend-- I had done the full Ending D run so I knew exactly what was going on, but I was introducing the game to her in a Labor Day marathon so I was getting a lot of first-time reactions. She'd fallen in love with Emil at this stage, too, and was very excited to see how he grew up after the five year timeskip. I recall her audible confusion, and to have it actually addressed and explained away feel like a deprivation of a wonderful moment. Although the initial reaction is still there. I think I like playing this game alongside other people because, while I'll never be able to experience it for the first time again, I can do so vicariously through others. The person I'm playing with now is familiar with the original (from years ago) and also had a moment of audible confusion. Even disregarding that, it's difficult to be too offended because it introduces another bit of intrigue that's always been kind of on the back of my mind; how long has Emil been awake? I had been under the assumption that he had been put into a similar hibernation as the Gestalts (or at least some form of sealing, having fulfilled his duties as a weapon for a nearly-extinct humankind) and woken up relatively recently-- recently enough that he wasn't aware of his effective immortality, and of course being so isolated from the world and having his memories wiped the fact that he wasn't maturing just might not have registered (or maybe just been rolled in with 'I dunno man I'm a cute gorgon I'm already kinda weird!'). However, here, it's not only acknowledged, but something that he actively tries to brush aside when Brother asks him about it. "Yeah, I'm... special that way." So he's fully aware that, basilisk gaze aside, there something ain't right about him and it implies, if not shame, at least some level of discomfort. Which in turn leads me to ask a question that hadn't really occurred to me before-- how would he have had the experience to know Brother or Father's age and build by the sound of their footsteps? Obviously he's encountered people before; can't learn that just by listening to the scrabbling of your giant spiders. And that ties in to the observation that, of course, he's wearing the style of Seafront. If he didn't have his memory from the weapons laboratory then he had to have realized more recently the nature of his petrifying gaze; the statues in the courtyard are consistent with the 3300-era styles, which could be discarded as just

reusing extant NPCs until again you remember that they made Emil this complex and knew he'd only be around for an hour. It wouldn't have been out of the question to just put the male statue in a semblance of a suit-- just some little oddity. It's an unmoving model, after all, a relatively minimal timesink; how many hours do you think went into programming the seals? (A lot of hours. A lot of love. Look at those boys roll away.) So he must have encountered other people, from Seafront. The manor is considered 'haunted' in modern times, so it must not have been particularly recent, although probably also not that far back (it's hard to imagine they just never went to the library for decades-- although I assume that Rubrum actually wasn't active until after Weiss had been awakened, it was her activation that attracted the Shades, and it was this factor that alerted Sebastian to the possibility of being able to find the petrification research in her pages. That's all pure conjecture on my part). So long has Emil actually been awake and active? A while. Given his response to Brother mentioning he doesn't age, probably much longer than he would care to admit. Which leads to further conjecture, and of course this was always an eerie question: how did those statues wind up in the courtyard? Who were they? If Emil didn't remember anything from the weapons laboratory and just his more recent memories... why would he be so ashamed of his power? What did he do? By the time we meet him he's already, um... not doing so well. Kaine pegs him immediately as being the same as her; blessed with a horrific power, frightened and ashamed of what he's capable of, quietly harboring feelings of worthlessness and self-loathing ("You told me that even a life such as mine has value!"), and perhaps not... entirely... dismissive of dying. (He is, like, super okay with putting himself between Rubrum and everybody else in the library-- and Replicant actually changes Weiss' line from 'Brave words, but I see your knees quaking in fear!' to one that says it's pointless because everybody else is already too dumb to retreat, implying that Emil wasn't necessarily being brave so much as he put the worth of his own life below that of people he met anywhere from five minutes to twenty seconds ago. That or he knows he has about ten times as much HP as Brother does and with his staggering M. Def can tank hits from Rubrum for days.) I don't think it's a particularly hot take (even from me, on this blog, probably) to assume that Something Happened in the past that caused Emil to brand himself a monster and shut himself away in the Manor. What's only just really sinking in for me is just how far back int he timeline that might have actually happened, and how different the circumstances were when it did. How long has he been in the Manor, then? I used to assume a few years. I figured the statues were from before-- more concurrent with the audio drama, 'present day' more or less. Thinking on it again? It's... been a while.

[legionofpotatoes]

we decided to watch all story cutscenes from the new resident evil village videogame on a whim, since it’s not really our cup of tea gameplay-wise but seems to be this massive zeitgeist moment that made us morbidly curious. And I know how much everyone cares about my thoughts on things I know very little about, so. let’s get into it huh gamers. and yeah spoilers?

for context, I’ve only played resident evil 4 and a small portion of 5. I also read the wikipedia entry for 7’s plot recently. all this to say I was only vaguely aware of how tonally wacky the series was going in

I also completely gave up following the plot of the mutagens’ soap opera, so that paid off in spades here as you might imagine

anyway so that baby in the intro. that baby’s head is just massive. humongous toddlerdome. when ethan finds the baby’s head in a jar later on. there is no way that head would fit into that jar. bad game design. no not even game design. basic stuff. one hundred years in prison for jar modeler

if I see a single functional hetero marriage in video games I will cry tears of joy. I understand their misery is kind of The Point irt them badly working through the hillbilly romp trauma but like. sheesh. at least set that up as an emotional story goal the plot will help resolve. but nope they start off miserable and it goes nowhere

I know I know the mia thing has a huge wrinkle in it but like. not really in terms of dramatic function?? set up a happy end to the re7 nightmare (miranda can keep up appearances for all she cares) and then take that all away from angry griffin mcelroy for manpain. it will still absolutely work to set up the dramatic forward momentum. why throw in this cliche Hollywood Tension in their marriage if you’re not going to address it oh maybe because it’s normalized as automatically interesting because nuclear families are a self-propagating pit of a very narrow chance at emotional happiness relying on social stigma to preserve their empty function oops my baggage slipped in yikes abort mission

I called him griffin mcelroy because I saw his face on twitter and. yeah. I will continue to do this occasionally. my house my rules

