#of designing a party member instead of a character

[prokopetz]

One of the occupational hazards of being so preoccupied with game design as a discipline is that sometimes I'll have dreams that are just some unknown force explaining an idea for a game to me, and last night I dreamed what is possibly the most obnoxious mechanical premise for a game I've ever come up with.

In brief, it was a traditional JRPG-style game with an atypical levelling-up scheme. Rather than gaining XP or levelling up at milestones, party members would grow in power by finding and absorbing or ingesting these little extradimensional parasites, represented in the dream as small grub- or fetus-like creatures with smiling humanoid faces. These parasites would be found as treasure and enemy drops, and could freely be given to any party member, except for the player character; the player character alone was unable to use them for Plot Reasons, and was entirely reliant on equipment to grow in power instead.

Absorbing a parasite both granted permanent stat boosts and unlocked weird psychic powers. However, they'd also cause progressive personality changes in the party members to which they were assigned, reflected by changes in dialogue and interactions, and eventually in granting or denying access to particular side quests. This function of the parasites was undocumented, and would likely go unnoticed by the player on their initial playthrough, as they'd level up as they went and would never see the unmodified dialogues.

A further wrinkle is that this effect was mediated by the game's expected progression. Farming parasites and "over-levelling" beyond where the game expected you to be would accelerate the personality changes, while going deliberately under-levelled would slow them (i.e., by giving your party members more time to acclimate to having bugs in their brains); like the personality changes themselves, the existence of these hidden modifiers would not be hinted at to the player.

If you spent a long enough stretch of the game sufficiently over-levelled, you'd eventually receive a non-standard game over where your party would betray, kill, and eat the player character. Furthermore, this non-standard ending had a deliberate "eclipse phase" whereby it would wait for a while after you hit the required threshold before pulling the trigger, in particular making sure that you've saved at least once, leaving your save file irrevocably fucked.

As a final twist, the non-standard game over would only trigger after resting; though the game's mechanics would heavily incentivise resting on a regular basis, it would theoretically be possible to massively over-level your party on purpose and avoid the bad ending simply by never resting again, potentially as a speedrun strat. However, doing so would alter the game's ending to replace the usual final boss with a hopeless solo boss fight against your own massively over-levelled party.

[nagy-bari]

on the appeal of Chilchuck Tims

short spoilery rambles on why i zero-ed in on this old man instantly and how i realized the patterns he gets to people.

subversion of the trope: oh they just look like a child while actually they are XXXX years old and--- yes. he's older than he looks, with a good 10 years and it's a boyman design now instead of a loli girl.

BUT wait there's more!

he's older than he looks and he has the experience of his actual age: that man is a father. of 3. the story he's in is his midlife crisis. he's planning on retiring from dungeering after this, he asked for payment UPFRONT (and got it) he has insane (for other characters, but really he's just normal, tries to be normal) work ethics - he got paid, he does the job, he's good at the job, he knows his own worth, strength and limits.

This Man Is Self Aware. He knows his weakness, the job's weakness (how adventure parties slip up and why) he knows he's seen as a bit closed up and he's OKAY WITH THIS.

what he's not okay with? not knowing if a party member is a cannibal or not when they are on this insane survival trip and he's the cook. what does he do?

he knows how to communicate and how much to disclose. Rare one, i know. With the party having an average gossip queen, an autistic foodie, and mysterious chef he knows when to take the lead so they can still function.

so to round it up:

Subversion of the 'looks young actually old', closed up and grumpy rouge who's motto is 'never trust those who don't ask for payment' and has the 'it's called personal life for a reason' philosophy rooted into their blood. Good? good.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE

because he knows he and all halffoots look young to others he actually started up a guild so they can re-enforce their rights as adults and independent people, so they are taken seriously and they can work against bad stereotypes and all.

we see his struggle through volumes, how hard it is for others to finally understand that a short live-spam people is actually just as old and mature as a long live-spam would be, it's mostly the numbers that are different.

we can learn with the other character to take him seriously, to accept the differences.

so he has good work ethic, looks out for his people, has plans for his and other's future, CARES for the future in general and ACTS so it will be a reality- rather sooner than later.

so he's charismatic and lovable while still being the usual tsundere setup for any joke.

BUT WAIT

THERE'S MORE

we first learned that he's actually is an adult (middle aged in half-foot culture)

is an estranged husband

who was left by his wife

cause he cheated-

BUT WAIT ACTUALLY NO

HE LIES ABOUT THE CHEATING!

cause he wants to keep his work persona intact, and it fits more if he says he cheated, cause then people won't BOTHER him with further details

BUT HE DIDN'T

he just went home one day and the wife was gone, with a note

and we learn ALL of this through a subversion of a UNICORN BICORN TALE - a feckin roll up of the whole pure maiden true virtue stuff - and we find out cause the feckin monster SNEERS AT HIM for lying then bites him.

so he's really soft with all the hidden 'better keep to yourself' and don't jump to conclusions cause that only fuels drama, which will hinder your work. but he was clearly hurt by this.

so the subversion here? we are Marcille. the whole fandom is Marcille. we are just as nosy and gossipy as her and it's a tiny little metanarrative joke and i love it, it's wonderful writing and it keeps you wanting more and more, you want this grumpy middle aged father to finally tell you his life story, the mundane little things, to see him brag about his children and all cause he's so goshdarn professional about everything.

but is it subversion at all?

wait...

there's more.

while we get actual introduction to his daughters we truly never seen anything about his wife.

it reaches the hights of Mrs. Columbo level of secrecy and i love it.

but! we know:

they were childhood friends

married when Chilchuck was 13 (almost full grown adult for their culture) and had the twins(?)

left their village at 14

3rd daughter at 15

he started adventuring at age 24 and formed the guild.

wife left when he was 25

Chilchuck started to work with Laios at 26.

he's now almost 29.

they were childhood friends and married for a good 10 year. he was there when he was needed to be a good dad (he's clearly proud of his daughters) and their fallout only started when he started adventuring.

let me say it again.

they. were. childhood. friends.

as much as we see the unfolding of young love in media, with all the teen dramas finding true and forever love in highschool and live happily with the white picket fence for 50+ years we see less of the loves that fizzle out, but were and probably will be friends.

love this. love this little detail cause there's so much in it. The confusion, the still remaining anger, the fustration. they probably would be able to talk it out. they've known each other for most of their life, but his logic and compromises for work (clear communication and a clear head) does not work here.

we don't know how exactly he feels and i love that, but we know he struggles to be open about 'mushy' feelings, grand gestures and all.

he knows his limits. His wife probably knows it too. That's why she's with the middle daughter. The assumed-ly closest to her rather than the oldest (locksmith) or the youngest (conartist?freelancer?life-artist???)

if we learned anything from Dungeon Mushi, it's that Kui Ryoko is a master of diverse characters visually and personality wise as well.

you can reverse engineer the wife if you want to from the girls but i love the joke and the actual comfort this whole Mrs. Columbo it gives.

cause Chilchuck has Columbo vibes. He's competent in his work, knows his limits, knows how to help others and when, knows when to quit and when to move on. and this tiny flaw of his, this domestic mystery we assume is his background (and ground of his disarming normality) is just enough to keep you thinking and re-think and re-think and just grow to love and appreciate the little details and love that was poured into this character of many in this wonderful story.

BUT WAIT

THERE'S MORE

yes he's a father

the dad jokes. oh my good the hidden dad jokes all through-out the series.

the 'i don't want a pet' ---- 'proceeds to be unseparable from said pet' meme with Izutsumi

the actual care and attention he can give when someone is distressed

the TALK with Senshi. that moment.

he's a proud father

but he's above all - practical

well that's all the mad rambling i had in me for now

if you read through this thank you

and do share your thoughts and finds - and ideas about the wife.

[velleire]

Homestead Essentials: Living in Janthir Wilds (link)

Text:

Greetings, Tyrians! Gather around the fire and settle in as we chat with Andrew Gray and Joel Eckert, two of the designers working to bring you one of the newest features in Guild Wars 2®: Janthir Wilds™. Today, they’ll conjure a magical doorway and take us on a tour of Homesteads.

With the launch just a few weeks away, we’re excited to answer some essential questions that will help you on your journey to turn a plot of land into a home. In the next few weeks, be sure to check out our social media channels for inspiring homestead designs, and join us soon for a livestream where we’ll explore Homesteads even further. For now, we’ll be covering some of the general Homesteads information that you’ll need to know.

Q: How do I get my homestead?

A: The story of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds will introduce you to the plot of land that you will tend to and claim as your homestead.

Q: How do I access my homestead?

A: Once your homestead is unlocked, you’ll have access to a Summon Conjured Doorway Mastery skill. Any character on your account can conjure a doorway and simply step through into the homestead.

Q: Can friends visit my homestead?

A: Yes, you can invite your party members to your homestead via your conjured doorway. Players who are not in a party can use the door to request a party invitation from the door owner, and the owner interacting with the door will initiate the instance-transfer countdown. You can even give your visitors permission to help decorate your homestead!

Q: Can I return to my original location (the place I entered from) when I exit my homestead?

A: Yes, you’ll find a familiar instance exit button on the lower right of your screen that will return you to your previous location. This will even persist across sessions, so if you log out and log back in to your homestead to take advantage of the homestead’s resting bonus, upon logging back in, the instance exit button will return you to your last open-world location. This will not persist if you visit another instance, though.

Q: What can I unlock for my homestead?

A: As you progress your Homesteading Mastery, you’ll unlock more rooms within your homestead to decorate. You can also unlock improvements to your lumber mill, mine, and farm facilities. Because upgrades and spawns for your personal story home instance carry over to the homestead, you can also collect various gathering nodes, convenience features, and characters like the hungry cats.

And, finally, you can unlock decorations through the handiworker discipline, which is a refined, account-wide crafting ability.

Q: Can we control where unlocked nodes spawn?

A: Things like resource nodes, cats, and chests are placed in predetermined areas to ensure they all function properly.

Q: Where do homestead decorations come from?

A: Handiworker is the new crafting discipline that will be used to create decorations. New decorations are unlocked via Mastery points spent in the Homesteading Mastery line.

Q: Tell me more about handiwork, the new personal version of guild scribing.

A: Handiwork functions very similarly to scribing, but it is designed and balanced for a single player to be able to craft things on their own. There is a material cost for each copy of a decoration that you craft, but the prices for personal decorations via handiworker crafting are significantly lower.

Q: Why is handiworker crafting part of a Mastery line and not leveled like other crafting disciplines?

A: Since your homestead is account bound, we also wanted your handiworker crafting discipline to be account bound. We also wanted to create a stronger synergy between the content of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds and your homestead, so, rather than reaching higher levels of the crafting discipline by crafting more decorations inside your homestead, you’ll instead do so by playing the rest of the Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds content and earning regular experience points.

Q: How do I decorate my homestead?

A: A “Decorate” button on the heads-up display or the skill panel will activate decorating mode.

In this mode, players have access to various skills on the skill bar for placing new decorations, modifying already placed decorations, or removing decorations. Additionally, you can enter a flying mode that allows placement of items anywhere a player normally cannot reach.

We’ll be demonstrating homestead decoration live on Twitch this Friday, August 2, at noon PDT (UTC-7). Join us to catch the placement tools—which include a Toggle X-Ray Vision skill and flying mode—in action.

Q: How do the characters on my account interact with the homestead?

A: When you exit to the character selection screen while inside your homestead, the character you were playing will be visible in your homestead as an NPC while you play other characters. These NPC versions of your characters default to one of three predetermined locations in the homestead, based on whether they are soldiers who wear heavy armor, adventurers who wear medium armor, or scholars who wear light armor.

