#routes extensions

[serpentface]

Interview Question for Etsushir:

What was the vibe like as a foot soldier during the suppression of the North Finn Rebellion? Did it feel doomed from the start or did it only fall apart once the Odomache was assaulted and killed?

[rosestarlightkatarina]

[fishluring]

making an astronomy/meteoritics iterator oc when i know fuckall or at least just very basic things about those things was maybe a mistake. Looking up stuff for reference/inspo like haha i like your funny words magic man

[northern-passage]

Hello! I was curious... Do the coins in TNP have designs, or are they completely smooth? :0

they do! the gold Adranian coins (which is what Clementine has) have the symbol of the king/king's house which is the swooping hawk that we'll see Duncan wearing later. that's basically the royal sigil of Adrania, and we'll see wardens, soldiers, and other high-ranking politicians or wealthy Adranian families wearing it throughout the game.

silver coins have a merchant ship on them, and bronze coins have the moon on one side, and the sun on the other side (to represent the Wolfmother's children, but to avoid directly printing the image of a god on money). Gael is different in that their gold coin actually has a whale on it, since whaling and fishing is their main source of income (versus Adrania, which in the south has decent farming and functions as a massive trade hub between/with Gael and Yulan). their silver coins have a wolf on one side, sun and moon on the other (same reason as Adranian's have it on their bronze) and then Gaelish bronze coins just have a silhouette of the southern mountain range and sea stacks.

Gael also has whale bone coins and Yulan has shell coins, but those don't get traded with Adrania. only the metal coins, and that's just because gold is gold; it doesn't change much of the value, it's only aesthetics, and the flow of coins between Gael, Adrania, and Yulan (Adrania's main international trade partner) is vital for all three countries.

[illmoraineakoi]

What if the Pale King locked himself away in the Dream Realm to recreate what he did to the Hollow Knight? After the Vessel leaked and he realized that it most likely had capability enough to suffer, but far far too late to even hope to do anything to fix it. He was beyond the point of no return, there was nothing he could do to undo the Sealing. And even if he could, there were no other options that he could think of of what to do about the Blazing Light.

He had no choice but to keep the Vessel sealed. No choice but to watch his kingdom crumble. There was nothing he could do.

Nothing, but to seal himself away in a self-imposed punishment in the exact same way he imparted onto his only (known) living child.

A weak attempt to impose the same agony onto himself as he forced onto them.

And should the people of his kingdom stop worshiping him and forget he exists, dwindling his power and life to a pathetic end?

Well...

Perhaps that might've been for the best.

[silverlombaxwitch]

What kind of monster are you?

(+ extra under cut)

If u can't read the text properly in the first 3 pics, here's the transcripts

Frisk : *But nobody came

Sans : but now, you've reached the end, there's nothing left for you now

Chara : SINCE WHEN WERE YOU THE ONE IN CONTROL?

[rist-ix]

https://www.tumblr.com/rist-ix/749015401700229120 not you reblogging this when you ship bloom with the man who murdered her family 😭

Bloom's into ppl who slay! Hope this helps :3

[allaboutfeelingfake]

the den sketches

[the-shifting-long]

so much of my issue with pristine cut so far is that the devs seemed pretty committed to a vision in the baseline game (player perception and agency is important, all forms of connection with the princess are important) but are taking steps to undercut those ideas in hea, without even being seemingly aware that's what they're doing >_< like what are we doing here blacktabbygames

EXACTLY EXACTLY EXACTLY

long fucking ramble under the cut because i have thoughts lol

I was happy with the Thorn route having a version with a Kiss and that version being "better" than the other, a +2 satisfy in a world of +1s, because a.) it is Unique b.) every series of choice you have to make to get there demonstrates some level of caring for the princess c.) the princess acknowledges everything that came before it-you hurt her, then she hurts you. every action prior to it led directly to this route and you could FEEL it. d.) you have. SO MANY CHANCES. to say "okay fuck you too princess." and screw her over.

It's a fairytale ending in a game with fairytale theming. It's an ending you have to fight for. It's one where you're constantly given chances to deviate-in chapter 1, to see Damsel or Beast instead, in chapter 2, to do so many things! that would end in one or both of you dying or locked behind the door, and then in chapter 3 itself, to abandon her or take the chance to stab her

If player perception and agency is important, then where is my agency. Where is my ability to thrash against my bonds, resist eating dinner, threaten and snarl and scream at the princess or the narrator or the shadow. In every other route where that was taken away from you (Tower, Moment of Clarity) those options were there, but grayed out, or they weren't there, but the narration made it clear what you'd done beforehand had locked you into this path.

