#sorry about this massive chunk of text

[enavstars]

Cyberpunk au

RGB designs for a new au

Important things:

The inspiration for this was the game Stray (that I finally played).

This is a hyperfixation that I don't know when it's going to end. I'll probably draw things from it as much as my motivation lets me but don't expect it to be a constant thing like Eclipse or On the road.

I love worldbuilding so there is a lot of details of this au already, feel free to ask questions.

The world is dark and very corrupted but the tone of the au is chill because the sibs dgaf about the world.

Worldbuilding details (my friend wrote this because this is complicated and I suck at writing) [very long text under the cut]:

The key element of this AU’s worldbuilding is a new biohazardous artificial plant which was originally genetically engineered by the scientist of the RGB’s city-state to fight the air pollution that plagued the region by attempting to reduce the amount of CO2 from the atmosphere (yes this is a biopunk universe :)). However, because they are an ugly reddish colour, have a bitter taste and are extremely nutrient-deficient and unhealthy, they have no natural predators and can spread like wildfire across both fertile plots and forests like weeds. On top of that, due to that nutrient deficiency, which stems from the slow absorption ability of their roots (not nearly enough to keep the heavy rate of photosynthesis), they evolved on their own to attach themselves to other living beings as parasites and basically invaded the entire area around the metropolis. With them being potentially lethal, this caused a massive problem that made the city panic; although they have plenty of weak points (like fire and a vulnerable immune system) and it takes them very long to get their roots to the rest of the body, their grip is so deep and strong that the only option is to remove the infected body part. So their special ability became a critical issue when the plants unexpectedly ended up liking animals better, and with them humans themselves, because they could carry them to other places and infest those too while still sucking the life out of them until they die (oopsie). Ultimately, with the lack of proper information on the parasites, and because the situation was handled very poorly overall, they ended up taking many people’s lives and made the most vulnerable species of the area (like cattle) go endangered or extinct, which in turn altered the balance of the ecosystem and the working class’ means of living :).

Sorry this chunk was so technical, we (@kaigoesbrr and I) are biology nerds, but basically the plants were so good at making more oxygen and so ass at getting what they needed to do so that they became parasites, and now they get what they need from plants and animals (and they like animals better, like humans, because they have more stuff and help them spread further). Then society collapsed :).

All of this caused a deep economic crisis that brought about high rates of poverty, and with it, a deep fear of the infested world outside the city walls. So this whole conundrum led to the city closing off to the lands around it, implementing absurd levels of security like a tight border control and a slower, more strict business traffic, and making a huge dark translucent dome that encapsulates the whole city to keep any potential smuggled plants from ever growing by blocking the natural sunlight. They even made a ditch around their walls (kind of like a moat) and burnt and bombed the fields and suburbs around them to make them extremely infertile. So yeah, this city-state is a terrible place to live, a gloomy prison where not even the sun and stars can be seen, but most the inhabitants never leave out of that paranoid terror and the heavy bureaucracy needed to just go outside and touch grass.

(haha with poor funding corrupt scientists who didn’t know what they were doing made a mess, shocker how that would backfire horribly).

However, the outside isn’t as bad as they make it out to be. In the end, the plants did clean the air as they were supposed to, and, as nature does, it did somewhat recover from the disaster to where human life is now sustainable again.

Taking advantage of their thick crust, trees were the least affected by the plague, and the other plants in the forest developed new natural defences against the parasites, which was yet another reason why they in turn became best at infecting animals. And many of the fungi, abundant in the now more humid forest (haha cooler air equals more rain), took advantage of their weak immune system (due to their fucking incompetent creators making a mess of the original plant’s DNA) and infected them (haha scammer get scammed). So basically, the fields and farmlands were lost to the people, but the forests are still intact. Also, even though one of the rivers around the city, the one which makes its ways under it and is therefore connected to the water supply and sewer systems, is trashed, the other, which is further away, is now perfectly healthy due to the city closing off and therefore leaving it alone for enough time. The real issue here lies within the actual government, which obviously does not want to expose how corrupt and lazy they are when dealing with problems and so they keep fueling the paranoia of their most vulnerable citizens since they are kids :). One way they do so is by manipulating the information their people get, claiming bullshit like “the current ecosystem is wild and polluted, it cannot offer our economy anything anymore!” and “the plants are dangerous and will kill you if you ever come into contact with them, and they have infected virtually every living thing around!”. Another is by not educating their population about “the Outside”, treating it like a sort of taboo. Therefore, they refuse to explain, or hush those who try to, the actual danger of the plants and how to deal with them (they do have many weaknesses, after all).

But the people in this world have yet another nasty problem. In this AU there are beings believed to be anthropomorphic demons due to their pointy ears, fangs, and sometimes strange behaviour. But in fact, these people are descendants of the dragons that once lived in these nations, but their origins were forgotten as the world gradually lost touch with its spirituality and ancestry, and now those who were once revered for their “godlike attributes” (yes, they kinda worshipped dragons, I mean, who wouldn’t) are today facing discrimination. However, even though they aren’t considered exactly “people”, the pure humans are still kind of afraid of them, so they usually choose the subtler kind of racism. In most governments, “Demons” get less job opportunities and are denied high positions, can be freely banned from any establishment, and face unmatched prejudice just for existing, especially those with a stronger blood relation with their ancestry. In the city, they are treated as less than even the robots (nindroids of all kinds), who are treated like any other respected social group by now because they have grown so advanced that most of them are just like humans in metal armour. In fact, many of them are mechanics, who are held in high esteem for making the many bionic implants for the humans.

And all of that combined made the RGB siblings (who are obviously demons, especially Lloyd), decide never to leave the Outside, where they grew up, to go live in the city.

When they were younger, Kai and Nya adopted Lloyd when they found him asleep in a box in the middle of nowhere, after having been abandoned themselves a few years earlier. This time, though, their dynamic in this AU is more of a team than Kai being a mom to them both like he always is, so even if Kai feels the most responsible for being the eldest sibling, they rely on each other almost equally. They fend off the plants that threaten them with fire (no they do not have powers, but Kai uses a fucking flamethrower because it’s Kai), and usually live on whatever they can find in the wild: mostly by making traps for game, fishing in the cleaner river and occasionally foraging edible plats (that’s more risky and they are more carnivorous anyway). Also, Nya routinely strolls through the ruins of the suburbs to collect scrap junk to turn as much of it as she can into useful trinkets, the rest of which she sells to Ed and Edna’s junkyard and their son, who is an amateur mechanic (wink wink but no shipping actually). Apart from that though, they usually sneak into the metropolis to cause a bit of mayhem here and there, which over time and on top of the fear over their species has earned them a reputation of People You Don't Wanna Mess With (or "Demons", more like). More than once they’ve even messed with a few of the gangs around town, which started sprouting up after the disaster, so overall their presence in the city is tolerated, but frowned upon. They manage to bypass the annoying border control thanks to the faulty assistant robot who raised them, named Echo (wink wink), who cannot perform any other social job (what he was made for) than to be the ferryman for those few people who decide to cross the wide moat and venture out into the Outside. They usually take a secret tunnel that a few smugglers managed to make, and the Guard do nothing because they do not give a fuck about demons anyway (in fact, only a few people know that their actual names aren’t Red, Blue and Green because nobody gives a fuck indeed). They do actually know a few people there, some of whom are also demons (like Mistake and Ronin), but especially as kids (which is when the story starts) they spend most of their time in the wild chilling and going on adventures :³.

(no the city and the plants are not named, we’re lazy :))

Anyway this is what I'll say for now. There's a lot more info, and hopefully drawings, coming. Hope you like this au because I love it for now ^^

(Btw let me know if you want me to make a post/reblog explaining the designs for the Rgb siblings and some info behind them)

[pandorasprongs]

CHAPTER FOUR | come home to my heart.

'it's nice to have a friend' fic masterlist + playlist | previous chapter

PAIRING: jamie tartt x fem!reader

WORD COUNT: 3.1k

SUMMARY: jamie tries to get reader to forgive him.

WARNINGS: language

A/N: hello! sorry for such a long wait, i've been on vacation. i also haven't been able to proofread huhu but hopefully the interlude prepped ya'll for this moment because a good chunk of this one is from jamie's pov! don't have much to say because i don't want to spoil much hehe but enjoy jamie's comeback!

Losing Jamie for a second time felt the exact same: like absolute shit. Except this time, you were an adult and couldn't sulk in your room all day. So for the next few weeks, — aside from said crying sessions — you've been dragging yourself to all of your lectures and powering through office hours as if nothing happened.

You already told Liv about it the morning after, and after seeing your bloated face and the fact that you had a massive hangover, she decided to withhold her 'I told you so' speech, much to your relief. 

It was unraveling the exact same way as last time and the cherry on top was the fact that Jamie wasn't reaching out in any way, shape, or fucking form. No texts, calls, or anything. 

Every now and then, you'd think about reaching out yourself. It was you who yelled at him that night and told him to leave, but you would shake your head every time. No, if Jamie really wanted to preserve your relationship, he would have to be the one to reach out. You got to say your piece and that's it.

And maybe you were being a little petty, taking down all your photos with him from the shelf and stuffing them in a box with all the tokens from Jamie that you couldn’t bring yourself to throw away, but at least it stopped you from nearly breaking down every time you passed your hallway.

Jamie wasn't taking it so well either, despite what you assumed.

After that night, he had this sinking feeling in him. He knew he fucked up, — ghosting you and treating you like a complete stranger at the pub in front of his teammates, — but it hurt even more hearing you shout and tell him how badly it fucked you up.

To this day, he doesn't know why he did it, really. Maybe it was the fact that he felt guilty for never talking to you after you left. Or maybe you were right; he cared too much about what his teammates thought that he ended up hurting you in the process. But no matter the reason, he ruined one of his most important relationships that night.

So what was he going to do? What he always did. Ignore it. Focus on the season, despite the fact that Richmond has been on a losing streak since the West Ham game. While Jamie might be off his game because of you, he wasn't going to acknowledge that. Just bury it and hope it disappears.

It wasn't until after the fifth match in the losing streak that he got a message from an unknown number he was forced to confront it. 

Hi Jamie. I'm Liv. I'm not sure if (Y/N)'s mentioned me, but I'm one of her friends and I got your number from her phone. I was hoping to talk to you soon when you're free.

So now, he was sitting in a white office like he was waiting for some test results. It didn't help that the person sitting in front of him was in a lab coat, either.

"Sorry, I know it's weird we had to do this in an office." Liv started and Jamie straightened up in the chair. "I thought you'd want somewhere private to talk."

"Right."

"Yeah, so you're probably wondering why I wanted to talk to you. Uhm, (Y/N)'s been a little off recently. She told me about what happened, which I honestly saw from a mile away, but that's not the point." Liv sighs before continuing. "The last time this happened, back in uni, she practically quarantined herself in her room till her parents came and picked her up. She barely ate, and barely talked to anyone. It was terrible. And I can tell that she's on the way to that again."

Jamie's eyes widened, filled with guilt once again, but he said nothing.

Something about his reaction just triggered something in Liv. "Right, so I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but what the fuck are you doing, man?" The footballer moved back in his chair, but Liv wasn't dismayed. "Why haven't you called her? Or even texted or something."

"I," Jamie's completely at a loss for words. "I thought that she didn't want to talk."

"What gave you that idea?"

"She told me to leave that night so harshly, so I thought..." Jamie trails off, realizing how terrible that reasoning is after saying it out loud.

Liv is thinking the exact same thing, causing her to roll her eyes. "Come on, Jamie! You can't actually think she wants nothing to do with you now. She won't ever say it, but do you know how many times I've caught her checking your contact to see if you've sent anything? She misses you and seeing how shit you've been playing these past few matches, I think it's safe to assume that you miss her too."

Despite this woman being a complete stranger to Jamie, he's suddenly compelled to admit, "Just because she misses me doesn't mean that she wants me back in her life. And I don't think I should be, to be honest." She's better off without me. 

Liv's expression finally softens and she looks down at her desk before saying, "She at least deserves an apology."

—

It had been a few days since then, which Jamie had been using to think it over. He knew Liv was right; he needed to apologize. He just didn't know how. And of course, he had to talk to the most emotional man he knew.

"Jamie! What brings you here?" Ted who, despite the team losing yet another game, greeted quite cheerfully. It almost made the football player turn right back around because he wasn't sure if he was in the mood for his coach's relentless optimism.

But he knew there wasn't anyone else he could go to, seeing as you were obviously unavailable, Keeley was way swamped with her new company, and telling his mum would be indirectly telling your parents too. He shuts the door behind him and moves to Ted's side of the office. "Right, um, I was hoping to talk to you about something."

His coach seems to pick up on Jamie's uneasy demeanor and leans forward with a sympathetic look on his face. "What's up, buttercup? Should I gather the diamond dogs for this?"

Jamie, recalling the name that the coaches and Higgins called themselves, was quick to reject the idea. "No, no, I'd rather not have them find out about this. Uhm, look, I know I haven't been doing my best recently,—"

"Oh, we'll get a win soon bud, don't worry." Ted is quick to reassure the player and while Jamie appreciates it, he shakes his head.

"No, I know, but that's not it." Jamie takes a deep breath before continuing. "It's just, I've been a bit distracted recently."

"Is this about a girl perhaps?"

"No," though Jamie thinks about it for a second. “Yes, but no?" Seeing the slight look of confusion on his coach's face, he explains, "A while back, I reconnected with an old friend. She was my best friend actually, back in Manchester. We didn't exactly end on the best of terms and it was my fault. But when we met again, she told me that I didn't need to apologize."

Jamie continued to recount the past few months to his coach, from his blind date to the Bones & Honey incident, along with what he did to you in the pub all those years ago. 

"So now, I don't know what to do. Her best friend said I should apologize, but I don't really know how. I'm not really the best with these types of things." Both of them still remembered how long it took for Jamie to get the team to forgive him when he first came back.

Ted takes a second before responding, trying to figure out the best thing to say in this situation. "You know Jamie, I've always thought the simplest ways are sometimes the best ones. Overthinking things tends to complicate them more. You want to apologize right? How'd you used to do it when you were kids and you threw your little tantrums at each other?"

"Coach, I don't think bringing her chocolate is gonna work this time around." Jamie gets flashbacks to your first-ever argument as kids. Jamie accidentally ate the last slice of chocolate cake that you had unofficially saved and you stormed out and locked yourself in your room for an hour. 

All it took was Jamie sliding a bar of chocolate through the bottom of the door, explaining that he got hungry, and promising to save her a slice of cake the next time they had a party. You ended up sharing the bar with Jamie.

"Probably not. But in all the times you fought, what were the things that got her to forgive you? What did you say that made her understand your side and know that you actually were sorry for what you did? And how did you prove to her that you weren't going to do that to her again?" Maybe if Jamie thought about this advice later tonight, it'll make more sense, but right now, only one question was occupying his mind.

"D'you think she'll forgive me?" He thinks out loud.

"I honestly don't know Jamie, I don't even know who she is. But if you show her how much you care like how you're showing me right now, I'm sure things will be fine." Ted, now standing, offers a comforting pat on the back.

Without looking up, Jamie whispers, "I never meant to do this to her. To hurt her like that."

"We rarely ever mean to hurt the people we love." Ted offers.

Love. Yeah, Jamie thought, he did love you, even after all these years. Especially after all these years. What, with all the 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' bullshit.

"All we can do after is try to atone for our mistakes and hope they forgive us. And even if they don't, at least you leave knowing you tried." Jamie nods his head and thanks his coach for the advice.

As he got into his car to leave the clubhouse, he pulled out his phone. Hi, are you free tonight? I was hoping we could talk. 

He anxiously waited for your reply and started listing all the places he had to pass by before heading to your place if you even answered. But before Jamie even left the car park, you already replied, Sure.

—

Maybe you had been hoping for Jamie's message more than you thought. You were in the middle of the lecture when you got his message, so while your class passed the handouts around, you took the chance to grab your phone and reply.

