#summoners war hack

[deadsetobsessions]

Green Lantern hovered in the doorway of the med bay. He’d been summoned, but he had no idea what for.

“You know, spooky, some of us have lives to get back to. Not everyone can exist off of just work and blood or whatever,” Hal poked fun at Batman, who rubbed at his jaw tiredly. Hal blinked, stamping down the guilt that arose at Batsy’s uncharacteristic show of any emotion other than stone cold rationality or exasperation or anger. At least they’ve moved past grunts. That just lends credence to Hal’s theory of Batman being an immortal, like Vandal Savage. Batman could totally pass for a caveman, he’s got the grunts down, for sure.

“Still not a vampire. We found the Ghost King. The one the GIW was trying to hide in their records.”

“Well, shit.” Hal’s expression flattened, remembering the unsanctioned government branch that violated the Meta Rights act to a degree where even Amanda Waller had washed her hands of them. Bats had found evidence that they were experimenting on a child when a “source” had hacked into the base and begged them to find the child. Phantom, the hacker had claimed, who had managed to destroy the portal to the Infinite Realms

Batman had tried to boot the guy out of the system, until the hacker told them Phantom was the King of the Infinite Realms.

That got Constantine terrified, which urged Batman into a full hunting mode to track down the king. Mostly in part because Constantine said something along the lines of, “If the King dies, the Infinite Realms will wage war and decimate us. And considering they’re the realm of the dead, we’d lose so badly, even the demons won’t help us out for our bloody souls.”

Granted, he didn’t have that terrible British accent Hal attached to his voice every time the Green Lantern thought about the sad trench coat wizard, but the point still stood.

“He’s not fully conscious due to… his injuries, but the moments where he was, he reacted best to the color green.”

Hal did not want to know what kind of creepy stalker things Batman did to get that knowledge.

“Oh, great. You called me because I’m green,” he said to Batman as he floated into the med bay. “I can be green. I’m amazing at being green.”

Even with the sarcastic tone, Hal made sure to up his lantern aura, glowing a bright neon green. It wouldn’t do to help start a war if he wasn’t green enough.

Hal looked at the Ghost King, and yeah, he could see why Bats was so off his stoic face game today. Because the Ghost King looked like a teenager, and Bats is a bleeding heart and everyone knows it.

Hal waved away Batman, “Go back to Gotham and drink your true blood or whatever. You look like you’ve seen the sun too much.”

Translation: go home, you look tired.

Batman nodded, in thanks, and left to sleep (probably. Hal has never caught the man doing something so… plebeian). Hal is left playing babysitter. To an inter dimensional being that could- probably more like “would,” considering the live dissection he went through at the hands of humans- destroy their entire planet and/or universe. Another Tuesday for the Justice League.

[radiance1]

Master List

King of the Blob Ghosts - Mostly flavor text where Danny is the only king of the Blob ghosts. Au not tied in with Ghost King or Ghost Prince hc unless specified.

Goo Dragon - An au where Danny is a goo dragon made entirely of ectoplasm!

Blind King - Danny is blinded by the portal incident, gets adopted by blob ghosts, and then falls into DC and ices over an entire section of a city.

Infinity Prince and the Dark Escapee - Where Danny gets prince training and then has to hunt down Dark Danny because he escaped.(Small thanks to @starlightcat04 and @lauwftzee3542 for ze name)

Cat Familia - Where Danny gets turned into a cat by pissing off a wizard, and accidentally adopts various cats in Gotham!

Tempest - Danny owns a ship called Tempest that he created that he uses to sail through time. Then he accidentally jumps timestreams.

Moth - Where Danny is de-aged and is a moth boy.

Moth - But with Killer Moth.

Eastern Dragon - Danny is the ghost prince and can turn into an eastern dragon.

Cuddly Apocalypse - Teddy Bear Danny au meets one Dark Danny.

Interdimensional Mini Occult Detective - De-aged Tucker gets thrown to another dimension after getting caught lacking by the magical government branch he was looking into.

Herald of Seasons - Danny obtains the ability to guide the seasons when he was split off from .Phantom while still having Vortex's powers

Vortex's lil guy - Soulless Danny gets taken by Vortex and is his little guy.

??? - Phantom causes a ruckus in DC after getting into it and him and Danny fight or something.

Sold to the devil? Nah, sold to the bear - Constantine sells his soul to the Ghost Prince, and is then turned into a baby sitter by the Ghost King.

Demon and Wraith - Demon twins au where both of them are dancers.

Sun and Moon - Based on an older au where Danny and Vlad were deities.

Successor in training - Ghost King Danny except he isn't and Pariah is his mentor.

Just Monika - DDLC is installed on Tucker's PDA somehow and he dates Monika.

Subject M-0001 - Monika hacks into Mount Justice.

Subject Omega - Danny's most perfect clone protects the ruins of Amity Park.

Medic - Danny be a doctor in Gotham.

??? - Pariah Dark just disappears and it's left to Danny and Vlad to find him.

Eastern Dragon and Phoenix au - Mostly a cosmetic au, where Danny is an Eastern Dragon and Vlad is a Pheonix.

Ghost King/Ghost Prince and Duke of the Ghost Zone - Mostly just flavor text really, Danny is usually more Ghost Prince than King and Vlad is the Duke.

Phoenix King Vlad - Exactly as it says, Vlad is either one of or the king of phoenixes

Kawmi? - Where Vlad and Danny get transformed into magical jewelry that allows others to use their powers.

Fountain Dragon - Danny drops in the Wayne Manor Fountain.

Will of the Wisp - Where Danny gets turned into a tiny whisp because of one of his parents inventions.

??? - Jack gets thrown to the DC dimension alongside Danny and made a coffin for Danny to sleep in during ze day.

??? - The Ghost King gets summoned to DC and wages war, but the Ghost Prince stops said war and gets a date out of it.

Teddy Bear Danny - Another cosmetic au where Danny get turned into a stuffed teddy bear in his accident, he was holding onto one before it happened. He's also in ranges of 5-10 here.

Ghost King at birth, Farmer at heart - Mostly cosmetic au where Pariah Dark, if he weren't the ghost king, would be a farmer and he has an intense love for horses.

Farmer with quite the ghostly (and kingly) secret - Pariah Dark disguises himself as a human and moves into Smallville, has a hard time interacting with humans and humaning as a whole.

Life hanging by tape and sheer will - Where Tucker gets yeeted to the DC dimension.

Dream pals? Dream pals! - Younger Danny and pre-Batman Bruce meet each other through a dream, unfortunately when Danny experienced his accident that connection was shut down.

Bakery and a masquerading demon? - Vlad owns a bakery, Constantine is a regular who holds suspicions that Vlad may or may not be a demon.

Gift in the arms of tragedy - Danny becomes Vlad's ward after the Nasty Burger explosion, only to then become adopted when he was turned into an eight-year-old not even a week later.

??? - Danny and Vlad get turned into kids by Clockwork and placed in the DC dimension because Clockwork thought it was funny. Danny decides to use Vlad to not get adopted.

The key(s) to Doomsday - Danny gets de-aged by Clockwork when going to visit Pariah in the human world, gets summoned, and meets Raven.

Alicorn parole - Pariah gets released from his eternal rest with the sole condition that he's to be watched over by Clockwork. The Ancient of War then decides to combine two mythical beasts and shaped himself into an alicorn, Clockwork followed and then they met Billy Batson.

Ferret Danny - Danny is a ferret. That's it.

Witch - Sam is a witch.

Dead eyed Doctor - Danny, the son of Talia Al Ghul and Jack Fenton, trained under Vlad Masters and became a doctor.

Shadow Twin? Shadow Twin. - Danny dies and reincarnates as the son of Talia Al Ghul, the younger brother and twin of Damian Wayne and son of Batman. Only to then be killed immediately after because he was born with a birth defect, thus becoming a shadow creature that follows Damian around.

Match and Danny - Danny reincarnates into the body of a clone of Superman and Wonder Woman, steals Match and then becomes Metropolis cryptids. Also check out this fic it's great!!!!!

[frostbitebakery]

LOUD.

a background check.

“Are you angry?”

Obi-Wan shook his head, eyes trained on his hands wringing the shirt’s fabric in his lap.

“It’s okay if you are.”

Obi-Wan shook his head again. It wasn’t okay if he was angry. Even before Melidaan they’d accused him of being too headstrong, too volatile. Too angry.

He’d been so angry on Melida/Daan.

“Are you scared?”

He nodded before he could think. The nod, too, was too volatile, too angry.

“Are you scared you could infect people?”

Amongst others, he thought a bit hysterically. Nodded.

“The healers have tested, rigorously, if you can infect others. They have confirmed that you are not a danger to others, Obi-Wan.”

Which was the only reason he could be outside his room when the walls got too small or too big.

“How are you adjusting to the mask?”

He shrugged. Sometimes he wanted to rip it off and half his face with it. Sometimes he wished he could crawl into it completely and escape the curious looks and whispers of how his jaw was gone, have you heard? I’ve heard he’s rotting underneath—

.

It started with a cough after Melida/Daan.

He got message after message on the progress after he left and it made him smile, sometimes laugh at the betrayed disbelief over how much bureaucracy was actually necessary to form a planetary government.

The laughs soon turned into hacking coughs.

He drank the tea Qui-Gon made him to soothe his throat.

“Just a cold,” he murmured. He’d had that one before leaving Melidaan, and he and the Temple healers figured it was the stress his body had to endure that finally caught up with him.

“If it gets worse,” Qui-Gon started, looked down into his own cup, and fell silent.

Obi-Wan’s return to the Temple was a mixed bag of loth cats, after all.

A year of rumors and no contact showed him exceedingly well and painful in its brutal subtlety of lost smiles and avoidance who his friends were.

Lumi— Luminara had waited outside the healer’s wing after a follow-up check. Had straightened up when she saw him and clasped her hands in front of her. “I am very happy to see you, Obi-Wan,” she said, halted and stiff before the anger got the better of her.

What in the Galaxy had compelled him to leave the Order? No sign of him. Just an official statement that he had chosen to leave the Order. And now he’s back?

“What the fuck, Obi-Wan!” She reeled back immediately. Took a step back.

And Obi-Wan’s life had taught him how to step forward despite the fear clawing at him. “Let me explain? Please?”

She huffed at him, head up high. “This better be good. Quinlan is driving me up the Temple walls with his teenage drama sullenness over you.”

So that was why Obi-Wan hadn’t seen him but exactly once since he’d come back.

Obi-Wan explained. The war. Master Tahl. Master Qui-Gon. The war. The children. The war children. The war. The war. The war—

He hiccuped on the tears and something… something changed. In his throat. He lifted a hand to it—

Lumi’s arm was around him, stroking his shoulder and crying with him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—“

He coughed, convulsed with the cough, and there was blood on Lumi.

It had started with a cough after Melida/Daan began to turn into Melidaan and he, what felt like, crawled back to the Order begging for forgiveness and a new path and a new Master while he was at it.

What followed was multiple summons to the Council, a closed door meeting of the Council and Qui-Gon after which his Master wouldn’t look him in the eye for a week.

What followed was Master Tholme being dragged across the courtyard by Quinlan who avoided his eyes but emanated stubborn help. The Shadow Master, which was only a rumor but a rumor that had lasted decades, drily looked at Quinlan before explaining to Obi-Wan how Quin had washed and pleated the robes Master Tholme was now wearing. Would Obi-Wan like some tea?

Tea turned out to be a monstrosity of a milkshake, a secret even more closely guarded than Shadow identities.

“I have been informed you are looking for a change.”

What followed was Obi-Wan getting to know Master Tholme as a person. The soft, comfortable core of him that was never betrayed by his stoic expression but rather the old fashioned music player his first Padawan had gifted him that he danced to in the sanctuary of his kitchen. His silences that invited to share, his calm demeanor, his high expectations and his steady, grounded, and ever ready provided help.

Before all that, the new Master, the old Master, a planet uniting, there was a kiss in victory, in celebration, and in genuine, heartfelt thanks, that transferred a local bacteria.

And that, that had started the cough.

.

“The Force is with—“ is the last thing he’s spoken with his own voice and, with distance and age, he’s rather proud of that one.

A lot of distance and age, granted.

Getting eaten from the inside out had hurt, had pushed him to the brink of insanity with how much it hurt even with the healers - five, six, seven healers working simultaneously to keep him from dying - keeping the pain at bay.

They had used the Force to try to contain the bacteria’s progress, trying to buy time to figure out what was attacking him.

He’d succumbed eventually. The pain, the sheer force of wills battling against the infection, half his neck just… gone. He’d succumbed to unconsciousness with Master Qui-Gon’s forehead against the back of his limp hand, and waited to see if he’d wake up again.

.

“The system Melidaan resides in has a strain of bacteria that,” newly graduated Healer Che halted, managing to shuffle her data pad like a stack of flimsi, “eats human-based tissue. The population is vaccinated and only very few cases have been reported in the past decades. It has been nearly forgotten.”

It spread orally.

Obi-Wan, when everyone was gone and he had managed to limp to his data pad on the table across the room, had sent a message “are you okay? Please go to the hospital”. Had crawled to the fresher, had scrubbed his lips and sutures raw and bleeding, and cried silently until dawn jostled him back to bed.

.

“How are you feeling, Obi-Wan?”

He shrugged. Eyes trained on the cracking open hands in his lap. “How is Thelar,” he signed.

“They are recovering well. Their healer contacted our office to let you know that they are alright and they are sorry.”

Thelar was too nice.

“You pushed them with the Force. What happened?”

Talking and teaching basic sign language and he got to take his first deep breath without the mask and in the company of friends.

Wet and too narrow and he was drowning in the liquified tissue of— no air, no feeling, his lips pressed against his teeth and he couldn’t feel it but the drowning and choking—

“They kissed me,” he signed.

[goldenamaranthe-blog]

Rivalry 2: Charlie VS Spearette

Charlie: (holding Vaggie's spear while going through Sir Pentious's old stuff) There's gotta be something in here I can use to take some of the shine out of this thing.

Spear: ........

Charlie: Shhhhh! You had your chance! And after that comment you made the other day about how you like to watch us at night, just be happy that I'm just trying to dull you up a little!

-Big Shiny Red Button on a Mechanical Looking Box-

Charlie: Ooooh, what does this button do? (push)

-CLICK!!!-

-Green gas fills the room-

Charlie: *cough-cough!* Oh! Fuck! *hack-cough-wheeze* Air! I need air! (sprints out of the room coughing) Shit! *cough* What the hell was that?