If my agency matters, where are the consequences for my actions? Why are they all being pinned on a shadow that the princess, the game, and the narrator do not acknowledge as me/a part of me, except, perhaps, in the vaguest of terms? Why can we pin all of these consequences on some external factor? Why does the princess not acknowledge our actions in a previous route, just talk about how "we didn't really know one another, did we." The feelings associated with them, and yet, not even a scratch of those feelings-not the horror of us ripping our chest open, not whatever understanding she managed to reach when she was going for our heart, not the things she experienced as the chapter 1 damsel where, as revealed in her ending poem, she avoided stabbing our heart directly because she didn't want us to leave, and hated killing us "Do I miss your heart because I can't stand to see it go?"

We trap her here, and get to take her out of there with none of that same redemptive aspect of Thorn where we struggle to earn her trust back. I roleplayed as a jackass to get to her route. I tried to keep doing that. I clicked the most jackass options and still got to leave with her-in part because there weren't jackass options in the first place, and the roleplay I was enjoying fell through. She seemed scared, traumatized, exhausted, and I could blame it on myself instead of the shadow-but the game doesn't let her be scared of me. Whatever happened in the previous chapters only mattered as a feeling.

It wasn't like that in other routes. Cage acknowledges the repeated bringing of the blade, the repeated failures to cut herself out. Wraith acknowledges if you tried to kill her twice as the spectre or ended up killing a nightmare. Fury acknowledges the specific ways you ended up failing your Adversary. Eye of the Needle acknowledges that the two of you USED to have a good fight, and you disappointed her with the last one. Every action, from chapter 1 to chapter 2, felt like it had an impact on the resultant chapter 3. They didn't have to state it explicitly for that to be felt. It didn't have to be stated explicitly for it to felt in HEA, either...but that doesn't change that it's not.

I enjoy it as a concept. I see where the devs were going with this tired princess, unwilling to even fight back if you kill her. I see where they were going with the Narrator seeing a version of his happy reality and hating it. I see where they were going with Smitten being how he was-how he just wants to make her happy! But the end result makes it too easy to unfairly demonize him for your actions and separate the two of you, from the ominous framing of him to the slasher-smile on some of his sprites to the voice delivery prior to entering the route where he sounds less like the Smitten we know and more blatantly evil-and you see it in the fanbase! People HATE Smitten for what they themselves did!

To steal a meme from reddit:

It's a combination of how the Smitten is framed by the art/narrative, a lack of player choices once you're in the route that aren't Vague Niceness or Explicit Niceness, and the princess' inability to acknowledge the horrible things you did even as she's experiencing the Horrors as a result that all collide into some horrible implications; while any one of those things could be a justifiable artistic decision on their own, they add up into something less than a sum of their parts.

There's valid narrative reasons for the Smitten to be separate from us/an ominous shadow forcing us both into a nice routine. It's great symbolism, even. There's valid narrative reasons for us to be unable to muster up any cruelness to say to her. There's valid narrative reasons for the Princess to be as blindly loving as she is even after anything. That doesn't change that they don't mesh together well, and that at least one, if not ALL of those darlings, should've been killed in the first draft in order to better get across the themes of the route AND the themes of Slay the Princess as a whole.

The rest of the game is so GOOD about there being consequences and about those consequences being yours. I don't understand what the writing process for HEA could've possibly been for it to stumble this hard and for the devs to still consider it a masterpiece. That's honestly the most frustrating part of it all for me-in failing to see the flaws of this route or the ways it can fail its audience, they fail to recognize the implications of it, and that concerns me and makes me a LOT less confident about the quality of their future work. I had a lot of faith in them as developers prior to this. I'm still looking forward to future Scarlet Hollow episodes.

My standards are a LOT lower than they were, and it's in part due to their insistence that HEA is the best route in the game, actually.

[maddieandangel]

Thinking about this AU again

This isn't canon to it, since Flowey's dead long before 'Scrapyrus' comes into existence, but the interactions between these two are still fun to think about!

