#ofc I have witnessed the development process from start to finish and worked closely with everyone from artists to programmers to debuggers

[katboykirby]

your takes and explanations are always so nice and refreshing to see on my dashboard, thank you for giving a bit more insight into these things and explaining why obey me is the way it is! a lot of criticism is valid but sometimes i think people just don’t actually understand what kind of game they’re playing which makes reading the same takes rather tiring…

Thanks so much 🫰

I haven't ever really talked about it in much detail (mainly because I'm not contractually allowed to post very much company-specific info, aha) but working in the industry, particularly with live service mobile games, has given me a good amount of lived experience with how these games work and how they're made. So I like being able to offer a different perspective from the development and writing side of things!

You're right, there's always going to be valid criticism for any game or media, and OM is no exception. However, while it's no one's fault, you do sometimes see criticisms and complaints about things that don't actually have anything to do with Solmare. A common thing I see is people having grievances with the live service model, or the fundamental mechanics of gacha systems. While that's totally valid, a lot of people will misplace blame on the actual game itself (in this case, Obey Me! and OM: Nightbringer) instead of looking at the genre or medium as a whole.

And I don't blame anybody for that, especially when it's not common knowledge! But something I find myself telling people a lot is "well, that's an aspect of all gacha games, it's not unique to OM" or "that's an issue on an industry level, you'll find that happens with every live service game and not just OM"

But I'm really grateful that people like to read my long, rambling posts about game development! It means a lot to me 😅

[robotslenderman]

Sascha! :3

:DDD

SPECIAL INTEREST TIME, BITCHES

How I feel about this character

I used to not give a shit but then you sucked me into them how dare you

They are baby

Mass murdering horrible torturer baby

They've... been through a hell of a lot of trauma and have to process it. They were stuck in that trauma for centuries. Now Ilias is apparently back but he died in their arms, they saw him turn to ash and they have to be dealing with the trauma of that, too.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Ilias cel Frumos, Beckett (but like in a snarky enemies to lovers kind of way), and ofc my own OCs Rose and Nastasya. Wasn't sure about Nastasya/Sascha for a while but suddenly something seemed to click the other night and I think they'd actually work very well together -- their personalities complement each other, I think. Ilias is warm to Sascha's cold, extroverted to Sascha's introvert, but Nastasya is playful to Sascha's seriousness, joyful to their solemnity, vibrant to their reserved nature.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Even before Rose became a romantic partner I shipped the two of them nonromantically too.

Also I like the idea of Sascha being a tsundere Vitriolic Best Buds with Beckett.

My unpopular opinion about this character

I think that they would have responded far, far worse to the appearance of Elias Athanasios than I see fandom talk about (sorry, Ry XD). Like, not even as bad as I've mentioned before -- way worse.

(SORRY RY I'M HAVING A SPECIAL INTEREST MOMENT)

To start: there is no way in hell they're not dealing with hella trauma after the Dracon. That everyone agrees on, but lemme go into detail:

Like imagine not just seeing your lover die in your arms but being unable to really process it because your consciousness just got smooshed with someone else's, with someone who's mourning his own lovers and didn't really care about yours. Oh, and that person's a suicidal but also sadistic psychopath.

So you spend a few centuries torturing people, shit you wouldn't have done before except in extreme circumstances (if at all) and quite enjoying it, and then --

And then you get separated from the part of you that was okay with it because oh, it was actually the other guy who was cool with that stuff, and you were trapped with the brain of the guy who enjoyed everything you did and you felt everything he did as you did it and thought you wanted it, thought you enjoyed it, thought it was you who decided it, but because you were so enmeshed you don't know that you DIDN'T, maybe it WAS you, can you really blame the Dracon?

And maybe it was really you who made those decisions, because after that long fused together... sure, you're separated physically.

But are you really?

You've been together for centuries. After that long you can't have known where one of you began and the other ended, and it must have influenced your true personality. I mean, stick people in a room of people different to them and they adapt their personality and beliefs pretty quickly, like weeks to months, without outside influence.

Like, how much fucking worse would that be if you were actually stuck inside their head, for CENTURIES???

You're apart now, but in a sense you'll always be together.

