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On Time And Memory

AND WE'RE BACK!

This week we're doing a thematic comparison about how our memory of the past impacts how we perceive our present. In a surprise for us both, we had a lot of positive things to say about Krist Perawat. We're talking about trauma and how we connect to wounded characters this week with Tokyo In April Is... and Be My Favorite.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00 - Welcome 01:16 - Intro 03:10 - Tokyo In April Is... 11:01 - TIAI: Comparisons with the manga 14:15 - TIAI: Strength of execution 26:23 - Be My Favorite 34:00 - BMF: The time travel mechanic 44:47 - BMF: Dings 52:57 - BMF: Jittirain and Gawin and Krist 01:00:58 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

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01:16 Introduction

Ben

And we're back.

NiNi

Welcome, welcome, to our On Time and Memory episode. And why are we calling it On Time and Memory? Well, we're back in the second chance romance space. And when we're in second chance romance space it always ends up somehow being time fuckery versus head fuckery. So [laughs] what are we talking about this episode? We're gonna talk about time fuckery in Be My Favorite, and headfuckery in Tokyo In April Is…

Ben

I think for both of these shows you have characters who are emotionally stunted by their feelings for each other that they don't deal with for years. In Tokyo In April we have a story about two boys who were very close in high school, and a troublesome event separates them, and they don't run into each other again for…ten years. And there's a lot to unpack in the trauma between the two of them that we'll get into in the episode. With Be My Favorite, we have a young man who, approaching 30, isn't really doing anything and is still caught up in his bullshit from when he was in college. Until a magical McGuffin allows him to go back in time to college and re-experience some of these events—with a very strict time travel mechanic that I really liked how it was used.

Both of these shows offer us some interesting things to talk about with how we perceive the events around us, and how that tends to linger with us and inform who we become.

NiNi

Okay so let's dive right in.

03:10 - Tokyo In April Is…

NiNi

And now we're going to talk about Tokyo In April Is... Ben, what is Tokyo In April Is… about?

Ben

Fundamentally, at its core it seems to be a show about nostalgia? But the description of the setup is, this young man named Takizawa Kazuma is returning to Tokyo after being away for ten years. He left at the end of middle school, finished his studies in America, and is returning to Japan as a pretty well-trained human resources professional and is joining some sort of company that's got office space in a tower. There he runs into another guy who's his age named Ren, who was his friend when he came back to Japan originally when he was a teenager, and they haven't seen each other in ten years. We learn over the course of the show that they were each other's first big loves, and they were each other's first experience sexually. But that encounter ended on a rather sad note for them as Kazuma ended up sick—had to be rushed to the hospital. The relationship became public knowledge to their families, and then Ren was summarily disowned by his family, kicked to France, and forgotten, only to eventually return to Tokyo.

The two of them have a difficult way to go because Ren doesn't want to talk about what happened when they were 15, and Kazuma—who had a horrible bout with pneumonia and I believe meningitis?—he ends up not really remembering what happened after that night. He and Ren end up in an intimate situation, and Ren establishes a friends with benefits arrangement for them. And Kazuma decides to be patient with this so Ren can work through what he needs to as the two of them become closer.

Ren also gets involved in a very Me Too era storyline with his work, where one of the women that he works with discloses that she was a victim, and that another member of the team was recently victimized. That the perpetrator has been preying upon the female staff at the company for over a decade. Two like really big threads in the show and I got a little bit lost towards the end there. But, the core of the show is about the…I guess it's sort of a second chance romance? Between Kazuma and Ren.

NiNi

I think we came down on opposite sides of this one, so I want to let you go first. How did you feel about it? What was your take on the show?

Ben

Overall I ended up liking this show a lot—and I tend to like shows that hearken specifically to things that I think are distinctly queer, also distinctly very male queer, because despite how femme our friend group is [laughs] and how many femmes are on Tumblr, I watch BL because I am a gay man who likes stories about gay men. And so I really connected to the youth portion of the story, where both of them were in love with the other, but couldn't conceive of a reality where the other boy also liked them back. And I really like how earnest that felt? Maybe I'm projecting a little bit of the manga onto this, I think it's a little more explicit in the manga, because we get more internal monologues? But I really like how that felt. The reality of that being snatched away from them at 15 was also something I connected to, having something really special and then having it basically ripped from you. In my case by circumstance, but them by being literally outed.

And then when they get together as adults again, I really appreciate Kazuma’s patience with Ren. I think it's very difficult sometimes to care about someone who's clearly suffered—and you'd like to help but it isn't necessarily your problem to solve or your angst to unpack? Sometimes you just have to love someone very firmly, until they start to settle down a little bit. And I also really liked Ren's friend Ryunosuke, who he met when he was in Paris. I really liked in episode…7? Seven, when he reads Kazuma for filth—because he can't conceive of a reality where Kazuma doesn't understand what happened to Ren. It's less of a thread in the show, but Ryunosuke and Ren identify as gay, which carries political connotations. Kazuma doesn't necessarily think of himself as queer in any way, and so as a result he doesn't seem to consider the social, economic, and political ramifications of being gay, and how that impacts his feelings for Ren. Ryunosuke has been with Ren for ten years, has cared about Ren, has tried to be more than just friends to Ren, unsuccessfully, multiple times—that's text. And he hates Kazuma because this is the person who is the source of this huge knot that's got his friend locked up. And when you meet Kazuma, you understand instantly why Ren likes him. If I were Ryunosuke I would hate Kazuma even more [laughs] because he's so likable.

NiNi

[laughs]

Ben

You would almost want Kazuma to be a selfish prick who didn't appreciate what Ren gave up for him. But the fact that Kazuma is so earnest and gorgeous and naive and kind, makes you hate him even more because you can see what Ren may have been trying to protect. And he succeeded! Oh, I would hate that so much!

[both laugh]

Ben

And so I really, genuinely loved Ryunosuke’s confrontation with Kazuma about that. I also really liked their domesticity. Because Japanese BLs are always using food as a love language. Food is love is a very common theme, especially when you have so many tsundere seme types, or even ukes who can't necessarily say the things that need to be said, but they can make a mean souffle. Ren doesn't have cooking skills. He's so stunted by what happened to him that he is missing love languages. The only thing he can really do is quality time and physical affection, but even then he's super restrictive about it with his rules.

I enjoyed a lot of the gay shit in this that sticks with me.

11:01 TIAI: Comparisons with the manga

NiNi

Okay, so here's a question. I did not read the manga, manga's not really my thing, but you read the manga before you went into the show. Do you think that that influenced your experience of the show in any way?

Ben

The simple answer is yes? It's kind of hard not to…when you know the story, you're watching it differently. And that's true for anybody who read source novels watching adaptations, or saw the original work when it's been adapted to another language or something. Your prior familiarity does impact your viewing experience. I will say in the case of Tokyo In April Is…the show is better, significantly. Whatever I would rate the show, it is a full point higher than I would rate the manga. The manga…is, one, way more erotic, and it uses eroticism kind of poorly sometimes? And there's one particular one that is extremely distasteful. There's other really tactful changes they made to the source material. Some of it was just moving the reveals of certain information around for better coherence.

I think the show is significantly better than the source work. Not in a way that makes me want to say the source work is bad, but very much when they were adapting they were like, [laughs] ‘we have to move some of these pieces around and restructure some of this.’ Some of the stuff when they were kids is far more explicit. They have to say it because they're not relying on the actors to deliver it. So Kazuma being as in love with Ren as Ren was with him is far more legible in the manga I think? And, like that scene on the roof where they're talking about having girlfriends: Kazuma in his own internal monologue in the manga says he's just going to say what straight people are supposed to say, because he thinks it would be embarrassing to admit how much he likes Ren. I don't think that's as legible in the show. Unfortunately.

NiNi

Yeah, and it's strange because the show does use internal monologues, so I'm not sure why it wouldn't have used internal monologues to get those bits across.

Ben

There's this weird dynamic with trying to be a little bit subtle about certain things? Less explicit sometimes about the queer stuff—with the main couples—that I don't know what the party line is on this, because they didn't have a problem doing with Ryunosuke, but he doesn't have any romantic potential, so they can say it for him. He can say the thing, because he's not getting anybody's booty in this show, so whatever. But like there's a whole thing with Kazuma and Ren that was only alluded to in the show.

I think the young actors are fine, but I don't think that they necessarily conveyed on their own, the missing bits of the internal monologue that I think should have been voiced over.

14:15 TIAI: Strength of execution

NiNi

Yeah. And that's kind of my whole thing with the show? So, Ben and I, I think, fell on opposite sides of this particular one. I thought that this was written really well; I am not sure that it was performed well. Or performed in a manner that grabbed me, let's put it that way. Intellectually I feel the tragedy of the story, but I'm not feeling any of it? And I think the performances had something to do with it, and I think a little bit of it was the staticness of the direction. This is the same team that did Our Dining Table, which is also based on a manga, but that show does not feel as static in the direction as the show does. Sometimes the whole manga styling, it works for me—they linger on a shot and it's very clear that that was like, a full page panel, or something like that? Sometimes that works for me with Japan, and sometimes it doesn't.

Some of the times that it's worked for me have been, like, Our Dining Table and What Did You Eat Yesterday? But then there are times that it didn't work for me, like here, and The Pornographer. It's the same kind of like static direction, but the acting is not coming through in the same way as it did in Our Dining Table and What Did You Eat Yesterday? I felt at an emotional distance the whole time I was watching the show. It was very clear what I was supposed to be feeling, because the writing's very good. It's partially the staticness of the direction, but it's really the fact that the actors aren't acting through that direction.

To be fair, when I'm talking about Our Dining Table and What Did You Eat Yesterday? I’m talking about Iijima and Inukai, talking about Uchino and Nishijima, these are top tier actors. These actors are very new. They've clearly been through the training, but they didn't bring out, for me, the emotionality that I would expect to get in a story like this—because this is a very tragic story. It's a tragic story with a happy ending, which is nice, but I neither feel the tragedy nor the joy. I can see that I'm supposed to feel it. The writing is telling me that I'm supposed to feel it. But I'm not feeling it, it's just not hitting for me, I wasn't getting enough of the inner from the performances. And it wasn't coming through in any other way. So if I'm not getting the inner from the performances I have to get it in some way, through a dynamism in the direction, or something in the set design, and I didn't get it through any of those means that I would normally use to soak up a vibe from a show? I wasn't getting that normal kind of pull that I would that I would usually get, that would suck me into something. Objectively it's good, but it didn't touch me? The production did not capture the depth of the story, for me.

Ben

I like Japanese static framing, because sometimes I think you have to just sit in whatever situation you're in. And sometimes that's really fun, like all of the fun eating around a table in What Did You Eat Yesterday? or Our Dining Table. Sometimes it's not fun. When you're watching Kazuma respect Ren's boundary, not asking a question that needs to be answered in a show like this. I totally see what you mean with the set design, about how things feeling kind of generic and bland. But I also feel like that's sort of the point, like, Kazuma is recently back in Tokyo. And the very first thing I thought about his place was that it was too big. But I feel like that's also the point. Missing part of himself because Ren has been gone for so long, and he's willing to provide so much space for Ren. I liked the use of earth tones in the few things that he did have, to ground his place and make it feel more alive than Ren's own place, which was so forgettable.

NiNi

Yeah, this is what I'm saying: normally in Japan, the set design, it pulls you in, the sets say so much about the characters.

Ben

But I feel like that's the point here! The lack of definition from their physical spaces is part of the point, that they're both so ungrounded. With Kazuma’s space in particular…the whole domestic episode of theirs, we kept calling it the What Did You Eat Yesterday? homage episode—but that also feels like sort of the point. That Kazuma is trying to model what he hopes will be helpful for Ren.

NiNi

I just feel like, if it's intentional, then when things shift between them, that it should then change. Because I could have bought the sterility of both of their places at the beginning of the story as intentional, and demonstrating how stuck they both are, that they can't even extend themselves to their surroundings because they're stuck in this moment that happened ten years ago. I could buy that as an argument. But then when they become unstuck, I feel like I want to see that reflected in some way. The story doesn't get there, because when they're moving in together, we only see like the barest bit of their place, and it just looks the same.

So I can take your point and buy your argument, but then to me, they missed a trick towards the end of the show by not making it clearer that now they are unstuck, and their lives can begin, and their lives together can begin, so their surroundings should start to match the new vibe that they're building together, to me anyway.

Ben

I do get that, I just don't know that I want them to do that in either of their apartments. Because both of their apartments look and feel temporary to me. And I'm really okay with the show starting where we began, with Kazuma on the street reminiscing about Tokyo, with the reveal that now he's with Ren and they're walking off together, and now they can casually talk about their time as teens. I'm okay with them completely starting over.

Like I take your point. It just didn't bother me because of how it instantly read to me. Like everything seemed off, and that felt intentional.

NiNi

When we were talking about this a little bit earlier you brought up pulps. Because you know how I feel generally about the pulps. I'm most familiar with the Thai pulps and the rhythms of the Thai pulps, so I can point to a Thai pulp and be like ‘that's a pulp.’ But normally you have to like, guide me into realizing that something from somewhere else is a pulp, because I don't have the same familiarity with the rhythms. This now, you described it as a Japanese pulp, and I had to sit with that for a minute, because I'm like ‘oh okay, is this what it is, is this what I'm feeling?’

Ben

We talked about this a little bit. This is not me reading you, don't take it as such.

NiNi

Why would I ever? If you're going to read me, you're going to tell me you’re reading me.

Ben

I will read you on this podcast, but I’m not reading you here. I just think, like one of the things that I've gotten used to as a queer cinema viewer is: we don't get big budget money, we don't get big actors in our stuff. And if we do, it's like, ‘this is their formative work! Look how bad they were in 1992!’ I get used to a certain raw quality or newness with these actors? And I am not put off by it. I appreciate that they were willing to do the work, and I appreciate when they take the work seriously. Like at no point do I think that Sakurai Yuki and Takamatsu Aloha are afraid of each other. And afraid to play two men who are into each other. And I have felt that from Japanese actors…we get the sense that they're not necessarily comfortable working with their male co-star. I did not feel that here from these guys, I just felt inexperience. And I don't begrudge people the experience they don't have. I care about the work that they're trying to do.

This is a very poignant story about a very specific kind of relationship, that I think is fairly familiar for a certain type of queer viewer who has dealt with familial homophobia and the consequences of being discovered at a young age? Something else the show did that the manga didn't—the manga doesn't do much develop Kazuma’s despair at Ren leaving, and it's one of the things that I really like in the show, because he was very strictly adhering to Ren's rules…about not asking questions that Ren didn’t want to answer, obeying the rules about their intimacy, even though Ren was modifying them, breaking them or changing them on the fly. And you can see how he turns into this shell of himself because Ren's gone. That was so well done, the manga does not develop that at all.

NiNi

Ben's like, ‘inject the sadness directly into my veins!’ [laughs]

Ben

I need to know these gay boys have been through the suffering! And the knowing, it's my favorite part. There's also the mom. The mom is way better in the show. There's a bitterness about the whole resolution with the mom, that is correct in the show. In the manga they make it seem like…it's almost comedic that she separated them for ten years? The conversation she has in the show with the other woman, about how strong their love is and how special it is and why she separated them? Yeah, she has that with the boys in the manga. I hated that shit. I'm so glad she had that conversation away from the boys.

The show is better. I gave the show a 9, I would have given the manga like an 8.

NiNi

It’s hard for me to talk about this show because intellectually I got it, but I still felt mid about it. It is well done. It's well written, it does not look cheap. They put work into the show. It's very clear that everybody from top to bottom on this production put the work in. But it didn't hit me.

Ben

It’s okay, I think, for a viewer to recognize the quality of a story, the intent of a story, but to not necessarily personally connect to it.

NiNi

So you gave it a 9, I would say…objectively it's a 9 show, I would agree with you there. It just, these are two different 9s, let's put it that way.

Ben

[laughs] I get that these are not currently the most compelling actors you've seen. But we're seeing a lot of people early in their careers, when it's cheaper to maybe hire them for these things. And I'm okay with this being some of the first work that people do.

NiNi

So Ben gives it a 9, I give it a 9, that's a 9 for Tokyo In April Is…

26:23 - Be My Favorite

NiNi

Ok Ben, so let's talk Be My Favorite. We, well I, had no intention of watching this, you were going in hostile…Ben, tell the people, what is Be My Favorite about?

Ben

Be My Favorite is about Krist Perawat’s redemption arc. No, Be My Favorite is about this young man named Botkawi, who is thirty years old and still stuck in all of his mess from when he was still a student. He is invited to the wedding of the girl that he has had a crush on for ten years—who he has never really spoken to—has an entire crisis about it, then a magic uncle gives him a plot device to travel back in time to try and change his future. Along the way he ends up realizing that he didn't really understand any of the relationships in his life, and because this is a BL, ends up with the guy who Pear, the girl he was into, was going to marry.

Honestly, describing the show's plot is going to make it sound really silly, but fundamentally it was a show about the importance of kindness, and just choosing to be a little bit decent to people, even when it didn't feel like it benefited you at all. And how that can have transformative effects in the lives of everyone around them.

NiNi

I think that's a good descriptor, and I think you're right that if you just dryly explain what the show is about, it seems like it's a little silly—but it was really really affecting, I found it quite deep and quite emotional in a lot of ways. Kawi is a loser, but he's a loser because he chose to be. He got into his head that he was a loser and he just cut himself off from all the people in his life, and sort of manifested his own loserdom. When we meet Kawi, like we can see that, because people are trying to be his friend, people are trying to be close to him, people are trying to socialize with him and have him as part of their crew, their group, their whatever, and he is just not having it. He's stuck in his own head and his own sadness and his own perception of himself? And the way that his life has gone? And he can't seem to unstick himself.

The catalyst for him starting to unstick himself is when this wedding invitation arrives. That's when you start to get the full story of how Kawi even landed up here. You get to go back in time with him to the point in time when the decisions that he made landed him here. He thinks of it as nothing having worked out for him for twelve years, but what it really is in actuality is that he hasn't tried anything in twelve years. He's just allowed himself to become this sad sack of a person, and just told himself that he was a loser.

