#maybe even tumblr until i can play reload

[mymp3]

okay I got feelings out of my system. I'm a changed man now.

[aoitrinity]

Why Do I Have to Feel Like a Fucking Conspiracy Theorist -- OR -- How I Find a Semblance of Peace on Sunday Night

I’m also going to start this out with a GIANT DISCLAIMER.

I am about to theorize about what may have happened to the SPN finale. I have absolutely no insider knowledge. I am merely speculating here based on the panels and a bunch of Twitter and Tumblr posts that I have been reading over the last few days. If you are not in a good place to read such things, TURN BACK PLEASE. Go take care of yourself and your mental health. You and your feelings are valid and deserve to be handled gently right now.

Additionally, if you are here to give me shit for being unhappy with the ending, please walk away as well. I am here to reach out and share my feelings with people who might be struggling to make sense of something that upset some of us in very deep-seated ways. I am not here to bother you or critique you or tell you that you’re lesser because you liked the ending. If you felt it was good, then go enjoy it.

Long-ass post beneath the cut, everyone.

Alrighty folks...I debated whether or not to do this because I have been spiraling down the hell that is the SPN finale since Thursday. The travesty of what happened to our show--to this beloved show that seemed to have been so perfectly and precisely written for at least four years that it had basically already paved its own tarmac on which to land its plane and we all thought we knew exactly what we were going to get. And then we didn’t. We had a nigh Cas-less and entirely Eileen-less ending. We had no goodbye between Cas and Jack. We had Dean dying young after finally finding his freedom, only to ascend to heaven with no one but Bobby. We had the weird, weird, weird incest-y death scene. We had the bridge crane shot thing because...sure. You do you, Robert Singer.

It was so terrible, so truly awful, and I couldn’t seem to square any of it with anything we had known going in. I tossed and turned and cried and didn’t eat or sleep all weekend. I spent hours just reloading tumblr and twitter, going to the Misha panel, reading and reading and listening and trying to figure out what the fucking hell is going on because I needed to know exactly where to direct my anger. And after a fuckton of talking with @winchester-reload, I think we have at least a very plausible theory about what happened here--I’m laying it out below as much for my own peace of mind as anything else, because otherwise all of these thoughts are going to continue to spin around in my head for weeks and I won’t be able to do jack shit.

Now to start off, unfortunately I do think Dean was slated to die from the beginning of this season. I don’t know WHY they thought that was the best way to go, and I wish they had listened to Jensen on this one. Part of me wonders if it was an order from on high based on the discussion between Becky and Chuck earlier this season--the writers knew it wasn’t a great choice, but they were trying to signal to us that we should feel free to write our own endings to the story because they’d be better (I can wax poetic on the signs of why many of the writers probably wanted Dean to live, but that’s another post). I’m not defending that choice by any means, just laying it out there that I think they didn’t necessarily all want to kill Dean like they did.

However, what I THINK I can explain now is what happened with Misha and why we got so jerked around with Cas’s story. Consider what we know (I can’t immediately source all of it, but I did my best):

At the end of episode 15x19, Lucifer has been returned to the Empty after being killed AGAIN. He talks with Cas. Maybe harasses him a bit about Dean, idk. But then...Jack shows up. New God Jack. And he picks up Cas and pulls him out of the Empty, leaving Lucifer behind, because seriously. Fuck that guy (also leaving behind his abusive father is character growth for Jack, so yay for that).

-Misha was contracted to film 15 episodes this season. He was only in 14.

-Misha told Michael Sheen he had to go back to film 1.5 episodes after the shutdown in March. (Starts at 6:13)

-Misha was in Vancouver during filming of the finale.

-Mark P said at Darklight Con that the last scene he filmed was with Alex and Misha (and Mark P was only in episode 19).

-Misha implied that he was present for various filming moments, including Dean’s death (start at 35:15), and said that it felt like a “mini-reunion.”

-Various sources have mentioned that Jimmy Novak was supposed to be in the finale.

-After episode 18, Stands tweeted a fan who was angered and hurt by Cas's death that they could talk about the “bury the gays” issue after the finale aired.

-In episode 19 we know there were takes of the parking lot scene where the only thing fans observing could hear was Dean yelling “CAS” at Chuck (fuck I can’t find this one right now, but it’s definitely out there)

-Also in episode 19, we had a very strange, awkward montage at the end of the episode.

-In episode 20, we know there were a FUCKTON of missing scenes

-We also had no opening montage, but three other separate montages.

-Carry on My Wayward Son was played TWICE, back-to-back at the end of the episode.

-Episode 20 was shorter than normal and had surprisingly little dialogue. The pacing was VERY strange.

-The cast and crew has been almost completely silent about the finale since it came out. When they have spoken, it has been with an awkward excuse of “Uh...COVID?”

-Samantha Ferris has specifically noted that, despite the Harvelle’s being back in play and a big heaven reunion having been planned pre-COVID, neither she nor Chad Lindberg received any such invitation to return.

-Cas and Dean POP Funko figures were pictured together in a replica of Harvelle’s in 15x04.

NOW with all of this in mind (and I’m probably missing some stuff too because there is so much--feel free to add on to that list), please bear with me because here is what I think we were SUPPOSED to get POST-COVID (after it was determined that the reunion couldn’t happen because of the virus):

In episode 20, we start with our NORMAL OPENING MONTAGE, like always. It traces everything that happened during the season. We are reminded of Cas. The confession. Rowena. Eileen. Jack. Billie, God, the Empty, all of it. 

Things then follow along in the episode where they did up until Dean dies and wakes up in heaven. After his conversation with Bobby, he drives off to find Cas (who, in the script, was listed as “Jimmy Novak” in order to protect against script leaks--who wouldn’t want to do their best to avoid spoilers about the finale with the wrapping of a fifteen-year show?). He does indeed find Cas. We get Dean’s end of the confession. Hell, maybe we even get a kiss. And then Dean sets up his new heaven home in the recreated Harvelle’s. Maybe Cas even fucking moves in. 

Years pass. We get Sam having his life on Earth (still can’t explain why they cut Eileen and couldn’t even have Sam signing vaguely to the blurry brunette in the background; if anyone wants to take that on, go for it). Eventually, Cas tells Dean that it’s almost Sam’s time. Dean takes Baby and goes to meet Sam at the bridge. The cover of Carry on My Wayward Son plays during this much shorter sequence. End of episode.

But that’s not what we got. Instead, much of what I just wrote about was excised from the episode. The remnants were stitched together after shooting had been wrapped. Filler was added in the form of montages and long, unnecessary extra shots to get the episode to something approaching a reasonable length. 

But why? Why would they spend all that time and money and quarantining on Misha, only to almost completely cut him out of the finale? I struggled with why the fuck the CW would want this mammoth show to go down as the greatest queerbait in TV history when they had the chance to do something truly beautiful and monumental with it? It couldn’t just be sheer homophobia, right? Well, I think that factored into it, my friends, but here is where my head is at right now.

It was about cold, hard cash.

Now I could be wrong, but this is what I’m thinking at the moment: Supernatural is going off of the air. Supernatural, the CW’s cash cow for fifteen years. Sure there is still money to be made on blu-rays and merchandise and cons...but they need people watching their shows. They need that sweet advertising revenue. And you know what show they have about to premiere? A show that could, potentially, bring with it a chunk of that SPN revenue?

Walker.

And if any of you know anything about the original Walker Texas Ranger, you know that the show was predominantly a show about a very heterosexual white man being very excessively heterosexual. And for SOME REASON over the years, many of the execs at the CW still seem to think that this show, Supernatural, is really attractive to a lot of middle-American white men...whom they desperately want to watch this new show with this guy from Supernatural that they already know.

Now here’s where COVID fucked us. I think Destiel was greenlit by TPTB, at least in SOME form, before COVID. But then the pandemic happened, and they panicked. They got the cut of the last two episodes and watched them in their original, probably queer form. And then, the execs at CW looked at the economy. They looked at their cash cow, about to make its journey to the great beyond. And they looked at this new little calf Walker that they were so desperately worried about. And they made a choice.

They decided that it would be too risky to take the step with Destiel. They were worried about frightening off their ever-so-valuable hetero male demographic with the possibility that a traditionally masculine man in his 40s could be in love with another man in an overt way. It was homophobia mixed with greed, spun up by fear for their revenues because of COVID.

So they called in Singer, possibly Dabb, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they went straight to Singer. They told them that Destiel had to go: executive orders. And the only way to make it go in a way that removed any trace of what had been there was to rewrite what happened to Cas and cut him out from the last two episodes entirely. It was too late to reshoot anything. They had to just cut and stitch and fill with bullshit montages. 

They removed the scene at the end of 19, probably because Cas and Lucifer discussed Dean. All that was left of Misha there was his voice on that fake phone call. They may have cut other things too, but I would bet my life that they cut a scene from the end of the episode and replaced it with that very strange montage. Then they moved onto 20. They cut out every scene with Cas. And left in only two platonic mentions of him, neither made by Dean. They tried to imply that Cas might show up in Dean’s heaven at some point, but that was as far as the editors could go in the time they had. They filled in with montages, awkwardly long shots, anything they could do to fill all of those missing scenes.

And they even had to take the opening montage, because literally everything in it pointed to Cas being there at the end of it all. They wouldn’t be able to leave out his scenes, they were too critical to the season. They couldn’t cut his confession without raising eyebrows. So they cut the whole thing and moved “Carry On My Wayward Son” to one of the newly-added driving montages at the end. Which is why we awkwardly had both songs play back-to-back--again, such a strange choice unless they were out of options and couldn’t exactly buy rights to a new track or compose anything else.

And so we were left with the shadow of the finale that we deserved, that Cas and Dean deserved. We were left without resolution or happiness or words. Bobo told us the most important thing about happiness is just “saying it” and our characters were silenced without anyone ever knowing the truth.

I think the writers might have known and been given the new party line that “Misha never filmed, he couldn’t, sorry, it was COVID, no one’s fault!” But I don’t think most of the cast even knew it had happened until they watched the finale on Thursday with us (though they might have been confused why the bit from 15x19 was sliced, they could reasonably have assumed it was a time thing and also BL episodes don’t make sense anyway). Why do I say that?

Well, first of all, Misha started sending out a bunch of excited texts to fans with some old BTS pictures about an hour before the show started airing on EST. He also wanted his children to see the episode, his YOUNG children. Why would he show them such a traumatic episode if their Dad wasn’t in it? What if it was because he wanted them to witness what was going to be a monumental moment in queer television history that their DAD got to be a part of? And then that was all dashed.

Which is why I think the cast and crew went almost completely radio silent the next day. I don’t think they knew. And based on how they have been acting on social media since then, I think many of them are absolutely furious, but they have been silenced because of NDAs, because they want to find work again in a cutthroat industry, because they don’t want to bring down the hellfire of Warner Brothers Entertainment upon themselves. So the most we have gotten is a little acknowledgement from the MERCHANDISING COMPANY trying to validate our pain (god bless Shirts, she is a LIFESAVER) and a response to my salty tweet about keeping good stuff in the closet from Adam Williams (the VFX coordinator) that seemed to acknowledge the validity of my complaint.

Then there was a scramble behind the scenes, I would bet my life. Talking points were fed to the boys who had panels today, to CE, to all the cast and crew:

Toe the party line. Misha never filmed. This was always about COVID. Do not mention Destiel. Do not mention Dean’s feelings for Cas. Do not promote the Castiel Project or anything that validates the idea that this was anything less than a superb ending.

And that is why we have heard so little from the cast on this front, and what we have heard has been muddled and contradictory. That is why the writers are saying nothing. That is why we have been left adrift.

Now before I close this out, I do want to say that I really, genuinely do not think this was on the writers at all. I feel like they tried to give us the best ending that they could, in a writers room that we know is notorious for splitting along party lines about the overall story (BL and Singer, who have always been about the brothers and their man-pain vs. Dabb and the rest who always seemed to want more for them and for Cas). I think they did everything in their power to at least end with Dean and Cas happy together. If they could give us nothing else, they wanted to give us that. And then the network took it from them. From us. From everyone.

For the sake of fucking money. 

And the WORST PART OF IT ALL, for me, is that in the wake of this disaster, the fans have been left to try and figure out what happened. We have had to wade through a mire of conflicting information in the midst of all of our collective anger and grief over this garbage ending of a show many of us have loved and even relied on for YEARS, all the while wondering if we’re just fucking crazy, if we have all fallen collectively into the hole of conspiracy theories. That hurts ESPECIALLY badly because we have taken so many hits over the years from other groups on social media saying we were crazy for seeing things that weren’t there (especially Destiel), for writing meta and analyzing tropes and believing the evidence of our eyes and ears. The network has made us relive that entire nightmare WHILE processing our grief for a show we wanted so badly to celebrate and which instead we now have to mourn.

So again guys, I cannot prove that this is exactly what happened at all; this is simply my idea of what may have happened. But right now, it’s the most sense I can make from this mess, and to be honest, the act of typing it out has helped me enormously in my processing of it all. I feel like I can see more clearly, like I know where to target my outrage and where to direct empathy. I feel like just fucking maybe, I might be able to do my job tomorrow without bursting into tears at random moments. 

I really hope that this post has helped some of you to, in some small way, process this too. We get through this the way that Misha told us at his panel this morning, the way the writers have told us to do all season long...we throw out the story God gave us and we make it better. We write our characters the happy endings they deserve. 

We save them.

One last thing--if you have not already, please consider channeling your rage into a donation to one of the five causes our fandom has put together to pay tribute to our beloved show and to mourn the ending it should have had:

-The Castiel Project

-Dean Winchester is Love

-Sam Winchester Project

-The National Association of the Deaf

-The Jack Kline Project

[ririkutai]

Saeran AE Good Ending Choice Walkthrough

Hello everyone! I’ve decided to share the walkthrough on Tumblr as well, because I received a message about reddit being blocked in some countries! I wasn’t aware! So here! Cheers!

I've since edited the guide to include some the Sad Endings, Bad Endings, Normal Ending, as well as the good ending. Currently this guide sits at 9/10 total endings for Saeran's AE. I've included chat times, save locations, as well as choices. If anyone complies the guide and shares it elsewhere, I'd appreciate a shoutout as this took some time! Feel free to @me anywhere as Ririkutai <3

The way to get Bad Ending 1 is by taking Rika's side and not wanting to leave Saeran's side. The trigger lies somewhere between day 2-3, but I'm uncertain of the specifics.

Cheers!

Day 1:

There are two sad endings on this day!

SAVE HERE! DON'T DO ANYTHING YET!

Time: 00:00 x2

Strange Meeting

· I’ll bring Saeran with me for the meeting

· Let’s save that part until Saeyoung returns

· Saeyoung owns all the rights

· Please be safe, Saeyoung

· I have a bad feeling about this

· Do you think the leader of Mint Eye is related to this?

· Did we, Saeran?

· Saeran, my sweet

· But first, we should discuss how to save…

· Is V still gone?

· Something’s fishy

· Make sure you check V’s luggage!

· Be careful on your way!

· We should keep our eye on V

· Let’s stay alert, Jaehee

· For some reason, I’m kind of uneasy

· What are you doing right now?

· I’m nervous, too

· I hope we can take plenty of pictures in the future

· I love you, too

Story Mode:

· Where is V?

· We never fight. I trust Saeran (Saeran Heart)

· Well, I did talk a lot

· Maybe it is her…

· I know it feels weird, but you must free yourself from your past

· Saeran, don’t you think we should tell them?

· What are you thinking?

· Is there anything you know about Saeyoung’s whereabouts?

· Try holding breath just a bit longer

· V… Why are you doing this?

Please Wake Up

No choices

Story Mode:

· Wake up

· Try to wake up

· Saeran

· I held my breath, like you told me

· I’ll help you

NOTE RELOAD THE PREVIOUS SAVE AND Select all options that aren't doubtful, don't hold your breath like Saeran suggests, fall like everyone else, and be sure not to move in the hospital. This triggers Sad Ending 1

Time: 9:45

Can We Trust Him?

· I don’t think I can rest, when I…

· I’m kind of tired…

· By the way, is there something wrong with the…

· Was it a hacker!?

· Could it be the secret agency...?

· Does that mean we need to be careful…?

· Traitor (Saeran heart)

· So you handed over the information of this…

· What did you expect? You tricked us.

· Prove to us that Saeyoung…

· And you are trying to pull Saeran into danger (Saeran heart)

· Are you talking about Rika?

· No! He will never do that! (Saeran heart)

· He’s gone again | (Selecting, "Maybe he really wants to help you." Gives a V heart, but I'm uncertain how it affects the rest of the route)

· But you can’t let yourself get into this (Saeran heart)

· I’ll be waiting, my love (Saeran heart)

Time: 11:23

Did She Change?

· Come on out, hacker! Fight me! | (Selecting "Go away, V!" Gives you a Saeran heart, but I'm uncertain how it affects the route)

· Oh, a bad guy! Time to say hi

· He knew we won’t ever trust him again

· Are you still obsessed with Saeran?

· And you’ve done horrible things to Saeran

· And you expect me to believe that?

· Sounds like you are inviting him into a trap | (Selecting "I must admit, you are persistent." Gives you a V heart, but I'm uncertain how it affects the route)

· You really don’t give up do you?

· Fact remains that you are far from normal (Saeran heart)

· No! Stay away! (Saeran heart)

Story Mode:

· The question is whether you should make... (Saeran heart)

· So, are you going to save Saeyoung?

Time: 16:05

Rika and V’s Reunion

· Rika! You can’t stop our love!

· Are you here to tell Saeran to leave again?

· Do you have any idea how bad she hurt Saeran? (Saeran heart)

· You should first explain about Rika | (Selecting "How is Saeyoung?" gives you a Saeyoung heart, uncertain how it affects the route.)

· Do you know Saeran does not have a family picture…

· But Rika's standing is very different from... (Saeran heart)

· But what about you? What about your life? (V heart)

· You do need balance for a relationship as well

· Are we witnessing the birth of a new savior...? (Saeran heart)

· It’s the prime minister isn’t it? | (Selecting "Could it be the agency?" gives you a V heart.)

· We will save everyone!

· There’s no doubt V, Rika, and the prime…

· Yay! Let’s talks! Just the two of us!

Time: 17:57

Rika’s Selfish Happiness

· What are you plotting with…

· I will go with whatever Saeran chooses (Saeran heart)

· He might leave by the time the rest of RFA…

· But we are always together (Saeran heart)

· Are you sure you have reunited with V?

· So nobody ever saved V (V heart)

· Maybe you wanted people to recognize you and tell you...

· That's good, but... V looked desolate

· What do you really want to become?

· Cough, cough calories

Time: 19:11

Secure Chat Just for Us

· Hey, we’re back

· Good job. Now lets use this room…

· What? Doesn’t that mean our enemies are huge?

· Of course you are… We have four bad guys…

· That's right! Let's go save Saeyoung! (Saeran heart)

· Then let’s get going! (Saeran heart)

SAVE AFTER THIS CHATROOM

Story Mode

· What if your trauma returns? (Saeran heart) | (Both options give a heart though!)

· I remember both of them (Saeran heart) | (Both options give a heart still!)

· I love you, Saeran

· This might turn out to be reckless (Saeran heart) | (Both options give a heart. This boi is full of love)

NOTE RELOAD YOUR PREVIOUS SAVE AFTER SECURE CHAT JUST FOR US And select "Then let's leave. Let's leave everything, instead of saving Saeyoung.", "Yes.", "I'll be fine. I want to be happy with you. That's all I'm asking for." To receive Sad Ending 2

Time: 20:44

Different Perspective on the Past

· Rika… You’re back

· I’m not sure if this is the best time…

· Do you remember what it was like back then?

· Were you happy even without Saeyoung?

· I guess you did miss her. You didn’t separate willingly… (Saeran heart)

· Family is not something you can replace like objects...

· Now I’ll be your family (Saeran heart)

· You’ll be a great parent (Saeran heart)

· Alike? How?

· You are still obsessed with him?

· Saeran is not like you (Saeran heart)

· It feels like you’re inviting us into a trap

· She might make you her prisoner…

· Can’t we stay a bit longer?