Soldiers are found around the main homestead structure and the entry area near the portal.

Adventurers are found on the far side of the river near the main homestead building, in a wilder area.

Scholars are found in and around a secluded cave away from the main homestead, which is perfect for concentrating.

If you approach any of these logged-out alternate characters, you can ask them to follow you and lead them elsewhere. When you’re ready for them to stay put again, you can ask them to stay, and they’ll stop following.

Q: Will all of the characters I leave in the homestead when I log out show up? Can I control which ones show up or disable them?

A: All characters left within the homestead when you log out will be visible when you’re playing other characters.

Q: Can we control the appearance and dyes of mounts in the stable? How are those chosen?

A: Mounts housed within the mount stable will have the same skin and dye settings used by the player character that is currently accessing the homestead. The skiff’s dye and skin are controlled by the same means.

Q: Will there be a livestream to show off Homesteads?

There will be a livestream! As we mentioned above, we’ll be showing off the design elements and finer details of the Homesteads feature on our Twitch channel, on August 2 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7). We hope to see you there!

Prepurchasing any edition of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds before the expansion launches will grant you the “Homesteader” title, the Whispering Serpents Pauldrons skin, and a box with your choice of one Serpent’s Wrath weapon skin.

Visit the official store page for full details on the items included in the Standard, Deluxe, and Ultimate editions.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hi :) Perhaps an odd one, but I was wondering if you had any recommendations of games to play out events that have already happened? The end game has been predetermined, but the events that lead to it are more mutable? I'm running a dnd game with a group that has been very open to trying out different systems and I was thinking it could be very fun to put the player characters back in time into the shoes of other characters during the campaign's inciting event. Thanks!

Theme: Recalling Events

Hello friend, so there are definitely games that allow you to do something similar to what you’re looking for. There are games that go back in time, games that flashback to previous events, and games that take place at moments in our real-world history that have already happened. I don’t know if any of those games exactly work for what you’re looking for, but they might be interesting to look at in order to ask yourself how you want to run something in a timeline that you’ve established for a specific setting.

Ten Candles, by Calvary Games.

Ten Candles is a zero-prep tabletop storytelling game designed for one-shot 2-4 hour sessions of tragic horror. It is best played with one GM and 3-5 players, by the light of ten tea light candles which provide atmosphere, act as a countdown timer for the game, and allow you to literally burn your character sheet away as you play. 

Ten Candles is described as a "tragic horror" game rather than survival horror for one main reason: in Ten Candles there are no survivors. In the final scene of the game, when only one candle remains, all of the characters will die. In this, Ten Candles is not a game about "winning" or beating the monsters. Instead, it is a game about what happens in the dark, and about those who try to survive within it. It is a game about being pushed to the brink of madness and despair, searching for hope in a hopeless world, and trying to do something meaningful with your final few hours left.  

There is only a few facts pre-determined at the beginning of this game, but those facts are important: all of your characters will die. Over the course of the game, you will slowly blow out ten candles as your characters grow closer and closer too their doom.

However, the nature of that doom can be altered. I’ve seen it done for the Locked Tomb, for example, and you can set it in a modern world, a futuristic world, or a fantasy world if you like. If you want to hack this game for your group, I’d recommend playing out a scenario that involves characters that you don’t mind saying goodbye too - perhaps a catastrophe your party heard about, and you can role-play the last moments of some people they failed to save.

Firebrands Games

Mobile Zero Firebrands is a game about mech pilots getting into fights and falling in love, but more importantly, it’s a game that guides the group through mini-game-like scenes that are common tropes in various stories. The beginning scene and the end scene are usually pre-determined, but all of the other scenes happen in whatever order you prefer.

The original system has been hacked a number of times, so you might find a game or genre that works for you - perhaps you’d like to play pirates in One Particular Harbour, or gods and heroes in Divine || Mundane. You could play members of a religious order looking for a new leader in Hierophants, or look into the complicated lives of mages in Hearts of Magic. If you don’t find anything that works for your specific tastes that already exists, you could also hack the system to make it fit for your specific group.

Eat the Reich, by Rowan, Rook & Decard.

Eat the Reich is a tabletop roleplaying game in which you, a vampire commando, are coffin-dropped into occupied Paris and must cut a bloody swathe through nazi forces en route to your ultimate goal: drinking all of Adolf Hitler’s blood.

This over-the-top, ultra-violent game is designed to be played from beginning to end in one to three sessions of carnage, blood magic, meaningful flashbacks and hundreds upon hundreds of extremely dead fascists. It tells one story, it tells it loud, and it tells it brilliantly. Think Wolfenstein crossed with Danger 5 and you’re not far off the mark.

Eat the Reich both happens at a very specific point in time - WWII - and also has a mechanic that allows characters to flash-back to various points in their shared backstories in order to play through a high-action sequence while still getting to know the characters. Your vampires have been working together for a long time, and while Eat the Reich is meant to be rather fast, these flashbacks allow you to speed up that relationship-building by letting you fill the details in backwards.

Eat the Reich started out as a hack of Havoc Brigade, if I remember correctly, so the system is definitely hack-able: perhaps you can think of a big event that happened in your party’s past or even in another part of the world, and then design characters that represent folks who were behind the big event. I think this kind of game would work best for heists or high-stakes assassination - anything that expects your players to put their lives on the line for a big, sweet payoff.

Retrocausality, by Weird Age Games.

Retrocausality is a tabletop RPG about time travel adventures, in the vein of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure or Back to the Future.

It uses a rules-light, card-based system that lets you decide how time travel works. Whether you have a specific movie you want to emulate, you have Opinions on the Novikov self-consistency principle, or you prefer not to ask too many questions, Retrocausality can make it happen. Even better, the rules are so light you can use Retrocausality to run a time travel adventure in a different game. That's twice as much game.

Many of the examples shown in Retrocausality indicate that the time travellers you play will be messing with a timeline, and since the rules can be ported into a different game, that tells me that you could use this for any genre you like. This of course, means that you’re not just telling a story about your characters’ pasts - your characters are actually going back in time to a specific part of history.

I suppose you could use this to either bring your characters back to a time period before they were born, or maybe instead you’re interested in taking new heroes back to a point in time when your characters were doing something significant off-camera.

Houses of the Sun By Night, by Emily Zhu.

These are 13 houses of the underworld that the sun passes through at night.

These are 13 minigames you can play in specific situations, during your other games or on their own.

This is how the dead come back to life.

This series of games is explicitly designed to be hackable, with a setting that can be ripped apart if you like. The original setting is a nod to the underworld of Egyptian mythology, but the moments themselves can be zoomed in on a small moment or used to navigate a special event that may have big effects on the larger story. I think you can use some of the games in here to re-visit moments of your characters’ pasts, or reference events that may have happened to NPCs that the characters were not necessarily witness to.

If you want to learn more about this set of games, you can watch Aaron Voight’s review of the game on Youtube!

Other Games To Check Out

Feng Shui 2, by Atlas Games.

Time Travel Recommendation Post

[annymation]

Reimagining the Characters in Wish

(Part 4- The 7 teens)

Yup, you read that right, I’m rewriting AAAAALL these fellas, or rather, just giving more substance to them because as they were in the movie we barely got CHARACTERS, just a 7 dwarfs reference, heck, I doubt y’all remember their names.

If you’re new here, hi, I’m rewriting all the characters in Wish before I start sharing my rewrite, here’s part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Now you may wonder, why am I even keeping the concept of the 7 teens in my rewrite, when just scrapping them all together would make my life so much easier instead of writing lines of dialogue and character motives to all of them?

Well the answer is that I like to make myself suffer I think they actually have a lot of potential, and I really like their designs.

Sooo lets meet the gang.

Who are the 7 teens?

So in my rewrite, the 7 teens will be a little bit more than just Asha’s best friends. Because each one of them will be the sons and daughters of some members of the royal staff.

I’ll be specifying in this blog the following things about each one of them:

- Their personality.

- Who their parents are.

- How they met Asha.

- What purpose will they serve in the story.

So buckle up because this blog might get a lil bit long hahaha I regret this already.

Dahlia 🍪

- Dahlia is a 17 year old girl, she has mobility issues, so she has to use a crutch to walk.

- She’s very organized and proactive, always doing her best to get things done. She’s often the one who takes the lead when planning things for her friends such as surprise birthday parties or deciding where to hang out (or whatever teenagers did back then aside from dying from the plague).

- She has an habit of making lists with the step by step of everything she has planned, which her friends find pretty amusing. Her ideas always turn out to be a lot of fun, although she really needs to learn how to let go of this need of control and just let things play out naturally.

(She’s kinda like Twilight Sparkle… this will not be the last time I’ll mention a My Little Pony character in this blog)

- Sometimes when things don’t go according to plan or she gets anxious she starts stuttering and replacing words

(much like how Doc from Snow White did constantly, I’m shocked they didn’t reference that once in the movie, it’s such an awkward teenager thing to do)

“Asha! We shook— I mean LOOKED everywhere for you la-last night! Why would you fun- I MEAN RUN away from the hackle like that??”

“… I think you mean castle-“

“YOU KNOW WHAT I MEANT”

- But overall she’s a very kind and supportive friend to Asha, something they both have in common is that they enjoy working hard to achieve their goals, even though Dahlia still wants to give her wish for the king.

- I might’ve made her come off as a bit of a control freak but really she’s very easygoing and kind. Even when things don’t go according to plan she knows anything with her friends will be fun and work out in the end.

Even if what doesn’t go according to plan is a heist mission to infiltrate the castle?

She’s the daughter of the royal cooks

- Her mother is the royal baker and her father is the royal lead chef.

- They both work in the castle, and Dahlia sometimes goes with them to lend a hand when they’re short staffed or to learn the family business.

- Dahlia has witnessed first hand how the royal couple can be not so sweet when they’re away from the public eyes:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

King Magnifico: Diner yesterday was absolutely dreadful, what happened? Have I granted your wish to be the greatest chef in the land for nothing?

Dahlia’s father: m-my deepest apologies sire, you see, the queen took all the salt from our storage yesterday to make her potions so-

King Magnifico: Blaming my wife for your incompetence now, I see

Dahlia’s father: n-no! I’d neve-

King Magnifico: If you got no salt, find a work around, I’ll not be accepting any less than the finest meals from you, was I clear? Dismissed.

Dahlia: … Dad, that wasn’t your fault, you can’t let him talk to you like that.

Dahlia’s father: He’s the king, Dahlia, he’s always right. Besides, it’s thanks to him granting my wish that I know how to cook at all, the least I can do is not disappoint him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- Because she got to see this behavior, it’s easier for her to believe when Asha tells her the king and queen’s true colors.

- She’s expected to follow her parent’s foot steps, and become a great cook, but all she really knows how to bake is cookies.

- She sees cooking a lot more as a past time than something she’ll be doing for the rest of her life, but she doesn’t want to let her parents down, she keeps trying to develop some interest in cooking, so she can wish to be a great cook once she turns 18

(Just wishing for it without having truly the interest in cooking wouldn’t work, because a wish has to be something that you really want and comes from the bottom of your heart)

She was the first one that met Asha

- Dahlia was helping her mom sell her baking goods to the neighborhood, so she went all by herself with a little cart carrying a bunch of sweets (like a Girl Scout)

- She knocked on Asha’s house and was greeted by lil 6 year old Asha with her grandpa, they bought some sweets, but as she was walking away Asha noticed she was having some trouble carrying the cart while walking with her crutch.

- Asha looked at her grandfather who gave her a reassuring nod.

- Asha offered to help Dahlia carry the cart.

- They talked while they walked door to door for a while, and after there were no more sweets in the cart they went to play together, and that’s how they became best friends.

