#my favorite smt post ever

[kyri45]

✨ShadowPeach Bio Parents Bio AU Q&A! 28/09✨

Welcome to the Q&A! A space where I can answer related or similar question about the Shadowpeach Bio Parents AU! If you submitted your ask anonimously, then you’ll have to check the whole post if it’s answered here, if it’s not, worry not! Your asks might have been used for a future comic or just in the queue~

Anonimo ha chiesto: I am going to ask you to make a difficult decision… freenoodles or Shadowpeach

(Freenoodles, in my opinion, is just barely better than shadowpeach. Just because of how gay they are in season five. I mean, look at them and tell me they aren’t married.)

Sooo I go with shadowpeach. Freenoodle is like my comfort shit. so many cute and funny shenanigans, for me they are just the married couple who would probably have the healtiest of the relationship. They have teh experience, they went already throught all the "obliviouss-ness" and the "what if they don't love me" yadda yadda.

But Shadowpeach. Ow man. I thought the ineffable housband ship was complex. but god. oh god. how wrong I was. like- these two went from friends, to brothers, to lovers, to enemies, to friends again and to be lover again. They fucked up so much nothing will ever be the same. But they still weak for each other. They are at each other throat and also they know the other in the most intimate way. they are immortal. One of them fucking killed the other. They thought the other left them and betrayed and went both drama to forget (one choose found family, the other murder but anyway-)

Like- WHAT SHIP CAN BE MORE COMPLEX THAN THIS?????

Anonimo ha chiesto: Does MK have a favorite between his bio parents

oUH NO POOR MONKEYS. He doesn't, but he has a favourite depending on the context. Like, for training he prefers Macaque because he explains a lot better than Wukong, but sparring with Wukong is much funnier, but he prefers Macaque scratches and grooming, but he loves Wukong squeezing hugs, etc...

Anonimo ha chiesto: You know, I just realized something. So you know how people in the fandom give Macaque lotus nicknames since his ears kind of resemble lotus flowers. Well since MK has both Wukong and Macaque's ears that kind of makes MK's ears resemble Peace Lilies (which is kind of ironic since MK is the Harbinger of Chaos)

Aww I guess they do look like them!

Anonimo ha chiesto: I may sound a little to mean but Mk din't suspect a thing aout macaques eye? he has multiple forms were his eye is a cross i mean, i would think smt happend to that eye but that just me uu I LOVE UR ART IT MAKES ME WANT TO KMS /POS

He surely suspected something happened to Mac eye but he didn't know how that happened.

@queen-of-purple-roses ha chiesto: I have a question and you don’t have to answer it if you don’t have too; since we’ve seen Macaque feel guilty with how he treated MK in the past, does Monkey King feel guilty about all the dangerous moments that MK was put in, since most if not all of the fighting ends up on MK’s plate and not Wukong’s.

Oh absolutely, the more time passes he feels more and more guilty.

@catbox730 ha chiesto: Can we get more MK and Red Son please

mayyyyyybe. If you guys behave

Anonimo ha chiesto: It would be funny seeing MK‘s dads going to a doctor with him for like getting his wisdom teeth removed or something xD

The parents being extremely worried that something will go wrong while MK is super chill. When the dentist comes out of the operating room they grab him and ask him if he survived while MK is just eating ice cream post-surgery.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Will MK ever fight against one of his parents in a serious battle ? Or be forced to fight one of them ?

mmm. Probably. Maybe in the future they have a discussion. Nothing maybe too serious. But not in the AU plans.

What is Wukongs and/or Macaques biggest nightmare(s) I imagine it would be something like seeing MK die or sacrificing himself again or something like that

I think Wukong is more terrified of being alone. So actually I think it would be worse for him that MK doesn't want to see him anymore.

Anonimo ha chiesto: so who is going to be MK‘s hero that he worships ? I don’t know if he still sees Monkey king in that way after finding out that he is basically his dad and hearing the past the fight with Macaque….

Maybe he wont have any hero. Maybe worshipping someone is not such a healthy thing to do. ( I'm not talking in a religious way of course, I meant worshipping a living normal person)

@emmais333 ha chiesto: Love your MK art. One question how many fights from Wukong and Mac does MK overhear on accident

He heard the first one (and the past one through the vision) then Wkong and Mac started to teleport far away enough so he wont be able to hear them discuss.

Anonimo ha chiesto: What if MK catches Mac and Wukong in the act, not visually, but audibly, like hearing it when going to flower feuit mountain, finding the monkeys in a pile, all traumatized. Or is it too soon? Do they get drunk enough to not care? Do they even drink?

in the....act? (sorry I don't understand stuff if it's not explicited said, like I can't understand double meanings if that was what you meant)

Anonimo ha chiesto: I LOVE YOUR STORY, REALLY!!!! I reread a lot. So lovely. And the Baby MK, I just want to hug so badly 🥺 ( I think Macaque become Protecting mode and he won't let me do it. ) You draw Baby MK so so so cute. My heart can't handle it.❤️ Maybe it's a terrifying idea but I would like know your thoughts. I think that Macaque sleeps very quietly, like a man in a coffin.  + Macaque fell into a very deep DEEP sleep. (maybe because he was tired from fighting demons to protect Baby MK or get injured or something?) = How do you think Sun Wokung will react?

o my god NO DON'T GIVE HIM AN HEARTH ATTACK (heloses one of their immortalities for having the most horrrendous of jumpscares)

@raspberrymixin ha chiesto: AHHH I LOVE YOU SHADOW PEACH BIO AU OMG ITS TO FREAKEN CUTEEEE AAHH I just melt into a puddle! Love you art and make sure to take breaks- anyway- I find it cute how redson interacts with MK I can just imagine him giving him stuff and little gifts and Mk just confused on why but takes it anyway because of friendship and maybe a sign he's trusting more- but MK is just oblivious to the courting- And maybe redson would ask Wukong, Macaque, Tang or pigsy to allow it maybe? And I also love the slow burn! It's just cute on how Macaque and Wukong make each other blush! Awww it's just to cute! I hope you're doing amazing and have a good night/day

Oh man MK would not be able to read a single clue and just think it's a symbol of friendship or wathever. O my god he really did take from his parents (all of them)

fayeangel25 ha chiesto: YOUUU UFUFFHH WHEN I GET YOUUUUU anyways, I wanna see wukong asking macaque about the story of him and mac ( after mamacaque storytelled his lil baby mk ) , cuz i wanna see more flustered macaque!!! Also, 👏 EATING 👏 THIS 👏 AU 👏 UP!!

Hehe he would be a little shy about it. But Macaque is a theater kid so for a bigger audience I guess he would do it.

Anonimo ha chiesto: I feel like I’m new here. What is Court napping?

Consensual Kidnapping with the intend of flirting with another demon.

Anonimo ha chiesto: How many people want to court MK now that he is a real stone monkey AND the son of Wukong and Macaque ?

mmm. Only people close to MK knows that he's the bio kid of shadowpeach. So for now only Red Son

Anonimo ha chiesto: I bet PIF would try to wait for MK to lose the good guy ‘phase’ since she went through that before lmao (forget being good, convert to villainy in the name of love)

Awwww she would!!! But MK is just too good hearted to hurt a fly. (yeah I know he technically has a kill count still-)

Anonimo ha chiesto: MK would obviously call Pigsy "Papa" so what would MK call Tang and Sandy?

I think he would actually call Pigsy "dad" since it's what he calls him that in the show. Maybe it's Tang that gets to be called Papa. I think Sandy is more like an uncle.

@mage-of-words ha chiesto: When will Wukong purpose to Macaque?

WOW- HOLD ON THERE. LET HIM TAKE HIM TO DINNER FIRST.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Omg I wonder if Macaque and Monkey King ever saw MK get really hurt during a battle with a new demon. RIP the Demon bc two feral Monkeys are after them now bc they hurt their kid.

Them to said demon: So you have choosen.... death.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Hear me out, Mac and Wukong in a get along shirt for a day (lost a bet to MK and he planned this too) LOVE YOUR ART TOO ITS SO SCRUMDIDDLYUMPTIOUCIOUS

this is an old ask, sorry for taking so long to answer. But I would say that at this point of the story Wukong would probably be at cloud 9 being squished to super soft macaque all day. Macaque would be like a kitten undecided on wheter he loves or hate the situation (doesn't really likes un-warned physical touch.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Hoi there, I found you again! (Following you on Insta as well because your art is awesome ^^)

Reading your LMK ShadowPeaches comics and they are fun. And now my brain can't help but make up scenarios, one like this one. Oh my, MK is a cute little baby! (^///^) Oh my, MK is a little baby!! ('O_O) Welp, Pigsy is going to kill someone unless Wukong gives baby MK into his arms to calm down and be busy being a dad than a raging Hulk. (:P) Also, I imagine MK accidentally shrinking himself, (Wukong decided to play hide and seek with it only to later on regret it). Wukong would freaking out about it, and Macaque then shook him violently while yelling into his face for losing MK. Then out of Nowhere, Nezha shows up at the door frame and be like 'Um, hey guys. Is this yours?' Points at his nose where tiny baby bean MK was, clinging onto Nezha's nose while giggling.

askjajvbks that's a lovely scene! Unfortunately Nehza can't know yet about MK, but maybe he will...