... fuck the reason I’m hung up on this is specifically because the rest of the game is so tonally dexterous (which is a shining point to me! more on that later!), and yet they felt weirdly compelled to create the aesthetic trapping of a family-at-odds trope without following it through too well. a sign of both the good and the bad stuff to come

but listen the real reason why I wanted to talk about any of this is to nitpick the fascinating backwards-engineered nucleus of the entire thing; in that this game essentially creates a melting pot of just SO many disparate horror tropes and then makes a no-holds-barred unhinged effort at weaving thick lore to piece them all together. it is truly a sight to behold. like straight up you got your backwoods fright night situation, your gothic castle vampires, your rural-industrial werewolves, and don’t forget your bloated swamp monsters over there, with then a hard left turn into robotic body horror, and the entire ass subgenre of Creepy Doll writ large, and the bloodborne tentacle monsters, and a hellboy angel bossfight, which rides on the coattails of a mech-on-mech pacific rim bonanza, and just jesus henry christ slow down

almost all of these are textural hijack jobs that don’t really get into the metaphor plain of any of those settings but the game sort-of makes an argument that the texture IS the point and revels in it. It is kind of admirable almost. The same reason why the intro felt boxed in and unmotivated is also why the rest of the game just blasts off of its hinges to the point of complete and self-indulgent tonal abandon. I kinda loved that about it. lady dimitrescu made sure to hold her hat down as she bent forward in mahogany doorways and then suddenly she’s a giant gore dragon and you settle in your temp role as dark souls man with Gun to take her ass down. Excellent??

this rhino rampage impulse to gobble up every horror aesthetic known to man comes to head when the game wrestles with its FPS trappings in what is the most hilarious solution in creating visceral player damage moments. Since most cinematics and the entire game is in first person, that leaves precious little real estate for the devs to work with if they really want to sell griffin’s physical crucible. To wit. This dude’s forearms. Specifically just the forearms. They are MASSACRED throughout the story. The poor man lives out the silent hill dimension of a hand model. by the end cutscene he looks like a neatly dressed desk clerk who had decided to stick both his grabbers into garbage disposal grinders just a few hours prior. like in addition to everything else it manages to rope in that tinge of slapstick violence into its general grievous genre collection except this time it IS for a lack of trying! truly incredible

but wait his miracle clawbacks from everything his poor paws go through are retroactively explained away, yes, but far too vaguely and far too late to console me as I sat and watched everyone’s favorite baby brother reattach an entirely severed hand to his wrist stump by just. placing it on there. and giving it a lil twist ‘n pop terminator-style. and then willing his fingers back into motion right in front of my bulging eyes. this game just does not care. it does not give a shit. and boy howdy will it work to make that into one of its strongest suits

cause generally speaking resident evil was THE premiere vanilla zombie content destinaysh for like a decade, right? and as the rest of the world and mainstream media started encroaching and bloodying its blue ocean it went and just exploded in every single conceivable horror trope direction like a smilodon on catnip. truly, genuinely fascinating franchise moves

yeah the big vampire milf is hot. other news; grass... green. although I do love the implication that her closet is just identical white dresses on a rack. cartoon network-level queen shit

apropos of nothing I’ve said there’s also this hobo dante-devimaycry-magneto man, and I can’t believe this sentence makes sense. anyway he made that “boulder-punching asshole” joke referring to chris redfield and it was probably the only easter egg that really landed for me and boy did it land hard. I have not seen him punch the boulder in re5, mind. I had only heard about how funny it is from friends. and here this dude was, probably in the same exact mindset as me, trying to grapple with that insane mental image. with you on that ian mckellen, loud and clear

I advocate vehemently against the shallow pursuit of hyper photorealism in art direction but I gotta admit it works really in favor of immersive horror like this. the european village shacks especially gave me super unchill flashbacks to my rural countryside retreat in western georgia. I could smell the linoleum dude. not cool

faces are weird in this game. can’t place it. nice textures, good animation, but the modeling template is... uuh strange? and the hair. it has that clustered-flat-clumpy look that harkens to something very specific and unpleasant but I just don’t know what. sue me

griffin’s mental aptitude to take all this shit in stride and end every seemingly traumatizing bossfight involving some fucking eldritch being yet unseen through mortal eyes by essentially throwing out an MCU quip is just. What the fuck dude? I mean that was funny how you casually yelled the f-word at a god damn werewolf that you considered a fairy tale an hour ago but are you like, all right?? it was swinging a sledgehammer the size of a bus at you, ethan

oh oh the vampires are afraid of cold and your last name is winters. I get it haha

Pro Gamer Nitpick: boss fights seemed a bit unnecessarily long?? idk why the youtuber we picked decided the ENTIRE propeller man fight counted towards the vital story scenes he was stitching together, but man mr big daddy lite there really had some get up and go huh??

why are they saying dimitrescu.. like that. is it really how you say that word or is the english language relapsing into its fetish for ending every single word with a consonant at all costs

I’m not saying it’s a dramatic miss of a twist in context of all that’s going on, but the “you died in the last game actually and have been DC’s clayface ever since” revelation is low-key. it’s. it’s just funny to me, I dont know what to say. century-old god-witch fails her evil plan after she mistakenly removes heart from what was definitely NOT just some white guy with eight fingers after all

chris realizing he’s about to become the player character and immediately swapping out his tsundere trenchcoat for the muscletight sex haver sweater

the little bluetooth speaker-sized pipe bomb he taped to his knife was nuclear?? really??? I must have missed something because that is just too good. I buy it though I totally buy it. chris just got them fun-sized nukes in his car trunk for, you guessed it, Situations

anyway this is all for now just wanted to briefly touch on how unexpectedly funny and tonally irreverent this seemingly serious game turned out to be. did not articulate any cathartic story beats whatsoever but my god it had fun connecting those plot points. he just fucking put his severed hand back on his stump and it Just Worked todd howard get in here

[lesserfandomappreciation]

Ariadne and why the Mycenaeans can fuck right off

Warning: Includes brief mentions of r*pe, cultural destruction, ancient patriarchy reminding us why no woman would ever time-travel more than 5 years into the past if that and a great deal of spite for male historians/public education history/mythology classes. 

Possible side effects may include a sudden intense rage for an ancient society equivalent to the innate rage one has for the Romans burning the library of Alexandria, a distinct hatred for ancient men not being able to let anyone have nice things, and a sudden fascination for Minoa. 

