#no fucking idea but this dlc better come out soon so i can think if something better

[raventrigonsdaughter]

"Aloy may have met her match" OH?!?!?!? GAY?!?!?!?!? GAYLOY CANON

[desceros]

Bro, you have no idea how FAST I turnd my VPN on when I saw the notification... (ao3 isn't working in my country, haha)

This was gooood, I genuinely cried (fuck you, affectionately)

I have no idea what dredge is, the only information I have is your explanation. But god, how I want to play this game now! First, because I want to understand your fic better, and second, because it sounds really interesting!

I think I'll buy and play this game as soon as I'll finish my last playthrough in bg3. Which isn't soon, but still.

So, yes! Thank you for this absolutely delicious piece of art and for inspiration for a new gaming experience!

P.S. You mentioned that you don't doing well irl, so I hope things will get better soon! Don't overwork yourself! ❤❤❤

oh noo!!! i'm sorry to hear that. at least you have a temporary solution D:

i think my general feedback so far is that the fics are enjoyable without a knowledge of the game (which is usually my goal if i'm doing an au for something a bit more obscure), but i do of course recommend you pick it up. i've seen it on sale once or twice, and i wouldn't be surprised if one happens soon given there's a new dlc coming out for it soon!

anywho, thank you so much!! i'm doing okay! i'm just. very, very, very busy irl right now to the point where i don't really have much time to do much of anything but work :') it's soul-sapping not to write every day, so i'm hoping i'll get finished with things soon and things can get back to normal hhhhh i miss writing and having everyone come into my inbox and yell about things!!

[venkidu]

Master Detective Archives: Revival Code

Summary: You awaken in an unknown location with a splitting headache, no memories, and a fuzzy blue ghost who calls himself "Yakou Furio”. What the actual hell is going on?

Rated M for language and canon-typical violence

Cross-posted on Ao3

*CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ALL OF "MASTER DETECTIVE ARCHIVES: RAIN CODE" AND ITS ACCOMPANYING DLC*

Chapter 0, Part A

It hurts.

Everything hurts.

Your stomach. Your limbs. Your back. Your head.

Pain.

You don’t even want to open your eyes, but you hear a voice, a male voice, coming from above you.

“When the contractee awakens, they may be physically and mentally disoriented. This may cause them to feel overwhelming panic, sadness, or in some cases, anger…yeah, I’d be feeling all of that too…”

You crack one eye open, as slowly and as slightly as possible. You can’t locate who the voice belongs to, but it appears you’re indoors somewhere, judging by the presence of a lighting fixture directly above you.

“Be sure to re-introduce yourself and explain your position as soon as your contractee is awake. Be patient, as their memories may be extremely foggy, even those that they were meant to keep. For tips on aiding your contractee in identifying themselves, turn to page 356…geez, this manual is bigger than I expected.”

You sigh inwardly. All this talk of memories and manuals and contracts has admittedly has you curious, so you sit up and open your eyes.

You regret it immediately.

Standing (floating?!) in front of you is a blue…ghost?!

At least you think it’s a ghost. Whatever it is, you can see right through it.

You had originally wanted to give yourself time to evaluate the situation before whoever possessed the voice you had been hearing noticed you were awake, but you’re way too freaked out by the presence of A GHOST, AN ACTUAL FUCKING GHOST, to maintain any semblance of calm.

You let out a surprised yell and sit up, immediately trying to scramble backwards and away from the figure in front of you.

“Oh, hey, Master! You’re awake! My name is- whoa!”

The ghost floats toward you until you whip the book laying next to you at it.

It passes right through it.

“Stop screaming, I’m really not gonna-ACK!”

The bag you found passes right through the ghost as well.

“Okay, I have an idea!” the blue blob zooms over to the corner furthest from you. “I’ll stay right over here where you can see me, and we can start again! Sound good?”

You pause. Being stuck in a location that you don’t know, with potentially limited memories, and a ghost doesn’t “sound good” but, it doesn’t seem like you have any other options.

You take a deep breath in and slowly exhale, trying to get the tension to leave your shoulders. “Okay,” you nod.

“Great! Well, Master, my name is Yakou Furio!” the ghost announces, pointing to himself.

“Yakou…Furio…” you repeat back.

“Yep! Former detective, current Death God!”

“A Death God?!” Oh, this is worse, this is SO MUCH WORSE than you imagined.

“Actually…Death-God-in-training,” he chuckles nervously, rubbing the back of his…head? Body?

His form is oval-shaped and blue, with a wispy, fluttery tail; small horns protrude from the top of his head, where a small, black crown is also perched. They’re faint, but it looks like Yakou’s wearing some type of round, blue eye-wear. His outline has a vaguely fuzzy look to it. A ghostly cigarette sticks out from his mouth.

“Do all Death Gods look this…?” you ask, scooting slightly closer to take a better look despite your anxiety.

He appears to shrug. “Probably. I’ve only ever met one other Death God. I have another form too, but I’m not sure you’ll get to see it, which is a shame, I’m quite handsome,” he chuckles with a wink.

You laugh weakly.

“Enough about me though, Master, tell me about you!”

He starts to float around you, but maintains a respectable distance.

“Uhm, well, my name is…uh…”

“Aw geez,” he sighs, rubbing the back of his head. “You don’t remember your name? I’m really sorry, it was my first time performing a pact on my own, I probably screwed it up.”

“I-it’s okay!” you say, waving your hands in front of you. “I heard you reading a manual and the manual said this might happen!”

“True, it did say that was a possibility. Boy, you sure are awfully calm right now,” he observes.

“Well, what good would freaking out do? Plus, you…don’t seem so scary for a Death God.”

“In training,” Yakou adds.

“Right.”

“So, your name? You don’t remember it?”

You shake your head.

Yakou holds a hand up to where you assume his chin would be. His tail begins to twitch, almost like a foot tapping.

“Oh! That bag you threw at me! Maybe that’s yours!” he zooms over to where the satchel was chucked in the corner and moves to pick it up.

“Oh, right,” he mumbles, staring at his translucent hands.

You can’t help but giggle. “I appreciate the effort. Is it hard, being a Death God?” you ask, shakily pushing yourself up and shuffling over to the bag.

“In training! But I’m not really sure yet. I haven’t done any godly things so far. I still struggle with the whole ‘ghost’ aspect of it though.”

He takes a swing at a nearby shelf, as if to showcase his arm passing through the structure.

“Understandable, that’d probably freak me out too,” you mutter as you dig through the bag.

You pull out a wallet and find some sort of identification card sitting in the front pocket.

“Does this look like me?” you ask, holding the card out for Yakou to inspect once you’ve studied it.

Yakou leans in and takes a drag from his ethereal cigarette.

“I think so? Looks like you’ve grown your hair out a bit since this photo was taken, but nothing else really stands out to me.”

“So that’s my name, this is me,” you mutter, staring at the card again.

“Is there anything else you remember?”

You scrunch up your face in concentration.

Think.

THINK.

…

“Nope, not a thing,” you sigh.

You stretch the bag open even further and peer into it. Chapstick, some granola bars, a half-drunk bottle of water. Nothing that is remotely helpful to figuring out your identity, but potentially helpful in your current physical situation.

You sit back on your heels and sigh.

“Nothing?” Yakou asks.

“Nothing,” you confirm.

You take a look at the room around you. Metal shelves line the walls, crammed with all sorts of things - crates of cleaning supplies, boxes piled high with garments, luggage, you think you even see an actual robot.

But nothing that hints at your identity or where you are or how you ended up here in the first place.

“Damn, I didn’t think the effects of the contract would hit you this hard,” Yakou mumbles, rubbing the back of his head.

“You keep mentioning a contract,” you inquire. “What did I sign exactly?”

Yakou sighs and turns away from you. “I wish I could tell you, Master, but, that would be a major rule violation.”

“Death gods have rules?”

“Yeah, especially when they’re going through training - and I’m gonna be upfront with you, Master: my boss terrifies me to my very core. I’d hate to have you deal with her, especially if I did something stupid that caused her to feel the need to appear.” He appears to shudder.

“Well, is there anything you can tell me?”

Yakou takes another drag from his cigarette.

“All I can say is that in order to gain access to my powers, you had to give up something of value. And as I’m sure you can tell by the state of that bag you’re holding, you don’t have a lot of physical possessions, if you catch my drift.”

You glance at the bag and something clicks inside your mind. You slowly raise your unoccupied hand up to the side of your head.

“Yakou…did…did I trade my memories for your power?”

He nods. He looks like he feels sorry for you.

You feel your eyes begin to water as you stare down at the floor.

Breathe. Breathe. Why can’t you breathe?! You feel your whole body shaking as you sink down onto your knees and dig your nails into your thighs in an attempt to ground yourself.

Yakou looks down at you sadly.

You remind him of someone…someone he thinks he maybe knew a long time ago…you have the same eyes as them, eyes full of fear.

He gently reaches out. He knows what he is. And he knows he can’t touch you.

But he’s going to try anyways.

His spectral hand reaches up and pets your head.

You flinch at feeling…something…brush against your hair.

You look up.

Yakou gives you a cheerful grin as he strokes your hair.

“I know this all seems really scary, but you have a detective-turned-Death God on your side, Master! Who better to keep you safe and help you figure all of this out?!”

You take a deep breath.

In.

And out.

And despite the lack of memories and full situational awareness, there’s something about Yakou that makes you believe in what he’s telling you.

You manage to return Yakou’s smile.

“Okay, Yakou. I trust you.”

His spectral smile grows even bigger, and you can’t help but laugh as he does a little mid-air loop-de-loop as well.

“Well, I guess we should figure out where we are right now,” you suggest.

You slowly push yourself up and off the floor and head towards the door.

“Oh, wait! Grab the book!” Yakou calls out to you. He’s pointing to a corner of the room where the book you chucked at him now lays.

You walk over to where he’s pointing and pick up the thick tome - the cover is made of a well-worn purple leather with gold embellishments. A large pink gem is embedded in the center of the cover and a leather strap with a tarnished yellow clasp holds the book shut.

“Is this mine?” you ask, turning the book over in your hands.

“Sort of. That book is where my boss and I reside until someone calls on us. And since you and I have entered a service pact, you could argue that the book is now technically yours for the time being.”

“Fascinating,” you reply. You go to tuck the book into your bag when a piece of white paper flutters out from in between the pages.

“What’s this?” you ask, bending down to grab it.

Yakou hovers over your shoulder as you study the piece of paper.

A logo of some kind is printed in red in the top left-hand corner. Stretching across the top of the page is a banner that reads “AMATERASU EXPRESS”.

Underneath the banner, in plain black text, are the words “Amaterasu Express Ticket - One Way - Express Service - Kanai Ward”.

“What does any of this mean?” you mutter. “What is Kanai Ward?”

You turn to look at Yakou. His mouth is slightly open, and his white, pupil-less are wide.

“Yakou?” you ask. “Are you okay?”

“I…I think I know Kanai Ward,” he gasps. “I think I’m from Kanai Ward.”

“Oh, it’s a place? Wait, hold on, you think you’re from there? Did our pact take your memories too?!”

Yakou shakes his head (body). “No, our pact has nothing to do with my memories, just yours.”

You gently chew on your thumb nail as you ponder this revelation. “You mentioned that you used to be a detective. And you confidently recited what I’m assuming is a first and a last name. I wonder if that all comes from a past life, from before you became a Death God! Do you remember anything else?!”

Yakou once again lifts his hand to his chin and twitches his tail rhythmically.

After a moment, he shrugs sadly. “Not a thing. I don’t even remember dying. I just remember meeting Boss-Lady.”

You resume your study of the ticket. “Well, if this ticket to Kanai Ward came from a book that I had in my possession when we made our pact, and you think you lived in Kanai Ward, maybe we’ll both recover our memories if we go there!” you suggest.

“That’s not a bad idea!” Yakou replies.

“Then let’s go!” you finally push the door open and glance behind you as you pass through the doorway.

“Oh, it’s a lost-and-found,” you observe, noticing the plaque on the wall. “That explains all of the random junk in there. Not sure how I ended up in there, though. I don’t suppose you could fill in that blank for me?” you ask Yakou hopefully.

“No can do, sorry,” the blue blob replies, exhaling a small cloud of smoke.

“Attention passengers departing this station direct to Kanai Ward aboard the Amaterasu Express,” a robotic voice rings out from above. “Please board immediately. The train will depart soon.”

You glance at Yakou in alarm.

“Run!” he yells.

And you do.

[wardenswateringhole]

I'm a relatively new follower so unfortunately I don't know a ton about what to ask that'd work for you, but MAN can I relate to needing to talk or be asked something by someone when you're in that kind of high anxiety state... I'm really really sorry you're experiencing that and I hope it passes soon 🫂🩷🩵

As for a question and invitation to infodump to help, hmm... how about: what's a pokemon design you really like that you could talk a lot about? If that's a question you find interesting of course lol.

Oh honey. You know not what you have wrought. Though I'm going to go with pokemon I dislike instead. There are far too many I adore to talk about.

*pulls up a podium and sets up a display*

So I've been around since the original 151. Back when Pikachu was a tubster.

It was obviously new territory on the gaming scene. It was just a critter collecting and battling game and of course not much thought other than what kids would find cool were put into the designs of the Pokemon.

As the generations continued, people began to try and assign rules to a Pokemon's design. Like what made a pokemon a pokemon. I actually remember a complaint that pulled me away from gen 5 was that the Pokemon designs were terrible and didn't look like pokemon should.

(I have since learned those people were full of shit and I was a fool for skipping gen 5)

While do believe there is probably a set of rules that game freak has to ensure a Pokemon's design coalesces with the rest of the roster, it does feel like there are exceptions.

and I fucking hate them.

I love the majority of pokemon designs. The ones that don't immediately click usually grow on me. But dammit all there are some that I hate with such a flipping passion that I cannot bring myself to even consider catching them and adding the to my party.

Let's get the easy ones out the way.

ALL THE ULTRA BEASTS.

You heard me. I hate those fuckers. Not only are they so different that it makes my ocd scream, but I overall just hated the idea of them in general. it freaked me out terribly. Something about the idea of pokemon from another dimension being so much more violent than the Pokemon native to the normal pokemon universe suddenly crossing over and running amok bothered me so badly when I was younger. I still hate it to this day and could not tell you why.

(Most if not all ultra beasts were designed by the ONLY American pokemon designer on gamefreaks team. That same artist has been responsible for some of the more disliked designs. Not their fault, The higher ups just seem to have terrible taste.)

CHEWTLE

Fucking hate this abomination. The design feels so damned lazy. Also looks like something from Chalkzone than Pokemon. I abhor catching this thing. They get my shittiest ball and camps out in my box until I decide to actually evolve it.

CALYREX

AHHHHHHH!!! Oh sweet Arceus I cannot tell you badly my blood boils when I look at this idiotic thing. I did not get the DLC just because I hate this design so badly. It could have been done so much better but no.

MOST OF THE PARADOX POKEMON FROM VIOLET

It's not that I hate their designs but the idea they represent. The future they foretell feels so dismal. Devoid of life and cold as metal. I actually feel depressed when I look at them. If there were more organic features to them I think I'd like them alot more.