The show is very…it delves into the idea of how you can turn your perception, however misguided it is, into your reality. It's a lot about not being able to see the good things that are in your life, only being able to see the bad. There’s a few threads in there that are interesting that the show runs with: threads on alcoholism and binge drinking, threads on decentering yourself from other people's stories. There is a lot the show says about being an active participant in your own life. I thought it was a really interesting show, and well done. Well written, well produced, well directed, and very well acted, I think. I did not go into this as a Krist fan, because I did not think that he was a good actor. And I was very surprised and quite pleased with his chops in this. I love Fluke Gawin, I think he ascended to another level in this particular show. I think he put more of himself into this show than he has into some of his other roles, and I was impressed already with some of his other roles.

Ben, what did you think about it?

Ben

I went into this show…ambivalent? Many of us in the BL-sphere had fallen out of favor with Krist, and I'm also really hit or miss with Jittirain's work, because I don't like how much lying is a big part of her stories. I was really surprised by how much lying was not part of the story of this. This show cared so much about earnestness. It was very determined for people to say what needed to be said to each other, and begged people to treat each other kindly.

One of the things that I really liked early in this show was that three different characters confessed to each other in this love triangle. Pear has a crush on Pisaeng, Pisaeng has a crush on Kawi, Kawi has a crush on Pear. They all reject each other, and it ends up improving their friendships, because now that nobody is withholding their feelings for fear of rejection, they can treat each other properly again. They did the thing that Korean stuff does a lot, which demands that people confess, but they did it in a way that showed that it's actually beneficial, and it can get better for people after you confess, even when you're rejected. I thought that was really really lovely. The show just begs you to choose kindness, to be a little bit nicer to people. To not be so selfish.

And I was not expecting that [laughs] from a Jittirain adaptation with such an unlikable character in Kawi? Because Kawi was not an easy character to like on the front end of the show. It felt very…calculated in the casting, to use an actor that had such a complicated relationship with the BL community? Who starts off so unlikable, and then to make us like him over the course of the show, by letting him grow and change, and letting us grow along with him. Like that was really restorative, in a way that I am genuinely floored by. We didn't want to like him in the beginning, but I genuinely cared about him by the end of the show.

34:00 BMF: The time travel mechanic

NiNi

Let's talk a little bit about the time travel, Ben, because I think that the time travel mechanic is kind of important to the story. So, let's break down a little bit how they do the time travel.

So like you said, there's a McGuffin object that they use, one of those little music boxes thingies? And when you turn the music box the first time, nothing happens. But then the next time that you turn the music box, you are taken back in time to the first point at which you turned the music box. From then on, you're slingshotting back and forth between two points in time, which is the last time you turned the music box in the past, and the last time you turned the music box in the future.

Ben

The big thing with the time travel mechanic is that you're not in a Groundhog Day story. You're not reliving the same day over and over again. This is not about Kawi having to keep retrying the same moments over and over again. The big thing with the time travel mechanic is that you create a checkpoint in the future and a checkpoint in the past, but every time you go back to one area or another, you're still moving forward. So he comes back to when he first buys the snow globe. He goes back the first time to when he bought it and he tries to give it to Pear, but once he tries to go back to the future after the first jump, whenever he goes back, he's back to wherever he was after he attempted to give it to her. So he has to keep moving forward; he gets one redo of what he did before. And so he's still forced to live with the consequences of his choices, he can't just keep trying over and over again. That's also kind of a metaphor? You can maybe mess up something once, and try again with people? Before they're like, ‘okay well this is who you are,’ and then they leave you alone.

I really liked this particular time travel story, because so much about jumping forward for Kawi represented where he was in the moment. So the first time he thinks he's accomplished all the things he came to, to do, like save his dad, become friendly with Pear, etc, and he jumps forward—his life is a mess. Because he was overindulgent when he was last in the past, and that played out to him becoming an alcoholic in the future, who was not great in his relationship with Pear, because he hadn't really committed to being in the relationship with Pear, he just wanted to have the relationship. And this caused friction with all the other people in his life. Particularly Max, his gay bestie, who was one of the first relationships he fixed. Like, he had stopped hanging out with his gay bestie because people were like ‘are you guys, like, homo because you guys are besties?’ So he avoided Max to avoid conflict with other people. But he fixes his relationship with Max, and Max ends up staying by his side through most of the timelines that we get to see in the future.

But a big part of the way this time travel mechanics works, by like—you move forward in both the future and the past—it forces Kawi to be present in either place while he's there. And he eventually learns the theme of the show, which is, live a life that you won't feel like you need to change. We get a great use of this towards the end when Pisaeng, in a moment of fear about Kawi potentially dying, jumps back to the past to try and somehow fix it. Kawi clocks him as a time traveler right away, but they end up revisiting like their first proper date? And end up facing each other as two time travelers trying to fix their past. Kawi really rises to that moment, and tells Pisaeng, ‘don't worry about it.’ I found that in particular to be really satisfying. That for somebody like Kawi who could only see the world negatively, by the end of the show he's able to give his partner—who is incredibly optimistic as an individual, who's facing a really terrifying loss in potentially losing him—the courage to face that eventuality, and say that our lives are still worth living and enjoying even if they might be a little bit short. Which is…kind of a heavy theme for the kind of upbeat Friday BLs that GMMTV likes to do.

So. I was really impressed with the way they handled the time travel mechanic in this. I think it offered a lot to the storytelling, I don't think this show works as just a relationship show otherwise, I think the fact that it's a time travel show is the only reason this particular story functions. And that makes me very fond of it as a result.

NiNi

Yeah, I like all of the time travel mechanic work specifically because one of the things that it makes you think about is that every time Kawi jumps forward to the future, there is a sense that, almost in a way that time stopped—obviously not, because time has kept going—but more that he stopped developing or he got stuck at the point in time where he jumped forward. So when he jumps forward to the future, he's still the Kawi that jumped forward from the past, he has not grown, has not evolved, has not anything like that. And it feels like all the people around him are stuck too? So it's almost like at the point in time that he jumps forward he freezes everybody in amber, which I really appreciated as a metaphor for, you can't fast forward through your life. You have to live it. Which is one of the themes of the show that I think was executed really well, utilizing that aspect of the time travel mechanic. Every time he tries to short circuit and just go from the past to the future without living through the bits in between, the future doesn't go well, it doesn't end well for him. I really did like that about the way that they use the time travel mechanic.

I like how this team deals with science fiction mechanics, because this is the same team that did The Gifted and The Gifted: Graduation, which are probably two of the best Thai dramas that I’ve ever watched, and the way that they think about the genre implications and the genre aspects of the shows that they do—they put effort into it, they're not lazy about the genre work that they're doing. And they deeply integrate it into the story that they're telling otherwise, so to to your point about how this story wouldn't have worked if it wasn't a time travel story: completely agree about that. The time travel is absolutely necessary to the emotional core of the story, and to the core of who the characters are and how they move through their lives. It's really…critical aspect of it. If Kawi hadn't already lived through to the version of his future where he's a sad sack, he might not have been motivated to fix his past. And then if he hadn't jumped forward to a point in time that he thought he fixed everything, and realized that he just made it worse, he wouldn't have, again, tried to go back and fix it properly. And then in going back, decided to live his life rather than trying to fast forward to the end.

One of the things that it really forces him to do as well—because there are rules to the time travel mechanic—basically there are some things that you can't change? There's some things that you can't avoid, there are some things that you can't fix. And this is shown in the person of Kawi's dad. One of the things that Kawi tries to do when he goes back to the past, is he tries to prevent his dad from dying? And he thinks that he's succeeded, because he knows when his dad is gonna die. He knows why he's gonna die. He succeeds at getting him medical help, but he dies anyway, because death is one of those things that you can't avoid, you can't change, it is what it is. Between the discussions of alcoholism and that fact of there being things in the timeline that you just can't change, it led me to the serenity prayer as a reading of the show. You have to know what you can change. You have to have the courage to change that stuff that you can change. You have to have the serenity to accept the things that you can't change.

So for Kawi, he knew he could change things about himself, things about the decisions that he made in the past. Those were the things that he had to change, and he had to discover the courage to change those things, which he did. But he had to also accept the things that he couldn't change. He couldn't change his dad dying. He couldn't change the fact that Pear did not feel the way about him that he felt about her. He couldn't change the fact that Pisaeng felt the way that he felt about him, or that he felt the way that he felt about Pisaeng. He had to accept those things. And then he had to determine, he had to learn, the difference between those two things—because that's the basis of the serenity prayer, right? You have to accept what you can't change, you have to change the things you can, and you have to have the wisdom to know the difference between those things, which is also what the whole time travel thing is giving him.

Ben

It's the kind of show that makes the audience feel smart because they were paying attention to what was happening. It doesn't require the audience to notice a bunch of things in the set design or the costuming, or easter eggs that are planted all over the place. It just rewards the audience for leaning in a little bit and participating in the themes. Recognizing the kind of story that they're telling, and they're very up front about it, they're very clear that kindness, even small amounts, is transformative. And that just choosing to be nice to someone and not be a dick to them, in a critical moment—even if it's a small moment for you—can affect the way that they view themselves and their life.

44:47 BMF: Dings

NiNi

Because we always have to talk about our dings: what are the elements in the story that you were hoping that they were going to deal with that they didn't deal with?

Ben

So I wrote a post about Pisaeng's mom, and how she is engaged in some of the worst kind of evils that queer people have faced. Pisaeng’s mom is a wealthy woman pursuing a political career, and you get the sense that his being out is inconvenient for her. Later they tried to recontextualize this as, ‘she was just concerned that his life would be harder if he chose to be out.’ But one of the things that's revealed in around episode 4, I believe? Is that her employees are spying on Pisaeng, and reporting on him when he goes into queer spaces. She jacks him up about that, and then tries to manipulate him into going back into the closet now that he's trying to push the door open. He knows who he is; this is not a discovery story for Pisaeng. And it was frustrating for me that with all of the evils about her trying to manipulate her own son back into the closet—they also have Max, who's presented as wise in the story and woke as shit, admire her for the things she said when Pisaeng feels some kind of way about her because of the way he treats her. And that is never dealt with in the show. Irked the shit out of me. It raised my hackles when it came to the mom so much, that her resolution with Pear’s dad, to just let the kids sort their lives out, was not enough for me.

On the other end of things that were frustrating for me…I don't like the resolution for Knot. I'm really glad that he got his ass handed to him by Pear and Kwan, because he was a dick. But in a show so much about kindness and change, it feels kind of weird that we leave Knot when he has basically hit rock bottom, and then don’t talk about him or acknowledge him. He just appears at graduation, and he appears at the wedding, and seemingly is a novelist—no matter what history we're in, Knot will be a successful novelist. Max wasn't allowed to have an on-screen boyfriend, but Aou was serving.

NiNi

You talked a little bit about episode 10, and Pisaeng and Kawi's first time, and how it felt like somewhere in there, between them getting together and that moment happening it felt like there was a conversation missing. Now I definitely agreed with you with that, I think a lot of people agreed with you with that. But I do also want to talk about Kawi’s journey with intimacy. There were a lot of people who were reading Kawi as ace-coded throughout the show. I don't think that I ever bought an ace or aspec read on Kawi—well, I wouldn't say not aspec, because I feel like maybe a demi read would be a read that I could get down with.

But I never bought an ace read on Kawi, and there was a lot about the ways that Kawi was discovering his sexuality, not just in the sense of…sexual identity, of being gay or of being a man who likes men, but also in terms of the fact that, when we meet Kawi in the original timeline, Kawi is a 30-year-old virgin. It's sort of put together as part of his whole loser aura that he never got it together enough to be with anybody? So in going back in time, he's going back into his 18-year-old self as a 30-year-old virgin. So this is somebody who has not experienced any sort of intimacy: emotional, physical, any sort of intimacy in his life. The lift that he's lifting, in terms of discovering who he is as a sexual person—not just as a queer person, but just as a person discovering his sexuality period—that was the read that I bought?

Ben

I guess I'll disclose a little bit before I pooh-pooh on the ace Kawi read. I identify as demisexual, and I don't like the ace read of Kawi. Kawi is almost very much in the BL space of, he's happy if they just cuddle and hold hands only. Which is the space some of the readers of BL and yaoi like to put these boys in. The reality coming from Max to Kawi is that Pisaeng is a gay man, who knows he's gay, who's into you. You must face the reality of male-male intimacy if you're going to be in a long term male-male romance. Which—all I think the point they were trying to make with Kawi and Max. By seeing Kawi choose to face that, in the episode with the amusement park about how Kawi needs to face some of his own uncertainties, and go on the ride that might be a little bit scary for him, ha ha, they're getting that particular point across.

It's a little bit muddled, but I'm not a fan of the ace Kawi read, because it feels that we project asexuality onto prudish characters or chaste shows. And that's not always what's happening. I don't want to claim Kawi for the ace side of the board? Because while I do think that a demiromantic, demisexual read is totally valid for him? You must respect that that is a read on the character from the place where you're sitting: don't think that is part of the canon of this show. I think the show is making a different point about male-male intimacy, not trying to make a point about ace spectrum existence.

NiNi

I agree with you that the show muddled that point. But it tried to pull it back by having the do-over of the amusement park beats.

Ben

And that's the really muddled part, because by going back to the amusement park date and doing it better the second time, but not taking us to that moment because they didn't want future Pisaeng to take that moment from their past selves, I think it still leaves the audience hanging. It's okay for them to say that that moment is between them, but it feels like we didn't follow Kawi's arc through that big step. We've been with Kawi for so many personal and really ugly moments, that it was kind of surprising that they would slam the door on us right there.

NiNi

They did show us the first time, and they showed us the aftermath of the first time, and whatever they did, Kawi seemed pretty happy with it. It's not that the arc wasn't complete, it was that a piece of the arc felt like it was missing.

Ben

I'm not necessarily mad about it, but it's why I did not give this show a 10. It's one of the reasons I did not give the show a 10.

52:57 BMF: Jittirain and Gawin and Krist

NiNi

You talked a little bit in the beginning about Jittirain stories, because we were both not feeling Jittirain. I am a known non-fan of Theory of Love. I skipped, and Ben did not enjoy, Vice Versa. Ben likes 2gether for reasons, I have never been particularly interested in it. Jittirain is not particularly my cup of tea, I don't really think that you are a great fan of them either? So why does this story work for us?

Ben

Because the show is not about lying. The show is about telling the truth. And almost all of her stories are built on a core lie underpinning the show. I was waiting for some huge lie to upend this show around the midpoint and it really doesn't. This show was about being earnest and forthright with people. And it was fascinating to see an adaptation of Jittirain work—because I understand that very many liberties were taken with the source material—to tell a story that was not about withholding for some sort of power play over the other person. It was very much a show about how our lives are better when we're earnest with each other. I don't know how much Jittirain's original writing had to do with that or not, because I have not read her books? But this particular story really worked for me!

NiNi

I was so surprised that the Krist and Gawin pairing ended up working. The chemistry was there, the emotional resonance was there between the two characters which I really liked. A lot of time when we talk about chemistry in these shows, we end up talking a lot about the physical chemistry or the sexual chemistry, but something that gets sort of thrown to the side a lot is the emotional chemistry between the characters, and the way that the actors play that emotional chemistry. I really enjoyed the emotional chemistry between Kawi and Pisaeng, and I really enjoy how Krist and Gawin played that emotional chemistry and emotional tension.

Ben

I believe that one of the directors talked about this, that Gawin and Krist are kind of playing against type. They had to really push Gawin out of his shyness to play the Pisaeng character, and they talked about how they struggled in some of their early cues trying to get Gawin and Krist to fall into alignment.

I wasn't worried about Gawin, because Gawin is always playing the emotionally repressed gay man who is sad, because he can't be gay the way he wants to be, in the world he finds himself to be in. That's what he's good at! He's done it three times now! He did it with Mork in Dark Blue Kiss, he did it with Dan in Not Me, and he did it again here with Pisaeng. As soon as they’re like, ‘he's been gay the whole time’ I'm like, ‘there it is! I knew there was a reason we cast Gawin!’

[both laugh]

Ben

But Krist was a real surprise for me, and there were a bunch of interesting callbacks to SOTUS that a couple of us caught along the way, with the way some of the shots are set up, some of the way some of the moments were reconstructed…definite callbacks to SOTUS asking us to compare who Krist was in, say 2016, to who he is now in 2023. And I liked the show giving us all the chance to move on from how we felt about who Krist was at the beginning of BL.

NiNi

It's deliberately done. The creators of the show, they chose Krist deliberately for this role, and part of it was about his public persona; this was a rehabilitation role for him. They've talked about that, and he talked about how hard he worked, because he wanted to change the way that people in the BL fandom thought about him. And I thought that was really neat. I didn't get too much or give too much to whatever the controversies were? My issue with Krist was always that I didn't feel like he was giving 100% in the role that he was playing? And I can't say that I knew why, but there was an eau de homophobia around it, I do have to say. I didn't get into the behind the scenes stuff, and the, whatever he said on the IG live, and, like, that wasn't my thing about it. My thing was that, if you're going to act in a role, play the role, no matter what the role is. So that was always my issue with Krist, I felt like he didn't put his all into the role. I can't say that about him here. Whatever happened back in the SOTUS days, Krist was really young, he was new to acting in general, he was new to this particular industry. Did he make mistakes? He might have, he must have, he probably did. But he put, like, whole pussy into this role, I cannot say that he left anything on the table, and that is definitely the opposite of the way I felt about him when I watched the five episodes of SOTUS that I managed to get through before I quit.

Ben

I'm okay with it! Krist, you may have a plate, sir. You can sit with us now.

[both laugh]

NiNi

I feel like you have done the work, sir. You have earned this plate that you're getting. Good job. So, ratings for Be My Favorite? You said that you rated it a 9, and you had some specific dings on it.