Usually, I stick to writing imagines and being happy with that. It’s fun! I love it! But every now and again, in an attempt to escape the crushing forces known as reality and responsibilities I’ll put on a few cutscenes from games I’m: A) Too lazy to play B) Too broke to play C) Too unskilled to play D) All of the above

because cutscenes are free and why torture yourself with impossible levels when its free on Youtube?* *In all seriousness please support video games and video game creators, but no shame to those of us who prefer cutscenes to gameplay.  A few weeks ago I added the game Hades made by Supergiant to the list because the cutscenes were bomb and the characters are so much fun! Intricate as all hell! Hella cute too but that’s unrelated! Now my pretty little simp patootie is especially a big fan of Dionysus and his gorgeous design so the cutscenes with him are my favorite.

I’m re-watching his cutscenes a few nights ago for fun as background when he has a certain line about Theseus. Don’t quote me on this since my memory is foggy at best but roughly it was: Dionysus: Good job with Theseus. Never cared much for him- what he did to that girl was just horrible.*

*I know that’s not his exact line but this is clearly a rant post fueled by spite and ADD-hyper-focused obsessions with ancient civilizations so let’s not worry too too much about the semantics here. 

Now, I like mythology! Personally, I prefer the Norse mythology due to the general lack of very very gross dynamics that several other ancient mythologies seem to include, but I’m decently familiar with Greek mythos. Enough to go - “Why does the God of Wine give a single fuck about the frat bro of Greek heroes being a dick to a woman? Grossness is embedded into the very DNA of all distant relatives of Zeus, a woman being harassed by Zeus or his bastard army is a typical Tuesday in ancient Greece.” 

Wikipedia confirms that Ariadne is the only woman in the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, which I kinda knew already so unless Theseus did some f’ed up shit to some other princess of Minos, Dionysus could only be referring to her. Disregarding what I know about Wikipedia and how it can suck you down the rabbit hole of rabbit holes through sheer fury I stupidly clicked the link to Ariadne’s article. 

By the time we get to the end of this shitstorm, I will have two separate plotlines for two separate stories based of Ariadne, 2k+ notes (and going) on an ancient civilization prior to a week ago I didn’t know existed and within me there will be a rage towards a different ancient civilization I vaguely recall learning about in high school. 

Here’s how this shit went down. 

First of all, apparently after Theseus abandoned Ariadne on an island to die (yep! He did that! To the one person who is the only reason he defeated the minotaur! Fuck this guy.) there are multiple storylines where Dionysus takes a single look at Ariadne and falls in love. 

“A god falls in love?” you say, aware of how most love stories in Greek mythos can be summed up with Unfortunately, Zeus got horny and Hera is a firm believer in victim blaming. “This poor woman is about to go through hell!” I thought so too! And in one variation of the story, Dionysus does his daddy proud by being an absolute tool to Ariadne. In the majority though? He woos the fuck out of her, and ultimately marries her by consent!

Her consent!

In ancient Greece!

The party dude of the Greek pantheon knows more about consent then his father and modern day frat brothers!

Okay! That’s interesting, so I keep reading. 

Ariadne getting hitched to Dionysus is a big deal in Olympus, to the point of getting a crown made of the Aurora Borealis from Aphrodite who is bro-fisting Dionysus, beyond glad she didn’t have to give him the talk about consent. The rest of the gods are pissy especially Hera who doesn’t like Dionysus much since he is the son of Zeus and Semele but they don’t do much. Ariadne ascends to godhood, becomes the goddess of Labyrinths with the snake and bull as her symbol and that’s that on that. 

Colorin, colorado, este cuento se acabado.  And they lived happily ever after. That’s the end of the post right?

NO! Because curiosity has made me their bitch and there’s more to this calling me. 

Also, I was pissed! Still am! Why the fuck-a-doodle-do did I have to learn about the time Poseidon r*ped a priestess instead of the arguably healthiest relationship in the entirety of the pantheon? Why is Persephone and Hades’ story (which has improved since it was first written and I like more modern versions of it, no hate) the only healthy-ish Greek love story I had to learn when Dionysus and Ariadne were right there? The rage of having endured several grade levels of “Zeus got horny and Hera found out” stories in the nightmare of public education led me to keep looking into this. 

There’s this wonderful Youtube channel called Overly Sarcastic Productions that I highly recommend that delves a lot into mythology, and I have seen their bombass video about Dionysus and how his godhood has changed since he was potentially first written in a language we comprehend. 

Did ya’ll know this man is the heir apparent to Zeus? ‘Cause I didn’t know that!

YEA! Dionysus, man of parties, king of hangovers and inducer of madness, is set to inherit the throne of Olympus! Ariadne didn’t husband up the God of Wine, she husbanded up the Prince of Olympus and heir apparent to the throne! Holy shit! No wonder some of the gods were against her marriage to Dionysus - can you imagine the drama of an ex-mortal woman sitting on the Queen’s throne of Olympus? Hera must have been pissed.

BUT WAIT.

There’s more.

The reason we know Dionysus is a very important god and is possibly even more important than we think is because of a handy-dandy language known as Linear B, otherwise known as the language of the Mycenaeans!

For those of you fortunate enough to have normal hobbies and interests, the Mycenaeans were the beta version of the Greeks. Their written language of Linear B is one of, if not the first recorded instance of a written Indo-European language. This language, having been translated, gives us an interesting look at what the Greek gods were like back in their beta-stages before they fixed the coding and released the pantheon. 

Interesting side facts of the Mycenaean Greek gods include:

Poseidon being the head god with an emphasis on his Earthquake aspect, and being much more of a cthonic god in general. 

Take that Zeus, for being so gross. 

The gods in general being more cthonic, as Mycenaeans were obsessed with cthonic gods (probably due to all the earthquakes and natural disasters in Greece and Crete at that time)

Several of the gods and goddesses that we know being listed, alongside some that we don’t consider as important (Dione)

The first mention of Kore, later Persephone, but no Hades because since a lot of gods were cthonic, there would be no need for one, specific cthonic god to represent the majority of death-related rituals.

That’s not what we’re focusing on though! What we’re focusing on is a specific translated portion of Linear B that we have. One of the translated portions of Linear B that for the life of me I can’t find (someone please help me find it and send the link so I can edit this post) says an interesting phrase. “Honey to the gods. Honey to the Mistress of Labyrinths.”

One more time. “Honey to the gods. Honey to the Mistress of Labyrinths.”

Mistress of Labyrinths. 

Now wait a gosh darn minute. Isn’t there a goddess of labyrinths in the Greek mythos? Why yes! Yes there is! Ariadne!