· Okay

Story Mode

· Don’t you think we should head straight to this…

· V provided his apartment to them?

· V would’ve thought everything by himself…

· It’s the agency!

Time: 21:56

Unbelievable Peaceful Chit-Chat

· V? What brings you back here?

· How come you own that place?

· Did you get scammed by any chance?

· I’d thought you plotted it

· I think it’s fake news

· But the prime minister and the agency are attacking..

· Jumin will be beyond shocked (Jumin heart)

· That’s where the root of all evil…

· You brought someone else to that apartment?

· I’m so glad Jumin did not turn out like…

· A dark magician!

· Do you think this news will be highly detrimental…?

· It’s not a good thing to play deaf to what you…

· Can’t you give me one last clue…

· If only Jumin…

· One day you will pay

Story Mode

· What is this place?

Time: 23:05

The Most Important Thing

· Saeran? You’re gone

· I’m fine. When I’m with you, my joy… (Saeran heart)

· Why not break through the windows?

· What do you think will happen to us… (Saeran heart)

· I hope by tomorrow at least one…

· Regardless of the truth…

· Do you think the other members of RFA…

· They’d be shocked mostly by the fact…

· But I chose to come with you (Saeran heart)

· Yes. Because we will never stop loving… (Saeran heart)

· You are also important to me, Saeran (Saeran)

· Please be safe, my darling (Saeran)

Story Mode

No Choices

Day 2:

There are two Sad Endings on this day

Time: 00:23

Unexpected Guest

· Saeyoung?!

· How did you get in here?

· Saeran! We have an intruder!

· Let’s find out what we can from him!

· Are you here to hack this room…

· Do you know Saeyoung?

· Charlie the 3rd?

· Is Saeyoung safe?

· Is Saeyoung in mortal danger?

· Are you going to tell the agency…

· Tell us something! Anything is fine!

· I think you were

· No! Please, help us! (Saeran heart)

· My heart breaks whenever I think (Saeran Heart)

· And you will make that promise (Saeran heart)

· Are you telling him to instead save himself?

· But we don’t want to spend the rest of our lives…

· Are you going to report everything from this…

· But let’s not give up (Saeran heart)

· No, I’m gonna wait for you! (Saeran heart)

Story Mode

No Choices

SAVE AFTER THIS STORY MODE

Time: 2:22

How to Use Vanderwood

· Is that why you wanted us to log in…

· I don’t think that guy is very thorough…

· Vanderwood betrayed the agency! Like this? (Saeran heart)

· What if he’s stupid? What if he…

· I know you said that because you care… (Saeran heart)

· That’s right. He might help us once he… (Saeran heart)

· And it was all because Rika brainwashed…

· I’m sure Saeyoung was also manipulated by false information (Saeyoung heart)

· It must have been awful after you… (Saeran heart)

· Back then you were not ready to…

· I’m also getting this strong feeling.. (Saeran heart)

· I also had a feeling they…

· Please help us once, Vanderwood! I know… (Saeran heart)

· And a good expectation will manifest… (Saeran heart)

· Please!!! (Saeran heart)

· Nah, you’re the only one who thinks…

· Yeah, and now let’s get busy with our…

Time: 8:00

Zen is Awake!

· Zen!! Are you awake??

· I’m just grateful you are awake

· Maybe Saeran and I shouldn’t have left (Saeran heart)

· Could you please report it to the media?

· That’s right! Bring it on… (Zen heart)

· Not yet… It might be a trap

· It turned out the agency is…

· Don’t be disappointed with yourself

· Thanks for trying to look

· Okay. Now we are going to save…

SAVE AFTER THIS CHATROOM

Story Mode

· Yeah. Are you?

· Yes. I am not letting you go by yourself

· Are you the boss…

· We were told you will be in mortal danger…

· What kind of deal did you…

· You mean you’ll send them to…

· You want them to live caged lives…

· Saeyoung… You’re sacrificing yourself… (Saeyoung heart)

· But we cannot leave you here, Saeyoung

· We don’t have a choice. There’s nothing we can do…

NOTE RELOAD YOUR SAVE AFTER ZEN IS AWAKE And select: "This seems familiar...", "You can go ahead...", and "Okay." To receive Sad Ending 3.

Time: 9:45

Vanderwood’s Suggestion

· Vanderwood?

· Are you here to help us?

· How do we know this isn’t a trap?

· Your agency is a nightmare

· But won’t you get in trouble…

Story Mode

· What do we do now?

· But he just won’t care for himself

· Do you think we can trust Vanderwood?

· Let’s do that. For some reason I have…

· Let's put our faith in him. We're not leaving...

Time: 11:37

Saeyoung is with Rika

· Why are you here?

· Is it because you were scared…

· He wanted to save his brother

· You kidnapped Saeyoung!?

· Poor Saeyoung… He was manipulated (Saeyoung heart)

· I will never forgive the agency

· But the prime minister might…

· What drug?

Story Mode

· Saeyoung told the agency about the top secret…

· Are you sure we can trust you?

· Is it to put him to sleep?

· I have to be away from Saeran? I…

· Why would you do that? That’s exactly what happens in…

· I’m scared…

· Why don’t’ we go back to the hospital and… (Saeran heart)

· Why don’t we go back to C&R and…

· …No. We’re in this together (Saeran heart)

· I'm going to keep you safe, Saeran

Time: 13:15

Jumin Han is Here

· Rika has Saeyoung.

· Sorry. I can’t tell you (Jumin heart)

· Wow! I knew you’d be fit! (Zen heart)

· I bet you felt betrayed

· On a scale of 0 to 10

· Is your father really related to

· You mean you might lose..

· He didn’t betray us. He’s become his father’s… (Saeyoung heart)

· Did you hear anything from Saeran?

· What’s your secret?

· But you must have an emergency plan..

· I understand… You have lost…

· But if you put yourself in his shoes

· Let me know once you hear something

NOTE RELOAD AFTER THE STORY MODE FOLLOWING UNEXPECTED GUEST, AND SELECT ALL OPTIONS THAT INSULT/DOUBT VANDERWOOD. Do not agree to let Vanderwood help you. Do this to receive Sad Ending 4

Story Mode

· Where is Saeran right now?

· What do you mean, you lost the other…

· Why did you bring me here?

· You tricked me! (Saeran heart)

Time: 15:33

Vanderwood in Trouble

· You tricked me! (Saeran heart)

· Whose side are you on?

· Couldn’t you let both of us go?

· What do you mean?

· What happens if you get…

· Admit it – You’re a nice person

· But it’s adorable… I really want to see (Saeyoung heart)

· You’re returning the phone?

· Run and survive!

Story Mode

· I hope Vanderwood will be alright

· Saeran will never give up

· You are simply trying to make your dream… (Saeran heart)

· RFA might expose everything about

Time: 18:00

Rika’s Request

· Jumin, cheer up…

· They’re not coming

· Don’t you feel guilty?

· Yeah, unlike you. (Saeran heart)

· You were a great actress (Saeran heart)

· But do you really need those twins..

· But you cannot decide how they will (Saeran heart)

· I believe Saran will save… (Saeran heart)

· Saeran, if you read this… Don’t ever give up (Saeran heart)

· Just who led Saeyoung to the agency….

· Do you feel anything about RFA…

· Jumin will feel so betrayed (Jumin heart)

· Just because you say sorry… (Saeran heart)

· Saeran… I’m okay. (Saeran heart)

· V… Does that mean I cannot…

· Thank you, V (V heart)

· V… Are you really okay with everything..

Time 19:00

RFA in the Corner

· I’m waiting for Saeran

· You took in that gas again?!

· Maybe it’s a bluff

· Well, it’s not a perfect time for him to chat..

· I feel so bad for the twins…

· The agency is no easy opponent

· And we have no way to prove that we’re the good guys :’(

· That was a very brave…

· No talking on the messenger!

· How is Elizabeth 3rd? (Jumin heart)

· Maybe we should do that…

· We should stay away from…

· Calm down, Zen

· As soon as you do that he’ll be knocked…

· It’s okay. Don’t worry

· Vanderwood?

Story Mode

· Do you think Saeran will be here?

· Look behind

· Okay, okay…

· But you won’t be happy if someone tries to control

· Saeyoung? Are you awake?

· But he needs you

· Tell me.

· But how? You don’t have the right…

· I’m scared. That phone is the only tool you have…

· V, please… You have to help us

· V, you know this isn’t the answer

Time: 21:02

Why We Need Saeran

· You are so cold-blooded!

· Until when will the agency…

· Do you think he’s watching the messenger?

· Are you going to tell him to be silent and come find you?

· He will never give up… Not while he’s alive

· The problem lies with the life in a box (Saeran heart)

· But I don’t want to leave Saeran! (Saeran heart)

· This is too cruel… Finding this place…

· What are you gonna do now?

Story Mode

No choices

Time: 23:13

Did RFA Give Up?

· Did you hear anything from Saeran? (Saeran heart)

· You’ve made an excellent choice (Saeran heart)

· I feel bad for you, Zen (Zen heart)

· Is there really nothing else we can do?

· Please stay healthy, Zen (Zen heart)

· But we need Saeran here first

· :’(

Story Mode

No choices

Day 3:

Time: 1:02

Rika Wants Saeran

· The RFA won’t be using…

· They suffered a lot regarding…

· The agency is the biggest problem,

· You might think it’s protection, but..

· I wonder where Saeran is.. (Saeran heart)

· Maybe later

· No thanks lol

Story Mode

No choices

Time: 6:04

A Ticket Unused

· Saeran!!

· Are you safe?

· Are you really coming here?

· I love you too! (Saeran heart)

· You should be happy with me

· Why would you say that? I’m scared (Saeran heart)

· You’re gonna be here?

· But right now, we have to focus on surviving (Saeran heart)

· Okay… I’ll remember that

· Great! But...

· Okay… I’ll stay awake and wait

Story Mode

· I’ve missed you

· [Munch munch]

· If you keep making fun of me, you’ll pay for it

· No, we deserve to be happy

Time: 8:51

Saeran is Here

· Saeran! But this channel…

· Rika… Please let Saeran in…

· What took you so long?

· I think they’re putting him…

· We should be true to ourselves… (Saeran heart)

· But now RFA has nothing…

· I bet Rika doesn’t want to…

· She’s the seed of all pain!

· Are you avoiding the subject?

· One we reunite, I never want to…

· What freedom?

· You don’t want to repeat your past

· But Rika wouldn’t like that (Saeran heart)

· You hate Rika and V, don’t you? (Saeran heart)

· Okay, if that is what you choose… (Saeran heart)

· I’ll be waiting

Story Mode

· You should trust Saeran

· I’ve missed you

· Can’t you let me stay…

Time: 11:11

Rika’s Return

· Rika, where are you?

· You didn’t torture him, did you?

· Maybe he’s going to hurt them!

· Saeran will cause no harm (Saeran heart)

· I’m going to run with Saeran

· Ugh! I hate what’s happening!

Story Mode

· Do you have to do this?

· Saeran… wake up

· It must have been shocking and sad (Saeran heart)

· Saeran… one day you’ll be free and we’ll be… (Saeran heart)

· Only me and Saeyoung? (Saeran heart)

· What do you mean you’ll

· Why?

· RFA didn’t give up on you

· So did you make it?

· It’s too dangerous (Saeran heart)

· No, let me distract them!

· If Saeyoung brings down the agency..

· ….

· This so sad

Time: 12:48

Weight of the Past

· I’m so sad…

· And you left Saeran like this..?

· Hi, Saeran...

· Can I have your voice instead?

· Did you have to go this far?

· Saeran decide to leave past in the past (Saeran heart)

· It’s a good thing you left Magenta..

· Saeran changed himself. (Saeran heart)

· Trying to repeat a happy past can sometimes serve as greed

· She's not mad is she?

· You should reconsider (Saeran heart)

Story Mode

No choices

Time: 14:07

It Will Hurt, But We Will Be Happy

· Saeran! This is our love channel!

· Do we have to do this? (Saeran heart)

· I have a feeling we will fail (Saeran heart)

· Do you think they’ll get…

· But I don’t think I can live without you (Saeran heart)

· Please don’t leave me

· …

Story Mode

· Sniffle

· She might turn violent

· You can’t decide what Saeran will be like

· You are right… But please don’t die

Time: 16:25

I’ll Have None of This

· It’s a sad night

· Saeran’s will reached my heart (Saeran heart)

· To be honest, you’re…

Story Mode

· Feel what?

· But I want to spend as much time as I can

· I’ll be right back

Time: 17:55

I Promise You Will Be Happy

· Did you guys have an argument?

· I want you, Saeran (Saeran heart)

· Get one for Saeyoung (Seven heart)

· Do you have 2 tickers that will get us out?

· About what?

· No! Saeran is mine! (Saeran heart)

· Do you think you can make it someday?

· I’ll be having fun with Saeran

· What should we do now?

· Are we the only ones that know about this room?

· You mean including Jumin and Zen?

· I’m sad, too… Is there really no other way? (Saeran heart)

· Clouds? Why clouds?

· So your freedom was...

· Can’t you let me stay here? (Saeran heart)

· This is so sad. I don��t want to leave

· I was so happy I could meet them (Saeran heart)

· If you love me, why are you making me sad? (Saeran heart)

· Let’s think about a way to keep you safe?

· Yeah!

Story Mode

No choices

Time: 19:09

Rika is Changing

· I’m glad you released Saeran

· I think you mean tonight (Saeran heart)

· I want to live with just Saeran

· Do you think you can take another betrayal?

· I’m glad things loosened up

· Saeran is my love (Saeran heart)

· Please don’t stab Saeran… (V heart)

· Whatever happens, I hope you’d be happy, Rika

· I think I need someone to cleanse my head…

· Unlike his father

· If that’s what you want, you must one day…

· I’m glad I got to meet all of you

· Rika hurt your eyes…

· How long do you think this happiness will last? (Saeran heart)

· Do you think her hope is real?

· Is it related to Saeran?

· It’s okay. Saeran is strong (Saeran heart)

Story Mode

· Can’t I come with you?

Time: 21:39

The Weight of Truth

· V talked about this secret

· I don’t want to leave him

· Is Saeran okay

· What did you guys talk about?

· The death of their mother?

· Can’t you just stop

· You are pretending to be nice

· You can’t do this to him

· We must find Saeran! (Saeran heart)

· At least you didn’t wait any longer…

· You would still feel painful

· But that does not justify murder

· He didn’t talk to me

· You have until 11

· I’m so disappointed in both of you

· Saeran, are you okay?

Story Mode

· I don’t want to go

· Please don’t do this

· Please tell me you will survive

Time: 23:00

Rescue Plan

· Are we getting started?

· Is it okay to leave Saeran?

· Saeran

· I can't believe I must leave him... (Saeran heart)

· We’ll be back for Saeran, right?

· Saeyoung and Saeran didn’t even get to talk

· The prime minister won’t get to..

· What press conference?

· Thank you everyone

Story Mode

No choices

Day 4:

There are 3 bad endings, and one bad relationship ending on this day. The Normal end and Good end are also on this day.

Time: 2:16

Escape – Success!

· Saeran, I’m okay! (Saeran heart)

· I miss you Saeran

· I’ll be waiting

· I think I’m going to wait for Saeran

SAVE AFTER THIS CHATROOM

If you see "Story Mode: Savior" here then you haven't received enough hearts with Saeran and will trigger his Bad Relationship Ending (I feel this is the ending that brought most of us here, lolol... Help my heart.)

Story Mode

· I’ll go by myself if I have to!

· I’m coming with you!

· I will find Saeran

NOTE RELOAD YOUR SAVE AFTER ESCAPE - SUCCESS! And select: "Looks like there's nothing we can do...", "I think I'll stay here..." To receive Bad Ending 2

Time: 5:55

Vanderwood and Zen’s Argument

· Vanderwood, does this mean...

· You guys have such cute…

· You mean Yoosung?

· Looks like you have a lot of history..

· Come on, let’s be friendly

· Do you think Rika and V are not aware of this?

· I really hope Saeran is safe

· That’s what I heard

· I’m fine with anything as long as..

· I really hope that’d be the case

· Is there really no master key to get us

· I hope Saeran is okay…

· You kicked him out…

· I hope he can find a miracle for us

· Okay…

Story Mode

No choices

Time: 8:24

Saeyoung is Back

· Any news about Saeran?

· Are you gonna sign...

· It was so beautiful (Seven heart)

· I hope Saeran is safe

· Could you tell him I love him? (Two Saeran hearts)

· I’ll do that

· Good luck!

SAVE AFTER THIS CHATROOM

Story Mode

· The security’s changed…

· V, where is Saeran?

· Follow V

NOTE RELOAD YOUR SAVE AFTER SAEYOUNG IS BACK And select "Don't follow V" To receive Bad Ending 3

Time: 10:00

The Last Discussion

· Yoosung, are you okay?

· If you get to see her again…

· Like me and Saeran?

· Welcome Jumin

· We can beat them

· Do you think sweet and sour

· Please, go ahead

· But some people become stars without

· Yeah, but it won’t be easy

· So, Ray…

· Life

· From imprisonment to…

· That we are all responsible

· It’s so good to…

· Thank you for your sermon

· Let’s not lose ourselves

· Whatever it’s about good luck!

· We won’t be lonely if we’re together

· Hopefully I’ll get to…

· He is… He’ll be okay

SAVE AFTER THIS CHATROOM

Story Mode

· Where is Saeran?

· Embrace Rika

· But now you will change

· Go save Saeran

NOTE RELOAD YOUR SAVE AFTER THE LAST DISCUSSION And select "(Don't go save Saeran)" To receive the Normal Ending.

The Final Episode

· Saeran!

· Please stay alive

· He’s gotta be somewhere around here! I can feel it!

· He’s around here. I know

· I must go

· Leave the rest and run

· Saeran, please don’t go

· I love you

· Now you should be happy with me

· Wake up!

· Pity

· Saeran and Saeyoung simply wanted

· Your lonely heart…

· Saeran will forgive you…but

· You will pay

· I’m sure you had something…

· But can’t you see?

· Does survival matter that much?

· You must be so lonely

· We must get him to a hospital!

· Saeran, hang in there!

· Saeyoung, please

· Hopefully Saeran…

· But Saeran forgave him

· Okay. I’ll let you know once he wakes..

· Saeran?

· What is it?

· Are you saying…

· Saejoong Choi!

· Why did you find…

· Did you have a change of...

You’ve made it! Select whatever you like!

[kervinredfire]

My Other Fanfics in the Future

Well, I made announcements about my 2 Loonatics fanfics-related stories coming soon. So here are my other fanfics that I am making. But before I am going to show you my other fanfics, I like to share what most of them are like. Kervinverse related. If you checked my Tumblr header it's pretty obvious.

As you may wonder what is the Kervinverse is all about? The Kervinverse is like the multiverse but with all different kinds of Kervin. Inspired by Spiderman Into the Spiderverse all the versions of Kervin contained different personalities, stories, almost the same appearance, fighting styles, and special abilities. One of the most signature outfits is the black and red formal suit.

I already made a folder in toyhouse. However, most of it are unfinished and still ongoing.

https://toyhou.se/Kervin619/characters/folder:812137

People think that those stories a self-insert but it is actually not. Me and my other Kervins are the same but they are different the appearance, abilities, and personalities. An example is Denk Ops’s Chris Danger from the WWE games. And note that this is another long announcement for the other fanfics

So anyway, here are my Kervinverse stories that I would really like to share about Wattpad in the future. So are book covers later

KERVINVERSE STORIES (Including crossovers):

Grand Theft Auto Origins: Kervin Made Liberty – Set in the GTA HD Universe. Before Kervin (GTA Online) came to the place called San Andreas, he was just a very young boy who was born in the place called Liberty with his parents. His father Claude who became rich and retired to a life crime and his wife Misty who used to be a prostitute. It was normal and happy life for him and his parents. But when years passed when he is getting older, he slowly starts to realize what kind of broken world he is living in.