........

Charlie: ......(squeezes her hand and feels something fleshy and supple) What the.... (looks over and sees an hour glass shaped woman with light grey skin, white hair, and black accents standing next to her)

Spearette: (in a voice that's way to sultry to be for a spear) Well, hello, Charlie. Nice to finally be able to actually talk to you. Would you mind letting go of my wrist, dear? Not that I don't appreciate the touch. I'm just more of a full body holdin' type of lady~

Charlie: WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?!?!?! (drops the wrist like it's going to bite her)

Vaggie: (rushes in) What's going on?! Charlie, are you okaaaaaaaaay....

Charlie: (glances from Vaggie to the spear woman before using her own body to cover the lady next to her) Vaggie, don't look! It's a succubus!

Spearette: Rude, very rude. Is that any way to talk to the woman who helped save your asses in the war against heaven?

Vaggie: (tries to summon up her spear only for the woman to transport to her side) WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!

Spearette: (engulfs Vaggie in a full body hug) Ah~ This is so much better! I've wanted to do this for ages!

Demon Charlie: (explodes in a whirlwind of fire) GET. YOUR. FILTHY. HANDS. OFF. MY. FUCKING. GIRLFRIEND!!!!

[tgrailwar-zero]

Well, after our last big attempt to destroy the Solar Cell ended in failure we had our memories wiped and were forced to fight against each other in simulated grail wars. Anytime one finished we were thrust into another. A version of you was there for at least a few. Apparently we went through at least a trillion or something. Our memories were also wiped after each war to keep us fighting each other. We only managed to break free with the last one and ended up in this whole affair. Might have had something to do with most (if not all) the Servants that were summoned in that loop being versions of you and the other guys we had upon our initial incursion. From time to time we manage to recall bits and pieces of stuff either from our original arrival in the Solar Cell or a previous grail war loop, but that’s all.

Also, we seem to be a lot less callous than we were in the past. Probably something to do with us not longer having personal memories of the absolutely backstabbing life that is living in mage society and especially Clock Tower.

MUSASHI: "Ah, I see..."

You've gotten this sort of 'oh, wow'-type of reaction before. Best to just leave that one be for now. She's picked up enough from the conversation so far regardless.

MUSASHI: "Charlemagne... the name kinda sounds familiar, but I'm not totally sure... as for the other questions- not really. Sorry, I'm not much of a computer person."

INVADER: [ "We do not have that capability yet, and I cannot properly analyze the spell. However, Musashi possesses an innate Magic Resistance as a Saber-class. Whatever spell cast should have a weakened effect on her, but…" ]

MUSASHI chuckled, sheepishly.

MUSASHI: "Ah, you noticed that, huh? Basically. I'm sure I could have shrugged it off and made them struggle for it, but I didn't. A punishment's a punishment, after all. And it wasn't like my situation was drastically changed- I just went from one person's vengeful spirit to another. Either way, I wasn't fighting in a way I enjoyed."

INVADER: [ "…With how damaged her Spirit Origin is, you'd need a considerable amount of magical energy to restore it to a proper state. Either via my Command Spells, or through a powerful Mystic Code- and the only one in our possession is the Crimson Blade. However, that blade also belongs to the Servant 'Draco'. It is a considerable bargaining chip, and may be able to restore the Beast to a more manageable state. Examining our currently very limited resources, destroying her body and gaining a new Code Cast would be the most efficient course of action." ]

INVADER stated, coldly listing out the facts. You could see MUSASHI listening quietly, nodding, not exactly disagreeing with the sentiment.

MUSASHI: "...So it's this kind of situation, huh?"

You had come here in order to damage or slow down the MUSASHI in 'reality'. Leaving would just set you back to square one- maybe even worse than that, if she ended up adapting to your hacking.

You felt a tremor in the ground, as the mental world around you began to destabilize.

MUSASHI: "Ah- I think 'Shadow Me' is trying to boot you all out, so we don't have any more time to really chat. If you're going to do something, make it snappy."

You'd have to make a choice here.

[satoshi-mochida]

Some games that are currently stuck on older consoles that I hope get rereleased in some way, Part 2:

Part 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Summon Night series

.hack IMOQ(I somehow forgot about these for the first post)

Xenosaga series(another obvious one I forgot)

Older Fire Emblem games that haven't been ported/remade yet.

Tony Hawk's Underground/Underground 2

Xenoblade Chronicles X

SSX Tricky/SSX 3

Transformers: War for Cybertron/Transformers: Fall of Cybertron

Lufia series

Thousand Arms

Skies of Arcadia: Legends

The Lunar Series(except Dragon Song unless it gets a massive remake)

Many Tales of games.

The Legendary Starfy series.

The Firemen/The Firemen 2: Pete & Danny

Ever Oasis

Koudelka and Shadow Hearts series

Older Atelier games

The Legend of Heroes games pre-Trails, such as the Gagharv Trilogy(shown in correct order).

Radiata Stories

Final Fantasy XIII trilogy(they're all on Steam, but not modern consoles yet)

[oracleslibrary]

Bayonetta 3 Sucks and Here's Why

[Content warnings for: Gore, sexual themes. Spoiler warnings for the entirety of the Bayonetta series.]

Good evening, everyone.

I have summoned you all here to my little shop of horrors today to talk to you about witches.

When I mention 'witches,' one of the first words that pops into your head might be 'Salem.' The Salem witch trials are perhaps the most famous of all of the many, many witch trials that took place from the 1500s to the late 1800s. The witch trials of both Europe and America were a perfect example of hysteria and the fear of the other, and how that hysteria can lead to the deaths of innocent people. Witch hunts and witch trials began in the early-to-mid 1500s in Europe and around 1648 in America, with their final trials being in 1782 and 1878, respectively. Now, the victims of these trials were not witches. They were innocent, often marginalized folks who either went against the rigid status quo or merely existed as 'undesirables' and were slaughtered for it. But the witch trials have heavily influenced how we see witches in the modern day (even if some of the ideas we have nowadays have dubious origins of whether it was actually the witch trials that spawned them). They use familiars, they are in league with the devil, they have "witches' marks" which can take the place of birthmarks or scars or literally any mark that the hunters decide is evil, their hair is a large source of their magical ability. All of these things are traits we still associate with witches today.

And if any of these traits sound particularly familiar to fans of a certain game series, it's certainly no coincidence.

Before I get into the main topic of today's essay, I need to set up some backstory with the development of Bayonetta, the plots of the first two games, and an analysis of Bayonetta's character herself. It's integral to future understanding of what I'm going to have a fucking hernia over.

Bayonetta was first released in 2009, garnering positive reviews from both critics and fans and selling over a million copies worldwide. Taking inspiration from the stylishness and exaggeration of Devil May Cry, former director of PlatinumGames Hideki Kamiya wanted to focus on sexiness and stylishness with the snappy and hard-hitting gameplay of a hack-and-slash. Bayonetta herself was designed by Mari Shimazaki in conjunction with Kamiya in order to create a modern-day witch with glasses and four guns. This design and character, intentionally or not, draws a lot from these old European ideas of witches. Bayonetta's hair being the source of her power, Bayonetta having infernal contracts with demons, her being able to transform into animals as well as cats being completely calm around her--hell, even her beauty mark would have been considered a witch's mark. As well, Shimazaki pushed hard for Bayonetta to have a beehive hairdo as a modern representation of a witch's hat.

As a brief summation of the first game, Bayonetta follows the titular Umbra Witch as she goes to find the secrets of her past, as one day she awoke in a casket in a lake with no memory of who she was. As a quick note, this world has two major factions of supernatural ability: the Umbra Witches, and the Lumen Sages. The Lumen protected the light, the Umbra the dark. Bayonetta is the only known remaining Umbra Witch, as the rest were hunted and killed in the Witch Hunts. The Lumen had been defeated by the Umbra just before the Hunts began when they went to war.

Bayonetta's search brings her to the holy city of Vigrid, where she faces off against Angels with her own infernal powers as they try to stop her from getting closer to the truth. Among these adversaries is the mysterious Jeanne, who strangely enough has powers that mirror Bayonetta's perfectly, hint hint. After an unfathomable amount of property damage, Bayonetta meets a little girl named Cereza, who mistakes Bayonetta for her mom and becomes attached to her quickly. Bayonetta is less than enthused about being followed around by a toddler, but also finds that this child can see Angels, and is being hunted by them as well. Joining together with investigative journalist and most pathetic man alive Luka Redgrave, who has his own bone to pick with Bayonetta, they make it to Isla del Sol, where just--fucking everything happens at once. 

Balder, the one in charge of all the Angels and the last remaining Lumen Sage, is revealed to be Bayonetta's father, Cereza is actually a time-displaced young version of herself, Bayonetta is the holder of the Left Eye of Darkness, which is used in conjunction with the Right Eye of Light to resurrect Jubileus, the Creator who is basically God, and Jeanne turns out to have been her childhood friend and fellow Umbra Witch who was brainwashed by the angels to fight for them--it's a whole thing. It's kind of absolutely fucking insane actually.

But in the end Bayonetta kills God and seemingly dies but she's okay actually don't worry about it.

Bayonetta 2 was released in 2014 on the Wii U, which was certainly. A decision. But despite the unfortunate platform, the game received rave reviews and was a massive critical success among fans and critics. The game almost didn't happen, if not for Nintendo partnering with the creative team and funding the project. The game was praised for its improvements over the original, from the lessening of insta-kill quick-time events and making them more forgiving, to easier ability to build up power with button mashing and spinning the joystick, to new weapons and powers, to new animations for which direction Bayonetta was attacking, to stronger pacing, and to more refined art direction. Gameplay remained largely unchanged, mostly because, well, it didn't really need to change. It was excellent as-is, with some new adjustments such as using magic for Wicked Weaves at the end of combos for extra damage, and generally having an easier time building up magic at all.

The plot follows Bayonetta as she goes to rescue Jeanne from Inferno after a summon gone wrong. In doing this, she goes to the water city of Noatun to reach the mountain Fimbulventr, where it is said that a gate to Inferno resides. Along the way, she meets Loki, an amnesiac child with a foul mouth and a snippy attitude who feels compelled to climb the mountain to learn who he is. All the while, Bayonetta is constantly being confronted by a Lumen Sage, which surprises her, as she killed the last one of those in the previous game. That Lumen Sage turns out to be a younger version of her father, Balder, before he went insane and evil. There's so much backstory to explain who all of these characters are and their relevance to the story, but I'll give context as needed to further explain. 

Bayonetta and Balder kill God at the end again and Balder traps God's evil spirit in his body before going back in time and then going insane which leads into the events of Bayonetta 1. Stable time loop.

The plot of Bayonetta often surrounds themes of deception, misunderstandings, secrets, identity, time travel, and what it means to be. It's about family, whether by blood or by choice. It's about righting past wrongs. It's about fun and freedom and stylishness. But I'd argue one of the strongest themes in Bayonetta is love. The people you love, the places you love, the things you love. The things you'll do anything to protect. I think a lot about one of Bayonetta's quotes from the first game, when she's talking to Cereza (long before she ever knew Cereza's whole deal), and making sure that Cereza's Umbran Watch is secure:

"When you love something, never lose it. Understand, little one? You must keep it safe, close to your heart."

Bayonetta's character was a line that the crew could have very, very easily fucked up. It would have been so easy to make Bayonetta just a fanservice character, there to be sexualized without having any actual personality. But they didn't; instead, they made an incredibly distinct character with a strong personality and distinct style who simply oozes sexuality, which is never derided or seen as a bad thing. The way I've always described is that fanservice, namely bad fanservice is the camera sexualizing the character. The key component here is consent: if a character in-universe is showing off their body, then it's still fanservice, but it's not a violation of the character. Now I know what I just said is really fucking loaded because they're ultimately fictional characters, but there's something of an underlying theme of the non-consent being the main driving point of the appeal of certain types of fanservice. Y'know, a woman's clothes tearing or someone falling on her breasts, or being caught in the middle of a shower or in her underwear. (It's almost always women, for the record.) It's not always this, fanservice comes in many forms, but when you usually think about it, it's mostly likely you think of the objectification of women.

The way that Bayonetta handles fanservice is more like... instead of the camera sexualizing Bayonetta, Bayonetta is the one grabbing the camera to look at her. She's constantly posing, dancing, teasing--just doing everything she wants to for the camera. Almost everything she does is of her own will, because she clearly finds it fun and humorous. There are only a couple of occasions where the camera does sexualize her without her consent, but I'm willing to let it slide because they were the setup for or outright goofs, with exaggerated camera zooms and cartoonish sound effects. (The only exception that does make me uncomfortable are the Joys. Just. Eugh.)

But this sexuality, this femininity, is integral to the identity of the games, as well as to Bayonetta herself. She's a beautiful, sexy woman, who not only flaunts but even weaponizes her sexuality in the most insane ways possible. You don't see that a lot with characters, least of all written as well as Bayonetta.

But her character doesn't stop at her beauty and sexuality. She went through a full character arc, with growing warmer with Cereza to the point where she sings to the girl when putting her to bed, to her learning more about her past and her role in the schemes of the villain, and then pushing past this predetermined plan in order to protect the world and the people she cares about. She's witty, clever, sly, has a quick and skillful trigger finger, and can adapt to changes in her environment very quickly in order to rid of her enemies.

But she's not just stylish and awesome and whatnot. She can also mess up and make mistakes, such as her amazing expression when she accidentally crushes Enzo's car in the beginning of 1, or when she tries to blow up one of the virtues in a cool way by lighting a trail of gasoline with her gun-heel, while looking away, and it's all super cool--until the spark dies halfway through, and Bayonetta just ends up. Standing there. And she just groans and shoots the tank of gasoline normally. Or when she tries to do a cool maneuver using Loki's cards to teach him a lesson but they just fall to the ground useless. It's these moments of goofiness that really give Bayonetta a humanity to her, that shows she's not infallible or perfect, but can be just as silly as the rest of us. A personal favorite is when she goes to retrieve Cereza's doll Cheshire from one of the Virtues, and she holds it up to her ear as though it's talking to her. Like, no one is around but her, and yet she's doing something that a mom would do with her kid's toys. It's such a small thing but also very sweet--especially when Bayonetta returns the doll with a band-aid over its eye. That's such a motherly thing to do, especially when kids often see their toys as living beings.