Ben

The mom stuff bothered me, the Knot stuff felt like a thematic misstep, and I don't really think that Aou's character has an arc in the show, he's just there as the wise gay—who has great pants, and nice legs. And like these things are fine. I think the show is fine, but I don't think I'll be rewatching it, and I don't think it's my first recommend. It's a 9, you can have it.

NiNi

I gave this show a 10.

Ben

This show does not get to sit next to La Pluie, Moonlight Chicken, and My School President this year!

NiNi

My 10s are unrelated to all of my other 10s.

Ben

Mine are inherently related to each other.

NiNi

All my 10s are very different 10s! And I gave Be My Favorite a 10 because it nailed, for me, its core premise, like absolutely nailed it. There are, to me, no holes in the core. There are some wobbly edges…there are some little tweaks and stuff that could have been done around the sides, but to me the core of the show is absolutely solid. I got myself a nice few emotional moments, there was nothing about it that bothered me so significantly that I had to ding it. For me, it was a 10.

So 10 from me, 9 from Ben, so that leads us to a 9.5, which I think is a good place for this show to sit personally. Ben, I think, feels a little like ‘ugh, 9.5 is giving it a lot!’

Ben

It's a 9.

NiNi

Yes, but we have a rule.

Ben

I am weighting the average down a quarter of a point.

NiNi

That is…not how maths works, but okay, I will let you have it. 9.25 instead of 9.5, even though that is not how mathematics work, it is fine. [laughs]

1:00:58 - Outro

NiNi

So, Ben…now that we've got some distance between us and these shows: what are some of the things that are sticking with you? What's lingering?

Ben

Tokyo In April Is... was really really gay, and that was preserved from the manga adaptation. Like I was listening back to it and my love for Ryunosuke holds firm. I really liked that this show and Be My Favorite has a very self-affirmed queer character holding the line on the bullshit. In Ryunosuke’s case, he doesn't like Kazuma, because Kazuma should know better, and he doesn't like what that did to Ren. I like that he's in a position to call that out and it's like, ‘we are gay; that means something in this world.’

I really like that both of these shows are pushing past the boundaries of the BL bubble, and reminding the genre and the people who enjoy it that queer people matter, that their lived experiences matter, that there are consequences to the things that queer people experience, that don't go away just because they got some dick. So I ended up, even further away from these shows, like, I find myself thinking about Ryunosuke a lot, and I find myself thinking about Max a lot. I like that Max told Kawi that he does need to reckon with the physical realities of being in a relationship with someone. Felt like very specific shade about BL itself not really considering the physical realities of two men being together.

NiNi

For me, the further away I get from Tokyo In April Is... the less it sticks with me. But I'm having the opposite reaction to Be My Favorite. The further away I get from it, somehow things are popping up in my mind and I'm finding myself thinking about it.

Ben

I'm on the opposite side of that. I thought Be My Favorite was solid, but I watched like 22 things this season: Be My Favorite is not on my ‘I'm thinking about that motherfucker’ list at all. And it's not like [laughs] it's bad in any way. It's just not the show I'm thinking about.

Like I really like the way they handle grief, I really like the way they handle people having unrequited feelings for other people, I really like that show's messaging about how unrequited love is still good, and it should be expressed, because it can help that relationship become a more healthy balanced version of itself. I like how that show says that telling people you love them is one of the best things you can do. Like that's a pretty cool message! But this is not the show this year that makes my, even top 10, in terms of things I'm going to be thinking about long term.

NiNi

I think while you were talking about it I figured out what it is. It's the thing about having to live your life; that you can't short-circuit it, that you can't fast-forward it. That you can't even really go back and do it over, in the way that you might want to. ‘The only way out is through’ is one of my mantras, and I feel like that was also one of the mantras of the show. You can't avoid things, you can't circumvent them, you can't jump over them: you have to go through them.

Ben

I think, as always, Be My Favorite was not gay enough for me.

NiNi

We're going to be talking a lot about that, I think, over the course of the next few episodes and the next few seasons, because I think we've hit a point in BL where it kinda has to shit or get off the pot on being queer rep, and what they are deciding to rep for queerness?

Ben

I don't know how exactly to describe it. For me…Max is pretty gay in a way that I found really accessible. Pisaeng is gay in a way that I found mostly accessible? Kawi's queerness was…a bit difficult for me to grasp. I'm not necessarily keen on the ace Kawi read, because it feels like a cop out. I don't like calling characters ace because they are sexually inexperienced and/or repressed. Either make a story about the complexities of asexuality or shut the fuck up. I don't like the way the cutesy shit reads for me these days.

With Tokyo In April Is... I like how specifically queer their story feels. That you had two boys who loved each other in high school; did not believe the other boy could reciprocate; they have one night together before everything goes horribly wrong; and then one of them tries to take on all of the suffering for the other one, and mostly succeeds? And then they run into each other again, because of course they do. Particularly because the boy who was saved™ never got over the other boy, and has been trying to get back to him for ten years. And that just really works for me. I get the way that both of them are wounded. It doesn't have to be explained to me. Even if the actors may not have consistently landed the performances? Tokyo In April Is... hits for me because it's the kind of experience that I am unfortunately familiar with! And that's the kind of stuff that's going to stick with me more.

NiNi

In winding up here: we talked about second chance romance in the spring, and I feel like we had a lot to say about why we like it? And I just want to get a sense of…how you’re feeling about second chance romance coming out of these two particular shows.

For me, I was really happy with what these two shows said about second chance romance. In both of them there was in some ways a forgiveness of self that needed to happen, in order for these two couples to get their shit together. And it was a forgiveness of self that needed to happen on both sides of the couple? So it wasn't necessarily that one had done something wrong to the other, it was more that…these are people who were living half-lives. In some ways beating themselves up about something that had happened in their past? And I liked that these two shows really put an emphasis on self healing as prerequisite to love. These people had to find themselves to find their love. I like that message.

Ben

Like I said last season, second chance romance is important for me as a gay person. Our youths aren't easy; I'm feeling a whole lot better about myself in my 30s than I did in my teens or my 20s. I do think that second chances are important for queer people, because a lot of people didn't figure it out until they were away from their families and in school and stuff, and a lot of us who did figure it out early did not talk to anybody about it, or did not have a great time with it, or were interested in people who hadn't figured it out yet. And so second chance romance in BL remains super important for me. It's probably the current style of story that most appeals to me.

NiNi

That is going to wrap us up on our On Time and Memory episode. We out! Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace!

#podcast #lgbtq #tokyo in april is...#be my favorite #the conversation #ben and nini's conversations #on art #fall series #fall 2023 #thai bl #bl series #season 4 #s4e3 #shigatsu no tokyo wa...#Spotify

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dalekofchaos · 4 months ago

Text

Context

Choice 1. I was rereading the Injustice comics and came across the panels where Bruce and Barry were talking about Barry time traveling via the Speed Force and saving Lois to prevent the whole thing. So this is the basis of Injustice 3.

Barry's tired of the fighting and dying between the Regime and the Insurgancy and his war crimes keep haunting him. So Barry does what he swore he would never do. Goes back in time, save Lois, disassemble the bomb and stops the Joker.

Injustice 3 is the the fallout of Barry's choice to go back in time. As for what's caused this? Maybe an all out war between Brainiac and Darkseid, Black Adam vs Sinestro vs Wonder Woman vs Grodd vs Zod. But it would ideally end with Barry realising that he has to merge with the Speed Force for the good ending to stay in place, so he does and Wally takes up the Flash mantle.

Choice 2. The villains see that the world is vulnerable. The Regime is powerless without Superman, WW standing trial on Oa. No one can stop them.

So the Legion of Doom led by Vandal Savage seizes power. And this leads to the Legion causing chaos throughout the world and it forces Batman and Superman to team up and this eventually leads to a redemption for Clark because we're all tired of this grim dark edgy bullshit.

Choice 3. Continuing from the Absolute Justice ending, Superman escapes the Phantom Zone and with him is Zod, Ursa and Non and other Kryptonian criminals and all the other criminals Bruce locked away.

Choice 4. Superman is desperate. Everyone is either imprisoned/depowered or dead and Nekron gives him the choice and in Superman's ignorance he gives in and this results in Blackest Night. Everyone dead in the games or the comics comes back.

It's ideal for bringing back characters want in the game, that have been dead in the story. This way we can get Beast Boy and Nightwing back.

The Lantern Rings might work very well as a mechanic to give us playable variants, if every character comes with three different movesets depending on their Lantern Corps (a no Corps moveset is also possible as one of the three.)

This would also might give us Red Lantern Supergirl as a playable option.

Choice 5. Apokolips invades. Darkseid is the big bad. Joined by Steppenwolf, Granny Goodness, Desaad and Kalibak and the heroes and villains of earth must unite to stop Darkseid.

Choice 6. See my post here

Choice 7. Trigon will be the main villain, and it’s a chance to have many magic based characters such as Raven, Constantine, Zatanna, Brother Blood, Ragman, Circe, while keeping the likes of Doctor Fate, Enchantress, etc. I would love Constantine be one of the main characters in this storyline, where Trigon can try to destroy the world for its crimes against hell. Also a potential pre-order character in Lucifier.

Choice 8. The game is set after the events of Injustice 2's good ending with Batman training Supergirl and some new members of the Justice League with Mr. Terrific, but are interrupted when Mister Miracle and Big Barda comes from Apokolips saying that Darkside has been killed. On top of that, Booster Gold and Superboy come from the future warning them that the Anti-Monitor is destroying the multiverse. Now, the Justice League must band together with other heroes across the multiverse to stop the Anti-Monitor!

Choice 9. Basically pulling from MK1's card where the first half of the game we see what Bruce's absolute Justice brought the world and then Superman's universe invades and it's all out war between Batman and Superman

Choice 10. Damian frees Wonder Woman and she decides to stop playing nice. To make Wonder Woman more of a threat, she kills what's left of the Greek Pantheon and absorbs their powers. Her brand of justice will bring the mortals to heel, she will reunite the regime and end this insurgency once and for all.

This would end with Superman once and for all opening his eyes and having a chance to redeem himself. Batman and Superman team up to stop Wonder Woman once and for all.

It ends with Bruce retiring as Batman and becoming the president. The Justice League reforming being lead by Supergirl, Batgirl(Cassandra Cain) Donna Troy, Wally West, Green Lantern(Jessica Cruz) Green Arrow and Black Canary

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themattress · 10 months ago

Text

So this one guy who blocked me because of a perfectly civil comment pointing out the flaw in something he was saying rather than actually respond and try to debate it then posted this.

Which may as well read:

It's the nostalgia strawman, the same one mentioned 5 and a half minutes into this video. It also comes up in this one and this one. And as the arguments posit in those videos, it's bullshit used as an easy way to avoid true critical engagement. However, I still want to say my piece on this post, even if the person who made it tried to stop me through blocking.

"All the writing problems in KH3 are present in KH2"

Hahahahahaha, no. Absolutely not.

Granted, I did make sure to bolden "all" since of course it's an objective fact that some of the writing problems in KH3 are indeed present in KH2 - both Tetsuya Nomura and Masaru Oka are writers on both, so it would be impossible for that not to be the case. However, let's see if this person's examples of such shared problems holds up.

Retcons

Nope. There was only one retcon in KH2, which is the retcon around Ansem's identity, which I've already discussed at length. That is literally the only time where something from a prior game got changed around, and it was already being set up in CoM. That is lightyears ahead of the retcons in KH3, several of which are retcons on a more fundamental level than just who someone really is (ex: Xigbar being Luxu is a retcon that I hate, but it's not affecting anything fundamental - it's the retcon of what he did in the past that is the true problem.)

A glut of characters with strange and poorly explained motivations

Nope. The motivations of DiZ and Organization XIII respectively were not remotely strange given their circumstances and were explained very clearly; some could argue they were overexplained. A world of difference from, say, Ansem and Saix's obsessions with Subject X, a character who isn't even a part of KH3's story.

New mechanics that don't get adequately explained

All right, I give them this one. Hell, that's been a thing since KH1.

Relying on you to play and understand side games to grasp the baseline plot.

Nope. There was only one side game at the time of KH2, which was CoM. And it was only needed to fully grasp KH2's prologue....and I say fully grasp because KH2, prologue included, was conceived before CoM was, so the prologue was always going to be intentionally confusing. Once we reach the actual baseline plot with Sora, Donald and Goofy, CoM is no longer an issue since they act like they're picking up fresh off the end of KH1.

Awkwardly rehashing the plot of Disney movies for 90% of the game and then having the bulk of the plot in the last 5 hours

Nope. The linked videos already debunked this fallacy, but for elaboration: KH2 did actually have plot-relevant events occur in half of the Disney world visits and it had a midway point where a huge chunk of the plot transpired, meaning "the bulk of the plot in the last 5 hours" is a damned lie as far as KH2 is concerned. Meanwhile, "awkwardly rehashing the plot of Disney movies for 90% of the game" makes one question if this person played either KH2 or KH3, because it doesn't apply to either of them! Three visits in each of them rehash the movie's plot (KH2: Land of Dragons 1, Port Royal 1, and Pride Land 1; KH3: Kingdom of Corona, Arendelle, The Caribbean), with one visit also having many elements of the movie's plot (KH2: Atlantica, KH3: Olympus), but otherwise the Disney worlds did their own stories.

Shafting Kairi

Half-right. Both games did shaft Kairi, but comparing the way KH2 did it with the way KH3 did it is apples and oranges, since Kairi was still a civilian damsel in KH2 and despite the shafting got to participate in its conclusion and begin her own path as a combatant; Kairi in KH3 was a combatant who spent most of the game training for that combatant role and it ended up resulting in her not participating in the conclusion because she died, got restored, only to be kidnapped and then die again. And no, Re:Mind doesn't retroactively absolve KH3 of this, especially given that the positive treatment Kairi receives there doesn't even last into the Limitcut Episode and the following game, MoM.

Imo KH3 does a somewhat better job at threading its information into a smooth plot than KH2

Nope. The "information" you speak of, objectively, is all information about past games or even future games. The only information that is relevant to pushing forward the narrative of KH3 as was established at the start of the game ("gather these specific seven Keyblade wielders to go fight Xehanort and his organization at the Keyblade Graveyard") is the stuff with Vexen and the replicas....which not only had a huge chunk of it missing until Re:Mind, but also might not have even been needed since Nomura said he considered doing the story without resurrecting Roxas and Xion in the climax.

So in total, this post only had one thing completely correct (both KH2 and KH3, and all KH games for that matter, have new mechanics that don't get adequately explained because Nomura is just like that), and one thing partially correct (both KH2 and KH3 shaft Kairi, but pretending the shafting is in any way equivalent is a logical fallacy). Everything else listed isn't actually comparable to KH3 at all, proving once again that this isn't a nostalgia filter issue. It's a legitimate observation that KH3 suffered terribly from the decision to bog it down with connections to so many other games and from Nomura and Oka getting rid of all their co-contributors like Kazushige Nojima, Daisuke Watanabe and Harunori Sakemi.

#Disney #Square Enix #Kingdom Hearts #Kingdom Hearts II #Kingdom Hearts III #Opinion #Analysis #Comparison #Fandumb #Stupidity #Objection #Correction #Truthbomb #Anti-Kingdom Hearts #Anti-Square Enix #Anti-Nomura #Anti-Tetsuya Nomura

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sburbian-sage · 3 months ago

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Given Vagabouncy is the topic of the moment, does becoming a Waste or Grace class still set up a Cataclysm for you? Is there a point where it's too late in the session for it to come up, or do you just instantly get flipped into nonsense mode? All the Quartz talk has me wanting to try assorted bullshit on the mirror. Mirrors have heart-things, right? I wanna play with its heart-thing! Damn Sylph of Law...

That is a pretty good question. The Cataclysm is, simultaneously, an inevitability that's about as game-mandated as you entering the game and discovering you're a god (and then doing sidequests), but it often isn't framed as being a game-mandated event in the same way the other things are. More like, it's the natural consequence of being a Waste or Grace, you sling too much firepower and eventually things get too hot to handle, in the same way a Page or Knight isn't brainwashed into wanting to give up fighting, but rather that the former's constant cycle of getting stronger so they can raise the stake and fight tougher battles so they can raise the stakes, and the latter's Also Doing That while simultaneously morphing into a soldier and then into a weapon, is naturally draining on one's psyche. The main difference being, Knight Syndrome doesn't kick in literally every time you roll Knight/Page, Knight Syndrome is more accurately a very specific form of depression which is hardly Class-specific, and also Knight Syndrome doesn't throw a brick at the game's internal structure and turn shit on its head.

People Vagabouncing into a Waste or Grace is pretty uncommon, as it invokes something of a "why would you make the game significantly harder for us for no reason" response from one's coplayers, and those do result in Cataclysms. But more uncommon is a late-game Vagabouncy. For the most part, people Vagabounce at the beginning of a Session because they want to try a very specific run, or they simply do not vibe with their current Title in such a way that they might actually get killed for it (and do not have the skills to Git Gud at sucking it up like the rest of us). So naturally, "Vagabouncing into a Cataclysm Class at the mid-to-late game" is so rare as to be almost unreported on. I do have two theories, one plausible and the other slightly less plausible, however hear me out for a second.

Theory 1: It's mandated. Cataclysms will happen, no matter what, it's basically just fate (not to be confused with Fate). If you kill the Black King, that damn door shows up, and you fly over to the House of Mirrors to change into a Waste or Grace, you instantly explode because the game knows it has roughly five minutes to squeeze a Cataclysm in there.

Theory 2: Cataclysms are a consequence for early power. Wastes and Graces are pound-for-pound, the strongest Classes in the game (not to be confused with the Smith, which is the most Active, and the Clown, which is not a "real" class). They're just cooking with a different kind of fuel that burns brighter. This naturally makes Wastes and Graces pretty strong, right out the gate. So whether you think it's "building up entropic force" or just a mechanic meant to "balance" it, this early power is paid for with disaster later on. However, if one were to Vagabounce in the mid-to-late game, then it's not too unbalancing to have that level of power by that point in the game (and if anything, it might be detrimental because you lose your old abilities when you reroll). And because you don't have the early-game benefit, you don't pay the cost to balance it out.