Here’s a question for you. If Ariadne is but a minor god in the pantheon, a wife to a more predominant god, why is it that while all the other gods and goddesses are bunched together in a sentence of praise, the so-called ex-mortal gets a whole-ass sentence to herself singing praises?

And thus, we have arrived to Minoa!

What is Minoa, you ask? Minoa is to Rome what Rome is to us. An old-ass civilization either older than or younger by a hundred years to ancient Egypt. Egypt, that started in 3200 B.C-ish depending on who you ask. That’s old. Old as balls. They were contemporaries to their trading partner, Egypt until 1450 BC-ish. A 2000 year old civilization.

Minoa was founded on the island of Crete, and was by what artifacts we have found a merchant civilization with its central economy centered on the cultivation of saffron and the development of bronze/iron statues of bulls. Most of what we know about them comes from artifacts and frescoes found on Crete that managed to survive everything else I will mention later, but what matters is that we know a few things about them. 

Obsessed with marine life for some time, given their pottery. 

Had the first palaces in all of Europe, some of them ridiculously big. 

Wrote in Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphs, both still untranslated languages. 

Had a ritual involving jumping over a bull, for some reason. 

Firm believers in “Suns out, Tits out.”

You’d think I’m kidding on the last one but no! No no no! All the women apparently rocked the tits-out look in Minoa!

^^^^One of many, many Minoan works featuring women giving their titties fresh air. ^^^^

“Wait a second Pinks! What does this have to do with Ariadne being the Mistress of labyrinths?”

Well you see dear wonderful darling, while we know very little about Minoan religion because Mycenaeans (we will get to those bastards in a second), we do know this:

All the religious figures appear to be exclusively women.

The most important figures of their religion seem to be goddesses as there are few artifacts featuring male gods.

Because of the religion, the culture may have been an equal society or even a matriarchy! Historians who are male aren’t sure. 

A frankly ridiculous amount of their temples, including the ones in caves in the middle of fuck-all feature labyrinths. A lot of labyrinths!

Their head god is a goddess! Whose temples have labyrinths and whose main symbols are snakes and bulls. Who do we know is a) the mistress of labyrinths and b) is symbolized a lot by snakes and bulls?

ARI-fucking-ADNE THAT’S WHO!

Ariadne didn’t upgrade by marrying the prince of Olympus! Dionysus wifed up possibly the most important goddess in all of Crete and becoming her boy-toy! 

I’m not even kidding, most Minoan depictions of the goddess’ consort features a boy/man who cycles through the stages of death. Dionysus himself in several myths goes through the same cycle - life, being crushed, death, rebirth, repeat.  Cycles the consort goes through in Minoan legend depictions too!

Okay, that’s great, but what does that have to do with the Mycenaeans? Why do you want to single-handedly go back in time and strangle the beta-Greeks with the nearest belt?

Everything I just said about Ariadne being a Minoan goddess, the Mistress of Labyrinths being hella important on Minoa, is all theoretical. The Mycenaeans are partially to blame for making it theoretical. 

Minoa thrived for 2000 years but it had a lot of issues, mostly caused by natural disasters. Towards the end of their civilization (1500 BC-ish), the nearby island of Thera, today known as Santorini, decided to blow up. The island was a hella-active volcano that when erupted, destroyed a lot. 

How big was the eruption? Well when Pompeii was wasted by Mt. Vesuvius, the blast was heard from roughly 120 miles away, 200 km. 

The blast on Thera was heard from 3000 miles away. 4800 km away.

Fuck me, the environmental effects of the explosion were felt in imperialistic CHINA.

Holy shit that would waste anybody! And it did! Minoa went from being a powerhouse in the Mediterranean to scrambling to recover from losing 40,000 citizens and who knows how many cities. Tsunamis may have followed the blast, further destroying ports which for a navy-powerhouse of an island nation is a bad thing and the theorized temperature drops caused by a cloud of ash lingering for a while would have destroyed crops for the year.

Minoa was fucked. 

The Mycenaeans and all their bullshit made it worse.

Up until a few hundred years prior to Thera’s explosion, Minoan artifacts don’t depict much in terms of military power. Why would it? Crete is a natural defense post. Sheer cliffs, high mountains and a few semi-fortified areas would make it pointless to invade. It’s only when the Mycenaeans in all their bullshit decided to attack/compete that Minoa really needed any army to speak of.

Guess who decided to invade while Minoa was reeling from an incredibly shitty year? Mycenaea!

Guess who won?

Also Mycenaea!

Nobody knows how this shit went down though because wouldn’t you know it, the Mycenaeans in all their superiority-complex glory decided to destroy most written accounts about Minoa, a good junk of the temples and culturally eliminated most of Minoan beliefs. 

Minoa isn’t even the real name of the civilization! It’s just the name Arthur Evans, the guy who re-motivate interest in Minoan archaeology, gave to the civilization because the writings that would have included the name of the civilization were destroyed.

“That sucks!” Fuck yes that sucks! “What does that have to do with Ariadne though?”

Oh ho ho. Strap in because you’re about to be pissed. 

Those of us unfortunate enough to be aware of all the bullshit the Christians pulled on the European pagan belief system are familiar with the concept of cultural, religious destruction. There’s a special name for it I don’t know but if I did I would curse it to be absorbed by the horrendous will of fungi. 

An example: Christianity was not the most popular of religions amongst the Vikings. A monotheistic religion that is heavily controlled did not strongly appeal to anyone with a pantheon as rad as the Norse one. 

In order to appeal to the Vikings, what monks would do is they would write down traditionally Viking stories which up until that point were orally passed down. Beowulf, the story of the most Viking Viking to have every Vikinged, was one of these first stories. 

However! Did these monks write Beowulf as closely to the original oral transcript as possible? Of course not! They took liberties! While Norse features such as trolls and dragons and all sorts of Norse magic occur, there is a lot of Christian features added in. 

This happened across all Pagan religions that Christianity came into contact with in Europe. Stories would be altered when written down to be more Christian (this happened to the Greek Pantheon too btw), holidays that were Pagan magically lined up with ones the Vatican just happened to suddenly have. Even names of mythological figures were taken and added onto Christian figure names. Consequently, a lot of pagan religions they did this to got erased over time, with many of their traditions and details being lost forever, and the details we do know being tinted by Christianity.

The Mycenaeans were likely no different. 

Minoa and Mycenaea were as culturally opposite as can be. Minoa is theorized to be a matriarchal or equal society*. Mycenaea and most of early Greece absolutely was not. In fact, during early stages of their religion where they believed in reincarnation, the Mycenaeans believed the worst thing to come back as was a woman. 

