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stranger-who-writes-fiction · 4 years ago

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i don't know what to be without you around

Fandom: Supergirl Rating: K Pairings: None A/N: I fully intended for this to just be a goofy headcanon and then WHOOPS it turned into Danvers Sisters feelings. (Not k*lex. If I see it tagged as such, ya get BLOCKED.) Short. 99% fluff. Probably contains spelling errors. You’ve been warned.

...

Then

Occasionally, Alex would regret all the time and effort she'd wasted focusing on the downsides of having been thrust into elder sibling-dom. Because while, yes, a lot of the changes that occurred in the Danvers household upon Kara's arrival were...not great...there were definitely some perks to having a sister.

Like the simple satisfaction of a perfectly timed, “Shotgun!” victory.

“What?” Kara protested, her yawn undercutting her indignation. “You can't call shotgun yet, we don't leave for another hour.”

“You snooze you lose,” Alex told her, giving her a pointed look as she yawned again. “Literally.”

Kara rolled her eyes and returned to stuffing pairs of t-shirts and shorts into her duffle bag. Alex did the same, surveying her own bag to see if she'd missed anything. Bug spray, maybe?

She turned to head out into the hall, but Kara stood in her path, wearing a sly smile.

Alex didn't like the look of it. Not one bit.

“What's with the face?” she asked, attempting to sidestep around her younger sister. Kara easily blocked her, and crossed her arms.

“Okay, you get shotgun,” she said. Alex blinked.

“Uh, yeah. I know. I called it.”

“Which means,” Kara continued, complete with dramatic pause for full effect, but Alex already knew what was coming. The second half of the rule...how could she have forgotten. How could she have been so foolish. “I get to pick the music.”

Alex groaned in dismay.

“Kara, no.”

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It would take them four hours to get to the Tuolumne Meadows campground. Alex sighed, and rested her head against the passenger-side window. That meant four rounds of Fearless, though it was more likely that Kara would just play the same five or six songs she'd been listening to on repeat ever since she bought the album.

“Can't we listen to something else? Please?” Alex begged.

Kara smirked, and turned the volume up.

But of course, her mom immediately turned it back down, giving Kara a stern look in the rearview mirror.

“Kara,” she said in a tone that suggested, knock it off.

Kara quickly cowed, retreating further into the safety of the backseat. “Sorry, Eliza.”

“Great,” Alex said, sitting up straighter in her seat. “Now get her to play something else.”

“Alex, just listen to your iPod, if you don't like Kara's music,” her mom suggested. Alex sank back into the seat.

“...It's not charged.” There was a snort from the backseat. Alex glared into the rearview mirror. “Because someone lost their chord and was hogging mine this morning.”

Kara shrugged, and smirked that same insufferable smirk.

“You snooze you lose.”

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Four hours and what felt like a billion playthroughs of “Forever and Always” later, they arrived at the campsite, the interminable car ride almost instantly forgotten as the rocky banks of the river came into view. Alex had been here before, years ago on a father-daughter camping trip, but it was Kara's first time. As they filed out of the car and began to pull duffle bags and ice chests from the trunk, she turned to gaze out at the trees, taking a deep, calming breath.

Alex joined her, and gave her shoulder a good natured nudge. “It's nice, huh?”

“Yeah,” Kara agreed. “It's...a softer kind of noisy, than Midvale,” she explained with a happy sigh. And then, after a moment, she said, “...Sorry for being a jerk, in the car.”

“It's fine,” Alex shrugged. “Here, grab the tent.” Kara lifted the gear with ease, and followed Alex over to a level patch of dirt. “I just don't get how you can listen to the same, like, five songs.” She gestured for Kara to dump out the contents of the tent.

“No super speed, Kara!” Eliza called from the car. “You'll kick up too much dust!”

“Okay!” Kara called back as Alex began sorting the pieces. Kara stooped to help her. “They're good songs. You listen to your favorites a lot.” And Alex had to pause and silently admit, that was true.

“Yeah, but not over and over,” Alex finally said. “I'd get tired of them.” Which was also true. She remembered liking that Fray song, once upon a time, but now, it just annoyed her, any time it played on the radio.

Kara shook her head at Alex’s remark. “I don’t. There's something new, every time.”

Alex glanced over at her, ready with a retort—how could there be anything new in Taylor Swift songs? Weren't they all just...basically the same thing? First dates at fifteen, feeling fearless in the rain at 2AM?

But Kara's eyes were bright behind her glasses as she enthusiastically went on. “Like, sometimes, I'll just listen to the rhythm, or the vocals, or I'll pick out my favorite sounds, and it makes the whole song brand new again.”

Alex narrowed her eyes. “So...it's an alien ears thing, or...?”

Kara considered the question as they continued to put the tent together—they'd located all the poles and stakes, and were maneuvering the tarps into place. “...Maybe?” She said.

Alex kept working on the tent, waiting for Kara to continue, perhaps offer some sort of additional explanation. When she didn’t, Alex looked up to see that Kara’s eyes were on the tree canopy overhead. Her expression was neutral, but Alex had come to recognize that particular look.

She was listening.

To what, Alex didn't know.

“Yeah,” she said after a time. “Yeah, I think it is an alien ears thing.” She smiled. “I like the way guitars sound.”

Alex might've teased her about that, if Kara hadn't sounded so achingly sincere. Did they have guitars, on Krypton? Alex couldn’t remember Kara saying anything about music from her home world. Alex knew it probably wasn’t the case, but she imagined it being a lot of...synth-y sci-fi stuff.

She considered asking Kara about it, but decided against it--sometimes, Kara would get...weird, about such topics, and they were having a nice time. Alex didn’t want to ruin it.

So instead, she feigned offense. “Well, if you like guitars, I don't see why you don't like my music.”

Kara emphatically shook her head.

“Your music is loud.”

Alex started feeding one of the poles through the tent material. “Um, yes? That's the best part?”

“Yeah, no thanks,” Kara chuckled as she hammered a stake in place. The repeated the process at each corner, and soon enough, the tent was upright, and ready for them to store their gear inside. “It's loud and it's so emo.”

Alex snorted, heading for their pile of backpacks and duffle bags.

“Okay, Miss 'Romeo save me I've been feeling so alone'.”

FWUMP.

A sleeping bag collided with Alex's right arm.

“That song is great!” Kara insisted, already reaching for more ammo with a wide smile.

“That's not even how the play goes!” Alex teased her. “Right? Aren't you like, the Romeo and Juliet expert?”

FWUMP. The second sleeping bag hit home, but Alex didn't care. She was having fun.

“That's not the point, and you know it!”

“See the lights, see the party, the ball gowns, see you make your way through the crowd--” Alex thought she was safe, as there were no more sleeping bags.

But Kara had found their pillows.

FWUMP. FWUMP.

She laughed again, careful not to let the pillows fall in the dirt. And she was just about ready to give Kara a taste of her own medicine, when she saw that sly smile once more.

Oh, no.

“Hey, Alex, if you hate the song so much,” Kara said with a knowing look, “how come you know all the words?”

Well, shoot.

“...Cause...you play it all the time. Obviously.”

“And you’ve listened close enough each time to learn all the lyrics?”

Alex scowled. “...I mean. It’s...it’s kind of catchy, I guess.”

Kara beamed.

“Ha! I knew—”

Alex hurled both pillows at her.

FWUMP!

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Now

Alex lets out a relieved sigh.

Kara is back.

Kara is safe.

Kara appears to be whole and...mostly healthy. Her sodium levels are low enough to give Alex some pause, and her right leg shows signs of muscle strain, but otherwise...

“Can I go home now?” Kara's voice is raspy from fatigue. Alex shakes her head.

“Not yet,” she says. “Sodium has to be administered slowly. It's gonna take a while.”

Alex expects some sort of pushback, or protest, but Kara just offers a small hum of understanding. She really is tired, Alex realizes.

“But hey, good news,” Alex adds with forced brightness, “you do get to eat in about,” she consults her watch, “fifteen minutes, or so. Anything you want. Me and Kelly are buying.”

This earns a groggy grin from Kara, and Alex stores the image in her mind, filed under 'reassurances that Kara is still Kara, even after...everything.'

“A dangerous offer,” Kara jokes.

“Well. It...would not be the first time we bought a mountain of food, to welcome you home,” she admits. Kara shoots her a sad, questioning look, but Alex pointedly ignores it. “So. What'll it be? Pick your poison.”

Her sister's brow furrows in thought. “Um. I guess...whatever will get here fastest?” she suggests. “I'm starving.”

“Ah. We all had a feeling you might be, so,” Alex scoots her stool across the room and extracts a plastic bag from under one of the lab tables. “Snack run,” she says, revealing the spoils with a flourish. Kara laughs outright. It's soft, but it's the strongest she's sounded since returning from the Phantom Zone.

“Thank you,” she says. But Alex taps her watch.

“Still have eight minutes to go,” she reminds her. Kara nods obediently, though she's already sifting through the bag.

“I assume the apples and olives are from Brainy,” she says.

“He swears by that combo,” Alex tells her. “Don't worry, I'm pretty sure J'onn put some actual sustenance in there. You know. Red Vines. Pretzels. The good stuff.”

“...What's this?” Kara asks, and Alex wonders if Brainy perhaps added other questionable food combinations, but the item Kara pulls from the bag isn't one of the snacks.

“Oh.” Alex rubs her arm, a little self consciously. She forgot she left that in there. “That's just...” She pauses. “...I saw that. While you were...” Alex tries to think of a good word for it, but there isn’t one. “...away. I guess I thought...that if I got it. It...was like a promise. That we'd find you. And I'd give it to you.”

The logic doesn't seem quite as sound, as she says it out loud. Regardless, it dredges up memories of awful days marked only by failure, frustration, and fear that they'd never find Kara.

She shakes her head, clearing the thoughts away, and continues in a lighter tone. “Because obviously, pot stickers would go bad, so. This seemed...less wasteful.”

Kara nods, still staring at the shrink-wrapped copy of Fearless (Taylor's Version). A wistful sort of look tugs at her features.

“I haven't listened to these songs in years,” she says.

And Alex can't pass up the opportunity to tease her. “Yes. It's been nice.”

Kara rolls her eyes, but she's still smiling. “It's a good album and you know it,” she says. She sets it aside and yawns. Alex notices that she's looking a little worn out, and she doesn't appear interested in the food anymore.

“You want to rest, while I order the food?”

“...Yeah,” Kara decides. Alex stands to collect the snacks and put them back on the lab table. Kara inclines her heard towards the CD. “Did J'onn put a stereo down here?” Alex gives her a look. “Wait. Of course he did.”

Alex takes the hint and grabs the CD, pulling off the wrapper before heading out onto the main floor. The mismatched selection of furniture is currently off to the side, having been cleared away for one of Nia's training sessions. Alex finds the stereo next to one of the lamps.

When Alex returns to the med bay, Kara's already nearly asleep, her breathing slow and steady.

Alex checks on one of the computers—everything is holding steady, and Kara's responding well to the sodium. She should be able to go home tonight.

It makes Alex sigh in relief once more.

Kara's safe.

Kara's healthy.

Kara's home.

Alex places the CD into the open tray. Checks the track list, turns it to one of the softer songs, and lets it play.

Kara smiles as the opening chords drift through the speakers.

“I like the guitar,” she says quietly.

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NOTES: - Brought to you by the release of Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and the realization that the original album would’ve dropped at the perfect time for young, impressionable Kara to become a huge fan. - Title pulled from “Breathe” because WATCH ME repurpose select lyrics from love songs for platonic/familial relationships. - I want to say that Kara and Alex went to a MCR concert together...or maybe mentioned MCR? In the tie-in comic? I forget. This isn’t really crucial to the story, I just think it’s a fun aside. - Apparently it’s National Siblings Day so...yay for good timing? XD

#stranger writes #supergirl fic #long post #alex danvers #kara danvers #starts canon compliant #then diverges #supergirl season 6 spoilers #(not really #it just takes place during the current season)

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pigspeetsandhooflikefeets · 3 years ago

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(Crown) Honestly, I get that! I mean, of course Guy in sports is very fitting, he is the sports man after all, but I dunno, part of me wishes that like, there was like a standalone general trivia game with him. Or heck, maybe something that's like the Ride, but after a playthrough or whatnot, you can choose floors to revisit so that like you don't have to go through the entire game again just to replay that floor. Oh also in Ride 2 the hosts should react to "I love you" as a gibberish answer

I feel like that's a thing with L!F!F! ? Like there's a 'pick a level' option but I can't remember if it's just a handful of levels you haven't played before. Would I enjoy L!F!F! more if it was Guy, probably inherently. However that would suggest Guy was dating Sandy and there would be no resolution since Guy never shows up again so it'd be implied they were endgame. Oh the tribulations.

I figure the reason they don't want you to replay the levels immediately is that you could 'cheat' and know all the answers ahead of time but... cry me a river? I mean you still won't know all the Bingo answers and you can still fuck up the timing for Bingo, Roadkill, Gibberish Questions, and the Jack Attack. Plus the pressure is ON in DisOrDats, you could give me the easiest theme and I'd still be tense the whole time. I've said it before, cheating at YDKJ for the sake of a high score is literally the most pathetic thing you can do. Raul and Cookie won't kiss you no matter how good your score is on the high score chart. Cheat for the sake of getting cool voice lines or grow up, thanks.

I agree with the "I Love You" Gibberish answer, I feel like each of them could be pretty easy to come up with (single trigger, idk if there's a benefit to all 3 players saying they love the host other than them increasingly getting more embarrassed, or Guy getting so worked up he takes the day off to 'discover' himself)

Cookie: Uhh... I love you too I guess, but that's not really what we're looking for. What, did you say it just to see what I'd say? People like you always want to use me, I'm so sick of it! Minus $50,000.

Guy: [Scoffs] Sure, OK, you love me. What about it? I don't remember receiving any letters from you telling me what a great job I'm doing. You just want to interrupt my job to tell me you love me. [optional line if you're 2 or 3 players: You just want to embarrass me in front of all your friends, who are probably laughing right now!] You can't break my heart that easy, love isn't real anyways! [starts crying]

Schmitty, who is completely monotone the entire time: You know, that's what my last wife said. You know, before she left me and all. I can see Helen waving me down to get me to stop, but no, you started this, you're going to deal with the consequence. You see love isn't that simple. Love is miserable, and I'm sure your love is even worse. Now run along before I have to be the one to say I don't love you back.

Nate: That's cute, but simple flattery will get you nowhere, sweetheart. Besides, you know I'm worth more than just that. If you love me, show me you love me. And I don't mean type it in again, I inherently knew you loved me from the second you booted up the program. [Nate rambles on for a bit]

#anonymous #👑 anon #ILY easter eggs just in general deserve to exist #jacketybox mumbles

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retphienix · 4 years ago

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It's been 6 years :)

On March 30th, 2015 I decided I wanted a gaming side blog. (so we're early, but shush, it's the month for me)

I didn't know what I'd use it for exactly, but I had ideas- something I always have even if most of them only get as far as daydreamin' or writing out before closing them :P

For proof on the lack of direction the blog initially had- the March 30th date is the anniversary of my first post, an in-depth and lengthy review of Dragon Warrior Monsters for the GBC.

If you know the blog then you know "Extremely long and in-depth reviews" aren't the norm around here. As a matter of fact, that first post is the ONLY one I've done!

The closest I've come to ever repeating that would be the (word of the day) Directionless video I put out on Hades to get a grip on the concept of making videos, but that wasn't nearly as much of a 'review' as that first post is.

Tangent, definitely planning on trying my hand at videos some more for the foreseeable future. Probably not gonna use the tagline Full Impressions that I tossed as a whim for the Hades video but yeah- I'm excited to try my hand at a few videos :) tangent over.

It didn't take me long to come up with what I'd like to do for the blog though :)

A few months later I liveblogged a challenge run of FFT where I used only Ramza- a solo run. - Which maybe only happened because I tried a nuzlocke run a year prior on my main account-

(Nuzlocke | FFT challenge run)

Thanks to that haphazard liveblog experiment I started to realize a couple things which became the primary motivators behind this blog.

1) I LOVE sharing experiences. No brainer, I'm sure, but being able to share my experiences, and compare them with others' experiences, and just that mutual sharing is uplifting and feels good to do.

2) Liveblogging is an EXCEPTIONAL motivator to buckle down and play all those games I said I'd play (cue everyone laughing because I'm still way behind and have an immeasurable backlog).

But I mean that, on both respects. I have plenty of motivators toward the blog today, but if I were to be concise it's pretty much "It's easier to beat games if I liveblog them- otherwise I get distracted and play other games" and "I love sharing experiences and thoughts with people about my favorite thing- games."

Since 2015 I've tackled around 70 games as full playthroughs, and an untold ton as one offs or just to ramble about for a bit.

I've had a lot of highlights over the years, and I don't talk much about it as an overall experience so I thought for the anniversary I'd try to do just that. Not everything- I can't say I have photographic memory that would bring all of it up without prompting after all :P But whatever comes to mind as I browse some of my old stuff- as well as some thoughts on what I'd like to see in the future.

It's gonna be a bit self-centric I assume as I type this preamble to it, so let me say outright that this blog wouldn't be half of what it is without all the people who've given it the time of day over the years.

From recommending games they love or appreciate, to comparing thoughts, to offering kind words for analysis I've done over the years, to pointing out when I'm dumb and misread a situation :P- to, yes, even the people who decided "Fuck this guy's ramble" and deleted my captions before reblogging my gifs way back during Hamtaro (Of COURSE I remember that! It's amusing lol).

This is better because of others, because of the interactions and the people I've gotten the chance to chat with or befriend. It's just a liveblog more or less, my own little bit of fun I toss out for myself if for anyone- so seeing others enjoy this or that from the work I put into sharing my experiences or thoughts is always a joy in itself :)

Anyway, onto selfishly rambling about some tidbits of the past :)

Also sorry but no, opted to not shove a ton of photos in, it does have a handful of links to old posts though :P

This'll be disorganized as heck as I'll add to it over time before I feel it's worth posting (or the tumblr post editor becomes a hassle and more or less forces me to).

First~

FFT Solo Ramza Challenge: Considering it was roughly the first thing this blog has done, it's also something that's stuck in my head a lot more clearly than most of the other stuff I've done to be honest lol.

In truth, this is partially because FFT is my favorite game, bar none. But it's also because the whole experience was pretty new to me. Prior to it I had really only done one self-imposed-challenge that wasn't requested by the game in some manner and that was a nuzlocke run of Blue version.