Or to put it another way, ever play Alisa? You can choose to turn auto-aim on when you start a new game, but it "balances" this by making enemies drop less currency when you kill them, because it's easier but the game wants to 1) not let you steamroll the rest of the game 2) want to subtly encourage you to build that skill. HOWEVER, you can buy an upgrade in the shop which gives you auto-aim, and it doesn't penalize you when you have it equipped. You see the analogy I'm cooking, right?

Needless to say, I think the second theory is more likely. The game does do random asspulls to contrive absurd events into happening, but the Cataclysm always felt "consequential" and not like a spiteful game master forcing rocks to fall and everyone to die. So it stands to reason that, at the very least, it needs some time for the proverbial storm to brew before zapping you with lightning. However, for every inch you give the game, it takes a mile, so watch out either way.

As for the final note, the Vagabouncy Mirror almost assuredly does have a Heart Thing, as does nearly every other entity and object in the game. Considering that this particular Mirror can change one's Title, meaning it holds some level of access to the code that handles player ID and associated mechanics, I think the Sylph of Law might have had a pretty good reason for locking that off. It's all fun and games until you make everyone suffer an identity crisis, or remove their player IDs and Doom them all without Dooming the timeline.

#sburb #replay value au #vagabouncy #cataclysm class

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that-house · 2 years ago

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Ran the first proper Field of White Flowers playtest the other day.

I stuck them in the Kill Six Billion Demons universe, because i love that setting and its general aesthetics and power level are perfect matches for FoWF (tbh K6BD was a significant inspiration for FoWF)

They were mercenaries hired by the Repossessions Guild to break into the house of a mob boss who’d gone missing and take everything that wasn’t nailed down.

TLDR: it was fun

in depth breakdown of what happened below the cut because i don't wanna nuke everyone's dash <3

For those with no context: Field of White Flowers is a high fantasy high power tabletop roleplaying game system geared towards huge dramatic anime fight scenes, wuxia bullshit, and feats of tremendous heroism and villainy. It draws inspiration from the webcomic Kill Six Billion Demons, fighting games, a vast slew of other roleplaying game systems, and the time-honored video gaming tradition of having a climactic duel in a field of white flowers.

The big thing I was worried about going into the playtest was just that it wouldn’t be fun. I’d had a lot of fun designing it and talking about it, but until you play the game properly it’s impossible to tell whether the game is actually fun.

Like, take Lancer. I love Lancer, I love the design philosophy behind it, I love theorycrafting builds for Lancer. Actually playing through a Lancer combat is like getting a cavity filled without anesthetic. How do 4 rounds with 4 players and no roleplay take 6 hours? We will never know

Our cast, in order of introduction:

Abzu, Newborn God: a young ocean god seeking to prove himself to his brethren. flavorwise he was a waterbender, mechanically he was a fairly supportive debuff engine focusing on lowering enemies’ stats with Chill. Attempts to get Abzu's player to join tumblr have been unsuccessful thus far.

Alizoba, King of Miscellany: sapient pile of trash looking for more stuff to add to themself. had a build based around Baiting enemies into bad moves and following up with huge combos. Alizoba was played by @cyrus-swag.

Ophidia, Serpent Queen of Lead: cowgirl and gun witch, mostly just here to kill people and get money. build revolved (haha gun pun) around throwing flashbangs, vanishing, and reappearing somewhere else with a huge gun. Ophidia was played by @fearlesscomfort.

Sixgill Griseus, The Bartender No One Fucks With: shark man who is a bartender/bouncer/chef/waiter/etc at his bar. magically-enhanced death glare can intimidate inanimate objects and shut down people's nervous systems. Sixgill was played by @historically-innaccurate-dialga.

The events of the session:

Abzu immediately murders someone for polluting a canal

gradually all met up and made their way to the house they were going to rob

encountered two devils, the tiny chainsaw-wielding Ozzy and the colossal Scunge who wielded a machete and a harmonica, guarding the house

Scunge was tackled clean through the door of the house and pinned down by Sixgill until he simply keeled over dead from the force of the bartender's stare

Ozzy mauled Abzu and Ophidia, and was about to coup de grace the latter when Alizoba summoned a building on top of him

Ozzy and Scunge served as a test of the Power Couple mechanic, in which two combatants are represented by a single statblock, one of which dies and changes the statblock when they collectively reach half HP

Inside the house, they encountered a vast horde of living dead who had been employed as meth cooks and house guards. They fought them off for a while before Ophidia finished off the last forty or so by briefly stopping time and lining up a headshot on each one

The zombies were an example of the horde mechanic for representing a TON of enemies with one statblock and a few minions. They worked great

Next was a hall of huge swinging blades, because i wanted to include a few simple skill challenges.

Sixgill just used his enhanced senses to walk through the hall, only getting barely clipped by the last one.

Abzu attempted to freeze the mechanisms, but they exerted too much force and shattered the ice.

Ophidia solved the "there are several thousand pounds of high velocity metal in front of us" with her own several hundred pounds of high velocity metal (she shot the blades with her minigun until they broke)

The next room was a treasure room, with tons of weapons in glass cases. Sixgill broke one of the cases to get a harpoon, causing the rest of the weapons to drop through the floor and poison gas to pour into the room

Abzu waited out the poison in a bubble, while Alizoba summoned a fridge to hide in. Sixgill stared the fucking poison down and the very air said "you know what fuck that I'm not getting paid enough." Ophidia tried to fire off enough guns to replace the air near her with gunsmoke, which went badly

the final thing we had time for in this session (we're going to finish it another day) was a room with an enchanted idol in the middle, which compelled everyone who saw it to want it.

Ophidia burned a fifth of her HP to teleport over to it instantly and take it before anyone else could, and we ended the session as they walked into the next room, which contained a devil named BIG BOY (all caps)

The good stuff:

combat flows quickly from player to player, turns are short but impactful. it's not a tactical wargame, there's no grid or elaborate line of sight rules, but decisions about when to bring up damaged allies and whether or not to take short term disadvantages for long term benefit mattered

even though the system has a lot of room for optimization and certain characters were definitely stronger than others, no one felt useless even with bad rolls

the general Math of the system worked out pretty well. people were critting about as often as I wanted them to be, the HP amount for the players felt right

people had fun (the most important thing)

other important thing: it filled a niche that no other system i've played has filled, and did it well. the experience might have been different if we'd used another system, but it would not have been enriched by the change. Field of White Flowers just. fundamentally. works.

The stuff that needs improvement:

in retrospect it should have been obvious that, given that at its core the game is designed to be roughly balanced (especially at lower levels), making enemies that are on even footing with the players would make the combat REALLY fucking difficult. That was a silly on my part <3 the first encounter was not meant to be that hard. I halved the HP of the second encounter and it was much more reasonable

the mental overhead of certain builds is a little too high. the character sheet handles a lot of things for the players, but some builds have numbers that fluctuate frequently in combat

debuffs didn't quite feel impactful enough on enemies. main issue is that many of the durations are too short, leading to a lot of debuffs just sort of feeling bad when you use your whole turn to apply them, while other debuffs are just VERY VERY VERY good (looking at you Shock)

current out of combat resolution system is very bare-bones (skill checks are roll a few dice against a DC), and either a sliding scale of success or a push mechanic would likely augment it

nerfed Knife Juggler because holy fuck it was so OP for how easy it is to obtain

The nice thing about game design is you can make a system you want to play. Field of White Flowers ticks soooo many of my boxes, and it proved to be pretty easy to pick up, fun to play, and with enough depth of content to keep people talking about it for a good while after the session.

thanks for reading, and always remember: Pariah Stance allows you to tick down the countdown on Forbidden Technique faster

#field of white flowers #that last statement is an inside joke about the fact that Pariah Stance has no actual upsides #rpg design

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tranquilpetrichor · 1 year ago

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a heart that still beats

— when in the midst of despair, do you lose all hope?

synopsis: the year is 2080. in a world destroyed by climate change, there is only one hope left for safety, and of course it is one exploited by the rich and famous—make it to the airships that are fueled by oxygen on earth. unfortunately, you are neither, but you are a skilled mechanic who is separated from your companion by yet another flood.

lonely, bitter and lost, you eventually find a purpose in being the mechanic for 10 boys that have an ambitious plan to shut off the machines that fuel the cities above the earth, being welcomed as one of their own.

but this mission is their most crucial one, one that could cost them their lives. and as you think about your leader, daeyeol, you're inspired by his courage, but very nervous for the upcoming events to transpire.

cast: gn mechanic!reader x daeyeol ft. golden child members and mentions of sf9's youngbin

genre: sci-fi, dystopian!au, end of the world!au, loosely based on golden child’s ra pam pam mv, angst with comfort if you squint

wc: 6.6k (6,674)

warnings: mentions of death, gunshots, blood, flames, pollution, lots of cursing, reader cracks maybe one dirty joke (which is only dirty if you understand it), we get pretty existential here. lmk if i missed anything

a/n: reader has habit of calling everyone older hyung as that's what they've decided they're comfortable with (just y and daeyeol here), ignore the fact that it’s y on the banner LOL this is for aesthetic purposes. there's a few perspective switches near the end, and of course i always end up making the relationship ambiguous. also why is the plot so messy.. ugh i just want to get this fic out. yes this is the second time sf9 youngbin makes a cameo in my fics. i think daeyeol said he had no same age friends and i’m like oh wait who else is a 93 liner? so yeah, enjoy, because this took way too long to do.

[d-7]

you watched and gave a small nod of approval as your rc car (which jangjun had decided to name damdadi for some reason) wheeled across the tiled floor of the hideout. bomin and sungyoon were examining the oxygen tanks, but your main focus was on your tech.

ah, good. it works. and it's quiet too.

damdadi, like your other projects, was carefully crafted, because god knows you couldn’t afford to make any mistakes with your mechanical work—not that you liked to make mistakes with anything anyways. everything you did got a quality check at least twice.

nevertheless, you were nervous about whether the oddly-named damdadi would be able to complete its task of surveillance or not and with the lives of friends on the line, you certainly had no time to lose.

to the side, you picked up yet another rc car (bomin decided he'd name that one genie) and checked if it was in working order, because as a dear friend named youngbin had reminded you long ago, “it’s best to have backup plans in case any bullshit happens.”

"and bullshit will always happen," you finished the phrase easily.

as the phrase came into your mind, you wondered what had happened to him after a flood separated the both of you about a year ago—the occurrence of natural disasters was not uncommon, but that didn't mean it was any less devastating each time one occurred.

god, you remembered it so well. he had gone on a mission to gather supplies for your camp when the flood occurred. from the wreckage, you had emerged confused, tossed around like a ship lost at sea.

then, it turned into denial that he was gone, anger at circumstances you couldn’t have controlled, and then reluctant acceptance that you couldn’t find him. it wasn't like you couldn't survive on your own, but without someone to ground you, you'd be talking into a void of nothingness. still, you didn’t know if anything could fill the even deeper void in your heart.

youngbin said once to you, “loss is inevitable. remember jaeyoon? you know i would have done anything to save him, but i can’t control the fact that the soldier shot him in the damn chest, but i tried my best, and yet the feeling of not being able to save everyone fucking hurts. losing someone you love… ah, fuck. sorry if this was depressing. but if there’s anything i’d prepare you for, it’s that."

inevitable.

that word alone carried so much weight to it.

and from then on, you reminded yourself that nothing is permanent, not even the companionship of a friend. it’s the only way you got yourself through your separation.

after the flood, you were on your own for a while, trying to find youngbin. however, an annoying little shit named jangjun found you after you stole some supplies from a soldiers’ base. apparently he had the same idea.

after this incident, he took you back to meet the other 9 members of the crew you were part of now. although initially reluctant to trust them, you found their company to be likable enough. you assumed the role you always did, finding spare parts that could be repurposed as you always used to do with youngbin.

you knew youngbin and daeyeol were two separate people, but you couldn’t help but see one in the other and think that they might get along. thinking about the two of them together made things so much harder.

thinking about those days, you sighed. you couldn't believe a trip down memory lane could randomly be triggered by one glance at an rc car, but it would be unwise to stay there for too long. of course, you allowed yourself those brief moments of distraction in your memories, and then focused on the task at hand again. it was a reasonable way to live.

yes, you did miss those you had lost, but now was definitely not the time for that.

don't get too distracted. you have work to do. you have to keep going.

despite the gravity of the situation you were in, you couldn’t help but crack a joke in your mind about being good with your fingers as you fiddled with some more machinery. some things never changed, like your less-than-appropriate humor that either got you lighthearted scolding (from sungyoon and daeyeol, and of course, youngbin) or laughs from people who liked your occasional jokes (mostly jangjun, and surprisingly bomin too).

while examining a control panel, you felt a soft tap on your shoulder, which could only possibly belong to one person out of the group you currently lived with—lee daeyeol. he spoke with a gentle tone but it had a sense of authority. “could i talk to you for a second?”

mentally, you prepared for hell because whenever he used that familiar tone, he was being nice but definitely meant business and may the gods help whoever tried to get in his way. “of course, what did you want?”

he placed folded diagrams on the table. "i just wanted to check on your progress on that rc car, although knowing how fast you work i’m guessing you’re almost done. we've finalized a plan about how to shut off the machines.”

ah yes, he was talking about the machines of project aether, or better yet, a way for those with enough money and power to save themselves and leave the poor and helpless to rot. the act of using the oxygen on earth for airships to create a "paradise in the sky" for some while damaging the atmosphere down below made you scratch your head at the backwards logic.

it was starting to get a little sweaty in the room, and you fanned yourself with an old newspaper. "things are going well, dae. this rover should be ready in a few minutes for jaehyun and jibeom to take when they need it. better early than late. you ready to do this?"

he glanced at you, and let out a deep sigh, one filled with what you interpreted to be as deliberation. "it doesn't matter how i feel. this needs to happen soon."

as the leader of the group, daeyeol was required to handle many burdens and although you and the boys were usually with him, no one could never completely understand what was going through his mind. there was a special spark that was required to lead.

sometimes, you wondered how tired he really was, but he didn't like to show that side of him, always wanting to be the helper instead of the helped.

and of course, that reminded you of youngbin, which wasn't such a great path to take your mind to. so you'd put it upon yourself to move on from him, which you had done semi-successfully.

of course, he still had a designated space in your mind, no matter how hard you tried not to think about him.

you put down what you were working on to focus on daeyeol's words, knowing it wouldn't be good for your mind to go off on more tangents today. "alright then, let's go over the plan once more. i figure you want to run through it again. i just need to hear it too."

he nodded and opened one diagram, which you recognized as it was labeled project : aether (floor plan), with a picture of the air machine itself. you remembered researching machinery for that. he pointed to the spot where it said passcode entry point.

"because of you, seungmin and donghyun, we were able to get the password that controls the fuel source of the cities. as you know, we need to enter the password at that location in order to shut the machine off. but we're unsure of the exact situation with guards and their patrol routes, so we're going to send the rovers with the camera attached in order to assess it. the last thing we need is for there to be surprises we didn’t expect.”

he probably hadn't changed any aspects to the plan, but you asked for confirmation. "it's just you going, right?"

"yes. the rest of the group looked uncomfortable with the idea and as concerning as the idea of going alone is, i can't risk anyone else's life.” his lips set in a thin line. "and there's a limited supply of oxygen tanks, anyways."

you let out a humorless chuckle, knowing just how brutal it was out there. "dae, we're clearly not as selfless as you. no one asks to potentially get shot at by assholes in hazmat suits.”

not being able to hide your true thoughts, you quietly added, “and honestly, i’m probably the most selfish of you guys.”

out of the corner of your eye, you saw him frown. "now don’t say that, you help in your own way. you've been invaluable in developing the technology for this mission. remember, nothing goes unnoticed by me."

you still did get a little flustered whenever people mentioned your skill, and you brushed his words off with the lazy swipe of a hand. "oh, i can't take all the credit for this stuff. seungmin helped me a lot." the mentioned guy was currently fiddling with the screen on the wall to make sure it actually worked.

yeah, you knew you were decent at what you did, but it's not like you wanted the spotlight for it, preferring to remain behind the scenes most of the time. to put it simply, you liked working in the shadows and only showing up when necessary to report something.

"you sell yourself short, y/n," he said with an amused grin on his face.

"do i, dae? if you want, i could just start bragging about myself all the time."

he laughed, and oh, how you took the sound in like nourishment. true laughter was hard to come across nowadays, as a lot of things were. "now let's not jump between extremes, okay?"

you made a salute as if you were on some pirate ship. “aye-aye, captain!” damdadi was still turned on, and you maneuvered it next to daeyeol, just to demonstrate the functionality, before turning the power off.

“god, imagine being pirates. we’d be the worst pirate crew ever. imagine trying to wake up bomin and get him to do anything but sleep prettily!”

daeyeol shrugged. "well, i could probably use captain privileges to boss him around, anyways."

"as if! he listens to no one, especially you."

the two of you grinned, sharing a moment. there were times when you forgot that the air was polluted, the rich were assholes and food was hard to find—now was one of those times. it was nice to not think about that for a bit. you were aware however, that the cold reality waited around the corner like a gunman waiting to fire.

you rested your head on his shoulder, an action you had grown more comfortable with gradually after he told you it was okay to do it. it seemed to say a message without words, i don’t know what the future holds, but at least i’m here with you.

daeyeol closed his eyes and spoke his next sentence quietly. “hey, i know i told you guys i’d be prepared for anything and we're aware of how this might end. it might go badly. if i’m honest, it’s been very nerve-wracking to prepare for this. i just wanted to say that i will protect you guys. whatever it takes. i think we have a chance to end this once and for all.”

won't you protect yourself? won't you be selfish too for once? that's all i need. you thought, but didn't say aloud.

you, who never thought you'd shed a tear since getting separated from youngbin, who didn't like getting very sentimental in front of others, embraced daeyeol. "hyung, sometimes i wonder how people like you can exist, so full of hope and all that optimistic stuff. shit, i promise i don't mean it in a bad way, but...” you trailed off.