@lara-legomonkiekid 💜:Hey! I'm here to ask permission!Can I make an art Drawing of your Bio parents AU Meeting One of my AU's?Please?(Mostly Suposed to be Meeting One of my OC's!) (Love Your Art and Comics!!!!)(⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠)(⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)

Yeah sure! just be sure to tag me and link the masterpost of the AU

Anonimo ha chiesto: I find it funny how your shadowpeach bio au came from a joke and now.....wow Your art is amazing

My friend even tried to warn me. BUT I DIDN'T LISTEN

Anonimo ha chiesto: I need Freenoodles talking late at night about MK's new situation Will they be worried? Happy? I don't think Pigsy will take it very well that just when he and MK accepted each other as Father and Son, he is (partly) taken away by his biological dads.

Pigsy was mostly worried that Wukong or Macaque would hurt in any way MK. Both ahim and Tang after they saw how much the 2 care about MK calmed down, still they just hope they don't mess up things.

Anonimo ha chiesto: parenting it not just about having fun with your children, but also making sure there are boundaries even if the child isn’t happy about it. So, how would it go if Macaque and Wukong would try to ground MK 😂

MK is a little old for being grounded I think but if they were to do it maybe with something like no training for a week or smt. He's still an adult (i know we sometimes forget)

Anonimo ha chiesto: MK trying to prank his parents and wake them up with a loud instrument or sound. MK forgetting he has sensitive hearing 💀

reverso uno card

Anonimo ha chiesto: Would wukong or MK help macaque in his drawings if he asked 🙃 or if they tried to help him improve

Awww they would!!! Actually what if this creative side of him was something he kind of inherted from Wukong?

[lotus-pear]

What are your fav knkdz headcanons?

oh i have a whole alphabetized list but i'll choose a few of my favorites just so this post isn't like 25k words long

• kunikida will always pack extra of whatever he makes for lunch and force dazai to eat it and get into the routine of eating during their allotted breaks so he doesn't starve throughout the day

• kunikida has flawless handwriting and writes exclusively in cursive while dazai has chicken scratch (he can make it nice most likely he just doesn't care i think)

• while on the topic of handwriting, dazai learned how to forge kunikida's signature in the first few days of their partnership and has been abusing it ever since (wholly convinced this is how they're getting married if it ever comes to that, dazai's just going to forge kuni's signature on the wedding contract without his knowldge)

• dazai more than likely has thought about suggesting getting married for tax benefits (definitely not other reasons.........)

• their date spots are normally very quiet places they frequent often after work together in the evening, like their favorite cafe or a bar. kuni almost always pays since his love language is acts of service and also dazai's broke ass can't even afford coffee

• both aren't very big on pda although dazai tends to be more on the tactile side bc on his inherent nature. he'll motion to hold hands if they're both standing stationary for a while

• they try to have one sit-down homemade dinner a week, mostly at kunikida's place since dazai rarely uses his kitchen and likely lacks the bare essentials. they'll both do the meal prep together although kunikida most likely doesn't allow dazai to help with actually preparing the food since he doesn't want to risk burning the apartment down

• dazai definitely bothers kunikida to use his ability to make him a pack of gum or a cigarette or smt when he's too lazy to get up and shop/ask ranpo if he has extra to which kuni always refuses

[dailydemonspotlight]

As the biggest fan of Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse on this big blue and green planet, may I ask you to cover my boy Krishna?

Krishna - Day 42 (Request)

Race: Deity

Alignment: Neutral

May 20th, 2024 (Shooting for, at least)

Throughout the course of this series, Hinduism has quickly risen the ranks of my favorite mythologies to look through. I've always had a passing interest in the third largest religion to date, but as time has gone on and I've continued on with this series, being forced to engage with it more has given me so much more insight into what it consists of, and given me a new respect for the followers of Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. Among the countless figures of Hinduism, one of the most popular and prominent, however, has to be today's Demon of the Day, the ever-popular avatar of Vishnu, Krishna.

Lovingly described as "Indian Michael Jackson" by the SMT community, Krishna is an important figure both in SMT IV:A, as well as Hindu mythology as a whole. In the metaphorical melting pot of world religions, folklore, and myth this series consists of, the interactions of Krishna with the cast of the series feel oddly in character for the role this Hindu prettyboy plays. And no, that isn't a joke. Krishna is popular both in and out of Hindu circles, canonically getting bitches left and right through his sheer charisma. As the eighth avatar of Vishnu, Krishna represents all that is worth preserving in the world- love, protection, kindness, compassion, all that jazz.

Throughout the central Hindu text, the Mahabharata, Krishna serves as a central character whose accomplishments are a bit too long and varied to recant here, but he could almost be seen as the main character of the text, and for good reason. He appears as a hero, a folkloric god-child, a prankster, a lover, and so much more, as his epithets are only beaten out by his achievements in how long and varied they are. It all begins with his birth, actually, one as strange as he is himself. In the Krishna Charitra, Krishna was born as the child of Devaki and Vasudeva, but the brother of his mother, Kamsa, forbids this, hearing of a prophecy that his nephew will take his life.

When Krishna is born, in classic mythological fashion, Vasudeva ends up trading away the just-born Krishna into the hands of his future foster mother, in exchange for her daughter. Turns out, oops, the Hindu goddess Yogamaya was residing within that child, and she delivers a message of imminent death to Kamsa regarding Krishna's successful birth. Throughout Krishna's childhood, he was famous for being a prankster who loved, and I mean LOVED butter. For some reason. I don't get it, personally. However, in spite of his troublemaking ways, he also grew to love and protect the people of his home village, working to save them from disaster time and time again. Throughout his time as a child, he played for fun and laughs beyond all else, messing with people often just for his own amusement.

When he grew older, he soon fulfilled his oracle-given right, defeating his uncle Kamsa and then proceeding to reinstate Kamsa's father, Ugrasena. After this, many myths differ- some say he went on to rule his own kingdom, others say he picked up a lot of chicks, but all eventually reconnect in the great winding tale of the Mahabharata. Unfortunately, rather famously, the Mahabharata is an insanely long and complex story, and I'd rather not get into it here in the scope of a bite-sized blog post. TL;DR, shit happens.

Krishna is portrayed... strangely in SMT. For a character famous for having blue skin, as his name can roughly translate to 'All-Blue,' his portrayal is odd, but I quite like the twist on design. The focus on teal and orange make a neat color contrast, and he maintains a youthful prettyboy appearance that I think fits very well. I wish I could get into this more, but I may need to start wrapping this up. Past that, he also has two other designs in the same game, being the spoilerific Vishnu-Flynn.

Vinny don't look.

...My only real comment here is, why did they give him lightsabers?

Overall, though, there is a lot more to Krishna that I could have gotten into. The winding tales of Hinduism are fascinating rabbit holes, but I won't recant them all here. I love how unique and interesting his design is, and apparently his role in IV:A is very important... though, admittedly, I haven't played it yet. Krishna is very deserving of being today's Demon of the Day.

[hawfstuff]

Who-lahan's your favorite Dulahan?

Short answer, very few aside from my own. Long answer, I'm not a terribly big fan of the Headless Horseman from Sleepy Hollow over shadowing all Dullahans in a pop-cultural sense. I feel like The HH under utilizes the Dullahans more interesting quirks. (no spine whips, no blood throwing, no fear of gold, no name calling, etc) He's fine. Bunch of examples under cut.

First off the classic 1949 Disney Sleepy Hollow

He's a lot of fun but just too simple. No substance other than to be something fast and scary to terrorize Ichabod Crane.

Fun to watch but WHATEVER. 1999 Timmy Burty Sleepy Hollow HH is pretty cool.

like this is fantastic atmosphere, until he finds his head.

Oh cool, a skull.

oh god put it back. This is hideous.

The HH from Fox's Sleepy Hollow is actually pretty excellent.

Making him generally faceless is an improvement.

The shotgun bandolier adds A LOT. I think this is a great Dullahan but it's really hard to find good photos of him online that aren't super underexposed or horribly compressed. I'm also not a terribly big fan of how Dullahans are used in anime, the vibe they give off in anime feels nasty. Celty from Durarara I don't actually mind that much. I think a motorcycle in place of a horse is a good way to adapt the Dullahan to more contemporary settings. But she's like the only GOOD example.

This however is just disappointing.

If I recall correctly this one was used to write a lot of "head gags" around including but not limited to "repeatedly being groped by one of her friends while her head is far away from her body and unable to maintain agency over it"

And I just fucking hate looking at this THING.