So now, you were anxiously waiting in your flat, still unsure of how you were meant to feel about all this. You knew there was still anger there, but you weren't sure if exploding on him relieved that feeling or made it worse. A part of you also felt guilty for it too, for not even giving him a chance to apologize in the first place. Maybe instead of awkwardly letting him inside later, you would've been having yet another movie night together.

That's what he was going to do now right? Apologize? You didn't really press on for my details when he messaged you earlier. You just hoped that seeing him again will trigger the right response to whatever he had planned.

You heard the doorbell ring and suddenly, it felt like your heartbeat quickened. You take careful steps towards the door and after mentally preparing yourself for whatever this was going to be, turn the doorknob.

"Hi," Jamie greeted, in the most awkward way possible for a guy as confident as he could. You notice him holding a box of LEGO flowers under his left arm and a pack of chocolate nuggets in his right hand.

In an attempt to lighten the mood, you jokingly ask, "Is your apology just going to be flowers and chocolate?" though it may have come across as harsher than you intended.

"No, but uh, in case you changed your mind about talking to me when you saw me, I thought this would at least get me through the door," Jamie explained and you slowly nodded your head.

"Well, you were right." You take the things from his hand and let him inside. 

You had already cleaned up the place before he came over and hidden all the messy catalogs and test papers in your room for the time being. Its current condition could honestly pass as one of those display sets in department stores.

You placed the items on your dining table before turning back to Jamie who was awkwardly standing in the middle of the living room.

You didn't want to delay this any further. "So, why'd you want to talk?"

"Right," Jamie started, still unable to look you in the eye. "I wanted to say sorry for not messaging you these past few weeks. I've just been busy and Richmond's been on a losing streak too,—"

"Is that really all you wanted to say?" Your tone was soft, but even you knew you were being blunt. You just couldn't handle the sinking feeling of anxiety in your chest anymore and while you might be rushing him, you just wanted to get this over with.

"No, it's not." Jamie closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He moves towards you and starts looking at you intently. "I'm sorry. For everything. You deserved an apology and an explanation a long time ago and I can't go back in time, so I want to do it now."

He pauses for a moment, and when you realize he's waiting for you to say something, you respond, "Go ahead, Jamie."

He nods his head and almost looks like he's psyching himself up before a match. He takes another deep breath before continuing.

"I wanted to start from when I started to get distant. I never told you, but after I started at Man City, dad came back into the picture."

"He did?" Your voice was barely a whisper, and you're unsure if he even heard it because he keeps talking.

"You know how he is, right?" Of course, you did. 

Growing up, you knew the exact times his dad would be coming over. There’d be some beat up car in their driveway and if you looked out your window, Jamie’s window blinds would be down. During the early years, you’d ask your mom to call their house, but after the first time and about a ten-minute call with Georgie, she started telling you they were busy. It was only after that outlying car in their driveway disappeared that Jamie would come knocking at your door, asking to play. He'd have this air of discomfort the first few days, but you were so happy being able to see him again that you’d end up ignoring it.

"Anyway, he was on my arse that whole time. He always had something to say after every match about how I fucked up or, how shit I'd been. Even if I was just sitting on the bench, he still had something to say. It was exhausting," You could tell that Jamie was starting to get angry at the reminder of his father, and without thinking, you reach out to hold his hand. Jamie seems to relax at your touch and when he seems to have composed himself, you let go.

"He would go on about the same things. Don't be soft, it's the fucking Premier League and shit like that. I just, I wanted it to stop. And I thought that toughening up would stop him from him getting under my skin. That meant removing everything that did make me soft, vulnerable. One of those things was you, but I realized now that it was in a good way. As in, I only ever felt comfortable and safe when I was with you." Your eyes widened at his confession and you felt tears threatening to fall.

"But fuck, Dad was really in my head back then. I thought that you were making me weak. And I hated the thought of him calling me that. So I stopped picking up your calls and messages. I just blocked you out.

"But when I started to realize I was becoming a prick, I thought you'd never want to talk to me again. That you'd hate me and it wasn't worth trying to get you to forgive me. Plus, Mum always had great stories about you, so I thought you were better off without me. I guess that's why I was such a prick back in the pub, pretending I didn’t know you. Might as well lean into it if I already lost you." At this point, you were resisting the urge to envelop Jamie in a hug and never let go, but you knew he wanted to finish his piece.

"And I know that it doesn't change the fact that it was a shitty way to treat someone I loved, but it's the best explanation I can give you. I really am sorry." Jamie held your eyes, emphasizing how genuine he was being. Someone I loved, did he really just say that? But he starts again before you can even consider what that meant.

"And, I really am trying to be better. I want to be worthy of staying in your life, if you'll let me. This time, I promise I'll never leave you like that ever again."

You were processing his words and couldn't answer immediately, so Jamie added, "And if you decide that you don't want anything to do with me, then you'll never have to see me again. But I promise to keep trying to be better even then."

You continued to stay silent and Jamie took that as your answer. "Right, so that's all I had to say, so I'll be out of—"

You wrap your arms around him, stopping him mid-sentence. The footballer is slow to reciprocate it, but when he does, you're transported back in time. It feels like you're eight again, and Jamie's football team just won the finals. It feels like you're fifteen again, and you've made up during a midnight run to the grocery after a stupid argument. It feels like you're seventeen again, saying goodbye to the only boy you've ever loved.

"I don't know if I'm ready to forgive you yet, Jamie. To go back to how it was before." You finally answer, and if you're being honest, you don't think you ever could go back. "But I want to be able to," you whisper and you feel him relax even more in your arms. "Just, don't fuck it up and leave again. Because I'd really love to have you in my life again."

"I promise I won't." And this time, you believe him.

A/N: and there you go! the angst is over! (or is it? muahaha) some cameos from liv and ted to help snap jamie out of it :) i had written jamie's apology monologue the same time i wrote reader's angry monologue from chapter three with some slight revisions when i put them in their respective chapters, so hopefully it matches up well stay tuned for the next chapter!!

TAGLIST: @moonflowersandsparkles @faith-alons26 @rexorangecouny @aiyaiy @thegirlthatwantedtowrite @giggling-sewer-ginger @katdahlali @higherthanheroes @guccilongboard @alipap3 @rockchickrebel @ellietartt @shineforever19 @skewedcherries @jamietarttdodo @meg-ro @deepdarkvelvet @taytaylala12 @scaramou @rae4725 @oxxolovemelikeyoudooxxo (couldn't tag you for some reason?)

[itsmebytch001]

Smoking It Away: Part 1

18++ Please!

Summary: You are Aarons daughter, but being that you and Miles are so close in age you two are more siblings, recently he noticed your erratic behavoiour, he calls you out and you come clean to him about your drinking and weed, but when he caves and tell's your Dad Aaron, he finds more than just weed and Vodka.

TW: Drugs, Yandere platonic Miles, Rio, jeff and Aaron who is alive.

You come home not having announced yourself hearing rustiling noise coming from your room, immeditlay you feel the sweat on your neck drip as you stand down the hallway hearing the rummage, you Know it's Dad and you begin to think maybe it's best to make a run for it now? Go to Mile's place? But would Auntie Rio let you stay if she knew what you had been doing?

You knew it wasn't a good idea to tell Miles about the pills, or the drinking but he was clever and was cathcing on quick, he was your sudden extreme joy and dialted eyes, you sudddently all you wanted was to eat and hug, how you were missing massive chunks of school at a time to later find you wondering the streets high out your mind observing the sky or bright city lights, he was scared for you.

As you stood outside the your door panicked, on the other side Aaron was frantically taking your room apart, he had empited every draw, your closet, all your shoe boxes and under the bed but he hadn't found anything yet, until... he stood and heard an unsual creek, he weighed his foot back over the same plank of wood hearing the creek again before lying down the lift the plank off the board, and that's where he found it.

Your'e little collection of goodies, your MDMA, your weed, your shrooms you were yet to try and a half drank bottle of Vodka.

He's mortified, vene though deep down he probably knew, he was how somtimes when you came home all you wanted to do was have him hold you and chat his ear off, he didn't mind it was nice actucally, but it threw him off

but he had caught you know, it was over. You went for the door, maybe you'd just stay at a mates house, turn your phone off and hope he wouldn't get Jeff involed in finding you like he had before when you had pulled your last stunt.

And just the door handle is in reach you hear your door swing open.

Aaron:" Y/N DAVIS!"

I mean, I could still make a break for it.

He see's you standing by the front door, your hand on the door knob.

Aaron:" You make a break for it I will drag you back inn by your hair, I don't care who see's"

You turn the knob.

Aaron:"I fucking mean it Y/N don't play with me"

Run

And so you swing open the front door and run down the hall, you hear you Dad's heavy boots bellow after you and you sprit down the stairs and out the building and dissapear into the crowd.

It had been sevral hours form when you had ran off, you hand't stopped moving so you hadn't checked your phone, so it was late into the night that you fianlly checked your phone, only to see what you completyley expected.

Auntie Rio-18 notifications.

Uncle Jeffe-22 notifications.

Miles- 37 notifications.

Dad-57 notifications.

You dare not open Rio's texts, she would be the most harsh in her messages than anyone else, and you were stressed enough hiding under a filthy bridge.

But you did read though Mile's texts:

Miles: Y/N Your Dad is freaking out where r u Miles: Srlsy Y/N my dad has put out a APB for you just come home Miles: I'm sorry i sniched but i was getting worried. Miles: there not even angry, just worried Miles: That was a lie, they are mad but they are alos reallllly worried Miles: Y/n im sure we can all just talk this out your dad is actually starting to have like a panic of attac of somthin can you please just come back Miles: my mom said shed make those wraps you like? Miles: aaron aint't even mad no more, he's just scared Miles: Can you please come home

Then you opended Uncle Jeffe's texts:

Uncle Jeffe: Y/N we know about what's been happeing we should talk Uncle Jeffe: Aaron has the pills this is serious Uncle Jeffe: Y/N You can't just stay out forever, It's best if you just give us a call, and i can come pick you up Uncle Jeffe: I'm not trying to scare you, but i have put out a APB for you Uncle Jeffe: You are only making it worse by running off like this Uncle Jeffe: Your father is deeply distressed come home

You didn't read your Dad's text's. you didn't want the grife, but you begin to listen to your 56 VOCIE MAILS.

You Have 56 voice, press one to play voice mails.

press one

Its Rio, Oh god.

Rio: "Y/n is this true? Pills now really? Are you serious? You want to waste away everything your father did for some pills?! when I get my hand on you Y/n I'm going to-"

Miles:"Mami! She's not going to come home if you threaten her!"

End Of Voice Message.

Another, It's Jeffe.

Jeffe: "come on now Y/N, this isn't a escape plan you can't stay outside in the streets forever now, just pick up the phone make this easy, were all looking for you right now I'm in my cruiser down 7th and Iv'e got people all over looking for you, just call back"

End Of Voice Message.

Anther, Its Miles:

Miles:" Y/n please just fucking pick up the phone the whole house is freaking out! you got cocaine in that fucking bag? YOU told me it was just fucking weed and some vodka not fucking powders I'm getting toasted by my parents right now they might arrest me!"

Oh God, theyr'e going to arrest you...

Another play automatically, Its Rio Again.

Rio: "ANSWER THE FUCKING PHONE BEFORE YOU GIVE YOUR FATHER A HEART ATTACK!!"

You hang up after that, you don't want to hear another one, but as you do you recive another text...

Uncle Jeffe: You know we can track you phone, right?

How wierldy threatning.

You turn off the power to your phone and get on the move immdeiabley on the run in New York.

Wondering, Wondering and Wondering some more you had covered so much land you had left Brooklyn, and surley Jeffe and his goon police men wouldn't look for you outside Brooklyn, right?

But seriolusy you were running out of cash, it was almost morning and still you were trying to stick it out and for what? Your body was exashsted, and all you wanted to was sleep in a bed, instead of having to pay for constant stream on enegry drinks.

So here you are, at 3 am alone in an alley sipping on your suagry drink making hands shake.

ring ring

ring ring

It's Dad, It's Aaron.

You pick up.

Aaron: "Y/n? Baby I'm so glad you picked up"

...

...

Aaron:"Hello?"

Aaron:" I can hear your breathing Y/n can you just say a word to me?"

...

Aaron: "Please Baby you are stressing me out and that's not good for an old man like myself, we can talk about this just pleas-"

You hang up, feeling like a bitch.

You don't want to go back and face them, you are not an addict it's not like that but you can't go back home, they would try and lable as 'needing help' and swarm you with thier 'love'.

But what the hell are you going to do?

It's so damm early and you want to sleep but all the enery drinks you've consumed wouldn't allow that, so you began to walk it off down the streets.

Maybe a homless shelter? You Thought.

No, Bit scummy I'm not actually homless. You decide.

So you sleep on the streets tonight, using your coat as a blanket you try and ride it out even though you'd know you'd barley sleep due to all that sugar.

Morning come's as you wake too a familar face above you. as your eyes clear and you focus on the face...

Its fucking Jeffe.

Jeffe: "Y/N" he says plainly as he pulls you up forcefully helping you up by hand, placing a hand on your shoudler as he pushed you to the back of his cruiser, cleary he looks very tired.

As he drives you home in his car you begin to shake, your not sure if it's the stress, the sugar of the fear. you know all 3 of them are going to be waiting for you home to scould you, maybe to yell and scream. you see Jeffe glaring at you in his rear view mirror, he looks so...sad?

Jeffe: " Y/n..."

You passivley ignore him.

Jeffe: "Y/N." He says strenly.

Y/N: "Yeah?"

Jeffe: "Do you know what youv'e done?"

Y/N: "Yeah."

Jeffe: "Really? Do you understand what your'e doing? I should arrest you not shoffere you home"

Y/N: "then let me out the car!"

Jeffe:"Don't you dare give me lip right now Y/n! You know is Aaron hadn't begged me not to I would arrest you, maybe I still will!" he turns to look at you while driving.

Jeffe: "And youv'e roped Mile's into it!"

Y/N: "That's not true"

Jeffe:" Inst't it?"#

Y/N:"no, I haven't done anything with him, never drank or smoked or pills or anything"

Jeffe: "But he knew?"

Y/N: "yeah, he got all 'I'm gonna tell your dad unless you tell me what's going on' "

Jeffe: "And what did you tell him?"

Y/N:" I told him I was smoking on the side and drinking on the weeknds"

Jeffe:" and were you?"

Y/N: "yeah"

Jeffe: "so what was all that stuff Aaron had around, you telling me you didn't take that?"

Y/N: "No I did, I just didn't tell him

Jeffe: "So your'e a lair and a drug addict?"

Y/N: "I am not an addict!"

Jeffe:"So your'e a lair?"

You rolled you eyes at him.

Jeffe: "Don't you roll your eyes at me young lady!"

He stopped the car, you thought he was about to yell at you some more, until you realised he had parked outside his block.

He pulled you out the back seat and esseinatlly shoved you up the stairs until you reached his front door, you were under the impression he would take you to your own home but no.

oh god oh god.

As Jeffe opended his front door you felt your body tense, you wanted to run again, but you had been caught.

Openeing the entrance you see the brown sofa, and sat on it was Rio, Miles and your Dad.

Oh fuck me...

(There shall be a pt2)

[databuffer]

Terribly sorry to bother you once again. I just finished Marathon 2 and I don't know anyone else to get answers from. That ending text confused the hell out of me. Durandal doesn't interact with ''man'' for the next thousand years? Didn't he teleport us back to his ship at the end of the final level? Also, I like to know what's coming up ahead, so I went to check the synopsis of Marathon Infinity before downloading it. The whole jumping around in time/different realities thing does not interest me, so I'm probably going to abstain from that one. But I saw the first (and only?) Durandal terminal which says he wishes he could've sent the human to explore the Lowon ruins. But...he did? In Marathon 2? Does Infinity retcon the second game?