Stick the both of you in a room and you'd probably talk like a pair of Creepy Twins. You'll finish each other's sentences because you'll both be on the same wavelength, you'll have the same idiosyncratic habits -- scratching your nose with the same finger of the same hand, tilting your head the same way when you think somebody's being annoyingly obtuse, tapping your fingers the same way on the desk when you're thinking.

You've been intertwined for so long that you probably have the same impulses now, the same thoughts, with only the most foundational aspects to the both of you separating you -- the Dracon's still got his sadism, and Sascha is still introverted, so that'll influence subtle differences.

But it'll be buried under seven hundred years of habits you developed together, opinions and thoughts and aversions and passions you developed together, working in sync for every second of existence, dreaming the same dreams, moving the same hands and fingers, doing the same deeds.

You were a gestalt. Are you no longer one just because you're apart? Are you really separated when you were one for so long? Are you even two people any more, or are you just one person with two bodies, now?

It's going to take decades to bring yourself back to a functional level after the identity crisis that causes, and that's not even counting the trauma of the Eldest, or the Dracon's trauma that you remember just as vividly as if it were your own, or the trauma of what Symeon did to you.

You will probably never, ever recover.

There's traumatic events people went through that follow them for decades that only happened over a few hours at most.

How can you come back from seven hundred years?

In a way, it would have been emotionally better for them to have stayed fused to the Dracon forever. At least they would have thought they were themself, then. At least they were used to it. At least they didn't have a conscience. At least they didn't feel as used because half of them was doing the using, if initially unwillingly. They were one; there was no conflict, just two people so in sync they may as well have been one.

Then to add insult to injury, right after the Dracon's pulled from you, a guy identical to the lover you witnessed die in your arms shows up trying to get your attention. That timing is suspicious AF, and any hope Sascha might have had of coming to terms with Ilias's death on their own time comes crashing down as this redhead just casually waltzes on in and just mashes Sascha's trauma buttons by existing, by looking just like him and acting like him and sounding like him and having the same interests as him and and and --

And now half of them is gone. But also -- not gone, never going, never leaving, who are they now? They're missing half of themself but also probably feeling like they'll never be their real self again. Were they ever really Sascha, when that was a name they took on side by side with the Dracon? But how can they be Myca when Myca is seven hundred years away, when he died the moment Ilias did?

Maybe it was Myca who died in his lover's arms, not the other way around.

I think on the outside Sascha would pretend to be furious at Elias Athanasios for posing as their lover, for having the gall to pose as someone they saw turn to ash, but deep down?

I think they're fucking terrified of him.

Because of the traumatic memories he brings back. Because he knows so much about Ilias and Sascha can't figure out who he "really" is and what his true motivations are.

Because after everything Symeon did, after everything the Dracon and the Eldest did, after the evidence in front of Sascha's eyes that Ilias was dead, dead, dead, how can they not be terrified that this isn't another attempt to manipulate them and put them at the complete and utter mercy of another Methuselah or Elder or worse for another few centuries, when they were only JUST set free?

Their nights as the Angel of Caine are done. They've been manipulated so long and now there's someone else using the person that they loved the most as bait to draw them out. Someone they know for certain did not survive. For their own survival, they can't do anything but disappear because given the forces that has had power over them before, they can't take any risks with this one. Sascha keeps trying to find out who he really is and if he's working for someone, what his angle is, but this time their brilliance is getting them nowhere and they cannot find a single scrap of a clue who Elias Athanasios really is, because all evidence points to him being the real thing but he can't be because THEY SAW HIM DIE.

And here Athanasios is, continuing to try to lure them out.

He's convinced Beckett, one of the smartest people Sascha knows, that he's the real deal.

He's convinced Rose that he's the real deal.

He's convinced Sascha's dumbass Vykosovich descendants that he's the real deal -- particularly the descendant that's their biographer, the descendant whose made it her life's work to know everything there is to know about Sascha Vykos. And Athanasios has direct access to her.

He's getting closer and closer to Sascha.

The walls are closing in again.

So, my unpopular opinion?

Sascha Vykos is the most terrified they've ever been in their existence.

(Second opinion, which I don't know if it's unpopular or not, but -- since they used their deadname for centuries before changing it I reckon they'd actually be pretty fine with Ilias still calling them Myca. But, you know, only Ilias, and anyone else gets turned inside out. Not even Rose would get that privilege.)

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Not exactly answering the question but I am dreading the release of the V5 Sabbat book because I'm so scared they're going to completely ignore what BJD did with Sascha and go back to making them a villain.