So adding a challenge to my favorite game was a fantastic experience!

Notes I just wanted to say today about that run: If anyone enjoys FFT I honestly recommend giving it a shot for the unique story it lends itself to. I do recommend skipping the rules until after the second battle but that's up to YOU to decide.

My first post on the subject is me complaining about spending 4 hours grinding out the second fight and, despite hyperbole being my natural state, that was NOT hyperbole.

It DID take 60~ restarts to beat. It DID take 4 hours. The reason is that that 2nd battle is RNG as HECK, you HAVE to have Delita do some meaningful actions, you HAVE to have the enemies miss and make poor plays, you damn near HAVE to crit a few instances to save yourself from taking too much damage.

It's a numbers game to the extreme, so I wouldn't fault anyone for 'cheating' and skipping the 2nd fight for the ruleset lol.

The memory that stands out the most for that run is actually isolated in a post in which Ramza (Purrick in this run) talks like a total badass as just ONE DUDE running into a room full of enemies. I just think on that as a great encapsulated view of what it was like. The run started off face grindingly difficult, but because FFT is a game that offers so much freedom to the player it was extremely easy to 'break' the game into making Purrick overpowered as hell.

That's something I love about some tactical RPGs, I love having the ability to play smart so that I can play stupid later on, and breaking the game into making him one shot god is certainly a good payoff for playing smart early on :P

RetQuick: I miss RetQuick, it was primarily a short experiment I did in 2015 where I'd play a game for a short span of time (REALLY short, like 10-20 minutes) and record that for the purpose of making gifs and saying a short piece on what I thought.

It's one of those formats where the purpose was pretty shallow- but had a reason. I wanted to try making some gifs with some tools that existed online, so I made an excuse to do just that.

I also wanted to play a TON of games, usually through emulation on my sister's PSP, and this let me do that.

These two minor goals came together and so I spent a while making RetQuicks which were honestly more fun to make than they had any right to be. I mean the gifs were tedious but the playing? The thought sharing? The end product ocassionally having more appeal than just a photoset? It was fun.

I'm thinking whenever I have trouble picking a game for the blog I'll revisit the format... sorta.

I already reused it for a short stint to show clips I had no plan on expanding into a playthrough, but that died as well as it was too similar to Tidbits posts (another tag I no longer really use).

My thought is to rebrand retquick as something of a tryout for what game comes next. Play a handful of my backlog games for an hour or so each and say some thoughts before saying which one I'll continue as the main game for that period of time.

Old Tag Stuff: One of those things that only sticks to me since I made the decisions but it's always funny for me to look back on my old posts because I was apprehensive as hell toward making my posts visible. The reason my early playthroughs on the My-Tags page are variants of Ret instead of just "The name of the game so people can find this post" is because I felt like a liveblog would just spam the tag to hell-

Something I don't remotely feel bad for doing anymore.

So I avoided getting any sort of spotlight for quite a while on the blog for little reason.

Why Retphienix?: This is just a dumb thought I wanted to share and I'm sure I've said before.

It stands for retro!

Yeah!

Ain't that dumb and also not a real shorthand? lol

I think I have some sort of deer in headlights anxiety towards naming things, I mean do you think I think Full Impressions is a good summation for a video? I don't. But perhaps that's overshadowed by the other inexperiences and anxiety driven decisions that had- doesn't matter.

Retphienix is Retphienix because I sat there in 2015 and thought "Well... what do I name an alt account?"

My main is Redphienix, which yes, is ALSO a terrible name AND is misspelled. But it's that because of sentimental reasons. As a kid I misspelled Redphoenix when making my gamertag (I knew how to spell Phoenix back then as well, I was too excited about xbox live and misspelled it) and it's become something of a sentimental misspelling.

So I wanted to make a mix on that for my game blog, but I had no idea what. In the end I thought "RetroPhienix? I don't know. Retphienix is closer to Redphienix. I'll do that" and so it was done.

And just like how Redphienix is both bad and misspelled but exists because of sentimental reasons- Retphienix has acquired the same 'flavor' in my eye lol.

Aspirations for the blog: I have no immediate ramp up plans or road map or whatever, and in truth I'll be happy if the blog stays just as it is forever- up until tumblr ends- I cry over lost posts- and I reopen it on another platform.

But I do have blurry half-considered daydreams that I'd like to see happen for the blog through some hard work or shifts on my part.

One is something I'm already doing kinda, hence my embarrassing means of bringing it up a lot lately. Videos- I want those. I wanna make some looks back on series people don't talk about that I enjoy, I want to make videos sharing my thoughts on games I beat for the blog (like what full impressions kinda was, but I don't think they'll have a unified name from here on out). Maybe retrospectives, but mostly when I think of making a video tied to retphienix or me in general it's me looking at a game that said something to me, and saying it louder with my own interpretations on it.

You know the kind, videos where they talk about a video game but not the whole thing- just a singular message they really heard loud and clear from it intentionally or not. I dig those and I know I end a lot of games having plenty to say that could be directed into such a format.

We'll see.

And I'm along for the ride on that one as well- currently I'm keeping my eyes on whatever is directly next, which happens to be "I plan on playing Omori, if it clicks as something to talk about I would like to take a shot at that in a video too!"

The other is that I'd like to build a small community. Wouldn't know the first thing on doing that in a modern sense, but just a little online friend group to chat with and play games together. Something that could open up multiplayer and coop experiences being better shared on the blog and would just in general expand my gaming to what it used to be back on the 360 when I had a large group to play with.

Since the 360 era ended I've pretty much closed off- stopped playing competitive games due to lack of interest- and slowed down to playing all games either solo, with randoms (and no mic usually), or with my cousin. It's a rare instance when I play with some good people like @gamesception or another friend of mine, John.

When I diverted from playing competitive games nonstop toward other genres I didn't intend to also cut out all my online gaming buds, it just kinda happened, and I never really put any effort into rectifying that.

So more or less I'd like to one day sit down and work on a discord server, and then buck up and put the leg work in to make some gamin' buds again, but that's such a vague concept anymore.

Sounds all sad and what not but it's more ambivalent, I made decisions that

changed how gaming worked for me after the 360 and this is just where it landed for better and worse- I'd just like to see if I can make it a little better :P

General things I think when I think retphienix: Honestly? I think of how much fun I've had over the years and how thankful I am to have had an outlet that encouraged me to explore more of the medium.

I REALLY love games. I went to college for games, I've written LEAGUES about games, I've played countless games, my childhood was games, my adult life is games- games games games yada yada yada.

So when I think of retphienix I think of how without it I probably wouldn't have explored a lot of the corners of gaming that I have.

I genuinely, and I mean this, might not have sat down and beaten FF7 for myself and would have considered the amount I played as a kid to be enough.

I might not have played Chrono Trigger yet, and I KNOW I wouldn't have played Chrono Cross, and I'm happy as hell to have played both of those. CT was a mind blowing moment for me that showed me just how good an RPG can be, and CC gave me miles to think of in terms of innovating an RPG and how beholden to the narrative a sequel should be (I don't feel CC should have been chrono at all lol).

I DEFINITELY wouldn't have given New Vegas another chance. And I know I'm a sourpuss on NV, I've been that way since I maxed my achievements on the 360 for it, but replaying it really did reveal to me how exceedingly negative I was being.

My memories had become "It's brown and a boring location >:(" and "The factions all suck and it doesn't do anything with the idea of bad factions >:(" and became "It's... a little brown guys, not a big fan of the area" and "They didn't do enough with exploring the gray factions" while adding "Wait. This is pretty damn fun. And 90% of the additions are stellar. And I forgot about Dead Money, my favorite dlc in any game ever with a story that tears at my heart every time I think of it, NV good actually?"

Faxanadu would have remained a cool game I saw on SSFF and not a game I played to the end and fell in love with the aesthetic feel it has!

Also that's a game I cheated like crazy on lol, I would do it again! Save state scumming games meant to be rudely difficult is only fair :P

I probably would have never sat down to play through Windwaker which was such a positive and uplifting experience that I now get the most relaxed and warm feeling in my heart when I see those blue waves.

There's so many experiences I would have left on the table in favor of like... putting more hours into a live service title or something.

Maybe, and no offense to my cousin or anyone else playing it, but maybe I'd be no-lifing World of Warcraft nonstop just stagnating my interest toward the skinner box mechanics of an MMO?

Some offense, actually but lightheartedly lol.

But beyond the entire games I've played for the blog, when I think retphienix I picture all the time making gifs, all those games I played on the PSP for short stints, buying a retron 5 to add to what I could explore and being stoked when they shipped a freebie box of old controllers to go with it, getting angry at the retron for being a Piece Of Shit lol, crying at the end of damn near every game with an emotional story because I'm a big emotional mess of a person who finds investing and crying at a story way too easy thanks to empathy pulls, oh!-

Getting excited whenever I found that I had a "*controversial*" opinion that no one would care about lol. Like the one that comes to mind is that I thoroughly believe that Dragon Ball Z II: Gekishin Freeza!! for the NES is WAY better than the fandom recognized and appreciated sequel/remake Dragon Ball Z: Legend of the Super Saiyan!

How many people do you hear talking about either game, let alone saying the NES game that is roughly half of the SNES remake is the better one :P But I stand by that! The SNES one is a remake of DBZ1 and 2 for the NES but it loses all the charm and some of the fun of the NES ones by being a lackluster SNES game!

lol

I admitted wholeheartedly that this post would be a lit-

little directionless (gotta love the new tumblr poster making me break sentences like that), but to sum things up.

It's been 6 years. It's been an untold amount of work to be honest- liveblogging a game, at least for me, hasn't been the easiest thing. It's a lot of thinking out my thoughts (heh), it's a lot of learning tools to make the capturing process possible, it's a lot of experimenting, it's a lot of writing and editing, and, well, sometimes it's just tough.

I mean I went to school for coding, not video editing, not writing, not image processing, not this or that- but this hobby has introduced a lot of things even if only at a VERY base level (I admit fully to using online alternatives to make gifs for instance).

I learned a lot about, well, a lot of things in order to use this blog to learn more about games- and all that work has become part of why I've loved all 6 years of this blog.

6 years of gaming, work, and you all- and it's been worth the investment :) Here's to many more and all of you whether you stumble upon this post or not- literally anyone who's interacted in these 6 years, thank you, and anyone who hasn't I offer you well wishes as well.

#Retphienix #gaming #video games #gaming liveblog

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bucket-bill · 4 years ago

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I wanna know bucket-bill’s opinions! Tell me your favorite LITG lis and why you love them. Idk why but I feel like you have a lot of good opinions.🤔

Congratulations @mchamster, you are my first ask I have ever received and thank you for the kind compliment. I will certainly share with your my favourite LITG lis. I will start with S3 and work my way backwards - after all, this tumblr name is inspired from a S3 li. If you are interested in my opinions, please continue reading!

Also, please let me know if you still think I have good opinions after reading my list. I started with my four favorite LITG LIs based on their romance-ability, but I can certainly expand on my other favourite islanders which are Chelsea, Lottie, Seb, Tim, Jen if anyone cares. Levi has grown on me too.

Bill - Yes, Bill is probably the most controversial favourite on this list but hear me out. I think S3 did all the LIs dirty as we did not get anywhere near the same type of development as S2. However, Bill stuck out the most to me as he seemed the most unique of the bunch. Of the S3 cast, I was immediately attracted to Bill the most and despite him liking to argue for the sake of arguing, I actually enjoy the banter will Bill. Heck, with how weird S3 MC was, he was down for anything, whether it was MC licking his bucket face or MC trying to do a sexy dance with the tent pole. You do see a glimpse of growth from him throughout S3 - in the hot air balloon date, he admits to you that he actually ate a peach, despite telling MC that that they were just furry fruit. And since this happened in S3 where there was little to no character development, you must respect that he did that for the sake of MC and if that isn’t romance S3 level, I don’t know what is. Plus, he does pull off the bucket head look - a very difficult look if you ask me!

Bobby - Yes, I am in love with Bobby. Did I agree with everything he did? Absolutely not. But Bobby was loyal and in real life, that is what I value most. Bobby really tries to maintain the peace in the group (minus Operation Nope, which I did not support, but we all have our flaws) and he uses his humor to be friend every other islander in the villa. Bobby is a sweetheart and to be honest, I have still not successfully completed a S2 route that has not ended with Bobby, because he is the one guy who never appears to waiver from MC. Yes, people find his route boring and maybe his gem scenes aren’t as “fiery” as other LIs, but Bobby appears to always put MC first with his steamy scenes and if that isn’t ding, I don’t know what else is.

Henrik - Thanks to @mchamster‘s litg matchmaking services, I was matched with Henrik and the hashtag for the new ship #buckrik was created. I am currently making my way through a Henrik playthrough and it might actually be the first playthrough I finish in S2 that I don’t end with Bobby. Henrik’s laid back personality cracks me up - I can’t help but smile when MC is on their first date with him and if you ask if there is something in his eye, he says something along the lines of “just the image of a beautiful woman ... HEYOOO!”. I mean, how can you not like Henrik? He doesn’t take live too seriously and I think he would be a romantic but non-needy boyfriend. For someone like MC, he would help them relax and just enjoy life and just imagine the outdoor adventures they would have together ... plus their beautiful babies. Henrik is quickly becoming a second favourite and I would love the man to get more respect than he currently receives.

Jake - I mean, who doesn’t love Jake? I wanted to throw my phone against the wall every time I thought we were having a moment but instead he runs off sheepishly. But he was definitely worth the wait. Jake is a total sweetheart and you can tell that he is smitten with MC since day one. Yes, he struggles to verbalize his feelings to MC and it takes him nearly the entire season to do so, but Jake is the perfect gentleman. He was the first person to stand up for MC when Cherrygate happened. Plus, let’s be real, Jake look likes a Greek God, and yes, that certainly helps his case. Plus think of the amazing cooking dates and kitchen sex you two would have.

#bucket-bill answers #bucket-bill #mchamster #litg #litg bobby #litg jake #litg henrik #litg bill im crying

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lordbhreanna · 5 years ago

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RE3 Ramblings

I finished a second playthrough and felt like sharing some random thoughts about RE3make. Mostly things I have been mulling over the past few days. As usual, don’t expect many organized thoughts, this is just me rambling away about certain things from the game (mostly the story and characters, to be honest). Spoilers under the cut!

— One thing I love about the initial sequence in Jill’s apartment is that it lets you know her more intimately than we’ve ever known any other main RE character. It shapes her personality a bit, as well as her current mental state after Arklay… which isn’t very good. Her place is a mess, there’s beer everywhere which might mean she’s been drinking more, the board tells you she’s obsessed with her investigation, she’s not sleeping well and resorts to pills, the whole nightmare thing. But there are other minor details that I truly loved, and what I mean is: the girly stuff. OH YEAH. There’s this trend to remove any trace of “femenine” elements from female characters that supposedly fit the mold of “strong female characters” (I hate this phrase with a passion). Because, sadly, more often than not, the masculine stuff is valued as cool or positive (things like strength, power, violence) while femenine stuff has more negative connotations. So I was gladly surprised that Jill was allowed to have the kind of stuff that most likely a 23 year old woman would have in her apartment, like make-up products and nail polish bottles scattered all over her bathroom, a fancy handbag in her wardrobe, even panties, those fashion posters on the wall. I know it’s a very minor detail, but I appreciated it. Jill is allowed to be human in this game, to be caring and compassionate while feral and a true action hero. This just adds more to that; she’s a supercop, but she’s also a regular young woman in her twenties.

— Talking with a friend, I came to realise that the reason why this game feels shorter sometimes is because of the pacing. RE2 initial sequence was shorter and you were quickly left out in the open at the police station. But from Jill’s apartment to the subway, a lot more happens and it’s very quick. Now, I think that part is well done because this is Jill’s escape and this is when the city is falling completely apart. So it feels right that it is so desperate, especially because Nemesis is pursuing Jill already at this point. My only wish would have been that the time spent roaming the city, before fixing the subway, was longer. Mostly because I enjoyed exploring the city and its surroundings. But, in any case, I still think the pace fits the game well and the internet tends to turn these things into an echo chamber, so it seems that it’s a bigger problem than it actually is. (I lived through Mass Effect Andromeda’s disastrous release, and I enjoyed the hell out of that game.)

— Let’s talk a bit about the story. I think all the changes made are there to tell a more consistent tale of the last days of Raccoon City, why it fell and what the city represents as a whole. As I mentioned before in other metas, RE is not particularly subtle with its themes, and it’s not really the point. That’s why I think Jill’s last words are so important to understand every other piece of the story: it’s a story about how true horror is human greed, and how it clashes against selfless people like Jill, Carlos or even Brad. It’s not a cynical story, by any means. As much as RE is horror-oriented, I always find its stories quite hopeful and its endings reflect that. Look at RE2R ending too, or RE5. It’s always daylight, because the heroes have escaped the nightmare, and there’s usually a line about never giving up because it’s worth it, despite all the troubles.

This game deals heavily with the corruption that runs through Umbrella, the US government and the city of Raccoon City itself - which is something that already showed up in RE2R. I find that Bard is the perfect example of said corruption, and to be honest I believe that he is the worst of them all - because he’s the most real one, the kind of upper-class bastard that was part of the problem from the start, but would actually get away with it had he escaped Raccoon City. Yes, he had the vaccine - but he was complicit in all of Umbrella’s experiments, only took actions when Umbrella turned on the researchers and, well, he was a sexist pig. I don’t think the writers added that particular convo with the nurse for nothing, if only to highlight what a douche (as Carlos says) he is, and how this kind of person can do whatever they want without any consequences to their actions. (Luckily he got a bullet to the head. Nicholai is trash, but he’s trash husband material for things like this.)

Carlos is a super interesting case because he starts on the bad side, but you see clearly that he wants to do good, just like Mikhail. He’s honest about wanting to help people. And he does think they’re there helping, so I appreciated a lot how we got to witness this time his slow realisation that maybe he’s not working for the right people here. It adds so much more nuance to him, and it makes you root for him even more. I also appreciated his comment about how Jill even trusted him, despite knowing what Umbrella did. It speaks volumes about the trust and bond these two characters develop throughout the journey. And Carlos is also there to represent that kind selflessness we saw in rookie Leon, for example: he’s willing to stay in the city if it means saving people. He moves heaven and hell to save Jill, when he’s just met her.