Now for those who played the HD Universe of the GTA Games you know every protagonist in the HD universe like Niko, Johnny, Luis, Michael Franklin, and Trevor. As much as they have different stories and perspectives but this story about GTA OC that he was living with full of offensiveness, disrespectfulness, brutal honesty, and others. An example in GTA IV a radio commercial of Babies Overnight that said that someone was not satisfied with the baby it can be disposed of. Although it would be interesting to have that backstory for my next OC for GTA. So, this story may contain a lot of murder and crimes on what led to him going to San Andreas. So, watch out. And for those who have not played GTA Online why his parents are both Claude and Misty is because it was part of the premium edition for free in Epic Games.

Def Jam X Kung Fu Panda: Book 1 Fight for A New Fight (maybe a working title) - After the events of Def Jam Vendetta, Fight For New York, and The Kung Fu Panda Trilogy including Legends of Awesomeness. Set during Paws of Destiny Season 2 in the Kung Fu Panda universe while in Def Jam 2 years later in the year 2005 after Crow's death (Fight for NY still takes place in 2003) Kervin (Def Jam Fight For NY) the new leader D-Mob's crew but also officially known as the Def Jam Crew after Blaze appointed him to take his place. Kervin has to manage every venue, club, and arenas in New York including places that Crow took over. But in Chinese New Year there was something strange that Kervin and his crew got transported to a different universe. Including former members, fighters, and circuit fighters.

Now, this fanfiction sounded really odd. As you may know why I am making crossover fanfic of Kung Fu Panda X Def Jam? Easy. The first one is because this is what would have been my PS2 games if I ever have a PS2. I was thinking of Mortal Kombat or Yakuza for Def Jam but Kung Fu Panda is the only thing I know when I was 7 years old. The second is because back in the days Hip Hop mixed with Kung Fu was very popular. Although Def jam may be a wrestling game martial arts stole my heart in Def Jam Fight For NY. I heard about things like the Wu-Tang Clan for example but the biggest problem for me is that I am not a true fan of Def Jam because I don’t know about hip hop artists. Just only the games so I will be focusing on their video game counterparts in their fictitious manner meaning pretending real-life characters with their real name are fictional characters. So, if there and fun facts in those real-life counterparts I may add them to it like easter eggs. The third is that there are Kung Fu Panda characters that did not get enough love and mostly art. So many recognizable characters like Po, Tigress, Tai Lung, and many more have become the most recognizable characters in the movies. But what about the tv shows like Legends of Awesomeness and Paws of Destiny? One of my favorite characters of Legends of Awesomeness is Peng, in short, he is the nephew of Tai Lung and he is such an interesting character that he deserves a lot more love. While for Paws of Destiny is Xiao because she is such a cute character, so is her personality and the best character to have hugs with. So, what I am trying to say is that I need to start off with the character that is unrecognizable then bring it recognizably. I may also add characters from shorts like student Mei Ling in the future book and it would be funny and to see rogue Mei Ling. 2 Mei Lings in one. Even Su and Master Snow Leopard because are both female leopards with the same appearance and outfit. I may also include some characters from the flash game Tales of Po and may possibly rewrite them in different stories because I love the character designs thanks to Blue Maxima’s FlashPoint. And the fourth and final part is that to make the Def jam games more recognizable. Def Jam in music is not absolutely enough but video games are. The Def Jam games did not bring a sequel after Fight For NY so I might as well make a sequel with interesting and experimental crossover fanfic just like The Loonatics Road.

The Red Fox (Kingdom Force Spinoff and maybe a working title) - The Kingdom Force has 5 members defending the 5 Kingdoms. Luka the wolf who leads in red, Jabari who runs in yellow, TJ who drills in green, Delilah who swings in orange, and Norvyn who strengthens in blue. Each of the 5 drives Kingdom Riders and turns them into Alpha Mech to fight against evil in the 5 Kingdoms. But even if they save the day multiple times the 5 Kingdoms are still filled with more crime and every antagonist came back doing other crimes and evil deeds because they were not arrested or eliminated. That's is when a red fox came along...

I have seen popular fandoms in cartoons that were supposed to aim at younger kids like Lion Guard, MLP, Paw Patrol, and even Bluey. But Kingdom Force is the cartoon that did get enough love. It's like Power Rangers and Voltron but with anthropomorphic animals like Zootopia. However, the stories and episodes in the show is very confusing and give me almost a lot of questions. But I do like the character designs in the show. My favorite hero is Luka who is a leader with and cute cuddly character personality and my favorite villain Envie Fernadez which she has a pretty hot design, name and voice and so is her personality. Reminds me of Sly Cooper but I have not played the game yet. But for the red fox also OC Kervin (Kindom Force) It’s still at work.

APB Reloaded X Zootopia: Anyone Can Be All You Can’t Be: - In Zootopia “Anyone Can Be Anything” But in San Paro “Be All You Can’t Be” Zootopia is a place where vicious predators and meek prey live in harmony. This means that people in Zootopia live together without the prey getting eaten by predators and predators not getting feared by the prey. They almost eat like us, they sleep like us, they speak like us, they walk like us, they run like us, they bathe like us (well almost), and most importantly they use technology like us. While San Paro maybe has a good look to sightsee but this city has a lot of crime. Robberies, bombings, thefts, drug dealing, murders and causalities, vandalism, and much more that we can think of. But that does not mean there is no justice in this world. When the Criminals like the Blood Roses and the G-Kings try to take over San Paro? The Enforcers Prentiss Tigers and Praetorians from come and save the day. What would happen when a human Enforcer meets a police fox and a police bunny? And how did it happen? Only one way to find out.

Now this one is also a Kervinverse crossover story. It focuses on Kervin (APB Reloaded) meeting Judy and Nick. I am trying to find a way on how will they meet each other. But the only thing ideas I know is that it can be a delivery gone wrong, an invention gone haywire or maybe a criminal stole something magical that is transported to a different universe. But I have a lot of strange things in the game like the Christmas events and Halloween events. I like to see any volunteers who play APB Reloaded. And for those Zootopia fans who have not played APB Reloaded you check it here. https://store.steampowered.com/app/113400/APB_Reloaded/

Well, that is it for the Kervinverse stories. Now it’s time for the other stories that I also planned in the future.

OTHER FANFICS:

Alza Flare (Road Rovers Fan Spinoff)- Alza is a black cat born in the place in New York City, USA. He was born inside a pet shop without cat parents since he was born. His parents' status is unknown. Although he did make friends with other cats and non-cats in the shop. But it was a short while until a human customer named Drayson Flare and adopted him as Alza Flare. Alza has been Drayson's pet for 3 years and they instantly became best friends but when during the time when they are about to go home from the park. A terrible accident happened.

A long time ago I watched Road Rovers on my phone just to try something nostalgic and the show is pretty good though although there are some parts that don’t use their powers all the time. One part that caught my eye is how brutal car accident in the episode “Dawn of The Groomer” which gave me an idea of my new anti-villain OC character named Alza Flare. Sadly, he does have an image of him yet. But I will tell you that I will give you an interesting revenge story for him.

The Best Surfer In The World (Surf’s Up Spinoff. Maybe a working a title and synopsis change) - After the events of Surf's Up and Surf's Up 2: Wavemania. There was once a wolf who lives in the place of Chicago Illinois. He quit his own career due to being a rejected member of Hang 5 for being too unstable and after beating J.C. in a tournament years ago and after his early retirement, he spends his normal life as an ice cream man in his own ice-cream motorcycle with one of his own freshest ingredients and swears to himself that he would never in the waters again. Until he met a young Toyger.

Surf’s Up is my first favorite mockumentaries since I was young. It’s like you are watching animals andromorphic animals absolutely existed in the world we live in. It had an interesting story and writing so are the interesting characters. But when I watched Surf’s Up Wavemania. Well, I honestly love the WWE Superstars and Diva came into the movie but the story did not actually surprise me a lot. Even if the movie has a lot of beautiful locations it still did not surprise me enough because it is more like an adventure than a tournament. That is why I am planning to start my fanfiction in a new different approach with a real story and a real rivalry. Starting with wolf inspired and based on CM Punk during the part when he won the WWE belt against Cena in Money in the Bank when I watched it since intermediate school with a little rename change so it won’t be obvious. And of course, my Toyger OC because he would be trained by his own surfing master. Also, I added a Slam City easter egg

Fire Pro Wrestling World Origins: Story of 2 Angels – There is no synopsis of them yet. But I will tell you they are brother and sister with the last name “Angel” The brother who is a pop artist while the sister who joined a motorcycle club. What they both have in common is they both can fight. Their stories about my 2 new Fire Pro OCs will be coming soon. But they are not part of the fighting roads.

Well, that is all for all the future stories with some summaries that I really want to share coming soon. Thanks for following including Wattpad

For those who are new here follow me on both Tumblr and Wattpad with the orange word link

Feel free to donate to me in PayPal

Also making fanfic is really long to make just like making an announcement. So again. I only post all chapters in 1 book.

[mergeatrois]

Desire

Have to upload again because Tumblr cannot make up their mind on banned content after it was prior approved :))

Sarah’s life felt like it was spiraling downwards. Her grades were shabby, she felt sick almost everyrday now, and worst of all, her own roommate had started bullying her. Sarah thought that life would get better after she came out of the closet, and for a little while it did. Her family was supportive and accepting and she felt relieved to finally tell everyone the truth. Things would have actually been pretty decent if it wasn’t for her roommate Kacey.

Kacey didn’t even talk much to Sarah before she came out as a lesbian. She figured that it wouldn’t have even changed anything between them but she was sadly mistaken. Kacey started lashing out at Sarah, small at first, forcing chores onto her and making small but insensitive comments about her appearance. Eventually these things grew into outright sharp insults, rumor spreading, and even stealing. Kacey was one of the most popular and beautiful girls on campus so her rumors were practically truths to every student that she told. “She cheats and plagiarizes all of her work” “She’s kind of a huge slut” “She’ll steal just about anything she can get her hands on”. All of these falsehoods ran through Sarah’s mind day in and day out all thanks to her shitty roommate.

Kacey wouldn’t even call Sarah by her name, she just referred to her as “bitch” or “dike”. Sarah felt like an intruder at her college, even in her own dorm she didn’t feel very safe unless Kacey was out of the dorm. The bullying was bad enough on its own, but the worst part had to have been that Sarah had developed a crush on Kacey before she came out. Sarah couldn’t help herself when she saw Kacey, she was easily the hottest girl on campus. She was gorgeous, fit, and busty. She was everything that Sarah found sexy. Even her “high and mighty” demeanor was a turn on for Sarah. She would give just about anything to see that smug, snakey look wipe off her face while Sarah dominated her in the bedroom. Nothing turned her on more than thinking about Kacey. She’d think about her almost every time when she masturbated, but on the inside she knew that her fantasies would remain just that, fantasies.

One night, Sarah stayed up late, trying desperately to finish work deadlines and maybe fit in some time to rub one out if she could manage. Kacey was gone that night. She went out on a date with some guy she had met just a few days ago. Sarah was relieved that Kacey was gone but still felt sick with envy. “Lucky asshole” she muttered to himself while thinking of the bastard that would push inside Kacey’s guts that night. She felt frustrated after finishing up her work, she needed some relief. She pulled up her regular porn site and scanned the numerous pages, looking for something good to watch. She searched closely, reading every title on every page. Eventually, she noticed a small, recurring ad banner that had appeared on the last few pages. She scoffed as she read the scamming advertisement. “One trick that’ll help you fuck anyone you want!” Sarah shook her head. How could people even fall for shit like that? What a waste of time. She went on to the next page and noticed that every ad banner was replaced with the one that she had read before moving on. “That’s….odd” she thought as she clicked the refresh button. The page blinked white before reloading. Now all the thumbnails to the videos on the browser were replaced with an small image of the ad banner that she had seen earlier. She read the titles on all the videos, they were all the same. “Life changing product! Click now!”

Sarah winced. She was spooked to hell at this point. What the fuck kind of ad did this? She shivered a bit, slightly shaken by the strange glitch that covered the web page. She decided the bite the bullet. Maybe there was something about the ad that drew her in. Sarah didn’t know, and for some reason, she didn’t even care. She winced and clicked one of the many links that threw her straight to strange website. A picture appeared before her. A image of a smooth, plastic bottle filled with a strange orange substance. Underneath the image was a title filled with big tooney letters and a picture of a young, smiling cartoon witch. The title read “Bellamy’s Magical Elixir!” Sarah scrolled down to read the description of the weird product.

“A new supernatural lotion that will let you have the body of your dreams! Do you ever get tired of being you? Or do you simply want a hotter sex life? Have you ever dreamed about being a hot supermodel or a muscled up stud? If you answered yes to any of these then this oil is for you! Just grab the partner that you want to merge with and rub the oil into both of your bodies. Once both the bodies are finely lubricated, just squeeze together and voila, you now have the body that you always dreamed of. Enjoy your new life and your wildest fantasies! Now only $9.99 per bottle!”

Sarah couldn’t believe her eyes. This couldn’t be real, could it? “I mean, what hope do I really have left?” She asked herself. Sarah felt hopeless in her situation. Kacey was making her life a living hell, and the idea of being someone that Kacey found irresistible turn Sarah on more than ever. Worse case scenario, she blows 10 bucks on a useless bottle of lube. Sarah placed the order as fast as she could. Once the money was sent, the page closed abruptly. She tried searching for the website that she had ordered from just seconds ago but nothing popped up in the search engine. Sarah groaned loudly. “Fuuuuuuuck. I can’t believe I actually bought into that crap.” She was too disappointed in herself to even masturbate that night. She marched over to her bed defeatedly and flopped onto bed. Sarah closed her eyes tightly, trying desperately to forget that the night even happened.

She woke up the next morning feeling like death itself. Her eyelids were still heavy. She went into the kitchen and looked around the dorm for a bit. Thank god, Kacey was still gone. She yawned loudly and began stretching before a loud knock resounded from her door. The banging was so loud that it made her jump. “Jeez, spoke too soon I guess.” she mumbled before marching over to the door. She looked through the peephole to that Kacey wasn’t in front of the door. In fact, no one was. She opened the door cautiously and looked around seeing no one. She began to walk outside her dorm when her foot kicked a small package. Sarah picked up the package slowly in disbelief. “No way…it’s already here?” she asked to no one. “That was like, crazy fast.” She walked back inside and ripped the package open. A slim plastic bottle filled with a syrupy orange fluid. She read the instructions on the label on the back of the bottle. She repeated the instructions: “Find yourself a partner and oil up together. Once both bodies are thoroughly lathered with the substance, squeeze both bodies together and enjoy the new you. Note: Only one partner will retain their conscious during this process. The possessed partner will be gone forever and the one taking over will lose every semblance of their old life. The partner that’s being taken over will wait on standby once they are coated in the elixir. Please use with caution.”

For the first time in a long time, Sarah was filled with excitement. All the events up to this point had been so…strange. The glitching ad, the disappearing website, and the fast as hell delivery. Maybe there was something to this elixir after all. She decided to put her faith in the oil. Sarah packed the oil in her bag and rushed over to find Kacey’s laptop. Sarah had snuck a peek at her password while she was typing it in a few months ago, but she didn’t think to use her laptop until this point. Sarah searched quickly through Kacey’s facebook, skype, email messages, trying to find anything about a guy that she was crazy about. Hope seemed lost until she looked through her bookmarks. She saw a tab that linked her directly to the channel of a cammer that Kacey had visited quite often. Sarah looked at pictures of the man in the camera. He was a tall, dark, muscular man with a pretty large following on the site. He would stream naked every other day and put on a show for all of his viewers. The guy looked so familiar to Kacey. She finally figured it out. The guy in the cam was Martin Lennard. He was a student attending their university. No wonder Sarah recognized him, she had seen him just a few months ago while going to the gym. Sarah had been working out with her sister that day when she first saw Martin. He didn’t play any sports for the college but with a body like his, he certainly could. It made sense now why he didn’t, and why he was so reserved. “Jesus Christ, he’s a fucking cam boy.” Sarah said to herself again.

The only time she saw Martin let loose was in the gym. She couldn’t remember much but she could definitely recall how loud he was when he worked out. He strained his entire muscle covered body while in the gym, trying to work out every single muscle until he was drenched in hot sweat. Even Sarah had to admit that he was a pretty dashing guy. Sarah found that Kacey was an avid donator to his stream. She tuned in and donated almost every time he went live. She must have been super into him. It didn’t take long for Sarah to form up a plan. She HAD to get Martin’s body at any cost. This was too good an opportunity to pass up. She sighed calmly before closing the laptop and packing her bag and leaving for class.

During the day, Sarah remembered what day it was when she had seen Martin at the campus gym and began fine tuning her plan. By the time her last class rolled around, she finally had everything worked out. Wednesday rolled around and Sarah took a day off from classes to hang around the gym, waiting for Martin to arrived. Finally she saw his giant, beefy figure stomp towards the gym entrance. He looked absolutely massive. He wore a white tank top that looked almost too small for him. The edges of his meaty pecs poked out the sides of the thin shirt. His swollen arms swung around his heavy gym bag effortlessly as he opened the door to the gym. Sarah jumped up and walked towards the gym desperately to try and follow. She watched him disappear into the men’s locker room before she could grab his attention. She would have to improvise. She waited until he reemerged before sneaking in as fast as possible. Her face was red while she sneaked inside and fear gripped her entire body. She prayed to god that she didn’t get caught.

“Fuck fuck fuck.” she repeated as she slowly snaked through the locker room. She peered into each and every closed locker before finally finding Martin’s gym bag sitting next to an open locker. What a score, he must have forgotten to pack it up before working out. She pulled out the half empty bottle of Bellamy’s Elixir and scratched off the label as neatly as possible before slipping it in his bag. After everything was set she quickly ran out of the locker room and slipped out of the gym in embarrassment.

Sarah went back to her dorm and saw Kacey wandering around inside, talking on the phone. “Yeah, shit didn’t work out last night, I’ll be over in a bi- Oh wait, she’s here. Here, I’ll talk outside, you know how snakey she can be.” Kacey walk past Sarah narrowing her eyes with a devilish grin on her face before she put down the phone and started talking. “I’m gonna be at a friend’s place for most of today. Clean shit up around here. I swear, you dikes can be so damn messy sometimes.” Sarah cringed at Kacey’s caty insult before she walked out of the door with her purse in hand. “Fuck I hate her” she thought as she opened up her laptop. It had only been about 20 minutes since Martin entered the gym, he’d probably be back home in about an hour. Sarah had to get ready. She searched around her bed, finding the other bottle that she had filled with the magic oil. “Christ. I hope this works.”

She waited in Martin’s hallway near his door. He would be there any second. Just when she thought about backing out, she could see him walking towards his door with his gym bag in hand. Sarah jumped a bit and began fumbling through her purse, looking like she was just looking for her keys. She listened closely as Martin opened his door and slammed it shut. She stopped for a minute. She could hear the door lock. Martin may have been a strong guy, but the man was definitely not too careful. Sarah waited another minute in silence before opening his door slowly and inching into the dorm. She left her purse outside, only taking the other half of the oil. She snuck through his place carefully before finding a closet to hide in while he showered in the bathroom. She took the time to strip down naked in the dark closet and cover her body in the oily substance. The orange elixir seeped into her skin making her soft, white flesh nice and slippery. Her face turned red in embarrassment once more. It was strange being naked and oiled up but she was banking on this elixir to escape her shitty life with Kacey.

After what seemed like hours, Martin finally stomped out of the bathroom and past the closet that Sarah was hiding in. She peeked outside the closet door to see him almost completely naked, wearing nothing but a towel that wrapped around his waist. He opened his laptop and started typing on the keyboard before stepping back.

“Everything set up, we live?” He said in his deep, masculine voice. She could see a smile form across his face. “Nice, nice” he said before dropping the towel. Sarah’s eyes widened as she saw the jock strapped that firmly hugged against Martin’s crotch. She covered her mouth, doing her best to contain her excitement.

“I’ve got a real nice show for you guys tonight.” She said with a smirk before pulling out the bottle of elixir that Sarah had slipped into his gym bag. “Forgot I had a little something left in my gym bag. You guys are in for a fuckin’ treat.”