She will be the leader

- I mentioned briefly in my blog about reimagining Asha that after her grandfather passed away she started living with Dahlia, so they’re basically sisters, and as such, Dahlia is very protective of Asha and becomes increasingly worried when Asha starts acting weird after her meeting with the king and queen, like she’s hiding something… and why the heck she has a friend that dresses up like a prince now?

- There will be a point in the middle of the story where Asha and Aster run away from the kingdom

(for reasons that I really should explain soon because the whole middle chunk of this rewrite is yet to be shared on Tumblr, I’m so sorry, I’ll get to writing it here soon)

- And Asha is seen now as a traitor, so, the 7 teens are conflicted.

- Should they believe their king, who says that Star guy is dangerous and Asha was plotting to betray them? Or should they trust their best friend?

- Dahlia is the first one who rises up saying they should go after Asha and help her, pack their stuff, tell their parents they’re going to make a sleepover or something, and just go to the middle of the woods.

- Everyone is a little unsure at first (specially Gabo and Simon) but after she gives them a little speech and reminds everyone of all the things Asha did for them, they’re convinced to go.

- Once they do find Asha and Aster, she helps a lot when they have to make a plan on how to defeat the royal couple.

Simon 💤

- Simon is a 21 year old young man, the oldest of the group, and since the day he gave way his wish he hasn’t been the same.

- Simon used to be very energetic and hard working, now, he’s in a constant feel of exhaustion that doesn’t go away, no matter how much he sleeps, he doesn’t feel motivated to do anything.

- His friends are very understanding tho and every time they hang out they always bring a pillow in case he needs a nap (which he always does need).

- They assume Simon has been so exhausted since he turned 18 because after that his father has been more demanding of him and his training, we’ll talk more about that later.

- Even tho he’s overwhelmed with sleepiness, Simon is still very protective and caring with his friends, he always tries his best to stay awake when they’re having fun together, he doesn’t want to miss a moment with them.

- He was even more protective before he turned 18 of course, he was like the older brother of the group, but since now he’s way too sleepy to be the voice of reason, that role is now Asha’s, the second oldest.

He’s the son of the captain of the royal guard

- The training I mentioned before was sword fighting, horse walking, navigation, tactics and a bunch of other exhausting things.

- But for whaaaateveeer reason Simon has lost all interest in learning about them since the day he gave away his wish, gosh I wonder what that wish wa— It’s the same that it was in the movie.

- Simon wished to become the next captain of the royal guard, just like his dad, so he can make him proud and protect his friends.

(Omg Simon is Papyrus Undertale confirmed)

- Magnifico is waiting for Simon’s dad to pass away so he can grant Simon’s wish, can’t have 2 captains of the royal guard at the same time, now can he?

- The tragic irony of it all is that a wish that Simon made to make his family proud just made him become an embarrassment to his father, who now doesn’t even try to teach him anything, knowing his son is just gonna fall asleep during his lessons.

- Simon is very distressed by all this, deep down he knows that he might feel this way because, for whatever reason, the king hasn’t granted his wish yet

- Whenever he tries to explain that to his father tho, he just angrily cuts him off for even daring to question or blame the king for his own failures, saying he must always be loyal and thankful to the king… Always.

(His father is mean like that because he wished to be the king’s most trusted and loyal knight so he literally is incapable of questioning Magnifico, even if that means he hurts his son in the process)

- After getting these speeches from his father so many times Simon just accepted that the problem was him, and it definitely wasn’t the king’s fault

- However, Asha did suspect that Simon’s wish wasn’t granted, just like how her grandfather’s wish wasn’t either, she recognized how Simon shared a lot of behavior patterns with her grandfather.

“You know Simon… Maybe you should ask the king if your wish was granted at all, don’t you think? You haven't been acting like yourself for 3 years now”

“What? Oh no no no I… I shouldn’t bother him with something so silly, I mean, of course he granted my wish… And if he didn’t then he must have his reasons and I just gotta wait haha but it doesn’t matter either way, after all I’m totally fine… I’m fine…”

Simon is the only one in the group who has absolutely no criticism about the king.

He was the second one that met Asha

- Simon was 10 when he started training sword fighting on his backyard, he’d use some scare crows as his opponents, and he made some wood swords by himself.

- Asha and Dahlia were hanging out when they saw Simon training, Asha thought it seemed fun so she asked if she could play too.

- Simon really could use some more lively opponents so yeah, why not?

- They played sword fighting the whole afternoon while Dahlia cheered for Asha and joined in the fun too.

- Since then they were very close friends and Simon taught Asha how to properly sword fight during their preteen years… they haven’t done that in a while now.

He’ll be the traitor

- Yup, oh sweet sleepy lil Simon betrays them in my version too, but don’t worry, it’s not just because he wants to get his wish granted like it was in the movie

(because that was a jerk move that made Simon feel very unlikable, like I get it he’s constantly exhausted and depressed and wants it to go away but bruh couldn’t even look guilty when doing it)

- So, like I mentioned, they all go after Asha and Aster in the forest. Simon at first is very resistant and the others even say it’s okay if wants to stay.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dahlia: It’s okay Simon, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.

Gabo: OH SURE! I’m a jerk for calling this a suicide mission, but the strongest and oldest of the group not wanting to go is completely understandable, I see how it is.

Simon: …hmm

Dahlia: Simon’s case is different Gabo, if his dad realizes he’s missing then we might have even more guards on our tail.

Safi: Besides, Simon might be a liability.

Simon:… what’s that supposed to mean?

Safi: Ah… shoot- eh you know like… it’s getting pretty late and you didn’t get a nap this afternoon so—

Gabo: He means we can’t carry you through the woods like a sleeping beauty waiting for a kiss, Simon.

Simon:…

Hal: Wow Gabo, very classy (sarcastic)

Gabo: Hey, just saying what we’re all thinking-

Simon: I’m going.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- Simon decides he has to go because someone has to be there to protect his friends, not just from the woods, but most importantly from that star guy the king warned everyone about

- May seem contradictory that Simon believes both in the king and Asha, but truth is that he’s holding up hope that this is all some big misunderstanding and Asha just misunderstood something the king said, or she’s being brainwashed by that star, or anything else.

- He just can’t accept that the king is truly evil.

- So, when they’re packing up their things to go, Simon grabs a little something from his father’s room.

- A magic mirror, used only by the king’s most trusted knights, that gives direct contact to the king's study.

- He planed to just use it in case that they needed help if they found out the star was really harming Asha.

- However, once they did find Asha and Aster, it became undeniably clear that the star wasn’t harmful at all, which left Simon very confused.

“Maybe the book the king read about wishing stars was wrong, I should just explain to him that he made a mistake!”

(Oh poor naive boy)

- After planning how they’d defeat the king and save the wishes, Simon just lied saying he was gonna take a nap behind a tree, and thus, he entered in contact with the king and queen

- Magnifico at first dismisses Simon like he’s just messing with his father’s stuff until Simon mentions he knows where Asha and the star are, that peaks his interest, but he and Amaya disguise their enthusiasm perfectly by pretending to be worried for his safety.

“Oh my, are you alright? Has it done anything to you? Where are you? We can send help immediately”

- He says they’re fine, and tries to explain that maybe the king was wrong about star, and there has been some misunderstanding that lead to Asha thinking they were bad people, if they just talked things out everything would go back to normal.

- Like I mentioned in part 2, one of Magnifico’s abilities is hypnosis through eye contact, so he’s able to make Simon see things his way.

- He manipulates Simon into thinking that the star is tricking all of them to get to the wishes, and the only way for Simon to save them is doing EXACTLY what Magnifico says.

- He asks Simon to tell him what their plans are, so he can stop them from… doing anything they might regret.

- Simon, even under the influence of Magnifico’s power, is still conflicted and asks if his friends will be in trouble after this is all over.

“Trouble? Oh heaves no, dear boy, I wouldn’t dream on letting any harm come to them, trust me, your friends will be perfectly safe… If you do as I say.”

“… “if”?…”

“Enough chit chat, now, what are they plotting exactly? Don’t leave any details”

- Of course, Magnifico also offers to grant Simon's wish if everything goes according to plan, Simon is fully convinced.

- Simon agrees to lock his friends in a room during their invasion to the castle, the king convinced him that's the best way to keep them “safe” (Asha will be locked in a different room tho, for… reasons)

- But once he does lock them up, he hears his friends screaming and arguing with him through the door, eventually he has a change of heart and lets them go, so they can stop the king and queen together.

- Simon first betrayed his friends, but then he betrayed the king, and as he’ll find out in a very painful way… Magnifico really doesn’t like being betrayed.

(See what I did there? That’s a line Magnifico says in the Wish movie hehe… okay moving on)

Gabo 😡

- Gabo is a 17 year old teen, he’s also a little person.

- He’s a menace to society the brutally honest of the group, always with a sarcastic remark on the tip of his tongue, sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re way too harsh, but he often apologizes if he goes too far, he doesn’t mean to hurt people, being blunt is just how he expresses himself.

- You may wonder why his friends even hang out with him if he’s so… grumpy all the time, well, his friends understand that he has a lot of pent-up anger inside because of personal stuff, so they try to help him through it.

- He also has a more soft side to him, he can be very wise for his age when his friends need some advice, and he’s always loyal, even when they disagree, he’d go anywhere they go.

- He’s specially loyal and supportive to Asha and most of the time refrains from throwing shade at her, actually he’s mostly just blunt when talking to the guys, he’s a lot more respectful to the girls.

(Ironic considering Grumpy hated Snow White at first just because she was a girl lmao)

He’s the son of a soldier

- His father is just a random soldier, nothing special really.

- However, once when Gabo was a kid, he was visiting the castle with his father and he wanted to explore, so he sneakily grabbed his father’s keys to the dungeons and went to see how was it like, ya know, boys will be boys.

- He got in, and at first there wasn’t nothing out of the ordinary, just your average scary dark and gloomy dungeon… except that by the end of a hall, full of empty jail cells, there was a door.

- And he could hear someone screaming from behind that door, like they were pleading, and he saw light coming from the key hole… It looked like the king’s magic, except it was green instead of blue.

- He tried to use the keys to open it, but none of them worked.

“Ugh why don’t any of these keys work??”

“Because this area is forbidden, little one”

- He turned around quickly to see who was behind him, and there she was, the queen was smiling down at him, a sweet and tender smile, like she wasn’t hearing the sounds of desperate cries coming from behind the door.

“I- sorry your majesty but umm… it sounds like someone is in trouble in there, shouldn't we help?”

- Then he heard the distinct sound of something made of glass breaking, and suddenly… silence, no more crying, no more screaming, and no more light coming from the door.

“I don’t hear anything my sapling, poor thing, you must be imagining things. Now, why don’t you just hurry along back to your father? He’s looking for you… And remember, this is our little secret~”

- And Gabo never told this to anyone, he knows no one would believe him.

(If you’re wondering what was going on behind that door… let’s just say there’s STILL more evil stuff Magnifico does that I couldn’t fit in my blog about the villains, what’s that you ask? *maniacal laugh* I’ll let you guess)

- Gabo always had the feeling that there was something WRONG with Rosas, but he couldn't quite pin point what, and that experience in the dungeon made him start questioning if the smiles he saw plastered on the king and queen's faces everyday were real or fake.

- This feeling that there was something wrong but there was nothing he could do about it made him, for a lack of a better word, grumpy a lot of the time.

- Needles to say, when Asha explained that the king and queen were actually evil, Gabo believed in a heartbeat.

- Because he’s a little person, Gabo is not expected to follow his father’s foot steps, and that makes him furious, because he wishes he could be seen as strong like he sees himself, but he’s constantly underestimated and treated like a kid.