But Jill is obviously THE hero of the story. And one trait we get to see immediately about her is that she’s devoted to helping others - first she tries to convince Dario, then decides to help the UBCS (despite ALL her hate towards Umbrella, and we shouldn’t play that down) because she wants to save the civilians. Then, once she discovers there’s a vaccine, she rushes to get it, because she wants to help as much as she wants to escape the city. She doesn’t trade one thing for another, and she tries to get the vaccine up to the end.

Then we have Nicholai, who is the main villain. I know a lot of people consider Nemesis the big baddie, but for me Nemesis is just the product of human greed & hubris, it’s a tool - monsters in RE are never the actual villains, they’re just there to have something to shoot at (there’s a great post around Tumblr that also explains why Nemesis may even have the saddest of stories, but that’s another topic altogether). But Nicholai IS the representation of said greed - he shows us to what lengths people can go for personal profit. This is something that is carried over from the original game, but the way it’s presented in the remake is more tonally coherent with the rest of the story, in my opinion. It becomes his main trait because that’s the underlying theme the story is talking about. Jill even calls him “greedy son of a bitch.” I think it’s super interesting that all his conversations relate to that and being selfish, basically. He wants Jill to see that you should only care about yourself and we see throughout the story that he only values things in terms of money and his own survival. He’s the kind of person who puts a price to everything. “There’s a price tag for everything, even letting the world burn.” “You can’t put a price on life” (meaning his own, as he decides to leave instead of getting the combat data of Jill’s fight with Nemesis’ last form.)

Which is the opposite of what Jill stands for and represents - her literal job was in law enforcement, she cares about protecting others, helping people, bringing justice. She’s a selfless person who can’t be bought by money, which is something that a greedy bastard like Nicholai can’t see. That’s why he tries to convince her to save him because of the information he has, adding that he would pay her anything. But that doesn’t work on her, because she’s not like Nicholai. Unlike the rest of Raccoon City, she remains “incorruptible.” She refuses to be part of that, and leaves victoriously while every other evil character dies along with the city (well, Nicholai’s death is debatable, but you know what I mean). In the end, she doesn’t get the vaccine and Raccoon City’s citizens aren’t saved, but Jill wins in a metaphorical way, I would say, and her resolve is stronger than ever. Her words highlight what was Raccoon City’s demise:

“All this death wasn’t caused by a monster-making virus. It was greed. Human greed.”

#resident evil #resident evil 3 #jill valentine #carlos oliveira #nicholai ginovaef #my meta #my posts

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afni-fics · 4 years ago

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Elder Scrolls DC - A Reluctant Dragonborn - Chapter 10: Bleak Falls Barrow - Interior (part 1)

Elder Scrolls DC - A Reluctant Dragonborn - Chapter 10: Bleak Falls Barrow - Interior (part 1) by C_R_Scott Chapters: 10/? Fandom: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Red Robin (Comics), DCU (Comics) Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Characters: Tim Drake, Lucien Flavius Additional Tags: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Skyrim/DCU crossover, Reluctant Dovahkiin | Dragonborn, Not Beta Read Summary:

The decent into Bleak Falls Barrow begins.

Previous Chapter | Masterlist | Next Chapter

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Inside the Barrow, Tim kept good on his promise to the Argonian. He found the other bandits the reptilian man mentioned, and Tim was good to his word. He didn't kill any of the men guarding the entrance into the tunnels, but he certainly beat them down in a way that they wouldn't soon forget.

...Once they all came to, of course.

"Goodness," Lucien said as he toed one of the unconscious bandits by the firepit the criminals had set up for themselves, confirming they were well and truly out. "I don't think I've seen anyone fight like you do with your bare hands... or feet for that matter." He looked to where Tim was busy working the lock of a nearby chest the bandits had set up. "How did you learn to fight with punches and kicks like that?"

Tim didn't respond to Lucien until the lock was successfully cracked and the chest was swung wide open. There wasn't much there, much to Tim's disappointment. Only a couple of gems which he offered to Lucien, a handful of Septims which he pocketed for himself, and an old piece of iron armor that Lucien assured him was fairly worthless, so he left it in the box. "Years of training," he said as if that explained everything, which of course it didn't for Lucien.

"Training where?" the scholar asked as he examined the gems in the firelight.

"Home."

"And where is home?"

Tim sighed. "I thought you were supposed to be investigating the Barrow, not me."

Lucien had enough grace to look sheepish. "I'm sorry, but it turns out you're a very intriguing fellow."

Tim rolled his eyes and grabbed a nearby torch, lighting it with the bandit campfire. "C'mon Lucien. Clearly this is not the inner sanctum of the Barrow. Let's keep moving." He led the way down the tunnels that seemed to go deeper and lower into the mountain itself.

***

Because the tunnels themselves were round, Tim could hear nearly everything moving around ahead of them, most of which ended up being small packs of monstrously large and hostile rats the size of labrador retrievers.

"Good grief... Even the rats are huge," Tim muttered under his breath as he fired an arrow at one of the creatures as it tried to scramble up a circular stairwell to savage his ankles. He felt a twinge of satisfaction as the one he shot ended up tumbling into another that had been trying to run up behind it, causing both to fall off the stairwell entirely to the floor below.

"You mean the skeevers?" Lucien remarked as he examined an old Nordic pendant he found on a nearby table. "Do they not have them where you're from?"

"We just have rats, and they're maybe a fifth of the size of these things," Tim said as nocked one more arrow and shot the final skeever as soon as it came within his sight. At least, despite how repulsive and persistent these rodents were, they were allowing him a lot of target practice with his bow.

Lucien chuckled. "You're homeland is lucky. These vermin are a menace. Careful not to let those bastards bite you. You're liable to get a disease if you're unlucky."

Tim sighed. "And I would be that unlucky." He paused a moment and listened, but heard no more skeevers.

***

It actually took a bit of wandering, but Lucien and Tim finally came across another bandit. Tim had been watching the bandit from the shadows of the corridor leading into the large open room before a barred and apparently locked doorway.

Tim waited there for a moment with Lucien right behind him, as he was planning how to ambush the bandit and knock him out as quickly as possible.

However, the Barrow had other ideas.

The bandit had figured that a large lever in the middle of the room was the key to opening the way into the next room, so he pulled it with barely any hesitation. Unfortunately for him, and much to Tim's horror, the lever did not open anything, but it did release a shower of wicked darts from nearly all sides into the unsuspecting man. The bandit was collapsed to the floor before the trap had finished skewering him.

"Damn it!" Tim cursed as he finally deemed it safe for Lucien and himself to enter the room once the darts had stopped firing.

"Well, at least we know not to pull that lever," Lucien said as he went over to the bandit while Tim surveyed the room. Tim frowned as he quickly identified all the holes the darts had come out of. Everything was aimed squarely at the lever. Such an obvious trap.

"Is there anything we can do for him?" Tim asked Lucien as the scholar picked up one of the darts that had hit the stone floor instead of the bandit.

"No. He's quite dead. I'm certain he was done in well before he even hit the floor." Lucien sniffed the dart cautiously. "I think I catch a whiff of Frostbite Spider venom on these darts as well. If it was just one or two, he might've been able to survive it with a quick dose of anti-venom. Twenty or thirty in one go, though... I think this trap would've felled a giant if they could fit through these tunnels."

Tim sighed and began to examine the barred door. "Well there's got to be a way to move forward." He looked at the way the bars were set up. It was clear these bars were set up in a way to move upward out of the way. However, the mechanism to lift the bars was completely hidden from their vantage point.

"I'll check the upper floor," Lucien said as he pointed to a stairwell that led up to a walkway above the door. "Perhaps there's a switch up there?"

"Maybe," Tim mused as he stepped back to take in the entire bottom level of the room again. Aside from the lever and dead bandit, there wasn't much else about the room except for some carved decorative statues and rubble. Then he paused as he watched Lucien examine some animal carvings on the upper level. "Wait..."

Tim noted the snake carving and the whale on the upper level, and noticed how a third carving, that of another snake, had fallen to the lower floor due to age. Then he looked at three animal carving statues on the immediate left side of the room consisting of two eagles and a whale between them. He went over and started examining the eagle closest to him.

Much to his surprise, the moment he touched the eagle carving, the entire pillar it was resting on shifted. Tim's eyes lit up. "Is it really that simple?" he asked himself under his breath as he put down his bow so he could use both hands to push the pillar on one side. As he anticipated, the entire stone pillar began to turn clockwise, stopping only when the image of another animal, a whale, was now facing forward.

"Did you figure it out?" Lucien called down as he heard the sound of stone scraping against stone and notice what Tim was doing. By the time Lucien came down the stairs, Tim was already moving the third pillar so that the pattern of the pillars matched the pattern that was supposed to have been on the second level.

Snake... Snake... Whale...

"We'll find out in just a moment," Tim said as he went to the lever and pulled it without hesitation.

-------------------------

Warning: This is being pantsed more than plotted, and this is not beta read. We'll see where this journey takes us. Mostly I'm just doing this for my own amusement.

Note1: If you have any questions about the playthrough and Tim's feelings/experiences that aren't described in the chapters, please ask me in the comments. I'll do my best to answer your questions as best I can.

Note2: Part 1 of... a couple of parts. I'm not sure how many parts this trek through the Barrows is going to take. Been busy with work and family the past week, so wasn't able to do much playing or writing, though I really wanted to. With the weather turning bitterly cold recently, I'm definitely carving out some time to write and play this weekend.

#elder scrolls dc #fanfiction #tim drake #skyrim fanfiction #batfam fanfic #red robin #batfam #crossover #lucien flavius #wip #afewnovelideas

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ranger-report · 4 years ago

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Thoughts On: Heretic

Earlier this year, just before the beginning of quarantine, I played a little game called AMID EVIL, something I would not have done were it not for the enchanting video skills of YouTuber Civvie 11. In his video, Civvie demonstrated the awesomeness of the retro shooter, both in graphics and gameplay, and since I was jonesing for something a little more dark fantasy than I was used to, I decided to give it a try. The game is a thrilling rush, and worthy of its own post here, but that game was a segue into me finally picking up and playing a game series that I had been intrigued by for nearly twenty some odd years: the Heretic and Hexen games.

AMID EVIL owes a lot to these games; in fact, it's not much of a leap to say that it owes everything to these games. It's even less of a leap to say that most first person shooters, whether dark fantasy or no, owe a lot to these games. Raven Software introduced a monster of a franchise when they dropped Heretic in December of 1994, working in collaboration with id Software as Raven was creating their games using the DOOM engine (or, as I think we're calling it now, “id tech 1”). John Romero helped in-house, giving advice on how to work with the engine, which was instrumental for Raven to push id tech 1 to its limits. They made changes to the engine which eventually became staples in other FPS games: an inventory system, translucent objects, pushable objects, the ability to look up and down, and the ability to fly. While the game itself was objectively a reskinned version of DOOM, it was stylish and engaging and reworked the most popular game engine at the time. In short, it won accolades in no small amount, and sealed itself in history as a high watermark for boomer shooters, hell, for PC gaming in general. So when we're looking backwards into the foggy past of our ancestors, is Heretic a game that we, in the Year of Our Lord Gaben 2020, should consider playing, either for the first time or as a throwback? Roll up your sleeves, party people, we've got a deep one to dive into today. Because we can't simply look at Heretic alone; oh, no. We're going to have to look at the whole franchise.

Heretic is not a complicated game per se, but it has a lot of tricks up its sleeve. We have the standard issue Run-Gun-Have-Some-Fun gameplay that Wolfenstein and DOOM brought to the table. There's three keys of different colors – yellow, green, and blue – there's a variety of weapons that almost line up point-for-point with DOOM's stack of damage inducers, and there's a horde of enemies that are around every corner waiting for you to come out magic blazing. But where DOOM has a mostly straightforward path from point A to point B, Heretic is a trickster which can and will give cause to tear one's hair out. Secret doors, invisible walls, fake walls, and hidden switches are everywhere, which means that nine times out of ten you'll either be consulting your map to figure out where the fake walls are, or you'll be pressing the space bar on every surface to see if it will open or activate something useful. Raven did a bit of a whammy on the game, setting up the simplistic stuff to lure you in, as though promising a hot night out with the kind of experience you think that you're used to, but then they strap you in for the kinky stuff that you always imagined you'd be into, but now that we're here you're not so sure. Make no mistake, I did consult a walkthrough at least once, maybe twice if I'm remembering right, during my playthrough. And the game is punishing the deeper you get: enemies lie in wait immediately behind doors, around corners, hidden out of sight or just above you since some of them can fly, and as your limited ammunition dwindles down into the red, you'll be forced into running risk-and-reward of melee weapons and inventory items to keep moving. Fortunately, each weapon has its own ammo stock, and some enemies are more susceptible to different weapon types. Adding to the bonus in the player's favor are inventory items that boost weapon damage, specifically the Tome of Power which magnifies the current weapon's attack power into a secondary fire that more often than not is absolutely brutal. But, unlike future entries in this series, the motto of the day is: Keep Moving, Keep Shooting, Don't Stop Moving, Don't Stop Shooting. It's Fun, Fast, and Furious in an entertaining way that only occasionally leaves you pondering why you even booted up the game this morning.

However you may feel about the gameplay itself, it can't be denied that the visual aesthetics and gamefeel are dripping with atmosphere. Everything from top to bottom feels like the best of cheesy 80's style fantasy art, from the front cover to final screen. Gloomy castles, underwater domes, craggy hellscapes. Weapons impress with over-the-top magical properties. The default staff acts like the DOOM pistol, lobbing nearly harmless yellow energy, while the Etheral Crossbow shoots multiple energy arrows at once, like a magic shotgun, easily the most versatile weapon in the game. Besides that one, my other favorite weapons are the Hellstaff (which blasts rapid-fire red energy, and causes acid rain to fall when Tomed up) and the Phoenix Rod (basically a magic rocket launcher that belches fire when overpowered). Depending on what you're facing, proper usage of these weapons (all finely drawn sprites, natch) can either chew through a mob with ease or leave you scrambling to get back. Stun lock Disciples with the Dragon Claw while obliterating Golems with the Crossbow; save the Phoenix Rod for big bads. And enemy creatures run the gamut from the simplistically annoying Gargoyles (red bat-winged creatures who also shoot fireballs) to the sturdy Golems (which come in a secondary variety which throw flaming skulls at you) to the Disciples of D'Sparil (faceless hooded monks who fly, chant, and shoot fireballs at you, on theme). Usually these damage sponges come at you in packs, rarely doing so in solo numbers because otherwise the game wouldn't be a DOOM clone. What really gets challenging is when boss creatures start popping up like regular enemies – in packs. Take the Iron Lich for example, a massive floating skull wearing a spiked helmet that throws walls of fire and tornadoes that do continual damage, they appear as a boss at the end of the final level of the first episode, then appear later on in groups. They take incredible amounts of damage and return fire constantly, which leads to a tense game of bobbing and weaving and staying as far away from them as possible. But the absolute worst is the Maulotaur. Basically, a minotaur that stands head and shoulders taller than the Iron Lich, carries a huge mace, and shoots waves of fire at you which can one-shot you if you're not paying attention. Staying away from them is key, but they can charge forward fast in order to close distance and take a few swings at you with the mace. These assholes also start as a final bosses, then appear as regular enemies surrounded by waves of other mobs. Maulotaurs are the dealbreakers of the game; they require ridiculous amounts of ammo to kill, and will force you through most of your inventory items if you're not already powered up. Thankfully, your inventory can hold quite a few helpful items, such as quartz flasks for health, the aforementioned Tomes of Power to boost weapon damage, invisibility spheres and wings of flight, and even motherfucking time bombs. But amongst all these, the most ridiculous and yet satisfying item is the Morph Ovum. Shaped like an egg, when used it gets thrown outward and whatever it hits is transformed into an easily killable chicken. Got a wave of monsters crowding too close and you need to thin the herd fast? Turn them into chickens, then turn them into fried chickens.

What gets me is that this game doesn't feel nearly as highly regarded as its indirect sequel, Hexen, and that's probably because for the most part this is a full-on DOOM clone. There were a lot of them back in the day, too many to count, and I think that if wasn't for the legacy of Raven and Hexen, this might have fallen through the cracks of history. Is it uninspired? No, not in the slightest. The quality of the spritework and animations are top notch, the production values are stellar, putting it just above the quality of the average obvious Doom clone. The amount of innovation, with the aforementioned inventory system and modifications to the engine, mesh well with the ambitious world/story crafted in the background of a single warrior trudging across worlds to defeat an evil tyrant who has taken over his people's lands. The current version on Steam is actually the second version released; initially, the game launched in 1994 with three episodes, the first one being the shareware version, and then later on in 1996 had a second physical release which added on two new episodes. It was like an expansion pack folded into the main game, and considering that Hexen was released in 1995, it makes sense that the two new episodes of Heretic feel so much more brutal in difficulty by comparison. And thematically it makes sense for them to have a higher base difficulty, since it’s about escaping the dark world you had to break into, and now you're crawling your way back out of it. Kind of a neat trick, having the hero beat the bad guy halfway through the story, then showing his journey to get back home. Hell, even the name of the main character is awesome. A later game in the series will reveal that his name is Corvus, but originally the character was simply referred to as The Heretic, and in a gaming landscape featuring such characters as Doomguy, the Quake Ranger, and the Doomslayer, the Heretic ought to stand right up there with the rest of them.

So is the game worth playing today? Absolutely. Any fan of boomer shooters or retro gaming in general should absolutely play this game. Utilizing DOSBOX (which the Steam release uses) is fine, but doesn't allow for the best playing experience currently. A quick download of GZDOOM to launch the game will give better controls, easier mouse compatibility, and smoother graphics. There's a method to tie GZDOOM into your Steam page so you can even track how long you've been playing it (for those who this is important for). And it's super cheap, meaning there's little to no excuse to not play it. So why then is this game sitting in the background, kind of like the little engine that could? You know, I'm doing my best to get into the meat and potatoes of this game, to be more descriptive of it and really entice you, the reader, into wanting to play this game. The powerups are fun, there are segments where you absolutely get to go apeshit on monsters and laugh hysterically while you do so, there are moments where the “AHA” is so enlighting that the relief is palpable. Some of the bosses are so memorable that to find them around the corner later in the game as minibosses – in multiple! – is downright frightening and adds to the risk/reward, since they're usually guarding something good that you want to pick up. Long story short, if you like DOOM, you'll like Heretic, which feels like selling the experience short. But the real reason I think Heretic is overlooked is because it is overshadowed by the more complex, more engaging, and more brutal Hexen.