"it's hard to have hope, right?"

"you could say that."

from the moment you had met him, he had struck you as someone who wouldn’t give up. all of the group did, but especially him. to keep fighting, one had to think that things would get better someday. one needed hope.

he rested one hand on your shoulder, as if he were transferring his wisdom over to you merely by touch. “until the moment i die, i won’t stop having it. it’s the only way we’ll be able to keep pushing through. call me optimistic, but if there seems to be no hope, we have to create it for ourselves. i don't want live hopelessly knowing that i could have tried to make a better future."

you played with a screw in your jacket pocket. "hope's short in supply sometimes, i admit.”

“it is. but all you need is a bit of it to survive.”

you felt your chest rise and fall, acutely aware of your breath. if you really thought about it, it was dangerous to risk it all on one mission, a singular chance to get this right before the soldiers could wipe you all out.

but you thought of the boys you had come to know over months of time, and everything became clearer.

joochan deserved a chance to sing in air that was truly clean. donghyun would get to dance outside without fear of being shot. jibeom and jaehyun could simply mess around with the rc cars you and seungmin made instead of just sending them out into the dangerous world outside their base. most of all, daeyeol would be able to breathe easily (quite literally and metaphorically), after the mission was over.

and of course, you wanted to take that first breath of air with each and every one of them.

hope brought a world of possibilities to think about, so close and yet so far away. it would fuel you, so long as you believed it still existed—and although you didn't really consider yourself as much of an idealist as daeyeol, you needed to be, especially now.

you brought up your hands to your head, which happened to hurt a little, and his voice brought you back to the present.

“hey, y/n, you seem like you’re lost in thought. all good?”

as expected, he can tell what goes on with you.

“just thinking about our upcoming mission. can't help but stay awake...”

he frowned. “it's late, take a rest too. i can't let everyone else in the team deprive themselves of sleep. don't overwork yourself, y/n.”

and before you had known it, he left and came back with a bit of water he had saved. water was difficult to come across but the group was fortunate to have some, so you savored every drop you got to taste. “thank you, daeyeol.”

“always.”

although you continued working, you knew these coming days would be difficult, and later you finally decided to take daeyeol’s advice, eventually letting yourself slip into a dreamlike state on the smooth metal beds.

(you wouldn't have known anyways, but daeyeol glanced at you several times while you were asleep.

you'd be alright, he knew. still, it was nice for him to make sure. he smiled, and got back to work.)

[d-3]

the main room, with all 11 of the crew, wasn’t outwardly panicking, but it contained a nervous energy that simmered and quietly stirred everyone's feelings of anxiety. the crew always worked hard, but this particular week needed everyone's dedication, whether it was finding spare parts, to looking over diagrams, to last minute research.

despite these demands, you were impressed with everyone's resilience.

youngtaek shrugged his shoulders in an attempt to relieve tension. he turned on the medium-sized screen that was inside the hideout, which currently was connected to a phone you and seungmin had built together. "the camera works fine, i see the footage from it showing up.”

you sighed in relief. it was good to know that something worked.

"ow, my feet," jibeom interjected, as damdadi rolled over them.

"alright, thanks youngtaek!" jaehyun grabbed the phone from him and affixed it onto damdadi. he then gestured to jibeom. “come on, let’s go send the rc car to survey the terrain, before y/n does that annoying thing where they yell at us for using their tech all wrong.”

“okay well, you can't just use damdadi to run over jibeom's feet, we got a mission!” you yelled from across the room, where you were working on a drone.

jaehyun smiled innocently at you. "yeah, well it'll be fine and we'll get it done. i think we're very capable. or at least, i am—"

"hey, take that back!" jibeom glared at jaehyun. “i hate you."

the two continued to bicker like children. "okay. jibeom, just so you know, if the guards come and you run too slow, i will be leaving your ass behind!"

these two argue so much, it's almost as if i'm watching a tv sitcom.

"just go already, guys," you said, amused by their antics. "and don't die, of course."

“have a little faith,” jibeom whined. jaehyun laughed at him again, and with the turn of a knob, damdadi rolled to the door with them.

after they left, you went to talk to daeyeol, showing him a few of the drones you had made with seungmin. “i was thinking that i can use these to divert the soldiers' attention so that they're less likely to shoot at you. couldn't hurt, right?”

"hm, good idea, just make sure your drones take a different route to the location. you thought of me that much?" he added, lightly teasing you.

your cheeks warmed slightly, but you kept your face impassive. "well, precautions are necessary, are they not?"

he was serious, but you could sense a bit of amusement coming from him. "they are. you always think ahead, don't you?" and with that, he approved of your addition to the plan.

you let out a sigh of partial relief, and continued to test out another drone.

"just say you love him or something, because even i can tell." seungmin, who had been working next to you muttered this after daeyeol left to wake up bomin. he screwed in another bolt. "you might as well remind him before...."

he doesn't finish the sentence, but he didn't need to. the two of you looked at each other in understanding. survival was never guaranteed in a world as wrecked as this one. he looked away for a second and closed his eyes briefly before continuing to talk.

"never mind. anyways, let's just keep working—we're making good progress. after this, we'll have 4 drones to use. it’s always useful to have something that flies, i suppose."

you obliged, figuring it would be better to shut up and just continue doing what you were always good at—attempting to ignore anything not related to your job. but seungmin's words still lingered and you would do anything to get them out.

later, seeing a frightened jibeom and a tired jaehyun return with news that a soldier had captured the rc car was enough to make you quietly simmer with rage (it was precious technology, after all), but you were almost thankful for the feeling.

at least you still felt something.

[d-day]

this was going to be rather interesting.

lee daeyeol was not supposed to be scared—or at least, he was not supposed to show it. in fact, he was the one whom people looked to for comfort, strength, guidance, and sacrifice (even if no one would say it aloud). if he looked scared, it would set the tone for this mission. who would believe in them? in their cause?

so he shouldered his burden of shutting off the machines of project: aether with calm determination, trying to steady himself despite his accelerating heart rate and the vague feeling of the world swaying beneath his feet. “i’m going out the route we discussed. send the drones out a different exit and wait for the radio signal from me to go up. if something unexpected happens, only one of you should check first."

"got it. stay safe, hyung." sungyoon checked daeyeol's oxygen's tank one last time, sighing to himself.

daeyeol looked to you, a hint of sadness in his eyes. "do you have the ring?"

you wordlessly got up to grab daeyeol's ring from the table, and watched as he slipped it on carefully. the piece of jewelry was special for him, as it was a gift from a childhood friend he had kept for his whole life.

to him, it signified many things, but he could never deny the fact seeing the ring gave him hope.

your voice was soft yet full of conviction as you gave him words of reassurance. "stay strong. we'll be waiting. but even if you don't return, i want to thank you, for everything. i love you, in every sense of the word."

daeyeol closed his eyes. you weren't usually the sentimental type.

it was times like this where he found it hard to walk away. if he let his heart take over, he would stay safe with you against the harsh reality of the world. but he knew that first, he had to carry out his plan.

he extended his arms towards you, pulling you into a tight hug. "you as well, y/n. remember, i'll be with you, always."

he double-checked the levels in his oxygen tank, affirming that they were alright. now, it really was time to go.

"if you don't stay safe, hyung, i'll kick your ass all the way to the sky," jangjun yelled.

"got it," he said, a small grin on his face. of course jangjun would be the one to joke around.

and with that, he turned away, walking towards the entrance of your hideout with conviction. the doors opened, and he stepped out, leaving behind the people he loved most. it would be painful for him to turn around now, and so he chose not to.

at least, if he thought of his team, full of people he wanted to give the world to, he had something tangible to fight for.

as daeyeol left, the 10 of you stared at the door and no one dared say a thing, for fear of it being wrong, but a distinct sigh came from bomin, who could not hide his frustration as the youngest. that's when you knew it was time to do your part, just as daeyeol would do his.

slightly trembling, you got into position and used the camera on the one of the drones to help examine its surroundings and navigate it through the twists and turns of the hide out.

sungyoon, much to everyone’s surprise, stood up a minute later. “i'm not letting him do this alone. lee daeyeol, i swear if you go alone at this point.."

"take care, hyung," bomin said.

he nodded in response.

you buried your head in your hands. it's not like you needed his life at risk too. but sungyoon could be rather stubborn at times, and you weren't trying to argue with him at a time like this.

besides, it's not like he couldn't handle himself out there.

he went to grab an oxygen tank, put its heavy weight on his back, and exited the hideout. but with his running skills, the team knew he would catch up to daeyeol soon enough.

outside, the chemicals in the air gave the impression that everything was a fatal orange, the orange that burned from that pillar of fire daeyeol saw in the distance. it seemed like it would burn straight to his soul and consume him.

but daeyeol found he could run faster than even he anticipated, fueled by a fire of his own.

above the flames, the floating paradise of the rich taunted him, as if they were situated in the heavens and looking down upon people like him, those who couldn't make it up there with what they had in their pockets.

those who were left to perish amongst the ashes.

daeyeol kept going.

unbeknownst to him, sungyoon was making his way over, navigating past abandoned trailers and trying not to alert the presence of any guards—he was quite aware of their patrol routes now.

after a few minutes, he found daeyeol, whispering, “hyung. i’m here."

the older boy looked over in surprise. "now that i think about it, i'm not surprised."

sungyoon's presence had revitalized him completely, a blessing that he wasn't to take lightly. daeyeol gave sungyoon a nod of acknowledgment, and they headed for the passcode entry point together.

as they did, a group of 3 soldiers ran across an elevated ledge.

"we gotta go!" dayeol exclaimed, pointing upwards. they sprinted towards the tower that felt so close, and yet, was still feet away.

a bullet punctured sungyoon's oxygen tank, and the hiss of air leaking out could be heard.

shit, daeyeol thought. he needed to do something, and quick.

they took cover some medium-sized storage crates as he removed his oxygen mask and put it over sungyoon's face, transferring the tank as well.

then, covering his mouth, he ran as fast as he could towards the tower. only a few feet away the tower, the soldiers shot him in the back. and yet he ran, bleeding through his denim jacket.

he inputted the correct code into the security screen.

3-2-6-4.

as sungyoon rushed over to him, daeyeol pushed the lever to shut off the tower off with all of his remaining strength. the pillar of fire emerging from the tower's base shut off, and the smoke in the area began to dissipate.

"you really did it, hyung." sungyoon said, looking around in awe. he sat beside daeyeol. the older boy smiled back.

i can rest, at least sungyoon is fine. no one else had to suffer.

he blinked several times to try and stay awake as sungyoon took off his vest, pressing lightly against one of daeyeol's wounds.

a few minutes earlier...

back at the base, your body felt frozen, except for your fingers, which were the only thing moving. it was quite difficult to steer a drone with the intense weather conditions outside and turmoil within you. but this was your responsibility, and you had to carry it out to the end.

"maybe a little higher," you muttered to yourself as the drone continued to fly. there was a smaller phone next to you, which allowed you to see out of the tiny camera on the drone. seungmin, tag and bomin had drones too.

“i see guards.” seungmin said sharply. “oh wait, i think daeyeol and sungyoon are in the distance too.”

jangjun spoke up. "okay, i'm going up to the warehouse building. i just need to safely observe what's happening outside in case your drones go down."

"someone, hand him a radio! i only have mine." seungmin yelled. "and remember, keep yourself hidden."

donghyun gave the remote to jangjun, who thanked him and left the base quickly.

amidst the chaos, you continued to maneuver the drone, trying to stay in control. the guards appeared to aim their guns in the general direction of the tower, which was where daeyeol and sungyoon were headed to.

you knew the guards were mostly there to prevent people like you guys from shutting off all the technology rich people had paid for. disgusting and vile.

“ah, shit, gotta steer away from there,” you muttered, your hand grasping the right controller stick. the drone flew slightly off to the side, and from what you could make out, the direction some of the guns were firing in changed.

oh god. there's a ton of soldiers. damn.

in all honesty, what happened next was chaos. a few of the screens lost connection. on a screen that was still intact, you saw blood, or at least, you thought you did.

the world blurred around you, but then came into focus again, but you knew that you couldn't collapse, not now. thankfully, your bottle had some water left.

"something's wrong," you say, fidgeting with your hands.

"of course something is wrong!" seungmin said, groaning. "what the hell is happening?"

youngtaek observed the surrounding area through his drone, but soon he had to find somewhere to land it, making sure it was well out of view before doing so.

he groaned shortly after. "great, the camera on the drone is almost dead. but from what i was able to see outside, i can tell someone shot sungyoon and daeyeol as they were headed over. i don't think they'll be coming back soon," he remarked. "so, maybe three to five of us should go out and help. we'll need to treat any wounds."

"do we even have enough medical supplies for this?" you asked, your mind racing. you began to sort through the stuff in the emergency backpack, making sure you could pack as much as possible.

shit. are daeyeol and sungyoon going to die? damn it, those two—

your thoughts were interrupted because over the radio, jangjun’s voice resounded, loud, clear and... somewhat excited? “come. look outside. i can't fucking believe it! we’ll finally be able to breathe the fucking air! you gotta see for yourselves! oh my god... is this real?”

his voice got faint, so you assumed he was busy staring at the sky, and how could you blame him?

everyone looked at each other with shock and disbelief. it's been a while since you've stared out the windows of the warehouse, but whenever you did, it was always the same—a sea of orange and the menacing presence of security drones. seeing something different would be a relief, a sign that daeyeol had gotten the job done after all.

still, you didn't want to be get too excited.

seungmin spoke into the radio. "alright, be there soon, hyung, but we have to go check on daeyeol and sungyoon afterwards. by the way, stop cursing so much, you potty-mouth.”

you heard a crackling sound before he responded, “fuck no.”

ha, he certainly is something.

afterwards, you took the radio, greeting jangjun with a laugh.

"hey, jangjun! is the air really as clear as you say it is?" you said, rolling your eyes. "you get fired up so easily and exaggerate. how do we tell you're not just messing with us?"

jangjun sighed once, one of those sassy why-don't-you-listen-because-i'm-right type of sighs. "just look at the damn sky before you come out, okay? i took off my mask and it felt okay, but don't take my word for it. bring the surgical masks if you're really worried."

you shrugged. "we'll be there. but let's be careful."

then, talking to the rest of the team, you said, "help me grab medical supplies and weapons. once we meet jangjun and get outside, we have to make sure there are no soldiers or drones."

"alright, i'll go ahead with jaehyun to go check on daeyeol and sungyoon and give them necessary medical attention," youngtaek said.

you found a pistol and picked it up. "got it."

"found the surgical masks!" jaehyun exclaimed.

everyone headed out, feeling mixed emotions of fear and anticipation. bomin was by your side. “y/n, will it be okay?”

to be honest, you weren’t the greatest at comforting people, but you tried your best. he was the youngest, and although you knew he was an adult and could handle himself, you still had a bit of a parental instinct.

“i don’t know. i trust that they did their job. we can have a bit of hope, can’t we?”

“yeah. i guess we can.” his breathing became steadier, and you were grateful.

soon enough, you were ascending the steps of what used to be functional escalators. light shone through the tinted glass ceiling, so oddly colored and dirtied that it was difficult to tell what life was like on the outside.

jangjun was leaning against a column, his gaze turned towards a sky that was finally more blue than orange for the first time, devoid of the flame tower in the air that everyone had grown so accustomed to.

you walked beside him, quietly waiting for him to acknowledge your presence. while continuing to stare, he shook his head rapidly, as if trying to wake up from a dream. "i still can't believe it. damn. it seemed like yesterday that there were drones swarming outside the window."

you laughed. "believe what? that we're alive? that this stupid machine is off? that the sky is blue?"

"all of it."

it was rare to see jangjun's contemplative side, but it was certainly present right now. you weren't sure that you believed it either. maybe you dreamt this entire incident up too. unless anyone said otherwise, though, this was real.

you shrugged. "well, there's been crazier things in this world."

"you're damn right about that."

the crew talked quietly amongst themselves, not wanting to ruin the atmosphere that was established by the strange stillness outside the window.

"i think we should go out now." seungmin said to the group, still in a state of shock.

everyone walked out towards an outside balcony where people probably used to hang out long before you were alive. apparently there was a time when the outside air wasn't so dangerous.

as you stepped out of the building, you found a place to stand. after a few minutes, you felt comfortable removing your mask.

you took a breath in, slowly. then, you exhaled. surprised at how easy and yet difficult it was, you repeated the action. it wasn't perfect air—the atmosphere would probably never return to 100% normal—but it was certainly something.

you tried to spot the telltale red lights of enemy drones, but you couldn't find any, to your shock.

there'd be no point in sending them anyways, you surmised. the job's been done.

of course, your heart felt conflicted with the absence of sungyoon and daeyeol, especially the latter. you'd need to check on them soon, just to see how they were doing in person.

you leaned against a white ledge, alone with your thoughts for just a second.

it'll be okay. surely, they'll be okay, you thought, trying to be optimistic.

and yet, there was still a part of you that wondered if you would find their lifeless bodies. but even that would be better than not finding them at all.

that's highely unlikely, of course you'll find them.

you looked at joochan, who had found a place beside you. he was humming softly. the two of you weren't as close (hey, it was hard to get to know the ten others in your crew equally), but you knew he loved music and saw it as his life. through song, you felt as though you understood whatever emotions he wanted to convey.

"wow, i think i'm dreaming," he says, his words riding softly on the breeze. "i never really understood why people sang songs about blue skies until now."

you laughed, despite yourself. "you're not the first to think that we're dreaming. maybe we'll wake up in a few minutes. but for now, this is our reality."

you heard youngtaek's voice over the walkie talkie in your hand. "daeyeol was shot in the back, so he's our priority right now. sungyoon's not in critical condition, but he does have a few bruises and needs to rest as well. make sure you secure the area you're in—we'll let you know when we're done here."

conversation broke out amongst the group.

"why did he do this by himself again?"