He poured the oil into his hands began rubbing the orange fluid all over his puffed out chest. His hands wrapped around his bulging pecs, slowly coating them in the slippery, reflective liquid. His dark skin glistened and his muscles shined as he slowly bathed himself in the slippery oil. He looked so…hot. He wiped his hands over his tight abs over and over, making sure that the light reflected off their solid surface the most. He refilled his palms with the orange substance before coating his giant arms next. Christ they were fucking huge. Sarah didn’t even care to look at their stunning form the first time that she had seen Martin. He was fucking shredded. He flexed his dark cannons tightly, letting his biceps swell as he washed the oil over their beefy structure. He opened his eyes, staring deeply into his giant guns before turning towards the camera. “Mmmm yeah, you fuckin like that? You like my massive guns huh? Fuck yeah you do.” Even from all the way in the closet, Sarah could see the veins on his biceps thrust against his shimmering, ebony skin. He covered his whole torso in the oil, eventually reaching his hands into the jockstrap to oil up his dick. He moaned softly and tilted back his head as he touched himself, slowly coating that thick black dick of his with the lotion. He finally poured the rest over his thick thighs, letting streams of the magic elixir flow down his legs before he rubbed it into his dark flesh.

He continued to moan and run his hands over his mounds of muscle as the oil seeped into his skin until he suddenly opened his eyes and sat up straight. He looked almost dazed and he stared at his oiled up body in confusion before shaking his head and turning off the laptop in front of him. Once he closed it, he brought over a chair and sat down. He reached his hand inside the jockstrap once more. From what Sarah could see, he was slowly jerking his cock over and over as he tilted his head back with his eyes closed. Sarah slowly inched out of the closet, covering her chest and crotch as she slowly stepped towards the muscled giant. He started moaning deeply, still oiling up his long, black shaft. Sarah stood in front of the intimidating stud, taking a good look at his body as she stood cautiously. He didn’t even seem to notice her. He moved his hand outside of the jock, letting the strap fill with his growing member. The front of the strap shot out with a large bulge, it grew progressively thicker and thicker as he heaved his heavy chest up and down. Sarah sat slowly onto his lap, trying her best to ignore the massive bulge that ran past her butt and down her thigh. She pulled the strap upwards and slipped her oily legs inside with ease. She let the jock go and the strap snapped against her soft skin making her wince as it pulled their bodies together tightly. Instead of feeling the smack of his oily taut skin, she began falling through his thick waist ass first.

She looked down unexpectedly and her eyes widened with excitement once more. She held her breath as her legs and her waist slowly vanished into his huge, herculean form. A strange sensation coursed through her body. Her legs felt almost twice as heavy as before and something felt so off about her crotch. She felt a strong fabric squeezing against her crotch. It would have felt uncomfortable if her body was so oiled up. “W-wait. Oiled up?” She thought to herself. She looked down once more. Her old legs were completely gone. Her soft white flesh was now replaced with dark, brown skin that was pulled taut over her muscular legs and her crotch was now being hugged tightly by the tight white jockstrap. Nothing could have prepared her for what happened next. Her new cock began to grow as her breaths became more and more rapid. Her shaft slowly inched upwards against the front of the strap, making the bulge grow bigger by the second. She winced with discomfort. “This-this is so fucking weird.” She said while trying to catch her breath. She couldn’t believe it. She had a cock. A big cock at that. She narrowed and eventually closed her eyes tightly as her dick became harder and harder. It felt weird but somehow so pleasurable. Eventually her eyes opened and she moaned softly as her cock eventually hit its peak and began thrashing fiercely against the soft cotton briefs. She wanted to feel it up so badly but fought the urge to jerk off right then and there.

She fell back, her slender, girlish figure disappearing into the void of Martin’s heavyset chest. His chest seemed to swallow her whole. It took in her body so easily. Sarah blinked an eye before feeling the air suck out of her chest. She inhaled desperately but her chest felt massive and unnatural. It was a chore to bring air into her lungs but she slowly got used to the feeling. She looked down and immediately, her gaze was met with her new hunky torso. Her new black pecs were bursting with strength and muscle, they heaved up and down with heavy weight as she sucked air into her new giant lungs. Fuck. This felt so weird. So unlady-like but she loved how fucking strong her chest was now. Even her tight, firm abs felt fucking incredible. She bounced her new beefy pecs up and down over and over again. She loved showing off their strength and form. She bite her lips as she lifted her skinny arms against his rippling, shimmering, black cannons. His arms curved around hers and her arms slipped into his without resistance.

She could feel their power instantly. The size of her swollen biceps and dark, furry forearms. The veins that thrusted forcibly against her slippery, brown flesh and the muscles that lined around her deep hairy armpits. “Fuuuuck” she let out as her arms strained to thrust their muscles up tightly against her skin. Was in love with this body. She couldn’t wait to explore all its ins and outs. She sunk back her head with a large smile on her face before the old Sarah completely vanished.

Sarah’s eyes blinked groggily as she looked around the dorm. A sense of unease and familiarity filled her body. She felt like a stranger inside the dorm but at the same time, she felt right at home. She blinked her eyes fully open before looking down at her body. A smile crossed her face. She was a total hunk. She felt like an intruder in this gorgeous body, like she didn’t belong. Even though this feeling loomed over her head, she loved her stunning, brawny figure way too much to let it bother her. Sarah stood up from her chair and began feeling up her muscled chest, filling her giant hands with her bunching black pecs. That name ran through her head over and over. “Sarah. Sarah. No no no, Sarah is gone. Martin feels so much better.” Martin brought up her thick arms and began flexing this as hard as he could. “Yeah….Martin” he said to himself with a cocky grin wiping across his face.

Martin loved his body. It was the one that he had been building up for his entire life, but it felt so new. It was like playing with a cool new toy for the very first time. He thrusted his pecs out forcefully, letting his chest swell with air, making his muscles look even more massive and pronounced. God, he loved this fucking body. Everything about it was just so damn perfect. From his massive arms to his heavy, unmovable chest, even his glistening dark skin felt so fucking sexy to have. And his cock, god his cock was perfect. Long, girthy, and throbbing for some action. He was so absorbed in checking out his arms and chest that he had almost forgotten how the strap was hugging tightly against his thick, muscled member. His bulge was pulsing and thrashing around fiercely as he flexed his heavyset form. Another wide grin crossed his face as he pulled down the strap. His long black cock shot forward instantly, still throbbing over and over, just waiting to be touched.

He couldn’t wait any longer. Martin wrapped his big muscular hands around his veiny shaft, slowly running his hand up and down its length. His palm was completely filled with his girthy black shaft, he could even feel the veins brush against his hands as he jerked his cock over and over. His dick was nice and slick thanks to the oil that he put on it earlier, it felt so fucking good as he let his hand glide effortlessly up and down his massive dick. Martin’s forearm began to tighten and cover with veins as he tugged faster and faster. The sight of it gave him an idea. He brought up his other arm and flexed, letting his biceps bulge up near his head. His biceps were fucking huge. Covered in a thick layer of lean muscle, riddled with veins, he loved their size. The pleasure was weighing on him. He moaned deeply, his voice booming throughout the dorm as he pulled on his long dick over and over again. It felt fucking amazing. Beads of sweat broke the coat of oil that covered his muscled chest as he heaved it up and down, slowly getting closer and closer to his climax. His abs were sucked in tight, their deep grooves and ridges still holding small streams of slippery sweat as he held them in, keeping them nice and firm. His pits deepened as he flexed his entire body, finally letting out a loud roar as he could feel his load escape his thickened shaft. His hard, now pulsating cock shot out stream after stream of hot, sticky cum. The fluid escaped his fat tip, spewing puddles of white fluid onto the carpet, almost reaching the desk where his laptop laid. Martin breathed in deeply as he smashed back down into his chair, his hand still gripped firmly around his dark, veiny shaft. He slowly milked every last drop of cum out of his muscled rod before rolling his head back with a smile on his face. This body was absolutely perfect.

Thanks for reading. If you like the stories with thinking of yourself as being the one to merge into others and have spare time to RP, hit up my DMs as I’m always generally looking. Cheers.

[wish-to-grow-a-garden]

So, I just finished playing Hello Neighbor and I'm here to give it my personal rating because reasons.

First off, I'll admit that the only reason I even was able to beat it was because I used walkthroughs. Without them, I never would have figured out half the shortcuts and mechanics and secrets (more on that later), but I just wanted to see how the game actually turned out in the end because most Youtubers I watched play it kinda gave up after like the 3rd version that got released. That being said...

Overall Game Rating: 6/10

So at its core this game had potential. I WANTED the final version of this game to be better than it was. Would it ever have been the best game ever? I highly doubt it. But it could have been much more noteworthy if it had just *functioned* better. I'm also fully aware that I'm several years late, but man I just need to give my discourse and opinions to someone who isn't 9 or a completely lost parent. Anyways, allow me to explain myself in the good old fashioned Tumblr way of bullets-

The Good

Physical design. Now, this is a completely personal opinion here, but I liked how the game looked. It was colorful, it had its own distinct style. There were very few occasions when I couldn't tell what something was, and most of the time those indistinguishables weren't remotely important. I also like how the writing in the game was scrambled to kinda make it fun and nonsensical, but you could still pretty much tell what it was meant to say.

Story! Guys, the main reason I came back to this game in the first place; the reason I really wanted to see it finished and see what happened in all those chapters that I never saw finished; was because I wanted to get more of the story. I wanted to know what happened, and while I'm still not entirely certain, I have several theories. And all the theories follow the same general track with a few basic deviations, so I'd say that the game did a pretty good job of getting it's focal points across.

The puzzel aspect. I like games that make me (when I'm actually playing seriously and not just playing to get through it) think. And I wasn't using the guide every step of the way, so I had a genuinely good time figuring out what items went to what, and what I could do with certain objects that I couldn't achieve with others. I think the overall idea of "hey, run around this dude's house and work out his overly complicated, Ikea-like home full of coniptions and contraptions" super fun.

Multiple ways to reach endings. Now, mainly this applied to Act 2 in my experience because Act 1 seemed pretty straightforward and Act 3 had me frustrated for so many days to the point where I couldn't really appreciate its options (more on that in a bit), but I'm sure there were deviating paths there as well. Point is, I saw 3 seperate ways of escaping the Neighbor's house in act 2, and I just sorta thought that was cool. And considering I'm playing for myself, and guiding (playing) two children through their own files, I managed to get two of those 3 escapes. The endings were the same, but still, it's cool.

The secrets and optional pathways. There were several rooms that I never actually managed to get into when i was playing through just because I wasn't secret I hunting. But I DID take notice of them, plus there were quite a few that I just happened to find my way into during my run arounds, and I explored because hey! Secrets! And I'm sure there was a ton of extra story material I missed because I neglected a lot of them, but I can appreciate a game that leaves its little hidden details as something you sort of have to work for. If I ever find the patience and the time one day, maybe I'll go back for them.

Audio warnings. Okay okay, so I was a big dummy and played through the first 2 Acts without any sound, and only plugged in headphones for the second half of Act 3. But once I did, having the music pick up in warning when the neighbor spotted me, or being able to hear the mannequins coming was very nice.

The minigames/cut scenes. And I'm not including the Fear rooms in this because I did not take anywhere near as much intrest or enjoyment out of those. I mean the things you were just mean to sorta run through. The bits where you could see the neighbor at his lowest. The bits that showed that maybe, maybe this dude that you've been cussing out the entire game is actually just some dude who had a really tough run, and just ended up snapping. The bits that kinda make you feel bad for barging into his home and shattering all his windows and just being a general dick. The bit at the very end got me especially- when he's trapped in the room by the shadow figure, and he sorta looks out the window at you, and then just stands dejectedly in the corner. I wanted to help him. I REALLY wanted to help him. I felt bad leaving.

The Bad

Limited functionality. Oh my lord, if this game hadn't been so effing glitchy the whole way through, I might have been able to give it a 7 or 8 out of 10. But it just...didn't. There were so many times when things would just vanish from my inventory and I'd have to reload, or the puzzle wouldn't solve the way it was meant to and I'd have to Macgyver my way around it. There were also several times where I would be trying to hide in a locker/closet, and my character would get stuck in the door of said locker/closet. Half the time it would get me caught, and half the time I'd have to button mash for several minutes before I could get free. The worst possible glitch I had during my whole experience was when I was trying to get up to the roof garden in Act 3. My walkthrough told me I had to get in the trolley and stop it just before a ledge to jump up. The problem is THE TROLLEY WOULDN'T STOP. Every time I tried, I'd either glitch through the front and get hit and die, or it would just completely break the train and it would just go into constant motion, not even making its programmed stops at the different stations.

Ridiculous enemy sightline triggers. Listen, Act 2 in particular was absolute HELL to get through the first time (and even unnecessarily difficult after I took the lids through it the 2nd and 3rd times) because the neighbor could be like 3 blocks down and inside his local "Murderous Psycos Anonymous" meeting, and yet the moment I step foot in his yard he's on a dead sprint to my location. And don't even get me STARTED on the mannequins in the Fear rooms. Their sightline triggers were so ridiculously unfair that if I hadn't had the sound triggers telling me they were coming, I never would have gotten past those rooms. But the sensitivity could have even been brushed off, if it were even remotely consistent. There were other times when I would be standing directly in front of the Neighbor, shining a flashlight in his eyes and staring him head on, and yet because I was crouched and slightly out of his sightline (this happened several times in the basement of Act 1.)

Pointless enemy boundaries. By this, I mean that the Neighbor is (apparently) meant to stop at the boundaires of his property when he's chasing you and you run off home. But he doesn't . In fact, quite often I couldn't get him to back off until I was actually physically in my house with the door closed.

Extremely unclear puzzle solutions. The main reason I opted to use the walkthroughs instead of working my way through the game myself? Because without them, it would have been damn near impossible. There were so many times that I was preforming the solution to a problem and I was just like "...really?". Requiring the player to interact with one of hundreds of completely repetative and indistinguishable paintings, having to glitch a shoe through a box to switch a lever, making a specific space match a painting on the wall to open a box that was down the hall and outside...it was just kind of ridiculous. I personally wouldn't have even guessed the the umbrellas could be used as floatation devices until maybe several hours into the game, if ever at all. When you have to many objects that seem unqiue but are actually just more props to toss around, it gets kinda hard to distinguish what is actually useful and what isn't.

The Iffy

The final boss. ...okay, I have to actually admit that I had a fun time being teeny and launching nerf darts and bottle rockets at the Neighbor. Especially after all the pain of getting through Act 2. (He actually didn't bother me much in Act 3.) But like...what was it? His household was weighing on his back or whatever. The reminders of his kids were causing him pain. Okay, okay, cool....but like...there wasn't any better setting for it? There was no better way to pull it off? I was legitimately just running around and doing things just to inconvenience the tall man in front of me. I died so many times just trying to work out the toaster puzzle until I got all...like, 600 umbrellas. I don't know, it was just strange execution.

The Fear Room Powerups. I didn't know the fear rooms were necessary. I didn't know they gave you powerups. Had I not read the walkthroughs, I never would have figured it out. And even AFTER I beat them, I didn't work out that I had power ups until last minute. There was no acknowledgment that I had gained a new power, save for the sneakily worded achievements. However, I did appreciate them while I had them. They let me Macgyver my way around even more.

The seemingly unexplorable. There were doors upon doors that I wanted to get through. And doors upon doors that seemed to have no actual entrances. No secret methods. No special actions. They were just doors. Taunting me. Is it possible I missed something? Absolutely, I'd bet on it. But all I'm saying is I ran around that house a lot in all three levels, and there were some things that I was just never able to work out.

The Conclusion

Hello Neighbor is a game for the patient and the crafty. I enjoyed it. I would have enjoyed it more if it were more functional and made even a lick of sense gameplay wise. But while it isn't anywhere near the best game I've ever played, it isn't the worst either. Its playable enough if you're willing to work around its defects. I'd suggest it for a rainy day, or an especially quarentined week.

[annakie]

An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part Five

Will we make it off the Citadel in this update??

List of Posts: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Flux is my favorite bar in all of the first game, I know there’s not many to choose from, but I like the music best, everybody’s clothed, everyone’s having a good time, there’s slots upstairs for entertainment, there’s dancing, and plenty of space to chill out in.  Also the color scheme is great.  It looks particularly great now with the graphics mod improvements.  

Doran gets a nice glamour shot here.

I’m a tattle tale who always turns this guy in.  I agree with Kaidan...

Also I really love Rita’s quest with her sister.  She loves her sister, Jenna  wants to be helpful, even Doran’s like “Hey I’d love to give her her job back.”  Everyone here is pretty wholesome.  And Jenna gets one of the best surprise appearances in ME3 if you do things right.  ME1Recalibrated fixes the bugs with her quest, too!

Speaking of bugged quests, Hello Conrad!  ME1Recalibrated fixes Conrad’s bug, and even if it doesn’t, ME2Re does.  The only bad thing about that is it makes his apology for accusing you of something you maybe didn’t do make no sense.

Everyone else was sure Conrad would turn out to be evil, too, right? Instead making him into just a big lying dummy with an advanced degree was a great move.  I was kinda hoping he’d show up in the Citadel DLC.   

Harkin is JUST the FUCKING WORST.  I’m always tempted to let Garrus cap him in ME2 because what a waste of air he is and doesn’t learn his lesson.  

This is also maybe the most overt place where FemShep experiences sexism.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s some pretty shitty sexism sprinkled throughout the games (as discussed a bit last post) but ugh this guy, if I could shoot him this game, I might.  At least on renegade playthroughs.

Speaking of Garrus...

Finally, an alien who wants to hang out with us.

As primarily a Kaidan-romancing gal, who tends to keep up with the Kaidan Alenko tag, especially back in the heyday of tumblr, for a while, loving Garrus was... difficult.

In October, when I was finishing up my latest ME3 playthrough and also cleaning up my blog, and also rewatching Doctor Who and thinking a lot about Rose Tyler and Martha Jones, I posted a long thing in a post about Kaidan and Garrus and badly behaving fanbases, which I don’t feel like typing again.  Here’s the whole thing, but I’m going to pull a part of it into here.

I love Garrus, so much.  And I was thinking with this whole parallel DW rewatch / Mass Effect replay think I’m doing right now how both Rose Tyler and Garrus Vakaraian are characters that were ruined for me for awhile due to their respective… overly enthusiastic fanbases who a small percentage of were dicks to people who loved other characters.  The Kaidan tag (and from what I understand Thane got some of this too, but not nearly as bad) was a pretty hostile place for awhile (and yeah I used to regularly check the Garrus tag too and there was a small amount of tag-invasion there but uh, like 5% of what the Kaidan tag got) which made loving the character of Garrus a lot harder for awhile.  But when actually watching seasons 1 & 2 / the end of 4 of Doctor Who, or actually playing the ME games, those characters are awesome.  

Fanbases can be amazing or terrible, and time and time again I think you start to realize that no matter how great a fandom is, there are going to be a few people who can only enjoy themselves by feeding on drama, or on lifting up what they love by stomping on other people/characters/plotlines.  

It’s not fair to characterize everyone who loves a popular thing as someone who does this.  It’s also hard to avoid completely because there will always be jerks, or young/new people who don’t realize what bad form they’re showing.  I did learn by trying to fight it for a year or two, that responding might help that one person not do it again, but it’s not going to stop overall.  

Anyway, don’t be a dick about the things you don’t like.  

It’s sad that even thirteen years past the release of ME1 and eight years past ME3 some people still need to have this fight online.   It’s basically impossible to enjoy like, any non-curated Mass Effect space online because of pissing contests or people spouting the same boring opinions.  Which they’re entitled to.  I’m just real tired of “Kaidan is boring!” “Ashley is a racist!” etc with no further depth of thought being given.

The ability to mute / block people and get away from the worst of it is one of the reasons I’m still on tumblr.  Especially always mute/block “confessions” blogs.  Yeesh.

---------

I’m glad Garrus is here, and I’m glad he’s on the team.  What’s funny though, is that people tend to forget that Garrus like, wasn’t really all THAT popular of a character before ME2.  I know I was only in the fandom for a year before ME2 but I dug in pretty deep in that time.