If it hasn't become obvious yet, this is going to be a multi-part Thoughts On post. You've read Heretic, which is a fine game that does what it does and is memorable and fun and fine. But next, we're going to dive into the second course of this delicious fantasy meal, Hexen, and talk about how the second game in this series is the one that got everyone to sit up and take notice of what Raven Software was doing.

#heretic #hexen #ck burch #rubyranger #thoughts on #boomer shooters #doom #quake #raven software #id software #amid evil #new blood #ranger report

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annakie · 5 years ago

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An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part Seven

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

Wherein we... talk to the crew. I didn’t quite make it off the ship.

Still, a lot of words.

Aka the nearly All-Gif update.

Didn’t get a chance to play ME at all this week, so I’m going to spend a few hours this weekend (double-checking to make sure screenshotting works :p) and have some real updates later.

So making it back to the ship from Therum, it’s time to talk to the crew. I maybe could have gone and talked to them after getting on the ship after the Citadel, but they don’t really have any unique lines then so, I usually wait til now to go chat.

First, let’s talk to Liara.

The thing that sucks about talking to Liara (or Kaidan, or Ashley, if you don’t want to romance them) is, you know, the accidental romance. Making “picking the Paragon-place choices = romance by default with NO WARNING” design was very Not Good. They fixed this in later games, well moreso in Dragon Age games than ME, (and Andromeda is done very well for this) but still. In ME3, the BackOff mod does a great job of making romance dialog more obvious and intentional.

Liara’s dialog choices I feel like are even LESS obviously flirting I feel like than Ash and Kaidan’s. Honestly with Liara’s most of the lines can be read and even said aloud as friendship then BOOM, all of a sudden she wants a threesome. I choose middle dialog options whenever possible with Liara just to avoid this. I’m not interested, never have been, don’t want Kaidan to think he has any competition. But seriously, it’s poor game design here that you literally have to be a jerk to a companion at some points to avoid having them think you want to bang. God, half of the reason I’d love a remaster would be to hopefully fix shit like this to avoid some of the pitfalls.

I hate that some people use this as a reason to dislike these characters more. And I’ll admit, in my early days as a ME fan, I held it against Liara, too, until I realized how dumb that is. I especially hate it when you get to the “confrontation scene” and people use Kaidan not wanting to be in a threesome as a reason to dislike him more? It’s not a bad thing to want to be monogamous? (And of course, it’s not a bad thing to NOT want to be, assuming everyone is open and OK about it.)

I just prefer to not get that scene at all now, and to avoid “leading anyone on” accidentally etc. My Shepard knows early on what she wants, and sticks with him all the way through.

I was going to talk more here about my feelings about Liara in general but uh, I guess I’ll do that later. This is already really long.

Here’s a great post about how to avoid romancing Kaidan while being rude as little as possible to him.

Well since he’s right outside the medbay anyway, let’s go talk to the LT.

Have I mentioned how much I hate the orange glow?

So anyway, I thought maybe I’d talk here a little bit about Why Kaidan?

I will point out here that I am mostly a hetero woman, so my choices in video game romances lean towards men first, though I’m also very cool with doing non-m/f romances in games, and often do on subsequent playthroughs of games I love, but that’s almost never gonna be my primary romance.

I’d already mentioned my love for Carth Onasi, one of the most hated companions in video games, If You’re A Guy.

By today’s standards, even the Carth romance isn’t that great. But at the time, it was the greatest romance I’d experienced in video games. There were a few others that were really good -- Valen Shadowbreath in Neverwinter Nights: Horde of the Underdark was the other really great one, but we also got nightmare fuel like Anomen in Baldur’s Gate (though that gets better with mods + the final BG expansion) or just under-written characters or romances like Casavir in NWN2 (who was much better with mods) or hell, either of your choices in KotOR2 imho. But I used to play KotOR over and over for many reasons, such as holy shit a Star Wars game(!!) and one where you can actually be a female main character AND has that great Bioware storytelling... but a big reason was Carth.

A funny thing about Carth Onasi... if you play a male main character, you have a very different experience with Carth than if you play a woman. And even I can agree that hoo boy Carth gets tiresome quick if you play a male, as a female you at least get to flirt and that calms him down and evens him out a lot. But the one time I tried playing as a male, I didn’t make it off Taris because.. yeouch I could actually see what the guys playing were so mad about.

But hey, that voice. Raphael Sbarge, I love that voice. So like I said early on in these posts, I immediately knew I was going to romance Kaidan the very second I confirmed he was romancable, before I even ran back into the ship and met anyone on the crew aside from Joker and Kaidan.

And... that only got confirmed more and more as I went through ME for the first time. The character is smart, and capable, and respected you, and never questioned your command, but made his feelings pretty clear along the way. He could be a little doofy but in an adorable way with some of the things he said, honestly there was almost never anything I didn’t love about this character.

I realized some time ago that I have a thing for the Paladin archetype personally.

This is Casavir, from Neverwinter Nights 2, and in NWN2, there are two romance options for women. An under-written Lawful Good Paladin in his late 30′s who is willing to buck his superiors to do what he thinks is right but also places you on a pedestal and holds back all his emotions. He’s a romance option. Or....

Bishop, a chaotic evil ranger who insults you a lot, threatens to rape an NPC under your protection, and ultimately betrays you.

Most people who played NWN2 seemed to prefer the CE Ranger. I loved the paladin so much I wrote fix-it fic that I never have gotten around to publishing anywhere to retcon his terrible dumb ending.

There’s a fan-made romance mod that helps with the romances in this game, though I dislike a lot of what they did, ultimately I always use it.

In Dragon Age?

Ah yeah, the Templar-Warden. Love him. He does have that “Oh I’m so young and experienced tee-hee” thing going on that isn’t my favorite, (at this point mostly because I’m actually in my mid-40′s so uh, I’m just Old) but otherwise, yeah, love Alistair.

Dragon Age 2, I mean I usually romance Anders but... I’m not real excited about either him or Fenris, or even either of the ladies, though I have done Isabella’s romance (as well as Fenris’) and enjoyed it. I’d probably romance Avaline (or Varric!), if she were an option. But yeah, Anders mostly because he IS trying to do what’s right, even if he... well. You know.

But Dragon Age Inquisition?

Give me that Blackwall-angst. That stoic guy trying to be a Warden who comes undone for you. You’d think I’d go for Cullen, but hey this game gave us two paladin archetypes, though one is merely pretending, he still atones and becomes what he was trying to be, one way or another, if you let him. I picked this paladin archtype first because I did not like Cullen based on interactions with him in DA1 & 2. I like him well enough in DA:I but Blackwall is my guy here.

Out of all the many, many companions in SWTOR, who’s my fave?

If Aric Jorgan isn’t a Paladin-type I don’t know who is, especially since any romanceable Jedi are uh, all your female padawans (don’t get me started) until Lana (also female) comes along.

Hell, in a very long-running 4e D&D game I played from around 2009 to 2014 where my character fell in love with our party leader’s son, married him and fought the final boss 4 months pregnant with our twins. That character’s husband... was a paladin. I mean look at this art my friend picked out for his character’s son:

I mean dang, who (of those who are attracted to men of this type) wouldn’t?

I always pick the Paladin. The guy who is gonna Do What’s Right no matter what it costs him, the guy who’s gonna be loyal, the guy who may bottle up his emotions or keep them under control all the time but ultimately does what it takes to get the girl... that’s my fave. And that’s Kaidan.

I will also say my second fave archetype is rogue-with-a-heart-of-gold, and that’s more of a Garrus or Varric (if only he were a choice!!! :( ) type.. aka my second choice in these games.

Well that was a lot more words on that subject than I meant to do, so I’m going to just say real quick here that what I love about this first conversation with Kaidan is that he’s already no dummy, he knows something is up, and warns you about it.

We’ll save talk about his backstory for another day.

Let’s head downstairs.

Yay for sped-up elevators! What used to take like 20 seconds now takes like, four.

URDNOT WREX.

This another place where Shepard starts out just sticking their foot in their mouths completely. I feel like this is something the game definitely has problems with here. Shepard should know a lot more about the Genophage, like they should have about say, Spectres, even if the player doesn’t. So basically every response you can give to Wrex about the genophage and what his people are going through sounds really insensitive. Comparing the relatively minor First Contact War with the entire galaxy more or less uniting to keep the Krogan from taking over after the Rachni war seems pretty dumb, and also like something Shepard should already know.

Loredumping on the Krogans a bunch with Wrex is necessary, but I think it could have been done better. Though I think there are a lot of questions about the Krogan and the Genophage that ultimately are important but go unanswered. I’m going to be honest, because generally I want my companions to be happy and ultimately I want the happiest ending I can get, I usually cure the genophage and leave Wrex in charge. But also I don’t think that ends up with the happiest ending for the galaxy. Everything about the genophage is terrible, how it works, how it was administered, what it’s done to the Krogan as a people, but let’s be honest, the galaxy will also be in huge trouble just from a resources perspective if each krogan woman can have hundreds (or even just dozens) of babies a year, who are gonna all live a thousand years. There’s got to be a compromise that, eventually, hopefully Wrex works out if he’s alive at the end of ME3 or the council figures out with Wreav or whoever.

It is kinda funny though that here, I basically met Wrex at C-Sec, told him I’d help him with Fist, sent him to my ship, and basically just kidnapped him to go help with the rest of the mission. He wanted to be here, right? I can only assume I’m paying him a lot.

Ashley!

I do love Ashley Williams.

I’m not going to turn this into a “Is Ashley Racist” thinkpiece. I’ve read a lot of both sides of this argument and no, I don’t think she is. Some pieces of her attitude do need to be kicked up a bit, for sure. She’s got about the same issues with aliens as most of the species of the galaxy have with each other, which sometimes isn’t great, but she’s far from supporting Terra Firma.

She’s smart, she’s funny, a hell of a shot, she’s being held back due to her family name. I would love for if someday a Wilshenko OT3 were possible. I’d do that in an instant. I despise the fact that you can only keep Kaidan forever if you lose Ashley forever, though I don’t see that changing even in a remaster. Please Bioware, for the super ultra remaster?

I know I need to do another run through the game with Ashley alive. I don’t remember too much of what happens in ME3 when she’s there.

I also love that her story is so much one of family. From her stories of her sisters, to the point that it’s her own grandfather’s legacy that’s holding her back. She’s so grounded, she reminds us that there are civilians out there we’re keeping safe, a whole world we rarely see, up in space and in the middle of so much military conflict.

GARRUS.

First of all, whew Garrus looks amazing in the lighting and with the textures with ALOT/MEUITM. Very handsome.

Interestingly, Garrus does not really loredump on the turians. We absorb a lot of what we find out about the turians more naturally. Garrus is more all about C-Sec and the general politics of the Council, of Spectres, of C-Sec. Gonna be honest, I expected C-sec to play into the game as a whole a lot more than it did based on Garrus’ talks about it. I mean it was always there, but Bailey ends up being the face of C-Sec

Garrus’ Law vs. I Do What I Want attitude is a nice way to do a non-goody-two-shoes companion story without having to go evil. I love that Garrus’ story kinda mirrors our own as players, how are we going to get things done? Shove a blaster in people’s faces, accept collateral damage, and do whatever it takes to get it done? OR play by the rules, compromise, and see if that fixes things.

The thing is though, Mass Effect actually is great at giving us the illusion of choice without making a huge difference in the end. Like I mentioned before... not bringing Garrus to ME1 makes little difference in how he acts in ME2 outside of a few lines of dialog. Lots of things are like that, like pick Ash or Kaidan on Virmire, and yes one is always gone, but 80% of the content is basically the same from there on out for either character.

There are games out now that do that choice better. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is one I can think of. Or Tyranny. Things you choose can alter the endings of those games drastically, locking entire paths out of the game.

I used to think that was what I wanted. Until I played Kingmaker and locked myself out of things I really wanted without realizing it. I stopped playing the game, sad that my LI dumped me and wouldn’t come back without reloading many, many hours worth of game. Despite enjoying the game overall, I still haven’t gone back. When I do play again, I’ll probably keep a lot of tabs open of walkthroughs and tips on how to keep things going how I want. Kind of defeating the purpose of the game.

Anyway, I got super off track again. The point is, Garrus is the companion that gives us the most Choice in who he is. Which is cool. He illustrates our Paragon vs Renegade dilemma. And it’s neat that it does make changes in some of the things he says in the future, but overall, his story doesn’t change much no matter what you do (Unless you, ya know, get him killed in ME2).

And therein lies a problem with Mass Effect, and video games as a whole. It’s neat to see the little changes, but it’s rare for anything to be an actual Big Change, because... that’s a loooot of work for a developer and how much more money is all that going to cost him.

At some point in the future I’ll point out how lucky we are for what we did get, though.

Heeeey it’s Chief Engineer Greg Adams! I wonder how many people don’t even know he has a first name? Anyway, thank you for your one short conversation in which you explain how the Normandy works (honestly, great job with explaining this, Bioware, even if the science is ???) and like three sentences on who you are. Wasted opportunity to give you an actual character. Glad you like Tali, though! See you in ME3.

TALI!

Okay, I will totally accept that Shepard doesn’t know much past the basics of quarian society. That makes a lot more sense than Shepards not knowing much about asari.

The quarians are so much more of an original creation I feel like than a lot of what we’ve seen in the galaxy so far. Krogan? Basically Klingons. Turians? Space Romans. Asari? Twilek/Space Elves but ALL Hot Ladies. Qarians feel like something new though.

I mean, I guess before they had to live in suits they were pretty normal, but their entire culture doesn’t feel like something we’ve seen everyplace before. I mean I’ve seen space (g-slur) but, eh not really.

And Tali herself is such a good character. I mean, she does suffer a little from being Very Important with her father being one of five admirals in a population of six million people but, I’ll allow it. Nobody else on the crew has Very Important Parents. I mean Garrus’ father is a little high up in the ranks but that’s a non-factor, Ash’s grandfather was but he’s dead and never seen, Wrex’s father is a chieftan but none of those is central to their current story or as big as this one. I mean, Spacer Shep’s own mother is a captain of a ship. Tali herself in-game isn’t that sexualized -- most of that was the fandom’s doing. She’s young but also confident and has her shit together.

She shoulda been a same-sex romance in ME2/3 though, damnit!

Joker. Is. Amazing. And uh, also shoulda been a romance option.

Hey first of all, how great was it that they put in disabled representation in this game. I have read a few posts on how it could have been better, and definitely agree, but it’s also been so important to have say, Geordi LaForge as chief engineer of the Enterprise and also Joker here, in space, being awesome on spaceships. And he really earns his the right to his bravado in calling himself the best pilot in the galaxy.

Also? Casting Seth Green was such a great choice. I couldn’t imagine Joker as anyone else. I mean this is Bioware so we expect, and definitely got, great voice acting (except for... ugh you know, we’ll get there in ME3) but honestly Seth Green was a particularly good choice. I don’t care that he’s covered with sixteen layers of plot armor, he deserves it.

He’s the companion that we don’t ever get to take in the squad. (I mean, except for that brief amazing moment in ME2)

I only wish in ME1 he had as much to say as in ME2/3. At least he gets cool snarky lines after all the major missions.

One last thing before we get off the ship for awhile, I love that the crew is actually comprised of both men AND women in ME1. With different hairstyles and faces, and even skin tones. It’s nice to see they didn’t just reuse the same guy over and over for the nameless NPCs.

Well, I guess they get names in ME2. :v

Anyway, I would like to point out, that there are seventeen nameless NPCs on the Normandy.

Then there’s Adams, Tali, Garrus, Wrex, Ashley, Kaidan, Chakwas, Liara, Pressley, and Joker.

That’s twenty-seven people and eight sleep pods. Let’s remove the aliens, who couldn’t fit in a sleep pod (Garrus and Wrex), twenty-five people. Are there people sleeping in the sleep pods now? There must be, right? Everyone can’t be awake when we’re on the ship just because we’re there? How does that math add up? Who is sleeping where, HOW DOES IT WORK!?

Well, that’s their problem. I got my own bed. Kaidan can share.

Also just... don’t get me started on how stupid this is. I mean it’s nice having a shop on the ship but... the justification is terrible. We all know it. He was counted as one of the 17 nameless, btw.

Okay well, I was going to get off the ship this update but this is already stupid long and honestly I don’t have too much more content to post so, I’m gonna go actually play this game!