I think I can leave it here. These are the ones that immediately come to mind and thus are the most hated. There are other topics I could crow about but I think this was enough and helped me a lot. Thank you so much for sending this ask.

[nmarfo]

Opening Night Live kinda sucked

I'm back with one of these cause why the fuck not. Gamescom is another big show that Geoff Keighly hosts, where there's usually some cool stuff, but MAN. all of the games besides the ones I'm about to mention here didn't look appealing to me.

Also, I'll just start off with this. Geoff, you have got to get better security, my friend. How has a dude twice now got on stage and said something? Granted they were both harmless, but pattern recognition tells me something bad might happen soon.

Anyways, let's start off with the 1st hype thing, which was Tekken 8!

Once again, I don't play fighting games, but honestly, this and Street Fighter 6 are VERY much tempting me too. They showed off a new mode called Arcade Quest, which seems to be making up for the idea that Tekken 8 is not being put in arcades, and honestly it looks great. That being said, we also have 32 character roster and 6 more were revealed. all of whom are returning. Yoshimitsu, Steve Fox, Sergei Dragonov, Leo, Shaheen and Kuma, who seems to take up some of Heihachi's move set. Honestly, I still think young Heihachi will at least be some form of DLC, cause with canon in that case, who gives a shit?

Honestly, given that so many of these characters are from Tekken 5 and 6, and Leroy Smith is coming back, I'm surprised they didn't include Lidia Sobieska, given how popular she seemed to be. Also still no Alisa, which kinda sucks up hey, I can have hope.

Image Credit: @kittymiya (Commishion her if you can, her art is amazing)

Onward to Mortal Kombat 1, where we got 2 new characters announced, the returning Sindel and Shao Kahn, or in this case General Shao, as well as Kameo's for Motaro from MK3, and Shujinko, from Mortal Kombat Deception/Unchained.

They did also announce a board game mode, which looks cool, but Mortal Kombat 1 feels like it might be a bit lacklustre, especially given that Tekken 8 and Street Fighter 6 are really packed with a bunch of game modes outside of the story mode. We'll see if they manage to pull it off, and I am looking forward to the story, but IDK I just feel like there might be not a lot there.

Up next, anime in GranBlue Fantasy Relink. I honestly don't have much to say on this other than it looks cool, and I'll probably pick it up when I get the chance, cause I know nothing about GranBlue.

The other thing that I saw that I might be interested in was Wukong, which looks very cool! I might play it when it comes out, cause action games are fun.

Anyways, on to the last thing, Hoyoverse showed up with a bunch of stuff, all of which I'm going to talk about.

First up, Genshin showed up with a trailer to promote the current update. I've finished the story that is currently in the game, and it's honestly really good, and I'll be writing about it for my main site soon! The big thing here though is that they announced a consort tour, which is awesome! I'm hoping to attend the one in London if I have enough money.

Up next, they showed a trailer for Fu Xuan in Honkai Star Rail. I don't really have anything to say here, but I'm Star Rail still looks very cool!

The big thing I want to talk about personally is Zenless Zone Zero, which got another trailer to show off things they have been working on over the past year.

They showed off 3 new areas they are working on adding to the game, a new hangout sorta mechanic where you're protag can hang out with different characters, as well as minigames and new mechanics, such as an offence and defence assist. I've been a big fan of Hoyo's games since Genshin really showed off what they can do, and I personally can't wait to see where this takes them.

But yea. that's everything. Honestly, this is the 1st time in a while it feels like one of these shows by Geoff Keighley has not been worth it, which I guess is a good thing, but hopefully, some more cool stuff shows up at TGS, where it's gonna be pretty hard to disappoint me I think.

I'll probably show some work works in progress and also maybe talk about Bandai Namco later this week(cause where the fuck did all the anime properties go), but for now, have a good rest of your day. Bye!!

[sleepymarmot]

Opened Skyrim thinking "I have to finish the fucking Dawnguard DLC" and found out that apparently all I had left to do was the final confrontation.

Okay, I travel to the vampire castle and mostly stay out of the fight against vampire mooks because in a game with friendly fire, no health bars, and desaturated dark visuals, it's very hard to tell which of these NPCs I'm supposed to shoot at.

In a few minutes I get to the final boss's room. He and Serana start bickering; I soon lose my patience and shoot at him with my crossbow. He summons like one or two weak adds, and the fight is over within a minute. With some amount of vindication, I finally dismiss Serana from the party: "I don't think [my adventures]'ll involve you". The NPCs say lines that clearly wrap up the quest, and I thin: that's all? How anticlimactic. Why did I even go on a whole quest to get that bow if all I needed to do with it was to shoot one arrow at a bubble? I thought I was supposed to do something epic to the sun.

I go google if there's anything else to do. Turns out, I can cure Serana from vampirism. The first guide I come across tells me I can talk to her about it "shortly after the battle". But by that time, she has long walked out of the room she was in. I go to Fort Dawnguard and look for her everywhere, but she isn't there yet (and neither is Isran, for that matter) even after I take a nap and more people return.

I check UESP and it says "once you've have left Harkon's room". Fine, I reload. The quest page also says "It is possible, if the Sneak skill is high enough and with high enough sneak attack damage, to kill Harkon during his dialogue with Serana without any major combat", so I do just that and shoot him during the first line of the conversation and not fifth. The fucker dies to two or three bolts from my crossbow (improved to the level of Legendary 25). I don't even need to swap to Auriel's bow.

I try to talk to Serana inside the room. Three unrelated dialogue options. I walk out and wait for her to walk out too. Same options. I invite her back into my party. The option to talk about curing vampirism appears. I click on one of them, and she immediately refuses to talk about this further. UESP says "Unless you pick a self-centered response, she will immediately leave to see Falion for a cure". I didn't think the option I picked was self-centered, but I try another one anyway. Same result.

The explanation seems to be that I locked myself out of curing her now by suggesting it earlier on the questline. I wouldn't know, it was years ago of real time for me. Luckily, UESP has the code to undo that flag. I try it immediately, but it doesn't work because Serana already rejected me. I reload, type in the same long code (luckily preserved in the console from my first attempt), and it finally works. Serana accepts the idea and leaves to find the cure. Bye-bye! Hope to not see you soon! My job is done here. I can finally go to Solstheim!

This took me longer to type up than to play. Good riddance to one of the most annoyingly programmed and written quests and NPCs in this godforsaken game. I can only hope that the Dragonborn DLC is better.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

✨When you get this, please respond with five things that make you happy! Then, send to the last ten people in your notifications anonymously. You never know who might benefit from spreading positivity✨

Hey Nonny!

Ooof this got lost in a bunch of stuff! Sorry about missing it! Only remembered it because I saw a similar ask on my dash hahha.

Seems like a good day to do this, since I'm so tired and exhausted and I need something to make me smile.

Dragons. Just everything and anything with dragons. I'm fascinated with them. If you buy or make me anything with dragons, I automatically love you.

I finally bought myself my iPad I've been saving up for for *literally* 3 years. Because I was saving up for a trip this year that I am no longer taking (was planning a 40th birthday trip to Disney, but now am not going to Florida at all until they get their shit together), I took some of that money also to buy it and bought a top-of-the-line one, the best I could buy at the local Apple store (1TB, 12.9inch Pro... you don't want to know how much it was :|). I love it so much, and it's nice to use it to get off my laptop. I mostly was prompted to buy it now because it was my 40th birthday gift to myself AND my Wacom driver kept crashing my laptop and I'm scared to reinstall it hahah.

Funko Pops. I LOVE them and hate them. I only collect ones from series and shows I like, but I have WAY too many of them that most are in storage right now. I want to get my own home soon so I can display them finally. I am constantly checking the app for upcoming Funkos, and then immediately check my local toy store for their preorders. My local toy store must love me, I have SO much on preorder right now.

Drawing and writing. I'm alright at both, but I've terrible imposter syndrome so I feel like I'm not good at either, mainly because I don't get much traction on either when I post. I've a few people who always help me get it out, but I these days I do it for me, because it makes me happy.

Video Games. Currently playing AC Valhalla, and I LOVE it so much that I ended up buying the Season Pass. I RARELY buy DLC. But the game was SO good and I wanted more, so I needed to play the expansions. PERSONALLY it's my fave of the new trilogy, and because it's a "current" game, it's always got new stuff. Love it. My fave game EVER is Kingdom Hearts 2. I love the story of it so much. Skyrim is a close second – I like Skyrim because I put in over 200 hours in ALL versions I've played, and still there's so much I have to do hahah. AC New Trilogy is third. I liked DA Inquisition but never finished it, and I still have a bunch of games I bought last Christmas I have yet to play, so my list may change... it's highly unlikely though.

So there you have it Nonny! I think it's good I waited until I was in a better mood to answer this... People stopped sending me these because I was always so negative in them, I guess... I hope I get more of things like this when my asks go back on.

Can I also give you 5 things I'm looking forward to? I feel like that will help me keep a positive attitude for a bit.

My current work contract is almost done, and I'll get some downtime before I have to start my normal day-job again. Looking forward to my weekends back.

My broken foot seems to be healing REALLY quick. Yesterday was the first day I woke up without it hurting, and today I've been able to hobble around on my heel (as per my doctor's instructions that I need to start doing once my foot stopped hurting). I'm optimistic that I'll be given the okay to drive again during my next appointment on the 30th. I am going nuts not being able to leave home on my own accord.

So in Canada, we have this thing where you can take out your RSPs tax-free for three things: Retirement, First Time Home Ownership, and Second Education. I set up my RSPs WAY back when I was making piss-poor salary about 10 years ago, and I wanted to make sure that I at LEAST could have SOMETHING when I retired. I recently discovered I maxed out the amount of money I can take out for First Time Homeownership in my RSP, so my plans to home ownership are looking more and more realistic. I just wish owning a home wasn't so expensive where I live (major city in one of the most expensive provinces in Canada). It's hard when you're single-income. Here's hoping that I can make it a reality soon. The idea is a condo, I just have very expensive tastes (safe-neighbourhoods apparently justify a 10,000$+ more in cost :/) so I keep saving into my various accounts and GICs that I set up after I finally was making a liveable salary, so as long as I keep being humble and living below my means, I can finally get what I save up for... if only the cost of housing would SLOW THE FUCK DOWN. It's gone up 100K in just a year. It's insane.

I also saved up enough for a new couch thanks to a second contract I took during my CURRENT contract, which paid me exactly enough for the couch I want to get (I may or may not have strategically negotiated that contract, LOL). I've been needing a new couch for years; the one I currently have, I have sentimental attachment to (it was my dad's and is over 20 years old) but working at home for almost 2 years, I've worn it out and it's SO VERY UNCOMFORTABLE. It's barely staying together. Looking forward to getting it :) ... Was waiting until cooler months since I have to put it together myself (IKEA) and my apt is SO hot in the summer, no way I can do it then.

Having my asks turned back on. I'm sorry, it sounds so cheesy and dumb, but I don't have many RL friends or connections, and you guys help me stay positive and help keep my negative thoughts at bay. The dark thoughts have been coming in a lot lately, to the point where I've convinced myself that no one missed me and no one cares, so it's helped having a few of my regulars and mutuals check up on me in DMs during all this. Thank you <3 I don't always reply back, but your love is appreciated <3

Thank you again Nonny for asking me this <3 And I hope you don't mind I answered more than you asked <3

[bansheeoftheforest]

Well, my wifi is not back, and wont be anytime soon. The very earliest luckiest would be getting it back by Tuesday (unlikely). The very worst my house burns down so theres that /lh /hj

This sucks so much because I really cannot read asks I dont see in real time, I have the same amount of reading comprehension for them as I do Frankenstein XD

Dm me links to any important syndicate asks I miss while I'm gone 👍

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Bannnnnn I tried to draw the Jekyll brothers but Kent? Is inconsistent? The database (what I use) showd him as a clean shaven guy with a bit messy hair but google is showing Kent as a completely different model? Neat hair, Brokenshire beard. Like it's the ingame "identify" zoom in and I cant check whats right before I already killed himmmm

Anyway here art <3. I know I said I'd draw the DTIYS first but art inspiration is stored in the Syndicate au <3

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Also I've been thimking about Henry wearing a mask +plus ponytail to hide his identity like for the past two days. Yknow those theater masks? The weeping and laughing? He wears the sad one while in the Blighters and Templars and the happy one while in the Rooks because hes a dramatic theater nerd. Also! I like to think that if Jekyll has to be a templar he'd still wear the Blighter uniform when he could and pretend hes not high ranking. He gets away with it because Crawford doesn't care about him and Roth lives for chaos

I also drew Henry in a mask and ponytail but it's not done yet 😔

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Also I did the math the the twins are 3 years older than Jekyll. Like thank goodness first of all because I fully went into ship entirely unaware on if there were canon ages or a scary difference. But also Jacob being 3 years older than Henry is kinda funny to me

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All of Evie's outfits (besides her default) are bad and I'm gonna fist fight the designers because the secrets of london (where I only searched the locations of 3) is so bad, especially with the effort needed. How did they do Jacob so good, but utterly fail with Evie /lh

NOOOOOOO D: Man, I really hope you will get it back asap, and also that your house don't burn down!!

Man, if I don't know your struggle rn. However I shall do my best to link you to every syndicate ask that I will get from here on out bc I don't tend to get small asks for that au so <3

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Huh-- oh wow you're right. I wonder if it is a set design or just a bit on random depending on the save file... I killed him a long ass time ago so I have absolutely no idea how he looked like <3

EITHER WAY OH MY GOD IT LOOKS AAMZING. I love??? How you gave all three individual personalities in just a single picture??? Kent looks like he is seconds away from murder and I LOVE Henry in the templar outfit, it fits him so well??? Man I really want to start thinking more of this branch. Would the entire Jekyll family be Templars so the trio got that role inherited? Are Raphael and Kent unidentical twins and Henry is the odd-one-out because he is the youngest? Were the three of them really close in Scotland, but left as soon as possible bc their family was abusive, only for Kent and Raphael to find refuge in the Templar Order while Henry goes to university? Would they still have that brotherly love if they were close as kids even when they are in the Order, or would they have a falling out and start despising each other (or Jekyll @ the older brothers at least)? Would Raphael and Kent secretly be protective of Henry and manage to keep him out of Starrick's line-of-sight so that Henry won't get in trouble for defying orders/ignoring them? Would they force Henry to join the Templars with threats or would Henry mostly feel obligated to join them? Since the Templar Order isn't illegal in London, would other people know that Jekyll is a Templar, or would he keep it hidden from the public? Would his brothers help hide his identity?? SO many questions and I'm so sad I won't be able to discuss them with you :'c

(also can I just say I love the poetic differences between their clothing. Raphael is just wearing a waistcoat/basic clothes and he is a brute and more open, Kent is wearing more clothes/layering up and he is the "brains" out of the two of them, Jekyll is wearing the most layers and is almost trying to hide himself and I just... *chief's kiss*)

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Henry being a dramatic theater nerd and stealing Roth's costume supplies to hide his identity bc he is so ashamed of it and doesn't want people he knows to know about it my beloved <3 Plus the blighter uniforms doesn't look too far off of what he normally wears so he could probably use that as an excuse whenever some other Templar gets up his ass about not wearing the right clothes, yet it still doesn't make Henry feel any better knowing he has to bear the knowledge that he is actively wearing discreet blighter clothes to keep the Order happy and the public oblivious, knowing what cause he is reluctantly supporting. (him joining the rooks and suddenly coming into the Society all dressed in green lol)

Anyways I have now also decided that Maxwell and Henry are friends bc they both hate the Templars and Crawford and Henry gets to star in many of the plays he sets up. Plus they are both slightly insane so they match each other good.