You’re all good, no worries. Ok so the line is

It was ten thousand years before fate brought Durandal once again into contact with man.

I sort of interpreted it as a generalized ‘man’. The society as a whole, and not only “””human””” he liked enough to continue to keep with him. But also its completely possible the security officer died of old age at that point, or is being stowed in cryo until he’s needed. Might still be kicking tho. He’s not fully human, and Durandal would for sure wanna keep him alive and kicking as long as possible. Buy anyway. The ending of Marathon 2 is the ending of that timeline.

Marathon Infinity however is a bit of a mind fuck, and takes place across several timelines where things didn’t go as smoothly as they do in Marathon 2. Its several nonlinear retellings of the battle for lh’owon where you’re jumping around and trying to find a timeline where the Pfhor or Tycho DONT piss off a very very very real S’pht chaos god, and wake it up to eat the universe. I wouldn’t say it retcons the second game exactly, its sort of like an alternate retelling. Durandal IS in it, however not as prevalent as the second game, as a big part of it is that a good chunk of the timelines place you as Tycho’s to command.

I would say its fun to play if you’re invested in the characters (especially Tycho) and wanna see new perspectives and learn about the player character as a person, but also its a lot of metaphor, and difficult to follow. If you’re having a hard time understanding where you’re at, this little chart is a big help. But generally, just keep in mind that dream levels are a segway into new timelines, and that all the terminals on those levels aren’t Thoth, despite the shared logo.

If you don’t wanna deal with it, you can play Marathon Rubicon X. Its a really really really massive fan game thats well written (tho the level design is Terrible) that picks up after Marathon 2. However it does keep the character development of the security officer from Marathon Infinity.

[apileofashandember]

🌵🍄🧩

🌵 ⇢ share the link to a playlist you love

Im going to be honest here, I'm not an avid playlist user... I just hit ahuffle and call it a day, or create a queue based on the vibes I want... sorry!!

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

oof just one? Okay...

Assuming you've stumbled upon my blog from my more recent fics, I'll go with Perchabeth.

My headcanon is that when are of them are really tired or having a bad time, they immediately crawl into the others' arms and everyone around them gets used it, and only realize how often they do it when they accidentally do it in front of their godly parents.

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

For starters, first person POV. Very few times I can handle it, but honestly, if I see an 'I', I click the 'x' so fast. Another thing would be either poor punctuation or if the fic is just like one massive chunk of text with.

There's other stuff too, but i don't wanna seem so ranty about it...

[crazy-grrrl-on-the-computer]

Okay, sorry for suddenly appearing, but I'm too curious for my own sake. There are posts you tag with some of your OC and now I'm interested in Dark and Justice. Both are that kind of pair I would love.

I AM SO SORRY IT HAS BEEN 84 YEARS AND SO MUCH HAS CHANGED, BUT I PROMISE THEY’RE EVEN COOLER NOW!

JUSTICE TRANSED HIS WHOLE IDENTITY AND IS NOW A VAMPIRE NAMED DAMIEN, AND DARK MURDERED HIS EVIL EX AND STOLE HIS NAME //WHOOPS

Aaaah, thank you for asking about the murder babes!!!!! ;;3;; But please, you never have to apologize for asking about my OCs~ I love talking about them and I’m really glad you were curious for more information even if I somehow entirely forgot to post the original reply I had typed up before everything changed and only just recently rediscovered this Ask still floating around in my inbox!

Dark is my OC and Damien belongs to my friend @dirtflavoredcoke (you can find more OC-related stuff on their @kieranocemporium blog)

The ship has a new tag on my blog now to represent the new era and also because of just how much has changed about Damien’s backstory!

Warning: There is a massive chunk of text with accompanying art below the cut! ^^

Damien was born human to a farming family in Geneva, New York alongside his sister, Quinn, sometime during the early 1900s (1896, to be exact). Their father had hoped for many children, particularly boys, to help out around the farm but was disappointed that it appeared he had two daughters. “Appeared” being the keyword because little did they know that the promiscuous boy-crazy eldest who was caught on at least one occasion with the hired farm hand in the loft was a boy the entire time. This, of course, Quinn knew and accepted even if she didn’t fully understand her brother yet.

Although their father would have preferred him to “focus on becoming a proper lady and wife”, Damien began a career as a sex worker despite the growing risk of imprisonment that came with the US government’s rising concern about prostitution and the spread of venereal diseases brought on by the first World War. Also, he may or may not have endured some pregnancy-related trauma (miscarriage or abortion) while working that job. Either way, it is safe to presume that this wasn’t the first or last era where he would serve some amount of jail time for offenses including but possibly not limited to public intoxication, obscenity, and patronizing speakeasies during Prohibition.

But by the 1920s, Damien was dying from tuberculosis and, short of better options for survival, he allowed his vampire partner at the time to bite him and save his life. Damien had hoped that turning would allow him to spend more time with Quinn, since he had always felt quite protective of her (an understatement for sure), but he wound up having to leave her behind for her own protection, so his family assumed he had simply died from the illness. (He would later find out that Quinn would run away in grief and be turned without consent by a different vampire that same year, but they wouldn’t reunite until many decades later.)

Unfortunately, Damien’s taste in men had proven to be less than stellar, so after getting what he wanted (the bite) he left his asshole partner in the dust to figure out life as a vampire on his own. This was much easier said than done, but it did allow him to finally start transitioning socially and later, as gender-affirming care advanced in the states, he would begin to transition medically too. At some point along the way, he took up escort work until he decided to “retire” from the working life because he is admittedly too lazy to work and doesn’t think he should have to.

But this is where the backstory gets a bit blurry to my knowledge, so I will leave that up to Kieran to clarify.

Dark, birth name Ezra, is a poltergeist. I’m still working out the details of his backstory from when he was alive, but so far I’ve decided that he is descended from Italian immigrants who came to US America during the first Italian diaspora (+ he’s Irish on his mother’s side) and he died sometime in 1960s New York.

A combination of unchecked mental health struggles and a repressive Catholic upbringing during a high-tension war era already rife with racial prejudices bred just the right conditions for a rebellious streak in him. He gravitated toward the greaser subculture and acted out in ways that didn’t exactly win him many points with his contemporaries, but he was less concerned about fitting in and more focused on proving that he was his own person. Ezra had his eye on a girl, but her older brother did not approve of him and consistently tried to get between them. Eventually, in the heat of a confrontation, Ezra snapped and killed them both. While on the run, he was ultimately killed in a shootout with the police.

In hindsight, he realized much later that he had probably been trying to use the relationship to get close to her brother too but had mistaken that desire for jealousy and acted out in rage. That rage connected with his violent end is what wound up turning him into a poltergeist, which has ironically given him a lot of time to reflect through the decades and discover himself as a person via unhindered exposure to different types of people he had previously never been able to know or conceive of.

At some point, he wound up drawn to a psychic alongside four other poltergeists. A psychic’s purpose in what I call the Extended Monster Universe is more or less to act as a therapist to spirits who need to move on, but given that Lexy was only in high school and barely aware of this ability… she wasn’t exactly the best at it. But because she was determined for them all to get along and wasn’t picky about what she called her new poltergeist friends, Ezra started using Dark as an alias to avoid the irritating ordeal of being known. Unfortunately, there was an exorcist-in-training at her school who sniffed them out rather quickly. It took Dustin a while to bypass Lexy’s determination to keep her friends safe, but he eventually managed to trap them all in a spirit orb and pass them off to his older siblings – Lila and Brentley, two bounty hunters who specialize in artifacts.

It was in transit that they literally bumped into Jesse, a nobody trying to escape a bad situation, accidentally breaking the spirit orb and allowing the weakened poltergeists to seek refuse in his body. Terrified and confused, Jesse continued running and only later found out that he had somehow become a share soul for five very different poltergeists with very conflicting personalities. What this meant was that, in their desperation for safety, they had temporarily attached themselves to his soul for stability until they could regain enough of their power to figure out how to leave… and they were fighting for control. Sympathizing with them to an extent and realizing that they were on the run from the same people, Jesse made a deal with them that he would help the poltergeists find a way to escape if they helped him to avoid the bounty hunters who might do him harm for winding up in the middle of their mess.

A cross-dressing rom-com adventure unfolded from there as the poltergeists took turns attempting to resolve the “bad situation” Jesse had initially been running from and help him seduce Brentley once they realized a relationship could garner them access to artifacts that might release them from Jesse’s body. The romance wound up being more real than anyone was expecting and once again Dark was pushed to come to terms with his own sexuality. In any case, Jesse pulled through for them and the poltergeists made a break for it back out into the world at the first opportunity. From there, Dark no longer cared what happened to the other four or where they ended up (he would later on learn that at least three of them found their way back to Lexy for old time’s sake) – he felt more powerful than ever and he was going to make that the world’s problem.

This is more or less when Dark met Damien.

[This is where I would insert art of them together, if I had any recent ship art for them, but I wanted to get this reply out there sooner rather than later. ;;n;;]

One night, Dark happened to interrupt a vampire’s dinner. Seeing as he was already dead and harboring his own urge to kill, he decided that the smartest course of action would be to use the threat of exposure to blackmail Damien into letting him in on these hunts.

Of course he didn’t realize it for a long while, but practically from the moment he opened his mouth Damien already wanted a piece of him. The way Damien saw it, it was real cute that a cocky poltergeist thought he cared about something as inconsequential to him as exposure, but he did prefer his men to be the “take charge” type and what better aphrodisiac could there be than bloody murder.

Playing his newfound partner for sport seemed to be exactly what Dark wanted… until their accompliceship turned into a flirtationship (no thanks to Damien’s dirty mouth), which found its way to the bedroom (figuratively speaking). To say that Dark wasn’t the best at flirting/relationships would be an understatement, as most people think he is too awkward and blunt, but he’s a quick and willing learner. If he hadn’t recently spent so much time in the body of someone who was very accustomed to casual friendly flirtation, he might have picked up on Damien’s attraction to him sooner.

But eventually it did slip out and Dark figured that, if playing house together satisfied Damien enough to give him what he wanted, he could make this  new development work for him. Damien’s feelings were initially just another way for Dark to maintain control of the situation (or so he thought), but Damien was hoping it would only be a matter of time until Dark finally made a romantic move that didn’t involve the bedroom. Living in such close proximity to Damien and Quinn meant getting used to their personalities, habits, and routines… and feeling some way about it. Soft things.

The first time Dark noticed that he was smiling fondly at Damien, he spiraled into an intense and prolonged internal debate. Fondness wasn’t an emotion he was familiar with and it was making him lose sight of his goals. The solution was simple: Damien was ruining him, so Dark needed to kill him. But… he shouldn’t be so hasty. Perhaps Damien was still useful. Did he… care?!

After grappling with the realization that Damien’s feelings were apparently contagious, he is currently satisfied with his decision to not kill his partner because if this is what love feels like then he’d just have to be okay with it. As it turns out, it’s really nice to feel comfortable enough with someone to let them watch his back for once instead of pushing them away. This is what he’d been missing out on all those years, so maybe he can allow himself to want it.

There is more to this story (more characters and more development), but this summarizes how their found family got here pretty well.

If you have a Toyhou.se account, you can take a peek at Dark’s current in-progress profile and see more images of him here, and you can also find Damien’s profile/gallery here. They’re a bit threadbare right now, since we’ve only recently gotten started on that site, but we’re making progress!!

More art can be found on Kieran’s instagram: kieranology.artz

Kieran also made an in-character aesthetic blog for Damien, which you can find here if you’re interested in seeing what kind of blog he would have (nugoth and vampires; warning for blood, suggestive, and simulated gore content): @damienxdeadly

Aesthetic Moon Divider found here.

[inthemelancholymoonlight]

Chapter 209 Breakdown (obviously, major spoilers ahead, please read the chapter first, I'm begging you)

SO! Welcome to the first chapter of Claire's narration. :) I wasn't planning on introducing her as a narrator until after the Battle of Hogwarts, but honestly? I wanted to write about her more. And I introduced Ginny as a narrator in Chapter 201, so I figured I should introduce Claire too. We finally have an even distribution of male and female narrators, too! This decision was relatively spontaneous (as in it was planned weeks in advance instead of months or years in advance) but I sincerely hope you enjoy getting to hear Claire's voice and learn more about her even before Lucy gets the chance. Yes, she's Lucy's sister and that automatically makes her cool, but she's her own person too and she's cool just as she is. :) Anyway, this has been a long enough introduction! Let's dive into the chapter itself!

Whatever nightmare I had been having dispersed the second my alarm jarred me awake at 5 AM.

Right off the bat, we learn that Claire a) has nightmares and b) wakes up at an ungodly hour. Nightmares about what? So far unspecified. This does, however, explain the later search for Tenderheart Bear. She must have been moving a lot in her sleep. Anyway, a little food for thought, a discussion for another time.

A cloudy day. No, not just any day, a cloudy Monday.

The decision to start her chapter here, on a Monday morning, was in part influenced by the fact that Lucy's chapter ended when she woke up on a Monday morning. These chapters don't intersect, technically, because time zones exist, but I thought it was a neat little link between the sisters regardless. Furthermore, the next paragraph begins with the phrase I groaned because it's a cloudy day and a cloudy Monday. Why does she hate cloudy days so much? We will find out later in the chapter!

It wasn't often that Tenderheart Bear managed to escape my arms in the middle of the night, but it broke me every time it happened. Sometimes I woke up as soon as he tumbled to the floor, and I'd shoot out of bed and scoop him up, still warm. Sometimes, like that morning, his fur was cold, meaning I had lost him and not even noticed. Those were the times that my arms trembled as I curled around the stuffed bear and rocked back and forth, the sting of loss so profound it didn't even matter that he wasn't truly gone. 

Tenderheart Bear was her bear.

Funshine Bear was my bear. 

Tenderheart Bear had slept with me every night for almost eleven years.

Funshine Bear had been shoved into my suitcase when we left London, and then she had been moved to the highest shelf in my bedroom, and she had remained there, untouched and neglected, for almost eleven years. 

Sorry for such a massive chunk of text, but there's so much to unpack here. First of all, the fact that losing the stuffed animal in the night causes panic no matter how soon she realizes suggests that there's something more important about this bear beyond just the fact that Claire sleeps with it. The quote the sting of loss so profound it didn't even matter that he wasn't truly gone followed by Tenderheart Bear was her bear was intended to be a bit of an "aha" moment for you, the readers. Even though Claire can't bring herself to say Lucy's name in that moment, context clues were (I hope) enough for people to stitch these ideas together. Tenderheart Bear was Lucy's bear and therefore represents Lucy. Funshine Bear was Claire's bear and therefore represents Claire. Claire clings to the idea of Lucy even to the point of neglecting herself. We see here, too, the first use of "almost eleven years" to signify just how long it's been that Lucy's been gone. This phrase is used again repeatedly throughout the chapter.

I thought long and hard about which Care Bears really represented Lucy and Claire. And it had to be Care Bears for me, because of Lucy's patronus and, I mean, come on, Claire Bear is a fun little nickname. And it foreshadows a future nickname Harry has for Lucy, but shhh, that's a secret. Here are the descriptions of each bear from the official website, I hope you can understand why I chose Tenderheart Bear for Lucy and Funshine Bear for Claire:

"Tenderheart Bear’s job is to help people share their good feelings for each other. He’s very affectionate and is not afraid to display his affection openly. By helping people show they care, Tenderheart Bear helps spread love and makes it grow."

"Funshine Bear shares her enthusiasm for life and all its possibilities with everyone. A Bear of boundless energy, she puts all her efforts into making sure that people have a good time—no matter what they are doing."

These bears really did match their personalities as kids especially, and they will continue to do so moving forward as well.