It's with Cereza especially that a lot of Bayonetta's softer side begins to show, with her affectionately calling Cereza "little one", becoming increasingly worried when she appears to be in danger, going out of her way to do things for her--eventually culminating in her putting Cereza to bed, telling her that the nightmare is over, and that she's a strong girl. When I was typing up the script, I was starting to choke up just thinking about that scene, because it's just such a strong scene. The fondness for kids transfers to Loki as well, with her taking to him as some endearing teenage son almost, with her being legitimately worried that he might be hurt or even killed, and seems genuinely upset when he was just playing dead.

Jeanne, too, is the subject of Bayonetta's softer side. Hell, the entire plot of 2 is Bayonetta defying death itself in order to save Jeanne's soul and bring her back. The scene where Bayonetta calls for Jeanne, and actually fucking begs her to wake up, is heartbreaking. Jeanne is Bayonetta's closest confidant, with the two actually living together post-1. They're best friends, they're treasured companions, and they have a domestic life together. They were planning a Christmas party at the beginning of 2.

As well, Bayonetta's demeanor can shift to very serious when the situation calls for it, such as her genuine fury when she thinks Balder has killed Luka. Bayonetta may not say it outright, but she clearly cares a lot for the people around her, being willing to risk life and limb to protect them. Another quick thing I want to mention--whenever Luka accuses Bayonetta of killing his father (she didn't, by the way, long story), Bayonetta, unable to actually recall what happened that day, looks actually rather downcast and troubled. She actually seems to think that she might have killed Luka's father, and looks quite upset at the thought. As much as Bayonetta would like to depict herself as infallible, she cares so much, and that care is a driving force behind the games.

I stress a lot about Bayonetta's character because I think it's a core aspect of the games. The games would not be the same without Bayonetta. Bayonetta's character is baked into everything--the visuals of bleeding rose petals and butterfly shadows and a lock-on of lipstick, into the elegant and joyous lounge music, to the plot and backstories revolving around Bayonetta's past and her roles in previous events. Bayonetta herself is the core of the games. I think she's probably the biggest appeal, because her character shapes the rest of the game aspects. It just wouldn't be a Bayonetta game without Bayonetta and all of the beautiful aesthetics and unique gameplay and creative ways of torturing and killing angels that she brings.

...

So then there's Bayonetta 3.

Bayonetta 3 is... I think the perfect 'fuck you' that you could ever give a fan of a series. Bayonetta 3 spits in your face and demands that you praise it. 

I want you to imagine this. It's 2017. You're watching the Game Awards for some reason. And then, a specific teaser shows up, revealing that Bayonetta 3 is in development. It's been three years since the release of 2, so you're pretty hyped about it.

And then you hear nothing about it for years.

The most that you see is a couple articles with quotes from devs that development is "going well" in 2019, but even then, you still hear nothing about it. No trailers, no teasers, no images, not even leaks, to my knowledge. Just absolutely nothing. Games take a long time to develop, sure, but usually there's teaser images or such in order to keep the game in the collective consciousness of gamers.

Cut to the Nintendo Direct of 2021, where a trailer for something begins to play. And after a while you realize Holy shit it's Bayonetta 3 oh my god this looks amazing holy shit what the fuck.

(Pour one out for Astral Chain fans, by the way.)

So now you finally have a new trailer, you have something to show that this game is tangible and real and happening. Later trailers reveal the release date: October 28th, 2022. Exactly a year ago from today assuming that I manage to get this done on time.

There was also the, uh... controversy, but I'm not getting into that today. There's plenty of coverage on the Helena Taylor thing, and I'm not really talking about the controversies surrounding the game as I am about the game itself. The only thing I'll say is: Fuck TERFs, Bayonetta says Trans Rights.

Release day comes without a hitch, and what you get is... hoogh. Okay where do I start.

Lemme start with the things I like about the game, because I don't hate it, and it mechanically isn't a bad game. 

Jeanne hands-down has the best segments in the game. Like mechanically they're not the beeeest, but the amount of fun that they have with it is great. These segments follow Jeanne as you break into a top-secret facility, complete with a spy intro (that does unfortunately play in its entirety at the beginning of each segment with no option to skip) and kickass music. It's absolutely absurd and I love it, because Jeanne is so into the spy shit. She has one-liners to herself, if she gets smushed by an elevator she does the cartoonish thing where she gets flattened and flies about like paper, it's just really good. (There's a thing where a homunculus can go into a shower while she's showering and she kills it which is kinda weird but still pretty in-line with a Bayo game so.) Especially since we actually get to hear her basically do a magical girl speech and transformation into Cutie J, her actual genuine superhero alter ego, and get to play as her as an invincibility power. It's genuinely an extremely characterized segment and is a delight to go through. Jeanne is a loser and that's so important to me. She breakdances after killing an enemy.

Rodin's gimmick this time is great. The pizza truck is just. Perfection. He's as cool as ever when he's not. Y'know. Being a dick to Enzo after Enzo seemingly loses his wife and family that he seems to love very much. (I'm gonna get to that.)

Viola is hands-down the best character, she's such a try hard who's doing her goddamn best and her VA really put her all into the role. It's almost over-acted, which seems to be intentional, as Viola is very expressive with her hands and body as she talks. She's also a complete loser and I think we need more failgirls in media.  I just wish that the narrative didn't fuck her over at every turn.

The gameplay's pretty solid, with the demon summoning being pretty fun. It's a shame that torture attacks aren't as common and only can be used when an enemy is stunned, but I also do appreciate how they don't stop the gameplay or force you to do button-mashing in order to execute them when they *do* appear. It keeps the flow going and is just overall a nice fix. The combat still feels good, the level-ups are a tad strange since in previous games boosts to health and magic were automatic but it's not that big of a deal.  The new forms are also fun, and even if the spider is a little hard to control, I still absolutely loved being able to just swing across the whole map.

The music is absolutely great as per usual, though--okay I need to have a sidebar about Moonlight Serenade real quick. I know this is the section where I talk about what I like but I just - I need you to understand my vision.

So. I don't like Moonlight Serenade that much. BUT IT'S FOR SUCH A SPECIFIC REASON. The song never feels like it has a proper conclusion. Like - ok I might be wrong abt this because I know shit about fuck when it comes to music theory but if you listen to the chorus of "fly me to the moon" and "moon river", you feel like that is a complete phrase, right? Like the buildup happens, and then the last line of the chorus sounds like a satisfactory end to that part.

Like the song could stop there and it wouldn't leave you musically hanging, it's called a cadence i believe. But moonlight serenade doesn't have that. It doesn't have that musical conclusion and thus constantly feels incomplete, it feels like I'm waiting for smth that never comes and it makes it annoying to listen to. Which is weird, because in the Frank Sinatra version that they use in the credits, the song does eventually have a cadence at the very end, so it's not like the song just can't be performed that way! Just - here's the ends to the three main themes put together.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND.

It's such a small and niche thing to be upset over, I know, but it just drives me insane. Moonlight Serenade is like your brain building up an itch that it never scratches.

Regardless--the music is still really good, as always for a Bayonetta game. Always with the upbeat jazzy tracks, and Viola's theme "Ghost" absolutely fucks. Also Phenomenal Uncertainty may or may not have made me cry the first time I heard it.

In terms of graphics, the game is, for the most part, very pretty! The particle effects are gorgeous, the animation of human bodies in the teal goo that create the Homunculi is really cool, and gives a brilliant hint as to what the Homunculi actually are before you learn it in-story. I also really like the stained-glass thing motif they have going on with anything fae related, it's really striking.

Something appreciated is also Naive Angel Mode, which actually is a setting you can turn on to censor things more. Things like gore and nudity are covered up or changed, which can allow for more people to feel comfortable playing it, because while nudity isn't something to be shamed... it can still be really embarrassing for people. Some of its censors are simple, like Bayonetta's butterfly form having covers over her breasts, or Bayonetta's outfit not being removed whenever she summons demons. Other changes are... Rodin's donut cigar and Bayonetta pulling a tomato out of her chest. There's arguments to be made one whether or not this is actually helpful as a censorship tool, especially since they don't censor out any swearing and the tomato thing is absolutely a scene killer... but it's also really fucking funny.

... Okay I think that's all I got. Anyway time for the bad.

I'm going to talk about a lot of miscellaneous things in succession, such as graphics and gameplay, in this section, while the story and especially the ending will get their own sections, because dear god.

Since I ended the last section with the visuals, let's start this section with them. The thing about Bayonetta 3 is that it's very... sweaty. If you look at Enzo and Luka, they just look... meaty. And I hate saying that. Those words make my bones itch. What's strange is that the previous games didn't look like that, which leads me to believe this is because of the idea of "next gen graphics" or whatever, trying to make it look more realistic, when instead it looks like meat.

The facial expressions can be a little dopey, and the mouth movements really don't fit the words being said most of the time. Granted, that's always been a thing, but considering that all cutscenes are animated this time rather than being mixed in with still slideshows of renders, it stands out more. Textures in certain areas look very flat, even when they shouldn't be, like the roses on the banner in the beginning--others are an insanely low resolution, like the cracked glass and concrete in Tokyo. These textures are directly next to things that are not low-resolution, which makes them stand out in the worst way.

As I mentioned with Naive Angel mode earlier, it does have things that could really ruin a dramatic scene for you, like the tomato thing. It's making fun of the people who use it by dampening their experience. Like, I don't think people are being prudish or something for not wanting to see such intense gore but still wanting to enjoy an experience. Because it's not like they can get gameplay like this anywhere else, Bayonetta's combat is very unique to itself. There's a lot of nuance and argument to be had over censorship laws, and Western (specifically America's) discomfort with nudity even artistically, whether this type of censorship is made to made it more marketable or more accessible or possibly both, whether it should even have it because it makes no secret that it's a mature rated game for a reason--there's a lot to be said about it, so I at least wanted to bring it up here. But also I can completely understand them adding something like this because, you know, Bayonetta was in fucking Smash Bros. That exposes her to a much wider age range, and probably has many more young people interested in her series. 

Another thing related to this is the mockery of Easy Mode, and how no matter how well you do in a section, no matter if you have amazing combos and take no damage, you will never get a rank higher than clear. In the past, while some battles wouldn't appear on easier difficulties, you could still at least get higher than clear. This? Fucking sucks. Accessibility is really such an important thing in games, because listen: some people are physically incapable of playing video games as well as an abled person. Easier modes can help those who physically can't do what other modes demand of them. Some people want to get through a game quickly because they want to go through the story.

Also some people are just fucking bad at video games, man. I don't think we should punish them for that.

Easy Mode punishes the player for picking it by delegating them to the lowest rank possible. No matter what you do, unless you play the game on its terms, you'll never be good enough. This can really alienate a subset of the audience who were interested in playing it until they realized that the game was basically making fun of you for needing help. Which is stupid and gross and can we PLEASE stop doing this.

Wartrain Gouon was easily the worst of the demons by far. It's so hard to control and get it to the path you want due to the rigidity of its tracks. The clock tower was so non-memorable that I can't even remember what it does.

The demon sections suck. They just do. In concept riding Gomorrah down toppling skyscrapers is sick as fuck, but the controls are nightmarish. Same with Phantasmarae's section where you have to jump from building to building. You have too much momentum due to size, which makes controlling it really hard. Accurate to the size and speed of the creatures? Yes. Fun to play? NO.

The Sin Gomorrah fights are such bullshit. It's rock paper scissors. Bite beats shield, shield beats slam, slam beats bite. If you're still learning the movements of the enemy in order to figure out what they're doing and counter it before it hits you, or god forbid you press the button just a little too late, you get hit. And this fight is probably the slowest of anything I've ever seen. If you fuck up, you wait around 10 seconds in order to do it again. And you have to watch the fight move at the speed of moss in the meantime. It was actually painful to go through.

The others weren't awful. Madama Butterfly's section was okay, I had no idea how the fuck to control anything though. Baal's was the best by far, as it's a fun rhythm game that shakes up the gameplay but still feels at home in a Bayonetta title.

Okay - let's talk story. Finally.

Bayonetta 3's story is something that gets worse the longer you think about it. It's almost insulting how horrible the entire thing was, but especially the ending. Let's go through the plot quick. I'm gonna summarize most of this as a refresher for those who played it and a baseline for those who didn't. I'll be leaving out a lot of the details which I'll bring up later because I don't want this summary to be seventeen hours long.

The game opens up with a fight with Bayonetta as seen in the first game, albeit with her beauty mark in a different spot. Considering this game is about multiverses, we can safely assume this isn't the same Bayo from the first game. She's fighting against an exceptionally powerful foe, one who's shrouded in shadow and can manipulate the environment as though it were clay. We have a monologue overlaying the fight as per tradition, but instead of being Antonio or Luka, we hear a female voice, who we later learn is Viola. (This is kinda clever but it's cleverness based on a plot point that sucks but anyway.)

This foe manages to beat Bayonetta down as Viola talks about 'truth', another thing I'll get into later. She's doing very badly, and eventually gets almost crucified in rock. We then watch as Bayonetta is brutally murdered, and a girl named Viola is given the last 'world bridge.' The man who gives it to her is blown into chunks, and the girl manages to escape just as the shadowy figure tries to kill her.

And that's how it starts! Bayonetta fucking dies!

It doesn't get better from here.

We then cut to New York, where Bayonetta is bullying Enzo as per usual. She's apparently supposed to be meeting someone on a cruise liner, where she is eventually set upon by bizarre teal-and-silver enemies who cause a massive tsunami to head towards the city. These enemies begin to destroy everything and everyone without regard, seemingly trying to eradicate the entire area. Viola falls out of a portal from the sky into Enzo's car, Jeanne shows up with a cute little reference to her first appearance in Bayo 1, Rodin comes by, and eventually they all manage to escape to the Gates of Hell while the rest of the world above is seemingly erased. Unfortunately, Bayonetta wasn't strong enough to even put a dent in the massive army that appeared.

Rodin and Viola reveal that the strange creatures are Homunculi, manmade bioweapons that are actually part human. Their leader is named Singularity, and his ultimate goal appears to be to erase as many universes as possible to gather enough power to wipe out the Trinity of Realities in one go. We don't know why, we just know that he's trying to create something called the Alphaverse, which is essentially all the power of the universes pulled into one world. Viola has been trying to get through the worlds to collect Chaos Gears from other worlds, which if collected and given to a man named Sigurd, should be able to stop Singularity somehow. Jeanne goes off to find Sigurd, while Bayonetta and Viola go off to the Lumen-Umbra island of Thule, which was an ancient hub of study for the multiverse. Something of note is that Viola showcases her abilities to use Witch Time, as well as having a demon companion named Cheshire who remarkably resembles a doll and has pretty childlike behaviors. This will be important later.