He was the third one to met Asha

- During a kite festival in the kingdom, Dahlia, Simon and Asha were flying their kite when they noticed a boy sitting down on the grass, next to a broken kite.

- The boy looked very grumpy, so Asha tried offering him a hug, Gabo quickly pushed her away, saying he wanted to be left alone.

- Simon and Dahlia suggested they should just leave him be, but Asha insisted they should just give him some time to calm down.

- They sat a little bit far away from Gabo and started to just talk. Gabo appreciated that even though Asha didn’t even know him she was willing to wait for him to get some alone time and try to reach out for him later, most people just walked away when he had his anger episodes.

- After a few minutes, he got up and asked if he could play with them.

He will be the comedy relief, and the straightforward voice of reason

- Comedy relief is also an important role in a story, to alleviate the the tension and just be that one character that gives more contradictory remarks, otherwise everyone just agrees with each other and really where’s the fun in that?

- Also, after they figure out Simon betrayed them, he’d be the one who snaps Simon out of the idea that the king is a good person, throwing some facts to his face and like, not sugarcoating it, just straight up calling Simon out for being a dirty traitor, an awful friend and an absolute idiot, which may seem harsh but was exactly what Simon needed to hear to realize he was making a mistake.

- Like, Simon just opens the door apologizing in the verge of tears while Gabo keeps kicking his leg to let out his anger while everyone else is staring at Simon very disappointedly, comedy gold.

Bazeema 🥰

- Bazeema is 17 years old, who’s very shy.

-In this rewrite she is pretty much the same except for a little design and background change, you see, I found this piece of concept art

- Do you see it? Bazeema seems to be wearing a hijab, I like that, we don’t get enough Muslim representation, so there, Bazeema is Muslim and she wears a hijab now, her religion won’t affect anything in the narrative tho but I just wish they kept this detail in her design.

- Also I’m keeping that gimmick that sometimes she appears out of no where and scared the hell out of Gabo, because yeah I think it has comedic potential.

- She’s a very sweet and gentle girl, very soft spoken and likes to have some alone time once in a while “us introverts need sanctuary” as she said.

(She’s kinda like Fluttershy, see? I told you I’d mention more my little pony characters)

She’s the daughter of the royal gardeners

- Nothing much to it, Bazeema just saw the queen being rude to her mother once because the flowers were red instead of white. So again, when Asha sas the royal couple is evil she believes her just fine.

- Also she knows about a secret passage inside the palace’s garden, in the center of a hedge maze, that leads to inside the castle.

- Specifically to an underground storage room where her parents keep some gardening tools, but, if they can get in there, they might find a way to get inside the castle through the underground.

- She doesn’t mind following her parents footsteps at all, in fact, she loves the idea of just talking to flowers all day.

She’s the fourth one who Asha meets

- When Asha was 10, she and her friends went to watch a kids play telling the story of Rosas, Bazeema was playing the queen.

- But Bazeema got stage fright, and ran to the back of the stage, embarrassed that she forgot her lines

- Asha followed the sound of her crying and reassured her that it was alright and she could take as long as she needed to feel ready, and complemented that she looked beautiful in her Queen’s dress.

- Bazeema really appreciated that, and she went back on stage, although, she tried keeping her eyes closed to not see the crowd.

She’ll give important info on how to get inside the castle

- Like I mentioned before, Bazeema has info on how to get inside the castle through the garden, so she’ll just assist on that part of their plan.

- Also comedic relief, with her gimmick of disappearing then showing up out of nowhere.

Dario 💎

- Dario is 17 years old, and in this rewrite, he’s mute, not deaf tho, just mute, so he communicates through sign language. That’s to reference how Dopey, the dwarf he pays homage to, was also mute.

- I wouldn’t say Dario is dumb in my rewrite, he’s just really easily distracted, sometimes when his friends are talking he’ll just doze off and look at some flowers he finds along the way or collect rocks, and they don’t really mind.

- Dario is very emotionally intelligent tho, and among all the 7 teens, he’s one of the quickest to believe that Asha is innocent (Right after Dahlia)

He’s the son of the royal announcers

- Ya know those people with the big trumpets that give announcements to the kingdom? Yeah that’s what his parents do.

- Due to his disability Dario can’t really become an announcer, at least not a verbal one, he doesn’t really mind tho.

He’s the fifth one that Asha meets

- Asha was 11 when she and her friends met Dario, he was new in their class because he and his parents just moved to Rosas.

- Since he was mute, he had a really hard time making friends, so, Asha and her friends went to the library and found a book teaching about sign language

(I’m not gonna pretend you can actually learn ALL about sign language with just a book, I should know, I had ASL class in college, with a deaf teacher, and even then I don’t know even half of what there is to know, but this is a fantasy, so let’s pretend these kids learned the whole language, because it’s wholesome)

- So they make this effort to communicate with him and that makes Dario really happy, and he quickly joins the group.

He’ll be the silent comedic relief and also help creating a distraction for the king

- Most scenes when everyone is talking and focusing on more serious things, Dario is easily distracted and can be on the background doing the most random things, it’s not that he doesn’t care tho, he’s listening, and sometimes he comes up with creative ideas of his own.

- Also, as the son of the royal announcers, he goes tell them he has seen the star on the north side of the forest, his parents obviously believe him, and announce to the guards and the king, thus they can get inside while Aster distracts Magnifico.

Safi 🤧

- Safi is the youngest in the group, he’s 16 years old, and he has a tendency to sometimes not thinking before he speaks, so he kinda blurts out things that might come off as indelicate, but he never means to be rude. Also he’s allergic to EVERYTHING under the sun, so, of course, he sneezes a lot.

- I gave him this characteristic of blurting out things that he’s not supposed to say because it kinda reminds me of a sneeze, uncontrollable and sometimes inconvenient, but this way it gives him more character.

- Also if it was only Gabo saying inconvenient stuff and everyone else were saints this would be no realistic group of teenagers, teens are relentless when it comes to saying dumb stuff with each other y’all, they just don’t care.

- Safi is also a germophobic, always avoiding situations that might get him sick, like flowers, animals, dust, humidity, flour, the rain-

- And even though he’s terrified of everything that might give him a sneezing fit, his friends are always there to help him get through it.

He’s the son of two members of the cleaning staff

- So, as you can imagine, Safi really doesn’t want to follow his parents career path, with a job that is all about cleaning dust.

- One day, he was asked to help them clean the castle so he could at least try to learn something.

- While he was helping, the king showed up and started complaining with his parents that his study wasn’t clean enough

- While he was busy talking with them, he left something very important lying around.

- Safi saw the king’s magic staff leaning on the wall.

- Safi wanted to get a closer look, so while the king was distracted he approached the staff, but then, he felt it, a sneeze was coming up.

- He tried to hold it in but it was too late, Safi sneeze was so strong the staff got out of balance, and when it was about to hit the ground Magnifico managed to grab it just in time.

- Safi looked relieved and even chuckled to himself thinking the king would do the same. But the expression the king had was something he never seen from him before… Safi saw pure rage.

“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU ALMOST DID? YOU WRETCHED BRAT! YOU COULD’VE ENDED ALL THE MAGIC IN ROSAS! I COULD’VE BEEN RUINED”

- Safi was pressed against a wall apologizing frantically and so were his parents.

- The king took a few deep breaths, and as if nothing happened his expression went back to his usual charismatic smile

“Maybe cleaning duty just isn’t your calling, lad. You’re dismissed from assisting for today, or any other day for that matter.”

- So Safi is not allowed inside the castle anymore.

He was the sixth that Asha met

- Safi was terrified during the festivals celebrating the foundation of Rosas, because the kingdom was decorated completely with, well, roses.

- There were roses everywhere, and he couldn’t stop sneezing with all the pollen in the air.

- Asha and her friends noticed him distressed, and decided to help him by taking Safi away from the kingdom.

- Safi was sad he couldn’t join in the party, but Asha and her friends said they could bring the party to him, so they danced and played instruments all day long.

This boy whose only personality trait was SNEEZING is literally the one who provides the info they need to defeat the villains, no, I’m not joking

- Like I mentioned before, Safi had a interaction with the king where he heard the king say “You could’ve ended all magic in Rosas” but he never understood what Magnifico meant by that.

- It’s not like all the king’s magic is stored in that one staff right?… but what if it is.

- When they’re coming up with a plan to defeat the king, Safi brings up this information, and there you have it, now they know what’s his weakness.

Hal 😄

- Hal is 17 year old, and judging by her earrings that resemble the “Jaaro dibbei” earrings from the Fulani tribe, so with that in mind, in this rewrite she came from Africa but moved to Rosas with her family as a kid.

- Hal is a very extroverted and joyful person, it’s rare to not see her smile, unless the situation really gets serious.

- Shes contagiously optimistic.

- Is often practicing her jokes with her friends, or just throwing some quick witted quips to lighten the mood.

(She’s a lot like Pinkie Pie… All the girls are My Little Pony references)

She’s the daughter of the royal entertainers

- Hal used to practice a lot of juggling and try acrobatics when she was little, but she quickly realized that kind of act wasn’t her calling

- She much prefers telling jokes and funny stories to the king and queen wherever her parents bring her with them to perform

- Hal noticed how the laughs and smiles the king and queen made during her acts always felt kinda forced, like they didn’t mean it.

- However the king would often burst with laughter whenever a performance from her parents went wrong, that always rubbed her the wrong way.

She was the last to met Asha

- When Asha was 13, she and her friends saw Hal practicing juggling near the forest, and she was really struggling with it.

- She told them she was really nervous because she had to be ready to perform for the royal couple in a few days.

- Asha suggested she should try a different kind of act, so she and her friends helped Hal come up with stories to narrate to the king.

- Hal discovered a new passion for story telling, and that became her new act.

She's the one who encourages Aster to confess his feelings

- Our Star Boy wasn’t actually that confident with confessing how he really felt about Asha, after all Aster knew that after granting her wish they would never see each other again, so what was the point in confessing?

- Hal encourages him with her optimism and explains that if he doesn’t tell her he’ll just regret it forever.

- That leads to the “At All Cost” scene

- So thank Hal for playing cupid

- Oh and Bazeema will help encourage Aster too

Final Thoughts

Welp this was a doozy one, but I’m pretty satisfied with how they turned out, everyone now feels like they got something to do and some actual backstories.

The way I’m planning to actually introduce in the story how they all met Asha is through a musical flashback that we see Asha going from a little kid to a teenager, think of it like the UP intro or “Do You Want To Build a Snowman”.

Like the movie would have in the beginning Asha’s grandpa reading to her the story of Rosas and we get a sweet scene of them interacting, then it cuts to this musical sequence (probably with no lyrics like in UP) where we see how Asha met each one of her friends, and also show how as time went on her grandfather grew more and more senile and dependent on her.

The sequence would end with Asha’s grandfather’s passing, and her friends being there to support her. Just like that in a flashback sequence with no dialogue we understand who are Asha’s friends, who was her grandfather, how Asha cares about all of them dearly, and with all that established the story begins.

Like can you imagine that? Introducing why we should care about Asha’s friends by showing to us who they are instead of just telling us and throwing them in the story with no explanation? What a concept, I’m sure glad a certain multibillion company didn’t just waste them…

Anyway, I’ll start actually sharing the chapters of my rewrite here pretty soon, I’m already confident enough to do it!

I was gonna first share a blog about how I’d reimagine Valentino buuuuuut I think it’s gonna be a pretty short blog that I can write later, and I can tell some people really want me to just tell the story already, and I want to start doing it too so let’s gooo!

Thank you so much for reading!

[shuttershocky]

Consider, Barret.

I'm always considering Barret!

He's my favorite FF7 character and his design in Remake is outstanding.