Did you get that? With your options ranging from man to ever single animal on Earth, a woman was ranked as beneath literal animals in Mycenaean society.

Fuck the Mycenaeans.

* This is not to say Minoa was without fault, as a society that is matriarchal or equal can still have rampant issues such as privilege, classism, racism, sexism and more, but when history has a shortage of civilizations that didn’t treat women like shit, you find yourself rooting for them more. 

 What do you do then, when you take over a society that is very much the opposite of a nightmare of a patriarchy? You fold their beliefs into your own to bait them into yours. Going back to the Linear B line about “Mistress of Labyrinths” that line would/could have been an early tactic of incorporating Minoan belief into Mycenaean belief. Other goddesses and gods were made into aspects of Mycenaean gods. Bristomartis, the Minoan goddess of the hunt, would become Artmeis. Velchanos, a god of the sky, would become Zeus. 

With more time, the religion shifted more into Mycenaean and eventually into ancient Greece as we know it. Through trade other gods and goddesses would continue to shift and change, some being straight up imported (Aphrodite for example). Dionysus himself changed a lot too, going from a God representing freedom and attracting slaves, women and those with limited power into his cult, to a God of parties for the wealthy. 

Theseus and the Minotaur was a myth likely based on a Mycenaean myth based on a Minoan myth that changes Ariadne from an important, possibly the important goddess of an ancient religion and relegates her to a side character in a pantheon so vast that she would be lost within it. 

All of this brings us to today. Today, where as soon as work ended I spent most of the day, as well as the past two days, looking up everything I can on Minoan civilization and added it to my notes. Spite is fueling me to write two possible different stories for two different fandoms where Minoa dunks of Mycenaea and it is giving me life. Expect an update within the next two weeks folks as I lose control of my writing life once more. 

In summary: Ariadne deserves more respect, fuck the public education system for skipping over the good parts of Greek mythology instead of the r*pey as shit parts, the Mycenaeans can eat my shorts, and a world were Minoa became the predominant power instead of Greece would be an amazing world to live in.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. Pink out. 

[zhowongli]

just a kiss (but it’s all of me)

notes: happy halloween! inspired by 3 second lunch by tobina touya. tw: death, depressive thoughts, ed (slightly)

wc: 3.9k

summary: his kisses are addictive, but you find that it’s becoming increasingly harder and harder to live without them. incubus!kenma AU - kenma/oc

If anyone tells you that you will encounter an injured man who will change your life on your way home from just another day of work, you would have laughed in their face. Your life is not a fairy tale, and you don't expect a stranger to magically appear in your life like you're the main character of a shoujo manga. You are just another one in a billion on this earth, wandering your way through life, going through the motions you’ve learned to accept but never love. 

But here you are, standing in front of the alleyway on your way home, umbrella clutched in your hands to shield you from the heavy rainstorm, staring into the golden cat-like eyes of a stranger. He lays on the ground, eyes analytical and fierce, and you don’t know why you’re approaching him but there’s something about him that pulls you towards him. He doesn't look injured, but he looks exhausted and weak just from the lines under his eyes and his pale, almost gray skin. It makes you think he's not entirely human because he's so intense, his eyes like molten gold and his skin like ashen pale. You try not to mind it.

Like you would approach a cat, you calmly lower yourself to his eye-level and blink slowly in between breaks of eye contact. When he drops his guarded eyes and eases his tense posture just slightly but remains unmoving otherwise, you slowly approach him. 

You sigh softly before you place your umbrella on top of him, not sure if it will do much to protect him from the rain, before you turn to leave. Just because you don’t want to wake up to another day doesn’t mean that this stranger necessarily doesn't too. 

He loosely grabs your sleeve and jerks you back as you leave, and your eyes widen at the sudden movement. He is silent in his movements, and it catches you by surprise. When you turn to face him again, you meet his messy blond ends and intense golden eyes searching yours as if he’s looking for something, anything. Maybe he finds whatever he’s looking for in your tired eyes or your exhausted aura, but when the strike of lightning hits, he finally breaks the silence with a simple question.

“Want to play a game?” he asks hesitantly, body stiff and eyes cautious, the light from the lightning amplifies the gold in his eyes and sends a shiver down your spine. Despite his wary eyes, there are flickers of hunger in them as he stares at your lips, and it takes you aback because he’s looking at you, the whole you, with such intensity that it makes your heart and the butterflies in your stomach flutter.

You search his eyes, and you know this is a bad idea. Maybe you’re just tired, tired of your mundane days, tired of living but never feeling alive, maybe this is what you need all along. 

“Okay,” you whisper. 

~♡~♡~♡~

The rain doesn't let up as you lead the stranger back to your apartment. Maybe it is a bad idea, but apparently, you are full of bad ideas today anyway so what's one more anyway?

When you unlock the door to your small apartment, you gesture him in. He looks lost, standing in the doorway, slowly taking everything in, so you just sigh and take off your shoes. Grabbing a towel for the both of you, you find him still standing in the doorway, water forming a small puddle at his feet.

"I don't bite, you know?" you joke sarcastically as you hand him a towel.

He stares at you before he takes the towel and mumbles a thank you. Following you, he takes off his shoes and dries his hair, eyes never leaving you. You gesture for him to take a seat on the couch before you disappear to change and find him some clothes. You suppose this is when years of shopping for oversized, baggy clothes come in handy. 

After he changes into your spare clothes, you find that his wet hair is wetting the clothes again. 

"You need some help with that, or?" you ask, vaguely gesturing to his hair.

"No," he mumbles softly as he roughly dries his hair. 

It's kind of adorable, you think, because he looks so clumsy doing it, but you're not the one to push so you just let him be. After settling in new clothes and two cups of warm cocoa in front of the two of you, you finally address the question. 

"So," you start curiously as you look at him, noting his eyes always trail back to your lips, "How do you play this game?"

He stares at you as if he's trying to read you, as if he's trying to figure out the words inside his head. You only sip your cocoa in silence as you let him formulate his thoughts. Having some temporary company is nice, you think, regardless of circumstances. 

Eventually, he settles on a stiff, "kiss?" as he hides behind his hair. 

You blink twice before looking at him, not quite sure if you're hearing this right. "You want to… kiss?" you ask just to be sure. 