The majority of the story is then spent going to different timelines and attempting to get the Chaos Gear from them, all while fighting the Homunculi. You visit Tokyo, Ancient China, Ancient Egypt, and France, and run into the various Bayonettas and Jeannes (and in one instance, Bayonetta's mother Rosa). Unfortunately, though Bayonetta obtains the Chaos Gears and some new weapons and demon companions, she is unable to save any of the worlds she goes to, and even has to mercy-kill one of her alternates when she gets assimilated into the Homunculi.

Jeanne, meanwhile, goes to rescue Dr. Sigurd, a man who's grafted technology to his skin and essentially lives within a test tube. As well, Bayonetta and Viola get set upon by a mysterious wolf creature who attacks them, and Luka shows up sometimes and does very little and then leaves.

So - I'm gonna just drop a lot of shit on you, because all of this is insane.

First of all fearies exist. No, there's been no evidence of their existence beforehand. They just do. Viola meets a variant of Luka named Lukaon who is a fae prince. Sure. Also that werewolf? It's Luka. It's because of something I'll explain later.

So when the crew has the Chaos Gears and Sigurd, Bayonetta and Viola go to the Alphaverse to face Singularity, while Jeanne stays behind to guard Sigurd. Turns out, however, that in the Alphaverse, the real Sigurd's corpse is hooked up to a machine, and the 'Sigurd' back with Jeanne is actually Singularity, who killed and replaced the original Sigurd. Singularity then kills Jeanne and absorbs her power as he had with all the previous Jeannes and Bayonettas, and traps Bayonetta and Viola in the Alphaverse while he makes a universe of his own creation.

Luka shows up to help them, and they escape to fight Singularity.

And thus begins the most laborious, horrible endings I have ever experienced in my undisclosed amount of years. 

The fight with Singularity is, and I do not exaggerate, seven phases. Stage one is the rock-paper-scissors fight with Sin Gomorrah, two is against Singularity Balance, three is against the minibosses that Balance summons, four is a replica of the opening fight, five is a fight alongside the Bayonettas from 1 and 2, six is the fight when all the Bayonettas combine, and seven, finally, is alongside Luka in his werewolf form. 

This shit takes forty minutes to an hour to get through, including cutscenes. It's during this marathon of repetition that we learn a few things: namely, that Viola is the daughter of an alternate Bayonetta and Luka. I'll get to that. Though Singularity was defeated, Bayonetta had pushed herself to her absolute limit, and her Umbran Watch had finally shattered. This leads to the summoned Gomorrah turning on her, her contract with it being up and Inferno going to collect. Viola, knocked unconscious, is starting to get sucked into a black hole that Singularity left behind, and Luka chooses to save his alternate daughter rather than Bayonetta. Bayonetta's soul is raked from her body, and the demons of Inferno start to drag her down. Luka manages to get himself over to Bayonetta, and holds her soul in his arms as the two of them essentially have a love confession. They reassure themselves that Viola will carry on their legacy, and share a kiss as they're pulled into Inferno. Viola cries out for them in heartbreak, before breaking down into a sobbing wreck.

We move to Viola out on a rock drifting in a black sea, unsure of where she is, before a shadow of Bayonetta appears with a Kraken demon that was actually summoned at the beginning but don't worry about it because it didn't matter. Viola then fights against the shadow of her mother, finally having control over her own Faerie powers as shown in a previous section. Before vanishing, Bayonetta tells Viola that this was her last lesson, and that she's grown so much, and 'perhaps the gift of a new name is in order.'

Cut back to New York, which is seemingly returned to normal. Viola, wearing a scarf and a pair of glasses, comes into the Gates of Hell where Rodin and Enzo are. Enzo's talking to his wife on the phone before leaving, implying that those in this universe have been restored. Based on Rodin's words, he's still in contact with Bayonetta and Luka in Inferno, and he's watching over Viola in the meantime. She takes a job from him, and Rodin mentions that he forgot to call her by the family name, "Bayonetta."

Viola stumbles over herself one last time before ushering in the credits with a pose.

... Alright fellas, grab your jaws off the floor and put your tits back on, let's tackle this nightmare.

The thing about Bayonetta 3 is that you just have no idea where to begin. There's so much fucking wrong with it that you really just can't figure out how to look at it right. It's like looking at a pile of glass that melted wrong.

The game's opening also sets a tone of despair and futility, because you play Bayonetta's last moments before being brutally murdered. If Bayonetta, two-time god killer, was beaten by this enemy without even a scratch on the opposing party, just how powerful are they? This is actually a pretty common trope, where in order to show how powerful a new foe is, they have them go up against a character that the audience knows is extremely powerful, and have them get absolutely trounced.

I suppose we'll start with some of the most glaring issues, such as the tone. The tone of Bayonetta 3 is much darker and more serious than that of the previous games, obvious from the moment you start up the game with the start menu looking like This. You have to press a button to get to the familiar logo, but even the logo is a bit edgier--almost literally, with the sharp cracked 3.

But the reason it doesn't work here is because this immediately places Singularity almost as overpowered. Like, Bayonetta was able to kill God. Twice. Albeit, this was with help, but she was still able to hold her own for a significant amount of time. To see this almost immediately gives the audience a feeling of dread, because if Bayonetta can't even land a scratch on this guy, who can?

Things don't get better as the story goes on. Out of the four timelines you go to visit, you save none of them. You get to watch as all of them are essentially eaten by the Homunculi. You get to watch as people die while fighting futily against the Homunculi. The Homunculi are hard-hitting, fast, and innumerable. There are just so many of them, and their units are massive. They're explicitly made to destroy. It is a massive spike in the stakes from the previous two games. It's like if Jubileus had been summoned at the beginning of Bayonetta 1 rather than at the end, or if Aesir had reformed at the beginning of 2. With the Homuculi, it doesn't matter how many you fight. They can regenerate, they can reform, and their most destructive units are about as big as a fucking city. And you don't make a dent in them, no matter what you do. The worlds are gone. The Bayonettas are dead. You can't save any of them.

And by the end, your own Jeanne is dead, and Bayonetta is dead. We don't hear anything about the other worlds. While the other Bayos' and Jeannes' souls are released during the final fight with Singularity, they don't appear to be fully there. They're translucent and glitchy, and they all disappear upon being hit once. Jeanne even reappears to help for a moment before also disappearing again. We never hear anything about Jeanne ever again, by the way. She's just killed in the most anticlimactic way possible, shows up for a second, and then disappears without another word. And we don't know what happened with the other worlds! We have no reason to think that they were returned to normal! And yet, Bayonetta still gets to be around, albeit indirectly. This really just gives the entire game a feeling of "why should I even bother, it's not going to do anything anyway." For all the talk of hope and truth the game spews, the ending is pretty fucking bleak.

On top of that, the majority of the game you just... watch people die. They're not angels, they're not demons, they're regular human beings fighting a war they have no chance of winning, no matter how hard they try. And watching swathes of human beings get wiped out is a much different experience than just watching angels or demons. It makes the entire thing feel just so dark. Because, again, we have no reason to believe that any of these worlds were restored. Singularity makes an off-hand comment about how the Bayonettas fighting back is 'reversing' what he's done, but immediately after one of the Bayos says how they're 'the only ones who made it this far' so like. Which is it?

The darker tone is conveyed through the visuals, also. Everything in this game feels... really desaturated. Like, the past games were bright and vibrant and colorful, but this game feels really gray, no doubt helped by the constant presence of the matter-eating fog.

Bayonetta games are no stranger to more serious topics and scenes, but they still had a ton of levity and fun between it all. There really isn't much of that at all in this game. It's just bleakness after bleakness with a lot of cool visuals thrown into the mix. Which like, yeah, surfing on Gomorrah is cool in concept, but Bayonetta never looks like she's having any fun. She looks so serious and angry half the time. One of the main appeals about Bayonetta as a character is how much fun she has, whether it's dancing or performing acrobatics or torturing angels. But while we get plenty of one-liners from her, it never looks like she's having the good time she usually has. And you could argue that it's because the tone of the plot is what causes her to be more serious, but I personally see that as a cue to lighten the story up a little. The only exception to this is the France level, because while I think randomly adding assimilation to the Homunculi's abilities is bullshit--the Homunculi taking over the French army and making them dance is the kind of shit I expected from the whole game. That was golden.

On the subject of Bayonetta's character, it really feels like they just stripped her of it all and gave her some facsimile of what it used to be. I mentioned earlier about her silliness and her mistakes and her moments of softness with others, but all of that is just devoid from 3 in favor of making Bayonetta this constantly cool, infallible person. She has apparent soft scenes with Luka, but I'll get to that whole thing in a bit. Just know that it's completely unearned. There isn't a moment where she has moments of willing vulnerability with anyone, especially Viola, who you think would be the most important person she would have that with. Instead, she's constantly undermining Viola's agency, insulting her and belittling her, and just never grows close to her like she did with Cereza or Loki. I think the game thinks that Bayonetta being Viola's blood mother means that they automatically have a connection, but--no. That sucks. Fuck off.

The argument can be made of, "Oh this is clearly a different Bayonetta than before! It's normal that she'd act a little different!" And considering that 3's Bayonetta isn't familiar with Phantasmarae, who 1's Bayo had summoned back in the first game, it's safe to assume that it isn't the same one. In fact it's implied that this is a grown-up Cereza from game 1, with the same braids, the younger version of Bayonetta looking almost exactly like Cereza if just a bit older, 1's Bayo telling her "you didn't cry while I was gone, did you?" All of that implies this is the Cereza we've seen from a changed timeline. But this isn't properly conveyed to the audience until the very end where 1 and 2 evidently take place in different timelines (don't worry about it). And even then, if it is because of a character difference, that still doesn't correct the tonal issue or the problems with how she treats Viola versus what the game says their relationship is.

And while talking about Bayonetta... we can't put off The Big Thing™ any longer. So let's talk about Adam and Eve.

Bayonetta makes no secret of its inspirations from Christianity and Judaism. The idea of angels, heaven, hell, demons, and especially the hierarchy of angels inspired by the Jewish hierarchy. But the thing about Bayonetta is that the series has only ever made one reference to the Christian god, that being at the very beginning of 1, where Bayonetta is reading scripture in order to summon angels. But the angels don't serve the Christian god, they serve Paradiso and Jubileus. The actual creation of the world and the Trinity of Realities has nothing to do with Christianity, it has to do with Aesir, Jubileus, and presumably Queen Sheba.

But Singularity refers to Arch-Eves and Arch-Adams, which across all universes are Bayonetta and Luka. Implying some cosmic force brings them together romantically.

I honestly feel like I don't even need to explain why this sucks, but I will anyway.

Most folks know the story of Adam and Eve. First man and woman, the Garden of Eden, the temptation of the snake, the Tree of Knowledge, and disobedience leading to eternal sin (at least according to Christian texts). But in Bayo 3, the only relation to the actual story that Bayo and Luka have are just... they're a man and a woman. So obviously they end up together. At most, maybe it's referring to Singularity trying to play God and Bayonetta and Luka defying him... but the analogy doesn't entirely work because Singularity isn't God, and there are also non-gendered characters from the Bible that could have been used.

The Arch-Eves refer to the one person within a world that's keeping it all together; if Singularity kills them and absorbs their power, then that universe will start to collapse. I don't think the same applies to the Arch-Adams so I don't even know why they're here. The idea that Bayonetta is, in every universe, the most important person, is dumb. It really is. Bayonetta is powerful. She is the holder of the Left Eye of the World. She's saved the world twice over. But she's still just another person--hell, the second game makes a point to stress that she's still part human. That's part of what makes her so strong--because she has humanity. But the idea of Arch-Eves really just... makes her this cosmic protagonist who's the most important person in all the worlds who are literally the only thing holding them all together. Why? Never explained! You just have to accept it!

Lukas across the worlds being Arch-Adams is also dumb. Literally why. Also speaking of Luka, he has faerie blood for some reason! Also there are faeries but I'll get to that! That's why he can transform into a werewolf, because all of the residual energy from the dead Arch-Adams awakened his faerie powers.

God this game fucking sucks dude.

(Sidebar, I read this section out to my fiancee who only knows the plot of Bayo 1, explicitly because I thought it would be funny, and he genuinely did not believe I was telling him the truth. He looked at me and said that he thinks I made this up to fuck with him. Also he said that Lukaon looks like a Genshin character.)

So. I feel like I don't need to say this, but Bayonetta and Luka getting together is fucking stupid.

While this is a different version of Bayonetta than the previous games, the romance hinges on the interactions the two had in the previous games, 1 especially. But if this is a different Bayonetta, then this is essentially the first time we're seeing these two specific characters interact. Which honestly makes it worse. The two of them barely have any screentime with each other, leaving their chemistry about as basic as fucking bleach. Sure, they flirt with each other, but players are primed by past games to know that Bayonetta doesn't really mean it, and mostly just does it to tease and fluster Luka. So it becomes very strange when it turns out yes, actually, she does mean it! Don't worry about why!

To see the two of them essentially confess their love for each other and kiss as they're dragged into Inferno feels so undeserved because their entire relationship was so underdeveloped it was like a sandlot. Just - completely barren. It just feels so unnecessary in a series like this. When I said earlier that Bayonetta was about love, I didn't mean making the female protagonist and a male character of mild importance kiss like Barbie dolls because they're within the same proximity. Luka was barely in the previous game, so him gaining such a huge role feels strange and almost undeserved, because in terms of the actual plot, he doesn't do anything. He just turns into a werewolf to be a couple boss fights. And I still don't understand what the point of the werewolf and faerie shit is! The faerie stuff I think was solely to set up Origins, because to my knowledge, nothing in the previous games even alluded to such a thing. 

I'd also like to bring up, ah... a certain thing about the relationship, assuming that this is the same Cereza from 1. Now I want to say that I don't think it's problematic or whatever, they're both consenting adults so it's whatever, but... It's still really weird how Bayonetta ends up with the alternate version of a man that she knew when she was 6, who has the same name, face, and mannerisms as that man, and who calls her the same nickname that the other Luka had called her child self. It's not pedophilic by any stretch, but it just leaves the slightest bad aftertaste in your mouth, like eating day-old olives.