It wasn’t until he gets his face blown off and starts talking about Old Times that a lot of people started to REALLY like him.  He’s still great in ME1, but not like, elevated to god-tier that so many people did post ME2 release.  But in ME1 he IS neat because he’s really malleable.  Probably the companion who can have the biggest personality shift depending on your choices.

Also, I remember a time when the people who wanted to romance Garrus were like... outliers?  I remember thinking “GARRUS?  As a romance?  That’s... weird.  Who would do that!?”

OH HOW I WAS WRONG.  But that was before reach and flexibility.

Hey I even have a Shep that romanced Garrus in ME2 and ME3.  And I loved it!

Were I to replay a different Shep, she’d be my first choice.

So yeah, I love Garrus, I keep Kaidan in the squad all the time in ME1 and the other spot I try to rotate everyone else somewhat evenly, but you’ll see plenty of him.  Then ME2 he’s by my side most of the way.  And an awful lot in ME3, too.  But I’m happy for him to get crushed on by Dr. Michele and glad to see him and Tali find happiness in ME3.  SO that’s the path we’ll be going down if we get that far here.

I love the Destiny Ascension flyby moment on the Citadel, and it’s so easy to miss.  Also really hard to get good screenshots of.  Thanks Flycam.  Don’t pay attention to the untextured wall in the first pic, just look at the pretty lights!

Let’s go get another squadmate!  This time, a not-as-initially-friendly alien!

What an amazing entrance for Urdnot Wrex.

“Do you want me to arrest you?”

“I want you to try!”

Hell.  Yeah.

Here’s where the somewhat in somewhat evenly comes in.  I probably do favor Wrex and Ashely in the squad in ME1 a little because... well you know what’s coming for Ash and Wrex you get the least amount of time with by far of the other companions.  Also, he’s just... great?  A tank, with some biotics and a shotgun... okay well so am I as a vanguard, but Kaidan has just enough tech powers for us to muddle through where we need to when Wrex is in the squad and he’s so much fun to have around.  His “Fuck you, I don’t care” attitude is great, and his growth story throughout the trilogy is one of the best arcs a character gets, imho.  I just really love Urdnot Wrex.

This is a real nice flight control office you’ve got here, C-Sec.  It would be a shame if someone planted a bug in it later, since literally anyone can just walk on up here uncontested.

This entire area really is so pretty though.

I always pump points into Paragon as much as possible from as early on as possible, and saving these poor guys’ lives is one of the big reasons.  They don’t need to die.

Ash usually still stays in the party up to this point, though sometimes it’s Garrus.  Fist is still a dick in ME2 but he doesn’t need to die here, sorry Wrex.

...raise your hand if you still occasionally forget to pick up Emily Wong’s evidence and have to reload.  I remembered!  ...once I was almost out of Chora’s Den and had to turn around this time.

Kaidan?  Kaidan my love?  My darling... perhaps YOU shouldn’t be the one standing in the middle of the corridor with no barrier or protection?  (I suppose I could scooch over but then I’d look less badass for these screenshots.  Naaah.)

It’d be a shame if someone properly lit the corridor so we could see what’s going on.

But hey... TALI!  Tali Tali Tali!  The first quarian we see, and only one for... awhile?  Is there another quarian in this entire game? I’m trying to remember and seriously can’t think of one.

Anyway, I love Tali, but another character you really need to ignore their most rabid fanbase portions of.  Yikes, Talimancers were really something back in the day.  The biggest problem I have with Tali being in the squad is that normally she’s REALLY useful against Geth and... not so much against just about anything else.  She gets sidelined on my team more than I wish she would.  Especially since she doesn’t show up until very late in ME2 and late-midway through ME3.

Finally, the proof we need.  And the game continues to introduce new concepts to us with the Conduit and we hear the word Reapers for the first time.  We also get a loredump on the quarians and the geth.  

Tali’s voice doesn’t have quite as heavy of an accent in ME1 as it does in 2 and 3.  I guess we can assume she’s lost part of it while on her pilgrimage?  Picking up the local dialects a bit?  The next two times we see her she’s just spent a lot of time with her own people.

Tali’s suit and omnitool look SO GOOD with the updated textures.

I swap Ash out and Tali in at this point, and usually finish up a few more quests along the way.

Ah, Septimus.  You lovesick fool.

Honestly, the very best thing with Septimus is to bring Garrus here if you’re gonna romance him, have Garrus laugh at him for coming undone for love and then... well, ME2 and especially ME3 happen.  But still.  Septimus... always needs a kick in the pants but will get around to doing the right thing.

Hey here’s a cool thing ME1Recalibated does -- Morlan carries a Squad Iconic Armors stock, so you can always find tier-appropriate default look armor for you and all the squad.  Very cool of you, Morlan.  You are currently my favorite store on the Citadel.  Now stop sending me spam, I didn’t sign up for your mailing list.

Look, I have questions about what exactly Xeltan told the consort and how... all that... works... but... I don’t think I actually want to ask them.  Just.. let’s all shut up about all of it, it’s over now.

BTW, according to one of the novels, Councilor Anderson finds Ambassador Cayln super annoying.  I need to re-read that book.

OK fine... I’ll go talk to the Council.

Coming at ya with Actual Proof and a quarian tagging along to back up the claims, the Council is ready to listen.  And while not surprising that it’s finally time to become a Spectre, the actual ceremony is really well done.  With the swelling theme music blaring, and all three councilors stressing what a big deal this is and what will be expected of you, you really feel the weight of this moment.  People take notice.  Although apparently later, Kaidan or Ash get an entire televised event around becoming a Spectre, I guess there’s no time for that right now.

It definitely feels like the game so far has been building towards this moment, not only with POUNDING it into your brain about who Spectres are and why they’re so important and letting you know you’re being evaluated... but it feels like there’s been a shift in the game after this moment.  It’s A Big Deal.

I didn’t finish all the sidequests on the Citadel yet, they can wait, I’ve been here long enough.  Let’s go check out the new cool stuff we can buy.

ME1Recalibrated adds in this Spectre Armor.  Eeehhhhh... no thanks.  We’ll stick with Onyx.

I did cheat myself in a bunch of credits and picked up Spectre weapons though. This ain’t no tryhard playthrough.  

Well OK, we can finish ONE more quest.  Thanks, startlingly loud and triumphant music queue that’s never used again!

Man, this would be SUCH a good pic of the Normandy if... the airlock didn’t go straight through the ship.

We’ve got a ship of our own!  And most of our squadmates to put on it!

Sucks for Anderson to be sidelined, though.  We already love you, Anderson!

It’s cool to get a bit more of the Saren & Anderson backstory here for real.  Still, I enjoyed the book more.  Maybe I’ll do a re-read of all the ME books here soon.

Udina... just keep being you, I guess.  

WE HAVE A SHIP!!!

Okay, whew... we made it off the Citadel.  Now I gotta actually play some more to have more updates to post.  Might be a few days.  Have to actually go back to work tomorrow. :p

Let’s probably do like one sidequest then go get us an Asari!!

[heartlesslywhumping]

hi i love your prompts!! my friend is writing a story and wants to have some whump in it, so i thought i’d ask you if you had any prompts for it! it takes place 100 years after nuclear war broke out, and 12 young adults were forced into cryofreeze 50 years ago to see if they could live above ground. and while a lot of radiation cleared out, there’s still areas that are dangerously radiated. to make things worse, they all had their memories wiped and there are basically mutants above ground. ty!!

Oh daaaaaaaaang I love that idea! It reminds me of the 100 series, both the book series and TV show

(I refer to the young adults as a team here for ease of writing) ((also, there’s nothing bad under the cut, this is just a really long post and I’m breaking it up a bit))

One member gets a debilitating disease from the radiation, something similar to cancer. The rest of the team has to watch as the member suffers and slowly deteriorates, all while the member brushes it off and tries to hide how they’re suffering. Whether or not the member recovers is up to the writer.

The vegetation has mutated leading to the team preparing something wrong or eating the wrong thing. This leads to allergic reactions, poisoning, comas, seizures, vomiting, hallucinations, all the fun stuff.

There’s something bad in the water to include rain, mist, snow, etc. Does it cause them to hallucinate or does it cause physical harm? How does the team react to having no water?

One member touches or eats something that messes with their brain and leads them to attacking the team. The team has to physically restrain and contain the affected member. Now the team has two members out of commision, one injured and one potentially insane. The team has to listen to the affected member raving, screaming, thrashing, and pounding against their restraints. The team doesn’t know what happened, if it’s curable, or what they do next. The elephant in the room is the fact that they may have to kill the affected member. Meanwhile, the member acts like a rabid animal, snarling, clawing, screaming incoherently, sobbing, thrashing, throwing things, tearing at everything and everyone.

Consider what the member was/is. Weakest or strongest? Social butterfly or lone wolf? Leader or rebel? All of this will affect the team emotionally and physically. The way a trained warrior fights versus the way a healer would is vastly different. The most experienced or the least experienced would react and hit differently than the other option

If the member recovers: They now have to live with what they did for the rest of their lives. Do they look at the injured member and are stuck with horror and guilt?  How does their dynamic with the team tear at what they did? What are the lasting emotional and physical repercussions? Is the injured member unconscious? Is it debatable if the injured member will live? What if the affected member potentially killed their friend? Were they aware of what they were doing but unable to stop? Were they fully gone? Do they still hear the screams and pleads to stop? The horrible things they said? Do they still feel what they did to the injured member? Can they still smell and taste the blood and dirt? Is there still blood under their fingernails? Will they ever trust themselves again? Will anyone else?

If they don’t: Who decides to kill the member or make the executive decision to leave the member behind? Does the member fight back or lie still when they’re about to be killed? Do they have moments of clarity and beg for either death or life? Are they shot, stabbed, poisoned etc? If they’re left behind, are they left food and water just in case? If they still manage to recover, does the decision to leave the member behind come back to bite the team in the butt? Or does the recovered member come back and save the team? The team now has to deal with leaving the member behind. Walking away to the screaming and thrashing.

If the writer is writing from multiple POVs, play with writing in one you wouldn’t expect here. Try writing from inside the affected member’s mind. Are they aware of what they’re doing but they’re a puppet in their own body? Are they completely insane? What does that look like? Do they think the team intends to harm them or do they think the team are intruders? What do they think or feel as they die? As they’re left behind to die slowly? POVs can really add to some unique whump

There are mutants?

Is the team revered or looked down on because they are not mutated? (Or are they?)

Revered:

Treated like gods, which seems nice at first until the people start demanding miracles

If they team can’t provide those miracles, it’s likely that they will be killed and/or tortured

The team frantically tries to escape while providing those miracles

Consider El Dorado (the animated movie) if it wasn’t a children’s comedy and things went significantly worse

Looked down:

Are they experimented on?

“Welcomed” by a group only to find out later that they’re meant for a sacrifice or meal

Enslaved

Hunted for sport

Creatures have mutated. Give them elongated necks, extra heads, insane amount of eyes, rows of teeth, reloadable stingers, giant insects, heightened vision and hearing, what have you. Let your horror mind go crazy (we all have a horror mind). The more grotesque and crazy your mutated creatures get, the more havoc they can wreak. Remember that this is a dystopian! In the Hunger Games there were birds that could mimic voices/screams, and wasps whose stings could cause hallucinations and/or death. Go crazy! Have your creatures melded with technology? Or gotten technological features all on their own? Do they have specific radiation related abilities? Play with this and then set the worst of it all upon your OCs *evil laughter*

Some ideas to play with just from our own world that creatures (animals, insects, aquatic beings) can do

Bites

Stings

Poison/venom

Swarms

Suffocation

Overwhelming a prey

Camouflage

Lures (think of angler fish or cookie cutter sharks that light up in the darkness to attract prey. Or venus flytraps)

Crocodiles and their death rolls

Forcing a prey to drown

Some octopi can whip their prey with venomous tentacles

Animals and bugs can spit

Choking

Marble cone snails literally deploy a venom filled harpoon

Suckers or various ways of sticking to prey

Constantly following until the prey is exhausted

There is a breed of wild, big cat (like a leopard) that mimics the cry of baby monkeys

Crushing

Paralyzation

Echolocation

Just read what tentacled sea snakes do!

“They can basically read minds. Maybe they can’t control other objects, nor can they tell exactly it is what they’re thinking, but based on their evolutionary method, they know where their prey is going to swim, and wait there with their jaws wide open. How does it manage this, you ask? Well, because of a fish’s innate reaction to perceived danger. It’s call C-start. When a fish sense sound waves in the water, their body automatically jolts and they go swimming speedily away from potential predators. The tentacled sea snake, however, moves its mid-section in order to purposefully trigger this response, then, when the fish tries to flee, it ends up right in the snake’s waiting mouth.”

And all of this is just from our own world. Also….just look at Australia.

Some more quick ones are to remove resources. Remove food, water, shelter, anything. Make the world itself a terrifying place. Mess with the elements of nature, mess with creatures, mess with people (do the mutants have powers? Even simple things like better strength or endurance? Better senses that can smell, hear, see, taste danger? Natural resistant to things that hurt the team? It doesn’t have to be X-men style powers unless you want it to), mess with           e v e r y t h i n g.

Also, how have the mutants survived so long? What do they have that the team doesn’t and how can that hurt the team?

To heighten something,  add a layer of time sensitivity or danger. Is something coming for them? Do they know?

And of course, there are lots more for mind wiping. This is just getting into a pretty long post and I’ve already re-written this several times (stupid tumblr kept crashing and my webpage kept reloading and deleting everything I’d already written) so I’m going to cut it off here with those quick ways to add whump as well.

If you’d like a follow up with mind wiping stuff, just message me! I’ll try to respond quicker this time 😅

Thanks for the ask! I’d love to know how this story goes! If it’s ever publicly shared somewhere (printed in a book, turned into a comic, posted on wattpad) message me again! I’d love to read it! (And if it’s never shared, I totally get that. Writers are weird and stories get away from us.) All the best of luck to your friend!!!!

Some gruesome things that animals do below this line

_____________________________________________________

Cannibalism

Eating prey alive

There is a breed of ant that makes a vertical, sticky platform filled with holes. Once a bug sticks to it, the ants pop out and pull it in various directions while stinging it to death. Some bugs can be stuck there for hours, being torn into manageable chunks

Spiders and their webbing up prey for later. Some do it while their prey is alive

[juniperhillpatient]

Could you write Richie introduces Beverly to comic books? Obviously a friendship thing

Thank you for the prompt ❤️❤️❤️ I’m sorry it’s so late. I spent forever editing it and then Tumblr reloaded & I had to re-edit. Save stuff on Microsoft Word always, I guess.

 Anyway, this was so fun to write. Richie & Bev’s friendship is so important. I based this off the book partially because I’m currently re-reading and that’s where my mindset is and partially because I wanted to reference this really cool fifties horror comic anthology I have, so this is set in the fifties like the book. It’s just a fun little one-shot though so I think if you’ve only watched the movies this will (hopefully) be just fine!

Anyway, I really hope you enjoy  ❤️❤️❤️

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“You cheated!”

“Did not.”

“Richie, come on, you distracted me by pointing to the window and stole one of my cards.” The two of them were sitting in Richie’s kitchen, a bowl of chopped melon and two cups of juice as well as an array of card games between them on the table.

“But I tawt I taw a putty cat!” Richie protested, waving his arms wildly. Then, in his normal voice. “Come on Bev, I wouldn’t cheat. I saw a cat out in the yard and because I am a good friend who points out cute animals, I wanted you to see it too.” He paused and rolled his eyes with an air of over-the-top drama and spoke in his most sarcastic voice. “I’m sooo sorry for being a considerate friend, Beverly, truly, sooo sorry.”

Beverly couldn’t help but giggle, but she stood her ground all the same. “First of all, it’s wet and gross out there so if there was a cat it wouldn’t have been cute it would have looked like a rat. Second of all, Richie, I would’ve won if you hadn’t done that and we both know it.”

Beverly recognized a spark in Richie’s eye that told her yes, he had stolen the card and would admit to doing so but not until after some decent banter. It was a lazy sort of afternoon, and this was not the first time the two of them had fallen into amiable arguing. There was a light rain pattering against the window. Maggie Tozier was sitting in the living room reading a novel by Beverly Cleary & Went Tozier was away working at the dentist’s office. 

Beverly appreciated spending time at Richie’s, and her willingness to play along with his shtick was her way of thanking him for inviting her over. Neither of them would ever in a million years bring up the fact that he’d been staring at the yellowing bruise on her cheek the previous afternoon when the losers were playing in the barrens, or that he’d obviously overheard her confiding to Eddie, as the two of them sat quietly off to the side, that she didn’t want to go home. Richie thought privately that Beverly had told Eddie this because she thought Eddie might understand such a feeling. Richie, however, never would have shared such an insight with anyone.

“Why I never,” Richie said, taking on the voice and demeanor of an overtly proper British person. “How dare you accuse me of such blasphemy!”

“Beep beep Richie,” Bev said, rolling her eyes. “What is that voice even supposed to be?”

“It’s a British guy,” Richie said in dramatic outrage. “I know you know what a British accent sounds like, Bev. Come on, give me something!”

“A British accent is more like this, Richie. Listen,” she made her voice much higher and did her best impression of a British accent. “Jolly oh, jolly oh good sir, oh yes indeed.”

“That’s terrible!” Richie groaned, falling back in his seat dramatically and throwing his arm over his face in disgust. They spent the next twenty minutes or so arguing over what a British accent sounded like and doing horrible impressions. The notion of playing any more games, it seemed, was gone. Beverly hadn’t expected card playing to last long anyway. Any kind of activity that required lasting attention was unlikely to be of great success with Richie. Richie had suggested they go to the movies when he called her up in the morning, there was a good monster picture showing at the Aladdin, but neither of them had any money. So, instead, they were spending the afternoon at Richie’s, to which Beverly had no objection. The Toziers’ place felt the way a home should. She thought Richie knew that she felt that way, and that’s why he often invited her over on days like today when the other losers were busy (Bill with speech therapy, Mike with housework, Ben with summer reading) or didn’t want to come out in the rain (Stan and Eddie).

“Alright you two,” Mrs. Tozier, whom Beverly liked a lot, interrupted just as Richie was halfway through a stream of truly profane words in an embarrassingly bad British accent.

“Sorry, Mrs. Tozier,” Beverly said in a hurry.

“Yeah, sorry, Mom,” Richie said.

“That’s okay. Just keep it down a little, alright?”

“Sure, of course, Mom,” Richie said.

“And keep that trashy language out of your mouth,” Mrs. Tozier told her son. “Especially around a lady.”

Beverly, who had been squealing with laughter before Mrs. Tozier entered the room, felt her cheeks flush. Richie’s mom, she thought, got what being a mom was about. She always had snacks, though usually healthy ones due to her husband’s dental profession, and often said nothing when Beverly would stay over late into the night on days when the thought of going home made her too sick to handle and she just needed to listen to Richie talk about nothing and make stupid noises for hours.

“Come on, let’s do something else,” Beverly said, putting the cards away as Mrs. Tozier left the room.

“Yeah,” Richie said standing. “I’ll show you my new ‘Weird Love’ comic!”

“Your -what now?” Beverly asked, intrigued.

“My new Weird Love comic. It’s a great one. It’s all about this girl who’s in love with a man who acts in a circus as a clown. She really likes him, except she’s embarrassed because she’s dating a clown.”

“I’m sorry what? What the heck are ‘Weird Love’ comics anyway?” Beverly asked.

“Oh, you’re kidding me!” Richie cried. “You’ve never read a ‘Weird Love’ comic? They’re great. They’re horror comics but about romance. Like, people who fall in love with monsters.”

Beverly shivered. “Who would want to fall in love with a monster? Or a clown? Yuck.”

As Beverly followed Richie out of the kitchen and upstairs to his room, thoughts of another clown, a distinctly unlovable clown, clouded her mind. She shoved such thought way as she and Richie entered his room. On the floor were toy soldiers he and Mike had set up in lines facing each other in preparation for battle, a jigsaw puzzle he had been working on with Stan, and a Mad Libs story he and Bill had been filling in with increasingly dirty words.