Anyway, back to the actual incident of Tenderheart Bear falling out of Claire's bed the night before. The fact that it happened during a nightmare was no accident on my part. The specific incident itself was inspired by my own real-life experiences. I sleep with an object that reminds me of someone I loved who passed away when I was a kid, and I always panic when I lose it in the middle of the night. Maybe it's too niche of an experience for most people to find relatable, but I have a habit of pouring my heart and soul into this story and Claire is the character who shares this experience with me. (Sorry, Claire.) I hope this explanation has helped you all make a little more sense of the underlying symbolism of this moment!

The perfect Claire Everlin didn't cry when other people might see her or hear her.

Could you hear ME crying as I wrote this? The whole "The perfect Claire Everlin never [insert perfectly normal human trait of occurrence]" or "The perfect Claire Everlin always [insert superhuman trait or occurrence]" will unfortunately be a common thread throughout Claire's early chapters. Someone please give this poor girl a hug and tell her it's okay to be human and that she doesn't have to be perfect to be enough because she is enough exactly as she is.

Ten minutes after my rather rude awakening, I smiled as I bounced into the kitchen, ponytail swinging behind me. "Morning, Dad!"

DANNY EVERLIN LIVED, EVERYONE! HE'S ALIVE! Poor Lucy doesn't know that yet and will not learn this wonderful piece of information for quite a long time, but YOU ALL GET TO KNOW THAT HE'S ALIVE! How did he survive Greyback, exactly? That's another conversation for another time, BUT. HE'S ALIVE AND THAT'S GREAT!

"Morning, Claire Bear!" he replied, reaching forward to envelop me in one of his famous bear hugs for a long moment.

"Claire Bear." Danny Everlin's "famous bear hugs." Are you sensing the bear trend here? Good.

The perfect Claire Everlin worked too hard to lose.

Did I add this mostly because I wanted to establish early on that Claire Everlin is a Hufflepuff? Perhaps. But also the unfortunate other thing, the "perfect Claire Everlin always [insert superhuman trait or occurrence]," is a factor as well.

The perfect Claire Everlin worked too hard to lose, but unfortunately, I knew better than to lie to myself. 

I had lost Lucy. That would always and forever be the most painful loss of all.

She said Lucy's name for the first time in her narration, but AT WHAT COST? Obviously Claire knows that losing a soccer game is not at all comparable to losing her sister, but in her head loss = bad no matter how severe the loss is, so this poor girl gives her all in everything so she never has to lose anything or anyone else. I love her. My heart breaks for her. She deserves the world.

(I'm not going to put a quote here but I just want to tell you all that Claire's AP Lit teacher is going to be a very important character.)

I didn't realize just how hard it would be to think of something important to me that didn't have Lucy attached to it somehow.

We were inseparable, before, before. I was always dragging her along as much as I could, wanting to do everything, everything, together. We weren't Older Sister Claire and Younger Sister Lucy, we were Irish Twins Claire and Lucy. We were far from identical twins for more reasons than just our ages, but we were two halves of a whole. No matter how many times I tried to change myself, no matter how hard I tried to be enough on my own, I had been missing my other half for almost eleven years and I would just keep on yearning for her until we were together again.

Because despite everything, despite everything, I still held out hope for her, for us. 

This hurt me to write. I just wanted to point out that Claire often repeats herself twice ("everything" and "no matter how..." and "despite everything" and "for ___") because Part 2 of Moonlight was defined by Lucy learning about the Everlins and Claire is inherently tied to that part of her story and, in a sense, stuck there, unable to move on even though Lucy's on Part 5 of the story.

The year where Lindsay and I had been the only freshmen on varsity while Nneka was still trapped in junior high school was one of the most miserable of our lives, and Nneka never missed an opportunity to complain about the fact that we'd be graduating in June and leaving her all alone again.

I just wanted to let you know that yes, Nneka and Lucy were friends, before everything. I'm sure I'll get into that later on in the story, but I'm sure many of you were wondering about that, and the answer is yes.

I knew how it always went, with people who knew me, us, before. They looked at me and saw her absence when they just wanted to see her. I couldn't blame anyone for that — I looked at me and saw her absence when I just wanted to see her. I couldn't blame anyone, but that didn't mean it didn't bother me. It was a scab that hadn't healed in almost eleven years. I picked at it, everyone picked at it, and even if it was ever allowed to heal, it would leave a scar. 

I have nothing to add, other than this poor girl deserves so much better.

It was the same routine as always. Mom worked on the crossword while she waited for school or practice or whatever it was to end, and she'd always save one that I could inevitably answer, and I'd accuse her of knowing the answer whether she actually did or not, and she'd always insist she needed my help, and we'd both smile as if it was new even though it had been happening for a little less than almost eleven years. 

ABBY EVERLIN IS A SUPPORTIVE MOTHER AND DANNY EVERLIN IS A SUPPORTIVE FATHER! Everyone's just doing their best. I just wanted to show you all that Lucy's going to be so very loved when she comes back, and that Claire has been so very loved in the meantime. Claire may have neglected herself, but her parents never did.

Then I pressed play on my CD player and let myself get lost in my work.

If you were wondering, the CD was Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette (the original album, not the musical). I wanted to include this detail, but it interrupted the flow of the paragraph. But now you know!

Dragons weren't real, after all.

I giggled as I wrote this, not gonna lie. Claire's in for a treat later, huh folks?

Danny Everlin could always be counted on to show affection however he could, even when he was covered in sawdust or dirt or sweat or paint or, notably, the contents of a septic tank, after that one incident a couple years back.

I love Danny Everlin so much, you have no idea. DANNY EVERLIN IS A GOOD FATHER.

"I can do those by myself, though, go take a break for a couple minutes before dinner."

And I love Abby Everlin so much, you have no idea. ABBY EVERLIN IS A GOOD MOTHER.

Everyone knew about poor little perfect Claire Everlin with the missing-probably-kidnapped-maybe-dead sister. And even if they didn't know, it felt wrong trying to tell my story without mentioning Lucy. Even if she wasn't in any of the moments I was willing to share, her role in my life deserved to be known anyway.

Before I could lose my courage, I got up out of bed and fished out my notebook and turned my lamp on and began to write.

And I ended on this note because the next chapter will include what exactly she wrote, in order to tie the two chapters together since they will be separated by a lot of talk of magic and war and whatnot in all of the other chapters in between! Someone give Claire Everlin a hug, please.

And lastly, the song for this chapter is "London" by Cody Fry. It was one of the first songs I ever added to Claire's playlist. It's a beautiful song by a wonderful musician and I highly recommend listening to it if you get the chance! It really captures the wistful tone I tried to establish in this chapter.

If you got this far into my ramble, thank you for reading! I sincerely hope you enjoyed this chapter. I had the time of my life writing it, and I can't wait to share more of Claire's story with you all in the 2_9 chapters!

[optimusphillip]

OptimusPhillip Reviews | Transformers: Legacy United Armada Universe Galvatron

Hello again, Tumblr! Life has gotten weird lately, so YouTube video production is kind of slow. But, I recently got a Transformer that I really want to talk about, so enjoy what will hopefully be a brief return to the text review format as I talk about Legacy United Armada Galvatron.

Tank Mode

Galvatron's vehicle mode is the H-tank that Hasbro seems to really like for some reason. That said, it does look pretty badass. The thick treads with the jagged bumpers make me feel sorry for anyone he ends up ramming. And the barrel is absolutely massive, looking like it could level a skyscraper with one blast. Even the exposed robot head adds to the look, with his giant horns coming out the front like a capture claw. They aren't hinged on this version, though, so it's more left to your imagination.

The detail work is impressive as always. In addition to the usual greeble, there's a ton of molded in details replicating the gimmicks of the original toy. On the front treads, you can see both the Mini-Con catapult, and the flip-out panels for extra Powerlinx plugs. And going around to the rear left, you can even see the edges of the Mini-Con storage hatch.

Of course, the turret is the real highlight of this design. Once again, we're not only seeing the accent detail from the original toy, but recreations of that toy's extra features. And on top of all that, there's even some extra paint that was missing from the Galvatron release. The speaker grill and Mini-Con turntable, both unpainted on Galvatron, are painted in charcoal gray, giving them an extra bit of pop. And with no LED to shine through it, the Decepticon symbol on the front is highlighted with some nice silver beneath the classic purple tampograph. Interestingly, the rail for deploying the missile launcher is styled after the Japanese toy, with a slight offset between the sideways locking position and the back of the channel. Don't know if that's for screen-accuracy, or just a little concession made for the Japanese design team.

But this all kind of brings me to my main problem with this mode. The fact that all of these features aren't actually there. The original toy had a lot of extra features to really hammer home the Mini-Con play pattern. Here, there's nothing he can do that you wouldn't expect from any other tankformer. He has wheels on the underside so he can roll, and the turret is articulated. Aside from that, he's got 5mm ports where the original had most of its Powerlinx plugs, and that's all you get.

Even the turret articulation is limited. For some reason, it can only rotate 90º to the left, and 135º to the right. So if there's a target anywhere from 5 o'clock to 9 o'clock, he's kind of screwed. The missile launcher from the original toy is here, but it can't point forward at all. It only folds out far enough to point straight up in tank mode, so it serves basically no purpose in this mode. It seems to be designed solely for robot mode.

And that's basically it for the tank mode. It looks really good, but is severely lacking in play value. He barely even crests the bare minimum for what a tank toy should do. He really could've benefited from borrowing at least a couple features from the original, like the fold-out catapult, one of the Mini-Con traps on the back, or even just having the missile launcher fold forward. As it is, it's little more than a nice display piece.

Conversion

If you know how the original Armada Megatron mold works, you likely won't be surprised by this toy's transformation, though there are some slight differences that mostly serve to give the tank a narrower profile. The rear treads come down to form the legs, albeit with some extra panels to shore things up, and a simpler transformation for the feet. The turret is also on a hinge that lets it get out of the way of the waist rotation, which is nice.

The torso is where things get a little more interesting. Two chunks come down to fill out the torso, then the arms shift down almost like the original Energon Megatron toy. Oh, by the way, make sure to lift up the Decepticon symbol panels before doing this. They actually tab into the chest panel, and will provide a surprising amount of resistance. The arms fold out from the shoulders like before, with an extra step to bring out the hands. Finally, just like the original toy, you have to bring down the panel covering his face. But instead of a slider, now you bring down the entire chest panel to fold it in on a hinge. Which feels a little bit overkill if you ask me, but whatever works, I guess.

It's basically what you'd expect from a modernized Armada Megatron toy, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I like transformations with big chunky parts shifting around smoothly, and the Unicron Trilogy had that in spades. So the fact that this figure sticks to that spirit is good news to me.

Robot Mode

In robot mode, Galvatron's color scheme is on full display. He seems to be drawing from multiple sources. The torso and limbs are done in anime-accurate lavender, rather than the pink used on the toy. But instead of the anime's flat white base color, this figure goes for a bone color more akin to the Takara toy. I think it comes together really well. Armada Galvatron's colors can easily come across as garish, but this figure manages to make it look imposing.

In terms of sculpt, this figure captures the asymmetric look of the original design quite well. The lines across the chest are straight out of the anime, while the exposed mechanisms on the forearms call to mind the original toy. I think the legs really take the cake here, though. Not only are the kneecaps both sculpted and painted differently, but the open mechanical panels are subtly different, and they even painted in the little extra vent on his left shin. I will always appreciate this kind of attention to detail.

What I didn't realize about this toy going in was that he actually has a slightly different head sculpt from the Megatron release. Instead of that version's stoic glare, this figure's face is sculpted in a permanent yell. I know some people will find this ridiculous, but I actually kind of like it. It really does capture the energy of the fight scenes in Armada, with everyone just shouting at the top of their lungs as they try to kill each other, like the early 2000s anime characters they were. Other than that, it's basically the head from the anime, tall horns and all. I'll admit, as kind of silly as they look, they are pretty intimidating. They're actually separate pieces, cast in soft plastic, and apparently can be taken off, but mine seem to be glued in place. It's probably a Bonecrusher situation, where they just weren't secured in place on some production runs, creating an unintended bit of play value.

Articulation was limited in the days of Armada, so I'm happy to say this figure is quite posable. The neck is on a ball joint, but most of its range is in rotation, rather than tilt. His arms swivel at the bicep, and bend just past 90º at the elbow. His wrists swivel, and the shoulders... well, this is where things get messy. Unlike the original toy, the massive shoulder treads don't rotate. This wouldn't be such a bad thing, if it weren't for the fact that the arm itself is still attached to the tread piece. This means that the arms can only move forward on a hinge, which makes posing his arms even more awkward than Studio Series Hot Rod.

Thankfully, things are much better below the belt. Even without moving the turret, the waist has a good range of swivel, and the hips are on proper universal joints, with nice ratcheting on the forward swivel. The thighs swivel, and the knees are on very solid ratchet joints. The toe and heel pieces can bend down from the transformation, and he also has an inwards tilt. Though I will note that the ankle tilt tabs into place very securely, I guess for tank mode, so that's gonna be a bit of a hassle.

So the articulation level is no slouch. But unfortunately, the awkwardness of his shoulder joints makes it almost impossible to pose his arms in any direction but outwards, which drastically limits the effective posability. This is a very rare instance where I would say an aftermarket upgrade is warranted, and fortunately, one exists.

Just like the original toy, this figure can assume the "Full Blast Mode". Pull the waist down on a slider, fold the turret out on its hinge, and get the arms out of the way, and you can rotate his midsection around to bring the turret to the front, where you can point all of the barrels forward at once for an all-out blast. I'll admit, this configuration looks a little naked without Leader-1, or I guess Clench here, but it still makes for a nice display... which is basically all this is good for. Because the turret can't do a complete rotation, you can't really do the spinning turret attack, the best you can do is spin the missile launcher bit for some reason. It's basically just here for looks. I'd question what the point of restricting the turret's rotation is... then I remembered how many hormonal pre-teens would be buying this toy, and suddenly it all clicked into place. Still annoying, though.

As for other features... the tank barrel can come off, and if you fold in one of the hands, you can peg it onto the stump. Which is... a neat trick, I guess. But that's basically it. He doesn't have any other accessories or features, not even his knife. The only other functionality he has is all the 5mm ports, which you can use to kit him out with accessories from other figures. Which of course, includes the armor pieces included with Titan Class Tidal Wave.

Final Thoughts

By all accounts, there's very little wrong with this toy. Aside from the awkward shoulders and limited turret rotation, he doesn't do anything bad. But the other side of that coin is that he doesn't really do anything at all. Look, I'm not saying I want all the spring-loaded and electronic gimmicks back from his original, I definitely see why those were stripped. But they've stripped so much away that the figure ends up feeling distressingly simplistic. I'm sorry, but if they can make fully working Triple-Changers at this size class, then I think they could've given this guy a few opening panels and an accessory weapon or two. As it is... he's fine, but he just kind of exists. Maybe if I had a Tidal Wave to pair him with, or a hypothetical Core Class Leader-1 (or would it be Clench in this case?), I'd like this guy more. Or maybe I'd be complaining about how much of this toy's functionality is paywalled.

[ruminate88]

Great Love and Loss:

08/16/24

Growing up in a positive and Christian home, I watched my parents give and give some more. I watched them help people and love people. I also found porn at 15, got very addicted to it and mistook that for “love” too. I had a very intense but twisted view on love. Not to mention the many romantic comedies I watched as well…. Both porn and the movies had clouded my upbringing and gave me toxic teachings. (Cuz it’s not real life)

I viewed love as this massive hurricane, waterfall, this massive storm blowing in and taking over my life. I thought love was pure, perfect and just the greatest thing EVER. I was so ready for love to break all my walls down!!!! I grew up believing real love could fix all your problems and just make every wrong right. I felt it so deep and felt I had soooooo much to give away. I had been the family caretaker already and was use to puting other’s needs before my own.

However, I had a wound from school where they labeled me and made me feel less than. Teachers made me feel incapable of doing things or being smart enough. I felt super weak and fearful of many things in life. I never felt good enough and so I worked so hard to make others feel AMAZING. I tried so hard to love people without end or judgement, even when I disagreed with them or their life choices.