Also worried that Sascha's canonically followed the Beckoning. I reckon they'd nope the fuck out of it after what happened in BJD. Something strange trying to manipulate them again? Fuck no.

[cafeinthemoon]

Kasumi - Chapter 3

Title: Kasumi - A Story from the Hidden Leaf Village

Genre: Fanfiction

Pairing: Genma Shiranui x Kasumi Saya (ofc)

Rating: Teen | up

Word count: 1763

Chapter (s): 3/?

Warnings: nightmares, psychological trauma, painful memories and ophidiophobia (fear of snakes)

Symbols: 🌙 | ➕ | ▶▶

Read the previous chapters here: Chapter 1, Chapter 2

Chapter III - At the Hokage's Room

The yellow lights seemed to warm the Hokage’s room, touching every inch of the wood floor ad the white walls. The old shinobi was standing at the window, so quiet that the other two would think he forgot about their presence. His white, wide-brimmed hat hid his face from them, but they saw the thin smoke of his pipe floating in the air, then leaving the room to the darkness out there.

Everything was heated and quiet inside the room, but Kasumi was finding hard to breathe. If it was up to her, that was the last place to where she would go by that time. She was exhausted; her chakra was ran out, and her body was heavy; it took much effort for her to stay on her feet, beside Genma. He was waiting for the old man’s next move with all the patience he had; his position was impassible, and he didn’t take his eyes off the Hokage, not even for a moment.

Kasumi held a sigh. She would rather solve the case on the next day, before she started to work, if it wasn’t for her friend’s insistence. It wasn’t easy to understand Genma Shiranui: it seemed that there wasn’t tiredness for him, nor the next day. Everything he decided to do, he needed to do it right now. And during a crisis or unforeseen events, there he was, with his calm practicality. How was that possible? She asked that to herself many times, but never found an answer. But she had to recognize that these things were necessary, especially when it was because of them that he helped her in countless occasions.

Kasumi would never be the shinobi she was without him.

The Hokage finally turned his back to the window and came to the middle of the room, on his slow steps. Then stopped and stared at the them.

- Well, what is the problem?

Kasumi was the first to speak.

- I am sorry for showing up this way, my lord. I would have chosen to leave this appointment for tomorrow.

She glanced at her colleague when she said that. The old man followed her look and gazed at Genma with enigmatic eyes.

- Do not worry about this, Kasumi. Just tell me what is disturbing you.

The girl took a deep breath.

- Those nightmares… they came back.

The Hokage nodded.

- I see. When was that?

- Few days ago – her face blushed – First, I refused to believe. But things quickly grew hard. I haven’t slept in two days.

She noticed when Genma turned to her, not hiding his surprise.

- And yet you were sent on missions? – the old man inquired. His tone didn’t change, but those words made Kasumi feel both guilty and ashamed of her actions.

- Forgive me, my lord. It was irresponsible of me to do such thing.

- Yes, it was – the other agreed; he smoked his pipe for a moment, then spoke again – Listen, Kasumi. I understand that it is not easy for you to admit when you need other’s help, and that you want people to see that you are capable of handling your own problems, but this question is no longer about you. Being on missions in your circumstances was a risk for you and your partners. I hope this is the last time.

Kasumi agreed, but she couldn’t think of anything to reply to it. The Hokage was right in each of his sentences; there was no need to reply.

He might have noticed her consternation, because there was a spark of mildness in his next words:

- Well, now any argument is useless. We need to do something about it.

***

Genma wasn’t able to disguise his astonishment during the conversation between Kasumi and the Hokage. So things were more serious than she was willing to tell him. And still she intended to leave it for later. That was too much, even for Kasumi. And when thought that if he didn’t force her to stand before the Hokage, everything would get worse...

The elder just examined her and now was using his abilities to neutralize the memories of the nightmares, just like he did years ago, when she was brought to him for the first time. The process demanded her to concentrate on the images of her dreams she was able to remember, so that the rest was brought up to be immediately absorbed by the restraint seal.

Kasumi was sitting close to the window, and Genma was by her side; the Hokage was on his knees before her, one hand was on her forehead, the other was making signs. She was so tired that she fell asleep in the middle of the process; Genma held her until the old man finished the sealing. Then he grabbed some pillows and laid her on them.