YKNOW WHAT I WAS DAYDREAMING ABOUT WHILE BRUSHING MY TEETH RIGHT AFTER THIS ASK? Jekyll being forced to be the one to murder his brothers and the twins trying to track the murderer down just to know who tf are killing their targets, conveniently at the same time Maxwell starts meeting Jacob. Henry watching Jacob from afar getting smitten by him but keeping a distance bc he knows Maxwell is possessive, Jacob being the first to befriend Henry after Maxwell explains that both of them are against the Templars and Crawford, Jacob saving Henry during the fire of the theater? Yes pls <3

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Thank god bc here I was imagining an age gap of like idk 15 years bc of the differences in the timeline but! I'm just going to keep the canonical age difference while also shoot the timeline up a lil so that the events of Syndicate and TGS takes place at the same time but they are the right age and stuff, just bc I do not like Evie's and Jacob's older designs and I do not want to imagine them meeting during the Ripper dlc <3 Also the thought of Jacob being older than Henry is funny. I think Henry has a type /j

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They are so fucking bad and I'm going to scourage the Nexus to see if I can find any good redesign mods because they are so fucking bad. But to be fair, all female main characters' outfits are bad. Pearl? Lucy Thorne? Mfs looks like vampires. Even more reasons for why I only play Jacob, bc all other outfits on Evie are bad <3

[tumbling-odyssey]

Games I played in 2020

Just felt like getting my thoughts out on all the games I played this year. I’ve been wanting to do something like this for years but I always let it pass me by. Well not this year! Fuck you laziness! 

I played the first half in 2019 but finished it in 2020 so I guess I'll count it. DQ11 was my intro to Dragon Quest and what a good starting point. I'm not exaggerating when I say this is one of the best traditional JRPGs on the market. Characters, story, combat, it all clicks in just the right way to make a flawless game... until the end credits roll that is. 

I have no idea what happened with the post game but by god does it dive off a cliff. It undermines everything you worked to do in the main plot. The characters act brain dead and it shamelessly reuses events from the main game. Please pick up and play DQ11 but for the love of god just stop when the credits roll.

Doom is a game I knew I'd like. The heavy metal ascetic and soundtrack were right up my alley, but I just never found the time. With Eternal on the way though and having found it on the cheap at a pawn shop I figured there was no time like the present. Needless to say but I was right. I loved everything about this game. The thrill of combat, the screech of the guitars, and the silent take no shit attitude of Doomguy. Make no mistake though, I SUCK at this game. I played on easy but still got my ass handed to me on the regular. But I don't care, I was having way to much fun.

I flipped my shit when this game got leaked at the tail end of 2019. Zero 3 is my all time favourite game. To celebrate this getting announced I went and 100% Zero 3 as I hadn't done it on my current cart, and Zero 3 was still the first thing I played when I got this collection! I love that game to death and I’m glad to have it on modern consoles again. As I was under a bit of time crunch with other games releasing soon I only played 2 other games in the collection Zero 4 and ZX Advent. Until the DS collection those and 3 were the only Zero/ZX games I had so I have a lot of nostalgia for them. 

Zero 4 hold ups better then I remember. Not as good as 3 but a damn solid game with tweaks I honestly wish hit the series before its end. I remember having issues with the stage design and ya it’s not perfect, but it’s far from as bad as I thought. For ZXA this was the first time I beat the game on normal difficulty. For some reason the ZX games have always given me more trouble than the Zero games, so finally beating one on normal was very exciting. Maybe I can now finally go and beat ZX for the first time...

The Mystery Dungeon series rising from the depth to punch all those unexpecting in the face was a very welcome surprise. I had a lot of hype going into this one as I have very fond memories of my time with Red Rescue Team and even more with Explorers of Darkness. And the game lived up to it! The remastered music is great and crazy nostalgic, the 3D models are well used and don't feel as stiff as they do in the core series, and the QOL changes are near perfect... So why did I drop this game like a rock once I finished the main quest? 

Anyone familiar with Mystery Dungeon will know that the post game is the real meat of it. The story is short and all the really cool shit comes in after it's done. But I just couldn't bring myself to put more time in after I finished said story mode. I'm definitely chocking that up to me just not being in the mood then an issue with the game. Here's hoping we get an Explorers DX sometime soon. That will fucking hook me for all it's got.

Second verse same as the first. I loved this game and sucked at it horribly. Out of all the games I've played this year Doom Eternal is the one I want to go back to the most. I was not the hugest fan of some of the changes made and retained a stance that I liked 2016 better. First person platforming has never been a fun experience in my opinion and Eternal did little to change that. And I know this a lukewarm take at best but fuck Marauders!. They are so unfun to fight and ruin the pace. The Marauder in the last mook wave took me so long I was worried I wouldn’t be able to finish the game. But the more I've seen of Eternal after my playthrough makes me think I was being far to harsh. I haven't played the DLC yet either. Mostly cuss I haven't heard great things about it. Gonna wait for the rest of it to come out to see if it's worth getting. Might just replay to whole game at that point to see if it clicks with me better.

This was my second favourite game of the year, and was going to take the top slot until a certain other game came out. Addressing the elephant in room right away, I hated the ending. But I was expecting something like that, I think we all were. I won't let the ending ruin the rest of the game though. Not gonna let 1 segment colour everything that came before it. We have to see how the later parts play out to truly see if this ending was trash or not anyway. 

It took Square over a decade but they finally got an action RPG battle system that works and feels good to play. This may be my favourite battle system in an RPG period honestly. All four characters are a blast and it only gets better the more time you spend with it. Figuring out the nuances of each character’s skills and how to combine them not only with the skills of the others but how to enhance them with the right Materia set. This makes fights thrilling and satisfying when you finally best whatever was giving you trouble. Tis was the best way to bring 7′s mechanics into the modern landscape while also fixing the BIGGEST issue the OG had. The fact every character feels the same aside from Limit Breaks. 

All this on top of graphics that just look fucking stunning, a few glitched out doors aside. Fuck I still feel blown away looking at the characters models (mostly Tifa) and see how god damn pretty everyone is. Also Tifa’s Chinese dress is gift from the Gods and I still haven’t picked my jaw up from the floor after I first saw it.

In my circle of the internet there was a lot of hype for this game. So much so that I ended up buying it to see what all the hubbub was about. I had never played a Streets of Rage game before and my only experience with beat'em ups was playing a LOT of Scott Pilgrim and last year's River City Girls. Turns out Streets of Rage plays quite a bit different and it kicked my ass! So sadly I had to switch to easy to make it through but I still had a fun time with it. 

I started playing mostly as Blaze but once Adam hit the scene oooooh fucking boy. I didn’t play anyone else. There's a deceptive amount of content in this game. You can unlock almost every character from the previous games and all of them rocking their original sprites and moves. If I had more of a connection with this series I'm sure I would have gone nuts on unlocking everything. I stopped after my one playthrough and I was happy with that. Always glad to support a long overdue franchise revival.

To properly talk about P5R I think I need to air a lot of my feelings on the original game and the importance it has to me. You see, prior to 2017 I barely played games, only sticking to specific franchises. AKA Pokemon and Mega Man/Mega Man like games. Until 2016 though I still bought a lot of games. Eating up Steam sales and deals I found at pawn shops. This lead to a Steam library and shelf filled with games I've never touched outside of maybe an hour or 2. So in 2016 when I took interest in the newly released Kirby Planet Robobot I made a deal with myself. I could get the game but I HAD to beat it.  And I did just that, gaining not just a new fav Kirby game but a new rule for game purchases. If I knew I wouldn't beat a game I was not aloud to buy it. Now what does ANY of this have to do with P5 you may ask? Well... almost everything.

 I was immediately interested in P5 when it hit the west in 2017. I loved the 20 or so hours I but into P3 years ago and really liked the P4 anime I had watched around the same time. So of course with all the hype around it I wanted to dive into the series full force with P5. But I knew myself. Putting over 100 hours into a game was beyond me and I had a weird relationship with home console games as I was predominately a handheld gamer. Add in the fact I didn't even have a PS4 and I was convinced P5 would be something I always wanted to play, but never would. So when I went to the mall with a few friends and they showed me that P5 had a PS3 version, I had a dilemma on my hands. I knew I wanted to play it and I now had a way to do so. But doing that would require me to change 2 HUGE hang ups I had with games. Would I being willing to waste 60 bucks with so much working against me? Apparently I was. I immediately started going to town on this game. Making sure I spent no less then 2 hours a day playing NO MATTER WHAT. Which may not seem like a lot but it was to me... at the time.. I also had just moved to my current house, so coming home from my still relatively new job and going straight into P5 was the first real routine I formed during this heavily transitional part of my life. 

I of course ended up loving P5 and put 200 hours into it. As such my outlook on gaming was forever changed. Console games were no longer out of reach and I knew I could handle playing monster length game. I started playing way more games then I ever did before and trying out generas I never thought I would play. P5 is the main reason for this and why I'm able to make a post like this. To actually touch on Royal though? It's unarguably the better version of the game and Atlus learned all the right lessons from P4G. The new characters are great and the added section at the end is possibly the best shit Atlus has ever written. I only wish Yoshizawa joined the party sooner so I could play as her more. 

The release of this really came out of nowhere huh? Wayforward announced it was being made mid way through 2019, then there was its weird half release on the Apple store... and then suddenly it was out! Very little fanfare for this one. Is that indicative of the games quality? Luckily no. Seven Sirens is a solid addition to the series and follows up Half Genies Hero nicely. The game goes back to Shantae's Metroidvania roots and makes a TON of improvements. 

Transformations are now instant instead of having to dance for them (don't worry dancing is still in the game) making the game feel more like Pirates Curse in its fast flow. They also added the Monster Cards which take heavy inspiration from Aria of Sorrow's Soul system. A feature I'm happy to see in any Metroidvania since Aria is one of my all time favourite games. Sadly though the game does not take the best advantage of these improvements. 

Over all the game feels kinda empty. The dungeons aren't super exciting to explore nor are they challenging in any way. And the plot is very repetitive, with each dungeon repeating the same beats. Really this game feels more like set up for a better game down the line. The mechanics are all here and Wayforward has a solid art style with the sprites from Half Genie Hero. Hopefully they capitalizes on this for Shantae 6 and we get the best game in the series.

While it may not have been the most thrilling game, Seven Sirens really put me into a Shantae mood. So much so that I went back to play the 2 games in the series I had never touched. This being the first game and Risky's Revenge. Shantae 1 really is a hidden gem in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, it's the definition of jank, but there's a lot of heart to this game. The sprites are great, the soundtrack is good, and the characters are funny... but it's still on the OG Gameboy and that's a massive hindrance for any game. I'm hard pressed to recommend this with how poorly its aged but I think it's better then it looks. 

Risky's Revenge on the other hand was a game that shocked me by how little it had to offer. I know this game went through a hellish development and what we got was far from what Wayforward planned to make, but it's hard to imagine a world where this was the technical BEST Shantae game. It's not a bad game by any stretch... just a boring one.

For the record my ranking of the games goes Pirates Curse>Half Genie Hero>Seven Sirens>Original>Risky’s Revenge

Sword and Shield are mediocre games at best. I know, real steaming hot take there. I managed to make my Sword playthrough a lot more fun by not spoiling myself on the new Pokemon designs for the first time since Gen 3. Either way, I enjoyed myself enough that I didn't mind playing more of it with these DLC campaigns. Plus I love the idea of Game Freak switching over to this method as apposed to making a third version, so I wanted to support it. 

Klara is a fucking top tier Poke Girl both in design and personality and is probably the highlight of Isle of Armour. GF actually went out of their way to give her multiple expressions to sell her toxic bitch personality and I love every minute of it. She sadly drifts into the background for the second half of the DLC’s story which hurts an already rough section even more. Not more then having to grind Kubfuu all the way to fucking level 70 though! That put a serious hamper on my motivation to finish the story but I pushed through anyway. Having to solo the tower with Kubfuu was at least a fun challenge though, as was the final fight with Mustard. Fuck the Diglett hunt though. Ain’t no one got time for that.

Crown Tundra may be my fav of the 2 though even if there isn't a character as good as Klara in it. The hunt for the legendaries was just pure adventure and I had a fucking blast doing it. The joy I felt when I figured out Registeel’s puzzle put a smile on my face unlike any Pokemon game since I was a kid. The whole Regi stuff was honestly a nice Nostalgia trip to my times with Emerald. The story around Calyrex was enjoyable, even if I still hate its design. Not revealing the horses before release was a good call to as it gave an honest surprise. Having to chase down the Galar forme Birds in the overworld is a great way to evolve the roaming legendaries idea and I hope GF sticks to this. Plus the Galar forme birds are some of the best legendary designs since Gen 5 and I love Chocodos way to fucking much. 

Here we are folks, my GotY. I love Panzer Paladin so fucking much. A combination of mechanics from Mega Man, Castlevania, and Blaster Master? Sign me the fuck up! This game is tailored made for me and I knew I had to play it once it started making the rounds on social media. I'll admit though, I was a bit worried when the the first full trailer dropped and showed the weapon mechanics. Breakable weapons that you have to sacrifice for checkpoints and power ups? I'm not sure about that.... Luckily I was being a complete moron and those mechanics are near perfect. 

I love the set up of each boss being a mythological creature from different cultures. They didn’t just pull the easy ones either. A lot of these things I learned of for the first time here. I love how Grit controls. Using the upward stab as a double jump and being able to pogo off enemies Shovel Knight style just felt great and satisfying. Flame was limited but it made her sections feel tense. She does more damage then you think she could at first glance. Also the only way to heal Grit being to use pods that only Flame could access was a cool idea. 

I am begging you Tribute Games, you have to make more Panzer Paladin games. Slap some new upgrades on Grit and expand what Flame can do and you have an even better sequel  on your hands. Also maybe not have so many 'gotcha' moments with enemy placement. That's really my only complaint about the game. Great music, great sprites, giant robots, unique premise, and a reference to Canadian legends. The ultimate self indulgent game for me.

It felt super out of left field for Curse of the Moon to be getting a sequel. The games fucking amazing but it was really just a tie in for the main Bloodstained product. Not something I expect to get a continuation. Either way I was pumped. If this was even half as good as the original then I was in for a great time. Which held true... cuss this legitimately is only half as good as Curse of the Moon. I still like the game, quite a lot actually. I mean how could I not with a fucking Corgi piloting a Death Train Mech. 

Something was just missing here that never made this click like the first game. Maybe it was the stage design, maybe the bosses, maybe the fact that it's a bit to long. I'm not sure. All I know is I couldn't bring myself to play all the modes like I did in the original. . Stopping part way in to the one where you can get the first games characters. I want to go back some day... I just don’t know when someday is.