When my ex Cody ghosted me though, he stole a portion of my love and my heart. He took out a chunk of my heart and ran with it. ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹 I was NOT the same person after he ghosted me. He changed me and made me start to question the power of love becuase of how cruel and cold he was but the moment he ghosted me, I missed him. Yes, he hurt me so much but I loved him so much. I could not understand back then that it wasn’t because I did anything wrong or wasn’t “good enough” it’s because Cody has his own personal issues to deal with and it just wasn’t anything my love could fix ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹 cody I sorry!!!! I tried so hard to love you in your darkest of dark. I gave you so much of my heart and it’s never fully stopped hurting all these years later 😓 I try to ignore it all but it doesn’t go away.

Then I met a guy named Andrew and he was the first to make me feel something after Cody. I began to trust Andrew after a summer of “flirting” and him texting me good morning everyday… I actually believed I was “special” to Andrew. I was wrong 😔🥺💔 After many months of intermittent reinforcement, love bombing, empty promises and the cheating, I realized Andrew can’t care about me the way I do him. I was skeptical to start with becuase cody broke my trust and helped create emotional barriers within me. So, I already didn’t 100% trust Andrew although I was trying so hard cuz I was falling in love with Andrew and trying to get over cody….

I thought love was perfect and fixed everything and yet I was traumatized after but love wasn’t the problem…. The problem was there wasn’t love there. It was manipulative, betrayal and abusive. They must hurt so much and so they inflicted pain on me and not enough love in my heart made it better. My love can’t change anyone. They will only change for someone if they want to. Otherwise, they’ll continue to be cold and hurtful.

My heart with a wound that is slowly closing up and my stomach is knotted up and won’t unbend just yet. My jaw clenched as my eyes try to hold back the tears because my body knows how painful it is and how much work it’s gonna take to release it all.

I don’t give up through ❤️‍🩹 To truly forgive my exes; is to leave them in the past, let them go and try to continue to heal. I’ve been obsessively thinking of them and talking about too long and I tell myself my brain is just trying to catch up with my heart. I know this isn’t forever but I’m probably never gonna forget them and I sorta already have closure. I blocked Andrew’s number and of course, Cody ghosted me so he’s been gone out of my life for some time now….

allowing myself to feel it all and not beat myself or judge myself today ❤️‍🩹 I KNOW I loved them both sooooo much and not them or anyone else can take that from me✨

[tedwinisconfused]

Hi! Demily and Willifer for the honest ship ask please

Hi! I kind of end up rambling about this so sorry for the massive chunks of text lol

I usually headcanon Emily as a lesbian, however at the same time I think Demily makes so much sense! I honestly spent at least the first seven seasons thinking that the writers were setting them up to get together romantically eventually—especially considering how Derek was the one by Emily’s side when she ‘died’, and then his reaction when she came back—and I was genuinely shocked when Derek ended up with Savannah.

I’m easily influenced, and my opinion on Willifer changes a lot, mostly depending on who I’m listening/talking to at the time.

Generally, I’m not a fan of early Will. Maybe this is me being weird and sensitive, but personally I would have been really offended by a lot of his flirting in Jones—‘I pictured you different’, ‘why aren’t you married yet?’ It feels kind of sexist. I have such vivid memories of hating him the first time I watched, which wasn’t helped by the (understandably rushed) pregnancy storyline at the end of season three.

However, Will definitely grows on me in his malewife era post season 7—I think I especially warm to him after 12x02. I like seeing a TV character (especially JJ) get to have a relatively happy marriage, and they have some cute moments.

[whitenoisewrites]

True Pacifist part 5. Huge apologies for the massive gap. Stuff just kept happening. First it was uni assessments, then family stuff, then a bunch of general life things, and it all just piled up. Combined with how big a project this has turned into, I just couldn't find the time or energy for quite a while. I've been chipping away at it where and when I can though, and I've finally got another chunk ready.

As always, big shoutouts to @karmaspidr. Don't forget to check out the Official Guidebook on Ao3, and the Official Desert Sanctuary Blog, full of dialogues, interactions, hypotheticals, and other supplementary materials. And perhaps the occasional meme, for flavour.

Now then. Last time, we managed to convince Clover to let us out of Sanctuary. We made our way back to Hotland, where Dr. Alphys' Lab awaits...

-------

Even in the dark, it's obvious the Lab is a mess. You still can't interact/examine things in the dark, but the bowls and notes are strewn about the desk rather than being stacked on it. The surveillance monitor is off. The dog food bag is still present. Alphys will emerge from the "bathroom" and turn the lights on as normal, but her overworld sprites no longer smile, and some stains are visible on her lab coat. Her talk sprites also rarely smile, even nervously. Most of Alphys' dialogue will have a neutral or downcast/depressed expression.

On Alphys seeing us in the lab:

"Oh. It's... it's you."

...

"You're trying to get through to see the king, right? Don't worry, I couldn't stop you if I tried. And I know better than to try."

...

"Hotland's pretty dangerous though. I would've thought you'd rather stay in Sanctuary with the rebels. But then I got the call from her. I have to keep you safe. Make sure you get to New Home in one piece."

...

"It's stupid, honestly. What do they expect me to do for you that they couldn't do better?"

...

"You probably guessed by now, but I'm Dr. Alphys, King ASGORE's Royal Scientist. And no, I won't tell you why I'm helping the rebels."

Alphys: "Just know that if anything happens to you, I'm done for. So, no need to worry about me screwing you over. No more than I already have, anyway."

Alphys: "What's with that look? Surely you know what I mean. I created Mettaton. I made him famous. Famous enough to get filthy rich. Rich enough to hire his own mercenaries. Mercenaries that will stop at nothing to get a human SOUL for him. Mercenaries that were starting to get sick of trying to break into Sanctuary. Mercenaries that now have a much easier target. You. Every awful thing that's about to happen to you is all my fault."

...

Alphys: "I'll still try to help you, of course. But when I fail... you'll get hurt. You might even die. Especially if Mettaton decides to come after you himself. And he'll have plenty of chances. The elevators are almost always under heavy guard nowadays. Which means you'll have to take the long way. And since I can't be seen with you, we need some other way for me to try and guide you. You have a phone, right?"

*You show Alphys your phone.

Alphys: "What the... where did you even get that? I haven't seen that model in ages. Here, let me see if I can..."

(Alphys upgrades your phone)

Alphys: "There. You should be able to send and receive texts, and access your Storage Box remotely. I gave you access to mine too, just in case you need more space. I never use it anyway. I did have to make you an UnderNet account though. And... I had to add myself to your friends list too. Sorry. It's the only way to lend you my Storage Box like that. Don't worry, you can just remove me when you're done with it."

(Ping!)

Alphys: "...that's the UnderNet alert tone. But, I didn't send you anything yet..."

*You check your phone.

*METTATON has sent you a Mortal Enemy Request.

Alphys: "No... how did he...? Unless... oh. Oh, no!"

(The lights turn off.)

"OHHHH, YES! WELCOME, BEAUTIES AND GENTLEBEAUTIES, TO A VERY SPECIAL EPISODE OF..."

(The lights turn on, revealing Mettaton's Quiz Show setup.)

Mettaton: "METTA-TRIVIA! THE UNDERGROUND'S NUMBER 1 QUIZ SHOW! I'M YOUR HOST, METTATON! COMING TO YOU LIVE FROM THE HOTLAND LAB WITH THE EVER-ELUSIVE DR. ALPHYS, AND TONIGHT'S CONTESTANT... THE NEW HUMAN!"

(Applause)

Mettaton: "BUT BEFORE WE BEGIN, A BIG SHOUT-OUT TO THE GOOD DOCTOR! IF SHE HADN'T FRIENDED THE HUMAN ON THE UNDERNET, I MIGHT NEVER HAVE FOUND THEM! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP, DARLING!"

Alphys: "B-but-"

Mettaton: "NOW, ON WITH THE SHOW! THE RULES ARE SIMPLE, LITTLE HUMAN. ANSWER CORRECTLY..."

(Dramatic pause...)

Mettaton: "OR YOU DIE!"

*Mettaton attacks!

Unlike canon, getting zapped enough times will kill you. Getting zapped removes 1/4 of your max HP, rather than 1/2 your current HP.

Alphys is still present in the battle, but only helps you from Question 4 onwards. Her gesture when you answer right is also changed from a thumbs up to wiping her brow in relief.

-Question 1 (the prize) is unchanged.

-Question 2 (the King's name) has "Asgore Dreamer" as option D. The correct answer is still option C, "Asgore Dreemurr."

-Question 3 (what robots are made of) has "Steel & Steam" as option C. The right answer is still B, "Metal & Magic."

-Questions 4-6 (trains, flies, "memory game") are unchanged.

-Question 7 (smooch a ghost) is replaced:

Mettaton: "LET'S TALK POLITICS!"

"Q: Who is the leader of Sanctuary?"

A- Mayor Ketsukane: (Wrong) "DON'T FEEL BAD, EVERYONE FALLS FOR THAT ONE! I THINK EVEN SHE'S STARTED TO BELIEVE IT!"

B- Sheriff North Star: (Wrong) "PFFT, DOESN'T HE WISH!?"

C- Ambassador Clover: (Correct) "MY, YOU ARE A SAVVY ONE, AREN'T YOU? YOU'D MAKE A FINE AMBASSADOR YOURSELF, IF YOU WEREN'T ABOUT TO DIE!"

D- Captain Undyne: (Wrong) "EXCUSE YOU? I'M THE ONE WHO TELLS THE JOKES AROUND HERE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!"

-Question 8 (letters in the name) is unchanged.

-Question 9:

Mettaton: "GET READY, HUMAN! HERE COMES THE LAST QUESTION! GET THIS ONE RIGHT, AND YOU'LL WIN THE MOST FABULOUS PRIZE OF ALL... A FEW MORE PRECIOUS MOMENTS OF LIFE!"

"Q: In the dating simulation video game, 'Mew Mew Kissy Cutie', what is Mew Mew's favourite food?"

All four answers are incorrect. When you pick one (or run out of time), Mettaton zaps you down to 1HP.

Mettaton: "OH, NO! OUR POOR CONTESTANT TRAGICALLY STUMBLES AT THE LAST HURDLE! YOU WERE SO CLOSE TO SURVIVING! BUT NOW, YOUR SOUL IS AS GOOD AS-"

Alphys: "That's cheating!"

Mettaton: "OH? LOOKS LIKE OUR SPECIAL GUEST HAS A COMPLAINT! WELL, THAT WON'T DO AT ALL! WHAT SEEMS TO BE THE PROBLEM, DOCTOR?"

Alphys: "None of the options were the right answer! Mew Mew's favourite food is snail ice cream! Ever since the fourth chapter of the first VN! You can't just have a quiz show that's impossible to win! It's... it's not fair!"

Mettaton: "...HMM. ACTUALLY, YOU HAVE A POINT THERE."

Alphys: "I-I do?"

Mettaton: "OF COURSE! AFTER ALL, HOW DO YOU INJECT DRAMA AND TENSION WHEN EVERYONE KNOWS HOW THE STORY WILL END? WHAT WE NEED... IS A TWIST! HUMAN, HOW ABOUT A NEW FINAL QUESTION? ONE THAT OUR FRIEND HERE CAN VERIFY IS FAIR?"

-Question 10:

"Q: Who does Alphys have a crush on?"

Alphys: "You... you wouldn't!"

Mettaton: "WHAT'S WRONG, DARLING? THIS ONE'S FAIR AND SQUARE, NO TRICKS! AND AS PROMISED, IF THEY GET IT RIGHT, I'LL LET THEM GO... FOR NOW. ISN'T THAT WHAT YOU WANTED? GO ON, HUMAN. GIVE IT YOUR BEST SHOT!"

A- Undyne: "IT'S A CLASSIC TALE, ISN'T IT? AS ROMANTIC AS IT IS TRAGIC. THE SMART, SHY SCHOLAR, DREAMING OF THE STRONG, STRAPPING SOLDIER. BUT ALAS, BOTH ARE TOO DEDICATED TO THEIR WORK FOR SUCH FRIVOLITY. UNDYNE IS ALWAYS BUSY PLOTTING THE REBELS' DOWNFALL, AND ALPHYS IS BUSY WITH... WHATEVER IT IS SHE DOES WHEN SHE'S SHUT UP IN HERE ALL DAY. WILL OUR POOR, NERDY HEROINE EVER MUSTER THE CONFIDENCE TO CONFESS? OR WILL SHE FOREVER PINE FOR A LOVE SHE CANNOT HAVE? OH, THE INJUSTICE OF IT ALL!"

B- Asgore: "ALPHYS, ALPHYS, ALPHYS. YOU REALLY SHOULD KNOW BETTER. WORKPLACE ROMANCES NEVER WORK OUT. STILL, I CAN'T REALLY BLAME YOU. HAVE YOU SEEN OUR KING YET, HUMAN? THAT LUSTROUS GOLDEN MANE. THAT BOOMING YET VELVETY-SMOOTH VOICE. THE POWER, THE PRESENCE, THE BOD! WHO WOULDN'T BE INFATUATED? WHO WOULDN'T WANT TO IMPRESS A MAN LIKE THAT? WHO WOULDN'T OUTFIT THEIR ENTERTAINMENT ROBOT WITH ANTI-HUMAN WEAPONRY IN THE HOPES OF CATCHING HIS EYE?"

C- North Star: "WAIT, WHAT? BUT HE'S... OH. OH, ALPHYS, HONEY, NO! OOOOOHHH MY, WHAT A SCANDAL! THE ROYAL SCIENTIST AND THE RENEGADE SHERIFF?! TALK ABOUT STAR-CROSSED LOVERS!"

Rather than blushing and covering her face like for Undyne or Asgore, Alphys will simply look shocked.

Alphys: "N-no! That's not, I-I mean, I would never! Not after-"

Mettaton: "OH, DO RELAX, DEAR, I'M JUST TEASING. IT'S NOT A CRIME TO FIND ONE OF THE REBELS ATTRACTIVE. DESPITE UNDYNE'S BEST EFFORTS. AND HE DOES HAVE A CERTAIN RUGGED CHARM ABOUT HIM, DOESN'T HE? EVEN BEFORE YOU GET TO JUST HOW GOOD WITH HIS HANDS HE MUST BE. ALL THOSE GUN TRICKS AND ALL THAT SHARPSHOOTING MUST MAKE FOR A VERY... DEFT TOUCH, DON'T YOU THINK?"

D- Mew Mew: "HERE'S A FUN METTA-TRIVIA TIDBIT! DR. ALPHYS TAUGHT HERSELF ROBOTICS BY REPAIRING AND REFURBISHING A LIMITED-EDITION LIFE-SIZE MEW-MEW ANIMATRONIC DOLL SHE FOUND AT THE DUMP! THAT'S RIGHT, METTATON FANS! YOUR BELOVED IDOL WOULDN'T EXIST WITHOUT OUR ROYAL SCIENTIST'S UNHEALTHY OBSESSION WITH EVERYONE'S FAVOURITE CATGIRL ANIME. OH, EXCUSE ME, 'MULTIMEDIA DOCU-DRAMA ABOUT THE HYPOTHETICAL PROPERTIES OF HUMAN-MONSTER HYBRIDS AND FUSIONS.' HOW COULD I FORGET."

All four answers are correct (or at least, Mettaton believes so. Alphys doesn't actually have a crush on Starlo, but her shocked reaction made him think she did). No matter what you pick:

Mettaton: "WELL, LOOKS LIKE THAT'S ALL THE TIME WE HAVE. CONGRATULATIONS, CONTESTANT! YOU WIN! YOU GET TO LIVE ON, AND FROLIC FREELY THROUGH HOTLAND. UNTIL YOU FALL INTO MY NEXT DEVIOUS TRAP, OF COURSE. FAREWELL FOR NOW, BEAUTIES AND GENTLEBEAUTIES! BUT STAY TUNED, WE'VE GOT PLENTY MORE DRAMA, ROMANCE, AND BLOODSHED, COMING RIGHT UP! ONLY ON MTT-TV!"