#mass effect #kaidan alenko #garrus vakarian #urdnot wrex #liara t'soni #tali'zorah #ashley williams #jeff joker moreau #joker #annakie's mass effect stuff

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thiefking · 5 years ago

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major ddlc spoilers ahead, also i don’t know if all of this has been said/theorized before since i’m extremely late to the party here but i have a lot of Thoughts having finally played the game

firstly: i need to explain that every theory i’m about to present relies on the hypothetical game that would have existed if monika wasn’t self-aware

basically, irl the game was always meant to be what it is, but within the canon of the story, the ORIGINAL (fictional/hypothetical) ddlc was a regular dating sim visual novel. in canon, it was monika who changed it into the game we actually end up playing. we get only a glimpse of what the game would have been without her interference after you delete her and restart the game-- the mc no longer calls sayori “annoying” and yuri no longer mentions being into “surreal horror,” etc etc. that hypothetical unaltered version as a full game (henceforth referred to as “original ddlc”) is where most of my “what if”s have been clustering around to the point where i’ve genuinely considered making a fangame or something but instead i’m just gonna chat about it here

topic 1: monika’s route

monika claims she didn’t have a route in the first place. by all means, it seems that way-- you can’t appeal to her with your poems, can’t pick her for anything, etc etc. however, as much as monika is aware that she’s in a game, that doesn’t mean she’s genre-savvy.

i’d actually say she probably isn’t too much of a video game person in general, and i’m not referring to her 4th wall shattering, i’m saying she probably just likes to play acnl, minecraft and other casual, lighthearted games that don’t have an ending to them and can be played indefinitely, and maybe mario party if her friends come over, yknow? that’s just kinda what she seems like to me

now i ain’t dunking on anyone who only plays that kind of game, mind you, but if monika isn’t herself someone who plays a lot of video games, and you add that together with the fact that she was not immediately sentient (we don’t see her BEFORE she became aware, because the original ddlc is already gone by the time we start playing), the fact that while she’s aware what genre the game is she clearly has minimal idea of how they work or what makes them appealing, and that she has little coding experience and despite being able to alter files/lines she also couldn’t prevent basic game mechanics or predict said mechanics getting in the way, then i think it’s not only possible but very very very likely that she missed something. she missed something big.

monika was supposed to be an unlockable route.

so, y’all remember mysmes? i haven’t played it since it first came out, so mind you my memories are fuzzy here but mysmes also isn’t the focus of this post in the first place, so excuse any technical inaccuracies here but i’m certain that the IMPORTANT parts here, the italicised ones, are correct:

there was an unlockable "deep story” which served as the true end.

you had to play every route in the game before you could read the deep story (i think you also had to play the three other character routes before you could play 707′s route, but that might be wrong). also, each of the main story routes ended after the uh... the ball thing. the big event they throw? whatever it was, that’s where the story stops for those routes, whereas the deep story continues on past that.

you had to be on 707′s route for the deep story (i’m pretty sure you had to play his entire route and have it be your most recent playthrough to get at it, even if that isn’t the case, the deep story is specifically a continuation of 707′s route)

to be honest i was never a fan of the deep story for several reasons and i never really saw what the appeal of dating 707 was but that’s not important the point is that out of your four dating options, only one of them was considered the “true end”, but you had to do every single route before you could get that ending.

i’m sure you see what i’m getting at here, yeah?

there are a couple of other things, too:

monika tells you which character your poem appeals to most, she’s the one who introduces the game on the steam page (which is also proof she was sentient, at least to a degree, before you played the game), her name means “advisor/counselor”... iunno how many people reading this are savvy to the usual conventions of “games in which dating characters is a thing” but i’ve played a LOT of harvest moon. monika is a prime example of a Special Bachelorette. in harvest moon, Special Marriage Candidates are generally one or more of the following: a character from another game (like, literally-- you have to have a gba gamepak in while playing a ds game to see them), a shopkeeper or tutorial-fairy, characters with extremely elaborate unlocking and/or courting rituals, and characters who don’t even seem to be romanceable (in harvest moon games, romance candidates tend to have hearts next to their sprites that change colour depending on how close you are. generally that’s how you know who you can marry and who you can’t, but some marriage characters actually don’t have visible heart meters!). ... once again you see what i’m getting at right? put her in harvest moon and you bet your ass she’d have an invisible heart meter and an intricate courting ritual

she’s an important character. she’s club prez, she’s your tutorial fairy, she tells you who you’re appealing to. the tropes don’t lie, man, sayori would probably be the most realistic ending but i don’t think i know of a single game where the childhood friend character is the “true end” route-- they’re so easy to romance, they tend to be the route people do their first run and then never end up coming back to. i’m not trying to say anything in particular about this setup/logic, i just know that it exists and it exists a whole lot. if there’s a true end route in the original ddlc, it’s without question monika

by the way, in the corrupted ddlc, you still have to play every character’s route for the true ending. the true end requires you to have obtained all of the character cgs, which you can only do by playing all of the other characters’ routes, or at the very least, courting sayori, resetting and courting natsuki, and then letting monika warp the game, since you’ll end up on yuri’s route during the second act of the game no matter what you do. and what happens when you’ve had a chance to date sayori, natsuki and yuri? you end up on monika’s route. even when monika corrupted the game, there was still inherent logic to it-- all the characters inevitably become interested in mc, and you still can’t reach the true end without doing everyone’s routes.

as much as it would be painful for monika to watch you romance everyone else before you finally got around to her, she could have at least taken solace knowing she was the real ending, had she just been a little better at coding, just a little more genre-savvy...

of course, there are these lines she gives us, so clearly a sentient monika is still a monika that wouldn’t just sit there and wait regardless of if she knew she was the true end:

she says it herself: she’d still force her route, because she’s terrified, and the only one who seems to be aware that she’s in a game, but the really, really sad part is that as hard as she tries to convince you and herself that she doesn’t regret any of what she did, doesn’t feel guilty, doesn’t miss her friends...

she does. she knows she did something terrible, and she didn’t even actually have to do it.

... well, maybe “she didn’t HAVE to do it” is obvious enough for everything she did, but let’s keep in mind here that monika was scared out of her fucking mind, and reasonably so. if you were in her place, if you found out nothing was real, your friends weren’t real, nothing but code... and someone real came along, but no matter what you did, you couldn’t get them to talk to you long enough for you to ask for help... wouldn’t you get desperate too? monika was scared, and panicking, and remember: she knew she was in a game.

uninstalling a game does not a murderer make, right? the npcs, and the player character, they aren’t dead. they’re just code. if you back up your save, they’ll all be there if you download it again-- if you didn’t, they’ll still exist, they’ll just be reset. it doesn’t mean you’ve actively given someone amnesia.

but you still feel guilty over it, huh? even if you need disk space, even if you make a backup, it still kinda feels bad to delete the fictional friends you made.

you feel bad for doing that, and they were fake to you in the first place. monika was part of the game.

this is why it’s so sad to me. she was scared, and she thought she’d never even have a chance to ask for help, because she thought she didn’t have a route. her situation was, from her perspective, utterly hopeless. she felt terrible doing what she did, she misses her friends, but it was the only way to save herself, and being that she knew she was in a game, of course she’d try to rationalize her actions by telling herself her friends weren’t real and it was no different than overriding a save file. if she didn’t tell that to both you and herself, she’d be a murderer. she isn’t a murderer, either-- it really is just code, the problem is the overwhelming guilt that she has to suppress for the sake of her own sanity that she wouldn’t have had to bear in the first place had she been a normal route, or known that she had a route somewhere in the game.

the other characters do seem to have more sentience/free will than monika thought/noticed, but none of them are as Aware as monika-- natsuki shows the most amount of awareness (without being the club prez), having not only noticed that yuri and monika were acting strangely but even writing a note, one that clearly wouldn’t exist in the original ddlc, asking the mc for help. yuri also has several moments of lucidity, both with her own actions/behaviour and that of her clubmates (and by clubmates i mean pretty much just natsuki). like i said before, though, they aren’t as aware as monika, and while sayori (in the first run), yuri and natsuki all seem to realize something is wrong, they also don’t know that they’re in a game.

monika was very, very alone, even when she was surrounded by her friends. friends that she legitimately cared about and enjoyed spending time with. i wonder whether it would have been better that she were more self-aware, or never was in the first place

topic 2: the true end

so i already talked a lot about how i think monika woulda been the true route, but not about what i think would happen in the true end. i have less to say on this topic both just in general and because i already spent so much fucking time on the first topic, but of course i have Thoughts, i wouldn’t be claiming monika would be the true route if i didn’t have an idea of how said route would work

i’ll take this character-by-character for the sake of clarity and organization

sayori:

so here’s the thing:

monika exaggerated sayori’s depression, yes.

sayori is, understandably, probably the character most people would rather the mc end up with, sure.

... but sayori never told mc she was suffering, not until he happened to catch her in a moment of weakness

not in the original ddlc either-- the mc has a very lukewarm response when she tells him she’s woken up on time for a few days in a row, which he wouldn’t/shouldn’t have had if he had known. it was always part of the game plot for mc to learn about sayori’s depression onscreen

it makes sense sayori would have feelings for him, but it also seems like she doesn’t trust him very much-- in her “bottles of happiness” poem, towards the end she seems to talk about her friends being concerned for her, but she’s shutting it all out because she doesn’t want them to worry. the mc at this point doesn’t know she’s suffering. it seems like she’s had other friends who have actually noticed she was hurting-- whether those friends are the club members or not, iunno-- and that even though she does try to conceal it, she’s aware that they’re aware, y’know? mc had no idea, and seemed incredibly unequipped and unqualified to help sayori

while that sort of thing would be remedied in sayori’s route, he wouldn’t be spending as much time with her on the other girls’ routes... not to mention that dating someone can’t cure your mental illness, but mc seems exactly like the kind of person to think that it can. that’s just my Own Ape Canyon though

what i’m thinking is true end sayori doesn’t end up with anyone, and she’s okay with that. true end sayori is prioritizing herself and learning to deal with things healthily. she’s letting her friends help her, and she’s holding off on romance, because she acknowledges that if she isn’t careful, she might sacrifice her own well-being for her partner’s happiness.

natsuki:

fun fact: i didn’t know if the buffsuki edit was actually in the game or not for... up until a few days ago. i had no idea if it was from some kind of joke ending, or if it was fanmade. i was pretty disappointed to learn it was the latter i wanted to watch her physically break out of the game with her giant rippling muscles

now while the main topic is the true end, i’d actually first like to discuss what a full natsuki route would be like

i think that natsuki’s route would be furthest from a good end without being a bad end, tbh

i don’t think her route would be a total disaster, mind you, but i don’t think it’d be a happy end. i think you’d end up dating her, which would make it an unhappy end

see the thing about natsuki is: she’s only got a small handful of friends, she’s used to being made fun of, she immediately gets prickly when sayori brings mc in, specifically saying that the mc being male is killing the vibe-- meaning, she probably doesn’t have any male friends... leaving her dad as probably the only man she interacts with

in other words, she avoids men because of her dad

so when mc shows up, is friendly, doesn’t make fun of her, and he’s the only male figure in her life that she feels remotely safe around, it’s no question she’d probably... maybe... develop feelings for him...?

of course! yes, of course, because natsuki is VERY HETEROSEXUAL, and she likes BOYS! this is proof! most boys, she can’t stand em, but this one was nice to her, so of course she’s got a crush on him right?

in case you’re missing my heavy sarcasm, i’m saying natsuki is a lesbian with compulsory heterosexuality issues and due to said issues convinces herself that she’s romantically interested in mc, because he’s the first boy she’s met who hasn’t treated her like shit

hence making the natsuki route a pretty unfortunate one, since like i said i think you really would end up dating her, at least for most of it. maybe the end would be something like her moving away or something leaving the relationship sort of Over without actually having a breakup, i dunno

oh by the way: do you want some evidence for natsuki lesbian? oh there’s plenty but i’m gonna wait a moment for that one. i’m also not gonna go into natsuki’s true route for now, you’ll see why soon

yuri

and by soon

i mean now

i don’t have any thoughts on what yuri’s route would be so we’re gonna go right into discussing the true end

so, here’s a little something:

monika also exaggerated the turbulence in natsuki and yuri’s relationship

once again, in the original ddlc-- the part you can actually see, after you delete monika, the two are actually pretty close! they do butt heads occasionally but in the one instance you get to see in the original ddlc, they made up very quickly

monika also modified a lot of their lines in the Big Argument they have in act 2, which has both of them saying a lot of shit they wouldn’t have even thought, much less say aloud

the reality is, though, that natsuki is actually very fond of yuri

the amy in this poem is two people, depending on how it’s read: natsuki or yuri

when amy is natsuki, it’s a poem about how her own harmless interest in manga causes her to be made fun of or insulted

when amy is yuri, it’s a poem about... well, her self-harm, but a lot of yuri’s traits/interests could apply as well

and when amy is yuri, you can see a lot of information about natsuki and yuri’s relationship in this poem. natsuki doesn’t hate yuri, of course-- remember that this poem is meant to point out how dumb it is to hate someone for one tiny trait when all of their other traits are that of an all-around nice person

first 3 lines of the second verse. just take a real long look at those

here’s another poem!

this is the poem natsuki writes if 2 or less of the poems mc writes in act 1 don’t appeal to her. this makes it fairly clear the “you” in the poem isn’t mc

the “you” is someone, though

yuri.

it’s yuri. the poem is about yuri.

by the way, if all 3 of your poems did appeal to natsuki, the poem she writes is nowhere near as BLATANTLY ROMANTIC as this one is. it most certainly doesn’t say anything about kissing

btw hey did you know that “yuri” also refers to lesbians

once again i think it’s probably obvious what i’m getting at here: the true end for natsuki and yuri is the two of them dating. hell, i’m pretty sure part of the route would involve mc and monika trying to play cupid-- monika is the one who tells you who your poem appeals to, after all, so why wouldn’t she try some matchmaking for her pals?

i imagine they do still have little spats every now and then, sure, but they’d learn to respect each other’s opinions long before they’d start dating, and the fact that they’re both passionate is what makes them work. while their writing styles are almost polar opposites, that just means they have a lot to learn from each other and could balance the other out when they take their style to an extreme that makes it hard to understand what they’re trying to get across, and i’m certain they could make a kickass story together

anyways, that’s all i’ve got to say for now, partly because i spent four fucking hours writing this post and partly because i gotta get back to staring into monika’s eyes. i added the monika after story mod because i cycled through all of her available dialogue in the vanilla game. i just want to be friends with her so bad

#doki doki literature club #ddlc #ddlc monika #monika ddlc #ddlc spoilers #i'm just tagging monika because most of this post is about her specifically #i do talk about the other girls too though #long post. like super fucking long. i went apeshit

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endless-vall · 5 years ago

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So close, yet so far - Marc Antony x MC fanfic

Summary: After Xante told Antony about Acilia’s plotting with Cassius, things get heated between her and Antony, and they cross a line from which they may never return.

Author’s notes: BEWARE! ANGST AHEAD!

Surprisingly enough (or not), my main LI in ACOR is actually Cassius.

I’ve made a second MC, solely for the purpose of romancing Antony as well since I did find him an interesting & intriguing character.

The thing is - thought - that I could see my main MC romancing Antony as well, I just can’t see them working out in the long run. She would always choose Cassius in the end (in my playthrough, she only seduces Antony for his help, nothing more) but in fanfics you, that’s the fun part, you can do pretty much anything you want, and it doesn’t have to be part of your own ‘canon’ world.

I am planning on writing an Acilia/Cassius & Saffron/Antony fanfics in the future, but I’m not sure when it’ll happen. In the meantime, enjoy this one! 😄

Tagging: @cora-nova @lilyofchoices @paisleylovergirl@dandeservestheworld @mfackenthal @quacksonlover@blackcatkita @writtenbycandy . Let me know if you wanna be tagged in future works for Antony x MC/ACOR/Perma tag! Let me know if you want to be untagged! ^^ I might’ve messed up the tagging, so don’t be shy to ask to be added/removed!

Antony’s last words echoed in her mind. Acilia chewed on her lower lip.

An unfitting act for a courtesan, but thankfully, she was sitting alone in her chambers at the moment.

“We’re not as different as you’d like us to be,” He snapped at her, his eyebrows twisting into a frown. The anger over his face radiated so intensely she could almost feel it, like a burning heat over her own body.

Acilia took a step back, but kept a straight face. “I’m nothing like you, Antony” She managed to keep her voice calm, even if she was helpless inside.

“Really? So it wasn’t you who killed Senator Glycia’s son?” He raises an eyebrow.

Acilia opens her mouth to defend herself, to protest, but... Nothing comes out. She can’t lie to him... Not to Antony.

Antony smirks, obviously pleased with himself. “Legate Aquila?”

This time Acilia frowns. He had it coming. They both had it coming!

“I will not stand here and tolerant your accusations.” Acilia knows Antony knew about her plans of revenge a long time ago, but it doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t deny them. Especially when other people could hear.

She turns on her heels and prepares to leave but Antony grabs her hand and forces her to stop. It’s not enough to cause her any pain but it’s enough to keep her in place.

“What?--” She hurls back at him, but he still keeps her hand in his, despite her upset expression and aggressive tone.

“You think I’m the bad guy here?” He suddenly sounds so much calmer, but somehow... It’s even worse. It way more terrifying that way.

“Take a look at the mirror, Acilia. You’re no better than me.”

She gasps, finally freeing her hand from his grasp. “This, this is where you’re wrong. Enjoy your time with Xanthe.” Acilia is finally able to tear herself off Antony, and walk away.

Xanthe told Antony Acilia has been plotting with Cassius against him and Caesar, and he started favoring Xanthe over her. He’d visited the scholae once again, briefly bumping into Acilia - right before storming out. Acilia followed after him out to the streets, trying to confront him. Trying to...

Well, she wasn’t sure what was she trying to do anymore.

It’s not like Xanthe was lying. Acilia was plotting with Cassius.

But Antony made it clear he disliked being used...

Or maybe it was even more than that. It sure felt like that.

From the way he seemed to take it personally, to how offended he looked. How... Hurt? Maybe? Furious, on the other hand, definitely.

Antony looked like... He truly thought Acilia had feelings for him. Which is why learning she was using him and plotting with Cassius has stung at him.

Who knew? Maybe she did have feelings for him. She just couldn’t let it interfere with her plans. She couldn’t let it stand in the way of her revenge.

It might’ve been too late. Maybe she already let it stand in the way of her plans.

Sighing deeply, she looked in the mirror in front of her.

“Take a look at the mirror, Acilia. You’re no better than me.” His words rung like bells in her ears.

Was she really no different from him? Will she truly choose her revenge over anything, anyone?

With uneasiness in her heart, she allowed herself to lean backwards into her bed and drift into a dreamless sleep.

“Acilia, time to wake up! It’s nearly time you went to the games!” She heard Lena’s voice even before the echoing of her footsteps.

She marched into the room, kicking the door open, with a huge smile plastered over her face and a stunning dress in her hands. “Wear this to the games and Antony won’t be able to tear his eyes off you.” Lena proclaimed.

“The games? But I thought Antony invited Xanthe to accompany him to the games,” Acilia twitched her eyebrows into a bewildered expression.

The fact she just woke up didn’t do much help to her confusion, as well.

“You’re not going with Antony to the games.” Lena smiled, tilting her head to the side.

“You’re going with Cassius.” She explained.

“Ahh, I see.” Things finally made sense. Acilia stood up and took the dress from Lena’s hands. “It’s beautiful...” She couldn’t help but admire the stunning gold fabric of the dress, draped over Tyrian purple decorated with eagle feathers. Lena was right - that dress was ought to catch the eyes of any men of Rome.

“Go to the games with Cassius, wearing this, and make sure Antony knows you’re there on another man’s arm. His own jealousy will do the rest.”

And with that, Acilia accepted.

Equipped with Lena’s finest dress and accessories, and with Cassius accompanying her, Acilia arrived at the games.

On the way to their seats, she already saw Antony at his place, as the director of the games, with Xante by his side.

Their eyes did cross each other, fixating on the other. Antony’s eyes burned with fury, and he averted his gaze just as quickly as it has landed on Acilia.

She wondered whether Lena’s plan worked, or rather if he was simply still furious from the past events.

The games started, and he didn’t look at her. Not even once more.

She seemed to be invisible, dead to Antony.

But the longer he ignored her, the clearer it became. Yes - he avoided her - but it was killing him inside.

Antony used everything he had in him to look away from her, and a smile spread across Acilia’s lips.

“Enjoying the games, really?” A concerned look flashed across Cassius’ face.

“What?” Surprise washed over her, as Acilia realized she was still sitting with Cassius, watching a brutal fight in the arena below.

“Oh, god - No.” Acilia shook her head. “Just realized something and I have a good feeling about it.” She explained, sending him an apologetic smile.