This was an announcement I never saw coming. A Gundam Verses game coming to the west? That hasn't happened in the entire time I've been a Gundam fan. I had played a bit of Full Boost on my old roommates PS3 thanks to him having a Japanese account and I played Force on the Vita a few years ago. But to have the latest version fully translated with open servers? Holy hell that's a dream come true. 

Having the open betas every weekend leading up to launch was some much needed fun during this shit hole year. I had a lot of fun just fucking around with different suits and seeing what I could do with 'em. Absolutely trashing two Bael players as the Kapool is a memory I'll keep with me for a long time. Fucking danced on their graves. This gave me some new appreciation for suits like the Baund Doc and Hambrabi, the later becoming a lowkey fav as it was my main.

I've fallen off with the game in the last few months but I definitely want to go back. I hope to start learning the game and take parts in tourneys when cons aren’t death sentences anymore.

It felt like everything in my life was SCREAMING at me to start the Yakuza series. From 2 of my friends playing 0 recently, a youtuber I following live tweeting as he played through the WHOLE series back-to-back, and Yakuza 2 having a run at AGDQ 2020. Plus the constant pleas to play this series you get from following Little Kuriboh on Twitter. I finally broke and picked up 0 in the middle of August. Boooooooooy howdy did I not know what I was getting in to. And no I don't mean the content. I knew Yakuza was a series of wildly conflicting tones between the main story and side quests. What I mean is the length. I legit thought this was gonna be a 20-30 hour game. When i reached hour 30 of my playthrough and realized I wasn't even close to a conclusion, I think I knew I had bitten off more then I was planning. That misstep aside I ended up loving this game and want to play the rest of the series.... I just need to rest up first before I dive into Kiwami 1.

 Let's actually talk about the game for a moment here. Kiryu and Majima quickly clicked as likeable characters to me and I cared about their stories. Combat is fun and the multiple styles are all great.... though both the default styles take a while to get there. The mad rush I felt at the end was fantastic and the last bosses are a joy to fight. Only real complaint is the pacing of the side stories. I loved being able to just stumble into various different events while on route to the next plot objective. But this became less common as the game went on and side stories started getting more tucked away. Also hot take here, the host club mingame is more tedious then fun and I like Kiryu’s business stuff as I could do that in the background. I’m excited to dive into Kiwami and probably Kiwami 2 this year... Though I’m not sure when just yet.

Just gonna say it flat out, I think this is better the the 2018 game. The smaller scale helps in this style of game and Miles just naturally has a better move set then Peter. I'm not sure if they actually tightened up the combat system or if they just threw less bullshit enemies at you but fighting feels so much better in this one. Traversal is better too,  simply because they changed the button for tricks. In the original you have to hold down 2 face buttons to enter trick mode??? In hindsight that was such a bad call. 

Having both the heal and venom powers run off the same meter was a good idea. Making the choice between keeping yourself alive guaranteed or potentially ending a fight quicker/disposing of a problem enemy is super fun. The player having to make small choices like this during combat is what helps it not be brainless. I love all the different venom skills you get. While they all achieve the same thing in stunning opponents, how you achieve that goal is up to you. Do you want to just slug the bastard, throw 'em up in the air, tackle the shit out of them? The choice is yours. 

Only real big complaint is certain upgrades being NG+ locked. I know you want to encourage replays, but this is a shitty way to do it I feel. Also can we retire Rhino for the next game. Man has had 2 shitty boss fights now and I need a break. Between this and Spider-Verse, I'm honestly starting to like Miles as Spider-Man more then Peter.

I got this game more on a whim then anything. I was definitely interested when it was first announced for the west. Vanillaware's beautiful art style in a story about giant robots beating the shit out of Kaijus? Sign me the fuck uuuuuu-oh wait it's an RTS? I had never played an RTS's before, mainly due to the sheer concept stressing me out. So I let it fall to the wayside. The game started coming up again though towards the end of the year with GotY on everyone's minds.  This revived my interest, especially as what I HAD planned to be playing around that time was... well. Cyberpunk. Don't think I need to say much more. Also I had worried for nothing as the Real Time Strategy was not that Real Time. 

This game really lays on the analysis paralysis once you're out of the tutorial. Do you want to fight, do you want to do story, who's story do you want to do, what branch should you follow, how much should you play with this one character? It's very overwhelming at first. I decided to not go ham on just one character and swap around all the time. The twists in this game are equal parts exciting and infuriating. Learning something new always came with the caveat of more questions, or something you knew 'for sure' being disproven. Like when I learned 1 characters was actually 4 separate ones! Anyone that's played knows exactly what I'm talking about. 

Natsuno ended up being my fav and not just because of.... obvious reasons. BJ was cute if unfortunately named and her relationship with Mirua was my favourite in the game. Not that there was much competition except for maybe Ogata and Tomi. I ended up really liking the combat but I can see why RTS fans say it's the weakest part. It's far from complex and I had a winning strat by the third or so real fight. Aka spam turrets and have the Gen 1′s gank all the bosses.

One quick thing I want to share was how I beat the boss at the end of Area 2. The one where Inaba is singing. I had Hijiyama use the limit break skill to bum rush the boss right off the hop. I took out half its health in one hit but Hijiyama’s Sentinel was on death’s door. Only thing that saved him was sending in Amaguchi to blow up a bunch of missiles. Hijiyama took it out on his next attack but lost his Sentinel at the same time. It was a real clutch victory and crazy fucking anime. 

The best way to really describe Carrion is that it's a fantastic proof of concept. Can you make a game where you play as The Thing? Why yes, yes you can. Carrion just needed a bit more tweaking to really bring this concept home and be the A+ game I know it can be. As it is now the game is a bit empty. The level design is super samey and the lack of a map is fucking brutal at points. I know it would make no sense for a blob monster to have a map but somethings you just have to gameify for convenience. The level design must have done something right as even though I was completely lost I still moved from area to area properly. Hell by the time I actually looked up a map I had 1 more item to get and I learned I was one door away from beating the game. 

I love the idea of losing mass as you take damage and gaining more by eating people, but having abilities tied to size was a terrible idea. It just leads to tedium as I have to go and shed myself to the right size, do the puzzle, then of course I'm going to go back and rebuild myself to see if I can do the next segment at full power. Just make it so you can swap between abilities using the d-pad or something. I hope this game gets a sequel just so this sick ass concept can be fully realized.

[geekgemsspooksandtoons]

Why Bioshock Rebirth Part 3 won’t be a thing for a while

Guessing that title will work. I think considering now and on this day. There isn’t much else to do. I’m finally gonna talk about this. This is gonna be a long one. I’ll think about adding a keep reading thing as I make this. 

If any of you are a Bioshock fan or follow me. Or whatever else. I have this reimagining AU named Bioshock Rebirth. It has people who like it. There are mainly three parts on my mind. 

Part 1 and 2 basically deal with Rapture. Which are basically a reimagining of the main stories of Bioshock 1 and 2. With the events of Minerva’s Den being the epilogue. Part 3 from my mindset would deal with something outside Rapture. But I’ll talk about that later.

Yet I feel like to me. The reason I am not wanting to make a part 3 as soon as possible. Because it’s really tricky for me. I think I’ll just make the points and what my plans possibly were. Including I am gonna publicly reveal what my version of Zachary Hale Comstock would of been. Which is may be the most craziest decision. Whether people like it or not.

Now I just finished this post. I’ll put the tag after I write this. I will reveal I have a Bendy reimagining AU on my mind. But I want Dark Revival to come out soon. Which is why I don’t wanna focus more time on part 3. Along with other things. I feel proud or so with my work on Rebirth. I’m glad people love this AU/reimagining of Bioshock I made. :) So I will add the keep reading option. Now here is my detailed development of part 3. Not everything about it is there. But it’s a lot.

1. Part 3 would of taken 5 years after Bioshock Rebirth parts 1 and 2. Parts 1 and 2 took place in 2002. While part 3 takes place in 2007. Meaning the character ages have changed.

Basically Archie Wynand is 28. Elizabeth Comstock is 24. Brigid Tenenbaum is 40. Eleanor Lamb is 22. Even though Archie/Jack and Eleanor had her their ages sped up by people. With Archie being 10 and Eleanor being 12. But again there ages were sped up. Also the Little Sisters and Big Sisters that have been rescued have grown up too.

It depends on what characters would return. Like Delta/Johnny being 42. Daisy being 34. Booker being 43. Considering it’s not in Rapture. I don’t know if many characters would of returned. Yet that’s because I didn’t start writing possibly the main story for part 3. In case if anyone is worried. Many of the Vox Populi are fine. They must of moved on with their lives with Rapture sadly being a mess.

2. From what I get. The main story again was outside of Rapture. I seemed to be going with my old ideas I had for this AU. A public Rapture or the idea of Rebirth’s version of Columbia.

Considering Rebirth was born from the mistakes and retcons of Burial At Sea breaking the multiverse. Basically me disowning, shaming, yet acknowledging that DLC. So the idea I seem to be going with is that Columbia is the aftermath and America trying to make their own kind of Rapture. A public Rapture in a way for tourists. Something kind of like Jurassic Park.

Yet I don’t think it would be fully in the sky. It would be an island on water. With possibly Rapture under it. They built it over Rapture. 

Again Columbia is like America’s pale imitation of Rapture. With Rapture being discovered by America. Basically making profit off of it. Despite how tragic the results of Rapture of.

3. More on the main story. I think what it would be or as of now is Archie, Elizabeth, Brigid, and Eleanor going to Columbia or America’s public Rapture to stop Comstock. Considering this city has become a mess. The original idea is that it some how became worse than the tragedy of Rapture. 

With Big Daddies and Little Sisters being legalized. And Splicers or so possibly becoming more I guess crazy. With an old or possible dark idea of a Splicer eating out of a Little Sisters neck. Yet that’s really dark and just me showcasing some how this place became worse than the original Rapture.

4. Vigor’s in Rebirth would of been America’s knockoffs and pale imitation of Rapture’s Plasmid’s being reworked by Jeremiah Fink to make them more accessible so that you don’t have to inject them into your wrists. You could just simply drink them. 

Basically again they are strangely knockoffs and pale imitations in a way.

Shock Jockey is Electro Bolt. Devil’s Kiss is Incinerate. Bucking Bronco is Telekinesis. While some are again knockoffs. But some are original being the other Vigor’s.

But considering an idea from my anonymous friend who has helped me with this AU. With them mentioning well I’ll copy what they said instead. I’ll put the “ around it.

“Ironic considering the stereotype about most of the world's products being inferior knockoffs made in China. I can imagine that Fink's imitation of Rapture's products might be even more unscrupulous and dangerous compared to the original versions in Rapture, as the greater capitalist system intersects with the small-scale capitalism of that city.”

5. To be honest and I want to get this out of the way. The reason I am not making part 3 right away. Because I want to see if the leaks about Cloud Chamber’s Bioshock 4 are really true. Spoilers.

Basically the leaks being about that Rapture seemed to have been discovered. Now London is at war with ADAM being used. You play as a character named Lucas with other characters like Eleanor Lamb joining you. I want to see if this is all true. So I can see how Cloud Chamber interpreted of how the world would react to a city like Rapture. 

While there are folks who have made criticisms about people discovering Rapture being the end of the world. Basically being critical about the Bioshock series going in a Resident Evil like direction. Which I can totally understand.

But I’m gonna be honest. I want to see what Cloud Chamber are doing. Yet this horrible thing I’m gonna say next. As someone who’s.....opinions of their planet and maybe species is I guess low....I kind of don’t care. Because I want to see the chaos of the consequences if a place like America discovered Rapture. 

It’s maybe my darker side and my action junkie side having the best of me. I am strangely interested to see Hell on Earth all because governments got fucking greedy with ADAM. Again my opinion on my planet and whatever else is tricky.

Fuck it like we as a species deserve it. But I’m sounding pessimistic. I want to see war torn London destroyed by ADAM junkies.

5. My direction for part 3 I feel is weaker and not as powerful as parts 1 and 2. Because the general idea of part 3 seems to be, “America is fucking stupid. Because it empowers young rich pricks like Zachary Hale Comstock and makes shit like Columbia. Our country needs to be fucking better if really are the land of the free” It feels less original and been done before.

Compared to the first two part’s stories of humanity, found family, love, forgiveness, empathy, and compassion. Along with other stuff.

While I recall my inspiration for this idea long ago was this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXjJOmRkN6s If I recall it being like an example of....America’s thought process of it thinking it’s awesome or whatever the Hell. I wanna say stupid thinking. But that video is awesome. Amazing what that person did.

Also my version of Comstock I feel is less threating and less interesting than the likes of villains like Andrew Ryan, Atlas/Frank Fontaine, and Sofia Lamb. Unless I really tap and dig deep into his character.

There’s also the other thing part 3 I feel unless I decided. It doesn’t deal with dimension travelling and all that crap.

6. There’s another thing is that I used many of the major characters from Infinite and incorporated them in Rapture. Such as Elizabeth, Booker, Daisy, and the Lutece twins. I haven’t done much with Annabelle because she sadly died before the events of parts 1 and 2. Also Bluto is practically Rebirth’s version of Songbird when he was in Rapture. He was the Proto-Daddy.

Fink and Comstock are the only major Infinite characters I haven’t used.

7. Bluto’s robotic corpse would of been found by Fink and Comstock. He would of been rebuilt into Songbird as being the supposed mascot and guardian of Columbia.

It’s also a way of torturing Elizabeth mentally. Because two men practically took her protective older brother’s corpse and rebuilt him as something else. With the added angst that Songbird still have memories of Elizabeth.

8. Another reason why I don’t feel so highly of part 3. It’s because it just seems unrealistic. Which may sound stupid. My ideas of America’s own Rapture like place becoming somehow worse than the original Rapture seem crazy.

Along with things like legalized Big Daddies and Little Sisters seems crazy. Despite how stupid my country is. The idea of taking human beings and turning them into that under an American government seems like bullshit. Unless they didn’t know. 

Yet it seems to be dissing on America. Considering the direction of Comstock I’m going with is more like, “We’re America and we are great.” Yet everything goes to shit.

Along with the crazy idea of the place being built in 5 or maybe 4 to 3 years. Which is why I wanted to give it a timespan.

Also it’s a fun easter egg that it’s the time span of the original Bioshock’s development. Unless I make part 3 in 2013. But don’t think I should.

9. There’s been a recent idea of Lucas being an antagonist. Something similar to the Arkham Knight from Batman Arkham Knight. But I should wait and see if this Lucas character is seriously real. Yet what I have read about him, he reminds me a bit of Booker.

I’m guessing and even was thinking a bit more in detail. Lucas being a US Marine who was born in 1981. He’s 26 during part 3. Possibly being an anti-thesis to Archie’s character. Now I’m thinking he may of met Arch during possibly tours. Even though they weren’t really friends but knew each other.

With Archie being an earnest and kind man. Now this makes sense. Lucas being jealous of Archie’s position as, “The Demon Of Rapture” and, “The Killer Of Fontaine”. Lucas being a bit more angry and less honorable than Archie.

Man these ideas make more sense than Comstock being an anti-thesis to Arch. Yet we also have Frank Fontaine and Booker Dewitt being anti-thesis to his character too. But the idea of Lucas is strangely perfect.