“Check it out,” he told her, grabbing a comic with a clown and a pretty lady on the cover from his dresser and flopping onto his belly on his messy bed.

Beverly followed suit, laying on her belly next to him and looking over his shoulder at the comic.

Years later, Beverly would remember the comic book clown, who was called Ben, and his creepy makeup and how it had delighted her child’s mind. Sitting in a much nicer and fancier home than she could have dreamed of at twelve years old, Beverly Hanscom would put her feet up on the coffee looking across to where Richie sat, looking off into the distance, being much quieter than she was used to. As the sounds of Bill and Mike’s argument about who would win in a bike race despite both of them being too old, and, on that particular occasion too drunk, to participate in such a race, she would remember that rainy afternoon and ask Richie about it. She would ask him if he ever thought it was kind of amazing how much they loved those silly horror comics at the time, considering everything they had been going through. “Nah,” Richie would respond in a quiet voice. “We were kids. Kids aren’t as easy to rattle as adults.”

Adult Richie would be right. As the two children read the comic together, flipping the pages eagerly as they became acquainted with Janie, a respectable and pretty woman, and Ben the clown, they giggled and gasped in equal measure. Neither of them brought up the real clown, the one that was stalking their every move and taunting them with things they didn’t like to think about like the soft way Beverly’s dad would sometimes ask “are you still my little girl, Bevvie?” or the way that werewolf had been wearing a jacket with Richie’s name on it and maybe he was the monster and it was him and his bad and secret (dirty) feelings causing all this pain.

Instead, they read the comic and laughed and Beverly asked Richie if she could borrow it so she could read it again. 

“I don’t think so, I wanna show it to Eddie. He goes nuts over these things. Loves 'em more than I do. And he hasn’t seen this one yet.” He paused and rolled off the bed onto the floor. He dug under his bed for a moment and produced two more comics, also with 'Weird Love’ printed on the covers in weird, gooey looking letters. “Here though, you can borrow these. This one,” he tossed her a comic with a woman screaming in terror on the cover. “Is about a woman who’s going crazy, but the guy who loves her has no clue. And this one,” he tossed her a comic with a man standing in front of a group of serious-looking people, “is about a woman who falls for a commie.” He said 'commie’ like a dirty word, soft and reverent. Beverly giggled.

“Thanks, Richie!” she said with a grin.

“Well, you’re gonna have to let me know what you think of them,” he said. “I’ve already read those ones like a billion times.”

“You have no idea how much a billion is you dummy,” Beverly said.

Richie stuck his tongue out at her and she proceeded to whop him in the face with a pillow.

The rest of the afternoon the two of them watched television and argued over whether the girl in the comic, Janie, had been crazy for being in love with that clown or if maybe that circus clown had some odd charm about him after all.

Another thing Beverly would remember, years later as the losers sat together in Ben and Beverly’s house, visiting as they did every few months, would be how very happy they had been. Even with everything going on and their lives in danger, they’d laughed so much that afternoon. 

[mariolucario493]

STUFF I WANT IN A BANJO-KAZOOIE REMAKE (IF THERE IS ONE)

So as you are probably aware, Banjo and Kazooie have finally made it into Super Smash Bros. This is a huge accomplishment, as they have been absent from Nintendo for years. But this begs the question - will we be getting a proper new Banjo title in the near future? I certainly hope so, but before that, it would be nice to see the original games re-released on current consoles.

Now the question is how they would do this. Would they just re-release the original games with slightly updated graphics like they did on XBLA? That seems like the safer option. But maybe they’ll go the interesting route and remake the whole games from scratch. Given that we live in a time where everyone seems to be capitalizing on 90′s nostalgia, the latter seems like a possibility. But I’m not here to complain about Disney’s live-action remakes. Besides, with video games, remakes seem to be quite faithful to the originals. We’ve gotten DS/3DS remakes of Mario 64, Star Fox 64, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and maybe some others I can’t think of. Pokemon has remade generations before as well. And of course, the remake of Link’s Awakening looks promising. Even Rare has gotten in on it before - remember Conker: Live and Reloaded? True, a lot of the original developers left Rare to form Playtonic, but maybe the two companies could joint develop it - as long as Microsoft gives everyone complete creative control, of course.

So let’s say they do go this route and completely remake the original two games. It shouldn’t just be the same game but in HD. There are some things I’d like them to improve upon from the N64.

First of all, they definitely should keep the changes they did with XBLA - that is, making notes permanently collectible. No one wants to get PTSD from Rusty Bucket Bay. Admittedly, this might make finding the last few notes more difficult, but it’s probably still better than dying with 99 notes. Or what if the notes do not reset if you die, but they do reset if you leave the level? That way, if you’re having trouble finding the last note, you can just reset. Maybe there could also be a special reward for finding all 900. Yes, there is that last door that requires 882 notes and doubles your health, but maybe something else. There’s already a reward for getting all 100 Jiggies in Mumbo teaching you about some of the Stop n’ Swop items.

And speaking of Stop n’ Swop, let’s talk about that. The limited technology of the time meant they weren’t able to implement the idea of transferring items from one game to another during the N64 era. Now they did manage to do that for the XBLA re-releases, but there were still a few flaws that I saw. In the N64 version of Banjo-Tooie, you had to essentially find the Stop n’ Swop items again. In the XBLA version, if you got them in BK, you would have them in BT from the start of the game. But the problem is that the secret areas were still there, just empty. If you had no idea what was supposed to be there, you’d be confused as to why these secret caves exist. So I think they should combine the two ideas. By that I mean, have the secret areas in BT empty normally, but have the secret items show up there once you get them in BK. Maybe include a sign in the secret areas that gives a hint like “Return to the Sandcastle and enter the following code.” If both games were bundled together, it would make the transfer of data even easier. Though the issue there was that the N64 version of BT only had the Ice Key and three of the six eggs. The developers would have to come up with places to hide the last three eggs in BT. But I think they could do that.

It would also be cool if there was a multiplayer mode. Banjo-Tooie had multiplayer minigames, but maybe they could add some to Banjo-Kazooie as well. Specifically, I’d like to see a multiplayer version of Grunty’s Furnace Fun. It would either be a race to the end or just competing for points.

One thing Yooka-Laylee was missing was world maps. Pretty much every 3D game nowadays has a way to bring up an overhead map of the area. But a combination of no maps and everything looking the same made Yooka-Laylee’s worlds difficult to navigate. So yes, there needs to be a map of each world. And that map should highlight certain areas such as the start area, Mumbo’s hut, all the Bottles/Jamjars locations (once you find them, of course), warp pads, etc. And there could also be an option to place beacons. You know, where you put a dot on the map and a light appears in the sky to guide you there. Admittedly, this would be difficult to implement in more cavernous levels like Clanker’s Cavern or Glitter Gulch Mine, so the beacon idea might not be possible. Also, for some maze-like sub areas like Targitzan’s Temple, maybe the map should not be accessible until you complete everything in the area. That way, you can still feel like you’re exploring.

One thing Yooka-Laylee actually did right (once it was patched, of course) was fixing the auto-scrolling text. Pretty much every game has the text pause until you press a button to advance it, but not BK or BT for some reason. You could still hold down the button to make the text scroll faster, but tap it to advance to the next sentence.

And now let’s talk about the toughest thing that I’d like to see changed for this hypothetical remake - that being the comedy. As timeless as these games are, I will admit that there are a few moments that clearly stand out as being a product of the 90′s. Certain jokes might not be acceptable today. Now I love all the fourth wall jokes and subtle adult innuendos, and they should definitely keep those. What I am concerned about is a couple of the characters that are obvious stereotypes. Take for example, Rubee, the snake charmer in Gobi’s Valley. Despite only being part of one Jiggy mission, this character seems to suffer from the same Indian stereotypes that Apu from The Simpsons suffered from.  With his overly large turban and strange way of speaking, he seems like he could use an update. Now how would they do that? My idea? Make him an animal. Perhaps an elephant, like Taj from Diddy Kong Racing. This could also fit his role as a snake charmer, as he could play his trunk like a flute.

There’s also Jolly Roger and Merry Maggie, who seem to be cheap shot at gay stereotypes. Jolly speaks in a very camp voice and makes those hand gestures. Maggie is implied to be a transvestite; and if I remember correctly, Kazooie reacts with disgust when she sees her. Again, we might have to change them up a little. I’m not sure how we would do that, but definitely start by making them more than just one-dimensional stereotypes.

But perhaps the most awkwardly stereotypical character in the Banjo games is Humba Wumba. Native American stereotypes seem to be one of the most controversial out there. The problem with Humba is that she is a much more important character than Jolly or Rubee. She appears in every level of the second game, and her transformations are essential for getting many of the Jiggies. Mumbo also seems to be based on the stereotypical tribal African witch doctor, but again, he is at least non-human enough for that to be acceptable. Humba, on the other hand, is definitely human. And she wears that stereotypical buckskin outfit and feather headdress, and she speaks in broken English Tonto-style, and her theme music includes that war cry that isn’t even a real thing. Now I personally am as white as white can be (at least I think I am, but I’m not about to sent a DNA sample to one of those ancestry sites so they can sell it to the government), so I’m not exactly the best person to talk to about how to write a Native American character. On top of that, Humba seems to just be there for sex appeal. Yes, I’ll admit, I had a few fantasies about her giant polygonal tits growing up. She’s definitely at least more attractive then the fairies in Ocarina of Time. Now for all its faults, Nuts and Bolts did redesign Humba to be a little less of a stereotype. In that game, she wears a more contemporary outfit and has a more realistic figure. It’s not perfect, but it’s a good start. Theoretically, Humba could work if they were more tongue-in-cheek about how insensitive she is. Like have Kazooie make a snarky remark about how the 90′s were a simpler time. If there ever is a completely new Banjo game, they could cut her out altogether; but in the event of a re-release, she is an integral part of Banjo-Tooie.

It was also kind of surprising back in 1998-2000 to see an E-rated game this violent. And I’m not talking about the goofy slapstick either. Both Clanker in Clanker’s Cavern and Lord Woo Fak Fak in Jolly Roger’s Lagoon visibly bleed. How many times do you see blood in an E-rated game? Yeah, they might have to change that. For Clanker, since he’s mostly mechanical, you could replace the bloody parts of his body with rust. And as for Fak Fak, you could just change the color of the blood like you did with Ganondorf. Which would actually be realistic, since red light doesn’t travel that far in water, so red things such as blood often appear greenish-yellow when you’re hundreds of feet below the water’s surface. Of course, Kazooie should still stay red no matter what.

There’s a few other things that might be seen as insensitive, like the child abuse that Boggy’s kids face, or the lady with the watermelons at the end of BK. But as much as some of those jokes seem mean-spirited, I actually think it would be better to keep most of them. I don’t see a game as goofy as Banjo-Kazooie beginning with a serious disclaimer about stereotypes like they put at the start of all those Looney Tunes compilation DVD’s, but the developers should definitely tread lightly if they want to keep the spirit of the original games without offending anyone. We may end up with an E10 or even a T rating, but it would be worth it. But this is Tumblr, after all, and being offended is like a national pastime here.

Just a few months ago, a new Banjo game seemed like a pipe dream. But with what we saw at E3, we might just get it. Either way, the kids of today deserve a chance to experience what we grew up with. But what else would you like to see in a Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie remake or a new game altogether?

[bonepranks-a]

. OUT          i’ve been wanting to write extensively about my experience playing undertale/intro to the fandom so... i’m gonna do that. it’s below the cut if u want, it’s very long -- I eventually want to condense it to perhaps share elsewhere, so consider this a first draft.

I don’t consider myself a video game fan. As a kid, my interests were grounded in more “outside” activities, and I was rarely seen without a book in hand. We couldn’t afford gaming consoles, and my parents were vehemently against anything that promoted violence (I wasn’t allowed to go to a laser tag birthday party. Yes, I’m serious.) And that’s what video games were to them, especially my mom. Violent games about shooting and killing people.

As a result, I was very out of the loop when it came to gaming culture. I would watch my friends play Mario Kart at their houses, I think I did Wii Bowling with my grandma once... but other than that? I didn’t know what was going on. I missed the Minecraft craze when I was in middle school. Even mindless iPhone games just didn’t interest me. 

Of course, internet fandom did not escape me. As I got into high school, my interests shifted a lot. When I was more free to use the computer, I practically lived on tumblr (though didn’t we all?). And so even things that weren’t my specific interests were still on my radar. Undertale was..... perhaps the exception to that.

Do you remember those memes that were like “here’s me describing a fandom I only know from my dash”? If you had given me Undetale, I wouldn’t have been able to say anything. (Looking back on it, I’m pretty sure I thought Undertale and Homestuck were the same thing.) “Sans Undertale” was something I had heard before, but I didn’t know who or what that was. Hilarious, in retrospect.

And for context -- when Undertale came out, I was a senior. I wasn’t new to internet fandom, I was very aware. And yet, any knowledge of the game just managed to slip past me somehow. Beyond the fact that it existed, I couldn’t tell you anything. Still though, it seems like Undertale was just... always there. For a lot longer than it really was (again, maybe because I thought it was Homestuck?)

So, we fast forward three years. It’s  I’m a junior in college, it’s November, and I’m RPing over on my Tyrone (Gravity Falls) blog. Saturn picks back up her Chara muse, and suddenly all these Undertale blogs start following me. I try to write with as many of them as I can, but I really don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t like writing with fandoms characters from fandoms I don’t know. (That’s actually why I got into Gravity Falls - a Ford followed me on my Star Trek blog, and the rest os history.) So anyway -- I absolutely fall in love with Chara as a character, and the little bits of the story I know through Saturn. I had heard mixed things about the game itself, even people who enjoyed the characters saying things they didn’t like about it. And eventually, on New Year’s Day, with nothing better to do, I decided to bite the bullet and just play.

Needless to say, I had a difficult time. With no video game experience, dodging attacks in the bullet-hell world of Undertale was nearly impossible. But, luckily for me, I was also.... extremely clueless and unobservant. I do recall finding the Faded Ribbon in the Ruins, but I never figured out how to equip items so I went through a majority of the game wearing only the bandage. And of course, that meant that I fled. From.... everything. Which is a fine way to play if you don’t later need money for healing items. I missed a lot of small things along the way too... it’s frankly embarrassing looking back on it. But because I never figured out how to spare, Toriel gave me quite a bit of trouble. And...... in the end, I killed her. I didn’t mean or want to, but I couldn’t figure out any other way. And I didn’t even feel that bad about it. She had creeped me out a bit, unsettled at how much she wanted to keep me with her.

Onto Snowdin. Everything was fine at first, and I decided I wasn’t going to kill anyone else --  just kept running away. Until I got to Dogamy and Dogaressa. I couldn’t avoid their attacks, and eventually I got my first game over. When my game reloaded, I was..... back in the ruins?

Surprise! I never figured out how Save points worked, either.

I somehow managed to save in the crystalized cheese room without realizing what I was doing. But all my progress after that, I lost. I took some time to really evaluate what I was doing. I had started to finally feel guilty for killing Toriel (I think I tried to call her once, and the “but nobody came” message fucked me up), and so I resolved to fix my mistakes and not kill her this time. 

I went into her battle and decided I was only going to fight her until she had low HP, and then use a different tactic (had I figured out sparing by this point?? I think maybe.... maybe.) But once again, I failed. I killed her AGAIN. And for anyone who’s never experienced that.... she says something very unsettling.

So after that, I reached Flowey again. and uh -- 

Needless to say, I was very freaked out by this point. But I persisted. I moved through the rest of Snowdin with minimal trouble, and went on to Waterfall. Undyne.... was a whole other issue. Dodging her attacks was incredibly difficult. My tiny computer keyboard was just not suited to the rapid precise succession in which I had to press the arrows. So I died... and died.... and died. But, the more I played, the better I got. I looked up the fight mechanics, I knew exactly what I had to do to beat her. I actually made it to the Papyrus phone call, which of course is the end of the battle. But dumbass me, didn’t realize that she catches you again after, and that you can flee again right away. So I start fighting her again. I knew that attacking her instead of sparing makes her attacks easier, so that’s what I did. I actually managed to drain her HP! And then....... she killed me. 

I knew I needed a new tactic. And, having been running from almost all battles.... I barely had any gold. I had one healing item, and that was it. So.... I did what I had previously vowed to never do. I sought out 2 monsters and killed them. Stocked with more gold and more HP, I returned to battle. And finally -- finally -- I escaped all the way to Hotland. 

So, here’s the real kicker about my Undyne battle. By the time I decided to kill more monsters, I had already beaten the battle. If I hadn’t been so oblivious, I wouldn’t have needed to. And yes -- I already had Toriel’s death on my conscience, but deaths with the intent to kill just made me feel even worse. But god, I hated her. I was even willing to kill her. The night before I beat her, I’d been dealing with some personal issues relating to a person I really don’t like. I was determined to take out that anger by beating the shit out of Undyne. I stayed up late fighting her, and the battle made me so anxious that I made myself sick (throwing up and all). I couldn’t get her battle music out of my head. But... I got on the computer the next morning, and did it in one try. I’d finally won. But at what cost? Backtracking to her house revealed... this:

And for the first time, the consequences of my actions, even the smallest ones, started to set in. But it was too late to do anything about it now, so on I went. I killed monsters in Hotland because at this point, there was no point in doing anything else. I remember killing the Royal Guards... I never even learned about their love for each other. As I got to New Home and did the walk through the hallway, hearing the monsters tell the story, I started crying. Now, I’m not a crier normally. Very few things can elicit actual tears from me, but that did. And when I reached Sans in the judgement hall, and he revealed the meaning of EXP and LOVE, I understood. I realized what I had done, and I hated myself for getting this far like this. But again, too late. 

I went on to Asgore, and.... I just couldn’t. His attacks were too strong, I was too weak, I had eaten the pie already, and I still didn’t have enough money to even buy Temmie Armor. I was stuck. His battle was too difficult, and I no longer had the Determination to keep going. I tried to make some strategies, I thought maybe taking some time would help. But a few days turned into a week, and a week turned into two weeks, and eventually I started wondering if I would ever pick it back up again. Finally, I decided that I wanted to right my wrongs. I reset, without finishing my neutral run, and played Pacifist, properly. 

Pacifist runs are the same across the board, so I won’t give you too many details. Well, except the few things the game remembered from before...

Thanks Flowey.

And that was that. I laughed, I cried.... I knew a lot of the twists already, but there were so many wonderful surprises I didn’t know about. I could feel the love the game radiated -- and yes, I do love Undyne now more than almost any character from anything.

So, two months after playing, I’m reflecting on my choices, and what I’ve done since. I feel like I’ve dived into the 2015 fandom, but three years later. It’s odd, discovering such old content for the first time. I’ve introduced a few friends to the game, and though I tried to not backseat game, they asked for help and I readily gave it. But I told from from the get-go: don’t kill anything. My biggest fear was that they would kill monsters by accident, get to the end, but not like the game enough to go back and play the whole thing again. And I was convinced that the true ending is what makes the game so meaningful.

I was wrong.

As much as the ending got to me, I think I needed the experience of my first run -- with all my messy murders and shambling gameplay tactics -- to make the happy ending sink in. Which is what, I believe, was the intention of the game from the beginning. Toby knew that a lot of people would go into the game thinking they had to kill, and by the time they realized otherwise, it would be too late. The game is designed in such a way that playing it twice isn’t entirely tedious, with plenty of hidden gems you only get to find by making difference choices. Feeling your sins crawling on your back, realizing that you’ve been a villain, hearing Papyrus tell you that Undyne’s called you a murderer -- it makes you feel. It gives you an odd attachment to the characters that I don’t think you actually get if you go Pacifist the first time.

And no, I never finished my neutral run. I never was faced with the decision of whether or not to kill Asgore, already having blood (er, dust) on my hands. I never had to decide what to do about killing Flowey either. For an intentional Pacifist run, those questions were no-brainers. I never got to see what my phone call would be like (the Undyne ending is some scary shit from what I can tell). I sort of wish I had. But in the end, I think it says a lot that I literally couldn’t despite being so close.