Also what's with all the scythes? Dullahans don't fuckin' use those, get that shit outta here. There are more examples but I don't care enough for them to post any more. They're all pretty bad, and they are all harem filler. GROSS. I also wish the Dullahan was used more in games, their depictions are usually pretty cool but it's almost exclusive to Japanese developers. Western game devs are sleeping on the Dullahan and I want to rectify that.

Golden Sun Dullahan is cool but I don't typically think of them as "super tanky armoured dudes", too bulky imo.

Castlevania Curse of Darkness Dullahan has a great outfit, but that sword and shield combo looks worse that the Final Fantasy 14 grapes, awful weapon design. Speaking of FF14

Cool design, but same issue. Far too bulky for my tastes. Dullahan also makes an appearance in SMT

This just kinda sucks. More recently we got one in Dragons Dogma 2

He's alright. And then there's the beloved Horseless Headless Horsemann from TF2.

He's just too goofy, I don't like him. There are also dozens of Headless horsemen in card games, but they all feel like they are just there to pad out the monster menagerie. My biggest issue with Dullahans in games is that they are almost exclusively a throw away boss/miniboss and never get to be a real primary focus of their respective games, despite how cool they are. For these reasons there hasn't ever been a Dullahan in popular culture I've REALLY latched on to. Out of all of these I only really like 1999 Sleepy Hollow HH and Fox's Sleepy Hollow HH, because they are the primary focus of their respective stories but this all keeps coming back to Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" as it's the only REAL substantive piece of fiction that uses the Dullahan in a strong manner, and even then he only shows up for the finale. A lot of this is pretty surface level, I'm sure there are far better depictions of Dullahans out there but none of them have made it back to me.

[agathathevelvetlady]

Late Night Thoughts on Metaphor: ReFantazio

Probably going to periodically post thoughts on Metaphor. I'm currently at 6/16(?), so I'm still in the first real dungeon. Lots of points (and spoilers) below the read more; you have been warned.

-Storywise, this game seems made for me. Immediately differentiating the player from the protagonist is a very interesting move coming from ATLUS of all people, and I love me some metaplot. Seeing my own name on the end of the Royal Magic Scroll sent an actual chill down my spine. -Hell, the fact that the protagonist actually speaks is so jarring. I don't know if we've EVER had a speaking ATLUS protagonist. -The whole idea of fantasy being not just a form of escapism, but a form of idealism is a very interesting response to how Megaten handles Alignments; it feels like a much more hopeful version of that basic idea. -Speaking of which, I absolutely love that the protagonists book is clearly about our world but is absolutely an idealized version of it. The idea that our world is in some way aspirational to these fantasy characters? Cool as hell! -Any worries I had about the game having it's edge removed because of the T rating are also gone. Hell, I would argue there's more edge to it than some of Atlus' M rated titles. Seriously, how'd they get away with all this blood and people getting hanged without an M. -On a personal note, I think it's incredibly funny that ATLUS released a semi-meta JRPG where the main characters powers come from "Archetypes" at the same time I was working on a semi-meta TTRPG wherein characters get their powers from "Archetypes". Utterly hilarious coincidence. -I love the fact that there's a bit of nearly every ATLUS game in here. You got DDS mantras, Etrian Odyssey resource management (we even have ariande threads!), Persona social stats/links/time management, Megaten Press Turn combat, FUSION SPELLS (but actually balanced this time), not to mention nearly all of the classes being from some ATLUS game or another. Hell, we've got the Etrian Odyssey Brawler and Gunner in here. This is awesome. -The time mechanics feel a lot less grindy than something like P5; it seems like we'll be restrained to a much shorter chunk of time but it makes each action matter a lot more. -Coming off of P5 Royal being so piss easy that I could do most dungeons in a single day without even trying even on merciless, I am so glad that Hard mode is actually like, Hard. I've already wiped a few times, and it is SO refreshing to have to actually leave the damn dungeon. Does wonders for the game's pacing. -Being able to engage in a bit of real time combat to wipe out fodder enemies or weaken stronger ones is a wonderful system (I believe it's taken from Trails but don't quote me on that). It lets us skip past most of the "fodder" fights and really cuts down on the combat being too repetitive since the times when you will fight will always be against things which actually challenge you. It's not as brain dead as just running up and hitting the attack button, or Persona 5's stealth ambush system. There's times when I legitimately have decided to just engage a fight then and there because I thought it would be too risky to try and go for a break attack. I love making decisions like that. The fact that you have different move sets based on class weapon similar to SMT IV makes it feel fresh enough to keep doing. Character wise, I'm pretty happy with the core trio. I would die for Strohl and that is not a joke. Plot wise, it keeps pulling out things that really just amaze me. That fucking stone head in the sky man. What a great idea. Overall, I'm really happy with the game so far. Cautiously optimistic and with some minor nitpicks (I think some of the VFX need to be toned down tbh). If it follows through on the ideas it's setting up? I could genuinely see this becoming my favorite ATLUS game. I feel like I'm playing Vanilla P5 for the first time again, and it's a beautiful feeling.

[arttsuka]

Have you ever drawn Ace Attorney stuff?

If yes what were some of your faves?

But if not, request: Phoenix and Maya or Edgeworth doing smt! You could think of literally anything.

Of course I've drawn ace attorney stuff before. It's one of my favorite fandoms/franchises ever.

Here are some of my 'best' (although I never could draw the characters in a way that I liked)

There was this pretty neat au I had in mind too

Honestly I love ace attorney so much, it's a shame I haven't drawn more for it :(

[rustyvanburace]

nanananan nanashi 4 ask game🥹

favorite thing about them: NANASHI HAS STYLE, and I will die on that hill. People bitch and moan about Nanashi's "ugly" design, but he is PUNK and that fits really well with IVA's themes. I'd rather have a protagonist with a totally unique appearance than yet another bland kid. Maybe that is antithesis to the roots of SMT (they've always favored bland "nobody" characters), but I am nonetheless sticking to my stance. I love that he is dressed for the part as a Hunter, but still embraces his own sense of identity and style -- which frankly is important and natural for teens. I feel the same way about Asahi's own style. I love that Nanashi's design incorporates aspects of the two Akiras from IV. HE. HAS. GOOD. DESIGN.

least favorite thing about them: Once again this is more of an issue I have with IVA's writing and it is not solely about Nanashi, but I do wish that IVA did explore Akira's motivations more (especially with rescuing his sister, which is just absent in IVA) and how his actions and choices would've later impacted his later reincarnated self. There's a lot of stuff that Akira did in the background of IV that only barely gets examined IVA. Akira's "betrayal" toward the Hunters and Nanashi falling into that same fate makes for an interesting foil, but is just another foil that gets resolved way too quickly for my liking. Nanashi saves the day by repelling the Tokugawa Mandela and is immediately forgiven and praised by all with almost hardly any skepticism. Again it's an issue I have with IVA at large, but it still leaves me wanting more out of the characters and their development.

favorite line: Can I even say I have a favorite line from a silent protagonist, lol? I can say that I do like how "extreme" Nanashi is with his answers, either being very openly kind to downright crass and cold. It's much more extreme than some of Flynn's answers in IV. Arguably it makes IVA's alignment choices too obvious, but I like that it gives Nanashi a polarizing personality and it fits with his design too. Plus some of his anarchy answers are downright hilarious.

Additionally, I'm also amazed at Nanashi's "Dagda!" voice clip in the massacre route. For most of the game, he calls for Dagda in such a high-pitched voice. But as soon as you're locked in massacre, his voice suddenly turns really gruff and deep. Lmao??

brOTP: HE IS BROS WITH EVERYONE. But especially with Asahi, Hallelujah, and Navarre! I love his caring sibling relationship with Asahi, I love him being best of buds with Hallelujah, and I love that Navarre is basically like the cool fun uncle to him.

I posted that stupid edit of Morcedai and Rigby earlier, but actually Nanashi and Hallelujah are WAY more like Morcedai and Rigby. That's them for realll.

OTP: Nanashi x Hallelujah NATION LET'S GO. I will absolutely ship them both as bros and as a pair! They have the best ever chemistry.

nOTP: Yeah so, I really do not like Asahi x Nanashi and I hate seeing Nanashi get shipped with adults. Stop it. Enough said.

random headcanon: I like to imagine that, even before the events of IVA, Nanashi has always had dreams of his past life -- just not as frequently or as "unusual" as they later would be, stuff that he'd just brush off and keep to himself. I also like to think that, partly cause of that, he feels a closeness or yearning towards the Sky Tower and Firmanent but cannot put into words as to why.

unpopular opinion: Nanashi's concept design (the one where he's older, has glasses, and the giant robot arm) sucks and I'm tired of people saying it is "superior" than Nanashi's final design. Maybe the older design would have worked better for an earlier story concept, but for the way IVA is now, it fucking sucks. You can't just switch Nanashi's design with that and expect it to seamlessly work with the game's narrative. People complain about Nanashi being a "discount Demi-fiend", but actually Nanashi's design is much more subtle and it HAS to be in order to work with the narrative. A giant robot arm is the very opposite of subtle.