The ideas I am having are he’s Columbia’s poster boy of a super soldier. But without the horrifying results of Archie’s origin possibly. Since Lucas I’m imagining is more equipped with stuff(Again thinking of Arkham Knight)....fuck this is strangely perfect. 

Man we haven’t gotten more info on this who I am calling Lucas Parkside....fuck I thought of more of him being a deeper character or so.

10. But again about Bioshock 4. Considering Rebirth is the result of Burial At Sea and also Infinite breaking the multiverse. It combined the worlds of the main universe(Bioshock 1, 2, and the Rapture novel if you want to include that) and Infinite. Which resulted in a timeline where Rapture was made later during the cold war. Along with characters like from Infinite being more connected to Rapture because of the events of Burial At Sea.

Yet Bioshock 4 or those Parkside leaks. I question if I should put them in here too. Because it’s unknown if well the events of 4 happened yet in the main universe. Unless we take into the good ending being canon. With 4 taking take in the 70′s what I read.

I’m rambling, I’m sorry about that. Basically the events of the novel and first two games happened. But the events of Infinite and Burial At Sea disturbed the main universe. And whatever I’m using some weird comic book logic. 

Again I hope sometime but soon I want more information considering Bioshock 4. 

11. I guess I’ll just reveal this now. Including I called him a young rich prick. I gave a hint early on. In fact this character was hinted at in memes. But him combing in Comstock was something I was surprised by long ago. Yet I felt I guess could be genius or whatever.

Only two friends of mine know. The anonymous friend. And also @feckinatlas

Zachary Hale Comstock in Bioshock Rebirth would of been the Mark Zuckerberg of Bioshock.

While there was the idea of making him the, “Radec” or something similar to make him more threating. But Booker is already that. Including the Mark Zuckerberg angle is something I’m interested in.

Yes Comstock is Rebirth is younger than his main universe counterpart. He’s also not Booker and possibly not related to him.

One of my original ideas was that he’s a year younger than Elizabeth. But I changed that and may make him possibly 30 or so. Or even Archie’s physical age or 29.

An old idea I even told Feckinatlas that him being Fontaine’s kid. But Frank never knew about him. Practically making even more of a terrible father. Yet I don’t know if I’ll go with that idea. Yet it seems better than Comstock being a kid of Booker. Which I don’t like. I was trying to keep the Booker and Comstock connection. I’m still wondering now.

Yes I think that’s all I’ll reveal now.

Edit I forgot this one other important thing. Oh crap two actually.

12. Considering Ava Tate survived and escaped Rapture. She would of been one of the villains in part 3. Basically she sided with Fink and Comstock. Ava is kind of like that character who might not care what side she’s on. Despite she has redeeming qualities in her.

13. Even though this wasn’t part of the main story. To be honest there are ideas that one of Elizabeth’s looks is like her Burial At Sea look. Yet she’s not a femme fatale. Basically it was the idea of her and Archie going undercover. With Elizabeth trying to pose as a femme fatale. Which in reality she isn’t. She’s still the same joyous girl that people love. It’s something a bit more strangely adorable.

Also Brigid tried to teach her some stuff of trying to act different. I remember talking about this with my anonymous friend. It’s mainly silly and adorable stuff before meeting her seeing Ava. Like Arch being pouty that he may have to put on a tux. When he’ll put on something like maybe Clark Kent would wear. He doesn’t wanna look like a rich prick and would rather have black ops gear on. While Brigid and Elizabeth find it adorable and funny he doesn’t wanna dress like Ryan and whoever else. Despite they would kick him out if he looks very normal.

But again Brigid teaching her some tricks. Along with Elizabeth trying to smoke to look cool. But she coughs and again it’s adorable. XD

This idea is like before the main story. But I should develop it more. It could still be before the main story. I wanted to share this because I forgot about it. 

[futuresmashmemes]

In complete curiosity, can you tell me what your favorite Smash reveal trailer of all time was?

Like, actually, real shit, stuff that’s already happened in this timeline?

Nothing will ever top Smash 4’s reveal for me. I was really into Brawl as a kid, and after Brawl came out a lot of people spread the idea online that it would be the last smash game (hilarious in hindsight, I know). Me, being the dumb kid I was, took that at face value. I also wasn’t really into following leaks at the time. I was also 12, almost 13 when 4 was revealed, keep in mind. I just sort of accepted that smash was done.

I vividly remember when I first saw that reveal trailer. We were in the middle of bumfuck nowhere for my sister’s soccer game. I was sweaty, hungry, and my phone was running out of battery. I managed to convince my mom to let me stay in the car for the rest of the game, where I promptly began charging my phone and went onto YouTube to pull up some music to listen to (knowing me at the time, it probably would’ve been an Evanescence song). And there, at the top of my recommended feed, was that trailer.

It almost didn’t feel real. I was so convinced that Smash was over, I almost thought that the video would’ve been a fake. Some shitty mod or whatever. But I clicked on it anyways, because, y’know, Smash Bros! Boy am I glad I did. Instantly, I was enthralled by the idea of Smash on the go. I didn’t have a 3DS at the time, but I played on my DS like I was getting paid for every second the screen was on. Having a portable smash game was a dream come true! And when they got to the Wii U part of the trailer, I was drawn in by the visual upgrade compared to Brawl. I was a dumb kid who didn’t know anything about graphics watching this trailer in 480p on a shitty Windows phone, and even I could tell how much of a graphics upgrade it was compared to Brawl. I didn’t have a Wii U at the time either, but I was still excited.

The new characters announced were just the icing on the cake. I love Animal Crossing, but I never expected an Animal Crossing rep in smash because I read that Sakurai had previously said that Animal Crossing characters were unsuited for battle. So when that trailer opened up on a shot of the Villager opening the now iconic envelope, my hype levels instantly shot through the roof of the car. Really, I should consider myself lucky that I was watching this trailer in the middle of an empty parking lot in the middle of nowhere and not, say, on the bus ride home from school, because after that point, I was visibly freaking out throughout. I would’ve been perfectly satisfied with just Villager, but then the trailer continued. The videos online right now show these two as separate videos, but I definitely remember watching them as one big trailer.

NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHING!

Oh boy, who could it be? The gang looked up at a cliff to see a boy with distinct spiky hair.

“No. There’s no way it could be him. There’s just no way! I read online that he couldn’t get in, so it’s not him.”

Blip!

“OH MY GOD IT IS HIM HOLY SHIT IT’S MEGA MAN FUCKING MEGA MAN HOLY S H I T!”

It didn’t feel real. It felt like a dream. But I was loving every second of it. And even better, the next video in my recommended feed was the trailer for Wii Fit Trainer. What? Why? Who asked for this? I was dumbfounded, but all for it.

I think that those three characters made for the perfect holy trinity of character reveals. The anticipated first party/character Sakurai previously said no to, the third party, and the character that nobody saw coming. Smash 4’s initial reveal had it all. I probably rewatched that trailer for the rest of the soccer game. I texted all my friends about it, and they were all nearly as excited as I was. I would’ve told my mom and sister all about it when they got back in the car, but I wasn’t supposed to be using data at the time, so if they knew that I had used it to watch a silly reveal trailer over and over again, mom probably would’ve had a heart attack (this was before unlimited data was more standard). But you better believe that I exploded on about it as soon as I figured it was safe to.

Even after all these years (and all of the timelines I’ve looked into), no Smash trailer...no, more like no trailer period has ever gotten close to capturing the pure excitement that I felt when I first saw the Smash 4 trailer, and I doubt that there ever will be one. I’m a jaded adult now, and everything is more exciting through the rose-tinted glass of adolescence. The “Everyone is Here!” trailer for Ultimate came close, though. Smash 4’s development was also something of a turning point for me when I became more active in following the development of new games online. I think it was for a lot of people, I think that a lot of that can be attributed to Brawl’s success (and the Wii as a whole) at capturing a wider demographic of gamers compared to Melee and 64. Smash 4 feels almost laughable to go back and play now, but I can’t deny the impact it had on me.

As far as other individual reveal trailers go, here are my favorites:

Little Mac and Palutena-both for the same reason: THAT ART STYLE. Their trailers also convinced me to play their respective games. Uprising was one of my first 3DS games and Punch Out is the last game I remember renting from Blockbuster.

Greninja-As laughable as this sounds now, getting a new Pokémon rep was really hype for me back then. I was beginning to get into competitive, so seeing the ninja frog that had taken over the competitive scene at the time get into smash was cool, even if I was Team Fennekin. Confirmation that at least Charizard had survived the cut was also really cool.

Robin and Lucina-I didn’t know anything about Fire Emblem at the time, but Robin looked cool and I was digging the 3D anime artstyle from Awakening that the trailer was rendered in. Another trailer that convinced me to buy the game that they were from, and good god now I’m an insufferable Fire Emblem fan good lord I was so innocent back then. “Girl Marth” jokes were rampant amongst my friends. Also, CAPTAIN FALCON!!!

Lucas-Funny story, my sister absolutely despises video games with a burning, visceral passion now, but back when we played Brawl together, her mains were Lucas and Snake. You can imagine the pain and agony she felt when Smash 4 initially came out. Lucas’ DLC came out around my birthday, so her gift to me that year was a $10 eShop card. She just told me: “you know what to spend it on.”

Cloud-“Hey guys, you know what would’ve been awesome? In Brawl, if, like, they put in Cloud from Final Fantasy 7?”

Corrin-At this point I was a big Fire Emblem fan riding hot on the hype train for Fates, so I was very excited for Corrin. The dragon-inspired moveset also seemed really cool. Funny how times have changed, and when Byleth was added in I was very lukewarm compared to when my reaction to Corrin.

Inkling-Similar story to the Smash 4 reveal trailer, I was absolutely not expecting a Smash announcement that day and I saw the video was in my YouTube recommended feed while I was at my internship of all places. Unfortunately, none of the other people there were gamers (let alone Smash fans), so they couldn’t share in my hype.

Everyone is Here/Ridley-I can’t properly give this one the justice it deserves in a short amount of words and this post is already getting really long, so I’ll save this one for a later day if you guys are interested. To keep it short, let’s just say that I was very much a part of the Ridley gang and I was very happy to see him in.

Belmonts and K. Rool-I got up at 7 in the morning to watch that trailer and loved every second of it. Keep in mind that I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination. The only thing that sort of spoiled it for me was that the Smash teams themselves leaked it the night before by releasing a track titled Bloody Tears/Monster Dance

Ken and Incineroar-Nothing against these two, but at the time I was crushed when I realized the Grinch leak was fake. Now I can look back on it and laugh at Little Mac getting yeeted through the billboard and Villager’s stance at the end of the trailer.

Sans Mii Costume-Pretty sure I’ve already mentioned this, but when I first saw that trailer I legit fell out of my chair laughing. I’m not even an Undertale fan, but seeing funny skeleton man on my screen just broke me. The fact that Toby went to Sakurai’s house and beat him in Smash made it even better.

Banjo-I’ve never actually played a Banjo Kazooie game before, but I’ve seen enough videos about them over the years that I almost feel like I have. They’re ingrained in my childhood due to that in a weird way. Plus, it felt so good to have a victory over the Steve fans. I felt the weight of that Jiggy that bounced on the floor.

And that’s about it! If you guys want to hear my thoughts on the Everyone is Here trailer, please let me know and I’ll do another post like this.

...Upon rereading this post for spelling errors, I realized that you probably were more asking about my favorite reveal trailers throughout multiple timelines. Oops. Let me know if that’s what you wanted and I’ll answer with my thoughts on my favorite future reveal trailers.

[deannastrois]

to the end of the decade

I started this decade out…not great. And straight. I’m ending this decade maybe not perfect but accepting that I need to get better and working on it through therapy and drugs. And bi. So I’d say that’s at least something of a step up despite that I’ve had bad depressive episodes this year alone.

I also started this decade being a shadow in fandom, a lurker with nothing to say and not making friends. I’m ending it on a completely different note having actually begun creating and writing and having people on this site I’m more grateful for than anything. (and I’ll put my thanks to specific people under the cut cause I am nothing is not a weak, soft bitch at heart)

To all mutuals, thank you really for sticking around. I know I’m not the easiest to get along with and I hope to talk to some of you more at some point. I’m just so bad at it but <33333

@lembeau, I know things have been weird this year and that’s on me but at the end of the day you are always my forever girl and original otp. I don’t know how I would have gotten through some of the years without you, you’ve been my (salt)rock and best friend and everything in between. I hope things go well for you in the coming decade and know that I’ll always have your back and be immensely proud of what you’ve accomplished. I love you more than Eliza loves Goliath and in every universe the Middleman could ever give us.

@xsarahx, you were the very first person I started talking to and befriended on this site, even pre-musketeers days which is more of a throwback. We’ve come a long way from the Andrew Lee Potter days and I am always glad to talk to you about anything, including, of course, how comics have fucked up so badly these days. I’m with you till the end of the line, babe.

@sidewaystime, okay this one time I’m not gonna go with the red vs blue joke with your name I promise. Even if in my head I definitely am. Thank you for standing by all these years and I disastered my way through a career in computers, I’ll always appreciate someone knowing my absolute pain when it comes to users. Beyond that you’ve always got the best ideas for fandom aus and I love to hear them, especially if they’re old 90s fandoms. (and Canadian)

@sweetlyfez, remember back in the day when I was figuring out I was bi and it was all Constance’s fault? Well thank you for standing beside me as I figured that all out. And then laughing about it later because okay let’s be real, it is amusing in hindsight. You encouraged (and sometimes goaded) me on to writing femslash and I’ll never forget that.

@fonapola, we’ve come a long way from the musketeer-ing days. Who’d have thought our love our rare pairs would take us here but I’m glad we got there. Thank you for always letting me ramble on about those ideas and your own amazing ideas and fics and vids and everything when it came to that. You let a small thing grow large and kept the excitement going. Maybe one day we really will write our own thing together and have a shared world of sci fi and magic and someone clearly ready to be played by Howard Charles…Here’s hoping there’s more games I can drag you into it because I cannot wait.

@biportamis, oh Hannah I’d say I’m sorry for the million and one spams this year but that’s a lie and I’m not and if you’re gonna make me have musketeers feelings in 2019 then I’m gonna make you cry over Hawke. It’s equality. Jokes aside though I’m glad we always have those and holy shit you wrote a book!! Remember that?? That’s wild and I’m so proud of you for it, I can’t wait to see what you do this next decade.

@vulpyx, I am eternally grateful we got to talking and sharing fandom things, you’ve always been fun to talk to and I look forward to every pokemon game so we can make jokes about it and just be excited over it. And books! We need more good books, I hope that next Kyoshi one is gonna be good. I’m also really thankful that you’ve understood my anxiety and I wish I could help you with your own but know that I’m always here if you want to talk or need a distraction. <3

@waverly-earp, we have been through a lot of fandom madness together. Starting with AoS way back in the day and it just kept going. You’ve been a wonder through it all and an inspiration to make better gifs that look half as good as your beautiful edits. I love everything you create and wish this site wasn’t so terribly broken that it missed out on a good chunk of that stuff, but I hope you don’t stop because they always look so good. See you in the next decade with probably a dozen other fandom things to complain about (sorry not sorry)

@amandatapping, wild how quickly we bonded when it came to star trek but I’ll never regret that, the crazy things and injokes we ended up coming up with still make me laugh and you are the only person (aside from those femslash events) I’ll make ENT gifs for. Sorry I don’t love it like you do but I’m always willing to hear about how much you love it because it’s important to you and you’re important to me. #legged, baby!