That brings us to a big point of contention with the game: Viola. Now I personally like Viola a lot, I think her character is funny and a perfect encapsulation of a try-hard teenager trying to establish herself. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people who find her 'annoying' would think she's endearing if she were a male character. People just really can't handle teenage girls having flaws. But Viola gets the short end of the stick so fucking bad in the game. One, she's constantly the punching bag, both narratively and comedically. Some of the stuff is pretty funny, like Bayonetta landing in a cool pose as Viola and her demon companion Cheshire crash into the ground immediately next to her. Others seem to be unnecessary, such as her ass setting on fire and having to control her as she cartoonishly runs into the nearest body of water, or her getting dehydrated in the desert and having to scavenge for water as Cheshire (yes that actually happens). And some are just cruel, like her constantly losing every time she tries to fight.

Viola just isn't allowed to win. She's not allowed to even have a moment of looking cool, she's not allowed to fight bosses on her own despite her clear strength and power, she's not allowed to have a lick of respect from anyone, let alone her own mother Bayonetta. No matter how many times she tells her her name, Bayonetta never uses it until the very end when she's dying or already dead. And immediately after doing so, she instead gives her a new name, her old name. To paraphrase my dear friend Simon, "Viola sucks. You suck. You know who doesn't suck? Bayonetta. You're her now."

No matter how many times she spells out her name, no one listens. The only fight she wins on her own is the very last one, where she's stripped of the identity that she's fought so hard to establish by being forced into the shadow of her parents. She doesn't even get a moment to help during the final boss fight. I honestly feel like I need to stress this point: the secondary player character of this game doesn't even get to help you during the final boss fight. The moment she tries, and the moment her theme starts up, Singularity just tosses her aside, and that's it. She's done. Fuck you for trying, Viola.

It's honestly sad to see a character with such interesting potential as Viola be constantly fucked over by the narrative because they made her the designated punching bag. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't... hate the idea of Viola being the daughter of an alternate Bayonetta. Not with Luka, god no, but just in general. Maybe biological, maybe adopted. It feels like something of a natural progression of the motherly themes in the previous games, if Bayonetta had acted like a mother to this child at all throughout the game. But I can see some version of Bayonetta finding this child out on her own, because her parents had been killed or something, and maybe there was something supernatural about her. I can see that version of Bayonetta realizing that this child has no one, and mortals weren't going to understand how to care for a child like that. So, that version of Bayonetta took Viola in as her own, maybe raising her alongside Jeanne and Rodin while passing down the Umbran Arts to Viola as a way to keep Viola safe and to keep the Umbra alive. But when Viola's home dimension is destroyed and her mother is gone, she goes to 3's Bayonetta and struggles to accept that this is technically a stranger, even as this Bayonetta starts to become fond of her and act much like her own mother. Especially if this is actually Cereza from 1, then she can return the kindness that her own 'mummy' had given to her when she was displaced.

But that would mean that Bayonetta wouldn't get to kiss Luka and we simply can't live without that.

I want to touch briefly on another point of contention surrounding this aspect of the game, and I don't want to get too into it, but I would be remiss to not mention it. A lot of people were upset that Bayonetta ended up with Luka and not Jeanne, saying that it was queer erasure or queerbaiting, making Bayonetta "straight." There's... honestly actually a lot to talk about here.

For those unaware, 'queerbaiting' is defined as "a marketing technique involving intentional homoeroticism or suggestions of LGBTQ+ themes intended to draw in an LGBTQ+ audience, without explicit inclusion of openly LGBTQ+ relationships, characters, or people." Dean and Castiel of Supernatural are an example of queerbaiting I don't care what the finale says. Sherlock and Watson from BBC's Sherlock are an example of queerbaiting. These pairings were constantly teased and hinted at throughout their shows' runtimes, with people in-show talking about how they're obviously in love with each other and them showing their devotion for each other--but don't worry, they're not gay.

Note that this is different from queercoding, which is when the authors intentionally put queer subtext into a character or work as a whole, but can't confirm anything in-story due to demands of producers, publishers, or society at large. A big reason for queercoding starting in the US was the Hayes Code, which in essence banned anything considered 'immoral', which queer people were at the time. 

Homophobia aside, it's hard to say whether or not Bayonetta and Jeanne are queerbaiting, queercoded, or just have a close connection that fans like to interpret as romantic. Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely think Bayonetta is queer--Bayonetta is asexual and I will die on this hill--but I honestly couldn't parse whether or not any subtext between the two was intentional. Kamiya has only referred to Bayo and Jeanne as a couple in the sense of a pair, not a romantic couple, and some nude art was made by the character designer Mari Shimazaki more for artistic nudity rather than erotic nudity. As a queer woman myself, I personally don't see either queerbaiting or queercoding. I think that any potential queer readings are just that: readings. I don't think any of it was intentional.

Also people attracted to both men and women exist people for fuck's sake.

A quick aside to talk about faeries. I literally don't know why they're here. I don't know why they exist in this game if not to set up Origins, and I don't know why they exist in there, either. It's such a strange choice to make when nothing at all in the past games has set up the existence of the fae. We barely learn anything about them, and outside of being power-ups for Luka and Viola, they're essentially non-entities. They didn't need to exist and I don't know why they do.

Now let's talk about one of the worst aspects of the game: the villain, Singularity. If your villain sucks, I think that's a massive blow to your game, and Singularity is probably one of the worst villains I've ever seen. His existence in the Bayonetta world just... doesn't make any sense. Did you know he was an artificial human, essentially a computer program that became self-aware and then murdered every single human in his world? No? You shouldn't, because it's ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL.

The thing about past games, and hell even games in general, is that you don't want to leave crucial bits of information hidden away in the files for your players to go find and read. In the previous games, it was all supplemental; it was notes on the structures and customs of the Umbra and Lumen, about magic and potion-making and architecture. It was all stuff that would have bloated the narrative if they were put into the gameplay proper, but are fun reads for those who want to get a little more information on them. 

But that piece of information? That's Singularity's origin story. We shouldn't have to read the manual to get a key piece of character information.

Especially since, we still don't know why he's doing all of this. Balder was trying to resurrect Jubileus because he was a religious zealot driven insane by the soul of Loptr inside of him. Loptr wanted to become whole again and was literally an evil side of a god who wanted to return to the power he had before. The younger Balder wanted vengeance for his slain lover. All of this was present and available in the story, giving you an understanding of who these people are and what they're doing here.

Singularity... I genuinely don't know. He became aware of the multiverse and decided to destroy it to consolidate the power of all the worlds into one in order to "impose his single truth" over it. I don't know what the fuck that means, and I'll get to the whole 'truth' thing later. Singularity is a nothing villain. He has no substantial motivation behind his actions. His existence as a creation of humans, of modern humans at that, also feels completely out of place in a game series focused on the divine. There's nothing divine in nature about the Homunculi. They're all technologically based in hierarchy, design, and origin, and it really stands out against the angels and demons.

You wanna know how to fix this? Just make Singularity trying to become a god. Maybe being an artificial human, he thought he had a chance of ruling over the World of Chaos as a manmade god. Maybe he was intentionally made to do that! Then it would explain why the Homunculi look like that, they're trying to mimic angels!

But that's not what happened. Instead we get computers I guess.

Also I'd argue this game plays into the evil disabled person trope since Singularity-as-Sigurd is in a mobility aid that is basically an electric wheelchair so thanks for that, game.

Sidenote, something that bothers me about this is that, like... the demons and angels are fucking nowhere to be seen. Their planes of realities are also at risk here, and yet angels only show up in optional fights that you really have to go out of your way to find. I don't think any demon enemies show up at all besides the summoned Kraken. You'd think that like, something interesting would be that the angels and demons have to actually work together in order to protect themselves and their own realities, but they're just fucking off and letting Singularity take ove the multiverse, even though it's explicitly stated that he's trying to wipe out the entire Trinity of Realities.

Let's move on to the ending, mostly from a gameplay perspective. The ending sucks. It's one of the worst things I've ever experienced. Namely, because it's too long and is the same shit over and over again. As I mentioned before, Singularity's fight has seven stages. That is absurdly long, even by Bayonetta standards. And at the very least, past final bosses have been broken up with unique gameplay, enemies, and environments. 

For example, in 1, you play as Jeanne as she motorbikes up a rocket and eventually runs up it in order to get to Bayonetta. Then, as Jubileus is almost resurrected, you fight her in a giant space sphere while she constantly throws galaxies at you, completely shifts the environment, and transforms you into a helpless child. Then, you have a stage where you combat Jubileus face-to-face, capping it off with summoning essentially what seems to be the Queen of Inferno herself, Queen Sheba, to take care of Jubileus. Then, there's a short segment where you fly Jubileus' soul into the sun. And finally, you destroy the pieces of Jubileus' body before they plummet to Earth. That's still long, mind you, don't get me wrong. But the segments vary in length and style. There's a stage where you need to reach a goal in time, there's fighting, there's that segment where you have to avoid hitting all the planets in the solar system until you knock Jubileus into the sun, and then there's a segment where you have to destroy everything before time runs out.

Outside of the first stage of Singularity's boss fight, it's just the same shit over and over and over again. There's another Sin Gomorrah fight which is again just rock-paper-scissors, and also to be perfectly honest it's pretty cheap to do the same trick with Sin Gomorrah again when past games have had some twist on it, or at least something unique to summon. Instead it's basically just the exact same fight as when you used Sin Gomorrah the first time. No changes, nothing to adapt to, nothing unique to this boss. It's the exact same.

Then you move into space, which admittedly is pretty neat even if it's not entirely new ground, and you fight Singularity in face-to-face combat on the moon. Pretty basic. Then he summons minibosses for you to fight, or at least strong enemies with big health bars. Again, really basic. There's nothing here that's making it stand out. There's no explosive kind of finale, it's just really boring. It's just whittling down one giant health bar after another with nothing new to differentiate the fights.

And then you watch a cutscene where all of the Bayonettas that Singularity had absorbed into himself are released, and they help our Bayonetta in kicking the shit out of Singularity. Which is fun to see, sure, but it's just a cutscene. You don't get to play as any of these Bayonettas. You only watch as the cool and unique thing happens on screen. And then it just immediately ends when Singularity wipes them all away. And then Jeanne shows up, and maybe you think that you're going to play as Bayonetta fighting alongside Jeanne again! But it's still just a cutscene! The next time you actually take control of Bayonetta, it's in a one-to-one recreation of the opening fight.

The next two sections are honestly the best part of the fight and I mean that completely unironically. These are the sections where 1 and 2's Bayonettas appear, and then they combine into one. Does it make any sense that 1 and 2 are different Bayonettas when the story makes it clear that they're the same person? Nope! Does it make sense that they just combine? No! But I don't care this fucking rules!

There's something called Rule of Cool, which is basically 'this doesn't make sense and shouldn't work, but it's really cool, so it's whatever.' It's a type of suspension of disbelief that prioritizes fun and fantasy over logic. Bayonetta games thrive on this concept, where no, it shouldn't make sense that Bayonetta should be able to talk to an Angel in the middle of a tornado, or headbutt a building, but we don't care, because it's fucking cool.

But then it just keeps going. And then the absolute final phase is... alongside werewolf Luka. Which just feels so fucking hollow in comparison to the weight that the previous sections had. That's a big issue with this ending, there are so many points where it felt like it could have ended that it just became a cycle of 'what do you mean there's more?!'

You'd think that the section with all the Bayos would be the final one, maybe you'd get to play as all of them in succession in order to round out the story, it was supposedly all about their timelines after all, and get some personal revenge on Singularity while having your mastery over the various weapons and demons tested. But it keeps going. Then with Jeanne you might think, 'oh, it'll be a parallel to 1 where you work with Jeanne to beat the final boss.' But it keeps going. Then you might think, 'oh, this is a recreation of the beginning, but Bayo's probably going to pull through when her other counterpart couldn't!' But it keeps going. Then you get to the section where the other Bayos appear and they combine, and you think, 'okay this HAS to be the ending, it's a perfect place to end both the battle and Bayonetta's story, by playing as all three at once.' But it KEEPS. GOING.

Every time the ending keeps going it cheapens the sections that came before it. There were so many points where it could have, and should have, stopped, and it instead ended on just the lamest final fight. There's nothing unique about the fight alongside werewolf Luka except that you're fighting with werewolf Luka. You don't even summon anything new; you just summon Gomorrah to finish off Singularity. You could argue that they needed to set up Bayonetta's death and Gomorrah turning on her when her contract is up, but there are other ways they could have done that and still had the explosive finishers the other games had. The game is prioritizing its story over the legacy of its series.

Some of you might be tired of me comparing 3 to 1 and 2, and I can understand where you're coming from. A game should be able to stand on its own without constant comparison to its predecessors. But the thing about Bayonetta is that it's a trilogy now. I'm not saying that 'oh, this sequel is different from the first game, therefore it sucks.' I'm trying to say that this game goes back on the pattern set up in the previous two games and suffers immensely for it. Comparisons to the first two titles are inevitable when talking about something like this, especially because Bayonetta is known for its campy, explosive gameplay. It's known for pulling out all the stops. And for this to be the end of Bayonetta as a character? It's a massive disservice. I'd say it's downright disrespectful. Not just to Bayonetta herself, but to the fans who waited years for this game. 

I think the worst thing about this game is... okay, this isn't my original criticism, I saw glanced at it at like, one of those chapter sections on a Youtube video that I didn't watch but saw in the search results looking for something else, and for the life of me I cannot find its original source. If I do, I'll link it in my source section, but I saw this and it really made things click for me. This is not a game about Bayonetta. This is not a game about her, her family, her struggles, her clan, her background. This is a game about a cosmic protagonist meeting other versions of herself while wearing Bayonetta's face. The Umbra and Lumen are mentioned like. Once. All the way at the beginning, where their island of Thule is a hub for multiverse travel. But the thing is... you could completely take out all of the Umbra stuff, all of the very unique lore that Bayonetta has, and nothing would change, because this isn't a story about Bayonetta.

Singularity has no relation to the Umbra or Lumen. The angels and demons barely show up. Inferno and Paradiso and even Purgatorio aren't important. As much as I love Viola, she does feel less like a Bayonetta character and more like a Devil May Cry character. (I think someone really wanted to make their own DMC5.) You could take out the backstory of the witches and the Trinity of Realities and even of the past two games and I don't think anything would change. Because it doesn't matter. Because this is not a game about Bayonetta.