"Yeah, I feed on kisses," he nods, "And I could take away your sadness."

"Oh," you gasp softly, "You… can?"

He nods, "Something like that."

"Alright, make me feel something then, Pudding Head," you agree almost immediately, half-joking and half hoping he really could take away the constant haze that plagues your mind.

He looks miffed at your comment, but his fingers brush against your lip for a moment before he slides his hand behind your ear and pulls you in for a kiss.

Your eyes flutter open as his lips touch yours because he knocks the air out of your lungs. This isn't your first kiss, but there is a spark in your soul that ignites the drumming of your pounding heart. There is something about the way he kisses that takes away the constant voice in the back of your mind and the heaviness in your chest. It is a swift kiss, and when he pulls back, he mutters a soft thank you for the meal. 

You don't miss the way the lines under his eyes disappear or the color returning to his skin, but as the rain turns into a small drizzle, you take another sip of your cocoa and think that can be a conversation for another day.

~♡~♡~♡~

Unlike your initial thought of having temporary company, he stays. You learn that his name is Kenma and he has addictive kisses, but he doesn't tell you anything else. You shrug because everyone has secrets they don't want to tell, so you never push it. He doesn't ask anything of you either, and it's kind of comforting to have someone here who isn't constantly prying something out of you, trying to fix you. 

You quickly rope him into helping out with your house chores. There's something so domestic about the way that he slowly accumulates a set of silverware and toiletries that are strictly his, the way that he learns how to brew your favorite tea, the way that his body ends up curling against yours on cold nights. There's something so familiar about the way that you learn he prefers hot cocoa to tea, that he can be so absorbed in a new game he forgets to eat, that there's a sense of intimacy when he eventually lets you tie his hair. These little things fall into place so naturally that it both warms and frightens you. 

Just as quickly as you roped Kenma into doing chores, you learn how to play video games as Kenma buys new consoles and games. There are soft brushes of shoulders, twinkling eyes, and borderline evil laughter as you two fall in a natural pattern of sniping an enemy. You think you realize how easy it is to fall into a new world as you continue to level up in the games, how easy it is to fall when you see concentrated golden eyes from the corner of yours and the same adoring eyes and soft smile when you catch him looking at you when you beat him for once. 

You're not sure if this could be called a game, but your daily exchange of kisses becomes somewhat of a comforting ritual. There's no feeling behind it because you are both just benefiting from it, but somewhere along the lines, you realize that one swift kiss per day becomes two when you begin stealing kisses, and it turns into three when he steals them back. Before long, it becomes just lingering kisses where it leaves the two of you gasping for air, hearts matching in rapid succession and eyes filling with forming feelings with every touch. 

You pretend like you don't notice these changes as the two of you continue with your lives. 

It's raining again when the two of you return from your errands. If he is staying here, he has to at least help you carry groceries that somehow feels too heavy for you now. After changing into comfortable clothes and nursing a cup of hot cocoa for him and tea for you, he breaks the thin wall between the two of you after a moment of comfortable silence. "Why did you let me in?"

You stare at him and laugh. "Isn't it a little too late to be asking that?"

He shrugs, "You don't let many people in."

"You're right," you agree. You notice his still dripping hair, black roots now outgrowing his blond tips, and sigh, "Here, let me."

He glances at you swiftly before he hands you the cat towel you've designated for him. As you dry his hair, he closes his eyes and relaxes into your touch.

"Maybe I was trying to live," you finally whisper. 

He opens an eye to peek at you before closing it again as you work on his hair. "I could have been a serial killer for all you know."

"Maybe…" you continue, heart heavy and voice soft as you whisper the words that have long torment your mind, "Maybe I wouldn't have minded that either." 

There's a pause of silence sans the gameplay music in the background as your ruffle his blond hair. It's a sentiment you've never said aloud, and frankly, you don't think he will answer.

But he does. "What if I do end up killing you?" 

"Well, death by you wouldn't be so bad," you laugh airily. "Please tell me it'll be peaceful though." 

You have an inkling of why he asks you when you notice that along with your overwhelming thoughts, your body also thins and you grow more and more tired with each kiss. You're sure he notices too by the way he begins to reject kisses from you and how he looks at you with sadness and frustration in his eyes. His skin begins to lose its glow and the tired lines under his eyes are forming again. It breaks your heart a little because the walls he let down are building back up, and you find that's more heartbreaking than what's going on with you. 

"Kenma," you ask softly as you rest your head on his chest and the sound of his heartbeat mixes in with the drizzling rainstorm outside. 

He hums in response, and you feel the vibration of his body. He's warm, you think.

"Are you going to leave?" you question inaudibly. 

He stiffens as you prop yourself up to look at him. You can see the ceases forming in his forehead, and his mouth twisting into a small pout like he always does when he's thinking. 

Before he can say yes, you quickly add, "Don't go."

He stares at you, and when his eyes trail to your thinning body that no longer fits your clothes and your hollowing cheeks, his eyes look crestfallen.

"I'm going to kill you," he finally whispers, eyes adverting from yours.

You take a deep breath and smile softly, "I think death by kisses isn't too bad."

You see the furrows of his eyes and the twists of his lips thinning together in annoyance. He's about to burst, you think, because he's always so expressive with his emotions. He grabs your arm, anger in his eyes and it contorts on his face. "I don't want you to die!"

You tilt your head and look into his eyes. He always has the prettiest eyes, you think, but you find that when he's honest like this, his eyes become more animated. He becomes more animated, more human.

"I want to kiss you," you tug at his arm. "I want to kiss you whenever, wherever, until the end of time." 

When he looks at you, you can see the forlorn on his face. You can see the unshed tears and his hesitation. You are selfish, you know, but you find that a world without the comforting clicks of consoles in the living room, soft laughter in the kitchen, and hushed conversations in the bedroom too painful to go back to. 

It’s strange, you think, because death has always been an invasive, lingering thought in your mind. It is inevitable, but as you stare at Kenma, laying next to you in the bed you share, you begin to wish you had more time. More, more, more. 

You just want these moments to last forever. 

But when you see the glimpses of yourself in the mirror, your hands touching your hollowing cheeks and glassy eyes, and you know time is running out. Your time is ticking, and these peaceful moments will not last much longer. The thought of death comes running back, crashing into your senses at full force, and you have to remind yourself to breathe because for once, you wish you will wake up the next morning, and the morning after, and all the ones after, right next to him.