@girlonthelasttrain, has it really only been two years since we started talking because it feels like we’ve been sharing memes forever. I’d say I’m sorry for spamming you with them but let’s be real, I’m not and it’s what Tidus would want. Truly a millennial icon. But really thank you so much for being around these past few years, I appreciate it every time you let me go on about my latest worries and panics and hyperfixations. I hope we get to share even more terrible memes over the next decade and I love you more than 13x7.

@alluringcliche, it’s been a while since the AoS days which really feels like it was already a decade ago but regardless I’m glad those days made us friends. Thank you for supporting me when I needed it and being there, I hope I could do the same when you needed it. I’m always down to talk about whedon shows even if joss has disappointed us terribly and this is our city now. All the best for the new year/decade and I hope to keep up more.

@dragoncharming, I was gonna call you my fandom backup but then that doesn’t feel like the right term but I also can’t think of the term to use when you’re always the person I count on to know if I’d love/hate something. You’re my guiding star for fandom, knowing where to steer me and what to steer me away from and I love you for it. I hope we get to play dnd together soon because that would be so exciting and thank you for everything.

@boydetective, oof I need to get better at texting more because I feel like I fell off the map this year and I’m sorry. I love getting to talk to you about small fandom-y things and sharing the wildness of KH and BNHA (aaaand I need to catch up again) and thank you for just rolling with it as I appear and disappear and I’m sorry about that. I’ll try to do better next decade.

@vulpixelates, thank you so much for letting me join a dnd group, it’s been a lot of fun and I am looking forward to meeting more of your characters in one shots and later on. And thanks for letting me ramble on about a million things and have Bi Panic about fifty times a year because that’s very real and I am very bad with it.

@adhd-athena, you know how next decade is starting with the KH DLC and it’s like…finally…some answers…. Well I bet we spend the next decade with just more questions and by the end of it we’ll finally have KH4. And even more questions. Regardless I’m looking forward to speculating all about that and DSC and other things with you, sorry for all the spams about those in advance I’m sure. Thank you for always listening <3

@malarkiness, I’m tempted to stick a picture of troi in here because that’s usually what I send to you and I have no regrets. Okay that’s a lie, I send you other things and I’m grateful I can always send you the most random things or rambling things and you just roll with it and amazingly haven’t blocked me yet. I hope we get to talk more about KH and FF and holy shit the remake is so close but it’s only like ¼ of it and Nomura what are you doing. (no one knows, not even him) All my love for you and the next decade of SquareEnix confusion.

@twilightacespect, it’s funny to think that I didn’t know you on this site until only about three years ago because it feels like we’ve always had this friendship. And by this friendship I mean you sending me cowboy things and me being haunted by them. Thanks beks. Okay okay, I love you a lot despite the cowboys. We’ve shared a lot of stuff and you’ve let me go on about a lot of fandom things and I’m sorry for the million and one spams over it when I hyperfixate on something we share. Except I’m not and suffer with me.

@organasoloskywalker, this year has been hard and I’ve said it a dozen times before but I wish I could be there with you. I’m always here for you though and I love you so much. Thanks for always being around to watch things with me and dragging into PGSM hell (“it’s a musical, you like those!” LIES LEXI, IT WAS PAIN) and a dozen other things. I hope we get to see each other sometime in the future and do a TAZ show or something but I’ll always be the voice on the other end of the line texting you pictures of my cat and loving Wedge Antilles. (and you) Also you know see you tonight for Fantasy High watching. <3

[witcherheadcanonswithdrkrzy]

Witcher Character Ages Pt. 1

The Preface

Since I have decided to make head canons for “the witcher” I have come forward to bring order into the chaos. So here we are. With me once again writing something I’ve already written in a discord. Buckle up people, this is gonna be a lot. Also Spoilers, duh

To make things very clear: many things I’ll write in this posts are not my work. In fact it’s mostly taken from the following posts

http://www.sapkowski.su/modules.php?name=Articles&pa=showarticle&artid=112#21

https://dtf.ru/flood/30575-vozrast-glavnyh-personazhey-vselennoy-vedmaka

https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline

Now the keen eyed reader might notice that two of these links lead to sites that are written in Russian, to which I would say: “You are right. They totally are.”

Now moving on quickly, I will present you with some reference points for the general timeline:

The book-saga: Geralt’s story ends in June 1268, the Assault on Stygga Castle most likely happens in March

The Witcher: May - September 1270

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings: April - November 1271

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: May - ? 1272

The Witcher: Of Flesh and Flame: 1273 but it’s a comic so I’ll promptly ignore it

Blood and Wine DLC: 1275

Furthermore and it might not even be relevant but I think it is so I’m including it, there is an interesting document one can find in Wither 3 in Kaer Morhen about the Trial of Grasses. This document suggests the age range for this trial (8-10 years) and considering. Both Russian sites I have linked have made the connection that The Witcher mostly resembles the real world High Middle Ages, which in order suggests the age of maturity being 21 (it’s not mentioned in the English wiki tho, that’s why there is the German link).

So. Now that we got the out of the way let’s get to our first subject:

Vesemir

We have ... literally no idea, BUTT! the timeline I included states he was active during 1112, so he has to be very much older. Apparently he has been around for the construction of Kaer Morhen as well.

The first witchers were put on recorded in the 960s, though the wiki timeline states the 950s (probably a typo). They were created by the two mages Cosimo Malaspina and Alzur (who probaly did most of the work). Kaer Morhen was constructed at the end of the X century, so perhaps Pappy Vesemir was one of the first witchers. Which would mean he would have to been born 939 (earliest). Which would in make him 333 years old during the events of the Wild Hunt.

Ciri and Timelines

Okay let’s get this out of the way now. Most of the short story timelines have been (as far as I can see) calculated with Ciri’s age.

As explained in the first link, in the last book Emhyr and Geralt meet for a second time, the first being during the feast in Cintra (A Question of Price). Here Emhyr states the have seen each other 16 years ago (I am paraphrasing). Ergo: “A Question of Price” happened in 1252.

Ciri was born during Belleteyn, which is celebrated April 30th to May 1st, so it is safe to assume she was born in 1253.

Ciri was brought to Kaer Morhen in autum of 1263 and it’s safe to assume he brought her to the keep as soon as he found her in “Something More”. That means the first war with Niflgaard happened in either 1262 or 1263. The fall of Cintra happened then as well. Not too long before that Geralt met Ciri for the first time in “Sword of Destiny”. 1262.

Also I need to mention one other thing: the game does state Ciri’s year as both 1251 and 1253, but I’m sure we can all agree CDPR made a mistake. Ciri is 19 in W3.

Geralt (and Eskel)

Since Geralt and Eskel are said to be the same age Imma just throw them together, which means figuring out Geralt’s age is key here.

Though the games state him to be almost a century old, it’s rather unlikely in my humble opinion. CDPR might have just assumed that because of Yennefers age (which I’ll get to eventually). However, the books mention another character we can use as reference for Geralt’s age: Nenneke.

In the books Nenneke is described as T H I C C and smol, but never really as old. She’s also rather graceful and quick. Nenneke mentions she raised Geralt, from a young age and mentions his height being around her waist back then. Perhaps Geralt was around 5 years old. The short story in which we can read so much about Nenneke (”The voice of Reason”) apparently happens not too long after Geralt invoked the “Law of Surprise” in Cintra, so maybe around 1253. If we assume Nenneke is in her 50s in that story, and she is probably at least 15 years older than Geralt - that way she would have been 20 when she began to raise him - Geralt’s year of birth can be ranged between 1210 and 1220, to which the article just said “Meh, let’s meet in the middle”. Geralt was born in 1215, which makes him 57 years old. Which means Eskel is 57 years old as well.

From that we can also date the short story “A Grain of Truth”, which is probably one of his first adventures judging by how unprofessional he behaves at times; he talks to Roach (which is a thing that never really happens in the books outside of that story), takes ages to figure out that he’s dealing with a Bruxa, oh and he fucking yells at her. Probably 1235ish.

“The Lesser Evil” also probably happened quite early in his career, so maybe around 1240ish.

Dandelion

Or Jaskier, whichever you like better. His birth year was actually given as 1229, which makes him 43 during the events of the Wild Hunt. Also the second article I linked in the beginning mentions he started singing in 1248, aged 18-19. “The Last Wish” is estimated to have happened in 1250. By that time Dandelion and Geralt have already been friends. “The Edge of the World” chronologically happens before that, so maybe in either 1248 or 1249.

And Yennefer

Yennefer actually states her age in “Tower of Swallow” (1267). She’s 94 in that book, so she’s 99 years old in the third game. She was born during Belleteyn in 1173. In 1250, during the Last Wish she and Geralt were 77 and 35 respectively. Shortly afterwards they broke up, meeting each other four years later in “Bounds of Reason” and probably broke up once again during the events of “A Shard of Ice”. Both of these stories happen in 1254.

On that note, both “The eternal Flame” or how a Witcher befriended a Doppler and “A Little Sacrifice” or relationships suck without compromises also happen in 1254.

**********

Well that’s it for today, Kids. I don’t know when I’ll do Pt. 2, but it’ll probably include Geralt’s Hanse, Lambert, Triss and maybe Emhyr too.

Also, this is literally me rn

Also, I swear Part 2 is going to be less of a mess

[stilwaterskeeter]

Rewriting Saints Row the Third

So I was messing around writing about my Boss earlier for @occorner and wound up kind of just rewriting entire pieces of SRTT rather than just making small alterations for the character.....So I went ahead and followed through on that accident and wrote out how I personally think a lot of the hollow writing and poor executions of certain parts of the game could have been better and improved. It ended up being a lot more than I was expecting so I’m putting it under a read more. I split it up into 2 parts: Story Changes and Character Changes. And then both of those are broken into smaller parts for each mission arc (the gangs/STAG/dlc) and each character individually.

Also this is just for fun, if you don’t like it then you don’t like it. There’s no point in reblogging this or replying just because you don’t like it yknow? Don’t waste both your time and mine just because you don’t agree with something I just did for the fun of it.

And if you guys like this uuuhhh shoot me a message/ask, I’d totally be down to chat about this stuff and maybe even make more posts like this for the other games in the future!!!

EDIT: Hi....somebody made me regret my decision to keep Kiki’s death canon...so I changed it...thankfully it didn’t have any huge affect on the core of the rewrite, and in fact only very little affect at all

Plot/Story Specific Changes:

Johnny Gat’s “Death”:

Johnny’s “death” wasn’t real obvs, it was like part of Gangstas in Space, like at the beginning that leads up to them going to space and stuff. But in reality Johnny was just kidnapped, cloned, and saved by the Saints after Act 1, but his kidnapping and everything gave the Boss the idea for Johnny’s “death” in the movie

You find Johnny about halfway through the Morningstar mission arc, but he would be seen in a few Syndicate cutscenes beforehand and a lot of implications that he wasn’t actually dead before that

Morningstar:

Loren actually gets like a better mission line following up to and including his death that isn’t just recycled activities disguised as missions

This also includes like a mini-boss fight with the DeWynter twins, that ultimately leads up to them joining the Saints as double agents

Loren gets a boss battle with The Boss, Shaundi, and Johnny fighting him while Pierce and Oleg keep other enemies out of the way and it ends with Johnny getting to personally deal the killing blow and give Loren a beat down like he gave Shogo in SR2 (although definitely not as intense or dark)

Deckers:

I think the biggest things I’d leave the same is the Deckers mission line, I actually don’t think those need to be changed hardly at all, outside of maybe having one or two more story missions without the compulsory activities

STAG:

I would downplay STAG a lot because they were just a weak Ultor carbon copy and took up way too much of SRTT than it should have

I wouldn’t change too much of the STAG missions but I would wait until later in the game to bring them in. Give STAG one or two missions before Murderbrawl XXXI and do the rest afterward

Miscellaneous:

This goes for like literally all 4 arcs, but replace a lot of the compulsory activities with actual unique missions. I think doing One iteration of each activity first is alright because it goes to be like something as a tutorial for them, but past Once, they shouldn’t be reoccuring

Add in one or two missions about The Saints trying to find where Killbane was hiding by interrogating Luchadores and stuff during the STAG arc and then Threeway happens and you find out Killbane is leaving while you’re fighting STAG

Also take out that last choice as a whole no question about it, The Boss lets Killbane get away and saves Shaundi, Viola, and Burt no matter what

While taking the decision out of Threeway, Johnny would go with Angel to try and stop and kill Killbane while The Boss goes to save Shaundi

Ultimately they don’t get there in time but Gat does get a few shots in, injuring Killbane pretty badly in the leg and probably having temporarily crippled him

DLC:

I think instead of the Trouble with the Clones DLC, instead you would get a DLC involving Killbane after he fled the city where you get to fight him and ultimately kill him yourself

It’d be called something like Winner Takes All or like Hell in a Cell which are two types of wrestling matches for those who don’t know. (Winner Takes All is exactly what it sounds like and Hell in a Cell is a cage match with no Escape Clause which is why I think either would fit for names)

Speaking of, make that DLC a double whammy and include Dex, as a business partner with Killbane that you get to fight as well

Angel is a required homie through most of these missions, he helps keep random enemies off your back so you can personally fight and kill Dex, and in turn, you get another mission similar to Murderbrawl XXXI where Angel gets to personally fight Killbane while you take out random enemies, however you also get to help Angel more directly by tossing him weapons to use against Killbane or to use something like a mounted gun to weaken Killbane when he’s cheating and getting the upperhand against Angel

Character Specific Changes:

Zimos:

His character as a whole is,,,,bad imo, so while I didn’t just totall omit him, he’s more or less just a character that The Boss works with to hurt the Syndicate, he’s not really a Saint, just like an accomplice. He would still become a homie at some point though

As a homie he has idle lines to ask how the twins are and The Boss will ask about the secret past and Zimos just says something like “Don’t ask, don’t tell, my man” or keeps the “That’s on a need to know basis, and you don’t need to know” line from the actual game

Angel:

Because I would take out the decision in Threeway and The Boss would let Killbane go, he holds a bit of a grudge and cannot be called as a homie until you have another quick cutscene and short mission where you talk and spar with Angel to help him get out some of his frustration at letting Killbane go

The Boss promises they’re still going to get Killbane because they’re not going to give up that easily

Maybe have The Boss tell Angel about Dex and relate to him while talking about how Dex was one of their best friends and then betrayed them, they never got their revenge but they haven’t given up just yet

Angel and Johnny friendship too!! You can’t tell me they wouldn’t be pals, they spar and talk shit about Killbane a lot

They also trade stories of past fights they’ve been in

Johnny also gives Angel a hardtime because he’s fuckin filthy and lives in such disarray

When Angel tries to snap back with the “so you hate discomfort” Gat shoots back with how the main Saints safehouse was ruins of an old hotel under an abandoned church in the really poor red light district and how before that it was an abandoned church also in one of the poorest areas of Stilwater. He’d definitely say something like “It’s not that I hate discomfort, it’s that I’ve lived that shit for way too long and got out, and I’m not planning on going back to that crap just because some bitch “shamed” me.” The banter becomes somewhat a weird and very Gat-esque peptalk

Viola & Kiki DeWynter:

They both join the Saints and work with them in secret against the Syndicate when Killbane takes over and Loren is killed

Viola and Kiki obviously both get more character development

Viola actually ends up being good friends with Shaundi

Kiki on the other hand ends up better friends with Johnny and they trade snarky remarks whenever everyone is planning out missions and when the Boss makes dumb decisions and shit

Johnny and Kiki end up bonding over small things like their concerns with their looks and just both being the more outspoken and witty counterparts in duos (Johnny’s other half being The Boss and Kiki’s being Viola)

Kiki and Johnny never fail to annoy the shit out of Shaundi because there’s just no end to the snark

Kiki also ends up liking Kinzie, meaning Kinzie gets TWO sisters, Viola AND Kiki, Kinzie couldn’t be happier

As homies, the twins have idle lines about how weird it is The Boss works for Zimos sometimes and ask to make sure The Boss never drags them along when they go to do jobs with Zimos, but they’ll never say why

Killbane threatens to kill Kiki after learning that the twins have double crossed him and are working with The Saints. He takes her as like a “hostage” and sends Viola to go tell The Saints to come “rescue” her while in reality it’s a trap and he’s using Kiki as the bait.