(Mettaton retreats.)

*You won! You got 0 EXP and 0 gold.

After Mettaton leaves, Alphys approaches you.

Alphys: "Are you alright? Here. I'm not the best healer, but hopefully..."

(She restores your HP)

Alphys: "I-is that better? If you're still hurt, you can grab something from the fridge. You should probably do that either way, actually. You'll probably need it."

...

Alphys: "I'm sorry. I... I wasn't thinking. I forgot Mettaton was on my friends list. So when I added you so I could share my Dimensional Box with you, he must've realised you must be near me. And since I hardly ever leave the lab anymore..."

...

Alphys: "You should probably go. He usually keeps his word, but if you take too long getting to whatever he's setting up for you, he'll get impatient. And he gets... nasty when he's impatient."

...

Alphys: "Listen, I don't-"

*Ring, ring...

Alphys: "...oh. That'll be... sorry, I need to take this. Head out whenever you're ready. I'll be in touch."

Alphys goes to the "bathroom," leaving the player to explore the lab.

With the lights on, you're able to examine and interact with things properly. If you return to the main entrance, the surveillance monitor will now be on. Rather than a live feed of you, the monitor shows Undyne's house.

*Looks like some kind of security monitor. The default setting seems to be a feed of Undyne's house.

The upper floor is mostly the same, albeit somewhat messier. The work table is not dusty, since Alphys has secretly been at work on projects for the rebels. There are also more letters on the nightstand.

*Read one of the letters?

-No:

*It's none of your business anyway.

-Yes:

*You find an open envelope from "C. Goldbell." You take out the letter...

*...it's complete nonsense. Just random jumbled letters. You put everything back where it was.

If you try to interact with the "bathroom" door:

*You can hear Alphys on the other side. You can't make out what she's saying, but she sounds upset.

Leaving the lab to the east, you'll occasionally see CORE enemies interspersed with the normal Hotland encounters. These are Mettaton's mercenaries. In the interest of game balance, they always appear alone, and deal slightly less damage when found in Hotland than in the CORE.

Alphys will text you directly rather than posting Undernet updates. Her messages will also generally be more serious in tone. Alphys will also call you less often, with most of her phonecalls being replaced with texts.

Aside from the new enemies and the tone shift, early Hotland proceeds mostly normally. Though rather than pretend to hack the laser blocking the west ship puzzle, she'll just tell you she has the access required to turn it off.

The cooking show is also mostly the same, although Alphys' phonecall to Mettaton is distinctly more tense, considering he's actually trying to kill you this time. When you go over to grab the SOUL substitute, you're actually able to grab it:

*You found a can of SOUL substitute.

Bringing it back to Mettaton:

Mettaton: "..."

Mettaton: "WHAT? WHY DIDN'T IT... ER, I MEAN, SPLENDID, DARLING! THANK YOU SO MUCH! NOW WE CAN GET STARTED ON THE CAKE! JUST BE AWARE, SOMETIMES IN THE KITCHEN..."

(Mettaton brings out a mixing bowl from under the counter, and brandishes a whisk menacingly.)

Mettaton: "...THINGS CAN GET A BIT MESSY."

*Chef Mettaton blocks the way!

The "fight" is relatively simple. Mettaton is still in his invincible box form, and ACTing has no effect. You just need to survive a barrage of ingredient and cookware themed attacks for a few turns until the cake is complete.

-For the first three turns, Mettaton will dump ingredients from above the bullet board into a giant mixing bowl below it. You need to navigate through the gaps, similar to the jetpack minigame from the normal game.

-On turns 4 and 5, the bullet board becomes extremely narrow, only allowing you to move left and right. Mettaton mixes the ingredients with a whisk, the handle of which pokes up into the bullet board repeatedly as it moves back and forth. You need to time your movements to get past the whisk when it's not poking up. The movement pattern on turn 5 is faster and more erratic.

-On turn 6, Mettaton puts the batter in the oven, which begins belching flames at you. Through turns 6, 7 and 8, the patterns gradually get denser as the heat cranks up.

-On turn 9, the oven dings, and the completed cake drops into the bullet board, potentially hitting and damaging you if you're under it.

Once it's done, Mettaton will Spare you, ending the battle.

Mettaton: "AND VOILA! A DELICIOUS, 100% VEGAN, HUMAN-SOUL FLAVOURED CAKE! EVERYONE GIVE A BIG HAND TO MY LOVELY ASSISTANT! THAT'S ALL THE TIME WE HAVE FOR NOW! UNTIL NEXT TIME, DARLINGS!"

Mettaton speeds off. After he leaves, Alphys calls to check on you.

Alphys: "Are you alright? Thank goodness I managed to disable the booby trap on that can of SOUL-substitute in time. It was a close thing... take a minute to breathe, then keep moving."

Alphys: "Just ahead, there's a cliffside where you should be able to see a huge facility out in the lava flow. That's the CORE, the main power plant for the entire underground. Inside is an express elevator right up to Asgore's castle. That's where you need to get to. Good luck."

*Click*

-------

God, that chapter beat the crap out of me. Just a heads up, the rest of Hotland will probably be quite a bit less detailed. I wanna try and wrap this up sometime before I keel over from old age lmao. Anyway, hopefully there won't be quite as big a gap between this part and the next. Take care for now.

Desert Sanctuary AU

Post Undertale Yellow True Pacifist. Clover decides to NOT sacrifice himself. Doing so would risk bringing humanity a set closer to extinction and there is also no real guarantee it would help anyone. And Asgore still needs to pay for his crimes.

He and the others return to the Wild East. After some discussion, the Wild East declares independence from the rest of the Underground and announces that any human within their borders is under their protection.

Roles

Clover: Unofficial Leader and Human Ambassador

He's at the head of all diplomatic meetings between the Wild East and the Larger Underground. Wants both peace and justice. Is trying to prove humanity isn't bad but is constantly battling his own anger. Still plans to free the five souls. LV 3, 0 EXP

Ceroba: Official Leader

After the Wild East declared its independence, it was made into a Democracy. Ceroba is the current Mayor of the town. Had the Steamworks repurposed to help the residents of the Wild East. Still wants answers about Kanakoe.

Starlo: Head of Law Enforcement and Defence.

Takes his new role very seriously but still goes by North Star. Human-hating extremists from the Larger Underground have sneaked into the Wild East to either sabotage them or steal Clover's soul. Caught the first unlucky bastard trying to kill Clover in his sleep. Doesn't want to risk that happening again.

Martlet: Scout and Mole.

Not an official resident of the Wild East. Still works for the Royal Guard but only to gather intel and have the best possible chance to find a human before someone else and bring them to the Wild East. Unsure if this is the best course of action.

[taffyvontrips]

some thoughts on the 1982 drivers' strike and a little context

So, I’ve been feeling a little odd about the 1982 drivers’ strike for a while, and I’ve been mulling over it. The reason I haven't written this post before now is because I know that a lot of people in this community are attached to the strike! I am not immune to this! It’s a great story, unexpected and fun, rich with lore. I mean, who doesn’t love union action? Who doesn’t love a good strike? 

I really hate to be a buzzkill and I don’t mean to attack anyone—not any users here (definitely not!), not any drivers either really (maybe Bernie Ecclestone though). I guess I just mean this post as a conversation starter. 

Anyway. People like to use the example of the 1982 strike when they’re trying to make points about modern F1. For example, when the race in Saudi Arabia was in question because of airstrikes happening near the track (I still can’t believe that went ahead, but I digress), and when Domenicali made that asinine statement about drivers’ political engagement, a lot of great posts about the strike were suddenly doing the rounds on modern f1 tumblr. Look at what they managed to do before! people were saying. See how ridiculous it is to say that Niki Lauda wasn’t political! Look here! They organised a strike, maybe they’ll do it again! We love a strike! We love a union!

And good for the drivers for sticking up for their workers' rights and so on. Good on Niki Lauda and Didier Pironi for not rolling over.

However.

Something that has always quietly gnawed away at me ever more since first learning about the strike was the fact that it took place in South Africa, in 1982, during apartheid.

If ever there has been a place where F1 should not have raced, it would be South Africa during apartheid. 

The cognitive dissonance is pretty extreme to me. There was an active international campaign going on at the time to try to pressure South Africa into not being a racist backwards hellhole; musical artists were strongly encouraged not to go there as part of a large cultural boycott, trade embargos were in place, the country was excluded from the Olympics and most sports organisations. An exception to this? Formula One. While these very rich white Formula One drivers were gallivanting on Kyalami Ranch or in the Sunnyside Park Hotel, which was whites-only, the majority Black and Coloured* population were being brutally oppressed, deprived of their civil rights, displaced from their homes, and kept in poverty by an explicitly white supremacist regime.

Were the F1 drivers striking over apartheid? 

Were they striking, perhaps, because non-white people did not have equal access to the GP? 

Were they striking, maybe, because the Black employees at Kyalami didn’t have the right to vote? 

No. 

They were striking because they wanted more control over their contracts. 

If the strike had happened anywhere else, I would enjoy the story without reservation. But it didn’t happen somewhere else, it happened in apartheid South Africa. I think it’s maybe good to keep that in mind as an extra dimension when we talk about the strike. It’s also useful when we think about F1’s relationship with politics—internal and external.

F1 is rumoured to race at Kyalami again next year, and I for one am very excited.

Please reblog with any additions and perspectives you may have!

*a term used in South Africa with different connotations than in other places

[m4gp13]

thinking about Ethan spending years of his life waiting for his bargain with Nemesis to be fulfilled, training until he’s better than most able bodied swordsmen, searching for years for any trace of the army, finally finding them in the labyrinth and resigning himself to the fact that he’s gonna have to kill someone to join whether he wants to or not.

 Going into the arena, looking at Percy and thinking only one of them will leave with his life and knows he really wants that one to be him, if not for himself then for all the minor deities and their children who need him to tip the scales in their favour. 

Fighting harder than he ever has before, getting so tantalisingly close and losing because of his damned armour. Lying on his back with the dirt pressed up against it. 

Looking down his nose at the sword resting gently on his neck before following the length of the blade with his eye up to its owner, looking across to Anteus and Luke, feeling his stomach sink even deeper at the sight of that thumb.

 His mind going a thousand miles a second trying to fit his bargain in with this new reality, the one where he dies before doing anything significant for his cause. But that’s okay, he thinks, he doesn’t have to understand how the fates work, maybe he tips the scales with his death, yeah, that must be it. But then it wasn’t. Then Percy, stupid stupid Percy risked both their necks getting them out of their.

 And maybe Ethan did want to go with him, maybe he wanted to leave all this half-blood bullshit behind and bang his head until he got amnesia. But he couldn’t, he still had a deal to finish. Sorry I just have a lot of thoughts, okay?

[she-who-fights-and-writes]

Read your post on dialogue, not sure if anything I missed answers this so sorry if this is answered! I was wondering if you had any advice for discussing background and a robbery plan, how that could be tackled without a massive paragraph of dialogue. Not sure if this is an actual technique but would starting with a line of dialogue and having the paragraphs after be not-dialogue be a good way to go about that? Apologies in advance for “not-dialogue”. I minored in English. Words are hard today.

How to Write Characters Planning/An Explanation of an In-Story Plan

Do you know what's even harder than making a plan?

Having to write about your characters making a plan.

Explaining plans, especially in action/adventure stories that have a lot of moving parts involved, can be a one-way ticket to info-dumping central. I have never written a "planning" scene that I didn't struggle with horrifically, because it always seems like I'm shoving into the readers' faces why they have to do it this way and not another way.

Here are some tips on how I've managed to defeat the much-dreaded In-Story Plan.

1. Give the Planning Its Own Scene

Planning scenes take time. They have a lot of moving parts, require a lot of thinking and outlining to make sure there aren't any plot holes, and take a lot of energy for a writer to power through.

Putting this kind of scene at a huge point of tension or excitement will completely dampen the momentum of the story. Planning scenes are slow and direct, requiring intricate intent and understanding from both the writer and the reader--otherwise, everything that comes after the planning scene will fall apart. Planning scenes are better at building tension and anticipation rather than being the culmination of that tension and anticipation.

Of course, you can have your characters make a small plan in the middle of a fight, but big plans like heists, escapes, battle strategies, or other major character moves that require multiple pages and aren't just an exchange of dialogue and a paragraph or two should have its own section.

It is difficult to put a planning stage in the middle of something, so if you're having trouble figuring out where your planning scene should go, consider putting it at the start or end of a chapter or before/after a line break.

2. Explain Some Things Beforehand So You Don't Have to Cover Too Much

Plant some details surrounding the plan before the actual planning scene. This way, you don't have to worry about explaining each and every aspect of how it's going to go; even if you do have to reiterate some of these details, at least it won't be all new information for the readers.

These things could include:

1. Passing stand-out details about the places they will eventually infiltrate/rob/escape or the people they're going up against

Newspaper headline saying [Name of Corporation] just spent 9 million dollars on a new laser security system.

"Ugh, I hate walking by this place; it gives me the creeps! Rumor has it the statues come alive as an extra line of security."

Explain powers/influence enemy has

2. Magical Limitations

If your WIP includes magic, you might want to pre-explain all the reasons why they can't just use magic to solve the thing they want to do before the planning scene. Magical explanations are almost just as hard as plan explanations, and you don't want to have to burden yourself with combining the two.

There are more than just these two, but these were the ones I thought were the biggest!

3. Fight Back Info-Dumping by Balancing Description and Dialogue

How to Write Dialogue

How to Balance Description and Dialogue

If your planning scene is just one big chunk of text describing what they're gonna do, the readers will grow restless.

The key to writing a good planning scene is to give the characters props/staging, have interjections from other characters that may not be necessarily relevant to the planning, and include other aspects that make the scene important besides the planning.

Describe the space they're in before the start, pointing out interesting aspects.

Have the characters use a map, moving around pieces and pointing out specific areas.

Have some characters be more in the loop than others, interjecting their own input or asking questions.

Make the characters walk around, gesture, fidget, the whole nine yards! Break up that dialogue with visual cues the readers can latch onto to better envision the scene.

Have them joke around, maybe go off on some short tangents before quickly returning to the matter at hand.

Maybe the main character finds out one of their friends is a hacker, or into acrobatics! That contributes to both the furthering of the planning process and the building of that character!

You can also spice up that dialogue with some speech tags if it's feeling a bit stagnant! Here are some speech tags that could be useful in explaining a plan:

Asking

Asked, Demanded, Grated, Inquired, Insisted, Interrogated, Pried, Prompted, Quipped, Quizzed, Queried, Requested

Answering

Answered, Replied, Responded, Retorted

Explanations and Observations

Added, Advised, Affirmed, Alleged, Announced, Assumed, Began, Cautioned, Commented, Corrected, Deadpanned, Declared, Estimated, Explained, Guessed, Informed, Interrupted, Lectured, Mentioned, Noted, Observed, Pointed Out, Presumed, Proposed, Recommended, Remarked, Repeated, Revealed, Theorized, Told, Suggested, Supposed, Warned

Agreeing

Conceded, Confessed, Admitted, Affirmed, Agreed, Decided, Declared, Vowed

4. Use a Fresh Set of Eyes

The best way to make sure your planning scene doesn't come across as one big info-dump is to have your work be read by someone who's never laid eyes on it before.

You know your story better than anyone else. You know how the plan is supposed to go, and why they make some choices over other choices. A beta reader can be very, very important when it comes to not only picking out info-dumping, but also picking out possible plot holes.

The LAST thing you want is to have written a whole novel based around this plan, only to have a reader go "Well why didn't they just do [obvious option you didn't even think about]?"

Unfortunately...this has happened to me on multiple occasions with my current novel, which is why I've had to completely re-write it twice (these re-writes have improved the story for the better, of course, but have set me back years!)