God I'm just, so pissed at people saying Nanashi's design is "bad". I'm pissed I'm pissed!!

song I associate with them: I'm just gonna cross these out with all asks going forward, I am not good at picking songs lmao.

favorite picture of them: Once again, it's Nanashi's precious smile~!

Thank you for the ask!!

[this-hopeless-war]

favorite characters from the outsiders and why? If u just want to keyboard smash in response I’ll understand what you mean /gen

and do u have any favorite actors in the show?

QISHCJJF OKAY THIS IS GONNA BE IN CAPS

(i cut it cause this post ended up insanely long)

I CANNOT PHYSICALLY PICK A FAVOURITE BUT I CAN TRY TO TALK ABT SOME OF THEM

PONYBOY MICHARL CURTIS JHAHSHHSJNWOSJDOEKDOKF JWJSODK HIS CHARACTER!!! HIS MORALS!!!! THE FACT THAT EVEN THOUGH HES PRETTY COOL (EX HE CLEANS UP THE BROKEN GLASS ON THE STREET IN THE BOOK) HES STILL A GREASER!! IN THE BOOK/MOVIE HE STILL HAS FUN BLOWING STRAWS AT THE WAITRESSES AND CHASING SOME KIDS!!! HE ISNT BETTER THAN EVERYONE HE JUST SEES THE WORLD DIFFERENTLY ANDBWIJAHSOCLLAKEOFKWO PLS YOU GET WHAT I MEAN

I WILL NEVER EVER EVER SHUT UP ABOUT RANDY CAUSE BRO FIGURES IT OUT!!! AND ACTUALLY DOES SMT ABOUT IT!!! HES GOES TO PONY LIKE "this isn't so nifty bro" AND PONYS LIKE "Yeah i know brobro" AND AFTER THAT CONVERSATION RANDY LIKE TRIES TO NOT BE A HORRIBLE PERSON (HE LITERALLY SKIPS THE RUMBLE AND BECOMES A HIPPY) BUT HE STILL DID AWFUL THINGS AND HE KNOWS IT!!! THE NIGHT BOB DIED PLS I NEED TO WRITE OUT MY THOUGHTS ABT HIM ON THE NIGHT BOB DIED CAUSE WHAT PEOPLE FORGET ABOUT RANDY/MUSICAL PAUL IS THAT ***THEY JUST LOST THEIT BESTEST BUD*** THEY ARE ASSHAT TEENAGERS GOING THROUGH SOMETHING TRAUMATIC SPECIFICALLY PAUL IN THE MUSICAL DID NOT FUCKING HANDLE IT IN A GOOD WAY BUT HE DIDNT KNOW WHAT THE FUCK TO DO !!THIS NIGHT HAS OPENED MY EYES BY THE SMITHS AND THINK ABOUT RANDY!!

DARRYL CURTISBWISJOQJSODNIWOQOSPXNWOJXD PLEASE YOU GET IT

CHERRY VALANCE IM GONNA SPECIFICALLY BE TALKING ABT MOVIE CHERRY CAUSE IN THE MUSICAL SHE IS VERY VERY DIFFERENT OKAY CHERRY I LOVE HER SO MUCH I GOTTA SAY SOME STUFF

MOVIE CHERRY-PEOPLE DO HATE HER CAUSE OF SEXISM AND IT ISNT ROGHT BUT HERES THE THING I SEE PEOPLE SAYING THAT SHE DID NOTHING WEONG ANF THAT IS NOT TRUE AND THATS WHY I LOVE HER SO MUCH, MOVIE CHERRY MET PONY AND THEY HAD THAT CONNECTION THEN SHE DOESNT ACKNOWLEDGE HIM AGAIN AND GUES WHAT CHERRY IS A TEENAGER GOING THROUGH SOMETHING TRAUMATIC TOO SHE DOESNT HANDLE IT LIKE A FULL GROWN ADULT BECAUSE SHE ISNT ONE HBWOSJEODOFO CHERRY VALANCE THEY COULD NEVER MAKE ME HATE YOU

IN THE CAST!!! I GOTTA SAY I LOVE EMMA I USE HER VLOGS AS LIKE A SELF CARE TIME, LIKE WHEN SHE POSTS IM USUALLY SUPER STRESSED OUT SO I GET READY FOR BED EARLY SO I HAVE TIME TO RELAX AND WATCH IT IN MY BED AND ITS GRAND I ALSO JUST LOVE HER CAUSE SHES THE ONLY OKE SUPER ACTIVE ON SOCIAL MEDIA I HAVE ACSESS TOO SO I DONT KNOW TOO MUCH ABOUT THE OTHERS THAT I HAVE THE ABAIKITU TO PUT INTO WORDS RN

HQISJPQKSKWMSOKQPSNDPQKOSJD I SCHEDULED MY WHOLE DAY SO ID HAVE TIME TO DO EVERYTHING AND I GOTTA STOP TYPING AND GO DO SHIT BUT PLEASE NOW I HAVE MORE THOUGHTS AND I MAY TALK SBT THEM LATER

(Please i'm watching the outsiders slime today it's scheduled it is IMMINENT I fear I will in fact explode {get ready for so many spam posts while omw watching it help})

[megidoreyn]

Hihi! For the ask meme, perhaps 4, 8 and 14?

Hey there! Aw, thank you for the questions! It's super rare to get asks like these, so it really made my day! 😇🙏

⭐️4. What defines your artistic style?

That's a good question!🤔 (Especially since I don't know how others might perceive my art!) Due to my own visual agnosia as well, it skews my perception of my own works... So I actually end up disliking the grand majority of the things I create tbh🤣 It's hard for me to become cognizant of any strengths due to the weaknesses being highlighted (in my skewed POV) sometimes! But from the comments I have kindly received before, I would say that my art is defined by: clean/polished lineart, round/"squishy" chibis, warm colors, and "an aura of softness/tenderness"! Truthfully, I would love to be known for having a well-rounded and versatile style! As in: switching from a dynamic + appealing full-body style to a charming chibi style with precision and confidence!💪 And in general: I'd like to be known for drawing handsome faces on full-body characters instead of only having a "cute" style tbh LOL

⭐️8. What is your favourite piece that you have done?

Oh man…For a self-critic, this is a tough yet great question too!!😂--There's usually elements of a picture I enjoy working on VS how the overall picture eventually turns out! But looking back at everything I've posted publicly so far on twitter from 2022-2023…I think it'd have to be these! ↓

And a special shout out to this Walter-Lucifer pseudo-fiend character turnaround sheet that started off as a "haha just messing around :^)" sketch but then quickly turned serious 2 days later LOL. I did like incorporating SMT4 Lucifer's Phase 2 wings on him, since the in-game design includes this gradient on the wings too. 😇🙏

⭐️14.What do you like drawing the most?

As a surprise to no one, my favorite thing to draw would be WalterJonathan---both the pairing and the individual characters LOL. There's actually a personal reason for this, but maybe that'll be a story for another time! Whether or not the majority of these (finished/ polished) sketches will ever see the light of day is also to be determined in the future...😂 Despite these canon Satan Husbands going through the many unspeakable horrors they suffer within base SMT4 + SMT4 Apoc's canon (and even the duology of the SMT4 manga's canon too!), I'll always prefer to draw them being sweet with each other...🥺 To at least give them a single soft moment of reprieve that they deserve...!😭🙏

↑ I also enjoy drawing the details of the SMT4 samurai coat/uniform! As well as other things and details like: 💙the SMT protags' COMPs + SMT4 Gauntlet 💙Clothing folds 💙Side profiles 💙Backside angles 💙Painting hair 💙Drawing hands 💙Dynamic chibis + dynamic body language in general (that convey a character's personality)

…and probably some more things I'm forgetting LOL.

💙↑ edit: I forgot how much I like sketching out Pokemon as quick warm-ups + other critters like the MOTHER/Earthbound Mr.Saturns too! It's good practice in understanding different shapes.

Again, thank you so much for the questions!🙏 It was fun to answer these!

⭐️⭐️⭐️It's still 12/31 here in my neck of the woods, so I wish you and everyone reading this a Happy New Year as well!

[teapawty]

hello! if you're reading this-- welcome to my nerdy blog! my name is min (but i also go by a million different nicknames too). here, i just reblog art that i enjoy, various animals, or anything inbetween. my art only blog is over at @yamaminty.

some of my favorite medias right now are: atlus games (devil survivor, SMT, persona, etrian odyssey, radiant historia, etc), novels (redwall, wings of fire, warrior cats-- many more), and honestly way too much to list- :,D if its a good story or a good gameplay, i'll always be down to try something new! i'm also a big nerd for history an archaeology (which i'm currently studying as of this pinned post)!

in my free time, i love to read, explore, and most importantly, draw! it's a hobby i've had ever since i was young and i hope to become even better at it as i grow.

bear in mind, i am terribly shy. nonetheless, i am always open to chat and get to know more about others and their interests. feel free to send me an ask or even a message. during the school months (Jan-May, Aug-Dec) my replies may be a bit late!