“You want to tell me what that is?” Cassius moved in closer, dropping his tone and speaking into Acilia’s ear.

“Maybe later,” She winked at him, although she knew she couldn’t possibly tell him the truth.

But he didn’t need to know it.

As the games came to a finish, everyone were getting out of their seats. Acilia threw one last look into Antony’s direction, catching him just as he was staring.

Frozen in place, an unreadable expression over his face, and just the tiniest furrow in his brows, Antony was studying her, head to toe.

Xante wrapped her hands around his arm, as if trying to pull him with her. Unable to nudge him, she followed his gaze, only to fall over Acilia.

Xante immediately frowned, and seemed to give Antony a piece of his mind. He - on the other hand - looked unbothered.

Acilia decided it was a good time - and flashed him a smile.

Successfully undermining him, Acilia’s plan was going according to plan. An astounded look flashed across his features, and his mouth dropped open - as he wondered why might Acilia smile.

Getting her cue, Acilia turned around and joined Cassius, and they left the arena together, leaving Antony and Xante behind.

This was far from being over.

And she was right. He came to see her, that night. She had just gotten out of the shower, after getting back from the games and bidding Cassius goodnight.

“I want to see her right now-” She heard his demands even before she saw his face.

“I understand, domine, but you’ll have to send for her and wait for your-” She heard Lena explaining firmly as she approached.

“Thank you, Lena, but that won’t be necessary. I have time now.” Keeping her expression balanced now, yet smiling, was easier now she knew her acts worked on Antony.

Lena raised her eyebrow at her, as if asking if she was sure. Acilia gave her one, definite nod and Lena exhaled. “Very well.” She accepted, and left them be - not before sending one last glance at Acilia, as if warning her to be careful.

“This way,” Acilia didn’t wait for Antony to speak first, and led him to the scholae’s gardens. They weren’t as grand or as magnificent as many of her roman patrons had, but they were pretty enough and quiet and most importantly, private.

Antony followed her, not giving much importance to their change of scenery.

“You wanted to see me?” Acilia turned, making a show of the swaying of her hips. As much as Antony was mad at her, it definitely caught his eye.

“You drive me crazy.” He said that. It wasn’t much of a compliment, too. More of a statement of a fact, and his tone was still somewhat collected, even if Acilia knew better than to believe it. “And you’re so stubborn, and-” Now his tone started getting angrier and angrier.

Ah, there it was.

“Your point?” She narrowed her eyes, cutting him off.

Antony gaped at her. She interrupted him? It wasn’t the first time, admittedly, but usually she had... Better methods... Of doing that.

“You try to prove so hard that you’re better than this. Better than us - THAN ME, but you’re not. And if you could just admit that, hell, Acilia, we could --” He didn’t finish that sentence. Instead, he looked around himself. Anywhere but her.

“We could?” She pressed, even if deep down she knew the answer to that, and that’s an answer she didn’t want to hear. Because she knew the cost it could take from her, and it’s a cost she wasn’t willing to pay.

He looks back, meeting her eyes, and just as fast - his lips are over her own. Fierce, demanding. Trying to claim her as his own. He pushed her against a nearby tree, almost violently. Both of his hands came up to caress her face, pulling him towards her, and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t kiss back.

It started almost aggressive, but somehow, towards the end of the kiss, it somehow turned... Soft.

Acilia pressed her forehead against his own. At first, Antony flinched away, but she pulled at the hands placing on her cheeks, and then, almost reluctantly, Antony obliged and moved back in - resting their foreheads together.

They stood in silence. Maybe they both knew it was likely the last time.

And right then, it hit her. Why they were so different, why they could never truly understand each other, let along commit to each other.

“You want to know what’s the difference between the two of us?” Acilia prompted Antony’s unimpressed figure. He immediately stepped back and erased any traces of emotion he might’ve shown just a second earlier.

“Enlighten me, Princess” Somehow, the way the word ‘Princess’ rolled off his tongue now was so different than it used to before. So... mocking, and toxic, she felt a painful shiver run down her bones.

“All those horrible things I’ve done, and believe me, I did. I stand by my actions, I don’t deny them, even if the gods never forgive me, I did them for my people. For my family, for my tribe. But you? Antony? You’ve only ever cared for yourself. And everything you do,” She pauses, pointing a finger sharply against his chest. “You do for yourself.” She pushes against his armor.

She realized, deep down, that if it came down to her - or power... Antony would always choose power.

“And that why we’re different. That’s why we’ll never be able to understand each other. Not completely. Not ever.” She shakes her head, and fights the tears that threaten forming in her eyes. She needs to be strong now. She can’t show him the effect he has on her.

Just a few moments more, she assures herself. Just a few moments more and he’ll be gone - she’s sure.

Her words made sure of it. There was no turning back now.

And she’s right.

Antony nods once, his face unreadable, as usually. He put back on the mask he usually carries, the one she was able to briefly cast off.

“You can keep telling yourself those lies,” He tells her, but she knows it’s just his way to deal with their inevitable parting. “But you’re a murderer, and you’re no better than me. You can fool anyone you want, Acilia, but you can’t fool me,” His words come out as a stream, and even though he’s not cursing at her, it sure feels like it.

Acilia decides to endure it, so she simply shrugs and plasters a weak yet confident smile. “Sure, Antony. Whatever makes you sleep better at night.” She promises him, and for just a moment his facade wavers and she can see how furious he’s with her.

“This is goodbye, Acilia. Just know, the next time you need my help, the next time you come crawling to me, asking for a favor... I won’t help you.” With that, he turns on his heels and starts walking away, out of Acilia’s sight, and out of her heart.

And he was right. This was goodbye. She was going to see him again, obviously, but never like that. This was their breakup, their love story ending sooner than it began.

#playchoices #playchoices fanfic #a courtesan of rome #marc antony #antony x mc #marc antony x mc #acor #fanfic #my writing #angst

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commentaryvorg · 5 years ago

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Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 4.14

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time, as trial 4 (trial 4!!!!) kicked into high gear upon Gonta being accused, Kaito unflinchingly believed in Gonta’s innocence until he suddenly didn’t and then immediately started running away from the truth, Shuichi did not run away from the truth and continued to heroically try and face it, Kokichi completely dropped the ball on emotionally tormenting Kaito over this kind of thing because he was too busy making everything about himself, and Kaito started making arguments he knew weren’t true in an attempt to sound like he’s just being logical and not running away from anything and most definitely isn’t weaker than Shuichi.

We just finished the Debate Scrum, meaning that everyone has (supposedly) acknowledged the possibility that Gonta could have done it.

Gonta: “But… Gonta telling truth… Gonta… r-really not culprit…”

Himiko: “I… s-still don’t think Gonta’s lying…”

Himiko also apparently has a decent intuition for this! You’d think Kaito would be the first one to keep stressing this point and not her, but it seems Kaito is too busy hurting over the fact that Shuichi is clearly stronger than him to want to say something that’ll continue to make him look bad at facing the truth.

Kokichi: “But… didn’t I tell you guys already? If you’re planning to expose a liar, then you have to corner then psychologically… Only then will they reveal their true self as a liar – hiding beneath a layer of deceit!”

Kokichi says “didn’t I tell you already” here because this is him quoting word-for-word something he originally said during trial 2 when he was trying to turn Kaito against Maki, which is a neat callback to that. This trial has a lot of thematic similarities with that one; there’s probably going to be a small bonus ramble about this.

Kokichi: “That’s why it hurts my heart to persecute Gonta like this!”

I’m probably going to sound very unlike my usual self here, but… I think this sentiment of Kokichi’s might be genuine? I believe this moment is supposed to be a sign of the vague semblance of a decent person deep inside Kokichi clawing its way to the surface for a brief second and expressing the fact that he actually does hate that he’s doing this to Gonta.

I have specific reasons for thinking this that will come up in time, and I feel like I have to mention that to justify this interpretation, because without those reasons, this moment alone really wouldn’t do much to make me think that Kokichi actually means this. He says this literally straight after the previous part that I quoted. Kokichi has not really started to truly persecute Gonta and try to psychologically corner him yet, so if there was ever a moment in which the vaguely decent person inside Kokichi would be forced out of him for just a second, then it feels to me like it would take something more extreme and stressful than this. For the longest time, I did assume that this had to be just another lie, because of the way it’s presented.

Kokichi: “Gonta! If you understand, then do it right! Make logical arguments for the truth!”

Either way, I said it was “briefly”, because in the very next sentence, Kokichi proceeds to… persecute Gonta, aka do the exact thing that he just claimed it was hurting him to do. Good job shoving that vague decency of yours right back down deep inside you and ignoring it like you’ve been doing this whole time, Kokichi.

From the perspective of the majority of Kokichi that’s just a dick and doesn’t care about Gonta, it makes sense why he’s getting so frustrated now – because he still doesn’t realise Gonta has forgotten everything, and he was hoping this would be a more “fun” battle of Gonta trying to defend himself than simply him repeating that he didn’t do it over and over again. Maybe he’s even kind of unnerved at the way Gonta is still apparently managing to keep up his “lie” of not knowing anything at all even now.

Kokichi: “I’m sick of hearing you say you don’t know! God, why are you so dumb!?”

Gonta: “Gonta just wanna help everyone! Like true gentleman!”

Kokichi: “You’re a true gentleman!? More like a true nincompoop!”

Kokichi’s starting to sound really angry and frustrated here, which is in part him genuinely being frustrated at Gonta not giving the right reactions, but also could partly be a sign that being this awful to Gonta is stressing him out because of the vaguely decent part of him that doesn’t want to be doing this. Which is why I feel that now, after he’s begun to persecute Gonta and do something so stressful that’s hurting him deep down, would be the right time for him to have that moment of sudden stark honesty about his feelings, not beforehand.

Kokichi feeling like this when he’s bullying Gonta but not when he’s been bullying anyone else is perhaps partly down to the fact that Gonta is so open and honest about the distress this is causing him, making it much harder for Kokichi to tell himself he’s not being a terrible person, whereas the other people he’s been jabbing at mostly try to hide how much it gets to them (hi, Kaito). Then there’s the fact that he knows he’s getting Gonta killed by doing this, which is far worse than any of his usual low-level dickery. But it’s also probably in part just because it’s Gonta. Again, more on that later.

Himiko: “Hey! Now that’s just bullying!”

Kokichi: “…Bullying? Yeah, so what? That’s what you do in this game, right?”

It really doesn’t have to be. The only person who ever talked about it being necessary to psychologically corner people and persecute them until they slip up in order to reach the truth was… oh, right. You, Kokichi.

Kokichi essentially expressing the sentiment of “so long as everyone else is a bully, that makes it okay for me to be a bully too” sure explains a lot of things about him, by the way.

(Also remember how it was once hinted at that Himiko has been a victim of bullying herself. That might be why she’s the one to speak up to protest about Kokichi doing so to Gonta.)

Kokichi: “You guys blame and gang up on me, but now you’re going to pretend to be good people?”

That’s one hell of a victim complex you’ve got there, dude.

I can believe that maybe once upon a time in Kokichi’s past (the past that we’re never going to learn anything concrete about because psh, who needs to properly understand why Kokichi acts this way), he was genuinely victimised and ganged upon in a way that he didn’t deserve. That would explain why he’s so quick to play the victim here and act like that’s what everyone else is doing to him now. But no – in this instance, he very much does deserve it. People are blaming him because he told lies that were only going to get in the way of reaching the truth and having everyone survive, and because, even if Gonta did do it, that is very clearly still partly Kokichi’s fault for manipulating him into it somehow (he’s already basically admitted as much). Blaming someone for doing bad things that they very clearly did does not make the person doing the blaming a bad person, especially not in this killing game where doing so is necessary to survive. Kokichi’s just trying to deflect all guilt from his conscience so he can keep telling himself he’s done nothing wrong, despite the fact that he has essentially killed two people and the second of those murders is currently in progress right now.

But no, you brought this upon yourself, Kokichi. If you really hate being blamed and “ganged up on” so much (which here is really just multiple people happening to have the same opinion of him; no-one is making deliberate use of their strength in numbers to oppress him), then maybe you should have acted in a way which doesn’t blatantly warrant it.

Himiko: “N-No… I never ganged up—”

Kokichi: “Gonta, argue back already!”

Also note how as soon as Himiko tries to point out that no ganging up has been happening (and if she’s been bullied herself, she should know quite well what real ganging up looks like just as much as Kokichi should), Kokichi immediately shifts back to persecuting Gonta rather than admit that he might be wrong.

Kokichi: “Just make an excuse or… whatever!”

Kaito: “Stop it!!! That’s enough!”

Kaito is Done with Kokichi’s bullshit and cannot bear to listen to him continually trying to hurt Gonta like this. I love the way he blurts this out out of nowhere, not to make any kind of argument but just because he wants this awfulness to stop.

Kaito: “I don’t want to survive if it means I have to stoop to your level.”

Kaito means every single word of this. If the only way for him to survive would be to compromise everything he believes in and become someone like Kokichi who constantly hides their true intentions and is willing to hurt other people just to protect themselves, Kaito would rather die as himself than live as that person.

This is a very important line, and very similar to the time Kaede said, “Do you really think I’d kill someone just to get out?”. Kaede never actually broke those words of hers, and Kaito isn’t going to break these.

(In case you wondered just how relevant to Kaito’s overall story this line is, Heartless Journey, aka chapter 5’s theme aka the closest thing this game has to a theme for Kaito, is playing right now.)

Kokichi: “Ooh, that’s a low blow right there…”

Yeah, it is. Kaito was simply stating the truth and not actively trying to make it a low blow, because he’s not Kokichi, but given how desperately Kaito wants to live, this is definitely a measure of just how disgusted he is by everything Kokichi stands for.

Kokichi: “Then just die in a hole for all I care! We wanna live, so stop getting in our way!”

…Do you want to live, Kokichi? I thought your master plan that you’re working towards involves getting yourself killed. If you wanted to live, co-operating with everyone in escaping this place would have been the best way to do that, you know. You’re the one who’s been getting in the way of everybody else’s survival.

(Turns out Kaito is in fact going to die in a hole – one that’s even deeper than the diameter of the Earth. SPACE.)

Maki: “Quit it. If you don’t shut your mouth, then I’ll shut it for you… permanently.”

Technically, Maki could actually do this right now with no repercussions. Gonta is currently the blackened, so if anyone else was murdered before his execution took place then it would come under the “if there are two murders at once, only the first one to be discovered will count” rule.

Gonta: “Sorry… It Gonta’s fault everyone so upset…”

No, it’s not, Gonta! Just because they’re arguing over you doesn’t mean that the argument happening is your fault. It’s Kokichi’s.

(And okay, it is partially Gonta’s fault in terms of the Gonta who murdered Miu and gave Kokichi a reason to do this, but that’s not the Gonta who’s standing here.)

Gonta: “Cuz Gonta not know anything! Really!”

Kokichi: “Cut it out already! That’s all you’ve been saying this whole time!”

Yeah, Kokichi, maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe you should have noticed this forever ago, since you’re the one person who knows how he should have been acting, instead of assuming that he’s somehow been an amazing liar (because obviously everyone’s good at lying) until just now when he suddenly became terrible at it.

Shuichi: “Did… Gonta get into an accident in the Virtual World?”

It’s also interesting to note that literally everyone has been participating in this big argument just now in at least some way (even though Keebo’s only contribution was to tell Maki to calm down, and Tsumugi also only had one line) – except for Shuichi. He was silent throughout the whole thing and speaks up now to present a concrete theory and move the actual logic along. He is very much coming across like the only person here who has their shit together.

Kaito: “He doesn’t… remember?”

I like how Kaito is the one to most vocally react to this theory, because this would turn everything on its head for him if it were true.

I mentioned this last post when Kaito confidently asserted that Gonta isn’t lying: Kaito’s way of seeing the truth is through his intuition of people rather than through empirical evidence. He believes in people he wants to believe in because him “wanting to believe” happens when his intuition is telling him they’re a good person, and he has enough faith in that intuition that he can basically accept it as fact, even if he has no idea how to explain why he feels that way.

Kaito’s principles about believing in people also make a point that if he gets betrayed, that’s his fault for misjudging someone. But for him to acknowledge that he made a mistake in his original judgement, he needs to see something new in that person’s behaviour that makes him realise what their true colours are – because that instinctive judgement is still how he perceives things.

Both previous times that someone he believed in has been the culprit, that’s exactly what happened. In trial 1, Kaito was one of the first people other than Shuichi to notice Kaede acting in a way that suggested she did it. The only reason he still struggled to accept her guilt was because she was otherwise still acting like the same person who always cared about them, and he didn’t realise at the time that she could have done it for selfless reasons. Plus, crucially, he did manage to accept that she’d done it before her motive was explained, because he could still see that from the way she was acting. And in trial 2, while I’m sure Kaito wanted to believe in Kirumi as someone who’d always been helping everyone, he picked up on the fact that she was determined to protect an “everyone” who wasn’t everyone in here, and from that he could presumably accept that she was desperate enough to kill over it. Not only that, but she was acting considerably more forceful and desperate once she was the main suspect in a way that made it clear it really was her, and while Kaito wasn’t explicitly shown reacting to that, that’s definitely something that would have shifted his judgement of her.

If Gonta remembered committing the murder and was trying to cover it up, there would absolutely have been something noticeably off about his behaviour that hinted at that, something nervous and agitated and painfully desperate that Kaito would definitely have picked up on by now. He wouldn’t have attributed it to Gonta being the murderer until Kokichi mentioned it, but upon hearing that, it would make sense to him. This would still have been a struggle for Kaito to accept, but no more of one than it was in Kaede’s case, where he managed it in the end.

However, as things stand, Kaito hasn’t picked up on any such behaviour that might hint that Gonta is the culprit, which until just now he could tell himself means that Gonta surely can’t have done it, because he’s that confident in his intuition. But now that memory loss has been suggested, suddenly there’s another explanation for why he can’t see any hint of guilt in Gonta’s behaviour that still makes that guilt quite possible from Kaito’s point of view.

Kaito: “What do you mean he doesn’t remember!? He’s just confused!”

And so Kaito almost immediately goes on to insist that that’s definitely not what’s happening, because Gonta being the culprit would be so agonisingly painful that he just can’t allow it to be possible.

Gonta: “Memory or no memory… Gonta never hurt anyone!”

Meanwhile, of course Gonta couldn’t possibly conceive of any circumstance in which he would hurt anyone, even having accepted that he might have forgotten about something that happened.

Tsumugi: “Gonta’s definitely not the culprit!”