The Hokage stood up.

- It is done. She will sleep a dreamless sleep tonight, and she will not wake up before tomorrow’s afternoon. I will bring her medication. Stay with her until I come back.

- Yes, my lord.

When the old man left, Genma turned his attentions to his friend.

Even if she could see and hear everything around her, she would never know how scary it was to see her that way. Having a fever, she was pale; her forehead was bright with sweat. Now that he was so close to her, Genma saw the she was trembling. Seeing her in such conditions eliminated any regret for dragging her there.

Genma heard about Kasumi even before meeting her. The story of the girl who witnessed her mother’s kidnapping and was caught by a genjutsu for trying to interfere spread fast in the village. The kid was found by her neighbors and brought to the Hokage, who counteracted the technique and sealed the illusions, but she struggled with nightmares for years after that; besides, she developed ophidiophobia*. None of this stopped her from pursuing her goal to become a shinobi like her mother, but things were never easy for her. However, she never accepted to have her weaknesses exposed, and simply talk about her woes was hard for her, even with her best friend.

Kasumi was a few years younger than him, but Genma didn’t think about it when he saw her during a combat or when he talked to her. Her intellect was applied on interests that differed from his own, so he respected her even when he wasn’t able to understand her. For example, she was not a brilliant strategist, but she always kept an eye on details that should never be ignored on the most complex plans; she had no great talent with genjutsu as well as she never appreciated this technique, but her taijutsu was excellent like that of a few and the idea of combining it with her ninjutsu of invisible blades was something new to him. She never felt comfortable with flashy or noisy techniques, but her ability with quiet assaults was complimented by the people who knew her.

Kasumi Saya was also a beautiful girl.

Genma remembered finding her peculiar the first time he saw her. At that time, she was still in the Academy and he had just become a genin. She had wide, grey eyes, a shade he had never seen before. Her skin wasn’t pale: it was clear, and seemed rosy on her cheeks by the vibrant orange of her hair; she always kept it short, but now she used to wear an asymmetrical cut, almost disheveled. When she was a kid, she wore colorful clothes; now, since her aesthetic was a part of her shinobi strategy, she preferred neutral shades, and she would cover her hair with a hood if necessary. On her left forearm, she kept the village’s bandanna; on her right one, she had a tattoo: two thin violet stripes surrounding her arm like bracelets. However, Kasumi never attached a meaning to them.

Genma was looking at the tattoo at the moment when the Hokage came back with two small bottles on his hands.

- Here it is – the old man offered them to him, who stood up to receive them – Take Kasumi to her home. Tomorrow, you will visit her to give my instructions.

- Yes, Hokage.

When the Hokage finished, he put the bottles on his pocket and sat back to the girl’s side. She was still pale, but no longer trembling. That was good news.

- I still remember the first time I had to create a restraint seal for her – the Hokage said, looking at her – She was such a small child, and was so weak that I thought her case was beyond my capacities. But she survived, and today she is what her mother was. Maybe she has already surpassed her.

- People think they are too similar – Genma replied – Kasumi always said her mother is her primary model.

- Yes, and she is an exceptional one. Akemi Saya had many qualities. But I am afraid that she had some limitations too. Just like Kasumi, she used to think she had to solve everything by herself. On the outside, she looked sweet and easygoing, like her daughter, but a little time by her side and her tenacity would show. She failed at the Academy because of that. After her graduation, she had done an excellent job as a shinobi, indeed, but if she had been more reasonable, she would have avoided many problems.

Genma smiled while he observed his friend.

- I am starting to believe what they say. On the other hand, I understand Kasumi’s feelings. With all the problems she had to face and the ones she still has to deal with in order to maintain herself as a shinobi, she thinks she does not have the right to be vulnerable. Think of this. It hurts to see people doubting her competence.

- Yes. It does.

After a while, the Hokage spoke again.

- She will be fine after some rest and medicine. I believe her recovery will be quick not just because of her own strength but, especially because she is lucky to have friends like you, Genma.

The younger shinobi turned to him when he heard that. The Hokage stared at him in silence, but the subtle smile on the corner of his mouth didn’t go unnoticed.

Nothing else was said between the two. With a nod, Genma thanked, took Kasumi in his arms and left the other man’s presence.

*Ophidiophobia is the fear of snakes