I feel so much about this game, because it could have been something great. But at best, it was a massive disappointment. At worst, it's a game that spits in the face of its fans and destroys the legacy of what came before it. It's like the writers lost sight of what made Bayonetta games so appealing, and instead what we get is an empty echo pulling itself along while reapplying its lipstick.

I haven't played Origins. Unless someone like. Pays me, I don't have any plans to. I haven't heard anyone talk about it. It's like 3 singlehandedly killed any hype for the franchise. I'm sure there will be more games, 3 set up a sequel with Viola, but I have my doubts that it'll even be in the public consciousness for more than a minute. And that's really fucking sad.

So... what can actually be learned from all of this? It's one thing to rail on something, it's another to actually take something away from it. I suppose the best I have is: if you're making something--a book, movie, game, etc.--make sure you understand the core of your characters. Understand what drives the narrative and how they weave into it. Understand their multifaceted natures and how certain character traits manifest when they're interacting with the environment and with other characters. Understand what makes your story unique, what its themes are and how they're presented in the work.

And always remember: if you're ever worried about the quality of your story, especially the ending, know that it can't be more insulting than Bayonetta 3's.

[Sources here because Tumblr won't let me post this many links.]

[dailyadventureprompts]

Monster hunt: I Bear Thee Unto Glory 

A shambling horse shape composed of battlefield pickings, this demon is a manifestation of slaughter, phyrric victory, and the folly of war. Unto Glory ever seeks more opportunities to spread violence and more fools to lead to their doom, sustaining itself off chaos and fear in between wars where it has the opportunity to gorge. Often seen bearing a rider, the thing which sits astride Unto Glory is more often than not an extension of its being, the worn down wreck of a former victim held aloft like a trophy, holding limply to the reigns and serving only as a distraction in combat. Occasionally it will seek out a new rider to drain dry, favouring those haunted by the toll of war or those who seek violence in the excess of reason. 

One of these would be riders was the Compt Duvialt, a would be warmonger who looked greedily upon the lands of his neighbours and heard rumour that any who manage to rein the demon horse would be undefeated in combat. Mustering allies, mercenaries, and a coven of dark mages to his service, the Compt had the beast summoned through blasphamous ritual only to be thrown from the saddle the night the battle was joined. Free of any bonds, the tarnished steed has roamed the lands since, sowing the seeds of conflict the party will inevitably find themselves caught up in. 

Adventure Hooks

The party’s first blush with Unto Glory’s influence comes when they stumble across a village terrorized by a series of violent incidents. Apparently some weeks ago a ragged wanderer came into the tavern clutching a rusty sword and looking like he was barely holding on to life. He muttered something about seeing a horse before lashing out at the stunned onlookers, slaying two before several brave bystanders managed to put him down. A tragedy to be sure, but folk thought not much of it until the smith’s apprentice, who’d been sold the sword as scrap, started screaming about the sound of hooves and hacking at his teacher until the traumatized tradeswoman caved in his skull with a hammer. Now the sword sits locked behind the smithy doors and the people await a priest they’ve called to DO something about it. Do the party pretend they’re the ones that were sent? Wait for the authorities to arrive? Or lay their hands on an obviously cursed object because it might be valuable?

Any who frequent the tourney circuit could tell you of Lady Ruin, the daughter and heir of Duke Marsette who dominates the jousting lists wearing rusted armour to dishonour the showy expenditure of her rivals. What they couldn’t tell you is that Lady Endellise, despite being raised for years to be an exemplary rider and cavalry commander is infact terrified of death and violence, after nearly being killed in a pitch battle during an attempt by one of her family’s rivals to oust them from their seat. Expected to prove her worthiness as heir by continuing to perform martial pursuits, fearful Endellise unwittingly made a pact with the spectral horse that haunted her since they pulled her from the battlefield, earning for her trouble a dross-fit cuirass that eliminates all her fears when worn. Dreading  dishonour and increasingly addicted to the rush she gets when wearing the armour, Endellise risks losing herself to Unto Glory’s influence, becoming increasingly bloodthirsty every time she dons the cuirass

Foiled in war and stripped of many of his lands and titles, the now bitter Baron Duvilat convalesces in a small estate obsessing over riding unto glory once again, spending the dregs of his fortune supporting a few men at arms and paying for any information that might lead him closer to his errant steed, which the party may now possess. Somewhere down the years a few wires were crossed and the baron now also finds himself a fence for of a rotating crews of horse thieves, which the party will ALSO have to trifle with at some point during their hunt.

Further adventures:

Few know of the Duvilat’s dealings with the demonic, as the widespread rumor is that for the sake of his own machisnmo he chose to break a stallion on the eve of declaring war as a symbolic breaking of his enemy… earning a defeat and a broken back in the process.  Thinking that he will never mount unto Glory until he can walk again, the baron has had no luck in finding a healer to restore the use of his legs. As getting back into the saddle seems more and more likely, the baron will result to more and more desperate measures, perhaps kidnapping a healer familiar to the party or paying them to seek out the coven he once employed.  

Though corroded and thoroughly cursed, the metal that makes up Unto Glory’s hide has the ability to confer any bearer with the battle frenzy of dying warriors, making the demon a walking arsenal for those desperate enough to deal with it. Worse yet, the flakes and splinters of the rusting metal carry the very same curse, infecting victims with bloodlust if they survive the wound.  Should the Compt, Lady Endellise, or anyone else manage to ride the beast, they’ll find themselves the figurehead of a force that would see kingdoms laid to waste and possessed of a power to make for themselves an army of fearless berserkers.

[girlactionfigure]

⚠️ FRIDAY - ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

Erev Shabbat - Parshat Barak - Numbers 22:2 - Balak, the king of Moab, summons the prophet Balaam to curse the people of Israel.  Three times, from three different vantage points, Balaam attempts to pronounce his curses; each time, blessings issue forth instead. Balaam also prophesies on the end of the days and the coming of Moshiach (the Jewish messiah).

⚠️ WORLD WIDE COMPUTER OUTAGE .. Israel impact (not a cyber attack - an update error)

ISRAEL EMERGENCY NUMBERS MAY BE DOWN:

MDA 101 - alternatives call Hatzalah 1221 (who report they are operating fine) or 100 police

Electric Company - instead of 103, call 054-5838074 or report on Facebook page.

Working fine: 100 police, 102 fire

Some Israeli companies impacted - may accept only cash or be unable to do business for a while:

Israel Post

Ikea

Delek gas stations

Various hospitals - Shaarei Tzedek reports recovered, normal ops, Hadassah not on the problem list, Asuta Ashdod working fine

   Affected: Hillel Yaffe, Laniado, Barzilai, Sheba, Wolfson, Shamir Assaf Harofeh, Rambam, Ma'aini Hashua, Nahariya, Poria, Bnei Zion, Ziv, the French Hospital in Nazareth, the Italian Hospital in Nazareth

Meuhedet health clinics

Clalit health clinics

Carrefour grocery - cash only

Banks HaPoalim, Leumi, Discount

Bank of Israel

Port of Ashdod completely down to ships and trucks

EL AL reports no impact, they don’t use the affected software.

Unrelated - Globes newspaper hacked (not the web site, the newsroom.)

WORLD IMPACT:

AIR TRAVEL - FAA suspending many flights in the US, Berlin flights on hold, Spain flights on hold.

Sky News having disruptions

⚠️HEZBOLLAH THREATENS.. significant retaliation for recent IDF targeted eliminations.  Northern towns should be on ALERT, take precautions in the north.

▪️RUMORS ABOUT PM.. may suspend trip to the US.  At the same time, “Israeli officials estimate that the Netanyahu-Biden meeting will not take place on Monday as planned”, unclear if due to Biden’s health or US election politics.

▪️FIN. MINISTER.. Sanctions from cabinet on PA officials NOT implemented by IDF and Shin Bet for the last 3 weeks???

▪️FBI USES ISRAELI SOFTWARE.. Washington Post: The FBI hacked into the phone of the assassin of Trump using the software of the Israeli company Celebrity.

▪️ECONOMY.. The Turkish embargo has stopped the import of Hyundai, and it is beginning to seep into Toyota, whose inventory in Israel is also shrinking.

PRESS BRIEFING BY IDF SPOKESPERSON RADM. DANIEL HAGARI - JULY 19, 2024

Overnight, a UAV, which we believe was launched from Yemen, infiltrated from the sea to our west and struck a building in central Tel Aviv. This impact resulted in the death of one civilian and lightly injured eight others. We extend our condolences to the bereaved family and wish a speedy recovery to the injured.

No alert was activated during the incident, and we are thoroughly investigating the matter. Our initial findings suggest the UAV was a Samad-3, an Iranian weapon likely upgraded to extend its range. This UAV flew from Yemen to Tel Aviv. Iran supports, funds, and arms its proxies in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, as evidenced by last night's event. UAV threats have been a constant challenge since the beginning of the war across all our borders. Dozens of UAVs have been launched from Yemen alone, most of which have been intercepted or shot down before entering Israeli territory. The majority were intercepted by an American task force under U.S. CENTCOM, while the rest were intercepted by Israeli Air Force planes or defense systems.

Simultaneously with the Tel Aviv incident, another UAV attempting to infiltrate from the east was intercepted and shot down outside of Israel’s borders. We are investigating the connection between the two incidents.

We are conducting a thorough inquiry to understand why the UAV was not identified as a threat and intercepted before it struck. An initial inquiry was conducted this morning, and we will continue to review the findings and update the public accordingly.

I want to emphasize that our defense is not foolproof. We are strengthening our air patrols and airspace protection across the country. We are continuously improving our capabilities to better protect the citizens of Israel.

There is no change in the Home Front Command directives. Should there be any changes, we will immediately inform the public.

Overnight and this morning, the Chief of the General Staff conducted several situational assessments. We have increased our defensive capabilities in Israel’s skies with additional planes and other measures to improve detection, alert, and interception capabilities. The incident on the ground was managed cooperatively by the Israel Police, Magen David Adom, and the Israel Fire and Rescue Services, who provided vital details for the inquiry.

In the north, the UAV threat is a daily challenge due to short-range launches, differing from last night’s incident. We are studying the northern threat to improve our response. We recognize the ongoing challenges faced by residents in the north.

In the past day, we have eliminated six Hezbollah terrorists and struck fifteen targets from the air and ground in the north.

We are engaged in a multi-front war, operating in all arenas and defending the country's skies daily. We are addressing threats both near and far.

In the coming days, we will continue our situational assessments to understand the incident better, determine the source of the threat, and decide on the necessary defensive and operational responses against those who threaten the State of Israel.

[datcloudboi]

List of video games turning 10 years old in 2023:

Aliens: Colonial Marines (the godawful FPS from Gearbox)

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

Animal Crossing: New Leaf (do people still like New Horizons? I genuinely don't know...)

Antichamber

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (the one where you play as a pirate)

Batman: Arkham Origins (IMO, not bad at all)

Call of Duty: Ghosts

Company of Heroes 2

Disney Infinity

DmC: Devil May Cry (the reboot. PS, c'mon, guys, this game wasn't bad at all)

Don't Starve

Dragon's Crown (developed by Vanillaware, who would go on to make 13 Sentinels, which is one of the best games I've ever played.)

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (the director's cut version of Dragon's Dogma and pretty much the best way to play the game)

Dynasty Warriors 8

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (the relaunch of what is now one of the most successful MMOs of all time)

Fire Emblem: Awakening (in the West)

Fuse

Gears of War: Judgment

God of War: Ascension (the last game in the series before Dad of Boi)

Grand Theft Auto V (old_man.gif)

Killer Instinct (the reboot)

Killer is Dead (a decent hack & slash from Grasshopper Manufacture, the devs behind No More Heroes)

Killzone: Shadow Fall (a launch title for the PlayStation 4)

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon (as part of the Year of Luigi™️)

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (as part of the Year of Luigi™️)

Marvel Puzzle Quest

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (don't fuck with THIS senator!)

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (an excellent JRPG from Level-5 that was also animated by Studio Ghibli)

Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures

Pandora's Tower (one of the last big name games to release on the Wii)

Papers, Please

Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time

The PlayStation 4

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity (the first Pokémon game on 3DS)

Pokémon X and Y (the first 3D mainline Pokémon games)

Project × Zone (a crossover between Capcom, Sega, and Bandai Namco properties)

Remember Me (the first game developed by Dontnod, who would go on to create Life is Strange)

Rune Factory 4

Ryse: Son of Rome (a launch title for the Xbox One)

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner - Soul Hackers

Shin Megami Tensei IV

SimCity (the one that was always online for some godforsaken reason)

Slender: The Arrival

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (the only Sly game not made by the original devs)

Splinter Cell: Blacklist (so far, the last Splinter Cell game to release)

The Stanley Parable

Super Mario 3D World

Tales of Xillia (is this one of the good Tales games or no? I thought it was decent.)

Tomb Raider (the reboot)

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct (an absolutely terrible spin-off of the TV show centered on Daryl)

The Walking Dead: Season Two (or, at least, the first episode of the series)

The Wolf Among Us (or at least, the first episode of the series)

The Xbox One

Ys: Memories of Celceta

[joshuasumter]

What if...The Cross Zone got a lot bigger?

From the creative minds that bought you Namco X Capcom, Project X Zone was released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2012 in Japan and worldwide in 2013, receiving great praise as it bought characters from three legendary game developers -- Capcom, Sega, and Namco Bandai -- to crossed worlds, dimensions, and the fabric of time for the ultimate cross-over tactical RPG mashup!

But what if the cross zone had gotten a whole lot bigger with even MORE titles and are joined by even more characters from surprising guest companies.

What if...The Cross Zone got a lot bigger? explores what would happen if the events of Namco X Capcom, Project X Zone, and Project X Zone 2 occurred differently with the inclusion of characters, worlds, and universes of Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Square Enix, and much more. For example, my fan-made original story movie inspired by the crossover RPG.