[coolritofacts]

Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse: A Strange Journey

Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse (known as SMTIV Final in Japan) is a sequel to the original SMTIV, both of which are 3DS games. It follows an alternate story that begins near the end of the original, where a new protagonist accidentally kicks off a sequence of events that leads to the game playing out completely differently.

It's... not perfect. The gameplay and audiovisual design are not only top-notch for the series, but for RPGs of the time as a whole, but the story fails to execute on its admittedly interesting ideas, and the third act in particular might be the most spectacular way I've ever seen a piece of media completely fumble the bag. This post will be a chronicle/unstructured rant of my entire two-week journey through the game. Spoilers for both SMTIV and Apocalypse will be covered in detail. Strap in: this is going to be a long one.

For those who aren't aware, Shin Megami Tensei is an RPG series that dates all the way back to the 80s. The gameplay involves fighting demons based on mythological gods and beasts, convincing them to join your party, and fusing them together to create stronger demons. Most SMT games take place in a post-apocalyptic version of Tokyo and center around the conflict between those aligned with the ideals of Law and Chaos. The series is best known for its largest spinoff series, Persona, but SMT has so many other increasingly obscure entries and spinoffs that they could probably form an iceberg video with their titles alone.

SMTIV in particular takes place in the year 2038, 25 years after nuclear war ravaged the world. Thanks to a confluence of factors, Tokyo was protected from the war by a giant dome that covered the entire city. A few survivors managed to breach the ceiling and form a new city up there, and since time flows much faster above the dome, an unusual medieval society called the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado, with "Samurais" and a caste system, has had over 1500 relative years to develop by the time the game starts. The cast of SMTIV hails from Mikado, while Apocalypse starts in Tokyo.

Back to the game. I knew a few things about it before I decided to start playing it, the first (and most striking) of which being the protagonist's design:

There's just so much to take in here. His haircut is insane, he's got one pant leg rolled up for seemingly no reason, and the "NO WAR" text on his suit and the peace symbol pin are a good indication of how subtle the game's themes will be. My favorite part, though, are the lyrics to John Lennon's Imagine emblazoned right below the pins. They might be too small to make out here, but trust me, they're there. Also, his name is Nanashi, which literally means "nameless."

After an entire hour of downloading a ROM onto my very real 3DS (accompanied by this completely insane blurb) and trying to figure out how to make the DLC CIA file work, I finally opened the game and was immediately greeted by this:

This shit is SERIOUS. We're going to WAR here.

The game opens with two random guys telling Nanashi (who I gave the hunter codename KILLJOHN, as a reference to my everlasting mission to kill John Lennon) and his childhood friend Asahi that they're too young and inexperienced to join the Hunter Association and become official demon hunters, then tasking them to beat up a couple demons as basic combat practice. Nanashi picks a phone up off the floor, starts killing, some demons, and immediately gets jumped and dies. In the afterlife, a demon called Dagda shows up and brings Nanashi back to life under a contract of complete subservience, then jumps into his phone to help him take down the demons.

With the two random guys dead and nothing else to do, Nanashi and Asahi collect some demons of their own and start doing quests from the Association. One of these almost gets the two killed, but Flynn, the protagonist from the first game, and his friend Isabeau show up to rescue them. Flynn has a major speaking role in this game, which is always cool to see in a sequel.

Throughout the game, you'll be given several dialogue choices that alter Nanashi's alignment. In vanilla SMTIV, these were centered around Law and Chaos and were entirely responsible for which ending you got, but in Apocalypse, they're more focused around being "good" or "evil" and the consequences for which one you choose are a bit different. Since Dagda constantly (and I mean constantly) tells Nanashi to betray his friends and work alone, and most of the "evil" options are Nanashi acting like a total dick to whoever he's talking to, it reminds me a lot of specifically the SnapCube fandub of Shadow the Hedgehog, where The Devil from The Bible repeatedly shows up and tells Shadow to be an asshole and collect Sin Points.

Another fun element of this game is the lore compendium, which contains such things as the entire plot of the first game, an unnecessarily lengthy entry about the preparation and history of fried chicken, and the unrequested information that Isabeau reads yaoi. The fried chicken thing is even lampshaded in-game, just to give an indication of how unserious the game is going to be.

For the gang's next mission, they take a request called "plz stop fight" and travel to the Fairy Forest. Waiting for them is Nozomi, a character from a series of side quests from the first game that's been upgraded to a party member here. Since most of her development already happened in that game, her role in this one is as more of a mentor figure and as a mouthpiece for Dagda's mom, who lent her power to Nozomi so she could carry out her duties as queen of the fairies. She asks Nanashi to take care of King Frost, the king of all Jack Frosts, while unleashing this humdinger of a line:

Your next mission is given to you by some demon guy, who instructs you to go to a really cool waterfall dungeon to unseal a powerful being. With nothing else to do, the gang goes off to do exactly that, and they're greeted by this twink:

He introduces himself as Krishna, leader of the Divine Powers, a group that wants to create a new universe outside of God's grasp so humanity can be free from his constraints. Unfortunately, this means killing everyone in the current universe, so he's gotta be stopped. He starts a war between the Divine Powers, Merkabah (God's chariot) and Lucifer (Lucifer), kidnaps Flynn to use in much the same way as Dagda has with Nanashi, and fucks off to do his own thing. At this point, Dagda drops one of my favorite lines in any video game:

I refuse to believe someone at Atlus wrote this line and unironically thought they were cooking. They are not beating the Shadow the Hedgehog allegations.

The game then gives you two quests and lets you choose which one to do first: clean up the Divine Powers' invasion of the Fairy Forest from earlier, or go to the big tower that leads to Mikado to collect a part for a thing I'll mention in a moment. Both of these lead to boss fights, and I killed both of them in about three turns. SMT has a reputation for being really hard, but if you have enough experience with the series and spend more time nose deep in the fusion calculator than playing the game, it's not too hard to turn any boss in your way into red mist, especially since the first one of the two has a habit of using a skill that guarantees that his next hit will be a critical hit when he already has a status that does the exact same thing.

The second boss of the two is worth talking about a bit more, though. Medusa is a boss returning from the first game, and her encounter here is meant to mirror the one from that game as closely as possible, from the legendarily kickass boss music to the dialogue being nearly the exact same. One line in particular sticks out:

This game has uncensored swears in it, which makes me believe that Medusa just called Nanashi several slurs. You also get a new party member here, but he sucks so I don't feel like talking about him.

This seems like as good a time as any to mention how amazing this game's OST is. SMTIV already had some awesome tunes, and this game naturally carries most of the tracks from there while also adding some unique ones. The entire soundtrack is gold, but some of my personal favorites are the Large Map theme and the Divine Powers battle theme. I'd highly recommend looking these up to accompany your reading if you've already made it this far.

Your next mission is to defeat the Divine Powers' Evil Snake. Joining you is this wonderful gentleman:

This guy goes out of his way to use your turns to attack. This has a high chance of getting you killed in random encounters. He's also almost necessary to kill Evil Snake, since he carries around a spear blessed by God that's super effective against it. I love this guy. The battle against Evil Snake is also pretty interesting; you need to choose the right dialogue options so you don't get wiped. Most major bosses in both SMTIV and Apocalypse do this, but the Evil Snake fights really make you feel like a tactical smart guy for choosing the right options...

...or at least they would if I didn't have a guide at the ready. If there's one thing I regret about this game, it's looking things up on the wiki way too often and ruining some things for myself that I would've liked to see with my own eyes. I needed the alignment guide to make sure my Sin Points were at sufficient levles and a walkthrough to get through the incredibly crankass final dungeon, but I could have survived without the constant wiki diving.

Anyway, after killing the Evil Snake, a couple of creepy old ladies tell you to kill Flynn and the Divine Powers. The gang obviously objects to the former, so they let you skip that part as long as you let "this weird child" (their words, not mine) named Toki follow you along for the ride.

The second she joined my party, she instantly killed an enemy I ran into and then said this. You can't make this shit up. Isabeau also formally joins the party around this point, rounding out a complete set.

The whole squad goes off to fight the Divine Powers, which completely backfires in their face and ends up revealing to the entire party that Nanashi is essentially a corpse being puppeted along at the whims of Dagda. Nobody is happy about this. After the confronration, one of the Divine Powers sets up a barrier that makes everyone in Tokyo unable to summon demons (except Nanashi because he's different). One of the leaders of the Hunter's Association asks you to quell an invasion of Nanashi's home, leading to one of my favorite dialogue choices in the game:

During the invasion, Asahi's dad dies. Womp womp.