"i can't believe it..."

"hyung, you really are crazy for doing this."

meanwhile, you tried to process the news yourself. you weren't doubtful of youngtaek and jaehyun's medical capabilities, but after hearing about this, you knew that it would take a while for him to heal.

you told the group that you were going to go check how sungyoon and daeyeol were faring while they finished scanning the area.

after crossing between a maze of storage crates and covering a long stretch of flat land, you finally made it to the base of the tall tower.

despite all of the hardships you had been through, the sight of the tower without a flame made you smile, even if just for a second.

you spotted daeyeol sitting on the stone floor, his back against the control panel and sungyoon beside him. jaehyun and youngtaek were busy giving them medical treatment. they were obscured on two sides by large crates, which was good.

you were glad sungyoon and daeyeol had survived, but you couldn’t stand to see them in pain, especially your leader.

it only made you feel like you had failed as a companion in protecting him.

first, you talked to sungyoon, who seemed to have a few bruises and was panting heavily, but otherwise, seemed to be alright. he stood up

"i'm glad the two of you weren't alone," you said to him.

sungyoon nods. "he says he can do things alone, and although it's probably true, i wanted to be by his side."

you think of youngbin, and how you lost him. the feeling of deep loyalty isn't unfamiilar to you.

"i... understand."

you wish you were still by youngbin's side.

"here's some water," jaehyun said to sungyoon. luckily, he was able to drink on his own.

next, you looked over at daeyeol, whose eyes were set in a solemn gaze.

on closer inspection, you examined blood trickling from several places in his body. you hated seeing him like this, wanting to give him whatever strength you had.

you approached him slowly, not wanting to overwhelm him. “hi, daeyeol. how are you holding up?”

his response came in slow, short sentences. “i'm fine, for now. need… water. it’s good... to see you, y/n.”

you pulled an extra bottle of water out of your bag and slowly poured it in his mouth. you weren't the medical authority amongst your team, but you knew it wouldn't be good if he was required to move, considering the fact that he had been shot.

“it's good to see you too.” you laid a hand on his shoulder and continued speaking softly. you wanted to envelop him in a bone-crushing hug, but you were sure there'd be time for that when he was fully healed.

when, not if, right?

“i know you're probably thinking about the next step in all this, but.." you hesitated. "let us take care of you a while longer. you've already done so much for us."

he laughed, the sound strained. "i won't do anything drastic, don't worry."

you sat down in front of him, fingertips inches away from his. suddenly, you were a little tired as well. "please, let me know if there's anything that you need.

daeyeol took your hand. "you're here... for me, that's enough."

the golden ring on his hand glimmered in the sunlight. he said it reminded him of many things—your team, as his duty as a leader, the memories you've all shared.

you had always been more of a realist. youngbin was too, accepting that things were the way they were, and taught you that there wasn't much you could do except try to survive another day and solve things practically.

but daeyeol taught you something too, that hope was something that could be cultivated, even in the face of struggle. you took a glance at your friends, feeling a weight lift off of your shoulders.

no, problems weren't going to magically disappear. wounds took time to heal. work still needed to be done. you could lose it all at any moment. it was scary, to not know what came after this moment.

but as long as you had a heartbeat, as long as you were alive, you could have hope, even if it was faint.

"yes," you said, gazing at the endless sky above you. "it's enough."

taglist: @restlessmaknae

#kflixnet #kwritersworldnet #golden child x reader #golcha x reader #gncd #golden child imagines #golcha imagines #golden child oneshots #golden child scenarios #lee daeyeol #golden child daeyeol

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nyagrounds · 7 months ago

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Musings on Pico and Nene, written several years ago.

This is technically set on my monster/demonhunting AU, but I thought these were interesting and the closest I got to really cementing characterizations for this trio- unfortunately it seems I ran out of steam before I got to Darnell and now I can't for the life of me remember what his bit of this was supposed to be. In any case, under the cut is what I *did* manage to write. CW: pretty much the same dark subject matter that Pico's School covers except, you know, taken seriously. Also, HEAVY warning for discussion of nene's suicidal tendencies and ideation in specific.

the three survivors have like. impostor syndrome-based survivors guilt but in different directions

pico is very, VERY aware that, unlike what everyone assumes, he DIDNT survive because he was faster or smarter or more gifted at demonslaying than anyone else- he survived because cassandra deliberately spared him, because she apparently had a crush on him that he never actually noticed. so its twofold, the guilt of being spared through no action of his own without being more deserving of it than all those who died, but also because he has the constant feeling that he SHOULD have noticed and done SOMETHING.

like, originally when he realized these people were Literal Demons And Monsters he very quickly dehumanized them and kind of distanced himself from the notion of having killed four of his classmates, even if in self defense, but the more he learned about the actual mechanics of demons and such he ended up with the realization that actually, what happened was pretty much literally just a school shooting for very normal human teenage reasons, and the teens just so happened to be demons. so... it's not like he has any qualms about hunting or anything, in fact he thinks it's probably a good thing in hindsight that he no longer draws any morality lines between hunting monsters and just killing people, since oftentimes there isn't actually a clear line at all; but it does kind of fuck him up, the notion that if he had payed more attention to the weird emo kids, he COULD have reached out to them, cassandra at least. and because he's developed something of a weird hero complex, he feels like if he COULD have done something to prevent the shooting, but DIDN'T, that makes him directly responsible for what happened.

so that leaves him in this mindset of "the only reason i survived and no one else did is because i was in the position to stop the massacre in the first place, and didn't"

and that's his Big Secret, he has never actually told anyone about this. he just kind of lets people assume whatever they want to think about why he survived the initial shooting. even people implying he was actually the ONLY shooter just kinda rolls off his back. he's not really pressed about the bullshit people say about him, partly because nothing can make him feel worse than the actual truth he plans to take to his grave.

nene, on the other hand, pretty much just fully knows and accepts that she survived thanks to sheer coincidence, that's not a secret, she was in the bathroom when things went to hell and she stumbled across pico in the hallway, so that's just a well known Fact about the event.

her Big Secret, on the other hand, is that despite everyone assuming her depression and suicidal tendencies arose from the ptsd and survivor's guilt, she was actually already deep into suicidal ideation and had been distantly planning to kill herself far before the incident. in fact, begging pico to kill her was really more opportunistic than anything- obviously he not only Didn't Do That but ended up making himself out to be personally responsible for her safety troughout the years that followed.

nene feels like it's a cruel joke at her expense; her, idly fantasizing about death in class, while everyone around her would likely have done anything to survive; and yet, when death came, it left her untouched.

ironically, the more she recovers, the more it bears down on her as sheer guilt, where before it was mostly frustration. especially because she knows pico and darnell just assume she was perfectly fine before the shooting, that it's normal that she's so fucked up because she lived through something horrible. she feels like a liar and an idiot, that she's letting them think she has a Good Reason to be that way, when really she was ALWAYS Fucked Up for absolutely no real reason- she has a far more stable and supportive family and home situation than either of them, pico with his neglectful asshole parents and child of divorce darnell. there was nothing wrong with her life, but she wanted to throw it away; and worse even, that she had been childishly, selfishly upset that it would be that much harder to do so now, with the implicit responsibility to "live for the sake of those who can't anymore" and pico unsubtly fussing about her safety.

she knows full well that pico's got a Thing going on with needing to protect her and darnell, even if he doesn't really seem to realize the extent to which he does it- she knows HIS guilt is tied up with not having been able to save anyone. it's the reason he and darnell don't really talk anymore, but she kind of has to concede it's also part of the reason she never succesfully killed herself. not that darnell doesn't care about her, of course- he's just more prone to actually respecting whatever one wants to do with their lives, even if it leads you straight to self destruction. he'd be a hypocrite NOT to, she supposes.

pico is far less tolerant, though, in general and in specific. they get along well despite this, or maybe because of it; he doesn't stand for her self-destructive bullshit, and she doesn't take anything sitting down, so they have a very frank back-and-forth where they both know exactly where they stand with each other. and yes, pico's paranoia about her safety DID actually lead to him and darnell pulling her out of a bloody bathtub in time. even back then she had the presence of mind to be more grateful than annoyed.

still, that's her secret that she'll take to her grave, even if that grave awaits her many more years down the line than she'd once hoped for.

#pico's school #pico newgrounds #darnell #nene #yeah i have no idea what tags people use for them bc ive never posted thoughts on them before #raaagh i had so many emotions about them and i kinda still do #i keep saying this and no one ever takes me up on it but #IF YOU WANNA COME IN MY INBOX AND CHAT ABOUT PICOS SCHOOL AND CONNECTED STUFF #ESP WITH REGARDS TO THESE THREE #PLEEEEASE DO SO IM BEGGING #I NEED PPL TO TALK TO ABOUT THEM AUGH

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bmaxwell · 11 months ago

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Game of the Year 2023: The Top 10

2023 was a great year for the videogames industry. A lot of great videogames were released in 2023. It was a fucking lousy year for the industry if you had a career there. It has been deeply disappointing to see record sales and critical acclaim alongside frequent layoff announcements. It feels like the pursuit of endless profit, whatever the cost. It's not sustainable and, as someone who has loved this hobby for my entire life, seeing the people who create games treated as disposable is disgusting. So, as much as this post and this blog are about YAY GAMES, there's also an undercurrent of filth that we have to keep in mind.

Apart from that, 2023 had its usual ups and downs for me. I played non-mobile games on my phone more than ever, thanks to two things: I got a Razr Kishi adapter to clamp onto my phone, turning it into a tiny Switch. Oh, and I got a pretty decent new phone. And Honkai Star Rail hooked me. That's three things.

Speaking of HSR, the ability to access cloud saves from my phone and my desktop PC was a godsend. This is true for Game Pass as well. Frequently I'd pull out my phone in the breakroom at work and pickup whichever game I'd been playing on Xbox, and it worked surprisingly well. I played a lot of Dead Cells this way, and finished Fuga 2 and Dordogne there.

If you'd told me at the start of the year that my best experiences of the year would include Baldur's Gate, a Harry Potter title, and an ALAN WAKE game, I'd have been pretty skeptical. But here we are. Also, if you're a theater kid I feel like this year had a couple of really special moments for you.

2023 also marked a return - at least somewhat - to the hobby of boardgaming. I was neck deep in the hobby from 2008 - 2015. I recently picked up Wingspan and it became a Sunday afternoon staple for myself, my wife, and our youngest child. I've missed the tactile non-digital experience of boardgames. It's nice to be back.

10. Honkai Star Rail

Well. You win universe. A gross free to play mobile game chock full of microtransactions and gacha mechanics is one of my favorite games of the year. The Genshin Impact people made a turn based RPG, see. And it's stylish as hell, and music is great, and when you get a new character from the loot boxes you get this little dopamine hit, and...

The game's events have been really surprising and well done. There's one involving staffing and stocking a museum, one involves shipping logistics, one's themed around ghost hunting. I wish I could have the $70 version of this game that isn't compromised by trying to squeeze players for money. The problem with that, of course, is that this game would not exist without all the bullshit.

But it feels good to play, it looks incredible, and I can swap between playing on my PC and my phone pretty effortlessly. So, despite the predatory MTX bullshit, I have really enjoyed my time with Honkai Star Rail this year.

I think my second biggest issue with live service games is that I don't get a sense of closure. I can't Finish Honkai Star Rail. And I'm not going to play it forever. So I get really into it for awhile (most of the year in this case) and just kind of...stop.

9. Goodbye Volcano High

This one is reminiscent of Night in the Woods; it's a coming-of-age story about anthropomorphic dinosaurs graduating high school, with all the fears and doubts that come with that. Some folks seem to have their entire future mapped out, some are just gonna work an hourly wage job and play D&D, and your character is serious about making a career in music. More serious than her bandmates are. Also, there's a meteor coming and it looks like it might hit Earth.

This game resonated with me on a few levels. The writing is great, the characters are well written and, unlike Stray Gods, the music landed for me. It does a great job of showing us different attitudes and values clashing into one another while making each of them relatable. The hope, resentment, and willful blindness of "My friends aren't invested in this thing we're doing together as much as I am" really blindsided me. It dredged up some feelings I haven't examined in years, both for better and worse. I didn't have much in the way of expectations for this game, but Goodbye Volcano High wormed its way into my heart. Goodbye Volcano High is the game mostly likely to be the game where I look back in the future and regret putting it outside of my top 10 for the year.

Hah! Suck it, me! Top 10 babyyyyy!

8. Pikmin 4

I've never really engaged with Pikmin, but this one was a blast. It does the Honey I Shrunk the Kids thing of "tiny dudes in a normal environment so it looks all big" thing that I love. Solve lots of puzzles by throwing little plant being at them. I love that the inspiration for the series was Miyamoto watching ants carrying leaves in his yard. It still has that feeling all these years later.

It feels odd to call Pikmin a relaxing experience, as you can and will lose Pikmin. Sometimes due to the natural attrition that comes with war, sometimes when the wrong little doofuses wander into water or fire, etc. There's also a timer, which is usually a dealbreaker for me. And the story revolves around rescuing fellow space travelers who have been transforming into mute plant people on this hostile planet. In fact the whole thing sounds like a pitch for a horror game. Despite all that, there's an easy charm to Pikmin. Your little astronaut dorks keep their spirits high, and there's playful music as you explore this huge, colorful world. I found it to be a great way to unwind at the end of the day for a couple of months this year.

7. Persona 5 Tactica

Persona 5 achieved mainstream success that the games before it never reached. Atlus has been milking it for all it's worth too - Persona 5 Dancing in the Moonlight, Persona 5 Royal, Persona 5 Strikers, and an upcoming Persona 5 mobile game. Some folks are feeling understandably burned out - I didn't get into dancing or strikers, and didn't play Royal (after putting 120 hours into Persona 5) so I was geeked when they announced a Persona 5 tactics game. On paper it's a strong pitch for me.

And in execution it's every bit as good as I'd hoped. My only complaint is the chibi art style. It isn't bad, just not to my taste. Beyond that? It's got the Persona charm, the banging music, and good solid tactical gameplay with just enough of a twist to not feel dull.

The "one more" mechanic from the series is key here, allowing the members of your 3-person team extra movement and actions. This is especially important because of the game's version of the all-out attack, which forms a triangle between your 3 party members and deals heavy damage to enemies caught inside. This makes combat an experience that rewards putting thought into. The game even has some side battles that are basically puzzles, giving you one turn to finish.

The game's new characters - Toshiro and Erina - are a welcome addition to the Phantom Thieves crew as well. I came around on Toshiro in a big way and was immediately in love with Erina. The game is about fighting against oppression and finding your courage to resist. Your friends are there for you when times are tough. It's hammy and melodramatic in the way that Persona is, and I love it. I love the game's revolutionary aesthetic, even if it's largely window dressing.

The DLC has been great so far too, starring Akechi and Kasumi in gameplay I can only describe if "What if Persona and Splatoon had a tactics baby?"

6. Diablo IV

The Diablo series has been the most consistently great video game series for me. I love the first 3 games and spent a TON of time with each. Diablo IV has the worst longevity of the series, but the best campaign. Now, I have to add a bunch of qualifiers here. The "best campaign" is a pretty low bar to clear. Diablo has always been - and continues to be - find new gear/numbers go up. The cutscenes are, as usual, top notch. While the story wasn't necessarily riveting, it was nice to have an antagonist with a personality and some ideas beyond RAWR I AM VERY EVIL RAWR. In fact, I was half-expecting the game to ask if I wanted to side with Lilith near the end, and I just might have done so. And the cinematic of the human army marching into hell while Lilith and Imperius have a philosophical discussion was incredible.

As for the replay value, maybe they'll find their way much like Diablo III did. My main issue with Diablo IV is the way new content is handcuffed to new seasons, how seasonal characters are siloed off from the rest of your characters, and how the game feels like it was built around microtransactions and milking money out of the player.

The game feels good to play. Abilities feel powerful and interesting, the loot grind is fun, and exploring the variety between the classes is a joy. Diablo IV is one of the best games released this year, it's just a shame that, like a lot of modern games, Diablo IV feels compromised, it feels like a Product in a gross way. Still, every previous game in the series has had a long tail for me, so I'm not counting Diablo IV out yet.

5. Darkest Dungeon II

Darkest Dungeon is my favorite game. I have a tattoo of it on my arm. It's impossible to expect a sequel to improve on that or even meet it. Subsequent journeys into a fiction can never be special in the same way that first one is, and Darkest Dungeon II is no exception.

The game is immediately recognizable - you'll see some familiar faces lined up in a tug-of-war formation against a group of enemies. A row of skills at the bottom of the screen, a torch at the top. Artwork with thick, dark lines and plenty of shading. The moment-to-moment gameplay IS a lot like the first game, but the trappings around it are not.

Gone is the persistent campaign of the first game, replaced by a more familiar roguelike structure. You embark on runs that either end in victory or failure, unlocking new things between runs. This makes the game more approachable and forgiving, but it means the lows are less low and the highs are not quite as high. In the original title losing your veteran Crusader you've sunk hours and hours into feels like a real gut punch, but by the same token finally - FINALLY - conquering the darkest dungeon feels incredible. Those extremes are lost in the sequel, and that probably makes for an objectively better game.

It's not just the same run every time; there are 5 chapters to conquer, each themed with a personal failing: Denial, Resentment, Obsession, Ambition, and Cowardice. The game's personality is still here in full force thanks to Wayne June's narration, Stuart Chatwood's music, that incredible artwork and gallows humor that I love so much. Each of the characters is treated as an individual with their own dark backstory this time around, each crafted in loving detail and unfolding by way of cutscenes and/or interactive gameplay moments. The stress mechanism is still here but takes a bit of a backseat, while relationships between characters are brought to the forefront.

Darkest Dungeon II is just what I wanted from a sequel to my favorite game. I'm glad they didn't just make the same again but prettier, but still kept the game's bones intact.

4. Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

Yakuza has become one of my favorite game series over the past few years. I'm down for whatever they throw at us. Bringing Kiryu back yet again? Sure. New protagonist? I'm down. A period piece starring the cast as historical figures? Fucking bring it on.