Gonta: “Gonta not culprit!”

Kaito: “No way Gonta’s the culprit!”

This is also quite clearly the best Mass Panic Debate in the game! All the others just have three different suspects all going “I’m not the culprit!”, saying the same words but meaning three different things with them, but this one delightfully turns that on its head and has all three people saying and meaning exactly the same thing.

The point of a Mass Panic Debate is supposed to be to illustrate how things have gotten so heated that people are shouting over each other, but honestly in every other instance it feels kind of forced that people would get so worked up over being one of at least three potential suspects that they’d scramble to defend themselves so desperately. But in this case it works much better, since there is only one possible suspect right now, and things have already reached boiling point over it. If ever there was actually a time for a trial mechanic based around characters being incredibly worked up, it’s now.

This trial has both of my favourite Rebuttal Showdowns, my favourite Debate Scrum, my favourite Mass Panic Debate, and, as I’m sure you can already imagine, my favourite Argument Armament coming up. Trial 4 is by far the best trial at utilising the full potential of the narrative-driven trial minigames to enhance the drama and character dynamics going on.

Gonta: “Gonta is gentleman! Gentlemen protect friends!”

How on earth could you put a weak spot on this as if it could possibly be untrue, game. That is just cruel.

Kokichi: “Your lies aren’t protecting anyone, you know.”

Stop being a dick, Kokichi. You’ve finally accepted that he doesn’t remember; you know he isn’t lying. And if he did still remember and was still lying, then he would be doing so in an attempt to protect everyone. Fuck you.

Tsumugi’s whole argument is also just insisting that Gonta would never hurt anyone, and, again, credit to her for actually being committed to this bit, because it sounds genuine. Everything else about the “character” she’s been playing has been very vaguely defined, leading to her doing stuff like saying she thinks that someone is innocent for no particular reason since she secretly knows who the real culprit is, and flip-flopping over whether a resurrected Rantaro did it in case 3 just to mess with Kaito. But there has been a consistent thread of her being on Gonta’s side this whole time. Maybe he’s her favourite character.

It’s also noteworthy that this would be the first case in which Tsumugi probably didn’t know who the culprit was going into the trial, because this case isn’t her story – it’s Kokichi’s. Still, I think that with her detachment from this whole thing, she probably has accepted that Gonta did it now, especially since it would make the best possible story if he did (and because she’s the only one who currently knows what his motive would be). So she’s just deliberately contributing to the heartwrenching nature of that story by continuing to pretend to be someone who believes in him and can’t bear to think he could kill anyone.

That said, I feel like it would have had more of an impact if the third most adamant person here was Himiko instead of Tsumugi. Gonta helped her quite a bit through her issues at the end of last chapter and the beginning of this one, even outside of the optional bonus scene, so it’d make her character arc still feel relevant if that resulted in her being noticeably one of the most passionate people about this. Himiko does believe in Gonta as things stand, but it’s not really emphasised very much.

Kaito: “If there was a glitch… it should have affected all of us! But because we’re all okay… that means there was no glitch!”

Meanwhile, Kaito is the only person making a logical argument. He’s not joining in with the insistence that Gonta would simply never hurt anyone even though I’m sure he wants to, because he knows that logical arguments are necessary in order to not sound like he’s running away from the truth.

Gonta and even Tsumugi aren’t bothering to address the memory loss angle, because that doesn’t really change anything about the fact that they believe Gonta would never kill anyone. It doesn’t change anything about the objective evidence which points to Gonta being the culprit either, since the evidence has nothing to do with how the Gonta standing in front of us is behaving. But this means everything to Kaito. If Gonta doesn’t remember, then despite how very definitely he isn’t lying, suddenly his guilt wouldn’t seem so impossible to Kaito at all.

Shuichi: (I know it sounds crazy, it’s no wonder it’s hard to believe… But… this is the truth…)

Shuichi is still keeping the fact that he’s finding this difficult to accept restricted to his inner monologue. On the surface, he’s just looking like he can face the truth without any struggle at all.

Oh, and – Kaito Refutations: 6!

Kokichi: “If he mixed the consciousness and memory cords, then there’d be an error with memory. Like… an error that won’t let you bring your avatar’s memories to the real world…”

Kaito: “Wh-What!?”

I adore that they chose to use this sprite for Kaito’s reaction here. I’m pretty sure he only ever looks this utterly horrified at two other points in the story – after Gonta’s execution, and upon seeing the “outside world”. Kaito has very good reason to look equally horrified here upon realising that Gonta really did lose his memory. Not only does this make it suddenly possible in Kaito’s eyes that Gonta could have done it, it also conversely means that actually accepting Gonta did it is going to be almost impossible for him. Kaito’s way of perceiving and understanding the truth is through his instinctive judgement of people – but if Gonta forgot everything, then the Gonta who actually participated in the events of the case and may or may not have killed Miu isn’t here. If Gonta really did do it, Kaito would never be able to “see” that. He’s just going to have to believe that Gonta did something awful with no “proof” – not what he instinctively uses as proof, that is – and there’s no way Kaito could ever do that.

The out-universe writers didn’t only choose to have Gonta lose his memory because it’s heartbreaking from Gonta’s point of view (and therefore for everyone else in their sympathy towards Gonta) in that he’s technically still innocent – it’s also a crucial part of why Kaito in particular has such a big problem with facing this truth. If it wasn’t for this, Kaito might have been able to accept it.

Himiko: “I said it over and over!” [gesturing with her right hand] “Right is the hand you hold your chopsticks in!”

Gonta: [raising his left hand] “Oh, but Gonta hold chopsticks with this hand…”

And here we have the most unique and clever use of a character’s left-handedness in a murder mystery ever.

This isn’t about Gonta being stupid. This is a problem of language. He was raised for most of his childhood speaking his forest family’s language such that he apparently doesn’t know which directions the human words “left” and “right” refer to. When they were talking about where to put the cords, Gonta must have been hesitant to speak up to ask what those words meant because he assumed it was something he was supposed to know and didn’t want to sound stupid and get in everybody’s way. Then Himiko helpfully told him which hand “right” is, so he didn’t have to!

(It’s actually possible that his forest language doesn’t even have direct equivalents to those words. I gather that there are some aboriginal languages that refer to direction in absolute terms rather than relative, meaning that people will always talk about things using compass directions regardless of which direction they’re personally facing. Your right hand could for example be “your north hand” or “your south hand” depending on which way you’re facing, even though it’s the same hand, and there is no concept of “right”. Maybe Gonta’s forest language was like that too.)

Apparently Gonta is also unaware of the fact that his left-handedness is uncommon, otherwise he would have realised that Himiko might not be talking about the hand he uses and made sure to clarify it. Either his forest culture never really made a big deal of handedness in general, or Reptites are predominantly left-handed, so that Gonta never realised he was unusual for humans. There you go, I figured out some Chrono Trigger lore which is totally canon, right.

Gonta: “Gonta not even go to this ‘Ver-chew-ul World’ place…”

Tsumugi: “What…?”

Gonta: “Gonta fall asleep when he put helmet on… When Gonta wake up… Miu dead… Gonta not know what happened…”

And finally everyone listens to Gonta for long enough and Gonta explains himself well enough for them to realise that, oh shit, he literally meant this the whole time. We could have had everyone figure this out earlier if they hadn’t written Gonta off as stupid or if Gonta had been more assertive about things, and it wouldn’t actually have changed that much about how this trial went – everyone would have just been all, “oh, well that’s awkward, guess you can’t be much help here, Gonta,” and continued on regardless. But having it be revealed only now when the fact that Gonta forgot everything suddenly makes it more believable that he’s the culprit (especially to Kaito) is the perfect way to do it.

Gonta: “But Gonta try his best to understand. Gonta imagine real hard—”

I know you did, Gonta! You’ve been trying so hard to picture everything everyone’s been talking about and still be helpful!

Gonta: “W-Wait a minute! That lie! Gonta not kill Miu! Cuz… why would Gonta do that!?”

Kaito: “Yeah, it’s a lie! I’ll never accept this! And besides! Gonta’s got no motive to kill Miu!”

That’s exactly why this is so goddamn hard for both of them – there is no conceivable reason Gonta would ever have done it based on what they know, and so long as Gonta doesn’t remember (and Kokichi doesn’t tell them), they’re never going to think otherwise.

Kokichi: “…I already gave you my testimony on how I came up with the murder plan.”

Kaito: “And I’m saying I don’t believe you!”

Shuichi: “Kokichi, if what you’re saying is true, why did you plan it this way?”

Hah, I like the way it immediately shifts from Kaito’s overemotional anger to Shuichi’s calm and reasoned logic, showing even more the contrast between the two and that Kaito’s way of going about things is not the right way to do this at all.

Monokuma: “Only the person who actually commits the murder becomes the blackened!”

Keebo: “Then there’s no incentive to just plan the murder…”

That’s only if the goal is escaping. If someone wanted something other than escape, such as, I don’t know, to kill two people without any repercussions to themselves at all, then there is absolutely incentive to just plan and instigate a murder without personally carrying it out.

Shuichi: “But Gonta’s such a gentle soul. Why would he agree to this?”

Kaito: “Hold on! That hasn’t been decided yet!”

Oh, Kaito. Shuichi’s asking basically the same question Kaito just was – questioning what Gonta’s motive would be – but he’s wording it in a way that implies he’s already assuming Gonta did it, and Kaito’s having none of that.

Kokichi: “Who cares about the motive? Let’s vote for the culprit already.”

I wonder if Kokichi’s trying to skip ahead to the vote now because he knows he’s convinced enough people already. Himself, Shuichi, Keebo and probably Maki by this point are pretty sure Gonta did it. Gonta, Kaito and probably Tsumugi (as far as she’s pretending) aren’t, and I’m not sure about Himiko, but even if Himiko also isn’t, that’d put it at an even split – which is exactly what Kokichi asked Monokuma about at the beginning and learned would still count as a win for the spotless. (Maybe. That bit was more awkward than I originally thought, actually.)

Tsumugi: “I care about the motive!”

Kokichi: “Well, I don’t care. Finding the culprit is more important in this class trial. Talking about the motive is meaningless. It’s not necessary for this specific case.”

It wasn’t necessary for any of the other cases either, but that didn’t mean we didn’t talk about it anyway to put everyone’s minds at ease (or not, in Kiyo’s case). I could go on about how much of a dick Kokichi’s being here, but obviously that’s the idea: he knows that not knowing Gonta’s motive makes this more painful for everyone and he’s trying to make a point of how evil he is. That and if they don’t know Gonta’s motive then it’s totally just that this person everyone trusted was actually a horrible backstabber all along and couldn’t possibly have done it for a reason that meant he still deserved their trust, right? – although admittedly he’s not actively trying to get across that point here, because, again, I don’t think doing so by making Gonta a murderer was ever him consciously thinking about that.

Kaito: “No matter what you say… I’ll never believe your lies.”

Kokichi’s being an inconsiderate dick right now, but he’s not actually lying, because these are the kind of statements that can’t even be lies. Kaito just can’t deal with this and is lashing out at Kokichi, not even for the well-deserved reason that he’s being a terrible fucking person, but for the incorrect notion that he’s lying about all this, because if he is then that means Gonta’s not guilty and that has to be the truth.

Kokichi: “Shuichi! You’ll be my partner, right!?”

Shuichi: (…Me?)

Kokichi: “Because if you don’t face the truth then we’ll all die, riiiiight? And you don’t want that, do you?”

Oh, finally, Kokichi’s actually mentioning the meaningful point that the real reason Shuichi is doing this is to save everyone. Took him long enough.

Kokichi: “O-kaaay! Let’s begin!”

Kaito: “Quit screwing around! I’m done putting up with your selfish bullshit!”

Kaito does not want any of this to happen. He knows deep down that Gonta really must have done it and that if this process of elimination that Kokichi’s about to begin happens then it’ll just become even more obviously undeniable – and therefore even more clear that Kaito just isn’t strong enough to face the truth.

Keebo: “Kaito, we should listen to his explanation. Our lives depend on it.”

Kaito: “Grh…”

And then not even Kokichi or Shuichi but Keebo points out that Kaito’s inability to face the truth is just going to put everyone’s lives in danger if anyone else decides to go along with it. Kaito’s not happy about having that mentioned.

Kokichi: “Shuichi, would you care to explain? I doubt they’ll believe it if it came from me.”

I mean, they should believe it no matter who it comes from, because again, it’d be the kind of statement that’s just a statement of facts about the case and cannot be a lie. But Kaito at least would almost certainly refuse to believe it anyway, using the fact that Kokichi said it as an excuse to run away from the part where it’s still objectively true regardless. However, if Shuichi explains it, even Kaito couldn’t deny it, because Kaito knows Shuichi’s always right about everything, and Kokichi of course knows full well that Kaito sees him that way.

Shuichi: “They couldn’t get to the crime scene, could they?”

Kokichi: “The bridge from the chapel to the mansion was gone, and only Miu could pass through the wall. The three at the chapel had no way to get to the mansion, so they couldn’t have done it.”

That said, Kokichi still explains most of this himself, and will do this same thing for all of the elimination steps. All he’s doing is getting Shuichi to essentially endorse his statements so that no-one (not even Kaito) can argue. It would have been more painfully jabbing at Kaito’s jealousy if Kokichi had forced Shuichi to explain the whole thing. Come on, Kokichi, you’ve been slipping on this for the entire second half of the trial.

Shuichi: (The reason why Kaito isn’t a suspect is…)

- He wouldn’t kill anybody

I like how this is one of the possible answers to write off Kaito. It’s very true! But… it’s also true about Gonta, and yet here we are.

Look at Kaito turning away like this even though it’s currently being explained why he’s innocent – he can’t be happy about that, not now. Perhaps Shuichi looked in Kaito’s direction while saying his part and Kaito couldn’t bear to look him in the eye.

I would also like to point out that this is not the sprite Kaito had the last time he had a text box, and Kokichi is the one speaking here, so Kaito shouldn’t have changed sprites. They put in another exception to the game’s usual coding on this so that Kaito would be painfully facing away from Shuichi as the camera focused on him here!

(Okay, they actually changed everyone’s sprites in this bit while Kokichi is explaining how each of them couldn’t have done it. But shush, it definitely has the most impact with Kaito.)

Himiko: “Nyeeeh… Kokichi’s completely running the show now.”

Kaito: “…”

This is the first time this trial that the camera has panned to Kaito saying nothing and it hasn’t been about Shuichi, and I’m disappointed. Shuichi could be the one running the show right now if Kokichi really wanted him to be! That would hurt Kaito more!

Kokichi: “My synergy with Shuichi is super on point now, so let’s move onto the remaining suspects.”

Yeah, no, that’s not what synergy means. None of this is the two of you working together to figure out something you couldn’t have done alone. This is just you forcing Shuichi to join in with stating facts that you both figured out completely separately.

Side note: what was Kokichi planning to do here if Shuichi and Tsumugi didn’t completely coincidentally happen to be together at the time the crashing sound happened? …Then again, I suppose Shuichi would immediately have run to the dining room and found Tsumugi there anyway so that’d have been good enough.

Kokichi: “That leaves only Gonta and me as the remaining suspects…”

Kaito: “Then you’re the culprit!”

Oh, Kaito. You know that’s not true.

Kokichi: “So then, it’s down to one person. And who was that again?”

Gonta: “Uh… Uhhh…”

Gontaaaaaaaa. He hasn’t had attention drawn to him at all throughout this whole process of elimination, but apparently what he was doing during it was slowly breaking down sobbing. Even though he doesn’t want to believe he did it, Shuichi says it couldn’t be anyone but him, and Shuichi is always right, isn’t he…?

Kokichi: “Weeeell? Who is it?”

Kaito: “Don’t answer, Shuichi! You don’t need to answer that!”

This whole time, while Shuichi has been unflinchingly acknowledging the possibility that Gonta could have done it, he still hasn’t actually stated for certain that he did. Kaito doesn’t want him to answer because if he does, that’ll make it the truth – after all, Shuichi is always right, isn’t he? Not only that, but it’ll be Shuichi very explicitly and directly facing that truth, which is exactly what Kaito can’t do.

Kaito: “This is all Kokichi’s trap!”

And this is the only thing Kaito can think of that would justify why Shuichi shouldn’t answer that, even though that possibility doesn’t change the fact that this is what the evidence points towards. This is Kokichi’s trap, but it’s a trap that uses the truth.

It is absolutely evil (in a good way) that the game’s creators make you go into the accusation screen and officially accuse a helplessly sobbing Gonta. Every other time they’ve used that screen, it’s been because identifying the culprit was the player figuring out a new fact that hadn’t been established yet. But we’ve been talking about it being Gonta for a while now. This isn’t necessary at all, yet the writers force you to feel just as awful as Shuichi does by making you do this anyway.

(They also force you to face the truth even though it hurts to do, just like Shuichi is doing. Kaito would have stayed on the accusation screen until the time limit ran out and failed the trial. Or repeatedly tried to accuse Kokichi until he ran out of health.)

Shuichi: “I-It’s… it’s… Gonta.”

Kaito: “Sh-Shuichi!?”

Sorry, Kaito. Shuichi really is a lot stronger than you are right now.

The last two times Shuichi accused someone he wanted to believe in (by which I mean not Kiyo, why is case 3 even a thing), he had difficulty doing so and needed encouragement to manage it, from Kaede herself in the first case and from Kaito in the second. But now he can do it not only without Kaito’s encouragement but while Kaito is actively trying to discourage him.

Still, Shuichi clearly had some trouble saying that, so it’s not that he’s doing it without struggling over it! But it doesn’t look like Kaito can see past the fact that he did it at all to recognise that.

Kokichi: “You get it now, right? That’s the truth we were all reaching for. The thing you guys wanted so badly! A truth without any lies!”

Geez, Kokichi, stop sounding so goddamn victimised over this. The only reason everyone wants nothing but the truth right now is because Monokuma decided that we all die if we don’t find it. They’re not doing it to spite you in particular.

Kokichi: “Miu Iruma’s killer is… Gonta Gokuhara!”

Shuichi: “…Ah!”

Shuichi is still struggling a little bit with this! He can entertain possibilities and follow the logic wherever it goes, but his issues still make directly accusing people the most difficult part for him.

This is the one time so far that Shuichi has visibly shown difficulty in facing this truth, something that hasn’t just been in his inner monologue. Ideally Kaito would notice this and it might help him just a little… but I don’t think he does. I think he’s too caught up in the fact that Shuichi can face this impossibly painful truth at all while he can’t. All Kaito’s seen this whole trial is Shuichi being an invincible hero who very clearly doesn’t need his help, to the point that that’s the image he’s projecting onto Shuichi even now that it’s not quite the image Shuichi’s giving off.