While Asahi mourns, the rest of the gang turns their focus to destroying the barrier. To do this, they need to seal five jars that power the barrier through collecting emotions from five of the seven deadly sins, because I guess the Divine Powers couldn't afford all seven. Toki volunteers to do this because she's trained to seal her emotions away, and she gets brain blasted by all five of the sins while she's sealing the jars. After getting through the lust one, she says "I'm too young for this"... and then slightly later, she returns with her mask off and with a habit of calling Nanashi "Master" and openly thirsting over him. This could be generously described as an unorthodox writing decision. Since Asahi starts developing an interest in Nanashi around the same time, this is (to my knowledge) the only SMT game with a genuine love triangle.

On that topic, this seems like a good time to mention a major criticism with the game, that being that it feels more like a cheesy sitcom than a "real SMT game." This is definitely true, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. As I said before, there are like 40 SMT games, so it shouldn't really matter if one of them isn't super dismal and depressing like the rest, especially if the game uses that tone to tell a compelling story. It... doesn't, but that's besides the point. Also, something really funny happened in that dungeon:

Next up: beat up the Divine Powers, for real this time. After getting through a genre staple Fuckass Teleport Maze, you finally get to partake in a formal bout with Krishna, who's probably the hardest boss so far. He loves to stack multiple status effects on your party at once, making it nearly impossible to move at times, while simultaneously tanking your stats and raising his own. If there weren't a party member that blocked status effects, I genuinely don't know how I would have gotten past him. He doesn't even die, either; after you beat him, he just goes "ohhh nooo I've been defeateddd how could this possibly happennnnnn" and fucks off to do some more plotting. Somehow, the entire party is fooled by this expert subterfuge. Flynn is also rescued during this operation, but he's acting a bit freaky.

The next thing you do is infiltrating Mikado for a reason I literally forgot. Since Mikado's Samurai get assigned at the age of 18 and most of the gang distinctly does not look that old, they put on stupid-looking disguises, which leads to Asahi getting totally owned by the angel guarding the gate:

After a bit more work, you finally arrive at the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado. This moment is awesome for both story and meta reasons: the characters are astonished by the fresh air and the feeling of sun on their faces since they've lived under a dome their entire lives, and the player (me) is astonished by being right back at the initial hub area from the first game. The music and visuals are exactly the same, and you get to use all the same facilities and things that the Samurai do. It's a really rewarding and cool feeling after the extended gap between my playing of the two games. As another bonus, Nanashi gets to wear the supremely cool Samurai outfit:

Ignore the green shades. He thinks they look cool.

At this point, Merkabah and Lucifer officially declare war and start trying to beat each other up. To stop them, you need to go through an area from the first game, interspersed with sections of Lucifer's Palace (but not Merkabah's Purgatorium, for some reason). At the center of the area, Merkabah and Lucifer are talking shit to each other, with Flynn sitting in the middle and calling them both poopyheads. At this point, you can side with either Merkabah or Lucifer to get a Law/Chaos bad ending that ends the game early, or kill both of them like the game clearly wants you to. Gaston breaks his heavenly spear and becomes a worse character by replacing it with a normal one, and some other guy does some thing that I don't care about. Once you do that, all of the evil forces of the world are totally dead, so you can go back home and celebrate! Woohoo!

At this point, I came to a realization: I was really invested in this game. Sure, the tone was very different from any other SMT game, but I didn't perceive that as a bad thing. The characters were fun (if a little simple), the plot had set up lots of interesting threads, and the gameplay and vibes were as excellent as ever. I might have even been enjoying myself more than the first game. I went into the comments section of a review to see if other people shared this opinion, and I just ended up disagreeing with most of the reasons people weren't vibing with the game, but I also came to another, much more terrifying realization:

I had stopped to check right before the plot turned into a shitshow. A magnificent one, but a shitshow nonetheless.

Surprisingly, the game doesn't actually end after you beat up Merkabah and Lucifer. At the ensuing party, Flynn reveals himself as a reincarnation of the Evil Snake from earlier and eats the souls of everyone at the party. This would probably be a much more shocking reveal if he didn't spend the entire Merkabah/Lucifer encounter making this face and the game didn't draw attention to it every single time he did.

Once he reveals himself, Evil Snake jumps at Nanashi with intent to kill, but Asahi jumps in front of him to protect him, dying in the process.

I have so many questions. Didn't she know that Nanashi just comes back to life whenever he gets killed because of Dagda? I've died plenty of times throughout the game, so she had to have picked up on that by now. Is she stupid? Well, yeah, she is, but you know what I mean. Also, why can't Dagda just bring her back to life like he does with Nanashi? Is he gonna do that later in the game? Oh, God, he totally is, isn't he? And why does nobody else in the party care!?

The possible explanation for that last point is that Evil Snake just turned into a giant egg that's going to hatch and destroy the universe. Krishna shows up, says "hey bitches I didn't die", and now you gotta deal with them again. Great. At least I got Nanashi a lovely new outfit for his troubles.

The moment you get into the Cosmic Egg, Krishna turns to Toki and says one of the most stranger danger lines I've ever seen:

After that, he extracts the demon living inside Toki's brain (which still has her conscious inside it) and whisks her away to stuff souls into the demon to create new demons, which he will not stop describing as "giving birth". I have no idea how this got past QA and made it into the final game, especially since Toki is fourteen years old. Even more strangely, after traversing the majority of the Cosmic Egg (which looks like this the entire way through, overlay included) and defeating the demon possessing Toki, she just reverts to her personality from before the thing with the jars, implying that the way she acted for half the game was the result of that whole process altering her brain and turning her freaky. They try to insert a character arc of her trying to find inner strength or something after this, but it feels more like someone suddenly telling you about the job interview they just got out of after several hours of showing you Homestuck porn.

After another piss easy bossfight, you finally get to the decision the entire game has been building up to: destroy the Cosmic Egg with the help of your friends to preserve the current universe, or betray your friends and use Dagda's power to create a new universe where humans take back the godlike powers stolen from them by God. Since I pride myself as a comprehensive reporter, I'll be going through both of these routes, starting with...

Pacifist

On the Pacifist route, Dagda's mom shows up and tells him "fuck you, I'm gonna kill you, give me 2000 Macca" and creates another Dagda that's less of an asshole so you can kill the old one. After beating Dagda MKI up, Dagda MKII releases the souls of everyone eaten by the Evil Snake and therefore trapped within the Cosmic Egg, resulting in Asahi coming back to life completely unscathed despite her physical body clearly being eviscerated when she protected Nanashi earlier. Man.

At the end of the Cosmic Egg, you find Krishna waiting with Flynn crucified next to him. He soliloquizes a little more about saving the world, then fuses with Flynn to become Vishnu-Flynn... who I effortlessly destroyed because I accidentally set my difficulty to Conflict instead of WAR and forgot to change it back. Whoops! Also, I'm pretty sure they forgot to translate one of the dialogue options that appears when you fight him.

After defeating Vishnu-Flynn, Flynn separates from Krishna and deals a very anime-looking finishing blow to him. Krishna is sealed away back in that waterfall dungeon, the Cosmic Egg is deactivated and becomes a tourist attraction, and all threats to Tokyo are destroyed, so everyone from both Tokyo and Mikado can return to living peaceful lives. Also, the time dilation in Mikado is removed because the Evil Snake blasted a hole in the ceiling earlier. Sounds like a happy ending for everyone, right? WRONG! An expy of Stephen Hawking appears in the dreams of the entire party and tells them to go kill God, directing them to the universe where he lives, which is one of the most agonizing final dungeons I've ever had to sit through:

What this map doesn't show you is that every single floor here is absolutely gigantic, which, when combined with Nanashi's sluggish walk speed, results in a dungeon that may have genuinely killed me if I didn't have a guide telling me exactly where to go. Throughout the dungeon, you fight clones of Merkabah and Lucifer that God created to beat you up, and then the real Merkabah and Lucifer show up to become SATAN! He is not remotely challenging. Satan creates the door to God's house, and you finally come face to face with the big man himself... or perhaps "face to face to face to face to face to face" would be more accurate.

This is the funniest thing I've ever seen.

This boss is ridiculously hard, for a number of reasons:

Flynn and Isabeau split off from your party to form their own with Jonathan and Walter from the first game, who show up here just to kick God in the pants. You swap between the two parties every turn. This sounds beneficial, but Isabeau is the best partner in the game, so losing access to her for the final boss really stings.

God naturally resists all elements. To counter this, you need to have Flynn use Godslayer's Sword on him, which reduces his defense against a random ailment, and even turns it into a weakness if it hits the same element twice. There's no guaranteeing which element this skill affects, so you might end up giving him a weakness to normal attacks and absolutely destroying him... or a weakness to an element none of your demons can use.