My friends never got any of that experience. One of them went on to say something like “how could anyone kill people!!! They’re all so nice!! Imagine killing Toriel!! Anyone who does genocide is a terrible person!” And.... well, I know that it’s that kind of logic that gave the fandom such a bad reputation in the early days. And I just don’t agree. Not because I want to justify my actions, but because I really think that you don’t get the full impact of the story and the true ending unless you’ve gotten a “bad” ending first. But again, that’s just my personal experience.

I don’t know if there’s a real moral to this story. All of this was much more eloquent and had a purpose in my head, but writing it.... well, I dunno. I think if you ask most people, they’ll tell you that Undertale came into their lives at a crucial time. Or that it had some sort of big impact on their lives. For me, I find it hard to put into words exactly what it’s done for me. I just know it’s something really special. After all, a video game where you don’t have to kill anyone, where violence is never the answer, and mercy is the point of the story -- that’s the kind of game my mom would’ve let me play as a kid. 

But hey, I’m, preaching to the choir here, aren’t I? We all wouldn’t be here right now if it hadn’t touched our lives in some way, and I’m not saying anything that hasn’t already been said by people over the years. I’m just -- very very grateful. For the friends, the memories, the experience. And Papyrus, just because. 

[dramallamadingdang]

Annnnd some replies.

For @penig, @scribblingsim, @taylors-simblr. @freezerbunny-sims, @tamtam-go92, @dunne-ias, @holleyberry, and @scibirg...

penig replied to your post “Every time I think I’m going to get back on track with keeping up with...”

Bonk the guilt on the head. Following someone is not the same as promising to view all the content. Anybody you're particularly interested in, you can go to the individual blog sometime when you're in the mood. You never get to do all the things you want to do and that's life. Don't turn your leisure into work.

Intellectually I know that. Thing is, there are some things I really do want to catch up on, but then when I sit down at the computer, I end up doing something else. Like, going off and looking at Photoshop tutorials or something because an idea strikes me and I want to check out some ways to make it happen. In short, I need more hours in the day and being able to stay awake for them. But don’t we all, I guess? :)

scribblingsim replied to your link “ModTheSims - Orchard Fruits Gussy Up”

Oh, of *course* I'd find out about this after I finally get my game loaded. LOL ah well. A good download for later.

Ain’t that always the way! *laugh* My game was already loaded, too, when I looked at the downloads on MTS, so adding in the mod will have to wait until the next time I exit and reload it. But it’s in the Downloads folder, waiting for that to happen, at least. :)

taylors-simblr replied to your post “Every time I think I’m going to get back on track with keeping up with...”

Same here, I think ooh I’ll catch up and comment on recent story posts, but then I also want to read a book or play a game or maybe I have ironing to catch up on and then I forget and feel guilty and then the dash moves so fast anyway. It is one of the ways that livejournal/dream width is slightly better. The posts don’t get lost forever in the sheer amount of posts even on one persons tumblr

I actually like the journal system better, overall, for lots of different reasons. (Properly threaded conversations is the main one.) But its downside -- at least the last time I used my LJ -- was that it’s a pain to post pics. Gotta do the upload the pics somewhere and then link to the post thing, which is tedious if it’s a lot of pics, rather than just dragging/dropping like you do with Tumblr. Since Sims-posting tends to be pic-heavy, that’s a real bummer. Buuuuuut yeah, it’s nice that it doesn’t move at breakneck speed like Tumblr does. Tumblr’s definitely meant more for the short-attention-span crowd, I think.

And then people post saying their “dash is dead,” and I’m like, “What? HOW??!!” :)

freezerbunny-sims replied to your post “Question!”

Never tried that but it's a great idea. Wasn't there an option for sims with high enthusiasm in a hobby to instruct other sims? Or does that just increase hobby enthusiasm, not skills? On a side note, maybe some skilling objects could be modded to have an option to instruct other sims, like some of the career rewards already have. I don't know how hard it would be though.

Yeah, the instruct thing does only affect enthusiasm. Which is good, too, for my purposes. Because ultimately skills don’t really matter in this neighborhood. No one has a job and most of the skills, except maybe cooking, are most useful for job promotions and whatnot. They don’t actually have too much of an effect on a Sim’s daily life. What would be good is if instructing would increase badge levels. But I think maybe SimWardrobe’s vocational training podium can do that, now that I think about it. I’ll have to track that down...

tamtam-go92 replied to your post “Oh, I didn't know that "send grave to the community lot" thing didn't...”

I didn't know the sent to graveyard doesn't work probably too! And I always sent ma ghosts there ��

Using “Move This Grave” works in the sense that it does move the grave and doesn’t break anything in ways that would cause neighborhood corruption, but if keeping the ghosts’ colors/behaviors is important to you, that’s not the way you want to do it. So far as I know, the interaction hasn’t been fixed so that it preserves the colors/behaviors.

holleyberry replied to your post “Hi iCad. I have a morbid question. How do you deal with graves in your...”

I didn't know that about letting the ghost spawn.

Yeah, the issue is that when a Sim dies, a certain amount of time has to pass before the ghost will spawn. I think the time is randomly determined when the Sim dies, but it seems like it can be anywhere between the night of their death (if they died during the day) up to three or four nights after the Sim’s death. If you move the grave to a community lot before the ghost spawns for the first time...Well, time doesn’t actually pass on unowned community lots because they don’t save, so an “unspawned” grave on a community lot will never reach its designated “spawn time.” 

So, if you want ghosts on community lots, you have to let the ghost spawn for the first time on a residential lot, where time DOES pass. If you don’t want it to be their home lot (so you don’t have to deal with haunting, for instance), then you could use a gravekeeper, go to THEIR residential lot, and have them plunk the grave down there. Then make motives static and put the game on ultraspeed until the ghost spawns. THEN put the “pre-spawned” grave on the community lot. Then the ghost will appear there.

tamtam-go92 replied to your post “Question!”

It's not quite in topic but in my normal gameplay I pretend that teens that don't attend University do an apprenticeship. They have to get a Job and when they go to school I tell it trade school. But since neither exist in your neighborhood I think your Suggestion seems a good Option! As someone who did an apprenticeship I wish there Was something like that in game.

I tend to not like the schooling in the game at all. Probably because I’m not a fan of the “standard” public school system in the US, which is what the game’s school is based on. :) For instance, I violently disagree with the entire concept of “homework” IRL, so I homeschooled my real kids, and in my game, I come up with alternative ways to educate kids/teens that are actual practical (As in, they gain actual skills or badges or whatever) as opposed to just something that sends them off the lot for X hours and all they get is meaningless “grades.” I’ve not done apprenticeship before, but that sort of system makes logical sense for this neighborhood, since it is mostly trades-based, so I’m going to work out some kind of system.

dunne-ias replied to your post “Question!”

I played it once similar to your plan. The teen would move in with the mentor (unless the mentor was their parent) but I would have them stay there, not move them back to their parents's house as I think that made more sense. They were often invited home though for big events and sometimes just dinner. I also made the parents pay the mentor. I think a certain amount of days of apprenticeship would be reasonable, or a certain amount of work done so that skilled workers-

2/2 - would be able to finish their apprenticeship faster. Once they were done they were moved back in with the parents until they had enough money to move out, so the cost of moving out wasn't subtracted from the mentor, but the parent (I had the no20Khandouts.)

With the Sim Transporter, I can move individual Sims into and out of different households at will, without the moving-around affecting anyone's money. (Although there is no money in this neighborhood, so it doesn't really matter. :) ) I use it to run daycares and schools in my game. For this neighborhood...Teens will all leave their birth household on the morning after their teen bday, mostly because space will be at a premium and they’ll need to get out to make room for their younger siblings. :)  They'll move to the communal lot, going into the queue to earn their own house. So I was thinking that when playing the communal lot, any apprentices would just get transported out somewhere for a block of days -- to simulate being "at training" -- and then transported back. Then when I play the mentoring household, I can use the transporter to move their “assigned” apprentice(s) in for their days of actual training and then transport them back when they're done. I think it'll work....

The detail I'm not really clear on is how to run the training. I suppose they can just do all the mentor's work, give them a break. *laugh* But I'd like there to be some interaction between mentor and apprentice as wel. It'd be nice if there was some sort of social interaction to “pass on” skills or badges, sort of like how you can pass along earned business benefits... Maybe I can rig something up with Sophie-David's "opportunity" items (There's a thought...) or maybe SimWardrobe’s vocational trainer or both. Maybe have them do hands-on work one day and then “classroom”-learn from the mentor the next and switch off that way. That might work...

I've got time to think about it, though; it'll be a while before there are any born-in-game teens in this neighborhood! *laugh*

tamtam-go92 replied to your post “This looks crazy. I wonder, how do you take the second baby out of the...”

It's still possible that the fences of the cribs can be put down to put the babies in ��

Now that I think about it, I don’t actually recall if the crib “doors” are animated on those cribs. Of course, that’s how such a thing would work in real life, but I’ve not paid attention to whether or not those cribs are animated in-game....

scibirg replied to your post “This looks crazy. I wonder, how do you take the second baby out of the...”

I once played a medieval game and the Picaso's were living in a tiny hovel and just kept having kids (ACR of course). With the shelf beds from simlogical I was able to cram an amazing number of sims into their one bedroom house!

Oh, yeah. Shelf beds will definitely be used! (That’s why the second bedroom in the houses is three tiles deep. :) ) I’m figuring I can stack three of them per side of the room and then maybe put a floor mattress underneath the “stack,” thus cramming in eight kids. If there’s more than that at a time, tents will be broken out! :)

tamtam-go92 replied to your photo “Attempting to befriend another wolf. This one’s a female because I...”

Won't they bite the sim and turn her into a werewolf?

(This is an old reply. Sorry about that, dear; I missed it when I did the last batch of replies.) 

Anyway, no, only the “Leader of the Pack” -- the wolf with the glowing yellow eyes -- can turn a Sim into a werewolf. The others are just really aggressive big dogs that are rather hard to build relationships with because many interactions are rejected at first and the wolf tends to leave before you can get very far, so you have to wait for the same one to show up again to continue to work on the relationship. I do want someone to befriend/adopt the Leader, though. Mostly because I’ve never had anyone become a werewolf by the “real” in-game method. *laugh*

[twotwinks]

Get to know me!

Tagged by the wonderful @ineverhadadoubt! Thank you Ruth, it was a treat to wake up to and I’ve been looking forward to this all day! <3

1. Relationship Status: Single with exactly zero prospects

2. Lipstick or Chapstick: Chapstick, but I can only wear it while I’m sleeping because otherwise I just have constant fish lips and I can’t eat or drink anything with it on

3. Three Favorite Foods: Pasta (of any sort), peppermint candy, and cheese crackers

4. Song Stuck in Your Head: The thing about being a maladaptive daydreamer is that my head is pretty much a constant mush of every song I’m currently hooked on daydreaming with, and it changes so rapidly that if I’d done this ten minutes ago I probably would’ve said a different song. I’d probably say a different song ten minutes in the future, too. Anyway, as it is, the song that’s been playing in the back of my mind the whole time I’ve been writing this post is 散散駄目調子 by DECO*27 (”Bad Tone #33″ or “An Utterly Hopeless Situation” to English speakers). Which is weird, because I haven’t even listened to it since this morning, and yet my brain is still going “ii jan II JAN” every ten seconds or so.

5. Last Movie You Watched: Uhh... umm... what was it? I know I’ve watched one recently... Oh yeah! I watched Thor: Ragnarok last weekend to celebrate its anniversary.

6. Top Three Shows: I don’t even know, I have like zero time to watch television anymore... Although, come to think of it, I dedicate at least half an hour of every weekday to watching Good Eats (and my Monday nights to its new reboot, Good Eats: Reloaded) so I guess that’s one. I can pretty much always watch reruns of The Big Bang Theory, but I haven’t watched any of the current season (and I know, I’m cringey). I also love Phineas and Ferb. I’ve seen almost every episode and look back upon the premiere of “Across the 2nd Dimension” with all sorts of fond memories. My lanyard is even Phineas and Ferb (and I bought it at DisneyWorld, so it has the pins and everything)!

7. Books You’re Currently Reading: Kafka’s The Metamorphosis for the second time, but not by choice. I have to do a paper on it for my Great Narrative Works class. The last book I actually started reading for myself is The Gospel of Loki by Joanne M. Harris. I haven’t gotten to pick it up in months, and I’m not very far in it yet, but I really like what little of it I’ve actually gotten to read.

8. Last Thing You Googled: mypurdue (and now you all know where to find me)

9. Time: Currently, it’s 5:58 p.m. (I guess that’s 17:58 in 24-hour time? I don’t know, I’m American and I hate it.) I started this post over an hour ago.

10. Dream Trip: I just... wanna go to England... spend the week... drop down to France for the weekend... maybe pop by Scotland or Ireland if I have the time... Ireland is so nice...

11. Anything You Want: I dunno, for my French class to stop being the biggest source of stress I currently have in my life? For the on-campus psychological services to actually help me with my anxiety instead of saying, “Well, we can’t actually get you in for an appointment with a therapist until the last week of the semester, so maybe just buy a self-help book and see if you can wait it out until next semester?” Actually, no, better yet, I JUST WANNA WATCH THE WORLD’S END.

Rules: Tag 15 More People

Do I even know fifteen people that Ruth didn’t already tag??? Well, let’s see, how about my old school friends @knifebee (if that’s even the blog they use anymore, I don’t even know if that’s their main blog orz) and @doggy-daiquiri, who I’m convinced only surfaces once a year. Maybe @the-white-wxlf and @fictionallemons (whose fics I definitely owe a read or twenty), if they’re interested? And @simon-egg (tumblr will not let me tag your main blog I’M SORRY) since we all adore the sideblog?

(That’s everyone I can think of right now but if I left anybody out or you just happen to see this and want to do it please feel free and tag me if you do!)

[manypersons]

uhh, I posted this story a while back, but I just got around to formatting the document

you can access The Heist story here or read it below the cut if you don't mind reading a long story

A heist story. I actually call it The Heist Story, but I won't get too pushy about honorifics

I think you all should know, that I woke up at 3 am, saw this ask, and spent an hour writing out my story, before tumblr decided to randomly reload and I rage fell asleep. So I know now, that this is also an extremely long story and also that I have some unattainable-during-the-day literary expertise at 3am that I wish I had at all times.

This is the best story I have to tell, so gather close around the campfire children, as this is a wild story full of broken promises and betrayal and a lot of plotting done by sixth grade me

I bet that's not what you were expecting to hear, but this is in fact a story that takes place in the year 2015, when I was in sixth grade. If you asked me, I'd tell you that sixth grade was the best year of my life, but I won't delve into that now, or else this story will never end. It was a year of opportunities and rekindled friendships for me. It was because of these rekindled friendships that I got involve in The Heist.

Every lunch, I'd sit down at our picnic bench with a handful of my friends (this was about the time we all got too got to run around and play on the playground or whatever). Something major about this was that we also ate with one of my closer friend's, Yvette's (not her real name), mom, who was an NTA. She was a good woman whose only sin was that she drank an excess of brisk tea.

During one of these such lunches, we were approached by who I will be calling Milli. She'd been a loose friend of ours since second grade, but she was also what a lot of people called a "character" (one of the reasons I never got close to her, but looking back I'm pretty sure I had a crush on her and that's only important to the story, since she definitely held my attention. Milli was noted for many things, some of them being bringing Pepe to our classroom, inventing the Pepe Alphabet, and pasting them up all around the place, but that is significant is the fact that she called herself "trash" or "the queen of garbage", which maybe we should of interpreted as a cry for help, but get real. We were in sixth grade. We found it hilarious.

On this such day, she doesn't even hesitate before saying. "I'm going to steal a trashcan. One of the rolling ones so that you guys can push me around in it. Whosever in, come with me."

And of course a good amount of us were in. Nothing interesting had happened at Manchester since I let a stray dog onto campus back in second grade (I was a menace to the school I guess).

We met up at the enormous maple tree that had been our meeting spot for the five years we'd been at the school. We started plotting, coming up with all sorts of ways we could get a trashcan, until I came up with the idea to ask the principal. Plenty of kids picked up trash at lunch, but for a group of our magnitude, they'd need to give us an entire trashcan. At least that was the reasoning.

I thought everyone in the distance had faith in the plan, but when it came time to ask for a trash can, no body besides Milli would come with me.

This was of no consequence. Our principal agreed with us that the school was exceedingly trashy at the time and promised that we would get our trashcan--she'd reserve one for thursday--under one condition: that no one ride inside it.

It seemed to take a lifetime for thursday to come. Slowly, our friends trickled off. Losing interest in the plan. Their loss really. In the end, it was only Milli and I who'd managed to play the long game and make it to thursday.

Together we went to the cafeteria. Where we'd been expecting our principal, there was the nastiest NTA, Mrs. Robins. This was the woman we all feared, but nevertheless, Milli and I approached and explained that we'd be cleaning up the school. Lies are of little matter when it comes to the greater good and for me, pushing Milli around in a trashcan seemed to be the best good there was.

"Are you sure you're not going to ride inside it?" Mrs. Robins seemed to ask over and over again. What did she take us for? Delinquents?

So we reassured her that we wouldn't and eventually she caved and handed us a trashbag.

Milli and I eyed eachother and I watched the fight leave her. We resigned ourselves to picking up garbage. Mrs. Robins wasn't one to be argued with. We made to exit the cafeteria, but found our exit blocked by an NTA. We looked behind us for the other way out, but Mrs. Robins was there, eying us dangerously. That wasn't an option, so we approached the first NTA.

"I've heard that you two are going to steal a trashcan," she said, and that's when it hit me for sure. Had I been a more perceptive person, I would have noticed it sooner, what with all of the concerns of us riding in the trash can we requested.

They'd been tipped off. It turns out drinking an excess of brisk tea was only one of Yvette's mother's sins. The other being ratting out a couple sixth graders that were just looking for a good time.

Despites what the NTAs knew, we still put up our humble trash collector act. Nothing else mattered to us at the moment besides getting out of the Cafeteria. Our plan all but abandoned.

The NTA let us go. She had no reason to hold us--neither evidence against us or a need to keep us. All of the trashcans were stowed safely in the cafeteria and as long as Milli and I weren't in there, apparently they were safe.

We knew the NTA was still watching us. We could feel her eyes boring into us with the energy of ten evil vultures, so we got to work picking up garbage. We thought we'd made it out free of punishment, but then the one who watches approached us and told us to get on the Wall

The Wall was a place to store problem children. Humiliating, yes, but it wasn't that bad. There was only minutes remaining to that fateful lunchtime and it shaded us from the knees up.

Finally, lunch came to an end and we went to our class, where we found our teacher and the vice principal arguing about our punishment.

"[deadname] is a model student, Mr. Salazar. She'd never do that. I'll ask them and see about their punishments if necessary."

Defeated, the VP slouched out of the classroom and our teacher, who was a wonderful woman that I miss dearly, turned to us. "Were you two planning on stealing a trash can?"

"No ma'am," we said at the same time.

"We were just going to pick up trash. I don't know where they got the idea that we were going to steal one."

I did know where they got the idea, but I wasn't about to tell her that.

And that's the story of my failed heist in sixth grade. It was an adventure for sure that I think back on fondly as the only time I broke the rules.

[wheredidhiseyebrowsgo]

Sorry I feel like I'm being a pain, asking so often... but do you guys have a werewolf convention tag? Where things like Electricity in the Contact and Wake Up Call and Pretty in Tents and similar fics would be? If this makes sense? ... its late and I'm not wearing my glasses. Thanks in advance.

AND

Anonymous said:Can you rec some werewolf convention fics? Thank you x

Omggggggggggg….NO.  I had this huge post almost done, and then accidentally dragged another tab on top and it reloaded this page, so I lost everything *wails*.  I think I recovered most of the links, fingers crossed!  (damn you, Tumblr!!!  Let me save replies as drafts!!!!!)  -Emmy

Indulgence by Inell

(2,500 I Explicit I Complete)  *sterek, emissary!Stiles, married!sterek, public sex

Derek and Stiles indulge in a mutual kink in a hotel corridor outside a crowded ballroom during a werewolf conference.