But time has never been on your side, so you can only look at Kenma next to you longingly and bite your lips to hold back the tears in your eyes. You made this decision the moment you accepted the game, and you lost the moment when kissing him became a loving gesture rather than an exchange of terms. You lost the moment he made your heart flutter and you more alive than you've been living. 

Kenma jolts almost immediately as a tear falls from your eyes. He’s never good with words, but when his hands clutch yours silently and his concerned eyes meet yours, you realize that maybe this is a game where you both lost by the way his eyes said the three words you've tucked in your heart and sealed on your lips.

“I do too," he finally admits quietly.

He knows, you think. He has always been extremely perceptive of you and your emotions, because he can always guess what you’re thinking, because he always watches you with something in his eyes when he thinks you’re not looking.

“Let’s stop,” he says softly. 

“No,” you whisper, voice cracking, as you grip his hand, eyes pleading because you don’t think you can live without him anymore.

“Let’s stop.” He says with finality in his voice, unwavering, unmoving, almost cold, and it scares you because this is the reality that you don’t want, this is the ending that you wanted to avoid. 

You only continue to shake your head no because you find that your voice has given out on you. 

"Live," he pleads softly, "You deserve to live."

There is a heavy silence in the room, and from the way he curls and uncurls his fist and the avoidance in his eyes, you can almost hear the "without me" at the end of his sentence. 

"Then…" you start as your hand gently uncurls his fist, "Let me have a last rematch, okay?" 

He stares at you warily, but his eyes soften as he leans in and rests his head on your thin shoulders. "I can never really say no to you, huh?" he scoffs softly, voice gentle and sad. 

You wrap your thinning arms around him, holding onto him like it's the last time, like this moment will end if you don't, and rests your head against his. "Guess I'm the final boss you can't ever beat," you tease lightly. 

He doesn't answer, but he returns your embrace, holding you as if you're going to disappear, as if he's trying to ingrain the contours of your body against his into his mind. There is a sense of finality as the light rain outside finally lets up and the stars and moon slowly peek through the cloudy skies. 

You reluctantly let go of him to stand up, legs slightly wobbling as you do, and hold out your hand to him, fingers bonier than you remember. But he takes your hand without hesitance, and you find a smile fighting its way to your face.

"Let's go, adventurer, the time to face off the final boss is here," you giggle lightly despite your heavy heart. "Oh, wait! Let me get changed!" you exclaim suddenly because you realize this really will be the last time.

He hums in acknowledgment, and you turn to pick out your favorite white dress. You change into your dress, fitting a lot looser than it did before, and you take a deep breath because you cannot cry right now. 

You learn that despite his calm demeanor and permanent energy-saving mode, he is very expressive in his emotions. When his golden eyes dull as he poorly attempts to mask the sadness in his eyes, you smile because you think you've gotten quite good at reading him too. You pinch his cheek to get his attention, and when his eyes finally meet yours, his pout dissipates and turns into a soft smile. 

"Well, how do I look?" you ask as you twirl and spin around, showing off your dress to Kenma like you did many times before.

And like all the times before, he still looks at you like the first time you showed him, with a soft smile and even softer eyes. "Beautiful," he answers as if the loose fit of the dress or your glass bones and skin doesn't matter, as if he just sees you behind your breakable state.

You flash the brightest smile you could muster. "Good."

"Where are we going?" he asks as he follows your lead. 

He knows this route by heart. Your favorite place in the world is the flower field on the outskirts of town because you love how the light blues of the forget-me-nots contrast with the darkness of the sky and the glow of the stars. As you reach your destination, you plop down softly on the grass beside the forget-me-nots, not minding the cold from the dew.

He takes a seat beside you, eyes following your movements as you pluck some flowers from the bush. He raises an eye at you as you continue to weave flowers together and hum your favorite soundtrack from his favorite game, but he watches you tenderly, desperately, trying to memorize the sound of your voice and the movements of your body. You ignore his stares because you know if you meet his eyes now, you will cry. So you keep weaving forget-me-nots into two small rings before you slide one onto your finger and give one to him. 

"Take this adventurer, for it will aid you in your final battle!" you tease as you place one into his hand, touch lingering for far longer than intended. 

"And what do I need this for?" he plays along and chuckles softly. 

You stare at him under the moonlight. Much like the night you met him, his eyes are intense, but they are more warm orange than cold gold. He only looks at you and not your lips, like he only sees you in this world surrounded by stars. Like the very first night, your heart beats apace like it always does when you're with him.  

But unlike the first night, the rain finally stopped so you can see the love that overshadows the hunger in his eyes, and his initial cautious movements of hesitation are now soft movements of fondness. You grin happily because you think you finally understand what it means to be alive. 

"So you will remember me," you say softly as you lean your forehead against his. "So you will remember that I lived."

He stares at you in disbelief before he closes his eyes and breathes out, "I don't think I can forget."

You smile once again, and you find that you are falling into the deepest part of him. Your heart beats rapidly, and when you look at him for the last time, you find that his eyes shine brighter than the stars. He will be upset, you think, but you find that this is the ending you want, this is your happily ever after. 

So with the three words that threaten to spill from your lips on your mind, you kiss him deeply, madly, like there's no tomorrow. Your heart soars and your heartbeat resounds in your soul, and this is what it means to be alive. To love, and to be loved. 

As your conscious fades, you only catch glimpses of wide cat-like eyes and his arms desperately trying to hold onto you. You wish you could tell him to smile. You see playbacks of sleeping in past noon on Sundays and playing video games in midnight lights. You feel the soft brushes of hand and the cold kisses that eventually set fire to your soul. You see him, just him, in his soft smile and warm eyes. 

And you smile. 

~♡~♡~♡~

"Kenma," Kuroo knocks on the door and enters his room. 

Black roots are long outgrown, and his loose hair makes his ashen body look even more sunken, more fragile. 

"You need to eat," Kuroo urges softly, desperately.

"Not hungry," Kenma finally answers, voice weak from the lack of use, despite the grumble from his stomach.

"It's been months," Kuroo pleads, "Eat something, please."

Kenma’s dull yellow eyes flicker to Kuroo, body too heavy, too painful to move. "Thanks, Kuroo," he repeats softly again, "But I'm not hungry."