This is a two-phase boss. The first phase is relatively inconsequential, but it does drain your patience and resources before the second phase, which is where shit gets real. He gains a skill that fully buffs all his stats and gives him a very dangerous status, a skill that fully debuffs your entire party's stats and has a chance of blocking you from using skills at all, and a full-party nuclear bomb that pierces affinities and does massive damage. Thankfully, he doesn't tend to use these skills one after the other, but it's still incredibly hard to deal with, especially since Flynn's party has a very limited set of items to work with.

The boss is levle 100, while Vishnu-Flynn was only lv87. I assume they want the player to make up the difference while going through the dungeon, but since this struck me as a massive waste of time, I fought him at around 10-15 levles below what seems to be recommended. I could have fixed this with a bit of grinding, but that's dumb and lame and I didn't wanna do it.

For all of these reasons, I was genuinely unable to do the boss on WAR difficulty and had to step down to Conflict to finish the game. It's a shame, too, because I think the concept of the boss is really cool; you need to have your entire party reject God as a concept by forming a proper understanding of him and thus denying his mysterious power, and once you do this enough, he reverts to just another regular demon that you can take down like any other. It's a pretty awesome fight from a lore standpoint, and it also fits in with absolutely nothing else from the rest of the game. After giving God the old one-two, you get a heartfelt goodbye from the gang as a slideshow of what they've been up to scrolls by, and the credits finally roll.

Ignore the guy with grey hair and the weird green ghost thing, they don't matter. This ending is kind of infamous for being incredibly saccharine and feeling more like a Persona ending than an SMT one, but at this point, I've been through enough shit that I think I've earned it. I shouldn't revel in this for too long, though, because now I have to get through...

Genocide

On the Genocide route, you side with Dagda in order to create a new universe that promotes solitude and personal strength above all else. Unfortunately, this is in direct conflict with your friends' goals, so now you have to kill all of them and harvest their souls so you have the power necessary to create a new universe. I fail to see how this makes you any different from the Divine Powers, but I digress. Hilariously, after killing all his friends, Nanashi says "Dagda" in a much more evil and fucked up way whenever he calls him to pull up the menu. Nanashi and Dagda then walk up to Krishna, tell him to stop yapping and turn into Vishnu-Flynn so they can beat him up, and... I got instantly wiped. Not only is he tougher and seemingly smarter on WAR mode, but you also obviously don't have a partner for this fight and can't reap the benefits of that. I clearly need to do some preparation to take this guy on.

Actually, that relates to something I haven't really gone into yet. Whenever I play an RPG, I have a habit of optimizing my build as much as possible over the course of the game, and SMT is no different A large part of my time with Apocalypse in particular wasn't actually spent playing it; instead, I tend to bury myself in a fusion calculator (basically a chart of every demon and every way you can fuse them together) and refuse to let myself out until I find a way to fuse the exact demon with the exact set of skills I want on it. Occasionally, I'll spend an entire day going through the calculator to find a certain combination without playing the game at all. I have mixed feelings about this habit: it's fun to figure out how to acquire the demon I want and incredibly satisfying when I find a recipe that works, and annihilating a boss with a team specifically created to exploit their weaknesses is ridiculously gratifying, but it's usually unnecessary, greatly increases the amount of time I spend on the game, and sometimes leads to me finding out about certain plot-relevant demons before I wanted to. In any case, once I found a combination of demons that was suitable to take down Vishnu-Flynn (which included Shiva, ironically enough), he went down without a sweat.

Dagda then tells Nanashi that he needs a "goddess" to properly recreate the universe. This goddess can be any of the party members you just killed (or Asahi), regardless of gender, and Dagda will bring back the one you choose as a puppet and consume the rest to fuel his new universe. He also possesses Flynn for good measure. I chose Isabeau because she has the best skills and she's a pretty woman. Oddly, Flynn essentially turns into a walking corpse who only exists to serve Nanashi, but whoever you choose as your goddess seemingly has their sanity totally intact. However, things aren't over just yet, since there's one man standing in the way of your path to godhood: the Creator God himself.

Since you actually have an impetus to kill God on this route, Stephen mostly just appears to tell you where he's at and how to do it. Once I made a pit stop to pick Krishna up from the waterfall dungeon and wiped out the Secular Press, I went back to God's Universe for a rematch against the big man. The return trip was about as interesting as the first; I tried to do some of the DLC quests, but they whooped my ass and pissed me off in equal measure, so I kept my distance and went straight to the boss with my squad:

Fighting God at lv99 on WAR mode gave me much more of an appreciation for how fun the fight is. On the Genocide route, the second party consists of only Flynn and Satan, but that's hardly an issue since Satan has ridiculous health and stats and every skill you would want him to have. Instead of your friends rebuking God's pity, you have to choose the right dialogue option to disavow him and progress the fight (or at least I think; I'm not sure what getting these wrong actually does). With proper preparation, the first phase is essentially free, meaning you get to the second phase (the fun part) much more often, which is as much of an assclench as ever. He's still incredibly hard for an enemy you're expected to fight in the main game, but I thoroughly enjoy everything about the fight from both a gameplay and lore perspective, especially on this route. Once you sufficiently kick God in the pants, Nanashi takes his seat at the Throne of Creation, Stephen Hawking warns him that more messiahs will come to fight him off the throne which is clearly a teaser for SMTIV3, Dagda vanishes into the cosmos to watch over their new universe, and the credits roll.

Honestly, I vastly prefer this to the Pacifist route. The act of killing your friends and possessing Flynn for your own benefit makes you feel like a bit of a dick without hamming it up for shock value too much, and actually having a reason to go to God's house and punch him in the teeth makes the ending feel a lot more natural. Also-- and this might make me sound like a psychopath-- I didn't realize how much I didn't want my friends screaming into my ear until they were all dead. That one YouTube comment I saw once was right; the best part of this game really is getting to kill your annoying ass party members. There's also a DLC where you collect the protagonists from the other games to fight Stephen Hawking, but I couldn't even get past the first phase to get to the second one where he stands up and becomes obscenely difficult.

Conclusion

Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse is not a perfect game. I probably wouldn't go as far as to say it's a great game, and it's definitely worse than the original. That being said, I still had a lot of fun with it. There are a fair few genuinely novel ideas hidden behind the shaky execution, and the gameplay is absolutely phenomenal, even compared to other entries in the series. I also can't help but feel like I learned a lot about myself and how I consume games during my time with it.

I have a very particular way of playing most games. I'll usually wait until a game has been out for a while so I know what to expect and I can get it on sale, or, in the case of older games, I simply pirate it. I collect all of my preexisting knowledge on the game and go "okay, this is what everyone likes and dislikes about this thing, let's see what genuine value I can find in the good and ironic value in the bad". If I'm worried about getting something wrong during my playthrough, I find a walkthrough and follow it to a T. I report amusing happenings or interesting observations about the game in a Discord thread, and by the end, I come out with the lives of me and a couple others enriched by the experience, no matter what flaws the game may have. I am a strong believer that (almost) any game has value waiting to be found, no matter how rocky its surface may be.

SMTIVA completely broke this system. The game shattered all expectations I had for it in both good and bad ways, the walkthrough and relentless wiki-diving led to my playthrough becoming much slower and somewhat artificial, and my need to report on every single facet of the game dragged things out even more and led to me doing some things that I absolutely wouldn't bother with on a solo playthrough. My philosophy of every game having something to enjoy hasn't changed, but perhaps I should spend less of that time carefully planning out how to go through the game and what to say about it and more of it just... playing the game. As a result, this might be the only post I make in this format, or at least the only one nearly this long. I still like the idea of writing reviews here for games I finish playing, but I'll try to keep it to just a few paragraphs instead of nearly six thousand words.

In conclusion: play Shin Megami Tensei. It's based as hell. Persona, too, for that matter; regardless of how much I rag on it, that series contains my favorite games of all time. And no matter what you choose to play or how you choose to play it, remember to have as much fun as you possibly can. That's what video games were made for, after all. Before I leave, though, I have one more word of wisdom for all of you:

Nice

[codysworld27]

You mentioned in a post that you joined the eddsworld 5 years ago, how did you find about this hellhole?

Well, next month it'll be 6 years since I've joined the eddsworld fandom.

When I was oh but a young lad I basically was always the weird kid because I enjoyed to be online rather than to socialize with people around me because I couldn't comprehend relationships (turns out it was autism but okay. Also, I got diagnosed with autism like 4 months before joining the fandom but okayyy) so I actually had seen some eddsworld content before (mostly through Tomska because that man raised me) but like I never jumped into it simply because I didn't feel like it.

In 2018 I had to move schools due to bullying and segregation (getting an autism diagnosis while studying in a very conservative christian school ain't a good idea) so I was in a new school and wasn't doing very well and it was sixth grade and honestly I was miserable af. Due to that I spent most of my time at the school's nurse or counselor office to avoid the noise and beatings during recess.

Well, there I would meet three gals who would become my first ever friends, we bonded over all of us being weird in our own way (turns out the four of us have autism) and we became very close.