This adds depth to his character and makes him more than just some idiot meatsack who’s powerhungry. He’s a gangleader, he knows how to lead and how to manipulate and how to fucking plan things out further than “HUR DUR ME PUNCH THINGS AND MAKE THEM BLEED”

Viola, ever the realist, knows the likelihood that Killbane has Matt wired into her phone or The Saints’ crib or something so that he would know if she tried betraying him and told The Saints that it’s a trap. So she of course doesn’t tell them, she goes along with his plan all the while thinking of her own plan on how to get out of this problem.

Kiki on the other hand absolutely lets The Saints know it’s a trap as soon as she feasibly can, it’s not much but it does give them a slight upperhand for a minute in the ensuing fight

It’s like a miniboss battle with Killbane, towards the end when it’s obvious The Boss is gonna win, he picks Kiki up in preparation to snap her neck. But Viola shoots at his hand a few times and causes him to drop her sister, he then runs off and Johnny, Angel, and Shaundi chase after him but Viola and The Boss stick around to check on Viola

Kiki got struck by one of the stray bullets on her face, it definitely leaves a nasty scar and fucks up her left eye pretty badly in the long run

Kiki is for the most part out of commission as a homie after the whole kidnapping nonsense, but Viola is as ready as ever to fuckin’ go to town and kill some fuckers now

It’s her way of handling the guilt of almost losing her sister because they didn’t cover their tracks good enough and then by her own attempt to save Kiki, caused her sister to lose an eye

Johnny had taken Loren’s eyepatch kind of as a trophy after killing him, he very awkwardly gives it to Kiki after the mission claiming she probably needs it more than he does right now and seeing as it was Loren’s, she should probably have it regardless

Oleg:

Oleg actually has some of the most depth out of the new characters so I wouldn’t change much if anything?

He definitely would have a love/hate relationship with Johnny

They just don’t get along and butt heads but also they bond over their hatred of Loren/The Syndicate and having been used for the cloning experiments

Johnny also would think Oleg is like badass and cool as fuck and he’d make bets about what outrageous things he thinks Oleg can or cannot lift/destroy with his bare hands

Oleg would also have a lot of respect for Johnny for being such an seemingly average human but still having so much strength and being such a force to be reckoned with

Kinzie:

Kinzie is definitely the company’s favorite because she easily has the most content and depth of any of the other new characters and even more than pre-SRTT characters in SR4 so there’s little to no changes to be done

That being said, I really would want Kinzie and Johnny to also have a love/hate type relationship in SRTT that eventually drops the hate

Like Johnny does Not understand half the shit Kinzie says and she’s really pushy and he just hates it at first and Kinzie hates how he doesn’t listen a lot like the whole situation in SR4 where Kinzie’s always talking about how The Boss doesn’t listen to her and stuff? But with Gat,,,who is worse about it let’s be honest

But throughout the game they both start garnering more respect for the other

Like sometimes Gat’s headstrong guns-blazing outlook pays off a lot better than Kinzie was expecting and Gat’s also totally down to do whatever dangerous and reckless and heavy-lifting work she offers which is useful as hell for Kinzie

And sometimes Gat’s “wing it” planning bites him in the ass and Kinzie saves his ass because she planned how to finish the missions when he didn’t listen because he never listens and she wanted to be prepared for anything

Ultimately they have a very Older Brother-Younger Sister type relationship with Gat becoming really protective of Kinzie and totally laughing his ass off and siding with her when she and The Boss have disagreements/get into fights

Shaundi:

Give her back all that character development and exploration of her depression and survivor’s guilt!! why was that cut!! put it back!!

Additional cutscenes and stuff with Johnny and also The Boss sometimes talking about how Johnny going missing and being believed to be dead scared her and how it affected her

This also means we get to see some of Johnny’s soft side and his pisspoor attempts to comfort her

but also Johnny probably also gets on her case about it like Once because “Well I’m not dead so you can stop worryin’ about it, Shaundi” and it starts a whole little fight that The Boss eventually steps in and settles it

Also Shaundi & Viola friendship: I already mentioned it but just...think about it again ok...

It starts as a rivalry and then they start bonding when Kiki and Johnny are getting closer 

They both cannot stand Johnny and Kiki’s snark

And then both of their respective best friends are preoccupied hanging out which leaves them awkwardly hanging out at times

Turns out Viola was actually a fan of Shaundi’s show and at one point considered signing up herself just for the hell of it

Shaundi is completely shocked and they end up doing like impromptu joke-y rounds to get to know each other to pass the time

This includes idle lines when they’re both a homie where they’re laughing while Shaundi asks Viola random questions about herself and stuff and Viola answers

Also completely trash Shaundi’s weird jealousy/hate against Kinzie

Maybe have her as wary and holding a bit of a grudge because Kinzie’s an ex-fed at first, but ultimately they get past it pretty quickly 

Most of their conversations seen and stuff are them talking tech or talking about their relationships with other characters, there’s a few where Kinzie tries digging into Shaundi’s past and Shaundi tries to dig back though

Also definitely maybe talk/show her development between SR2 and SRTT more rather than just suddenly dropping such a dramatic collection of changes and “development” immediately and not really elaborating a lot yknow?

Pierce:

There’s not much I would change because I actually liked his character development a lot, it wasn’t as abrupt and dramatic feeling as Shaundi’s and he had a decent amount of depth so I don’t think there’s much to add aside from what you would expect from his dialogues with Johnny and Kiki

Johnny:

This is just here to be respectful, pretty much 99% of everything I have to say for Johnny has been said in all the other sections

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

THAT MAP

i didn’t die

also spoilers. like. major spoilers. im serious.

dont click that read more unless you’re totally okay with spoilers cause i talk about some endgame stuff too <3

CELESTICA ERIDIA

THAT ERIDIAN RIFT HUHHHHHHH ITS RIGHT NEXT TO PANDORA

WE’RE ENTERING THE FLORPUS

IT LOOKS LIKE THERE’S A WAY TO TRIANGULATE/OPEN THE WORMHOLE OR SOMETHING???

alright LOOK

each planet (Eden-6, Promethea, Pandora) they’re all circled and when their lines cross it leads to SOMETHING

and looking at the grid that’s obviously what looks to be a wormhole

so we’ve also got the lines

“elpis - not what it seems. is elpis a lens? or a conduit. or both?”

A CONDUIT/LENS?? FOR W H A T??

ARE WE BEAMING SOMETHING OUT OF PANDORA? BECAUSE IF THESE TEMPLES ARE ALL SIMILAR PYRAMID-LIKE STRUCTURES TO THE ONE ON ATHENAS THEN THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE

this is DEFINITELY on pandora (you see elpis up there) so it’s possible something is going to hit elpis and it’s going to beam to this vault-thing and open up a gateway to the Eridian Rift??? OR

we open this Vault and it beams something up to elpis and elpis helps open up part of the Eridian rift

i’d guess we’d need all 3 (?) active to open it?? Eden-6, Pandora, and Promethea

so something SEEMS to be getting beamed either from elpis to pandora or from pandora to elpis

but im going to get elpis to pandora given the way it’s being thrown out? like it hits elpis straight on and then defracts over pandora like a prism

im guessing it’s such a broad spread bc it’s trying to hit the vault-temple-thing we see above (still... not quite convinced those are vaults like we’ve been seeing them in the past games (with lots of big loot inside). again something like teleporters makes way more sense to me)

they also bring this up, that athenas and promethea have a draw to one another, which makes sense since part of the promethean vault key is on Athenas

“Although Athenas is not in the Promethean System, there is a strong pull detectable through use of [eridian resonator (customized) which I have discovered here (seen in purple)]” i have no idea if any of the bracketed stuff is right“

more importantly it looks like one piece of Promethea’s asteroid belt is ‘highlighted’ which i imagine is that giant space laser

which ngl surprises me because

this doesn’t really look eridian to me at all. like, okay, the laser part IS purple but... the actual tech doesn’t look Eridian at all. it looks VERY human. maybe maliwan/atlas discovered it and changed it somehow? that’s pretty much the only reason i can give. like they made it so it would only hit a certain area (concentrated) instead of the entire planet (like we see Elpis doing)

also if we look at Eden-6

eden-6 seems to be 1 of 6 (or more) planets surrounding the gas giant (?) named Eden (which is such a cool fucking detail). or maybe that’s just a solar system named eden. either way. AWESOME.

my question is:

is Eden going to act similarly to Elpis? to the Asteroid Belt of Promethea?? because if that’s the case OH MAN MORE GIANT SPACE LASERS. maybe this is why ships keep on crashing to Eden-6. We know the planet is basically a ship graveyard, maybe there’s some Eridian interference that’s causing this to happen???

Also, when they say “Vaults lead to other Vaults” do y’all think this is tied into in any way the “Vault of Vaults” or whatever “It” is???

because THE VAULT OF VAULTS??? APPARENTLY WE WERE NAUGHTY AS FUCK FOR OPENING IT (the overseer says so when you accept the quest for the proving grounds)

AND THE MASTERS (whoever the FUCK they are!) ARE NOT HAPPY BOYS

ALSO “UNIVERSE DESTROYING POWER” AS CLAIMED ON THE WEBSITE

UHHH IM GONNA GUESS THAT RIFT IS ABOUT TO KILL EVERYONE AND/OR LET OUT A BIG OL SPACE DEMON COUGH THE DESTROYER COUGH

ALSO WE PROBABLY ARE CONFIRMED THERE ARE TEMPLES ON EACH OF THE PLANETS WITH THAT DIAMOND SHAPE

THEY MATCH UP WITH THE SYMBOL WE’VE SEEN EVERYWHERE

(also we now can guess this takes place after Athenas..?)

‘Vault... Key?’ i mean... think about it. we know the symbol for Vault is the circle with the arch. but this is different. this is diamond with, yes, with a vault shape in it. but... there’s obviously more to it than just the vault symbol

plus tannis is using it on pedestals dedicated to Vault Keys so i mean. you know.

and if this IS the symbol for Vault Key than oh man oh me oh my

that would mean opening up the ‘mini vaults’ on Pandora/Promethea/Eden-6 would lead to that big Eridian rift opening, whatever it is

which could explain this line: “the Vaults lead to other Vaults” “Smart, Leda!”

looks like Typhon met someone who writes in blue. who’s name is Leda.

calling it now typhon totally banged a Siren named Leda and had 2 twin kids (it runs in the family) the twins take after their parents: one red, one blue. possibly inherit the Cloth Map and learn about the purpose of the Vaults through it. i got nothing on the cage thing but tbh i wouldn’t be surprised if Typhon or Leda ended up going crazy at some point and/or having kids inside of a Vault for some ungodly reason. spewing random shit about ‘bandits this, bandits that’ to keep them from leaving. maybe they knew their adventures were going to (eventually) lead to the destruction of the universe so they wanted to keep their kids safe without having to admit they’ve doomed everyone outside this has no proof at all, im just spitballing lol i mean look at these love-sick FOOLS lmao

look they both left messages (that i can’t read) with hearts at the end of them

“Genius! [gibberish i can’t make out] <3″ “you know it! <3″

we don’t know what the Vaults really are for, huh Tyreen?? NOW WE DO. NOW. WE DO.

“ERIDIAN GLYPHS ARE CYHPERS!” (sic???)

“by overlaying various found glyphs patterns emerge which are then...” ASDFGSHJ i CANT READ THIS “What is the machine?” “We’ll figure it out together!” MACHINE????????

i NEED it

“Mapping in progress: the key-glyph [something] is an Eridian cypher hiding coordinates to some kind of cyber (????) structure” this perhaps???

also the proving grounds. let’s talk about those. we know they’re eridian, we know there’s 6 of them, we know there’s 1 at least on both Athenas and Eden-6.

we know those Eridian Ruins/Cyphers lead to the proving grounds. we know this much. so is it definitely confirmed the proving grounds hold a higher place in the story than they’re saying? i mean let me pull up my other draft talking about these in-depth and copy paste because there’s only 36 minutes until the NEXT endgame content stream

“Later in the campaign, you may be worthy of taking part in the Proving Grounds: themed gauntlets watched over by a Guardian known as the Overseer who wishes to test your mettle on behalf of the mysterious ‘Masters’.”

so it sounds like at least one is going to take place during the main campaign of the game.

as for uhh who the Masters are... I don’t know. I imagine they’re Eridian in some way/shape/form. to be honest, considering the Overseer is a Guardian (confirmed), I imagine these ‘Masters’ are just literally Eridians. some sort of council, perhaps. i mean “the masters will determine who is at fault” for “naughty humans opened the vault of vaults”. so i imagine they’re like a council.

Let’s start listing stuff we know about the Proving Grounds:

1. you get them by translating (we apparently get a translator later on in the story) Eridian texts (ciphers) left behind, which tell us where (?) these proving grounds are. why we’re not just using tannis... i dunno. something better not have happened to Tannis, gearbox

We’ve seen these texts in the Eden-6 gameplay, so it looks like maybe we won’t need the eridian doritos stabby thing to break any crystals. damn youuu

“Ohhh good. Nonsense.”

i make jokes with my friend that soon i’ll be able to read Eridian given how much i stare at these tablets. it’s only a matter of time...

2. there’s apparently 6 of them, and at least 1 on each planet. We’ve seen the Athenas (Survival) and Eden-6 (Instinct) versions, which does make me wonder if there’s any tie between 6 of these trials and the 6 Sirens...

Also, given there’s supposedly 6 trials and only 5 planets (as the community has gotten devs to tell us), it makes me wonder a) if there’s actually 6 planets or b) why there’s only 1 planet with 2 per planet. i guess if that’s the eridian homeworld then it’d make sense if they have 2.