Parts of Barret didn't age too well (his original character concept is "big and scary man" and he's the only major black character so uhhhhh) but I love that he's an unapologetic revolutionary and a genuinely charismatic leader that cares for the people under him as much as for his cause, whether or not they're even his responsibility.

One of the more endearing parts of the Remake is all the ways that Barret still cares for Cloud despite Cloud only being a hired merc instead of being a true believer in Avalanche; he gets worried when Cloud doesn't make it back immediately after they bomb Mako Reactor 1, and when they bomb Mako Reactor 5 and Barret thinks Cloud is about to fall to his death, Barret immediately says "Listen merc, I was wrong about you!" because he won't let anyone under his command die without him doing everything he could, even if all he can do is tell them they made him proud. He even offers to to stay behind and help Cloud battle Rufus Shinra, expecting Rufus to cheat (he does) and not wanting Cloud to sacrifice himself just to buy the party time to escape when that should be his responsibility as Avalanche leader.

He's even a loving father that spoils his daughter Marlene, but instead of making that detail something that contrasts his hardass personality, it's because he has a child that he's a hardcore eco-terrorist—his child's future is on the line.

I love that he's obviously the most well-read party member, quoting books about planetology and social justice in between all of his other lines being a Mr. T caricature. When the likes of Tifa grow uncomfortable with Avalanche's mission because of the ordinary people whose lives they disrupt too, he's always there to steady her and remind them all that their fight is literally for the planet's life; most Shinra employees are ordinary people just trying to do their best for their families, but Shinra itself is slowly destroying the planet and will kill them all, this fight must be done for everyone's sakes. A good man that serves an evil master must recognize his complicity before he can redeem himself.

One of the coolest things the Yuffie DLC does is expand more on Avalanche as a resistance group with different factions, with the main faction receiving support from Wutai. Barret's group is called "the splinter cell" because the other Avalanche factions don't want to associate with them since they think bombing the Mako reactors goes too far. The rest of Avalanche don't want to destroy Shinra entirely and ruin the lives of many people in the process, they want to force it into reforms.

Sonon and Yuffie end up chatting about this and Sonon says "The problem is, Avalanche is made of good people. They're soft. They want things like better work conditions, fair elections, equality for the undercity members. They can't do what needs to be done, and will eventually be against us. If you ask me, those guys in the splinter cell are who we should be supporting." Sonon is speaking as a Wutai agent out to destabilize Midgar in vengeance for Midgar burning Wutai to the ground back in the war, but it also really highlights how Barret is the only real force for change inside Avalanche, if all the other Avalanche factions are getting support from other countries and doing nothing while Barret is waging a full on war and earning victories against Shinra with only a gun, a girl that can punch good, and a twink with a big sword.

Also gameplay-wise Barret carries this fucking team on his back. Steelskin and his huge healthpool make Barret a tank (very important when many enemies can decide to give you the finger and wipe the entire team), and Lifesaver allows Barret to take damage meant for his teammates, which is critical for surviving many tough fights, but also makes gimmick/joke builds like Nailbat Cloud viable where you want to keep him on 25% health to have that crit chance and damage boost, but can't let him get slapped once or he dies.

That's on top of Barret's skills being your best ranged options in Remake that isn't spending MP (Aerith can do way more damage with spells but also dies to a sneeze without spending materia slots on HP Up), which is also highly important as half the enemies are flying around and Cloud can barely air attack until Rebirth reworked him. There's also bossfight gimmicks like The Arsenal's guns being interrupted by Focus Shot (you normally need Thundaga to stop it and Hard mode doesn't let you use items, making MP conservation really important) Maximum Fury being amazing at building stagger on bosses from the sheer hitcount and being very satisfying to use, and Barret's incredible Deadly Dodge allowing you to cheese the super annoying Brainpod fight because he swings his gun and hits all the Brainpods at once.

Finally, it's really funny how the Remake added in a big cosmic fate force called the Whispers that have the ability to raise the dead and cause or prevent disasters as fate demands it only for them to be destroyed by Barret and Red XIII shooting it repeatedly. Capital D Destiny, a fundamental force of the multiverse, was slain by the power of a guy with a gun and a weird dog.

[danauschaewon]

my thoughts on dimension 20: fantasy high junior year ep 19 ragenarok Discourse™

⚠️ spoilers! ⚠️

from a watsonian perspective, the bad kids don't know of any way to cure a rage star. if any of the characters were stressed enough sufficiently to be angry (rage token), porter seems to be able to immediately control you so even not directly being controlled by a rage star seems to put you under ankarna's domain. there's no reasonable watsonian expectation for them to believe the ratgrinders could be redeemed, notwithstanding whether teenagers would show other teenagers who hate them that grace.

additionally, the Discourse™ seems to forget that there's ultimately a choice between following porter or not. lucy frostblade's sacrifice was extremely poignant because she chose to die rather than go against what she believed in. buddy dawn's immediate switch perfectly aligns with how religious fanatics believe/claim to believe whatever is convenient for them without any internal consistency. that doesn't mean that they weren't groomed by porter but there's really no ground for some of the moral absolutism I've been seeing here.

that also leads to something that I haven't seen people discussing; kipperlily and oisin straight up murdered buddy (their own party member, who they secretly treated as a pawn the whole time) by slitting his throat to try and keep the bad kids from being revived??? it's implied they also killed lucy and covered it up for so long that she is almost beyond reviving just so she couldn't snitch on them?? even if you liked the ratgrinders, they're much more ruthless than bad kids are, even if you take riz and fabian's comments into account. also, if the entire school was in fabian's house, they essentially tried to kill all 500 other students in their school + jawbone to beat a magical loophole to ascend porter.

and the obvious being: if you are fighting to end the world (remember they did bring down fig and gorgug, even if they are uncoordinated in pvp), don't be surprised when people fight you to save the world.

from the doyleist perspective, others have already pointed out that dnd is a combat focused game. if you fail a persuasion/intimidation/deception roll, regardless of what makes more sense for the story or the themes or your character, you probably have to fight to the death. this isn't a story written with a single overarching vision from one mind, it's real people being filmed in real time playing a game designed around roleplay AND combat. combat is gonna happen.

secondly, this is a world where powerful individuals have the ability to directly control the universe (magic). "might makes right" is a terrible moral system but that's also how reality works (laws are only (as strong as) their enforcement system, the police are an occupying army, etc).

human beings are social beings and our intelligence/creativity allows us to imagine a world where no individual or socioeconomic group can use might to make right. but our imagination also is limited by our own inconsistencies, ignorance, socialisation, habits, etc. and most importantly, our stories about the world mustn't confuse us from how the world actually is. not everyone can be redeemed, even if you want them to be.

if you want the world to change in a certain way, you have to gather enough strength to change it. the more it deviates from the status quo, the more strength you need. that's not just martial or economic power, there is social power that can be influenced by a collective moral or intellectual sense. however, those with the power to directly eliminate your existence will need to be sufficiently worried about consequences to not use that power (e.g. american police know they face no consequences for executing black people in cold blood, that's why they actually do kill instead of simply want to kill like other non-police racists).

if the ratgrinders want to kill the bad kids and ascend porter to godhood, they have to actually have to develop their skills to do so. that's why they exp levelled, they tried taking advantage of the last stand, one of them sent their grandma to kill the entire school at one kid's 18th birthday party. and correspondingly, if you don't want your 18th birthday party to end with your death + your entire school's deaths + the ascension of your teachers as the new god of rage, you gotta kill some grandmas and poorly coordinated exp levellers.

[kiwi-pomegranate]

I'm so glad I have a friend that still uses Tw*tter or I'd miss out some cool art :3 (look at Kaufmo!! Meanjokes crumbs??)

@aradiaarts is shadowbanned on here it seems

ID and full images under cut

A post from @AradiaArts It reads:

Our three main sillies, Ragatha, Kaufmo and Aradia. I sure hope nothing bad happens to them. #tadcau #tadcoc #tadp

There's 3 images attached, of each of the characters.

The first one is of Ragatha. She has both of her eyes, instead of her usual one eye with a button replacing her left(?) eye. Her outfit is the same as in the original. She has 3 poses, 2 with her smiling, and one where she crosses her arms and has her back turned to the camera. A text box next to her that reads "Ragatha:

Ever the optimist, Ragatha does her best to stay chipper as a newcomer in The Digital Circus. Despite Queenie abstracting on her first day there, and burdening herself with the guilt of that loss, she does her best to stay positive. Ragatha is extremely kind, friendly, well-meaning and selfless, to the point of being willing to go to great lengths to help others in the circus. Her cordial nature allows her to quickly win over and befriend others, including those who aren't initially trusting of her, like Aradia." There's colored icons, indicating her relationship with the other characters, from left to right it's: Kaufmo - yellow and green, Aradia - green with a question mark pointing to her, Kinger - green, and finally Jax - red and yellow

The second image is of Kaufmo with 3 poses, one where he's thinking about Jax and blushing, with the MLM flag overlayed on it, and the dog-like character is saying "Lol." In the background. One where he faces the camera and his whole body is visible, his character design is altered from his canon design quite a bit. He's now wearing overalls and his pants have stars, he has a tuft of hair sticking out from under his party hat, and he has blue ruffle accents on his collar, hat, and sleeves now too. The last pose is of him looking angry, with a speech bubble with a scribble in it. The text box next to him reads:

"Kaufmo is a member of The Digital Circus, and Aradia's best friend. A adamantly anxious and erratic individual. He can be rather stubborn and can be a bit impulsive at times. Despite that, he dislikes breaking rules, and gets extremely nervous when he realizes that he has ****ed up." (The swear is censored with "[#%^!]" instead of asterisks).

His character relationships are:

Aradia - green, Ragatha - mostly yellow with a scribble of red, Kinger - mostly yellow with a scribble of green, and Jax - green (with a heart pointing to him)

The final photo is of Aradia, a dog-like original character for this AU. She appears to be based on either a stuffed animal or fursuit. She has dog ears and what looks like a half shaven mid length haircut, however it seems her hair only grows on the one side. She wears a white collar, that appears to be made with feathers? or has a feather like appearance with a yellow bow tie atop it. Her makeup kinda reminds me of the sugar skulls you'd see on el Día de los Muertos. She's drawn in technically one pose with 2 close ups of her face and one with just her torso. From top to bottom, the one with just her torso is her without her hair, and she has fluffy chest fur instead of did her scarf, with a heart stitched on. The next one is of just her face, now with her hair, she's smiling with her eyes closed, her smile looks like :3 (which is like the smile of a cat if you don't have that described). The last close up has her blushing, looking down and to the right, and her mouth open slightly. In her pose, she's standing with her arms out and a dog treat in her mouth. Her character description reads:

Normally relaxed, and unbothered, Aradia has grown accustomed to the Digital Cirous and has come to terms with being there… that is, until abstractions start to rip her found family away from her. Determined to uncover what is happening, and unwilling to follow any rules they're given, Aradia is ready to go to almost any length to protect the ones she loves from this new virus plaguing their world. Even so, guilt and heartache weigh heavy on her mind."

Her character relationships are:

Kaufmo - green, Ragatha - green (with a heart pointing to her and a question mark pointing from her towards Aradia), Kinger - mostly yellow with a scribble of green, and Jax - fully red

END ID]

[randoimago]

Anon here who requested the non-persona!readerx sees and yeah I shoulda putted in more details so my bad.

so reader is a transfer student who’s just joined sees and hasn’t awakened their persona yet.

In the middle of fights with the inhabitants of Tartarus will attempt to negotiate with them handing over what they desire (hp, items etc.) but knows when the inhabitant is getting too greedy so they’ll eventually stop and just ask whether they’ll join them or not.

Hoping my awful typing is easy to understand lmao.