5. Watch/Read Planning Scenes by Other Authors

Sometimes, watching or reading planning scenes can help you get a taste for the different rhythms and props used to keep it from being one big info-dump.

Of course, films and TV shows do have visuals and audio to keep watchers entertained in a way that us writers don't, but pay attention to the ways that the informative dialogue is broken up--with quips, with shots of different items, characters speaking up or moving around the room--and incorporate these narrative beats into your own storytelling!

Here are some planning scenes that you may want to look into to help spark your creativity!

Some of these are more intimate plans, some more elaborate, some involving more props/movement, and some involving more explanation!

Ocean's Eleven (2001)

Inception (2010)

The Martian (2015)

Next Three Days (2010)

The Fellowship of the Ring(2001)

Game of Thrones 7x02 (2017)

Game of Thrones 8x02 (2019)- Planning beings at 3:07

Game of Thrones has a lot of good battle strategy planning scenes, and the Ocean's franchise specializes in heist planning scenes!

Feel free to reblog and suggest more!

Hope this helped, and happy writing!

[millennium-keyblade]

If it were a western show, I would operate under the assumption that the author was completely unaware of the subtext between Kirishima and Bakugou, but from what I’ve heard from Japanese fans, Kirishima is... very stereotypically gay. And word of mouth aside, many other things contribute to how he may be seen as gay. His profile even says he likes manly men. I’m coming from a western standpoint, but it seems pretty darn gay to list that as your defining favorite thing. He also has yet to show any interest in women. However, none of this is hard-and-fast evidence, as word of mouth can be unreliable and straight men have a tendency of just not noticing gay stuff.

The only substantial evidence we have is in the comedy spin-off, Smash!!. In Smash!!, Kirishima’s entire personality is basically that he’s implied to be gay- calling guys hot, flirting with Bakugou, etc. Although Smash!! is stated to take place in a gag universe, each of these comics were individually approved by Horikoshi-sensei and Horikoshi-sensei has said Neda-sensei (author of smash) may know the characters of My Hero Academia better than he does. Because of this, I believe what happens in Smash!! is probably a reasonably accurate (though highly exaggerated) representation of the characters. Horikoshi-sensei may or may not have intended Kirishima to come off as so… fruity, but he seems to be aware of and okay with the fact that he does.

So, yeah. Too many coincidences to be obviously straight, and too few coincidences to be obviously gay.

And essay aside, YES, we need another kamino callback!!

I have no clue whether or not Horikoshi-sensei intended to write Kirishima and Bakugou through a romantic lens, but everyone else involved in production seems heavily invested. Kirishima sits in Bakugou’s lap in the anime. They share a hotel room (and bed!?) and Kirishima blushes at Bakugou in the movie. They go on an outing strongly reminiscent of a study date in the light novels. Deku is always talking about Kirishima and Bakugou’s strong, special, exclusive bond in the card game. Kirishima sends a heart with his hands toward Bakugou in the stage play. Bakugou gives Kirishima his jacket in the promotional material. Bakugou’s Japanese voiceactor openly ships it. Kirishima literally and clearly flirts with Bakugou and is actually, explicitly, unquestionably gay in the yonkoma spin-off. At this rate, Horikoshi-sensei can’t make another Kiri or Baku ship canon, otherwise it would tick off so many people involved in production lol

[adelle-ein]

Nothing Supernatural Here: Lace’s not-very-nice AINI review/rant

ETA 01/04/23: WAY more people read this than I thought, so I went through and did a massive edit/cleanup. Fixed up the grammar and writing from “hasty rant” to “actually kind of a reasonable essay” level, threw in a few more details, and added some screenshots to break up the text chunks. Sorry it was such a mess, I didn’t proofread too much bc I genuinely didn’t think anyone was gonna read it :’)

When I finished watching AI: Nirvana Initiative on Youtube (because I could not afford to buy it, and I am happy every day that I did not dip into my grocery money to do so), I wrote a review. It was not a kind review. I hated the game and that very much shows. It seemed so harsh and mean when all the reviews were so glowing, when all my mutuals seemed to ADORE it, so I decided it was better to let this extremely mean review languish in the depths of my google drive forever.

I have now edited, added to, and completed this review, and decided to let it out. It is extremely long. Like, stupidly long. And I still left out a LOT of things I hated.

I am not being nice, I am not pulling punches. I think AINI is the worst video game sequel I have ever had the displeasure of knowing exists as well as the worst VN overall I have ever viewed in full. I have really nothing nice to say about it at all. So please know that going in, and also know that if you try to convince me the game is good, I am probably just going to laugh at you because believe me: I cannot be convinced. I have tried so hard to like this game. I cannot, and it is one of my most hated pieces of media ever. This whole review is much more “hate” than “criticism.” Anyway. You have been warned.

Spoilers for AINI and AITSF, of course. Bear in mind: AINI, even if you have spoiler toggle off, inherently spoils AITSF. You cannot discuss AINI in depth without spoiling AITSF. The pre-release press releases were lying.

CWs: All AINI-typical content is discussed, including suicide, death, parental neglect and abuse, et cetera.

PROLOGUE

Nothing sums up my loathing of AINI better than the story of Tokiko’s body. When you find her corpse while playing as Mizuki, it’s a very clear suicide scene. Her wrists were slit, she's part of a cult, she’s been discussing suicide and being sliced in half, the game makes it very clear she's been suicidal in the past, et cetera. And yet Aiba immediately announces, with no further explanation, that she “does not believe this was self-inflicted” aka "this was not a suicide." She provides no evidence whatsoever for this little conclusion (other than the would being “deep?”), but as the player, it would be logical to assume that this is meant to be a "I know what this looks like, and it isn't it, assume this was murder" from the writers to the player.

And then, much later on when the Big Reveals are coming out, it is revealed that Tokiko did in fact kill herself in that very spot, in exactly the way it looks. She slit her wrists and cut herself in half using the Very Realistic Machine because of her cult beliefs and underlying depression. It was a suicide, exactly what it looked like, all along. No further explanation is given. Aiba does not even acknowledge her lie/error.

Great writing, guys.

A good mystery misleads its audience. But, uh...that's not misleading the audience. That's just straight up telling a lie to pretend there's a mystery when there isn't one. It was in fact the thing it immediately appeared to be. I looked at an apple, AINI told me it was an orange, and then later was like “it’s an apple.” Not even “it was actually an apple all along,” just “it’s an apple.” And isn't that just straight up what AINI is about overall? Blatantly lying to the player to pretend it has any depth, mystery, or interesting content whatsoever?

PART ONE: THE TWIST

We all know The Big AINI Twist. At least, if you are reading this, I assume you do. Instead of two timelines, one featuring Ryuki in the past and one featuring Mizuki in the present, Side Ryuki and Side Mizuki are intertwined (like DNA, for some reason, which isn't even really relevant to the story's alleged themes other than its almighty biological superiority unlike those icky adopted families...actually wait, that probably is the point. oops. You And I Are Halves Of A Whole Let’s Go.) You've been going back and forth between past and present all along, playing either as Ryuki (past/present), Mizuki (present), or Mizuki Two-Only-Exists-To-Pull-Off-This-Twist (past.) Only "Jin's" body was found in halves six years apart. All other bodies were found in the past, minus Tokiko who was found in the present. There was no mystery at all. And knowing what the player does about Jin and Uru by this point, the rest can quickly and easily fall into place.

Particularly clumsy that they have to spell out the DNA thing, huh. Of course, the characters have known this all along. To sum up, the "mystery" in AINI is entirely based upon the player being told a lie right after starting the game that continues throughout the entire story. A lie that was only told to the player, not the characters. When the lie is revealed, the answer becomes obvious. As soon as you see the timeline you learn that there was in fact little to no mystery all along, the obvious answer is the real one, and the only reason you as the player didn't figure it out hours ago is because the game was lying to you (and only you - not the characters, which would, you know, actually require some real fucking writing.)

This is where the game fails. Everything in AINI happens to pull off this ridiculous and yet boring literal twist. This is why Bibi (while I can't have anything against a character who is just Mizuki Again as a person, god I loathe Bibi as a plot device and the fact that she exists) is a thing and why she is inexplicably exactly like Mizuki. This is why Ryuki, Amame, etc don't get timeskip designs. This is why Shoma doesn't age. This is why Date was shoved hastily off-screen. This is why the AI Balls have so many conveniently timed memory issues. This is why nobody experienced any significant development in six years. This is why character interactions feel clumsy and forced, such as why Shoma's feelings about his dad's death ping wildly back and forth (because sometimes it happened six years ago.) Everything in AINI - characters, pacing, gameplay, FUN - was sacrificed in the name of one big twist, and that twist isn't even good. It's boring. It retroactively ruins everything about the game. It serves zero purpose except to yell "gotcha!"

AITSF misled the player, leading you to suspect Renju, Iris, So, Date, Boss, Shoko, and Falco in turn and all at once (because, in a sense, it was all and none and each of them.) AINI, on the other hand, doesn’t mislead. It just...lies. To me, that isn't really fun or interesting. It doesn't impact the characters, it is utterly meaningless -- except for making the player think there was actually more to the plot than the obvious answer for several chapters. In the end, the real solution to the entire case was just the obvious, boring answer. Jin and Uru share body parts and Uru was Tearer. The only real reveal is that Amame killed Uru and moved Tokiko's body, but that comes far too little far too late (especially bc after a few genuinely good and heartfelt scenes with Mame, we go to the final battle scene which frankly reads worse than the Harry Potter fanfiction I was writing on the Scholastic kids’ forums at age eleven.)

Seriously though, as an aside, that final battle scene is so horrifically bad I feel like it deserves its own paragraph. Maybe multiple paragraphs. I mean, what can I say? There’s no real final boss, just nameless mooks (one has a red shirt on, wow!) It’s another boring fight scene with no fun or creativity using the AI Balls’ abilities, just “press Z to jump” Heavy Rain-ass QTEs. Using "there are only three AI Balls, and whoever doesn't have one just kinda sucks" as a plot device is stupid. Ryuki's "death" was stupid and really served no purpose at all. There’s even more of Mizuki and Date's relationship being completely discarded, and Aiba being weirdly cruel to them both. Somehow a prerecorded message is capable of predicting every single thing that happens because...reasons, I guess. Kizuna has a gun and yelled the fuck word for the screencappable moment. Wow. And I guess the mopeds can fly now?? Maybe that should have come up sooner?? Not to mention poor pacing and bad lag making the whole ordeal feel even longer. It sucks that this clusterfuck came right on the tail end of Amame's somnium, which pretty much the only story/character thing in the whole game I genuinely cared about and the best scene. But Mame was absolutely overshadowed by this trash fire (and a playable epilogue even worse than the first game’s, which I also hated ftr.)

Back to “The Twist,” I cannot describe how much I hate every choice that went into this nightmare. So many terrible, terrible decisions had to be made to make the timeline change work, and it shows. Just for starters, we have Mizuki's backstory being rewritten and flung out the window, we’ve got characters willfully acting very stupid about when things are happening and exchanging painfully awkward dialogue, and important and meaningful and emotional reactions and scenes are constantly being skipped — all in service of one twist. One twist that only matters to the player. The timelines being scrambled does not affect Mizuki or Ryuki or anyone else one iota, because they already know what order everything is happening in! They have nothing to discover, since they’ve known from the beginning, even if their dialogue is crafted to tiptoe around that fact. The entire thing is only for the player. Why does Mizuki apparently forget Date is missing after the first thirty seconds of the game and never express any care for him, Iris, etc ever again? Why are there two identical Mizukis who somehow decorated their moped identically despite completely different upbringings?? It’s all literally just so this twist can work, so that there can be two interchangeable Mizukis. Other characters have to behave identically in past and present, and other obstacles have to be safely out of the way. There is no other way for the twist to work, and none of these actively game-ruining elements serve any other purpose. The end result is that AINI is…so stupid. It doesn't feel like a story. It feels like a bunch of elements put together around a central twist. No character gets to be an actual character. They're all walking clues and nothing more, and their development is purposefully stunted so they can act the same way in past in present. It hurts Mizuki most of all, and as devotedmizukilover420, this is what makes the game unsalvageable to me. The two Mizukis might be the dumbest "clue"/element/twist of all, because the whole thing makes entirely zero sense with AITSF (or any kind of logic, really.) You're telling me that all along, Boss has been raising an adopted daughter named Mizuki who looks exactly like Mizuki and that just didn't impact AITSF at all? Mizuki was living with Boss and Saito left Hitomi tied to a bomb in Boss's house — so Mizuki 2 just...wasn't home and missed that? Didn't care that her mom went missing? Meanwhile, Boss is just keeping this secret all along bc she wanted a super secret agent who was loyal only to her or whatever? (see my thoughts below on AINI's hot anti-adoption agenda.) Yeah, sure, right. Not to mention, "AITSF/Classic Mizuki was adopted by the Okiuras" is also bullshit. Even putting aside the way it slam-dunks the message and themes of AI1 Mizuki route into the garbage. Okay, she coincidentally has Shoko's unique hair color and exact face shape, and Shoko recounts when she was a newborn and hated her stroller and wanted to be held all the time, and Renju makes a clumsy comparison between Shoko and captive animals who give birth….but the Okiuras adopted Mizuki when she was three and there's no genetic relation. Complete and utter bullshit, and character-hurting bullshit at that. But it’s a necessary twist to pull off the dual timelines because we need to be able to have an 18-y/o (identically dressed….) Mizuki running around six years ago. I wouldn’t mind this so much if it didn’t impact Mizuki’s character, and her AITSF route, so heavily, but...it does. It ruins everything. AINI just hates adoption so much that it had to wipe out the pro-adoption message from its predecessor too (I will get to all this in more detail later - there’s just so much to hate about this game!)

Gotta say though, bold move to have a clone character and have the game’s conclusion be “Yes, the two clones are exactly the same in every way, they don’t have independent identities, nothing about their lives or experiences shaped them in any way, they are literal halves of a whole with no differences between them, and they’re totally okay with that and have no negative feelings about it.” Don’t think I’ve ever seen a piece of media do that before. Because, well, it sucks. It’s silly and stupid and just awful, awful writing.

I'm sure all the Horidori Institute stuff was coined solely to pull off the timeline twist — including the two Mizukis, our Mizuki's new backstory/canon superpowers (also stupid and takes all the fun out of her cartoonish super strength - just let things be fun, AINI!), and everything with Shoma. That only adds to the way this game just feels like a singular house of cards with one sole goal, and that goal is "to lie about the timelines and then reveal it was a lie at the very end." It's not even cleverly obfuscated, you just have an incorrect timeline and then you get a correct one. The big reveal just being "Mama tells you bc she has supernatural powers now — than straight up says there's nothing supernatural about the case" doesn't help. There was no way to skillfully incorporate that so they just drop it. And then move on. Because in the end, like absolutely everything else, it doesn't matter. The final battle is pointless and has nothing to do with the rest of the game because every aspect of this game was built around a twist that has nothing to do with its characters. Even the killers were designed and created completely in service to this twist. And yet, despite all of that, no real time or effort is devoted to revealing the twist, it’s just hastily dropped and then abandoned for good. Even the writers don’t like the twist, I guess!

Now, gaze upon what I genuinely believe is the stupidest line in the entire game, and what sums up exactly why it fails.

That’s right! There’s nothing supernatural here! Nothing fun, interesting, or entertaining. Nothing characterful, nothing that adds meaning or development. It was all just a very straightforward lie. What, you expected better? You thought, after the last game harnessed a supernatural twist that developed and added to its world and characters, that this game would too? You thought in a world of exploring brains and dreams, machines that slice perfectly in half, magical suicide plagues, and bodyswapping, that there might be more to the story? You goddamn dumbass. The game knew that you would think that, and it laughs at and mocks you for it. You thought the writers put in actual effort? You thought they cared about the world they were creating? That was your idiotic mistake. How silly of you! The most straightforward, boring explanation was the correct one. Nothing supernatural here!