[anglerflsh]

hope i don't come off too intrusively but that all sounds like the qualifications for ocd! or at least anxiety with obsessive compulsive tendencies which would require the same medication, i would go get that checked out!

lovely sentiment but- I'm not going to say for certain I have any kind of Thing going on with my brain without having gotten either a professional (psychiatric) opinion or a professional (peer reviewed by people with that disorder) opinion, and since at the moment I can't go to any doctor about it... it'll stay a mistery + I won't be getting meds any time soon

[donutcats]

I think having an incredibly complicated and layered relationship with Rebecca that only lives inside of my head since canon doesn’t allow for extremely specific reactions to some of the things she does can be something SO PERSONAL.

[true-blue-sonic]

on the topic of silver apologizing. do you think there’d ever be a situation in which he’d have to apologize to espio about something serious?

I can think of some situations, yes. Specifically ones wherein Silver's flaws have brought on more trouble than it is worth, or actively put a companion in danger. Silver is very stubborn, smug, and hounds targets down with relentless determination, where it's also really very hard to change his mind in full. And that works great in the Rivals games, because he was right on the money about Eggman Nega there! But I do think that there'd be situations wherein he hears what's going on, immediately decides that This Is The Way Things Are And Thus This Is What I Must Do To Make Things Better For All, and creates a haphazard plan based on solely that before jumping right into the action... which is not exactly how e.g. a detective hired to find the objective truth in a situation would handle things. Basically, I think Silver does not wait to gather all the details of a given situation first to then put them together and see what is most logical: he follows his heart and his desires to make everyone happy. I'm specifically thinking of TSR where he apparently gets the jump on Eggman to interrogate him about the Ultimate Energy Engine, without much in the way of a plan and such. He just comes bursting right in and accuses Eggman about things. And also here, he is right! One thing I like about the games is that Silver is actually just always right in his suspicions, haha. But more realistically speaking, I figure there will be moments where his heart is wrong as well. And when that happens and he's done something dangerous or irreversible in his haste, it'll be a whole issue to fix things again.

That being said, I do think Espio both has patience with him and knows this is something that can happen with Silver's personality at play. In Rivals 2, I would argue Espio fulfils a role of support and stepping in when Silver is not capable of making plans himself: like when Espio makes the decision to steal Sonic and Tails' rings, or when he urges Silver to go find the secret room with Chao in the Mystic Haunt and tells him to not lose hope then. He's not there to dampen Silver's passion, but more funnel it into a productive way that aligns with their goal, if that makes sense? And Silver treats him with respect once they begin to collaborate, plus he is grateful for Espio's help. So, if there is a situation wherein he did something dangerous, I think Espio explaining why Silver did something wrong might be enough to urge Silver into apologising for it. But honestly, I would say Silver's own feelings might play a large role in it as well. Like, I wouldn't say he was disappointed in or upset at himself at all for nearly killing Sonic twice in '06 once he found out he had the wrong guy, for example. He showed sympathy to young Elise's situation, but afterwards just went right on to his next course of action, namely recruit Sonic's help to rescue adult Elise without any form of apology. He truly just kept trucking on for the sake of the future. But in a situation wherein he does feel bad at himself for what happened, it might make it more likely for him to apologise? I find it difficult to say, because I don't get the feeling Silver ever does really feel bad at himself. His confidence in himself and his abilities can be a bit staggering at times, haha.

This got long, but my overall answer would be that it depends on what Silver actually did, the repercussions of that, and how Silver himself feels about it. But considering he's got a good opinion on Espio, having Espio explain what went wrong might be enough to make Silver apologise for causing such troubles, I do feel like. But I doubt it'd be a very lengthy apology; at best, I'd say it's a "sorry" and then just an immediate continuation of their adventure to make things right once more.

[russell-crowe]

my best friend: i really admire that you work right now just so you can study

me, internally: thanks i feel like i am drowning right under the surface & i can get just enough little gulps of air to get right back to suffering again

[turnedpalefromlackofsun]

WIP

[krys-loves-otome]

An OC Poll!

Been giving this some thought, but I figured I'd like to see what the masses would like to say.

Regarding my Obey Me OC Miri, her profile in its current form is about 6,000 words and I'm still not out of OG Season 3 yet. OG Seasons 1 and 2 are pretty much done save for some editing.

What I would like to know is if peeps would prefer her profile broken down by seasons so that it can be more manageable to read, plus I could release it sooner that way; or wait to complete the monstrosity first and release it in it's massive glory? Keeping in mind that's four seasons for the original series plus two for the sequel series (soon to be three seasons in July!) Or should I do a seasons version and a complete version both so folks can choose which they prefer?