The Project X Zone Movie (Capcom x Sega x Bandai Namco x Cartoon Network x Nickelodeon x Disney x Pixar x Square Einx x Channel Federator x Channel Awesome)

The Project X Zone Movie 2: Fate of Many Worlds (Capcom x Sega x Bandai Namco x Cartoon Network x Disney x Pixar x Square Einx x Marvel x Star Wars x Level-5)

NAMCO BANDAI

Namco X Capcom (Reiji Arisu, Xiaomu)

Project X Zone (Mii Koryuji, Kogoro Tenzai)

Tekken (Jin Kazama, Kazuya Mishima, Heihachi Mishima, Ling Xiaoyu, Alisa Bosconovitch)

.hack// (Kite, BlackRose)

.hack//G.U. (Haseo)

Tales of Versperia (Yuri Lowell, Fylnn Scifo, Estelle Sidos Heurassein)

Summon Night 3 (Aty)

Adventure of Valkyrie (Valkyrie, Kurino Sandra, Sabine)

Bravoman (Arnold/Bravoman)

Wonder Momo (Kanda Momo/Wonder Momo)

Soulcalibur V (Natsu)

Soul Edge (Taki, Mitsurugi Heishiro)

Tales of Destiny (Rutee Katrea, Stahn Aileron)

Xenosaga (KOS-MOS, MOMO, Shion Uzuki)

Tower of Druaga (Gilgamesh, Ki)

Shadow Land (Tarosuke)

The Genji and the Heike Clans (Taira no Kagekiyo)

Baraduke (Masuyo Tobi)

Burning Force (Hiromi Tengenji)

Ordyne (Miyuki Chan)

Dig Dug (Taizo Hori)

Klonoa (Klonoa, Guntz)

God Eater (Alisa Ilinichina Amiella, Soma Schicksal, Lindow Amamiya, Ciel Alencon, Nana Kouzuki)

Yumeria (Neneko, Neito)

CAPCOM

Street Fighter (Ryu, Ken Masters, Chun-li, Guile, Cammy White, Ingrid)

Ghosts n' Goblins (Sir Arthur)

Okami (Amaterasu, Issun)

Viewtiful Joe (Viewtiful Joe, Sexy Silvia)

Monster Hunter (Monster Hunter, Felyne, Palico, Gore Magala)

Breath of Fire III (Ryu, Nina, Momo, Garr, Rei, Peco, Honey)

Resident Evil Revelations (Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine)

Resident Evil 6 (Leon S. Kennedy, Helena Harper, Ada Wong)

Resident Evil: Dead Aim (Bruce McGivern, Fong Ling)

Ace Attorney (Phoenix Wright, Maya Fey, Apollo Justice, Athena Cykes)

Darkstalkers(Morrigan Aensland, Demitri Maximoff, Felicia, Hsien-Ko, Donovan Baine, Anita, Jon Talbain, Victor Von Gedenheim)

Dead Rising (Frank West)

Devil May Cry (Dante, Trish, Lady, Nero, Nico)

Bionic Commando (2009) (Nathan Spencer)

Captain Commando (Captain Commando, Hoover (Baby Head), Jennety (Mack the Knife), Sho (Ginzu the Ninja))

Dino Crisis (Regina)

Final Fight (Guy, Mike Haggar)

Mega Man (Rock/Mega Man, Roll, Blues/Proto Man, Rush, Tango, Eddie, Beat)

Mega Man X(X, Zero, Axl)

Mega Man Legends (Tron Bonne, Servbots, Mega Man Volnutt, Roll Casket)

Star Gladiator (June Lin Milliam)

Strider (Strider Hiryu)

Forgotten Worlds (Unknown Soldier 1P, Unknown Solider 2P, Sylphie)

Cyberbots (Jin Saotome, Princess Devilotte de Death Satan IX)

SEGA

Billy Hatcher (Billy Hatcher, Chick Poacher, Rolly Roll, Bantam Scrambled)

Golden Axe (Ax Battler, Gilius Thunderhead, Tyris Flare)

Panzer Dragon (Keil Fluge, Blue Dragon)

Alex Kidd (Alex Kidd, Stella)

NiGHTS into Dreams (NiGHTS)

Skies of Arcadia (Vyse, Aika, Fina, Cupil, Gilder, Enrique, Drachma)

Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, Amy Rose, Shadow the Hedgehog)

Sonic Boom (Sticks the Badger)

Bayonetta (Bayonetta, Jeanne, Viola, Luka)

Virtua Fighter (Akira Yuki, Pai Chan, Kage-Maru)

Fighting Vipers (Bahn)

Shenmue (Ryo Hazuki)

Shinobi (Hotsuma)

Shinobi: Nightshade (Hibana)

Space Channel 5 (Ulala)

Streets of Rage (Axl Stone)

Sakura Wars (Ichiro Ogami, Sakura Shinguji, Gemini Sunrise, Erica Fontaine)

Yakuza/Like A Dragon (Kazama Kiryu, Goro Majima, Ichiban Kasuga)

Resonance of Fate (Zephyr, Leanne, Vashyron)

Valkyria Chronicles III(Kurt Irving, Riela Marcellis, Imca)

Sega Saturn Advertisements (Segata Sanshiro, Sega Shiro (Segata's son))

Shining Force EXA(Toma, Cyrille)

Dynamite Cop (Bruno Delinger)

Zombie Revenge (Rikiya Busujima)

NINTENDO

Fire Emblem Warriors (Rowan, Lianna)

Fire Emblem: Awakening (Chrom, Lucina)

Xenoblade Chronicles (Fiora, Shulk)

DISNEY

Gravity Falls (Dipper Pines, Mabel Pines)

Kim Possible (Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, Rufus)

American Dragon: Jake Long (Jake Long, Trixie, Spud, Fu Dog, Lao Shi)

Darkwing Duck (Drake Mallard/Darkwing Duck)

DuckTales (2017) (Scrooge McDuck, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Webby Vanderquack, Launchpad McQuack)

Phineas & Ferb (Phineas Flynn, Ferb Fletcher, Isabella Garcia-Sharpio, Burford Van Stromm, Baljeet Rai, Candace Flynn, Agent P)

Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja (Randy Cunningham)

Mighty Med (Oliver, Kaz)

Sofia the First (Princess Sofia the First)

Disney's Descendants (Mal, Evie, Jay, Carlos)

Wreck-It Ralph (Vanellope Von Schweetz)

The Simpsons (Bart Simpson)

The Lion Guard (Kion, Bunga, Fuli, Besthe, Ono, Anga)

PIXAR

Brave (Princess Merida of DunBroch)

The Incredibles (Mr. Incredibles, Elastigrl, Violet Parr, Dash Parr, Jack-Jack Parr, Frozone)

MARVEL

Captain America

Iron Man

Thor

Hulk

Black Widow

Hawkeye

Falcon

Vision

Wasp

Captain Marvel

Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel

Black Panther

Spider-Man

Doctor Strange

Iron Fist

Ghost Rider

She-Hulk

Wolverine

Storm

X-23

Future Avengers (Makoto/Hurricane, Chloe/Charade, Adi/Codec, Bruno/Twister)

STAR WARS

Rey

Finn

Poe Dameron

BB-8

CARTOON NETWORK

Ben 10(Ben Tennyson, Gwen Tennyson, Kevin Levin)

Generator Rex (Rex, Six, Bobo)

The Life & Times of Juniper Lee (Juniper Lee)

The Powerpuff Girls (Blossom, Bubbles, Buttercup)

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (Mac, Bloo)

Dexter's Labratory(Dexter)

Samurai Jack (Samurai Jack)

Ed, Edd, n Eddy (Ed, Double D (Edd), Eddy)

OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes (Kaio O. Kincaid (K.O.), Radicles X, Enid Mettle)

NICKELODEON

SpongeBob SquarePants (SpongeBob SquarePants, Patrick Star, Sandy Cheeks)

Fairly OddParents (Timmy Turner, Cosmo, Wanda, Poof)

Avatar: The Last Airbender (Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, Zuko)

Winx Club (Bloom, Stella, Aisha, Techa, Musa, Flora)

El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera (Manny Rivera/El Tigre, Frida)

The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (Jimmy Neutron)

Danny Phantom (Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Jazz Fenton)

My Life as a Teenage Robot (XJ9/Jenny Wakeman)

Glitch Techs (Miko "Me_K.O." Kubto, Hector "High Five" Nieves, Ridley, B.I.T.T., Zahra Rashid)

SQUARE EINX

Kingdom Hearts (Sora, Riku, Kairi, Ventus)

The World Ends with You (Neku Sakuraba, Shiki Misaki, Daisukenojo "Beat" Bito, Raimu “Rhyme” Bito, Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryu, Rindo Kanade, Tosai “Fret” Furesawa, Nagi Usui, Shoka Sakurane)

Final Fantasy (Warrior of Light)

Final Fantasy II (Firion)

Final Fantasy III (Onion Knight)

Final Fantasy IV (Cecil Harvey)

Final Fantasy V (Bartz Klauser)

Final Fantasy VI (Terra Branford)

Final Fantasy VII (Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart, Aerith, Cid, Yuffie) (Kingdom Hearts incarnation)

Final Fantasy VIII (Squall Leonheart) (Kingdom Hearts incarnation)

Final Fantasy IX (Zidane Tribal)

Final Fantasy X (Tidus)

Final Fantasy XI (Shantotto)

Final Fantasy XII (Vaan)

Final Fantasy XIII (Lightning)

Final Fantasy XIV (Y'shtola)

Final Fantasy XV (Noctis Lucis Caelum)

OTHER TITLES

CHANNEL AWESOME

Nostalgia Critic (Nostalgia Critic)

Angry Video Game Nerd (Angry Video Game Nerd)

Atop the 4th Wall (Linkara)

The Angry Joe Show (Angry Joe)

LEVEL-5

Professor Layton (Professor Hershel Layton, Luke Triton)

CHANNEL FEDERATOR

Bravest Warriors (Chris Kirkman, Beth Tezuka, Danny Vasquez, Wallow, Plum, Catbug)

[ac-liveblogs]

Ur right in that Scara-Irmin has more consequences. The reason I say Olorun is better tho is because, A. unlike Scara, we're actually there for his Very Long Suicide Plot. He doesn't vanish offscreen and get replaced by an amnesiac substitute. We meet Olorun, walk with Olorun, complete his evil puzzles, his sui attempt is the climax. B. His onscreen characterisation works with his struggle vs Scara who has half his characterisation stuck in artifact lore.

(2.)Olorun nicknames his veggies, he likes bugs, he doesn’t distinguish between humans and nature. He can run to the wild but, when the Abyss strikes, he cant escape the sight of his ‘failures’. C. Olorun was raised with love, Scara thought he was raised with hate. This makes Scara a standard revenge->sui. But Olorun can’t hate his family. They love each other. He's scared of them dying. He wants approval and control and he gains both my sacrificing himself. I find this much more fresh. (3) D.I find his gap-moe funny. Ifa calls him ‘weird’ bc of his gardening but THAT"s not why he's weird. He seems normy compared to Fish and Razor. At first. Then you realise this idiot has tricked himself into thinking he’s in a pitched sibling rivalry battle with Himself From Another Universe Who Died As A Baby. AND he’s losing! Dead Baby Olorun saved the world, but this Olorun can't even go to war! His shattered soul made him good for 1 thing and bad for everything else. He's doomed. (4) To me, “Vengeance -> Vengeance!" is less fresh than “I want to die so I can finally surpass dead baby me as a person -> maybe I can surpass dead baby me in other ways. That said, my big gripe with Olorun is that his eureka moment is SUPER rushed. Theres no clear point where his martyr-complex-imposter-syndrome-low-self-esteem-survivors-guilt clusterfuck transitions to "Life Good." He's just refuting Citlali's affirmations one second and accepting them the next. Hoyo Y As a reward for wading through my Olorun nonsense, I simply must hear your thoughts on VRAINS's VISIONARY depiction of hacking.

I can't argue with personal opinion! I do agree that Ororon is the easier character to like and sympathise with, and unlike Scaramouche isn't actually frustrating to engage with. I liked his scenes with Citlali. It's just that - exactly as you say - the resolution to his character is WAY too rushed. Personally, if this arc had been spread out over multiple acts and the plan with Capitano had actually gone somewhere, I'd be a lot more on board than I am.

Really feels like Scara and Ororon each got one half of a half-decent plotline, huh? Ororon got the character groundwork, Scara got the… actual stuff happening (lazy stuff, but still stuff, LMAO)

What gets me is that the concept of Ororon - someone that can be possessed by the spirits of the dead in Natlan, where they're uhhhh around in some capacity, someone who feels like he can save Natlan all by himself… this should really work.

Thinking on it, I'd rather he was the one we raced into the Night Kingdom to save rather than Kachina (partially bc Kachina's storyline uhhh lol she's not even the hero rep for her tribe, disrespectful - if they have the guts to kill Xilonen, which I doubt, Kachina better replace her), because man, that last minute "don't sacrifice yourself" mere moments away from someone actually doing it is always a heartwarming classic, right? Despite all my "this lazy emotional beat did not make my heart stir", I'm really not a hard sell…

Ororon has all the pieces to WORK for me, but it doesn't, because Genshin half-assed it as usual… very depressing. But on his gap moe - man, that is NOT the personality I expected for him. Or Citlali! I appreciated that a lot.

On VRAINS…. hahahaha okay oh boy this is where I make an embarrassing admission. I did not watch VRAINS for the plot. I bounced around VRAINS to watch certain duels so I could learn how to Link Summon.

A CERTAIN online Yu-Gi-Oh Video Game has cruelly and brutally nerfed both of the decks I run, and clearly my attempts at valor (not running a deck that requires me to waste approximately two minutes of my opponent's time to set up my field on the first turn) have been rejected, so I figured if I couldn't beat 'em, join 'em. And learn Link seven years late. But also, I hate reading big technical paragraphs of duel strategy so I figured "whatever, that's what the anime's there for…"

I tried with Vrains! I really did! But the pacing of the first few episodes really turned me off, and the way the duels are structured isn't much better… honestly, I get why they had to simplify the duels for Sevens and Go-Rush, bc oh boy they were really struggling with the way the card game's evolved in this one (no wonder they made them do parkour in Arc-V. And also, I do not envy whoever had to write the duels around Salamangreat LMAO). I'm a fake fan and Ai's tomfoolery was my saving grace, I swear (I love Ai. It's a shame @ Ignister is such an incomplete archetype, seriously)

I need to go back and watch it properly at some point, because what I DID pick up from jumping around the later seasons seemed pretty cool in concept. So uhhhh raincheck?

[ninjas-and-coffee]

i draw my ocs about once a year and its November so...