And that's...part one of four. I said this was long and I meant it.

PART TWO: THE CHARACTERS

Another big issue with AINI is that it has no idea if it's standalone or a sequel, and as a result, it utterly fails to be both. AITSF characters get no development in AINI, to avoid spoiling their game. But they aren't really playing any roles at all. They stick out like sore thumbs because they have no reason to be there. They get no real introduction. The new characters are shallow, sure, and they only exist to serve the Plot Twist, but they do exist and serve a purpose. Why the fuck was Hitomi even in this game for all of two scenes? This seems like it'd be really jarring for a standalone player, since they now need to keep track of like…ten potential suspects. Except they aren’t really meant to be suspects, and they actually don't matter to the game at all. So Sejima, for example, is being super suspicious, but we returning players all know he can’t be up to much of anything. How is a new player supposed to guess that? Meanwhile, even on "no-spoiler" mode, massive spoilers get dropped for AITSF. Character backstories, motivations, the connections between them — they’re either implied or stated outright. You're kinda not supposed to know a lot of this stuff going into AITSF and, well, if you play AINI first…you will. Even "Mizuki gets adopted by Date" is a spoiler and that isn't hidden at all, but that's by far one of the more minor things. This isn’t even touching on Date being in his Saito body and voice by inexplicably wearing a custom mask, which is not only bizarre but terrible, terrible character writing (though I give it a pass because it keeps DC Douglas out of this game.) The writers tried to have their cake and eat it too, and as a result they just set the whole cake on fire.

The cast feels completely flat. Tama and Ryuki fit right in with the classic crew…because they serve no purpose, play no real role, and develop in no way at all. Ryuki is always just kinda There, with nothing much to do but pine over Date, fail to solve mysteries, and act “crazy” until he gets magically cured at the end. All the new characters kinda feel like retreading old ground with tweaked personalities and designs. Kizuna is a less bombastic Iris -- she gets kidnapped a bunch and likes conspiracy theories and sings and dances. Her dad is the Morally Dubious Rich Dad Bad At Parenting With A Shifty Past...Gen is a diner owner hopelessly in love with a teenager...Bibi is literally Mizuki Again...etc. I'm not surprised the AI1 cast has pretty much nothing to do — considering this is meant to be a companion game that doesn't spoil AI1, they can't really do much with them. They can’t even be considered as murder suspects, obviously (minus Amame, who really isn’t a returning character at all.) But also it's really disappointing how shallow they all feel. Iris is like…at least 80% more manic pixie dream girl than usual. Iit's not even being offset by her tumor, or her faking, or Saito faking, so that's exhausting. Date is literally just standing around making porno mag jokes or having them made about him (and they ruined the funny part, which is Aiba repeatedly lying to him and him repeatedly falling for it. Instead he just yells PORNO MAG POWER and gets tougher which is just...so not remotely funny at all.) Mizuki feels like a passive side character in her own game. Ota and Moma still just perv on Iris and do nothing of substance, with even the better aspects of their character now cleanly wiped away to prevent having to do any actual writing. The cameos were shallow at best. Even for our alleged MCs - it felt like instead of actually having Mizuki, Date, etc, we just got pieces of cardboard with "Mizuki", "Date", etc written on them in crayon. Cheap imitations.

Meanwhile, the writers still hate women, so that's fantastic. Seriously, revealing last minute that actually Gen has a thing for Amame (an incredibly creepy and obsessive thing) while she sees him as a fucking FATHER FIGURE is absolutely disgusting, and ruined their entire route as well as Gen as a character for me. To these writers, every woman immediately becomes a sex object once they grow tits, so of course their male characters are the same way. This makes me really glad they tossed Date to the curb and he and Mizuki barely interacted, because I would be miserable if they ruined that relationship the way they ruined Falco and Iris and now Gen and Amame. Mizuki’s of age now, after all, so she’s officially a sex object! Similarly, starting off Kizuna and Lien's relationship with an age gap and stalking was a shitty call and ruins their whole storyline too, when it could have been really sweet. Lien can't mature as a person because it would spoil The Twist, and Kizuna just goes from "mostly not sad" to "sad all the time" as the entirety of her development, so that really only adds to how flat both their characters are. (Don’t get me started on her whole disability arc, which felt thrown in for brownie points at best and was terribly handled as usual.) Mizuki makes sex jokes now. which feels really creepy coming from a school-age teenager we’ve previously known as a twelve-year-old, comments on how cute and young she is a lot, and constantly whines about wanting a boyfriend. Aiba even complains about Mizuki being flat-chested?? There's maybe a little less of the perviness than there is in AITSF just bc Date isn't playable, but what there is feels very creepy. I’m not surprised they kept this aspect but damn, it still sucks.

The side ends - you know, the CHARACTER ends, where much of AITSF's best work shone - feel like they were just kinda thrown in because they're expected. They don't feel as finished as the endings in AITSF. Gen/Amame's was just all over the place (I'm not even clear on what HAPPENED in half of it, let alone why, and Uchikoshi has since said a bunch of weird lies about it being followed up on in a “third eye” on his twitter. I’m not even getting into that, but if you believe a word he says, I invite you to look into all the times he claimed Santa and Snake would make a comeback in ZTD, or how Alice’s legend from 999 would be relevant to VLR.) Kizuna/Lien just kinda randomly cuts off. Shoma/Komeji was something at least, but it was really short and premature. I don’t know if explosion really counts as an ending, but it sucked too — why would a new player care about a big rock falling on the guy who only exists to talk about porn and neglect and bicker with his daughter? Just because Ryuki's in love with him (maybe, sort of, it will never be made explicit canon)? Meanwhile, returning players know they wouldn’t kill Date off, plus he's been in his most basic boring form all game, so they have no reason to really care either. What is even the point of this ending? Kizuna is just there to become disabled so Lien can have someone to be obsessed with and sad about, and he's just there to pick locks. Mizuki losing her eye -- you know, the thing a serial killer did to her parents, including Date -- is an afterthought at best. Blah. If this is supposed to be the "annihilation" of AINI, it…really, really falls flat.

The game doesn't know if it's a sequel or not, and like I said, trying to both have and eat the cake means the cake just gets set on fire. Hitomi is here for two scenes with no significance and just bloats the cast (I am not even going to get started on how flat and lame her and Date’s relationship has become. Feeling super bad for anyone who shipped them.) Ota and Iris keep showing up just to kinda be stupid for a scene (seriously Iris is EXTREMELY dumb in this, something went really wrong with those nanomachines and they fried all her gray matter) and then they vanish again into the distance of No Purpose. Date is an insufferable ass who only cares about porn magazines, mentions them in every fucking scene, now yells "porno mag power" when he activates that power (OVER AND OVER IN ALMOST EVERY COMBAT SCENE HE'S IN) and treats Mizuki like shit. And poor, poor Mizuki gets it worst of all — she's still a snarky, kinda bratty, tough kid, but that's all she is now. All that love and devotion and determination and kindness and intelligence? Gone. If she cares too much about her loved ones or thinks about herself too much, she would be unique from Bibi and the twist would be spoiled, and heaven knows we can't have that. Aiba is the only character who feels like herself, and even she feels overly cruel to Mizuki sometimes (and Date often.) I don't know why a new player would feel any attachment to these characters, and as someone who did play and love aspects of AITSF, I just felt cheated. It would have been better to not include any of them at all than to have these crappy imitations. Meanwhile, "no AITSF spoiler mode" spoils a ton of shit. Just reveal a connection between Iris and So on "no spoiler" mode, why the fuck not? Reveal that Shoko was abusive, she and Renju both died, and Date adopted Mizuki? Mention Iris having a "condition" that is now "stable" in one throwaway line for no goddamn discernible reason??? The game does all this and more. On no spoiler mode!!!

This game unashamedly hates its characters. And thanks to that, so do I. It really is a shame. It’s the epitome of “flanderization” in one single game, but it’s for every character, over and over again.

This is easily the most-reposted screenshot I’ve seen from AINI, which...says a lot about the quality of its humor and the relevance of its returning cast IMO.

PART THREE: FUCK ADOPTION

This is the first piece of media since Once Upon A Time on ABC that presents the unique and controversial moral of "fuck adoption." All in order to make Mizuki have an older clone sister. For the Twist. The same reason we do everything around here. Mizuki’s parents can’t just be shitty parents. they must be shitty ADOPTIVE parents, because ADOPTIVE parents suck and don’t love their kids.

But don't worry guys. Because Mizuki and Bibi are clones. Therefore they are biologically related. Therefore they GENETICALLY love each other. By the end of the game, Mizuki and Bibi, despite having barely met, love each other desperately, are the most important people in one another's lives, are never seen apart from each other and treated as a singular character, and are literally Two Halves Of A Whole, Let's Go. Because, you know. They're sisters, but the GOOD kind, the BIOLOGICAL kind, the ONLY real kind.

Gag me.

I saw screenshots of Date and Mizuki doing "I'm home" / "Welcome back" after he returns and thought, well, at least I'll get thrown a few crumbs to lap off the floor. Nope. Aiba has to specifically prompt Date into saying "I'm home," saying that Mizuki wants to hear it. He begrudgingly does so, Mizuki responds...but then says she didn't want to do that anyway and they move back on to the all-important Plot. Ouch. I seriously don't know how Mizuki route came from the same team. Date and Mizuki are barely tolerating each other at best here. They actually showed a lot more affection on the AITSF B routes, which is insane since that’s the route where OTA calls Date out for being neglectful. Meanwhile, Boss uses Bibi as a special agent and keeps her very existence a secret. Kizuna's dad doesn't really seem to care about Bibi either despite having raised her for years, and prioritizes his bio daughter. And as the cherry on top...the Okiuras treated Mizuki like shit because she was adopted all along, of course! Adopted parents are evil and bad, right? And bio parents would never mistreat their bio children, right? Right. Who cares if this totally throws Mizuki's arc in AITSF out the window? Even Bibi and Kizuna's relationship is never really given focus once Bibi is revealed. Bibi only really cares about Mizuki. Her REAL sister. Because they are related and that is all that matters.

Even the villains love their biological son and will do lots of evil for him! Tokiko gives an entire speech about how much she loved her bio son even though she didn't raise him, to the point where she and her ex kidnapped a random child, groomed him into a cult, and gave his organs to her bio son. Kidnapped child meanwhile views her as his mom. On its own, I wouldn't think too much about it, but in conjunction with the Mizukis…this how adoption is treated in AINI. It is A Very Bad Thing. Adoptive parents do not love their children anymore. Both Mizukis go through two adoptive families and are treated badly or ignored by both, and this is just normal, I guess.

Also So suddenly seems to care about Iris, at least a little bit, despite his not giving a shit in AITSF. But, hey, they are biologically related....(I actually wouldn’t mind this if they like, did anything with it. But they don’t. Instead they totally destroy any depth So’s character ever had by making him a total horndog who runs around conceiving various serial killers. Wheee, the killer is the half-brother of the previous killer, and they are both the half-brothers of another character, because So can’t keep it in his pants. Seriously, what a stupid twist. Hilarious but stupid.)

The Komeji-Dois love each other and are very sweet. They are the only ones that seem to, though. Because blood. Genetics. DNA. As the only bio family with significant screentime, of course they actually love each other, right?

Also, side note, remember Ryuki's twin brother who died? He sure was significant huh :)

Part Four: Miscellany

The most baffling thing of all about how bad AINI is is its glowing reviews. Don’t get me wrong: people can like things I don’t. But the reviews I read were on so many occasions blatantly false. I saw claims that AINI has fewer or even NO dirty jokes, that it does not sexualize the 18 y/o characters, that Date and Mizuki’s relationship was explored more in-depth, that the game runs great on Switch, that the AI Vision lag was fixed, that spoilers are avoidable. All of these things are objective, and they were blatantly false. Every person I have talked to who played on Switch had lag and framerate issues even worse than the first game’s, and most of them reported at least one hard crash. AI Vision loading in high-res models is still a major issue that disrupts the game’s flow on lower-end consoles and PCs. Bibi’s mess of a Somnium just got its bugs patched a few days ago, in NOVEMBER, so you can actually play it without getting thirty game overs from touching unrelated objects. The dirty jokes are abundant and often about 18 y/o high schoolers (they even aged down Amame, which really wasn’t necessary at all - a 20 y/o and an 18 y/o can be friends, after all - just to keep her barely legal!) Date and Mizuki loathe each other. And “no spoiler mode” is, as discussed above, a fucking joke. I don’t know how this game of telephone got started or why so many big names lied in their reviews, but damn, it sure made the game even more disappointing when I realized that most of what I had read wasn’t even true. I have no idea why so many people who received review copies felt the need to lie. I have to assume they weren’t deliberate lies. But...how on earth could they have convinced themselves that this game no longer has dirty jokes? Or that there’s no lag, or bugs, or weird crashes? I get that Uchikoshi is funny and nice on Twitter, but we’re allowed to say negative things about his games!

And, on the note of Uchikoshi games, can we just say that the second time you come up with “disease that makes you kill yourself” it is less effective? Seriously, isn’t this just the same basic apocalypse plot as VLR/ZTD?? Why are we doing this again, it doesn’t work a second time!!!! aaaaaaargh

The quicktime events in this game suck so much. Just press a button to parkour. There’s no creativity, no unique use of Aiba/Tama’s abilities, no silly elaborate traps for the baddies or jokes or teamwork, just. Flip punch kick jump. Woo-hoo. The one time we do something vaguely creative it’s just exploding the damn porno vending machine and we already did that in the first game. AINI has no identity of its own.

Half To Whole is catchy but its lyrics suck. Gen/Amame BS AND Mame doesn’t get to sing. Most of the lyrics are random asides that don’t work with the characters or themes (but hey, Date, Ota, Mama, and Iris HAVE to sing about kappa catching, because it’s not like any of them got fuckall to do in the main game after all!) Mizukis whining about wanting boyfriends and singing in perfect harmony because they are not separate characters (and allegedly crying on the inside whenever they fight?? what??) Changing lyrics to make Ryuki sound straight (gay rights! Seriously why are we pretending Ryuki is gay representation??) It’s just an absolute trashfire. The only vaguely meaningful lyric is “Without you I am only half, I need to be whole” but even that one pisses me off, because it ties into the game’s ongoing weird idea that characters can only exist with one another, that they aren’t whole people alone. Especially the idea that Mizuki and Bibi are “two halves of a whole�� - fuck you, they’re different people and they only just met! But no, they will never be independent people again. They don’t even get separate lines in the song outside of the first verse and otherwise harmonize everything (bless Mizuki’s VA for at least trying to give them different singing voices...). The one saving grace of an AI3 is that Bibi probably won’t get to be in it for spoiler purposes, so maybe Mizuki will get to do something without her (but probably not.)

In Conclusion (Fuck This Game)

AITSF felt like it constructed its character arcs, mystery, twists, lore, and gameplay all side by side to make one full story. AINI…only even bothered to have mystery, twists, and gameplay, and only the last one ends up working even remotely because so much was sacrificed for the mediocre twists. The big reveals of AITSF matter to the story and the characters, whereas the biggest twist in AINI has nothing to do with the game's universe and is just for the Frayer…then they do nothing with that concept anyway beyond a bonus ending. In the end, it's as flat and frankly soulless as everything else. So who cares?

My MOST hated thing about AINI is its "only biological family matters" thesis. My second most hated thing is how it takes a massive dump on every single character. And the third is how it just generally is an utter failure of a mystery with no depth whatsoever. I have always hated Bravely Second and held it up as an example of how to utterly fail a video game sequel, destroying the predecessor in the process. This game, however, is at least twice as terrible as Bravely Second. At least the aptly abbreviated BS did in fact manage to have some fun twists despite hating and flanderizing its entire cast; AINI couldn’t even pull that off. Calling it a cheap, forced cash grab the devs clearly never wanted to make still feels too generous. This game sucks.

TL;DR: AINI isn’t even half and will definitely never be whole.