I love the series. The melodrama that hits me in my feels, the never-ending parade of lovable weirdoes and freaks in Kamurocho, the deep well of fleshed-out side games like bowling, pocket circuit racing, and karaoke - it's all here. I'm not tired of it. I thought I would be, but I'm not.

Kiryu is a lovable, stoic doofus with a strict moral code and penchant for helping out anyone who needs a hand. This time they gave him a Clark Kent disguise after faking his death, and also a bunch of James Bond Spider-Man gadgets. Let's go.

I will never get tired of my big hearted himbo beating people with bicycles and helping out folks in need. And I got misty-eyed at the ending. I was not prepared for my stoic boy to full on ugly cry. Still waters run deep.

3. Hogwarts Legacy

In the years since JK Rowling outed herself as a human shaped pile of garbage, I've distanced myself from the Harry Potter universe. And when Hogwarts Legacy released, the game was a lightning rod for controversy. I decided to see for myself, and was treated to a wonderful, smartly written game that managed to capture the magic of the world without constantly referencing the movies and books that everyone knows. It's the same trick that Jedi Fallen Order pulled a few years ago, and it works every bit as well here.

The school feels massive and detailed, and it was a joy to explore or just get lost in. The game world outside the school was unexpectedly huge as well, and the broomstick flight felt so good and natural that I rarely bothered to travel by floo. Optional side activities like growing your own plants for your potion brewing, decorating your Room of Requirement, and breeding creatures were all pleasant distractions that served to flesh out the world of Hogwarts.

The game's cast is fairly diverse, and most students felt like real people rather than caricatures of their Hogwarts houses. Most students do have their house traits, but they're not constantly front and center. The side stories and main story kept me engaged throughout my time with Hogwarts Legacy, and I was a little sad to see it end. It's a shame the IP has JK Rowling's stench on it, and that a lot of people will miss this game because of that.

2. Alan Wake II

Alan Wake and Control are both posterchildren for games with incredible world building and lousy game play. I've started both multiple times only to end up walking away in frustration. Alan Wake 2 largely fixes my complaint with those previous games by letting me explore and become immersed in the world without throwing frequent contextless fights in my way.

Alan Wake 2's combat isn't necessarily more engaging, but there's far less of it. What you're left with is the good stuff, a Twin Peaks-like horror mystery in a small town where everything and everyone feels a little bit off. Sometimes a lot off. It's a game where the characters play everything straight, but there are plenty of winks and nods in the margins. The game is full of wonderful freaks and weirdoes, many of whom had me frequently grinning like a fool. Alex Casey. Warlin Door. The Koskela brothers. Rose. Odin and Tor. Alan and Saga. Ahti. Thomas Zane. All hamming it up in a story that gets entirely up its own ass in the best way.

The Herald of Darkness scene is one of the best things I've ever seen. Ditto for the late game scene on the lakeshore. Hell, the game had me sitting and watching a short Finnish art house film at one point. It's a game full of glee and confidence from a studio with the belief in itself and its fans that allow it to swing for the fences. Not every part of it works for me, but the parts that do are so effective that the whole experience is lifted up on high. I wish Remedy's gameplay worked for me, which is never has. But this is a terrific work of art, and the good stuff far outweighs the bad.

Baldur's Gate III

My love of Baldur's Gate and the CRPG genre was something I'd left long in the past. Despite playing excellent modern entries like Divinity Original Sin, and Pillars of Eternity I hadn't been captivated by one of these in some 20 years.

It's hard to put into words what a triumph Baldur's Gate 3 is. I can't name a single thing it really does to revolutionize the genre but Larian executed on every single element of the game. Starting with the story, they make the stakes incredibly personal on top of the usual "Oh shit the world is in danger!" thing we always see. A mindflayer puts a parasite in your brain at the beginning of the game. World saving aside, getting that out of you feels pretty important.

Or not! You can decide to lean into it, and the writers did a great job of mixing viewpoints into the story. Mindflayers are horrible monsters but wait. Are they really though? Your party members will have their own opinions on the matter, as well as their own traumas and baggage and backstories. The writing and voicework for these party members are the best part of one of the best games ever made.

The game's ensemble cast might be the best of any game. By the game's end my party was my Tav, Karlach, Jaheira, and Astarion/Gale depending on the situation. There are party members I missed, and one I may or may not have killed (I regret nothing). Baldur's Gate III's story branches in so many ways, it all feels like it's a hair away from collapsing in on itself but it never does. My friends and I were exchanging stories about what we'd seen and done in the game as we played, and the variance is impressive. Baldur's Gate III is like a dude spinning plates while juggling chainsaws, and people keep tossing stuff into the mix and you think "Well no WAY can he keep all this going!" but goddammit, it all keeps going.

The way the game rolls with whatever choices you make (or dumb shit you want to try) whether in or out of combat, is truly incredible. It feels closer to having a DM than anything I've ever played. If you want to do something weird or dumb, the game does an incredible job of yes and-ing you. And it's not without consequences, the game reacts to the wide array of shit you can do within the D&D ruleset. The game sets up storylines both big and small early on, and manages to pay them off in interesting ways before it wraps up.

The combat was a sticking point for me in Divinity Original Sin 2. It's not that it was bad, but it was overwhelming. Combat could be long and difficult, and losing after an hour only to reload a save was incredibly deflating. Baldur's Gate 3 threaded this needle almost perfectly for me. Most combats were challenging but not crushing, and did not overstay their welcome.

I kept waiting for the game to drag and lose its momentum, but it never happened. I was glued to it for the entire 100+ hours it took me to roll credits. I fully plan on replaying it one day.

#goty 2023

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pesterloglog · 10 months ago

Text

Gamzee Makara, John Egbert, Roxy Lalonde, Dave Strider, Karkat Vantas, Jake English, Jade Harley

Candy, page 15

GAMZEE: OoOpS mOtHeRfUcKeRs.

JOHN: oops???

ROXY: its fine gamz

ROXY: accidents happen

ROXY: um

ROXY: hey thx everyone for joining me today

ROXY: wow now that im up here its like

ROXY: idk

ROXY: i have no idea what to say

ROXY: and i guess thats cuz there IS nothing to say

ROXY: theres no words to describe how i felt about dirk strider

ROXY: and even tho he left a note that had hella words in it

ROXY: they might as well have been sayin nothing

ROXY: which is just like dirk i guess

ROXY: to leave us with a load of bullshit and no idea why he did what he did

ROXY: so im just gonna say that

ROXY: im glad that he was in my life

ROXY: and give it over to someone whos way more eloquent than me

DAVE: hey guys

DAVE: wanna apologize in advance cuz this is about to get a lil real

DAVE: realer than that three quarters of a corpse im standing about two feet from right now

DAVE: i mean i totally hate to ruin everyones mood on a day where weve gathered to think deep thoughts about how one of us just went and fucking offed themselves

DAVE: not like were gonna be stumbling through our lives constantly experiencing intrusive thoughts about this specific event or anything

DAVE: hey remember what our good pal dirk looked like with no head

DAVE: p hard to forget since getting decapitated was like his third favorite hobby

DAVE: so its not so much the body thats the problem but the sorta

DAVE: existential realization of finality i guess

DAVE: though i aint gonna lie the bodys starting to stink

DAVE: sorry all that shit i just said was a load of absolute bull meant to deflect from the fact that im pretty shook about this

DAVE: i used to do that a lot

DAVE: like basically every time i opened my mouth

DAVE: most of you know this but i had a kinda shitty childhood

DAVE: not gonna go into details but

DAVE: long story short it was technically my good ol bro-dad heres fault

DAVE: not this specific version of him

DAVE: the one i grew up with was a

DAVE: a

DAVE: he was

DAVE: he was just an absolute bastard no offense to the dead

DAVE: yeah ok sure he taught me a ton of shit that if were being generous was in theory useful

DAVE: but he didnt give a single solitary shit about raising a well adjusted kid

DAVE: or

DAVE: raising a kid in general

DAVE: i was more like his disciple

DAVE: and all that mattered was his grand design or wtf ever

DAVE: and i know dirk struggled with

DAVE: you know

DAVE: the idea that he could eventually become that kind of person

DAVE: or even worse that he was somehow cosmically fated to become that person no matter what he wanted or did to prevent it

DAVE: thats prolly how he managed to off himself in the first place considering how the mechanics of god tier works

DAVE: maybe hed been struggling with that the whole time weve been here on earth c

DAVE: who knows with him

DAVE: he was always so inside his own head i cant even imagine what insane train of thought led him to decide that this was his only option

DAVE: but i dont think hed want us beating ourselves up about it

DAVE: or torturing ourselves trying to figure out what it fucking meant

DAVE: esp jake jane and roxy

DAVE: he loved you guys and wouldnt do anything to hurt you

DAVE: well not intentionally i mean

DAVE: anyway all that shit about my bro

DAVE: im over that

DAVE: like as much as you can get over it

DAVE: theres a subconscious response to certain stimuli you cant exactly rewire

DAVE: but the conscious part of my brain is all like

DAVE: shit dude

DAVE: i feel great

DAVE: wtf is hypervigilance??

DAVE: i love being alive and having all these friends who care about me and dont beat the shit out of me every day of my life

DAVE: etc

DAVE: and part of thats cause i got to be friends with dirk

DAVE: it was great getting to know this rad version of my childhood guardian who wasnt completely batshit insane

DAVE: and like just chill with him

DAVE: shoot the shit and freestyle or debate dumb crap without it being a federal fucking issue

DAVE: and more than that he treated me like i was on the level with him

DAVE: he let me give him shit for being a pretentious blowhard every day of his life

DAVE: which i did

DAVE: but despite that i

DAVE: i looked up to him

DAVE: the way i always felt like i should have been looking up to my bro

DAVE: the way i WANTED to look up to my bro but couldnt

DAVE: dirk taught me so much shit i didnt know i needed from him

DAVE: i mean picking up dirks opinions was unavoidable if you ever hung out with him considering he never shut his fucking mouth

DAVE: but im glad he didnt

DAVE: he taught me about combat

DAVE: philosophy

DAVE: life

DAVE: and im sure had he not killed himself the literal day i was finally gonna ask him romantic advice

DAVE: he wouldve taught me about love too

DAVE: so in the end

DAVE: i really got no idea how the fuck im supposed to feel right now

DAVE: but thats probably ok right

DAVE: like its ok

DAVE: to not know how to feel when someone dies

DAVE: its ok to not have all the answers

DAVE: i wish dirk were still alive so i could tell him that

DAVE: but hes not

DAVE: so

DAVE: i guess thats all i got to say about that

ROXY: anyone else have a eulogy theyd like to give

ROXY: i think the best way we can honor dirks memory at this point

ROXY: is to spew an untold number of words into the void

ROXY: as many as we fuckin can

GAMZEE: WhAt’S uP oN tHiS mOsT rIgHtEoUs AnD fRoWnY Of DaYs My BiTcHeS. :’o(

KARKAT: OH MY GOD

KARKAT: NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR ANYTHING YOU HAVE TO SAY, GAMZEE.

GAMZEE: HaHaHaHa YoU sTiLl GoT iT bRoThEr.

GAMZEE: mY mOtHeRfUcKeR oF cOmEdY’s In ThA pRaYbLoCk! ThAt MiRtHfUl NoIsE yOu HoLlEr StIlL sLaPs My MaNg.

KARKAT: IT’S NOT A FUCKING JOKE.

GAMZEE: NiNjAs AnD gEnTlEhOeS!

GAMZEE: We GaThEr Up At ThIs ShRiNe Of WoRsHiP tO wHaTeVeR fAlSe IdOlS oR mEsSiAhS tHeSe HoMiEs GeT tHeIr DeVoTiOn On FoR.

GAMZEE: BuT tHaT’s Ok, BeCaUsE wE’rE mOtHeRfUcKiN uNiFiEd ToDaY, nO mAtTeR wHaT oUr BaD aNd DiFfErEnT bElIeFs SaY aT uS tO oUr PiEtY pAnS.

GAMZEE: We CoMe In CeLeBrAtIoN oF tHe LiFe! :o)

GAMZEE: aNd DeAtH. :o(

GAMZEE: Of ThE oNe AnD oNlY, a TrUlY cHoIcE pIeCe Of MaN-bItCh WhAt WhOm I hArDlY eVeR kNeW:

GAMZEE: tHe DiRkStEr.

KARKAT: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

GAMZEE: ThEn, YoU mIgHt Be Up AnD wOnDeRiNg, WhAt PlAcE hAvE i GoT aLl OrAtInG oN tHe SuBjEcT oF tHe LeGeNd Of ThIs FiNe FeLlOw?

GAMZEE: tHaT’s A gOoD qUeStIoN mY mIrThFuL bRoThErS.

GAMZEE: i MaY nOt Be AlL uP aNd LeArNeD aBoUt HiS lIfE, bUt I’vE gOt DeEp SpIrItAl CoNnEcTiOnS tO hIs DeAtH.

GAMZEE: It JuSt So HaPpEnEd ThAt FaTe BrOuGhT mE tO hIs DoOrStEp On ThE vErY dAy ThAt He WeNt AnD mOtHeRfUcKiNg ChOkEd It OfF aT tHe NeCk.

GAMZEE: oNe Of ThE mOsT sPiRiTuAlLy AwAkEnInG mOmEnTs In My LiFe...

GAMZEE: In SuCh A sHoRt TiMe He TaUgHt Me So MuCh.

GAMZEE: ThIs WaS nO cOiNcIdEnCe. It WaS a HiGhEr PoWeR gUiDiNg My PaTh.

GAMZEE: tHeSe PoWeRs MaDe SuRe ThAt I wOuLd Be ThErE, tO rEcEiVe A gReAt WaRrIoR’s FiNaL mEsSaGe, AnD rElAy It To YoU oN tHiS dArK aNd DrEaRy DaY oF dEaTh.

GAMZEE: HoNk!

GAMZEE: AwWw, ShIzZ. i GuEsS i’Ve GoT tO uP aNd WiNg It!

GAMZEE: YoU eVeR wAkE uP aNd SiT dOwN tO dRoP a FaT oNe In ThE lOaD gApEr, BuT yOuR fLeSh BoDy JuSt AiN’t ReAdY tO gO aNd DoOk It OuT yEt?

GAMZEE: tHaT’s WhAt LiFe WaS lIkE fOr ThE d-MaN.

GAMZEE: A mAn BoRn WiTh A pUrPoSe. A pLaN.

GAMZEE: bUt ThE wIcKeD wAyS oF tHiS wOrLd StOlE tHaT aWaY fRoM hIm...

ROXY: WOW WASNT THAT GREAT FOLKS!

ROXY: WOW JUST WOW I KNEW THIS GUY WOULDNT LET US DOWN

ROXY: BRAVO!!! DAMN I FEEL LIKE IF I NEVER HEARD ANOTHER WORD THIS GUY EVER SAID THATD BE FINE BECAUSE THAT WAS ALL JUST SO *PERFECT*

ROXY: ANYTHING MORE WOULD ONLY DAMPEN THIS PERFECT MEMORY HE GAVE US!

ROXY: TAKE A BOW GAMZEE AND THEN OH YEAH THE EXITS THAT WAY!

GAMZEE: hOoOoOoOoOnK.

ROXY: (hey dude can u get up there and say somethin as like...)

ROXY: (a palate cleanser?)

JAKE: Gulp! Uh...

ROXY: (he was your best bro! come on man surely u got somethin in ur heart to say)

JAKE: Oh... Okay.

ROXY: hay everybody its jakes turn!

ROXY: hes got a few words hed like to say about our dear departed buddy

JOHN: (oh for fuck’s sake.)

JOHN: uhh, hi guys!

DAVE: hey

KARKAT: I SEE THAT EVEN YOU COULDN’T BEAR GAMZEE’S ASININE, BRUTAL AND 100% NONCONSENSUAL ASSAULT ON YOUR LISTEN CRATERS, AND ALSO THE BASIC DECENCY WHICH SAPIENT BEINGS APPARENTLY OWE TO ONE ANOTHER ON THIS PLANET.

JOHN: no, um, actually i listened to the entire thing.

JOHN: i have no idea why i did that. now i have this whole memory in my head that i could have definitely lived without.

JOHN: i was just worried... because you didn’t come back.

JOHN: dave, are you ok?

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: well no

DAVE: but its ok to not be ok about this specific thing i think

DAVE: so for once i think im having like

DAVE: a totally unironically normal emotional reaction to a thing

DAVE: which loops around back to being ok

DAVE: in fact im probs the okayest ive ever been objectively

JOHN: are you SURE?

KARKAT: THAT WAS HALF A HUNDRED WORDS TO EXPRESS A THREE LETTER SENTIMENT.

KARKAT: I’D SAY HE’S DOING FINE.

JOHN: hmm.

JOHN: because i was thinking...

JOHN: do you... want me to go back?

DAVE: go

DAVE: back??

JOHN: with my retcon powers.

JOHN: i could go back and stop him.

DAVE: dude

KARKAT: JOHN!

JOHN: what!

KARKAT: DO YOU NOT HAVE AN INCH OF GODDAMN SENSE IN THAT THICK FUCKING SKULL OF YOURS?

JOHN: what!!!

DAVE: john

DAVE: come on what are my powers

JOHN: ummm... time travel?

DAVE: so you dont think i wouldve already done that if i thought it was a good idea

JOHN: well ok yeah, obviously.

JOHN: but if you DID do it we wouldn’t even know right now because it would’ve just made a new timeline where dirk didn’t kill himself. that’s how time travel works, right?

DAVE: ehhh well actually

JOHN: but!

JOHN: if i retcon it...

JOHN: then it’s like it never even happened!

JOHN: we wouldn’t have had this horrible funeral at all.

DAVE: i dunno dude thats

DAVE: a little fucked up actually

JOHN: you think so?

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: dirk was a complicated guy

DAVE: dude obviously had reasons for doing what he did

DAVE: if you go back and just rewrite his decision

DAVE: thats like denying him his personal autonomy

JOHN: huh. i... didn’t think about it that way.