Fandom: Persona 3

Character(s): Aigis, Shinjiro, Junpei, Yukari, Mitsuru, Fuuka

Note(s): It's definitely an interesting concept and hopefully I wrote this out alright. How terrifying would it be if Reader is trying to negotiate with a shadow but so much time passes and suddenly there's chain noises in the distance 😂

I very much feel like it depends on what characters are in the main party if Reader would even be allowed to negotiate with the shadows.

Aigis does not allow you to negotiate with the shadows if she's in the party. She's designed to defeat shadows and will not stand by while you sacrifice your health or items that can help the team on hopes that the shadows will keep their end of the deal.

Akihiko is putting his trust in you as he watches you negotiate with the shadow. If you need some help with intimidating them then he'll be there. While you do have his support, he hates seeing you trade your health though and would rather just finish the fight instead.

Fuuka makes sure to scan the shadows as you're negotiating. She is going to be the first to know if the shadows are preparing an ambush or something. Is very concerned and worried anytime you interrupt a battle to negotiate with the shadows instead.

Junpei doesn't hold back his scoffs and eye rolls when he hears you try to negotiate with the shadows. Yeah, he trusts your abilities, but the fight was going well. Why the hell should you fork over items or healing when it'd be easier just to defeat them?

Mitsuru would be the first one willing to try and put your ability to the test, having the team ready to back you up for protection if things go badly. You're sure to get praise when it ends up working out in the end.

When Shinjiro joins back up and hears of your ability, he is skeptical about putting you in danger, but he trusts what the other members tell him. Is very on edge as you try to negotiate with the shadows and is the first to step in if a fight seems to be ready to happen.

Yukari also has the same thoughts of not wanting you to step in. The battle is going just fine, she'd rather defeat the shadows instead of trying to negotiate with them. She'd rather not put your safety on the line for this.

[ambrosiagourmet]

Has anyone requested Marcille for the ask meme? If not then pls

Marcille!!!!!!!!!

First impression

Gay? Interesting elf girl with a really good design for a female character oh my god thank you. She gets to wear pants!!! It's a miracle!

Impression now

BELOVED HALF-ELF OF MY HEART... most determined member of the party, maybe second only to Laios. Not that it's a competition.

Girl who carries the weight of her existence in her heart everywhere she goes. Girl who doesn't know how to just exist because that would mean surrendering to the things time will take away from her. Girl with bloody knuckles who clings too tightly to the things she loves because she remembers a time when she didn't realize what they meant to her.

Girl who must shape a life too big to hold all at once. Who stares into that impossible task so unflinchingly that you kind of want to tell her to run away from it for a bit. Be a bit more of a coward, Marcille! But she doesn't have time to be a coward!! She's hurtling towards her goals at terminal velocity. But the same love that keeps her tumbling forward also pulls her back from the brink. Because she's still figuring out the balance.

Favorite moment

Rabbit chapter... my god rabbit chapter.........

Genuinely maybe my favorite chapter in the whole manga. It hits such an incredible peak of humor and raw emotion and impossibly ridiculous situations and grounded believable character writing. And no part of it is separate from the others.

What a fucking chapter. And what a fucking thesis for why Marcille is such a good character. Her being ridiculous and her being incredibly determined and her being powerful and her being scared are ALL part of her. Man. Marcille. She will do anything to pull through for her friends.

And then on top of it the way the Lion takes advantage of this moment to pull her strings. Which is just. So horrifying to watch because you want someone to give her a hug but all the people who would give her a hug are currently DEAD and she's left in a room along and exhausted with a manipulative, abusive, hungry opportunist. God. God. I love Rabbit Part II So Very Much.

Idea for a story

Umm hi sorry I am still busy thinking about Rabbit Part II. Please enjoy some shameless self promotion while I go lie down for a bit.

Unpopular opinion

She's bisexual!!!!! Normally I don't hold so fast to like "well canonically this character was into A Man so she can't be a lesbian blah blah blah" but it does bum me out that people ignore her succubus because I really do think that bi Marcille deserves more love. It doesn't make her any less into women sheesh.

Favorite relationship

Sorry I was thinking about Rabbit Part II again what was the question? Favorite relationship?

Yeah I dunno maybe Marcille and Laios? I kinda like the part where they rely on each other because there is no other way through and share an unnamed intimacy born in blood and bone and the way that they place impossible burdens on each other and owe each other their lives many times over and neither holds it against the other or asks for the repayment of debts that can never be repaid, choosing instead to keep walking into the future by each others sides because what else can you do. What else can you do.

They are pretty cool I guess. I'm normal about them though. Haha.

Favorite headcanon

I imagine that castle staff help Marcille with her hair on a day-to-day basis because leaving it just to personal friends and family would probably be impractical. But also I think Chilchuck, Laios, Falin, and also especially KABRU all learn enough to help her with it. I think that the first three learn some basic nice stuff but I think Kabru would get really into it.

That man could absolutely intensely hyperfixate on something like "nice hairstyles from another culture" for three to six months and come out the other side an expert.

[dracobrooklyn]

Durge x Reader Part 1

When you really like the design of the Cannon DragonBorn and his voice is like butter making you melt. I was sad you can't romance him and your the playable character instead. So Here I am going to write Headcannons of what if he was a romanceable NPC that was in your party. These are my thoughts taking bits and pieces from the Cannon and putting my thoughts and ideas into Durge.

|| MDNI || 18+ this will contain Themes of Language, Violence, and of course Sexual Content. DO NOT READ!!

Cannon!Durge x Tav!Fem!Reader

This will be in a Fem!Reader POV!!

Word count: 1.44K

Part 1: Meeting Durge

Durge is a White Dragonborn that is a Storm Sorcerer. Literally born from the blood of Bhaal to be the perfect monster for his destruction on the world. Though... he does not remember. After being taken by the Mindflayers. He does not remember anything before he was a prisoner. The Ship Crashing, his head spinning with so many thoughts. He only remembers his name and that he can cast magic thankfully. But everything else? He's lost. Of course You Find him being attacked by a group of Goblins, coming to his aid, to make sure he is okay. Of course he's hesitant, but he thanks you for your help. You of course ask him his name, Durge. A Strange name but it's his, nothing with it. He would ask if you know where they are, and of course replying that you weren't sure yourself, being in the ship and all, you were snatched away by the mindflayers as well. A little frustrated not sure what to do, he gives you his thanks and about to leave. Is that such a good idea? To go out alone especially that you saw him get attacked by Goblins? No. You ask him if he wish's to tag along with you and your other party members. Strange bunch... why not? He accepts. After all where was he to go? He has no memories. Everything is dark. And you were all trying to find a way to get this cursed parasite out of your brain... before you did turn into a Mindflayer. Maybe you will be able to help him remember. Durge is a little distant towards your other party members. Wasn't a fan of Astarion, not one bit. The way he acted, the way he talked to you as if you were insignificant. You were very much capable of defending yourself, you saved Durge's life. So he always gives the pale elf a glare. Shadowheart he does not mind but her pride and stubbornness can be a little annoying. She at least gives you a little respect when she talks to you.

As your party grow, you get to try to help Durge try to get some sort of sense with his memories. But nothing seems to happen. He can only think about maybe... maybe he had a family or friends waiting for him to come home, or perhaps he has a lover, or maybe something else. You definitely joked to him he could be a prince that was out hunting, he did find the joke amusing though. It was good to have some sort of conversation and company. Being alone with no memories was a little sad and lonely at times.

You were having a hard time sleeping. Specifically with the damn worm wiggling into your brain. So you noticed Durge was having a hard time sleeping as well, tossing and turning into his tent, into his sleeping area. You see how his lips curl back almost in a growl showing his teeth, his eye crest furrowing either in pain or anger as his claws gripped onto the blankets, how he curls up in a fetal position. Is he okay? You quickly went to him to wake him up, and you do. He grabs your arm and pins you down onto the ground his clawed hand wrapped around your neck growling, glaring his red blood eyes into your eyes. He pauses and noticed it's you. He get's off you quickly, not wearing a shirt and only trousers in his sleep wear as Durge feels so awful. He almost hurt you. He apologizes and ask's if you were alright, of course you were shaken but told him you were okay. Everything was alright.

Those dreams... nothing but blood... screaming... yells of anguish. Remembering his dream too well, just looking down at his hands, remembering in his dream he had blood on them. Once you did go back to sleep at your bed roll and he looked at you... what if your blood was on his hands... they started to shake. Fear escaped him, he didn't go back to sleep that night. He just laid in his bed roll in his tent frightened he could have killed you.

He felt awful the next day and wanted to apologize. Durge said if there was anything to he could do for your forgiveness. Of course, you were kind to him. "You had a nightmare Durge, perhaps they were memories, not good memories but maybe your memories are trying to come back to you, and it was too much." You could see the look on his face, he looked a little... worried. You asked if Durge wanted to talk about it. He only shook his head and said "No I... I like to hope they are nightmares, and not memories."

He very much appreciated your kindness, he really was happy that you didn't treat him any different from your party members. When he was distant, it was him just thinking, trying to piece together his "Dream" he had last night. You gave him a journal that you bought from the Druids grove, for Durge to write his dreams so maybe he can go back to the, as you smile at him and say "If you need company tonight... if you have a nightmare, don't hesitate to wake me okay?" And Right there... that's when the feelings start to blossom. The gift of the Journal. The Way how you were comforting on his darkest moments, trying to remember his past. The Way you treated him normally. You invited Durge to the fire to talk with the others, bring him into the conversation, telling you about your past. Where you lived growing up. Durge is very envious of your memories. That you have them, though he out right does not tell you. He wants to know his past so much, who the fuck he is!? It leaves him in a bad mood leaving you with the others at the campfire and heading into his tent for the night. Going to sleep a little mad... but also sad at the same time. Maybe he had a group of friends that miss him dearly. That laughed with him like a bunch of chumps. He wasn't sure.

[gnomeonamelon]

I kid you not hours after I posted that Lester should interact with Mr D, I started reading Tower of Nero and low and behold.

Doodles of the brothers are necessary to my recovery from both the Trials of Apollo finale and covid.

I have some ideas on what I'm going to do with Limen Au's Trials of Apollo (it's a long one I apollo-gize in advance):

First things first, I'm going to stick with the 2020 setting. Everything from the plague spirits in the first book to everything having to do with the burning maze was too perfect.

Secondly, I'm going to let The Seven retire. It's a new generation with new heroes (for the most part).

Third (and slightly ironically): Rachel deserves quest rights. She's going to be the third member of the party. She has the motive, can relate to Meg, smack some sense (verbally) into Lester, and we could learn more about her.

I would probably have her not receive any prominent glimpses of the future except for when Python feeds her a chunk of the Tower of Nero prophecy towards the end of every book.

Ash or one of her students (Probably Estelle) will also be in the second and third books. Maybe they/ one of her students dies instead of Jason? (not Estelle)

I'm giving up on numbers.

This hurts to write, but I'm going to have Chiron die in the Battle of Manhattan against Kronos/Luke. It's a trope for mentors but he doesn't do much after this point that others couldn't. Mr D would be welcomed back to Olympus after the battle. This would force the demigods to lead themselves for the first time contributing to the tension in HoO (although that should be its own post). Will, Nico, and Rachel, now in their mid to late 20s would be running CHB by the time of ToA.

The Germani and Gauls working with Nero will be replaced with unclaimed Norse and Celtic demigods. The fact that they exist as monsters in this universe when they were actual people in history doesn't feel right to me. It's also perfectly in character that Nero would do this and there are a lot of unclaimed Norse demigods in this universe. (ex: Luguselwa as a daughter of Andraste, a Celtic war and victory goddess)

The 12 children of Nero will be children of the Olympians (or similar gods for those that don't have children and the big three) and trained to replace specific ones.