On the 23th of August 2018 I was with high fever, I had gotten really sick but had exams so I had to assist school anyways, I entered the counselor's office and there the three of them were huddled watching something. I asked what they were watching and they told me it was eddsworld and that I should watch it.

I decided yeah sure why not and those three bastards showed me the end part fucking 2 as the first eddisode.

Like dude I did not understand a SINGLE FUCKING THING BUT I LIKED IT, like, I liked the animation, the characters (specially Tom, the moment I saw those eyes my brain activated and all I thought was omg 2D from Gorillaz) and all, so after that I started watching the series on my own.

I created my first ever eddsworld drawing that same day! While sweating profusely and sneezing so much I couldn't breath at times.

I was so fucking proud of this badboi.

I really got obsessed over eddsworld, to the point of me learning fluent English so I could read fanfiction about it, it didn't help that right after my birthday (about 4 days after finding out about eddsworld) I got even sicker so I had to rest for two entire weeks because I had a pneumonia or smt IDR... So basically I was bedridden so I used up all of that time to watch eddsworld, read fanfics and browse fanart.

That's also when I found out about Tumblr.

Honestly I'm glad I found out about eddsworld when I did because before I did I was so depressed I actually was planning to unalive myself at Halloween cuz it was my favorite Holliday but eddsworld gave me a reason to continue and thrive so in a way I... Owe my life to this stupid show.

[hotsuqueen]

For the ask game, I've seen you post about Persona, so how about Arisato Minato? Or Yuuki Makoto I guess, if you prefer his canon name?

Thank you so much for the ask!

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | secret third thing? | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite 

Persona 3 FES was my very first SMT game and Minato will always hold a special place in my heart! The first fanfic I ever wrote was actually a Minato/Kazuya Minegishi crossover fic LOL

I find his design super appealing and I once cosplayed a rule 63 version of Minato before P3P introduced Minako, so I own a replica of his headphones. I love him very much!

[kotoneshiomiofficial]

RAVEN. IT/SHE. 21.

[plain text: raven. it/she. 21.]

genderfluid trans woman and aroace lesbian

do not call me man, dude, etc. no masc terms

please tag bugs, insects, and spiders

bigots of any kind along with pro/ship or anti/antis will be blocked

into armored core, guilty gear, persona/smt, metal gear, tarot, and other stuff

my mains are +r order-sol and strive ramlethal

kotone shiomi persona 3 portable is my favorite character ever. i love posting about her. ask me about her at your own peril

blog theme by @/xuethms, icon by @/a-sketchy, and banner credit to @/kroosluvr

that's all! have fun <3

[dykeyote]

💔 + 🎥 for tpo or rgu (or both!!)

also maybe 📜 for rgu cause i’m trying to get into it

i assume u mean tpp bc idk what else tpo would be tho i may be being stupid ...... so i will do both bc i like to talk >:)

one of my least favorite characters from penumbra and why: oh god i really cannot stand mick mercury . i really cant . i just really dont like himbo characters or anything adjacent ..... unless its handled INSANELY well or in a really new and compelling way i just Do not like cis guy characters where the whole thing is that theyre like incompetent and dumb and thats their main thing and often feels like their Only thing i just Do not like it they immediately get on my nerves and i dont like his voice either so whenever hes on the show i am Displeased ...... theres interesting aspects to him and idk i get why people like him i suppose but i cannot stand him . at all . he just is like the biggest example of a trope i really hate </3

one of my least favorite characters from rgu and why: this ones tricky because like .... i like most of the characters that dont do awful shit . like i can be like "oh i hate akio" and ur gonna be like yeah duh ......

fav scene from penumbra: i did this a while ago in this post but ill also throw in one that i forgot which is that i do quite like juno and cassandra's interactions in murderous mask also .... its quite entertaining and puts an interesting lens on both characters . and also theyre both really fucking funny

fav scene from rgu: okay like.... there are many INSANELY good scenes in rgu . so beautiful so cool so fucking thought provoking it is an AMAZING show . however ngl the scene i think and talk the most abt (i literally was talking abt this to my friend the other day who was thinking abt watching it) is the goddamn scene in the dub (idk what its like in the sub i havent seen it i might after i finish watching the dub thru bc i struggle w paying attntion to captions) where they like . show this like triple angle shot of utena and all the girls are staring at her with heart eyes and shit and then they go in the silliest fucking anime dub voice "Shes So Cool" when it is so obvious that they all want to say shes smoking hot and they need her rn . love that scene . i think abt it all the time . its so funny . why would u censor the lesbians of ohtori academy which is apparently all the girls ever

plotline of rgu and what kind of media it is: revolutionary girl utena is a late 90s anime that was heavily influential on the anime that came later and on animation in general (: the plot surrounds utena tenjou, a teenage girl (ish . her relationship to gender is VERY complex and she is at the very least clearly butch to me . bigender utena 4eva) who wants to be a prince and who is sort of unintentionally drawn into a duel for (among other things) the hand of the rose bride, anthy himemiya, a teenage girl with some magical capacities who is treated more as an object than a person by those who want to win her. utena wins the duel, and continues to have to defend her spot as champion despite not particularly Wanting anthy to treat her as her owner and bride-to-be. things obviously spiral down and get way more complicated from there but thats the basic synopsis of the beginning without spoiling later stuff (: (and obligatory warning for anyone intrigued by that that it gets very heavy later on check the warnings ideally on smt besides does the dog die bc there is a Large amnt and imo the does the dog die doesnt really cover them properly or explicitly explain how intrinsically tied to the narrative some of said warnings Are)

[blazingphantasm]

Wait who’s Spix?

Hiya, uhh, that’d be me. An idiot obsessed with their little fandoms. I also make games, but uhh, those take forever. I also make music for those games, but uhh, I usually forget to upload those works in an easily accessible form. You probably don’t care a bit about me or my blog and that’s completely understandable! But I’ll spew some self promotion anyways:

YouTube, itch.io

My other less noteworthy accounts are easily linked to these, you’ll find ‘em no problem. It’s scary how easily these all connect isn’t it? Anyways… go along with your day!

Still here? ...really?

um ok those scary labels:

- transgender

- non-binary

- demi-girl

- panromantic

- homosexual

- gay

- lesbian

you can go harass me over this shit now

ok fine the fandoms im into (currently):

- im making a metroid fangame but i dont often post about the series

- shin megami tensei, has my favorite way of handling angels and demons in any media. also the best fucking jrpg series ive touched. (only touched 4 tho lol: smt as mentioned, final fantasy, dragon quest, and the obligatory pokemon)

- SPLATOON MY BELOVED IDOL SQUID KIDS

- SONIC THE HEDGEHOG LIVE AND LEARN FUCKERSSS

- UNDERTALE, AND OFC DELTARUNE TOO DUH

- MEGA MAN!!! but mostly x and zero series + archies take on classic. oh also the protomen but thats an aside (i dont like the classic games that much. im sorry ok. i played through 1, 2, 3, and 7 and like they were like ok.)

- oh how could i ever forget fnaf? well its here now. not as in it as i used to be but its coming back with a vengeance

- oh and who could forget… (mutuals you knew this one was coming…) HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK HOMESTUCK (fuschia blood, prospit sway, mage of heart if you were curious)

- i played through and finished portal 2 how did i not add that here before anyways i love wheatley

- bonus thing for tma fans, my friends assigned me as avatar of the web and it totally fits

um blorbos too why not (and some ranting for certain ones because favoritism):

- protoman (the archie comics… im literally crying), ZERO (he is literally my perfect character… other than the constant death fakeout thing yeah thats probably why i like the zero series’ story better than the x series’) [mega man]

- sonic (but like- but also… its complicated.), shadow (hes the coolest thing alive also a bunch of other stuff but uh ill save that for another time), silver, BLAZE [sonic the hedgehog]

- kris (the gender envyyy THE GENDER ENVYYYY), frisk, chara, susie, undyne, mettaton, berdly (what do you mean he reminds me of a certain someone? no he doesnt he doesnt at all no thats such a weird claim to make it could never be true), jevil, spamton [undertale/deltarune]

- wheatley (he is such a moron i love him) [portal]

- june egbert (ngl my friend assigned me as her and like… you know what maybe i also do kin her kinda), dave strider (what no i dont have a crush on dave strider no i dont like him at all no thats absurd what accusations are you making stop that no), JADE HARLEY, jack noir b1, sollux captor, karkat vantas, nepeta leijon, kanaya maryam, terezi pyrope, VRISKA SERKET (i stan her vriska did everything and nothing wrong), roxy lalonde, dirk strider [homestuck]

- im still missing a bunch probably

…still want more? wow you must be obsessed with me or something… im flattered 😏

too bad thats all the info youll get on me! hah! (unless you wanna like scrounge my blog for iddy tidbits like a creep)

ok idk have this tag for stuff i maek