(Also Varnell did originally say 7 trials at first, but he gets a pass because he was live on stage and i would’ve made that mistake too knowing my dumb brain lol)

3. Apparently during the narrative of the game, at some point, we will unlock at least 1 trial.

“[proving grounds are] encased in the narrative of the game. a combat challenge the Eridians have left for the player to kinda prove themselves worthy for... things i won’t completely spoil right now, but uhhh prove themselves worthy to the ancient, lost, Eridians.”

so... YEAH. big news, gamers.

does this take place at the end of the game? its possible. its likely considering this is considered endgame content. it might not. it could be both, like sort of a repeatable thing. im not really certain. 

What I am certain about tho, is that this takes place after a huge story event.

So, maybe the BL3 story ends on a cliffhanger. Tbh i would upset if that happened, but THAT SAID, if the game does end on such a huge cliffhanger that this is AWFUL and the end of the universe is coming, I don’t think we’d be getting 4 story DLCs that completely ignore this problem.

The devs had said the entire story will be contained within bl3 (no splitting it up between dlcs), and it seems the games like to keep the timeline intact in the real world, so if imminent death is on its way, we can’t exactly wait 5 years irl and in-universe for borderlands 4.

So, if this is a cliffhanger ending, I don’t think whatever happens is... that big of a deal. Sort of the level of finding the Vault Map at the end of BL2. It’s big news! but it’s not going to end the universe. The story marches on. We figure out the new goalposts of this universe and keep doing stuff outside it.

Now that we know that, let’s take note of what the Overseer says at the start and end of this mission:

“Vault Hunter... I thought you might show up sooner or later. So naughty your species, so curious. The Vault of Vaults has been opened and it has been released. Prove your worth and I will reveal why the Masters made me wait for you”.

“Naughty humans opened the Vault of Vaults, but the Masters will determine who is at fault. Until next time, Warrior.”

so that’s some pretty fucking loaded dialogue, isn’t it?

im vvvvvvvvvv curious about who this ‘it’ character is... something the Eridians didn’t want out- well, that’s bad, because we (or the twins, or maliwan, or both I guess) just let it free. and the fact the Overseer won’t even reference the thing by name... that’s probably bad. If this is an actual entity, then that is mostly why I believe this particular Proving Ground takes place during the main story.

that said, ‘it’ could literally be anything. Knowledge, hope, whatever. the potion you brew to become a Siren. you know. anything. She called whatever was released ‘it’ and it doesn’t seem like we’re in a RUSH or anything. Just hanging out doing proving grounds. and apparently this is because we’ve been naughty humans. not evil, just naughty. like she’s giving us (or the cult) a slap on the wrist.

The Overseer doesn’t seem too affected by us opening the Vault of Vaults herself. The Masters apparently are trying to determine ‘who’s at fault here’, like it isn’t exactly clear. was it the humans for opening it? was it the eridians for making them openable?

it would be interesting if this isn’t even talking about something that happens in game, but instead like... she’s referencing Typhon and Leda. the Vault of Vaults had been opened (by Typhon and Leda) and IT has been released... whatever it is... maybe the reason Typhon and Leda locked their kids in a vault? ... i mean if we’re going by the eridium/slag causes psychos, then maybe that? we definitely find eridium on planets other than pandora...

also speaking of stuff taking place during the game, lets remember what was discussed in that interview: “[proving grounds are] encased in the narrative of the game... a combat challenge the Eridians have left for the player to kinda prove themselves worthy for... things i won’t completely spoil right now, but uhhh prove themselves worthy to the ancient, lost, Eridians.”

worthy of what, exactly?

I’m still of the belief that it’s for the title of Vault Guardian (and, yes, by proxy, i want to say Siren, but y’all won’t take me too seriously if i keep advocating for this crack theory lol... implying you took me seriously in the first place 🤡) because of the Guardian Rank

the fact we’re killing Fallen Guardians means, technically, a position HAS opened up... plus I don’t think the Watcher would have come in contact with Lilith if she didn’t think the Eridians needed us

that said, if this isn’t for just becoming Vault Guardians, then... idk. If this is strictly endgame stuff, i don’t even know what we’re trying to prove our worth for.

I guess worthy of not being thrown into alien prison is probably a good one. magic space prison is probably hard to get out of. like, ‘200 years an opening’ hard to get out of. and ur roommate is the destroyer 😨

i mean... maybe worthy of entering the Eridian Rift? i mean... it’s possible this rift leads to the eridian homeworld... there would have to be one HELL of huge Vault Monster to keep people from getting through :o

anyway, we’ve got 20 minutes until the new endgame content, i’ll be sure to add onto here if we learn anything new and/or i think of anything else. im vibrating over this shit, it’s awesome. i LOVE this map. might have to pick one up on ebay or smth.

[botslayer]

Top Ten games of the 2010′s

This trend seems to be doing the rounds at the moment and seeing as I’ve been gaming for about as long as I can remember, It just feels right. So, let’s get into it. But first, worth saying: These aren't really in any specific order, it's just the games I've personally had the most fun with overall, but it's pretty hard to decide what the hard numbers on things you enjoy for different reasons are if that makes any sense. 10. The 2010's weren't exactly the best time for anyone, I think. For me they were a slog of finding myself and learning things I wish I didn't. Amid all those things I wanted some levity. The world needs something and stupid. We got a lot of it ion 2013 but I feel like we could have used it scattered around a bit more. In that spirit, allow me to show you one hell of a pick me up:

Saints Row 4

Saints Row 4 does not give a fuck. It is aggressively demonstrating that the entire time you play. It doesn't care in the slightest what you think or why, It just wants to show you cool, if juvenile, and interesting, if weird shit. It's the finer points of Ratchet and Clank's arsenal, SR3's humor, And superpowers that genuinely put Prototype and Infamous in a blender and tell you to go ape shit with them. The soundtrack isn't top shelf, it's the roof of the building the shelf is in. Saints Row Two had a better story overall but SR Four's was just plain fun and a solid enough story to still be invested.

The DLC was just as irreverent and madcap, Featuring everything from an evil Santa Clause to evil Gimps on Game of thrones chairs made of dildos Or Tropey-ass costumes and weapon reskins that I'd be genuinely surprised the game dev didn't get sued over. It has earned its place in my top 10 and I will die by that decision.

9.

2016 saw the advent of a new genre. They blended TF2 and MOBAs, and we got hero shooters in their first AAA forms, Overwatch and Battleborn. But neither of these games is on this list, much as I liked them. Partly because the whole time, I kept thinking of one simple question: "Why do I keep thinking of...?"

Anarchy Reigns

Anarchy Reigns is my favorite Platinum game. Full Stop. The Story mode is interesting and has genuinely good character moments, the characters themselves are completely mental, ranging from a mercenary with a bionic cat leg that secretly has a gun built into it to a giant cyborg bull-man with a jet-powered hammer. The soundtrack is mostly angry hip-hop, making every song a banger and fittingly speedy for things like random bombing runs from jet fighters that come from absolutely nowhere.

There are giant monsters, cars with mounted flame throwers, giant robots, and the online is still pretty sweet because even when abandoned, loading it up with bots still rules. I regularly have more fun with this than I ever did with Overwatch, and I don't care how insane that sounds.

8.

Some games want to make you feel something and fail. Some games make you feel some things accidentally, for example, a desperate need to laugh. This game made me feel like a human blender. Like a Chthonic god of mangled flesh and raw destructive power. Nyarlathotep ain't got nothing on me. I speak, of course, of...

[Prototype] 2

There's no end to the absolute destruction you feel like you're causing in this game. It feels more fluid than the first, the main character is a pinch more relatable, and all the body horror, superpowers, zombie hordes, and big old monsters make for some of the most memorable and fun moments and fights in gaming. The DLC is also pretty solid, adding new fun side challenges, and new powers and weapons that elevate you from "Flesh god" to "Screw physics, I made them" Omnipotent. Best god/monster simulation of all time.

7.

Sometimes some games are at an honest tie in your mind. Be it that you like them for essentially the same reasons, or for completely different reasons, but the overall total joy or entertainment they bring is roughly equivalent. Here, we have a case of the former:

Furi/Cuphead

Both games have a tight focus on giving players a unique, boss-centric challenge, both have interesting, somewhat minimal narratives, and both are absolute eye candy.

Furi has a more "Samurai Jack" Quality to me. A complete badass on a relatively simple quest with a somewhat minimalistic art style learning some things as he goes.

Cuphead on the other hand, nails that rubber hose animation style, and the fun levity of such animations while still making the player's ability to interact with the world damn impactful and fun.

They share a spot in my soul, games I love everything about but will never be able to finish. Hats off to both dev teams.

6.

Now here we have another tie. Mostly because the games are so close together, they need to be evaluated more or less as one product IMO, not enough changed for me to consider them separate games, fortunately, that is the furthest thing from an insult it can be in this situation. I present to you, my next pick(s).

Costume Quest 1/2

Now, This might seem pretty random considering my other picks, but honestly, I love Halloween, I love creative madness, I love subversion, I love good characters, and I love cool action, these games have all these things by the bucketload.

The first game is a wild ride through Halloween in multiple very lively locations and the second, slightly confusing as it is, is pretty awesome for the things it introduces, including time travel. Other elements, like the battle stamps, the truly epic forms of everything in the fights, The ability to customize your costumes, etc. they blur together in a pretty big way, but again, there's not a thing wrong with that when both games rock like crystal candy. 

5.

Now, if you hadn't noticed, all of the games on this list have had some hard action at their core, and while I don't HATE calmer games, a lot of the time, so many are kinda dull to me in that with the exception of easter eggs of some sort, most farming sims, for example, just have you doing normal farm stuff with very few twists, may as well start a real farm in that case. My most chill entry is a game that tosses that to one side, asks you to grab a suck cannon, and start harvesting gelatinous monster poop.

Slime Rancher

While you don't spend a lot of time actually interacting with other characters, they just talk at you, the story of the game is pretty effective, the player character of Beatrix has left Earth for a simpler life of Slime Ranching, which entails the raising of alien crops, delightfully derpy and colorful chickens, and going all around in an attempt to farm new breeds of slime for their genetic material to sell off or trade-in for the creation of gadgets while being surrounded by a cast of interesting characters. It's all very wholesome family fun.

The game looks great, has great ideas, and is genuinely the best farming game I have ever played. @ me all you want.

4.

The 80's are almost fetishized nowadays. Given all the property reboots, games that go for the vibe and aesthetic of the time, etc. It almost seems as though the eighties vibe train ain't gonna stop rolling any time soon. But we owe it to ourselves to remember the first big swipe of madcap neon-colored actiony B-movie bullshit and how mind-meltingly epic it was. Ladies, Gents, and whatever else, I present:

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Blood Dragon's story is relatively simple, you play Sargent Rex "Power" Colt (A name said in full so many times I thought his last name was "Powercolt" for the longest time), a former "Omega force" cyborg. Rex and his friend "Spider" were sent into a secret island base to investigate the supposed defection and treachery of their old commander, Ike Sloan. It turns out he has gone rogue and taken an army of "Mark 5" Omegaforce cyber-soldiers with him. What follows is a long story of betrayal, science fiction of the highest nonsensical level, comedy, and brilliantly cathartic action.

The collectibles range from data on animals, to research notes from a scientist, to literal VHS cassette tapes that have full descriptions of movies that I would legitimately watch if I could. "You may now kill the brides" is not a real film and I am angry for every day that that is true. Anyway, play Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, I dunno if it's on PS4 but it's one game I'd buy a new/old console for.

3.

A lot of superhero games NEED to railroad you. Your goals MUST be to save the lives of the people and help the weak and all that. But one dev asked the simple question: "What if it didn't?" "What if the player chose how to use their power? What if the player could be as evil or as good as they damn well pleased?" One game gave you the powers of thunder and lightning and asked what you'd do with it. It's sequel asked you the same, but against more... interesting forces.

InFamous 2

InFamous 2 is a game about making choices, just like the first one, also just like the first one, it can have an effect on gameplay. That effect went from "What does this particular power do in this allignment?" To "Which new set of NEW powers would you like?" The forces of the last game went from “Three flavors of gun-toting whackos” To “Possibly an allegory for the Klan, Swamp monsters, and Ice-powered super soldiers.”

This was, and still is, the best game in the whole series, The powers felt distinct from anything else and still do, the story is solid as a rock, and the enemy types were still varied enough to be interesting, I miss the Reapers from the first game, but that's about it. Everything else was a massive step up. If you have something that can run it, play it.

2.

Action is something I think we can all appreciate on some level. We can understand when it does or does not work, we can understand when we do or do not like how it feels when we are the ones partaking in it. EX: Any schlep can tell you when the weapons in your game lack impact, or when your character moves too slow for the game to be fun. The following game is something I can't say anything of the sort about. And it's kind of like Wolfenstein, when you have enemies this bad, who the hell cares how many you kill?

Doom 2016

Y'all are lying if you say you didn't expect this one. It's DOOM 2016. This game is made of hate and fuck. AND I LOVE IT. You move so fast, you may as well be half cheetah and half sports car. You slaughter the dregs of hell by the dozens and even the biggest, baddest things this game throws at you can be beaten with the starting pistol if you have the stones for it. It looks amazing graphically, the demons all look appropriately threatening, and even the Multiplayer is a great deal of fun in my book.

Something worth noting: The story presented by default is pretty barebones, but that's where supplementary material fills in the gaps, the difference between supplementary material in most games and supplementary material here is the material is till IN THE GAME. You're free to ignore most of the plot as it happens around you, and even interesting tidbits of the lore like how certain demons function. Not only are these things missable collectibles, prompting continued play to find them, they are also pretty interesting reads. So yeah, just about everything you could want in a sequel/remake, builds the on lore and gameplay very organically. 

1.

And here we are, the last game I'd put in this category. An entire decade, and here, we end on the last game that left such an impact I'd put it in my top ten. But first, let's talk about expectations and delivery: When you say a game is coming out, there are certain expectations you have for gameplay, EX: I say "Ratchet and Clank" and you expect a TPS with platforming elements and crazy guns. I say "Gears of War" and people expect something to do with lumbering about in big armor, dismembering things with a chainsaw gun and otherwise shooting them to paste. We might also expect changes to things, better graphics, innovations in grenade variety, something as that franchise goes on.

After the last game in this series was released, there were tons of people who felt let down and disappointed by it. Then they released the still somewhat disappointing special edition of it. They were both still fun, but neither really felt like the full next step in the series. After a failed reboot, they returned to the original story and the lot of us rejoiced. And when it finally came out? It was a step up in most, if not, all regards, to its predecessors. You know what this last one is. Please, give a warm round of applause to:

Devil May Cry 5

A game that was not only a return to form, but a major escalation in gameplay for one character, and a new style of gameplay all together by way of yet another new character. It didn’t exactly hurt that the story kicked ten kinds of ass and that the game looked spectacular in both the design of everything and the actual graphical fidelity.DMC 5 is, like DOOM, Like InFamous 2, Like [PROTOTYPE] 2, everything you want in a good sequel. It built very well on already solid foundations and it was generally just a fun, slightly goofy, massively stylish, and ultra badass ride. I recommend this, and all these games, to anyone.Good night everyone, have a great 2020. And the rest of the decade, for that matter.