Fayelynn was raised a monk and a scribe witnessing Ninjago history and transcribing it to scrolls in the mountains. She was present to witness the second battle of the Overlord, this event triggered her element which tore her from her work as scribes aren't meant have elements or the ability to influence history. She was eventually sent to the ninja to train to control her ability to summon portals. Her main teacher is Jay while her power is controlled/helped almost solely by Lloyd as they both wield different aspects of energy. Faye is my introduction character to my religious system of lore for ninjago. Almost solely started by wondering why if the fsm created Ninjago is his family not royalty? And how the people on the ground view the ninja over the years. Surely there have been other ninja in the past or a protector of sorts. How many people were aware of the prophecy and how it affected scholars and conspiracy theorists alike while being kept a close-ish guarded secret between the FSM family

Irzu follows/mirrors Zane. His family of crystal users more or less hacked into immortality by using their crystals to slow/stop age progression. After an attack on their clan, Irzu was left wandering the southern Ninjago islands with no memory until Zane found him and asked if he had a home. Zane helps him cope with the fact he may never remember his past while Wu knows damn well his family was assassinated for "defying god" 100 years ago. His source crystal keeps him alive, it is very susceptible to corruption so he has to find peace and meditate a lot to keep his energy pure.

Qi is part of the elemental family of light. Light unlike most elements can have multiple users. Different aspects of light are manipulated by different people. The Pale Man uses reflection to appear invisible. Qi refracts light creating blinding rainbowlike glares. Their grandfather (em during the serpentine war) projected light from himself essentially creating flashbangs. The Wei family uses their gifts to maintain the Temple of the Sun and the village beneath it They can also divine prophecies from the Great Light. The Pale man deflected from his family to be himself and Qi is sent out to go get his cousin. On the journey he touches the Great Light, has a vision, and runs to Master Wu and the ninja to tell them. He helps the ninja with a task and Nya and Cole offer him a room. He doesn't need a teacher but they just want him to loosen up and take a break. They help him get his shit together with his sense of self, a hobby, and a cat.

[afterartist]

any lore you've wanted o share but haven't had an excuse to yet relating to ur aus? :3

OH BOY DO I?!!

Strap ur selfves in, cause I got a lot of lore I wanna talk about :D

(I’ll be sticking to my main 6 tho cause I got way too many aus lmao)

General Lore:

Barrierfall:

Barrierfall is my angstiest AU as many of you know, what some people don’t know however, is that it’s also one of my only True Pacifist a Surface AUs (which kinda makes the fact that all but 3 die sadder but meh)

Magic in this AU is more of a solid thing, it’s why Monsters can create Magical Attacks and Magical food, and in the AU, instead of loosing the ability to use magic, Humans just loose the ability to cast magic themselves and instead have to use items to channel the magic they naturally produce (which is why the items left over by the other human souls have magical aspects)

In Barrierfall Monsters can freely use magic but can’t create it as easily, and Humans create it but can’t use it, this was originally a symbiosis the two species had before the war,

But being locked underground means the monsters were slowly using up all their magic resources, weakening their magic, this is why Frisk has the Reset ability, because they’re not fighting any other magic,

But with the monsters underground, the Humans have a whole lot of magic build up that they’re not using.

So, what happens if you break a window in a submarine?

All the pressure of the water floods in and the sub implodes,

Now, what happens if you break a barrier that’s been stopping any of the magic getting into a basically magic-less cavern?? What happens when a tiny lightbulb is compared to the sun? What happens when a drop of determination is compared to a world of magic??

In other words, here’s the answer to your question everyone who’s been asking why the underground falls and why the reset button is destroyed :D

Spoketale:

The residents of Spoketale know they’re in a game, they’re not supposed to, but when your player is a hacker a few glitches can occur.

386 neutral runs, with various hacking/glitches, Player is curious about how far they can push the characters before something changes, they have however, never done a Genocide or Pacifist route, these glitches can be minor things like; switching item pickups (this is an important lore point to Spoke himself), GodModing and taking no damage, to more impactful glitches,

Like, let’s say… deleting entire characters?? Spoke was right, his papyrus isn’t dead (:

But a side effect of all the glitches is different characters gaining awareness, the story of Spoketale actually takes place where Sans meets Player at the ruins to distract them and buy Alphys and Undyne time to evacuate the underground because they know about the resets and Player (it’s also where Spoke gets the crack in his skull)

Idletale:

If you’ve read the prologue of my fic for Idletale you’ll probably have pieced this together already, but Idletale is set in an AU where Gaster tried to create fake human souls (similar to Handplates) by taking a 16th of a human soul and injecting it into a Host’s soul, after various tests it’s found that a single trait being injected will just overwhelm the soul and kill the host, but with two human traits they cancel each other out allowing the 3 souls to synergies

The three survivors of these tests are Sans (Idle) Papyrus and Undyne,

Sans getting Patients and Justice

Papyrus getting Bravery and Integrity

Undyne getting Kindness and Perseverance

All of them are able to summon the items attributed to the soul traits (yes Idle can summon a gun whenever he wants and yes it’s a horrible idea- who let him do this-)

Another side effect of these tests being that each host can see their soul traits (they can’t see the others only their own)

Sans calls herself a Pb&J Sanswitch much to the chagrin of Patients and Joy of Justice

They’re also able to switch out with their hosts (not this is not DID, I’m not trying to make it an allegory for any disorder) which strengthens certain attacks depending on who’s at the helm

Furcatetale (Rivper):

Not too much lore to tell here, but Rivper himself was the first Sans to receive one of ‘The Keys’, the Integrity Key, given to him by his River Person (due to his Gaster being a massive dick (and the reason Rivper ended up with a half melted Integrity Soul) Riverperson basically adopted Rivper as their own)

The key and internship as a riverperson is why Rivper acts as a multiverse taxi, being able to take anyone to any AU they want (as long as either Rivper or the Passenger have been there before) for 5G,

Their Ferry is also a Gaster blaster (I’ll draw a sketch of it or smthn if y’all r interested)

Helicaltale:

Heck yeah I love this world so much,

Basically helicaltale takes place where after the war, instead of being sealed underground the Monsters were chased away from the safety of MtEbott and instead took refuse in the desert, setting up basically a tent city,

The Humans then placed a curse on them that they can never touch sunlight (I though of this after 47 hrs straight of Minecraft playing so think of how hostile mobs burn in sunlight and that’s basically what happens)

When Sans was 12 (Papyrus being 7) a sickness ran through the camp (it was called ‘The Sunlight Sickness’ cause I thought it sounded cool but now I can think of a better name :/) and during that time the cost of medicines rose 10fold (there’s more lore here but I’ll mention it later in the TW side of this post)

Climatetale:

First things first- basically the polar opposite of Barrierfall where everyone is alive!! Including the human souls

In the AU all the Souls including Frisk and Chara are alive and around the age of 23 (THIS IS FOR JOB/DRIVING REASONS- NOT FOR SHIPPING YOU DEGENERATES. do not use the characters ages as an excuse to ship, both Chara and Frisk are Asexual/Aromantic in this AU, don’t be nasty.)

And all of the Souls work for their Collage newspaper/as reporters, aiming to uncover the truth about the Monsters of Myth.

There was no war in this AU, and similar to Reapertale, a Climatetale monsters are based off ‘things’, Natural Phenomena and Natural Disasters, for Example Sans is based off a Lightning Sprite, Papyrus is based off lighting, Unydne is based off Tsunamis and Alphys is based off Asteroids (cause I think a Dino adjacent character being based off meteors hilarious)

Also, instead of an underground, Mt Ebott erupted Centuries ago (thx Asgore) and its basin cooled and became a massive sinkhole oasis that all of the Monsters live in peacefully,

Frisk and Chara being the first humans they meet in decades

And now onto some of the sadder stuff,

This is bits or lore that are much more confronting, not all my AUs have this,

None of this is too integral so you can stop reading here if the following Trigger Warnings are too upsetting

TW: Suicidal Ideation, Child Abuse/Neglet

Barrierfall:

Despite his vitriol to Ink, Barrier actually blames himself for the loss of his AU,

He was also forced to kill his Papyrus, so survivors guilt and just guilt in general eats at him,

He was the one given the warning by his future self that he didn’t listen to, he was the one that entrusted his AU’s safety to a stranger, he was the one that got himself permanently banned from the Omega-Timeline cutting himself off from the only two other survivors forever,

He says he blames Ink and he’s hunting the creator down for revenge, but honestly, he’s looking for an easy excuse to end up dead,

He knows he can’t beat Ink, he just hopes going into an unwinnable fight would be a step forward in making up for his sins

(Which is stupid cause it’s not his fault but the dumb dumb can’t get it through his thick skull)

Spoketale:

Spoke is cannonicaly dead, while his Papyrus isn’t, Spoke is,

He died when confronting the Player in the Ruins, taking a knife to the eye that killed him near instantly,

Only due to a glitch caused by Players hacking was he able to use a monster candy and restore his HP, leaving him at 10/1HP permanently, but he’s never mentioned it too anyone, not even his papyrus or any of his other friends, too scared that as soon as he acknowledges it, the game codes will realise the glitch and kill him for good,

Never telling anyone about his fears bring mass paranoia making him much more likely to attack when getting defensive

He’s also deathly afraid of reaper sans (pun intended)

Helicaltale:

Remember how I brought up the Sunshine Sickness?? Well it shouldn’t be too bad, their Gaster works in a top level lab in the city with humans to try and find a cure for the curse, making more money then he could ever want

The problem is, he’s always in the city, surely sans is old enough to look after himself and his brother, why would they need a parental figure to take care of them? Phone calls? No, only an email once a month, if lucky

Sure, maybe Gaster doesn’t even know how old his kids are, but it can’t be that bad right??

Papyrus gets sick.

With not enough money for both food and medicine, sans is forced to seek out help from the black market, eventually selling his right eyelight (using it allows the buyer the same teleportation ability sans has) in exchange for the medicine for papyrus,

He’s 12 when he looses his eye, his father never notices, he doesn’t tell anyone, papyrus gets better

This is what inspires Papyrus to join the Royal guard, wanting to protect sans the way he protected him, it’s also what inspires sans to become a magical items trader in the black market (with a strict rule that he doesn’t deal with anyone who hurts kids)

It’s also how he eventually ends up with his own Key, the Bravery Key was given to him in a box along with the orange Glass Eye (this was actually a trade he made with Frisk who needed medicine for their sibling Chara who got sick with Sunshine Sickness as the two had first come to the Underground Tent City)

Anywayssss that’s it for this lore drop

I’m too lazy to actually create in-depth and we’ll thought out lore but I hope this is interesting none the less :D

Also,

WHERE DO YOU ANNONS KEEP COMING FROM??!

[tgrailwar-zero]

Can we remember anything about Tohsaka?

Normally, based on past experiences... it'd be difficult. But having spent some time digging up your memories of GILGAMESH- pulling up details of his Master was easier. It was more like sifting through an old, disorganized library- unlabeled and chaotic, but there was something about the name that stood out.

If the question of 'Master Aptitude' ever came up, the name 'RIN TOHSAKA' would often be spoken of as one of the top contenders. Her ability to summon a 'top Servant' like GILGAMESH was proof enough… but who knew, maybe she could wield the might of great heroes like KING ARTHUR or CU CHULAINN as well.

She was one of the Masters that could be considered a shoe-in for victory, in almost all regards.

Strategic combat sense. Talented hacking ability. Strong magic circuits, despite allegedly coming from a defunct family of Magi. The odds of her winning the war were high- which made her a target for many Masters during the battle royale… which allowed her to swiftly take out any reckless opposition using her Servant. Essentially, she was a 'venus flytrap' of a young woman, bold and unapologetic. Part of that seemed to draw feelings of... irritation within you.

One of the few people who could summon a 'cheat Servant', be massively debuffed, and yet still end up as one of the most feared Masters of the Lunar Holy Grail War. However, the more you thought about her in terms of actual experiences... the blurrier things got.

[yasashiinaya]

horror movie

Okay new idea for a movie. A group of friends/acquaintances go investigate a murder mansion. specifically the murderer's mansion in yugioh duel 31. but like none of the yugioh characters are there, I'm just reusing the location.

Okay so the cast is as follows: Girl that likes makeup and is scared of spiders Her boyfriend, a cishet white guy named Chad Overweight person of colour with no discernable personality traits. Nerd guy that knows everything about mansions Cosplay girl dressed as lara croft (she has removable clothing) bad guy cast: evil murder werewolf jeff the kriller, evil butler clown joe biden The plot: Friend group enter mansion. they begin searching for clues about paranormal activity. they get stuck in some trap and realize they're trapped in the mansion and now they want to leave. cosplay girl makes some comments about how Chad finally experiences oppression for the first time. Chad is deflecting and then person of colour chimes in with "mhmm" and then nerd guy tells him that he always has everything in life. After a brief intermission of misogyny, girlfriend with makeup is banished to the attic to seek clues about how to leave. she is mauled by the werewolf. Person of colour then goes "hell naw" and talks about how his dad died in the vietnam war (this is meant to be a funny moment but critics and internetizens will call this weird 10 years after release) Nerd guy uses his laptop to plug into the mainframe so he can hack all the doors open. he then hacks into clown joe biden's brain chip to make him constantly whistle the soviet anthem so they always know where he is. Chad suggests that everyone splits up so they can get out faster. everyone except person of colour thinks this is a guy idea because he is "fluffy" and can't outrun the demons. they split up and suddenly a SCREAM. then soviet anthem whistles. the scream was cosplay girl walking into a web of spiderwebs and subsequently peeing herself. she removes her clothing off camera and changes into a different outfit (scary hatsune miku)

Finally everyone meets up in the hand guillotine area. The werewolf looms. cishet white guy chad sheds a tear. he begins making out with the werewolf. He begins monologuing about how everyone always assumes so much about him and that he's fed up with his friends. He nuzzles the werewolf's chest and explains that he's actually bisexual and the werewolf has been his gay lover for the past year. werewolf goes "it's actually messed up that you guys know nothing about chad. how could you even call him a friend?" The monologue continues. Chad says that he isn't even cis. he wears baggy clothes cause he couldn't afford top surgery and binding has damaged his ribs. he's also hispanic but white passing. more tears are shed. the nerdy guy aplogoizes and admits that he's been corrupted by twitter. Werewolf and chad then summon their knives. They murder the "friends". They leave the murder mansion and begin emptying the debit cards of the fallen. Chad can now afford top surgery and books an appointment. The werewolf and chad kiss in the moonlight and live happily ever after.