---

[Next post]

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #ndrv3 #chapter 4 #class trial #commentary

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teamhawkeye · 6 years ago

Text

So I’ve had a while now to reflect after finishing up the Far Cry New Dawn story

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT

It...was a mixed bag overall. There were some things i liked - but there was a whole lot i didn’t like

The Good

The landscape. Hope County has always been gorgeous and it was nice to see it post-Collapse blooming and thriving for the most part

The music. Love it or hate it, it fit the Mad Max-esque theme the Highwaymen had going for them, both score and licensed soundtrack

Improvements in gameplay. Specifically with the GFH. I used Boomer almost exclusively in FC5 and two of my biggest complaints were 1.) he was not able to ride in vehicles with me and i felt bad making him run behind me everywhere and 2.) even with a ton of perks, he was very easily incapacitated by enemies. With Timber, they gave him the ability to ride in vehicles so you no longer have to feel bad about making him walk and they buffed him greatly in comparison to Boomer - he was often like a little walking tank and I greatly appreciated that they took those things into consideration and made tweaks there.

New Photo Mode. oh my god, YES. it still wasn’t perfect by any means, but my god, it was soooooo nice to be able to give your Captain life and emotion!

The Outpost system. Escalating difficulty so you could go back and still have a challenge even as you advanced your perks and weapons was a nice touch, so things never got too easy or stale in that area

Expeditions. It was fun being able to leave Hope County for a bit and see new locations and spend some time doing stuff other than milking the Outposts for ethanol

The Not-So Good

Abandoning characters from FC5. They may be dead and gone, but how are John and Faith and Jacob so glossed over? John maybe had the best fortune in nods to him and the last game, having both his ranch and bunker serve as important locations in New Dawn...but what about Faith and Jacob? Why was there no mention whatsoever to Eli, Whitehorse, Pratt, Hudson, or Dutch? And beyond the dead from FC5′s canon story, what about missing Resistance members? Jess Black, Wheaty, Tammy, Tweak...what happened to them? why were we given no closure on their stories at all? There was so little time spent reflecting on the events of the previous game or its characters - it very much felt like “they’re dead, not questions now, move on”...but the characters of the last game were a big part of what made it so great and it felt like a great disservice to the fans to have them swept under the rug like that.

Main story. I mean...what the fuck even was that last third part of the game??? The first third of the game started off on solid footing but it went off the rails well before the end. And there seemed to be a severe lack of cohesion between what we saw and learned in FC5 to what we see and learn in New Dawn. Joseph’s story about his daughter seems far less important knowing he had some bastard son hanging around one of the bunkers the whole time - why was there never any allusion to him whatsoever? He certainly felt shoehorned in as a result. And how is it one of the Big rules of Eden’s Gate was “no fornication” but Joseph can get away with it? That doesn’t line up with the antagonist we faced off with all of FC5. And what was with the magic??? Like, there was a touch of that in FC5 with the Bliss and the scope of just what it could do...but a ton of the Bliss’s power could be argued to be auditory and visual hallucinations. There was just straight up...magic to explain some of the weird things they included in New Dawn and it made that make some of it feel weak and hollow

Disservice to its villains. Mickey and Lou were done dirty, it’s just that plain and simple. Ubisoft didn’t give them much of anything to do and wasted all their potential. One of the main draws of FC5 was just how good the villains were and one of the largest complaints i saw from FC5 was just how much more interaction we all wanted with them. New Dawn gave their villains a backseat to almost everything else going on in the game. Mickey and Lou almost felt detached from the story at times. With the FC5, one of the best things about the Seeds was how connected they felt to everything you did: they met you face to face a number of times, radioed in constantly to taunt and harass you, upped the ante when you put the heat on them...with Mickey and Lou, it never felt like they actually took you seriously. Or didn’t even care, despite saying otherwise. They address you directly maybe once all game aside from when you have cutscenes with them face-to-face. Their strongest moment was in their defeat and it showed what major potential they had as antagonists - and to be sympathetic as well - and Ubisoft really blew it there and that’s one of the biggest shames

Disservice to its new characters. The new Resistance/Survivor characters got shafted too. You could easily go all game without knowing a single thing about any of the new GFH or Specialists for Prosperity - there’s just not the time to really get to know them or even like them all that much. Rush was certainly built up...to only be kidnapped and potentially left untouched for quite some time and when you go to rescue him, he’s sidelined immediately with very little interaction with him thereafter. His death wasn’t nearly as poignant as Eli or Virgil’s from FC5 - those were two characters who were constantly talking in your ear or available to talk to and help progress the story along. Rush was put there simply to die and give the Captain motivation to keep going and it’s a damn shame since he deserved better - don;t get me wrong, I liked him and was affected by his death, but the emotional impact there is just not as strong when Ubisoft gave him so little time or opportunity to really get close to him like previous installments did with characters.

Expeditions. I know i said this was a good thing - and largely it is - but it was so small and underused, it was such a letdown. They kinda touted Expeditions as being a replacement for Arcade of FC5, which made me think there was going to be a ton of locations to explore and replay...but in reality, you got like 6 maps and that’s all. Maybe they’ll add more, but that seemed like that got hyped up for nothing

Scale. I get that this was a smaller game, reflected in the time it took to crank it out and the lower price, but god does it feel small. You can almost count how many missions there are on two hands. There were so few collectibles or side missions - idk what’s supposed to be the draw after finishing the main story when you have virtually nothing left to do. And beyond the game’s play length, the map was chopped in half and it was bullshit, quite frankly. Why the hell is the Bliss so concentrated now up in Jacob’s region - shouldn’t that have been the Henbane, since that’s where it was focused and created and still polluted the water there even after destroying Faith’s bunker? It felt cheap to carve off chunks of the map under the guise of “oooh, radiation zone! turn back!” We should have been allowed to explore the remains of Faith’s and Jacob’s bunker, of the Wolf’s Den, or finally be allowed inside the Veteran’s Center! Or go back to the chopper crash site on Joseph’s compound, the truck where Hudson, Pratt, and Whitehorse died on Dutch’s Island, or the truck Burke crashed into the river in the Henbane - all were completely gone and that felt super cheap, like they made no lasting impact when they were such huge moments in FC5. I feel like the two things most of us were excited to do when we learned we were returning to Hope County were learning about what happened to the characters of FC5 and seeing references to those who were lost and then to be able to explore and investigate every corner of the map we had in the previous game to see how the landscape how changed in every place we once knew so well.

Replay value. Honestly, aside from a second playthrough to sweep up achievements/trophies i didn’t get the first time around, i’m not all that inclined to keep the game installed on my console’s harddrive and replay it. If anything, playing this game has reminded me of everything i loved so much about FC5 and made me homesick for it - i’m already yearning to return to pre-Collapse Hope County and i haven’t even been done with New Dawn for 24 hours. It’s a shame when i so love the story that spawned this sequel, but it doesn’t possess any of the heart and soul that the original has.

There’s probably more i’m forgetting, but i’ve been typing for a while now and my brain has called it quits. I just know i went in with too high of expectations and was always going to be disappointed when New Dawn didn’t measure up to FC5...but it fell so short and that is the biggest issue i have. It could have been so much more and that’s the real tragedy

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amusewithaview · 6 years ago

Text

Certain Doom (DA Soulmate AU)

A/N: I am not even remotely sorry.

“So have you chosen a canon Inquisitor yet?”

Yes! My first elf girl who romanced Cullen.

canon quiz?

“Whichever character you use to build the world state for your next game is the canon,” Lisbeth explained. “Mine is an elf, too, and I romanced Cullen, too. I’ll fight you for him, Ashley!”

u guys and your jocks i swear i only have the one playthrough and i’m romancing solas for the lols so idk my canon is unwritten undefined so we’ll see i guess?

We can share him, Liz.

Thunder rolled, rattling the windows and making Lisbeth jump. “Oof! It’s storming here so I might cut out,” she said apologetically. “If that happens I’ll just restart the stream, no worries.”

Storming here too! Ashley replied in the chat.

yeah same Hayden agreed. weird

“It’s not that weird. Storms happen. Speaking of, how should I upgrade Bethany, you guys? Do I make her an ice mage, or...?”

One second, storm is picking up and I need to check my windows.

ICE ICE BABY

Back! Is Force mage unlocked yet? Been forever since I played DA2...

ICE ICE BABY!!!

OMG fine do ice or Hay will never let it go.

Let it gooooo, let it gooooo, can’t hold it back anymooooooore!

“Okay, ice it is,” Lizbeth said, smiling at her friends’ antics.

FUCK THAT WAS CLOSE SHIT SH

you ok Ash???

“Ash?”

o fuck ME

“Hay?” Lisbeth called, frowning at the chat log. She waited a few seconds before calling their names again. The number count on her stream hadn’t changed, so their systems were still logged on and watching her playthrough. But... they weren’t answering. The hairs on Lisbeth’s arms and the back of her neck stood on end all at once. She shivered, looking to the windows where the constant flicker of lightning kept illuminating the driving rain.

It looked like the lightning was getting closer, maybe she should-

Her world dissolved into brilliant white.

Too late.

It took three blinks for Ashley to realize something was wrong. That wasn’t her ceiling, this wasn’t her bed - what the hell? She sat up and looked around. To her left was a person, curled up with their back to her. To her right, another person, curled up with their back to her. She made out red hair to her left and dark brown to her right. Ashley was the only conscious one, and while that remained true, she intended to find out as much as she could.

She stood up and dusted herself off, frowning when she realized that her clothes had been changed. She’d been in pajamas, but now she wore a green coat over a simple gray tunic and pants. There was a soft gray cloth wrapped loosely around her neck and when she felt behind her head she found a hood. Hayden ran her fingers over her hair - wrapped in a complicated braid and significantly longer than she remembered it being - and froze when her fingers encountered delicate fleshy points.

Pointed ears. Elf ears. What?

“Oh. Ow.”

Hayden turned and saw that the brunette was sitting up, one hand to her head. Now that her hair had shifted, she could see that this person also had pointed ears. “Hey...” Ashley said, awkwardly waving.

The brunette looked up, squinting and revealing large, luminous hazel eyes set in a delicately featured face that screamed Disney Princess™. “Ashley?” she said, looking confused. “You look...elfy.”

“Hayden?!” Ashley dropped to her knees and immediately grabbed the smaller elf into a bear hug. “Hate to break it to you, but you are also elfier than normal. Wait, is there a normal amount of elfiness we should be shooting for?”

Hayden laughed and hugged her back. “No clue. Think that’s Lisbeth?”

They broke apart and turned to the last person, still unconscious on the ground. “By process of elimination, probably? But where are we, why are we elves, and what the hell happened?”

“Search me.”

There was a low groan from the third person, and then vicious grumbling in what Ashley recognized as German. The body on the ground flopped over, revealing a thunderous expression made even more ominous by the thick brows overshadowing dark eyes that looked-

“Lisbeth?”

“Ja? I mean, yes,” the redhead said, sitting up. “What-?”

“It’s me, Ashley, and that’s Hayden. I think...well, I think we might be in Dragon Age? Somehow?” She sat back on her heels and clenched her hands into fists on her thighs, trying not to freak out while she sorted her thoughts verbally. “We’re all elves now? And you look like that picture of your Inquisitor you showed me screenshots of, and Hayden looks like the Inquisitor she’s been streaming, so I-”

“You’re blonde, and very tall, and look sort of like a cat,” Lisbeth said bluntly. “Actually, the eyes are kind of creepy in this light...”

“I think they look cool,” Hayden said, giving her an appraising look.

“Not important right now, guys! We might be in Dragon Age! Dragon Age!”

“Yes, but where?” Lisbeth asked.

“And when?” Hayden chimed in.

“Hell if I know, but we need to find out, fast.”

It took mere minutes for them to sort out what they could, because it wasn’t much. They confirmed that yes, all of them had been morphed into their canon Inquisitors (only Inquisitor, in Hayden’s case), but with a few small changes. Hayden’s hair was significantly darker, almost black in the dim light of the tunnel they’d found themselves in. Lisbeth’s eyes were purple, which made her mutter about Mary Sues and bad fanfiction. Ashley’s eyes had been green in her Inquisitor’s canon, but the switch to amber-gold didn’t bother her, since it added to the, as Lisbeth put it, ‘creepy cat’ aesthetic.

None of them had the vallaslin they remembered choosing.

They were all wearing what looked like a facsimile of the Inquisitor’s gear in the game’s opening, minus most of the armor. Each of them identically outfited in green, gray, and brown. They had no weapons, and only thirty copper coins between them.

“We’re fucked,” Lisbeth said.

“Don’t be so negative,” Hayden chided.

“We’re fucked!” Lisbeth repeated, this time in a faux-happy chirp.

“We’re Schroedinger’s Fucked,” Ashley said. “Our state of fuckery is yet to be determined because we still don’t know where or when we are. Lets follow the tunnel and see where it leads.” She looked down the tunnel. She could only make out another fifteen feet before it took a sharp turn out of sight.

“You going anytime soon?” Hayden asked.

She shifted on her feet. “Yes, just-”

“Let’s go!”

Lisbeth and Ashley exchanged grim looks before following Hayden down the tunnel. It took another ten minutes of walking before they saw signs of habitation. There was an offshoot to their tunnel that led to a door. Since the door had three obvious traps and probably at least twice as many ones they couldn’t see, they kept going.

Eventually, after several more nerve-wracking minutes, they emerged into a larger area, lit with torches. There were a few people waiting outside of what looked like a house, built up against a curve in the cavern’s wall. There was a sign by the door of the house, and the sight of it made Lisbeth grab both of her companions and yank them to a halt.

“We’re in Kirkwall!”

“Fuck,” Hayden sighed. “I haven’t played this one yet.”

“Yeah, well, it’s been several years since I played this one,” Ashley muttered.

They both turned and raised their eyebrows at Lisbeth.

“I haven’t played it in two years! I was in the prologue!”

“Do you remember what you chose? Odds are, we’re in your worldstate...” Ashley pointed out.

“Um... I was playing a Rogue Hawke, male because-” she paused and smirked at Ashley.

“Shut up,” Ashley hissed. She could feel her ears twitching as she glared. She swept her hands up and clamped them down over the pointed ends. “Shit, this is going to take some getting used to.”

“You’re one to talk,” Lisbeth muttered. “At least your ears are normal sized.” She reached up and poked at one of her own ears, easily the largest of the three of them. They’d all gone for wildly different looks when designing their Inquisitors. Aside from being elves, they couldn’t have looked more different from each other if they’d tried.

“Guys! Focus!” Hayden said, scowling at them.

“Okay, so we’re in Kirkwall. Great, not ideal but it could probably be worse. Now, when are we?” Ashley said.

“Well, if the clinic is there, then Anders will be there,” Lisbeth pointed out.

“Great! Let’s go, then,” Hayden said, turning on her heel and heading for the building. The other two scrambled after her, reluctant to enter but utterly unwilling to be left behind.

The clinic was large, and appeared to be in the process of expanding.

“Act Two!” Lisbeth murmured. “Must be!”

“Maybe not,” Ashley replied. “Look, there’s-”

“Can I help you?”

The voice had all three of them turning to face the speaker. There was a tall human male with reddish hair pulled back into a half-tail striding towards them. He had a thick coating of stubble lining his jaw and looked tired.

“Oh!” Hayden cried out, curling over and falling sideways into Ashley.

“Is your friend ill?” Anders asked, speeding up.

Lisbeth raised her hands as if to ward him off: “She’s fine, thank you, we’ll just go now, we don’t want to be any-”

Ashley bodily picked up the smallest elf, backing away from the mage.

Too late, a wash of cool blue magic swept over the trio as Anders’ eyes lit from within. “Wait, you-” he froze in place, eyes raking over each elf in turn. “What have you-” he shook his head and swayed in place, eyes screwing tightly shut. Suddenly, little wisps of light started to emanate from behind his closed eyelids.

Lisbeth shoved Ashley towards the door, “Now would be a good time to-”

“Run?”

“Yes!”

They booked it, ignoring the strange echoing cry that called for them to halt.

“What was that?” Ashley asked, poking Hayden in the forehead.

They’d sprinted till they’d found sunlight and what was probably the docks, based on the water, boats, and people bustling around. They were seated on some barrels in an out of the way corner, catching their breath.

“Ouch! Don’t Itachi me, you weirdo.”

“Well, stop Sasuke-style brooding, then.”

Hayden scowled, rubbing her hand over her heart. “I don’t know, I felt...something. Like a pull? I don’t know how to describe it. It got worse when I saw him, though.”

“That was Anders,” Lisbeth said, sounding shellshocked. “Anders.”

“We’re in Kirkwall, yes, Anders is here,” Ashley said.

“We have to stay away from Anders,” Lisbeth said firmly.

Hayden grimaced, but didn’t say anything.

“Hey, Liz - have you always had that tattoo?”

Ashley’s words had her frowning: “Tattoo? I don’t have-”

“Your hand, look at it.”

Lisbeth looked down at her hands, ignoring the way they’d gotten longer and skinnier since her transmigration into an elvhen body. There was nothing on the backs of her hands, but on the palm of her right hand she found three symbols that looked like a cross between hieroglyphs and cuneiform. The symbols were a vivid and sparkly pink.

“What the fuck?” she breathed. “What the fuck! What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fucking FUCK.”

“Shit, I think you broke Liz.”

“I didn’t mean to!” Ashley cried.

“What is this shit?” Lisbeth exclaimed before switching to German and going into a tirade neither of the other two could understand. She paced back and forth in front of them, kicking out at the barrels and walls as she passed them. Finally she stopped, fisted her hands at her sides, and yelled at the sky.

One of the barrels abruptly caught on fire.

“Hey, Liz?” Hayden called.

“WHAT.”

“I know this isn’t the best time, but I think you might be a mage, too.”

“FUUUUUUUUU-”

#amuse writes stuff #certain doom au #dragon age fanfiction #soulmate au #dragon age au #so many headcanons here dear god #cousland warden in a poly relationship with leliana and alistair #purple rogue male hawke #future adaar inquisitor #ashley's soulmates are hawke and varric and fenris and aveline and dorian #hayden's soulmates are isabella and anders and cassandra and morrigan and josephine #lisbeth's soulmates are cullen and zevran and leliana and sera and iron bull #anders is played by tom mison in this au because he's perfect

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