Changing the hair color of The Sibil: why are all three prophets red haired women. Apollo apparently has a type >:(

I'm going to be shuffling around the relationship web of Jason, Piper, Leo, Reyna, and Calypso. I'm going to keep this brief and come back to it when I get around to designing them but for now:

- Jason x Reyna - Piper x Shel - Aromantic Asexual Leo (why are all aroace people part of the Hunters >:( ) - Calypso was released after PJO. I love her but I would like her as a caring minor god or an eighth Pleiade too.

[catacropolis]

Twisted Wonderland Fear and Hunger AU

Next up is Vil !!

For Vils design I put him in a simple shirt with flowing pants and an iris flower in his pocket. it's simple yet still fashionable.

Moonschorched Vil

Envy

Growing up in the cult of Sylvian, Vil  was primed by those around him to be a thing of beauty. Attaining untouchable beauty was his main goal in life. Eventually he ventured out into the world and found himself a lover. Eventually they got married and the two of them lived a happy and resplendent life in his lover's manor. 

His happy life was changed when he found his lover in the arms of another. A woman from a neighboring country's noble household. Blinded by his jealousy and rage he killed them both.  When his mind cleared he was horrified by what he had done and in his panic fled to the nearest train to get out of town. Grieving the death of his lover he is haunted by his ugly jealous tendencies. He fears the monster he became in that moment when he snuffed out an innocent life. She was just a girl despite his anger towards her for catching his lover's eye. 

Envy is the embodiment of the monster vil became in that moment. 

A raging beast whos strive towards ethereal beauty means destroying all those who may rival him. Eyes torn out by his own hand he blinds himself to the world around him and lets the ugly side of himself ( his envy) be on full display. He is at his most disgusting and most beautiful in that moment. His guilt thrown away and letting himself be at his most spiteful. 

Rher, wanting to bring out the monster inside of Vil revives the woman he killed ( Neige ) and has the mutilated Neige  attack the player.  If the player fails to defeat Neige ( Stitches for enemy reference) when she spawns on afternoon of day 2. If the player fails to encounter her Vil can be found instead stomping on Neige before attacking the player. 

His peacock harpy-like body takes a slightly feminine appearance to mimic Neige's body. The peacock hand becomes Vil’s new eyes pointing him in the direction of his next victim. The head of the peacock spews poison from its delicate beak hitting all party members. 

Holding the same poisoned dagger as in his non-moonschorched form , envy attacks the player with poison , slashing attacks  , and mind draining screeches 

Vils story was inspired a lot by daan’s and the look of envy was slightly inspired by valkyrie but not much.  Neige as stated previously takes the role of stitches in the enemy roster. 

The peacock is a symbol heavily used in reference to Vil and Pomfiore as well as the evil queen in twst. The peacock symbolizes beauty and having the symbolic bird take over his body as it has already consumed his mind is what happens with his moonschorching.  Vils' ragged and hunched appearance is a reference to the elderly hag the evil queen becomes when she poisons snow white. However instead of poison killing Neige it is the poison within Vil, his jealousy, that drives him to murder. 

 Vil's lover could be anyone, written with Rook in mind as a potential candidate, the betrayal of Vils lover is a reference to Rook choosing Neige over Vil despite his overblot about Neige ultimately leading to Vil's defeat at VDC. 

NOTE !!

(With an undefined secondary non-playable cast where roles from a playable character's past could be promoted to a termina contestant. All this to say that Vil can be with whoever,  twst character or otherwise, but there is a context for one possible route. )

Vil’s lover's betrayal is also a reference to Neige and Vils rivalry and how Neige is constantly picked instead of Vil because of his beauty being “ too untouchable” or “ too perfect”. The game describes Neiges appearance as more “ realistically beautiful “ and having a more relatable aura.  This thought process is also why Vil’s lover cheats on him, finding his beauty so ethereal their eye is drawn to a simpler beauty by contrast. 

for more information ?

Au explaination

[shunin-gumis]

Designs of Happiness - Track A09

L4mps Main Story Translation

Title: HAMA Tours Party

Characters: Nagi, Yodaka, Kafka, Renga, Liguang

Summary: A toast is raised for finding tourism ward mayors for all 18 wards of HAMA. Nagi is nowhere to be found as the leaders gather… 

Thank you aca @463ce6 and jes @arcanecrayonn for proofing! And thank you Sou @/716chr for helping me with Chihiro's dialogues!

Location: HAMA House - Living room

Kafka: Now, I’d like to start this party off with a toast. I am Kafka Oguro, president and CEO of HAMA Tours.

Kafka: For the sake of reviving HAMA as a designated tourism ward, we have been searching far and wide the past few months for personnel who share that same dream…

Kafka: Finally, we’ve accomplished one of our goals: To instate mayors for all 18 wards of HAMA.

Kafka: I would first like to thank all the fellow staff who took a bet on me– Thank you, truly. We’ve gone through a lot to get here.

Momiji: …..

Yachiyo: *ugly sobbing* We really went through a lot! I think I’m gonna cry…!

Kafka: Morning, noon and evening— It was never straightforward for us. The only reason we got through it all is because each and every one of you tapped into the potential you hold, as fellow human beings.

Kafka: —The Night Team has only just been formed, but thanks to the Chief and Daniel-san, I believe we’ve gathered the best possible additions to accomplish our dream.

Kafka: Toi of “Fortune-Teller’s Parlor: Angel Eye,” Yodaka of “Ten Nights of Dreams BAR,” Netaro of “Cafe369,” and finally… Nagi of “Flower Laundry.” I’d like to formally welcome all of you once again.

Nagi: …..

Yodaka: Glad to be here.

Toi: *sigh* …Will I truly be able to find Ani-sama…?

Kiroku: …!

Kiroku: (Huh, it’s Toi-kun… But where’s Ryui-kun then…?)

Chihiro: My-oh-my~? Ain’t that the same cutie who came to Chii’s last meet-and-greet~?

Raito: ….. 

Chihiro: Hm? Raitin, what’s wrong?

Raito: No, it’s nothing… 

Kafka: After the Night Team holds their First Tour, I’m sure we’ll be able to overcome the hurdle of getting 20 million tourists to visit HAMA.

Kafka: …I give my heartfelt welcome to all 18 ward mayors gathered here. With that said… 

Kafka: To a bright future for HAMA and all its wards… Cheers!

Momiji: Cheers!

*clapping*

Sakujiro: Excellent work, Chief.

Daniel: Yo! How’s it going~?

Momiji: Everyone… Cheers to all our hard work up till now!

Yachiyo: Cheers~! Wow, I feel like one of those rich people you see in American dramas!

Nayuki: Oh? Chief, you’re only having juice?

Daniel: What’s up with that? It’s not like you don’t drink, why not get sloshed like the rest of us?

Momiji: That’s true, but I have some work I need to do later.

Yachiyo: Eek! I’m in the same boat, how could I drink away like I don’t have a care in the world…!

Momiji: You should be okay because you can hold your liquor well, Yachiyo-kun. 

Yachiyo: Yep! I’ll do my best even if I’m drunk as a skunk!

Nayuki: He’s a pain in the neck when he gets drunk, so I suggest you work in your room later, Chief.

Sakujiro: I am pleased to see the two of you so enthusiastic about your work. At long last, we have finally managed to reach the starting line.

Yachiyo: Too bad that the Night Team only has four members instead of the usual five…

Momiji: It couldn’t be helped. There’s only wards from 0 to 18 afterall… 

Daniel: Well, the hard part’s only just comin’. Don’t let yer guard down Chief~

Momiji: Yes! I will try even harder to put my best foot forward for the company and HAMA—

Daniel: Ugh! Gimme a break, yer gonna get me sober again with all that work talk.

Momiji: Aw, but… 

Sakujiro: Indeed. Not even the God of Travel would find fault with you for taking a respite tonight. 

Daniel: That drink over there is callin’ my name so… See ya later.

Yachiyo: Oh, I think I’ll get seconds on that delicious and expensive-looking roast beef… 

Nayuki: Fuefuki-san, let me get it for you. I’m worried you’ll end up diving headfirst into the chocolate fondue if I leave you to your own devices… 

Momiji: Ahaha…

Sakujiro: Then, I shall return to making the rounds and greeting everyone. I hope you enjoy your time tonight.

Momiji: Yes, see you!

Momiji: …..

Momiji: (We’ve finally gathered all 18 ward mayors… I still feel like I’m dreaming…)

Kafka: Having fun, [Name]-chan?

Momiji: Hey, Kafka. That was a great speech you gave earlier. It reminded me of that promise we made on the roof… I couldn’t help but feel emotional.

Kafka: Is that so? Hearing that from you is what makes me the happiest, thank you.

Kafka: By the way, have you seen Nagi? I wanted to ask him if he was feeling comfortable at HAMA House… 

Kafka: I assumed that he’d be with you.

Momiji: Right… I was thinking of sticking with him too, since he’s probably not used to this kind of atmosphere… But I haven’t seen him around at all. I wonder if he’s resting somewhere… 

Nagi: ….. 

Nagi: (I’ve actually been standing cater-cornered behind them this whole time but… Neither of them have noticed me yet.)

Sonia: Um, Nagi-shan is right here—

Nagi: Shh, it’s ok.

Sonia: But… 

Nagi: If you tell them now, they'll keep thinking about it and feeling bad every time they see me, even two months from now, and I don't want that. Besides—

Nagi: If they talk to me, they might somehow end up crushed beneath one of the catering tables for all we know… 

Sonia: I doubt shumthing like that would happen… The tables are practically nailed to the floor.

Nagi: No, we can never be too sure. Besides, I’ve never been to a party for as long as I can remember, so I don’t even know what to expect at one of these anyways. What “pattern” should I prepare myself for in this situation…?

Nagi: Being able to attend a party feels like I won the lottery*, so I have no idea what might happen after this. I wouldn’t be surprised if some aliens decided to crash the party to restore the balance. This is no good, I feel too anxious… 

Nagi: Yeah, okay. I should just leave.

Sonia: Eh!?

Renga: Here you are, Nagi!

Nagi: …Ah, Renga. And, um, Raito-san.

Raito: Hey there. Haven’t seen you since our last leader meeting, right? I wanted to welcome you again to HAMA House— And you too, Sonia.

Sonia: Thank you very mush for the invite.

Renga: I-I’m glad a great guy like you is on board with us! It’s very, uh, heartening–

Nagi: Meanwhile I don’t think my heart can take any more of this. 

Renga: Huh?

Nagi: Oh, just saying that I’m sorry for intruding, yep.

Raito: Haha, now why would you say that? This is your home too, now.

Nagi: Oh you’re right. Just a force of habit. I can’t help but panic, being in such an unfamiliar situation. 

Renga: I figured as much… You seem like the type who wouldn’t be used to any of this… Um, you doing okay…?

Raito: That’s very kind of you, Renga. It shows good leadership to look after the newcomers. 

Renga: I-I’m not really doing this out of… Ah, the toilet’s over there, by the way.

Nagi: Oh, um, yeah, I know.

Sonia: Nagi-shan holed himself up in the bathroom five times already because he was too nervous…

Nagi: Shhh….

Raito: Renga, it's a bit impolite to mention that when everyone’s in the middle of eating.

Renga: T-That’s not what I meant…! It’s just that, he looks so gloomy when we’re all celebrating here… I thought his stomach might be hurting or something… 

Nagi: It’s okay, my face has always looked like this. More importantly, how are your roses? Are they doing well? 

Renga: Oh yeah, the roses! Thanks to all your advice, my grandmother’s roses are all blooming beautifully! 