Pack Dynamics Among Born Werewolves by alocalband 

(3,009 I Mature I Complete) *sterek, enemies to lovers

A Werewolf Convention AU in which both Derek and Stiles are complete nerds about supernatural politics.

Anything But Dull by tryslora

(3,593 I Teen I Complete)  *stackson, fake!sterek, arranged marriage

Politics is everything at a werewolf conference. Stiles is pretending to be Derek’s boyfriend. Peter is trying to make alliances by marrying Jackson and Malia off to other packs. And Jackson is frustrated by wanting the one person he can’t have.

Only Fools (Fall) by werewolvesandarrows (nerdy_farm_girl)

(4,836 I Teen I Complete)  *derek/stiles/scott

Scott knew this was a bad idea from the get go.Okay, maybe not quite, but let’s just say he had some reservations about bringing Derek and Stiles to the Northern California Alpha Symposium as his guests. He was willing to take a majority of the blame, but he just wishes someone (coughLYDIAcough) would have stepped in and straightened this out before things got out of hand.

Operation Get Derek Laid by Kikileduc 

(5,109 I Mature I Complete)  *sterek, secret relationship, spark!stiles

There’s pining, misunderstandings, confusion, a little jealousy…

Stiles and Derek they have a nice thing, no one knows, yet. The issue is, they want their alpha to get lucky at the werewolf seminar, and well Stiles thinks Derek wants that too…

Two Beds + Three People by KuriKuri

(5,145 I Explicit I Complete)  *derek/stiles/scott, polyamory

“You’re not going to try out the bed, Derek?” Scott asks, and Derek really, really hopes Scott doesn’t notice the way his heart skips a beat. There are many ways Derek can think of trying out Scott and Stiles’ hotel bed, none of them appropriate.

(Or: sour skittles at a werewolf convention.)

Alpha and Emissary by Chiomi

(6,319 I Teen I Complete)   *sterek, magic!stiles

One hears rumors, seeping out of Beacon Hills on waves of smoke and blood.

And then one sees the True Alpha’s Star Wars swim trunks.

The whole weekend is very unnerving.

My Best Decision (Has Yet To Be Made) by only_one_word 

(6,563 I Teen I Complete)  *sterek, emissary!stiles

Stiles knows a couple things about Derek:Derek doesn’t like to speak in full sentences in the morningSimilarly, he doesn’t like asking for help

Family Unit by AsagiStilinski

(8,851 I Teen I Complete)  *sterek, magic!stiles, packmom!stiles, roadtrip

So werewolf symposiums are a thing

That’s a thing that exists, it’s happening, it’s in the world now

And Stiles doesn’t know what in the name of hell he did to deserve this

(“It’s a mixed supernatural convention Stiles, not a ‘werewolf symposium’!”“)

We Have Potential by dragon_temeraire

(10,196 I Teen I Complete)  *sterek, fake relationship, werewolf culture

Derek has finally been invited to the annual North American Werewolf Convention. The only problem? They’re expecting him to bring a significant other. He doesn’t actually have one, but everyone volunteers Stiles for the job.

Mates and Mushrooms by mikkimouse 

(11,536 I Explicit I Complete) *sterek, fake/pretend relationship, sex pollen, dubious consent

Derek’s not that excited about spending three days at a conference getting propositioned by every Alpha with a single pack member. Stiles has a plan to make it stop.

It might be a great plan…if only Derek weren’t head over heels in love with him.

It might be an even better plan if someone at the conference didn’t have a vested interest in Derek staying single.

Find Me Sitting Poolside by TroubleIWant 

(14,286 I Teen I Complete)  *sterek, fake/pretend relationship

“Oh, and you’re the Hales!” the host exclaims when Stiles slides the sign-up sheet back. “Or, Hale and Stilinski, I guess. For now.” She gives them a conspiratorial wink. “I have to say, we are just pleased as punch to see an adorable couple like you attending!”

Stiles tosses an arm familiarly around Derek’s shoulders despite all the bags hanging off them, and gives him a squeeze. “I know! We’re pretty much the cutest. Right, honey?” He shoots his Alpha a shit-eating grin.

Derek bares his teeth in what’s probably supposed to be a smile, except that it isn’t, in much the same way that they are supposed to be a couple, but aren’t.

Survival is a Habit by HelloWhyTheFuckAmIHere 

(15,805 I Not Rated I WIP)  *sterek, spark!stiles

Nearly a year after the Hale pack defeated their first real threat, Talia gets a call inviting them to attend the Triennial Pack Convention.  

They gladly accept, hoping to use the TPC as one last celebration before the younger members go off to college, but when a series of events puts the pack at risk, they find themselves in desperate need of allies.

Love You Harder by tryslora 

(24,886 I Explicit I Complete)  *scott/stiles, unrequited love, fake/pretend relationship, emissary!stiles

Pretend dating is hard. Like really. Like walking around hard all the time hard. Stiles is starting to wonder if he’s going to survive the experience.

Espy Me, While I Watch You by frostedgoddess 

(27,280 I General I WIP)  *sterek, spark!Stiles

Derek Hale is a lot of things; Alpha, leader, survivor, and hopeless closet fanboy to the devastatingly cute YouTube sensation, Spark Stiles Stilinski.

Then, Derek’s betas come up with an amazing plan to get Derek an emissary. Any Alpha’s dream come true.

And it will be, if Derek can juggle his responsibilities as an Alpha, judgement, guilt, and roughly a metric fuckton of self-loathing and doubt about whether he’s good enough for a beautiful thing like Stiles.

It’s Free (And Always Will Be) by kellifer_fic, maichan808 (maichan)   

(31,681 I Explicit I Complete)  *sterek, werewolves are known

Stiles starts looking around, like there’s someone who’ll rescue him from this painfully awkward situation and Derek can’t blame him. All he can think is this is some kind of elaborate prank Laura is playing on him after she’d found his pile of Fangboy back copies last month.

Or, the one where Derek has to marry a human to save Clawbook and it turns out to be Stiles. He’s completely doomed.

Of Werewolves and Dolphins by Ilovesocks_24 

(53,506 I Teen I Complete)  *sterek, scott/isaac, friends to lovers

  “Stiles, come on! It’ll be fun,” Scott said. “You can’t deny that seven days in the Caribbean on a cruise ship full of hot, single werewolves won’t be a good time.”

 “Maybe for you,” Stiles said. “Because you’re tan and have a six pack. No one is going to talk to me at all. Also, fun fact: I’m not even a werewolf.”

 “You don’t have to be a werewolf to come,” Scott said. “You just have to be twenty-one so you can drink. Or so hot guys can buy you drinks,” he added, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

 “No, thanks,” Stiles said, shrugging. “Go on without me, just send postcards with all the hot guys you meet.”

 “They’re stopping in Cozumel,” Scott said. “It says here that you can swim with dolphins.”

 “Did you say we could swim with dolphins?” Stiles asked, curiously. “Like the ones that do tricks at Seaworld?”

 “That’s what swimming is,” Scott said, eyes gleaming.  

 “When do we leave?” Stiles asked.

Or the one where Scott convinces Stiles to go on a werewolf singles cruise. Stiles is really only going for the dolphins. Until he meets Derek.

You Make My Heart Ache by grimm 

(248,910 I Explicit I Complete)  *sterek, parrish/stiles, nogistune/stiles, mates, stripper!derek, bakery au

Based on this prompt & photo! I couldn’t resist. :D

Rating: GeneralApplicable Tags: Fake boyfriends, Fluff

[vroenis]

Art Created For Mood

I was watching a YouTuber I really like playing a game I really don’t like but from a developer that I also don’t like who does a thing I actually really like. That’s an opening and a half, but bear with me.

I don’t know if this book is good or not, but it’s here for the puns, and so am I. So is Max Kornell, it appears. I sure hope he’s an alright guy cos his children’s book is on my tumblr for a visual gag now.

It doesn’t matter what the game was, and it so happens it was DLC - some of you will be able to figure out what it was once I describe it, but very early on in the gameplay minutes of proceedings, the developers have the player-protagonist/avatar and your companion-of-the-moment engage in messing about in an old, abandoned fancy-dress store, picking up costumes and masks and larking about. I appreciate the YouTuber in question may have been partially or wholly playing up to the streaming audience ever-present at the time when they impatiently remarked “is this all we’re going to do” and “when do we get to actually play the game” etc., “when does the game start?” and so on, but as you may remember in my commentary on the Uncharted games a while back, interactions like these to someone like me are most often the most important - and now there’s no question what the game is if you haven’t figured it out already. As a side-note, I think the problem in this particular instance is one of pacing, and cold-opening the DLC with a scene like this may have been the issue. Video game pacing is tricky, tho, so it’s difficult to consider whether most players would be playing this content months after having experienced the main game, or whether the majority of players will be those who will have purchased it fresh on the newest generation of hardware, given the title actually launched a whole console iteration ago. Assuming that might be the case, the pacing experience might be entirely different, but I’m getting side-tracked.

I can’t account for what the YouTuber/Streamer was thinking and I don’t want to throw any shade and suggest they may have been performing for their audience - even if they were, it’s still fine - Streaming is performance, I feel like that much should be clearly evident. It’s not important to me where the truth lies within that individual. What the exterior performance telegraphs tho, is perhaps a misunderstanding of what the purpose of a scene like that is. I realise that in games that feature frequent occurrences of brutal violence, tension, excitement and anxiety, scenes of levity and peacefulness offer reprieve and introspection. They’re effective because of context and their rarity lends them power.

I’m still here to say a whole game of those kinds of things can still be powerful, you just have to be intelligent about the context. Reframing maturity to mean something other than violence takes real intelligence. It makes me question just how many actual adults we have developing video games. No, I don’t hate to bring it up again, but you need to play Kentucky Route Zero, Howling Dogs and a myriad of other Twine games and many other games created in queer spaces to perhaps broaden your understanding of what adults create when they don’t look to violence as a banner for maturity.

Naturally I’m going to turn to the most cliched of mediums; film.

For which I won’t apologise. That’s a frame from the montage in the middle of Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 movie Kōkaku Kidōtai - Ghost In The Shell, based on Masamune Shirow’s manga of the same name. I’d like to say that frame or the set of frames it’s taken from is one of my favourites from the film, because it is, but to be honest, the entirety of the three and a half minute montage is absolute perfection and every frame is equally important. It encapsulates the essence of the film without a single line of dialogue by playing a haunting piece of music expertly crafted by Kenji Kawai and showing seemingly disjointed images of the city in which the film is set. The film’s protagonist does appear in several shots, and some frames exhibit the city in decay, but some are completely urbane and simply show life in ordinary existence. Without discussing the main text of the film further, suffice to say it is the perfect frame for the subject of the narrative without stating it.

Before I embed the Ghost In The Shell montage, however, I want to share one Oshii created 2 years before it in Patlabor 2: The Movie. Let’s watch that one together, and even if you’ve not seen the film yourself, note in particular how topical the images are today, if you’re reading this some time around July 2020.

For those who’ve not seen the film, I highly recommend it. It’s not necessary to have seen either the series or the first Patlabor movie. It may help a little to watch the first film, mostly just to familiarise yourself with characters and terminology, but it’s not a necessity. The first film is much more comedic and while the second still has its funny moments, as evidenced in this montage, it takes a much more dramatic and sombre turn. Various domestic terrorist and military activities cause a declaration of martial law in Tokyo at roughly the mid-point of the film at which point this montage appears. The depictions of the citizenry, their interaction with the military and vice-versa are particularly interesting, and the film’s commentary as a whole is fascinating. That this has for the most part been lovingly and agonisingly rendered by hand in stunning animation detail is amazing.

Feelings are wonderful, weird, oddly shaped things. We use a lot of words in our lives, pragmatically to communicate, to instruct, to describe and tell stories. Funnily enough, when I was deeply entrenched in video games culture doing podcasts, playing a lot of games and writing a lot more about game studies etc., there was a lot of writing about the place about game verbs and it’s a great synthesis of design - a tool for describing the most simple actions in a game; move, jump, shoot, collect, talk, choose etc. In my introductory example, there are still a lot of verbs in play, like move, but the one most absent is of-course shoot, and the one that comes to the fore is talk. I feel like the scene at the beginning of that DLC is wholly intended to create a sense of atmosphere, to evoke certain feelings. Is it there to set the scene for context later on? Maybe. Is it for reprieve from violence? Also possible. But perhaps it’s just there to be relished, to be indulged. Maybe it’s OK to just be there to be felt, because feeling it is good, or even just feeling it is feeling something. Maybe it doesn’t have to be good, it’s just a different feeling to the way we feel when we’re reading an action feedback-loop where we’re engaged in move/shoot/wait/don’t die/melee/die-reload-repeat.

It’s hard for me to separate these montages from the films they come from. I want to say they’re powerful outside of the films, but I’ve seen those films so my viewings and re-viewings of them are loaded with my memories of the entire work; I have the full context. Tempted as I am to embed the montage from Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence, I think that would be spoiling you too much, plus the film in its entirety really warrants a full viewing. Kenji Kawai’s music in the second film along deserves maximum volume and your time uninterrupted, so I won’t demean it with a tiny little window and a wall of text. I promised you the montage from the first GitS movie, so here it is, at three and a half minutes.

I’m using the word feel quite a lot in this entry and it’s intentional. In recent times, we seem to be de-emphasising our feelings somewhat and I’m all for some semblance of rationality and logic but emotions are important. Feelings are amazing - all of them. The ones that are good, the ones that are uncomfortable, the ones that are uncontrollable. I guess some folks try to talk about understanding feelings and there’s a little truth in that but I don’t think it’s something we can ever fully get a complete hold of, nor should we. I’m not here to attempt to provide you guidance on that, I think if you’re reading this, you’re well capable of gauging for yourself what the impact is of your emotions to your life and what you may need to do about it. Don’t read an implication that I mean to diminish their impact, either - you may well need to amplify their impact, I think a lot of people don’t consider that - now more than ever, but again, I wouldn’t know. You would. Only you do.

Anyway - I feel like a lot of art and moments in art, or sections of art, are being misinterpreted or criticised because people aren’t open to the intent. Again I come back to the example in the opening to this entry. Assuming on good faith that the YouTuber’s/Streamer’s behaviour was genuine, their reading of the activity in the game was that it was somehow not game, and that until there was either shooting or puzzling or adventuring of some kind, that those things would be actually game or real gameplay does that scene and activity a disservice. Of-course, maybe they just straight-up didn’t like it which is fair. I accept that, I guess - but I don’t like it.

It still bothers me tho. Even tho I really don’t like that game, I understand that the point of it is to ground the narrative in very human roots, in emotional engagement so that the character has something to celebrate, to cherish fondly, or even perhaps to regret or look back on with bitterness or anger. Regardless - even if it doesn’t have a payoff in the future, I still feel like it’s important as a representation of human behaviour in a game in which human avatars are depicted. The images on screen within that video game are for the most part not abstract. The themes shown and the narrative woven about their journey, their motivations, the justifications for their actions and the moralising therein within the fictional framework of the universe are all extremely human and intended to be analogous to the real human experience. 

That being the case, on that assumption, I’m surprised and even more disappointed that there aren’t more non-violent indulgences of peaceful human interactions on offer in these games.

People’s tastes in films, I guess, has been quite monolithic for some time. I mean, I’ve always had the throw-away semi-casual assumption of such but I didn’t think it was a real thing. I appreciate I’m into some fringe stuff and I don’t expect most people to get into the super-weird films, but that folks would be so narrow? Like... so narrow. I’ve said it before, I’m well accustomed to the art I’m into being heavily criticised by most people, but even the more approachable material I’m into, people seem to either struggle to digest or still regard as boring because it doesn’t register on some level of excitement that scales on a weird, reductive verb-o-meter not dissimilar to video games designed with the fewest of verbs; move, shoot and collect. Sometimes a film isn’t necessarily about what’s literally happening on the screen, or strictly about the narrative playing out. Sometimes art is about how you feel when you experience it - we’ve quite literally been describing art, in particular music, as mood pieces for years, and for quite some time now, video games. 

In film, David Lynch is a master at it to name only one, and there are a ton of others. You don’t have to immediately have to be able to process his narratives, your first concern is to how you feel when you view his films. The pragmatics can - and often do - come later. Once you familiarise yourself with his cinematic language of emotional tone and atmosphere, you may find that his narratives are actually quite simple and they quite easily make sense - they’re artfully told and are injected with immense feeling because they’re told in such unique and emotional ways.

How do you go about choosing a frame from David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr.?

I tend not to discuss general release films much - I don’t have any particular distaste for them at all, I’ve mentioned that I have a great appreciation for them but if there’s any way I can speak to the emotional responses I have to them, it’s that in a broader sense, most of my responses are more or less the same. That’s why I don’t really talk about them. Their impact to me and how I engage with art in my life is minimal. That doesn’t mean I don’t think they’re important in the world culturally or that I discount their cultural importance to others - not at all. If they’re important to you, then that’s wonderful and amazing and you should celebrate them. Nevertheless, there’s also a place for independent cinema and art and creating things that don’t directly speak to the most transparent of feelings. I understand that the audience is smaller and the financial availability is going to have to be smaller - that’s OK, but mood pieces are special and amazing and weird and sometimes indescribable and maybe you should give them a try because they can make you feel real strange and sometimes strange feelings can be powerful too.

Once in a while, some folks do make something that is super approachable and bridges that magical gap between indescribable emotion and mood, and audiences that need the most gentle of entry-points. I think Thatgamecompany’s video game Journey has to be one of the best examples of a work that transcends and overcomes a lot of barriers by removing so many obstacles not only typical of video games but art in general. It’s a truly gorgeous experience, and one that is uniquely evocative not only for its own but any medium.

While I’m sure there where throngs of mouth-breathers who flocked to reddit et al to decry Journey as NOTAGAME™, there were plenty of people who found themselves disarmed by its approach to play, playfulness, narrative and emotion. While you can watch a full play-thru video of the game, once-again I do encourage you to actually play the game itself altho so far from its release, there may be a critical component of the experience missing. A minor spoiler; central to the game is a sense of connection and yet separation. Lead designer Jenova Chen at the time was dismayed by online gaming behaviour and that engagement between players was so so toxic - it remains so today. He wanted a way for players to connect but not be able to be harmful and hateful to one another. The game will actually pair players together via online services, but there is no VOIP or text communication utility at all, nor can you see the username of whom you’re liked to. There is almost no way to communicate, save for a single button that will emit a musical note and an abstract symbol above your character’s head - that’s it. Beyond that, you may freely move about the world together, choosing to follow one-another or separate and ignore each other. That is the extent of interaction, and when the game launched in 2012, we discovered this together as a community - it was amazing and breathtaking, especially as the whole experience unfolded.

If Jenova Chen and his team at Thatgamecompany can teach people who usually shoot heads that moods can be engaged in and enjoyed with Journey, I feel like people have the ability to identify all forms of art that does the same. Art that deviates from the usual MO of fulfilling our usual roster of base needs. I’m not denigrating mass-market art by describing base needs -  not at all. Base needs are hella important, but if the violence in The Last of Us gives the reprieve of giraffes context, surely the base needs of mass-market art does the same for mood pieces?

This is a frame from Exit (2011) directed by Marek Polgar and you should 100% find it and watch it.

These are some of the more fringe works I’m into, if you’re particularly daring. I’ve no doubt that someone will find them pedestrian and that’s fine. At some point, tho, people have to be able to either go to a shop a buy it, or at least find it online somewhere, so I’m sure the video your mate from uni made is the highest of couture art, but if no-one other than you and ten friends have seen it, it legit doesn’t count ay.

By the way - these are all listed in Film Notes, but I’ll lazylink their IMDB pages here so you can see how bad their audience scores are.

Tokyo.Sora (come-on, it’s my favourite film of all time) Exit (OK so as much as I was being facetious just before, this is going to be difficult to track down, but worth it if you can) Womb (CW: incest) The Sky Crawlers (my favourite of Mamoru Oshii’s) The Limits Of Control To The Wonder (I know - Malick, but I feel like if you’re going to try one, try this - shorter, more intimate, less abstract - I find it’s his most tender) Holy Motors (be thankful I’m linking Carax and not Noé/Void or Climax)