It's a lie. Kuroo knows it, he knows it, everyone who sees his ghastly form and hears his rumbling stomach knows it. But he continues to ignore Kuroo's begging eyes and returns his gaze on the wilted forget-me-nots. He twirls what's left of the ring in his hands, and much like it's namesake, he cannot forget, does not want to forget. 

He remembers your tired eyes the first night in the rain and how they begin to sparkle with each day. He remembers watching your crooked smile become toothy grins and your forced laughter becomes loud guffaws. He remembers you twirling in your white dress, and though you didn't tell him, he knows it's your favorite because it's the first dress that left him speechless. 

He hates it. He hates how the sound of your laughter still rings in his mind as he tries to remember the way your warmth and body feels against his. He hates that when he closes his eyes, all he sees is you, you, you, and his heart breaks again because all he has is the memories in his head but never you. 

It's okay, he reassures himself, because as he looks at the ticking of the clock, counting down each second, he knows he will see you again soon.

Much like all the other nights, he thinks of you and your smile, but for the first time in months, he smiles softly as he slips into a peaceful sleep. 

~♡~♡~♡~

because you're here, in a world where my existence has no meaning, i can laugh.

[crispylycoris]

Above is a drawing I did for another, currently ongoing, prompt list! This is for week one of the childhood memories 2021 prompts! I’m actually posting this one as it’s going on because I reached the character limit for the post on Instagram 😭 So I’ll go into more detail in this post under the read more!

✨✨✨✨✨

The prompt for week one was toys/games. And when I think back on some toys and games I think about my GameBoy Advance SP which I think was my first gaming system. It’s like the one in the drawing. Adorned with Pokémon stickers! 😊 I actually used mine as reference and drew the game that was in it when I grabbed it and it was Pokémon pinball: ruby and sapphire edition! And I know there’s a black boarder around the screen but I remembered it as I was finishing coloring Pokémon pinball and it was too late 😭. And I had shared games with my brother, who had his own GBA SP, but his was silver.

For the content of the picture I’ll start from the top and go counterclockwise and I’ll share my memories with the games:

✨On the top we have a little Spongebob waving. 👋[I don’t recall ever playing a GBA Spongebob game, maybe? But he’s here because I had one of those white game cards that was just videos! I think one of the videos was the bubble stand one! Because of it’s a giraffe. And I think another one may have been the one where Squidward gets into an accident or something and Spongebob and Patrick take care of him because of firmly grasp it!]

✨Then of course we have Claire from Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town. [I know it’s like now Story of Seasons, but you know, not at the time kinda thing. Anyways, my grandpa, or 公公 (gung gung) (according to google that’s how you write and spell it), got me this game as a kid and I loved it 💖 It’s a wonderful game and I love the art and stuff and caring for the cute animals, the people, the aesthetic, and almost everything about it 🥰 It’s what pulled me into the series and into farming Sims like Stardew 💕 I think I’ve played this game into the 10s of years. And I chose Grey ❤️ I’ll always treasure this game 🥰].

✨Next is a pink lightning bolt symbol ⚡️ from the evergirls game. [I don’t remember what this game was about or even know why I picked this game out. I don’t even know if I completed the game. I think there was some character customization?]

✨Then we have the girl and a dog from the Dogz GBA game. 🐕 [I only vaguely remember this game but it had cute art and I loved it. Though I think it had short gameplay 🙁 I wanted to play with my pup forever... But I think it ends after a certain amount of time? I wanna play it again. And I remember carrying the dog for a bit! And also playing the reversi mini game].

✨At the bottom is Cream the Rabbit from Sonic [I barely remember anything about the Sonic game I played. I think that it was one of my brother’s games. Like I remember her and a light blue character I think was Chao? I remember running from Dr. Eggman as he was chasing me in a flying machine and the art was nice. 😊].

✨Then we have Leaf and a Bulbasaur! 🍃 [I think that Pokémon Fire Red was the first game I had! And bulbasaur was my first ever starter 🥰 But I also remember I was playing a new file in the car and I had over-written all of my progress 💔😭. My second starter is technically charmander... And I remember battling my brother and losing a lot. But I beat one of his Pokémon with a metronome toxic once and that’s memorable between the two of us 😊 I think I still lost though lol].

✨Then we have Michelangelo (or Mikey) from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. [I think this was one of my brother’s games because I don’t recall playing much of it. I picked to draw Mikey because I recall the sewer skateboarding mini game! And I also remember that one time I got some kinda score on it and bowed and like tripped or something and hurt my lip lol].

✨To the right of Mikey we have Mega Man. [This was another one of I borrowed my brother’s game. I honestly don’t know what Mega Man game this is. Maybe Battle Network? I only really remember Roll and a cactus enemy].

✨Then we have the girl character from Mario Golf Advanced Tour. [Again a game I borrowed from my brother. And I guess the girl’s name is Ella? I just looked it up. Anyways I don’t remember progressing the story all too much. I thought it was really cute. And I drew her crying because I only remember getting bogeys lol].

✨Next to her we have a cat as a representative for Catz. [Another game borrowed from my brother. I’m sad I don’t remember much of this game, but it’s probably like Dogz where it’s short but you take care of a cat].

✨Then we have Spyro. [Probably also a game from my brother. I don’t have like any recollection of playing Spyro games at all. Like I think I played as him as he was defending something on a wooden bridge as things were getting shot at him. I don’t know. I included him anyways].

✨To his right we have my game chest which holds some of my games! I painted it myself!

✨And in the center is my red GBA SP! It’s playing Pokémon pinball (I think the Ruby level). And on it you can see that I have Cyndaquil, Chikorita, and Eevee stickers. [I loved this game so much and played it a lot but I don’t think I ever actually got to catch Jirachi 🥲].

I had other GBA games I played but might not have remembered them. Some I do vaguely remember are finding Nemo, Winnie the Pooh, SMB 3, That so Raven, Pet resort, Pokémon games, other harvest moon games, hot potato, and some kinda game that had other games like a racing one and dig dug.

Other games I played in general were like Jack and Dexter, computer games, and maybe Raymon?

✨✨✨✨✨✨

And in terms of the drawing, I’m happy with how it turned out! And I think I’m gonna do lighting like how I did with Leaf’s hair from now on! Sneaking hearts in where I can. And I have just noticed that I messed up Cream by drawing on the wrong layer 😭. But I think that the colors remained pretty much consistent from what I had on my laptop at least.

If you read all that, thank you for enjoying my art and taking a trip down memory lane with me! 💕 Have a wonderful week! 😊