Renga: The topiary on which you taught me how to prune looks nice and healthy still.

Nagi: I’m sure the plants adore you, Renga. You’re quick on the uptake too, you must be some sort of gardening genius. 

Renga: Eh, you think so!? A gardening genius… Um, on second thought, maybe that doesn’t sound right… 

Raito: Renga, didn’t you have something you wanted to ask Nagi?

Renga: O-Oh, that’s right. How’ve you been all this time? You doing good?

Nagi: I’d say so. I delivered the flowers to your house recently too.

Renga: Right, right. We picked out an arrangement for the lobby, and it turned out to be a big hit with the clients… 

Nagi: You knew exactly what you wanted, so I was able to make the arrangement thanks to that. So really, it was all you and your great taste.

Renga: No, um… It’s not like I have great taste… Then again, I did my best to think about what would suit the image of the Nishizono family…. But wait, then that’s not really my taste is it… 

Raito: Haha, let’s just say you both did a good job and leave it at that.

~~~

Yodaka: The famous “Wild Seven - Executive Omega,” to think I would get to meet you here… 

Yodaka: ….. 

Yodaka: (What a crisp flavor… after which a fruity afternote hits the tongue. Ah… I think it’d taste even better if I rim the glass with salt…)

Yodaka: (I think there should be some over at the catering corner—)

*bump*

Liguang: ….. 

Yodaka: Oh dear. Pardon me, I wasn’t paying attention. 

Yodaka: I hope I didn’t make you spill your drink?

Liguang: …It’s fine.

Yodaka: That’s a relief. I’m Yodaka Natsume, soon to be 17th ward mayor. It’s nice to meet you.

Liguang: (A handshake, huh…)

Liguang: Lu Liguang, 4th ward mayor.

*a flash*

Yodaka: …..

Liguang: —Oh?

Yodaka: (A part of the skin on his ring finger is hardened… That means—)

Liguang: (—He’s a mahjong player too.)

Yodaka: …..

Liguang: …..

Yodaka: How long have you been playing?

Liguang: Let’s just say I was born with a tile in my hand.

Yodaka: Oh my… I would certainly love to see your skills in action.

Yodaka: How about playing a round sometime?

Liguang: Not a bad idea… But we’ll need at least one more player.

Liguang: Oi.

Kinari: ?

Liguang: Do you know how to play mahjong?

Kinari: I have not played it before. However, it is possible for me to download and install the rules of the game within one minute, if required. 

Yodaka: Well, aren’t you quick? We could have our game sooner than I thought… How about tonight? We could go ahead and play with just the three of us, but maybe we should search for one more player in the meantime.

Liguang: As you wish. But keep in mind, you’re not getting any points from me.

Yodaka: Fufu, you’re the type of man to steal away and hide the woman you want, hm? It’s fine, the point sticks will decide who they want to go with… and it will be me. 

Kinari: …..

Note:

When I translated Nagi saying "-feels like I won the lottery," the original line has him say 役満空間 (yakuman kuukan) which is one of his strange analogies where he means that he feels like he's in a super rare and happy situation akin to getting a 'yakuman', which is a is a special winning condition in mahjong which is very difficult to obtain. So I decided to use "winning the lottery" to mean something similar and easier to understand.

Point sticks or 点棒 (tenbou) are used to keep track of scores in mahjong.

[theresattrpgforthat]

do you know of any ttrpgs where you play as a dragon rider? ideally that would be the main premise that the game is built around, but i'm open to anything that involves riding dragons.

THEME: Dragon Riders

Hello friend. For standalone games regarding Dragon Riders, I was only able to rustle up one. So to make up for it, I have some supplements for other games as suggestions, as well as a way of hacking a different genre to make it work for you.

Dragon Riding is Easy, Isn’t It? By Hans.

You are a Dragon Rider. With your companion dragon and your friends, you will face danger, see the world, and make new friends. Along the way you will take turns playing the Rival, driving the story forward and confronting the Dragon Riders with their foes.

This is a game with a lot of room for decisions about what exactly you’re riding dragons for. Collaboratively, your group will decide what makes Dragon Riders stand out, and what kinds of differences exist between the dragons of your world. The dice system uses d6s, with staggered levels of success. What’s interesting about your dice results is that each one must be assigned to an aspect of the task at hand (Goals, Risks, Traits and Complications), which means that your results well tell you more than whether or not you simply succeeded or failed. The meat of the story will surround the efforts of the group to foil the plot of the Rival, a character played by members of the party who sit in the GM’s chair - and everyone might get a chance to take a turn at this! The system itself feels pretty rules light, and the game its pay-what-you-want, so it’s worth checking out!

Dragon Riding, (for 13th Age) by Pelgrane Press.

The lethal combination of dragon and rider helped create the Dragon Empire. Now unleash the fury on your foes! Full rules for player character dragon riders appear alongside story advice for campaigns looking to add dragon-riding options.

13th Age is a fantasy game built similarly to games like D&D 3.5 and D&D 4e, but containing mechanics that address the narrative side of play. Rather than focusing on a consistently “realistically” coherent setting, 13th Age focuses on what is dramatically important instead. Character creation will look similar in that it has races and classes, but you also decide on a relationship between your character and an Icon of the setting - the Icon being a major player in the world. This relationship makes your character immediately relevant to whatever story is about to happen, putting them front-and-centre of the action.

The Dragon Riding Supplement adds rules to the base game and advice on how to incorporate dragon riding into a story. You don’t just get character options - you also get adventures and advice on how dragon riding might be incorporated into battle, how the healing system works with dragons, and more.

If you are familiar with games like D&D and Pathfinder, then 13th Age isn’t a very big step. However, if you ‘re new to tabletop roleplaying games, this is a pretty big learning curve, so be prepared for a significant amount of rules and lore.

Moth-Light by Justin Ford and RIDERS by Me!

If you’d like a game that can easily turn into a game about Dragon Riding, you can also check out my RIDERS supplement for Moth-Light. The creatures of Moth-Light are supposed to be giant insect-like creatures called Moths, but I wrote RIDERS while being deeply inspired by the Chronicles of Pern - which is a science-fiction setting that has dragon riders!

Metal Sword, by Mousewife Games.

Metal Sword is an "acoustic cover" of Austin Ramsay's Beam Saber.  It's a fully playable Forged in the Dark game, but with simpler rules, easy to read character sheets, and less overall math than is often seen in games of this genre.

The central mechanic for building both your pilot character and their vehicle are "Quirks", which you devise similar to how you would design your vehicle's Quirks in Beam Saber or a character's aspects in FATE.

Alright so you’re probably asking - why is there a mech game in this list of recommendations about dragon riders? I think there’s a lot of similarities between the kinds of stories told in mech games and the stories about dragon riders. You are a tiny, fragile human, responsible for a large, powerful creature or machine. Success in any mission requires a great level of knowledge and skill.

I chose Metal Sword because it’s a very stripped-down version of Beam Saber that is pretty easy to hack. The biggest change you’d have to make is the terminology. Your Vehicle becomes your Mount. Your Vehicle Actions become something like Heal, Maneuver, Sense and Blast. Because you are writing in the Quirks according to what makes you and your mount unique, you can incorporate details about your dragon’s powers and personality into character creation.

Not all Mech games will easily convert to Dragon Rider games. But I think there’s definitely potential!

[role-reversal-isat]

Role Reversal AU Characters

For a good starting ground for a blog like this, how about I reveal what the 8 character references I've made look like? This is gonna be a bit of a long post, since each character will also have a short description to summarize what they all act like.

Note: Most of the characters here would count as spoilery content (up to Act 3 optional content) in ISAT, so keep that in mind!

First up, we have the party!

Lumios / The Prince (he/they) - Rock type

Lumios may act all flashy in public to keep up the princely facade, but deep down, they care deeply about those that he feels attached to. Compared to their ISAT counterpart, The Traveler, they're more on the melancholic side, and he's the second tallest of the party. His weapon of choice is a shield with a star crest in the middle.

Euphrasie / The Housemaiden (She/Her) - Scissors/Paper type

Euphrasie is a Housemaiden for the House of Change training to become the Head Housemaiden once Head Housemaiden Mirabelle steps down from her position. She has a bit of a hard time speaking up for herself, as she has little confidence in doing so. Compared to her ISAT counterpart, The Housemaiden, she's got pretty much the same personality, and she's the tallest of the party. Her weapon of choice is a claymore with a handle decorated with the Symbol of Change.

Éredon / The Seamster (he/him) = Scissors type

Éredon is a clothing designer from Jouvente who wishes to one day take on the path of being a Defender. Once he fully pursues being a Defender when he returns to his home, he'll focus more on the Defender aspect, with making the clothing design aspect from a full-time job to an on-and-off hobby. Compared to his ISAT counterpart, The Defender, he's more bold but has a hard time with understanding what people say to him unless they're direct with him, and he's the shortest of the party. Éredon's weapon of choice is a large seam ripper.

Gisaline / The Author (she/her) - Paper type

Gisaline is a somewhat-elderly woman who had been to Ka Bue for a short period of life but eventually ended up moving back to Vaugarde, leaving her ex-husband and daughter behind to focus more on her work. During one of her shopping trips in a costal town on the northwestern part of Vaugarde, she ended up spotting Euphrasie and Éredon going through the town in search of an orb, and she offered to help in their journey to save Vaugarde. She hopes that one day, she can return to Ka Bue to see her ex-husband and daughter once more and apologize for leaving them behind, hoping to reconnect that bond with them. Compared to her counterpart, The Researcher, she's pretty perceptive about her surroundings to help give her ideas, and she's the second shortest party member. Her weapon of choice is her book.

Pétronille / The Blacksmith (she/they) - Rock type

Pétronille is a young adult from Bambouche who bumped into the other four after being freshly injured from a Hysterie that they managed to fend off. Seeing that she was injured, the party decided it was best for her to sit on the sidelines and distract the Hysteries in battles or provide buffs to their allies. When meeting her, a Hysterie was lunging at her, but Lumios swiftly stepped in the way, causing the loss of their left eye. They do still feel bad about it, but she mainly focuses on saving their sibling Boniface. Compared to their counterpart, The Kid, they're a bit more aggressive with their distraction methods, and their height is in the middle of the party. Her weapon of choice is a hammer she smithed herself.

Now, how about we get to the other three characters?

Whirlpool / The Comet (they/them)

Whirlpool is a person made out of space matter who helps guide Lumios through the loops, acting a bit more arrogant to hide their issues. Their comet head's trail is made out of tears that, if consumed, taste like burnt sugar. Compared to their ISAT counterpart Loop, their head reflects light instead of emitting light, and instead of spikes on the body, they have what water looks like in a no-gravity situation. As for where they stay, instead of under the Favor Tree, they reside in a hidden cave of the Favor Falls (the waterfall version of the Favor Tree).

The Mage (he/him) - Scissors type

The Mage is the one who put Vaugarde under a time freeze curse, causing Vaugardians to stand still until the curse is dispelled upon his defeat. Compared to his ISAT counterpart The King, unlike the eternal crying, he wears a perpetual smile that never fades. The reasoning behind placing Vaugarde under eternal stillness is still the same.

Mirabelle / The Head Housemaiden (she/her)

Mirabelle is the Head Housemaiden in the House of Change for Dormont, also acting as a mentor to Euphrasie. Compared to her ISAT counterpart, her personality is the same, but her laugh isn't as regal. Just like how Euphrasie blessed Mirabelle with Time Freeze Immunity in ISAT, Mirabelle blessed Euphrasie with the same thing.

And that's it for the main eight! If you're wondering about the Dormont residents and the Frozen Housemaidens, the Housemaidens become Dormont residents, and the Dormont residents become Housemaidens.