JADE: dave!!! roxys wondering where you are

DAVE: oh yeah be right there

JADE: what about you karkat? you coming??

KARKAT: YES! GOD!

KARKAT: CAN’T A MAN STAND ON A MOIST AND DREARY PIECE OF RELIGIOUS PROPERTY TO HELP CONSOLE HIS MAIN BRO?!

KARKAT: JESUS FUCK, GOD FORBID WE UPSET THE CAREFULLY ORCHESTRATED FUNERAL PROGRAMMING WHICH JUST FEATURED A SEGMENT WHEREIN A DEEPLY UNPOPULAR CLOWN PISSED HIMSELF IN FRONT OF THE CLAMORING PAPARAZZI!

JADE: oh lord... you dumb baby

JADE: karkat it looks to ME like youre the one third wheeling dave and johns poignant brotimes

JADE: so why dont you get your butt on over here???

KARKAT: ARGH... FINE!

DAVE: john

DAVE: i get what you were trying to do

DAVE: but

DAVE: its ok dude

DAVE: im ok

JOHN: that’s weird...

JOHN: it was working just the other day.

ROXY: lmao john its just me

ROXY: doin ok up there b?

JOHN: i’m fine!!!

JOHN: wait. b?

ROXY: yea like short for babe

ROXY: cuz ur my babe b

JOHN: oh, haha. right.

ROXY: is dave ok?

JOHN: yeah, i guess.

JOHN: ...

JOHN: are YOU okay?

ROXY: yea

ROXY: actually

ROXY: im more than ok

ROXY: cause ive been thinking

JOHN: oh?

ROXY: about you n me

ROXY: and this

ROXY: hey john

ROXY: we should get hitched

JOHN: ummmmmm...

JOHN: um...

JOHN: ...what???

ROXY: um what WHAT?

ROXY: john cmon

ROXY: marry me

JOHN: like...

JOHN: right NOW?

ROXY: lmao totes

ROXY: were already at the church n everything

JOHN: o-oh my god.

JOHN: oh my god!

ROXY: john

JOHN: oh my god, are you serious??

ROXY: no LOL

ROXY: john u take everything so literally

ROXY: its fuckin adorbs

JOHN: is that... why you want to marry me?

ROXY: yea

ROXY: im off the charts with all my jokes n shit

ROXY: and i gotta even all that out

ROXY: with this like HUGE helping of clueless nerd :)

JOHN: roxy...

ROXY: ok but lets be serious here moment

ROXY: i actually do love that youre so earnest

ROXY: its cute as fuck and also

ROXY: i always know where i stand with you

JOHN: roxy...

ROXY: sides this whole

ROXY: THING with dirk

ROXY: its made me realize that even though were immortal

ROXY: were not necessarily gonna live forever

ROXY: lifes too short not to spend every moment with the one u love

JOHN: you...

JOHN: LOVE me??

ROXY: yea john i love you

ROXY: wanna marry u and spend the rest of my life with u and pop out a bunch of cute lil buck toothed babies with you

JOHN: oh, uh. haha, wow. roxy that’s um.

JOHN: that’s a LOT.

ROXY: well you dont gotta answer rn

ROXY: just know its on the table

JOHN: i...

JOHN: ok.

JOHN: ok, let’s... let’s do it!

ROXY: ooo u want to do it??

JOHN: yeah!

JOHN: er... i mean...

JOHN: um, yeah. that too.

JOHN: but i meant...

JOHN: about the getting married thing.

JOHN: let’s... do that!

JOHN: let’s totally get married!!

ROXY: omg

ROXY: were gonna be SO freakin happy!

#homestuck #homestuck epilogues #gamzee makara #john egbert #roxy lalonde #dave strider #karkat vantas #jake english #jade harley #candy epilogue #page 15

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sugar-omi · 1 year ago

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you sharing these Genshin fics is making me want to play the game again. The story hasn't been much fun for me. What do you think of the plot so far?

okay I'm ngl I've been skipping thru it but I have read some of it n the cut scenes help rmbr wtf is happening LMAO

honestly I just do the quests to progress n get primogems but I do think some of it and some of the side/world quests are cool

as for the main quest/plot tho... I think it's good. not sure when you stopped playing but I think sumeru really brought the game back.

the overtaking the government and al haithem starting a fucking coupe was crazyyyy

and Fontaine is actually really really good. ngl I think furina is irritating bc. I hate ppl like that (takes nothing serious, cant admit when theyre wrong, self obsorbed honestly. but she has some flaws n insecurities which i think is interesting n stuff. idk, i wont ramble but if you wanna hear that i will LOL) but she's so cute and so fucking funny

and we went to jail this last time n neuvillette n wriothesley were the captains of this show omfg its beautiful

I think it's really cool. ngl sumeru is annoying to me bc of the desert n shit, there's just so much AND THEYRE STINGY W THE FUCKING CHESTS

they do make up for that in Fontaine but it's some bullshit, the best way to get primos is to do quests n honestly idea how they expect us to max the tree when you literally get a common chest n thus 1 dendro sigil for defeating a whole camp????

oh but the mechanisms there are so good n so fun. I also liked the events like that fungus event they had

anyway conclusion is, if you havent played in a long time like before or in the early days of sumeru, the last bit of sumeru brings it back bc that shit w scaramouche/wanderer?? cool shit

and Fontaine tears sumeru out the water period. so definitely come back for Fontaine, there's a magic show turned murder mystery, and a traveler goes to jail but it's actually a missing persons investigation

just realized there's a Lotta murder mystery stuff going on in fontaine....

ALSO IF THAT DOESNT CONVINCE YOU THEN COME BACK TO SEE THE KNAVE, SHES SO AWOOGA OMFG

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macgyvertape · 2 years ago

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D2 season of the Plunder Thoughts

gameplay stuff above cut story stuff below in a liveblog format (what a mess this post is when tumblr ate my bullet points)

DIM has been painfully slow and it’s a problem with the Bungie API system, DiM is so integral to quality of life in the game, the app can’t compare. Tower has been unusably slow like the last few season but even worse

I appreciate the UI buff changes, color coding it via class and with different shapes.

Story progression requiring 50 champ kills and giving bonus for master ketchcrash is so bullshit since master ketchcrash isn’t matchmade and requires a high powerlevel grind. Glad they made it autocomplete after a day

The ketchcrash activity is fun, it's great that it's randomized to reduce the monotony of the grind. I think it’s neat the level of companion AI there is.

However expeditions are frustrating with the ruffian mechanic which only progresses when you sit around and throw the treasure away. So they basically never show up with blueberries.

Destroy shield generators is also a pain. Fighting other guardians for the scorch cannon then some asshole steals it right from your kill. Same thing with deposit treasure for scallywag, where you fight other guardians for it. A lot of people complained about this with scythe kills last season

Nice to see old areas repurposed for pirate hideouts

.Anti-barrier sniper is really bad this season, between the flinch changes and snipers being outclassed by other weapons the damage power isn’t there like lastime

The real flaw this season is the reward structure. So few red border drops, limits on the ability to buy focused weapons when you have challenges that require leveling them.

The challenge of “level 3 seasonal shaped weapons to lvl 10” exemplifies this when I had 0 seasonal weapons crafted by then

Even worse that challenge gives repute when I need more repute to buy something that increased the drop rate.

I wish bungie wouldn’t lock GMs behind the power grind. They’re the content I want to do but irl keeps me busy so I never get to power level until after GMs start

Glad I don’t care about event title because I don’t have the time to grind for it. I made an attempt at getting challenges done but the weapon kills and 35 haunted sectors were too much of a time sink. So no point paying for the event pass even if I was interested.

50 super kills in Mayhem was a lot easier this season with no classy restoration in PVP. Despite only using Thundercrash titan, I got that challenge done before “defeat guardians with arc damage”

Really enjoying whatever this Telesto thing is. Favorite fusion rifle and in top 3 favorite exotic guns. Edit: hmm it actually ended up being disappointing that they reverted all the changes

Very glad Devil Lair is the double loot GM. That way I can masterwork all my high stat exotics on hunter and titan

Masterworked Hunter Trip Grenade Gauntlets: wow those are a lot of fun with the new solar rework.

I played my Hunter and Titan characters a lot more this season, and I’m finally as comfortable doing endgame PVE with them as I am with my Warlock. Warlock is still my favorite class just how healing rift and grenade focus compliment my playstyle but learning to like all classes and be good is something I worked on since WQ launch and I think its paid off

Arc super on Warlock feels weak in that Chaos Reach can’t kill a champ in master content without Geomags, and ticklefingers is only really good for add control of which the rest of Arc Warlock kit provides a lot of other options.

Gathering Storm arc super for Hunter is great, finally makes Arc Hunter good in higher difficulty and its really good against both a crowd of adds and bosses. I think I used arc staff like once but it wasn’t as fun.

I didn’t think much changed for arc titan but I finally got the hang of the movement charged melees.

I love Brigand’s Law what a great sidearm. No Reprieve (stasis shotty) was the weapon I crafted first and lvled to 20. I don’t really like it as a precision shotgun but it will be great for Shank-Taniks boss fight next season.

Finally got my 3rd pattern for Seasonal weapons with 3 weeks left. Yeah the red border system this season was awfulI

wound up not playing any iron banner this season. No seasonal challenges required it and if I’m not super interested in the game mode this season and skulking wolf trait isn’t good in PvE

.Just like seasonal event titles, the new IB structure incentives grinding a lot in 2 weeks. Its a fast track to burnout for me so I don’t go for it, but I dislike the shift towards short time to earn FOMO titles

Did the raid almost every week on all 3 characters and no Touch of Malice, raid exotics being random RNG with no bad luck protection system is just such a waste of players time

This season I finally did a reset with Banshee, I’m glad they adjusted it.

Without even trying for it I got Thrillmonger medal, and thereby completed Dredgen. No FUCK no to ever trying to Gild it though

Glad there’s skill based matchmaking but crucible still sucks ass when I play with my friends in other timezones. Damage glitching with cheats or bad connections, gives me 0 reason to do pvp except for seasonal challenges and its so prevalent in Trials and Glory Playlist

The challenges I skipped were 100 Guardian stasis kills, and 2nd reset for Crucible and Gambit. If I’m not having fun then I won’t force myself to play

Did Master Rhulk through the streamer’s checkpoint system, it wasn’t that bad. Glad to get the sparrow.

Gameplay wise the community event was great to have during the last week, bonus rewards for doing a lot of playlist activities to finish seasonal challenges. I turned in most of my planetary materials to Rahool to buy golfballs, and I have most good stat exotics masterworked.

I’m SO GLAD they changed Scallywag to 8/9 triumphs, I’m tired of doing expeditions and I don't want to have to sit in the activity growing to hate Destiny to get it

I tried to do Master Caiatl with some clanmates on the last day and holy shit I think its the most difficult PvE in the game. Between survivability from lots of adds, match game with lots of shields, deaths from architects and being thrown off the map, and that you have so little time to kill bell keepers before Caiatl gets there. Its a lot to deal with and after close to an hour with no progress we gave up.Master WQ campaign mission was a cakewalk comparatively

First week:

I hope someone got a gif of the ketch flying overhead, that was my favorite part of Beyond Light, how present Eramis Shipstealer’s ketch is. Shame it wouldn’t let me replay the mission on other characters b/c of a bug.

The following cutscene: cries in how bad my guardian looks on my graphics card.

This pirate theme is a lot of fun, a lighter in tone breather from the horror of last season. If the music wasn’t a clue the fact that basically every NPC has a punny pirate name would do it

Also the music that played during the cutscene sounded like the start of “the families” but different. Interesting because “the families” was from black armory soundtrack

Other weeks:

This is really peak Eliksni fucker season

While I’m enjoying Drifter’s antics I wish we got him being a bit more morally gray and sketchy like he was in Season of Outlaw/Joker’s Wild

Pirate Hideouts: The Blademasters - i do appreciate some immune Cabal chasing me with swords

In universe they keep calling what we’re doing “unsavory business” but aside from like working with Spider (leader of an organized crime ring) what morally dubious actions are we committing than our normal “privateering actions” where we basically have a comission of war from the Last City. Worst thing I guess we're doing is blowing up the ether and thereby starving others but that isn't like brought up as a plot point.

Spider and Misraaks have BIG ex energy. Feels like classic ex-significant other back in the life of the single dad causing drama with his child because the dad has a past he REGRETS

Misraaks threatening Spider(Rakis) is hot DILF shit.

Eramis is short! Wonder if she remembers me specifically as that guardian from Europa

Making people walk the plank into the void of space, marooning on small asteroids where who knows what you'd die from first. great melding of pirate+space. Misraaks’ dark past wasn’t shocking, nothing that hadn’t been heavily hinted at

The people in Victorian times ate mummies thinking it would be curative. Wonder what powers people would get from eating parts of Nezarac (edit: lmao what an easy I made before the cutscene even leaked)

Eramis vs Mithrax sword fight was great! Love that Eramis was there defending Eido. So curious about how things might have gone if Mithrax didn’t attack first

Feels nice to be the good guy again” WHEN DID YOU CHANGE DRIFTER?! you were pragmatic not moralistic, why are you not asking for any pay?!

I wish there would be more pay off in the last week of the story instead of waiting for the last week of the season after a holiday event where you have to hope you have free time. The season just felt really anticlimactic, and I guess I wish Eramis’ message of “I can’t change I will never get over the pain of the whirlwind” wasn’t just in a radio message. Despite her threat to Eido I don’t think she would follow through. Mithrax, yeah she’d totally hurt him.

All of Drifter’s “funny” voicelines during the Halloween event, its like Drifter are you still the same character as the guy who killed and ate his fireteam to get off the ice planet and had people die for real in your gambit arena?

The community event of improving the eliksni quarter is cute, I don’t know if they went for the intentional parallels that Spider who is the face of organized crime in universe is “leading” the cleanup, when irl organized crime groups help the community because it gets them good pr

Love the end of season cutscene. Idk how to phrase this without uncharitable reading replies, but its good bungie made it explicitly clear it was a romantic relationship with an onscreen kiss. Like if you read the lore it’s been obvious for a while but in light of the 2021 IGN expose, and considering you have to go looking for the Immolant weblore, and when the writer was confirming it on twitter Osiris had already been replaced. Just glad Bungie doubled down about it being a gay romantic relationship and I hope everyone mad about it uninstalls.

Overall its hard for me to say how much I would have enjoyed this season if I didn’t enjoy seeing characters who haven’t got a lot of screentime, especially since it was mostly Mcguffin chasing, with the twists of; Lucent Hive are after the relics too and Nazerac parts could wake up Osiris not really being built up before they’re revealed

#destiny 2 #season of the plunder #mac plays video games #liveblog #I think it's first time where gameplay section is longer than the story

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imunbreakabledude · 29 days ago

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i've noticed an uptick of this kind of stuff on rs3, previous dxp events were pretty hit or miss on what group you got but during the last one it was almost all political talk bullshit. Surprisingly there was also a lot of actual conspiracy theory stuff, like aliens, summoning demons and real world magic. But for osrs, at least in the beginning, there was a pretty large 4chan population. I wouldnt be surprised if those people stuck around and got worst as time went on, i think its 65/35 on people actually believing the stuff vs ragebaiting.

Oh also good luck with toa, i like all of the wardens fight but the rest of the raid before that is so dreadfully boring. Hope youre in and out mercifully quick

yeah, I know there's a lot of unsavory folks in the RS community who say dark shit in game not only for reactions but also bc they believe it :/ It seems to have gotten better in many ways the last few years (at least in terms of like, reactions to pride events & the gender inclusivity updates and such, I still remember how the 2017 pride event was met with majority complaints and riots, whereas the last two years there's been an annoying loud minority but drowned out by positive reception & a large amount of people simply not caring but pushing back against the bigots, which is nice to see). so it's jarring to see the extent that it really jumps out SO much with regards to politics. but i suppose that's just the stupid insanity of US presidential elections in general. they seem to permeate every aspect of society, even places that aren't US-specific, with a whoooole lot of bullshit. :/

anyways, thanks, but i haven't done any toa since posting about it, I got really frustrated while trying to learn and ragequit... I'll go back after i have a couple more upgrades, maybe (hasta and magic fang being the most relevant, maybe bandos pieces as well)... or just accept the fact that i need to just do a load of 0 invo/50 invos but without any of the invos that penalize deaths or prevent me from getting the free supplies, while I just repeat the places i suck at and learn the mechanics properly, one step at a time...

#i think it just really bugged me because the way people talk about the raid like it's “soooo easy”#made me feel like i SHOULD be able to just crank it right up to 100 #or 150 #right away #and i guess maybe some people with high PVM skill can do that...#but for me i suppose doing like three 0-50 invo completions is not enough...#osrs sp #ask #anonymous

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corky-the-gluttony-demon · 3 months ago

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DMC: An Absurd Comedy - Haunted by Dreams Arc (Chapter 0)

Just wanted to post this random snippet from my Fanfiction (I've decided not to post the entire thing because its very self-indulgent) because I thought it was funny.

Mission Prep to Snowfield and Discarded Devil Breakers

Characters: Nero, Nico, Felix (OC), Corky (OC), Marcus (OC)

Timeframe: Seven months after the events of DMC5

Location: Devil May Cry shop, Red Grave City

Context: In my fanfiction Morrison passes the deed to the shop to Nero, and while he initially turned it down at first, circumstances pushes him to take over the devil-hunting business.

5:12pm

Tools were clinking followed by a muttered curse. Nico was beneath the van, swapping out the tires for ones with chains, her face set in concentration as she tightened the last bolt. Nearby, Nero was busy with the engine, wiping his hands on a rag after finishing with the oil change and antifreeze.

Before setting out on their first big mission together to Snowfield (well big since Felix and Corky joined them), the first thing they wanted to make sure was that Nico’s baby was up for the winter conditions. “I sent Corky and Marcus to get some emergency supplies; blankets, food, water, perhaps a portable generator, extra fuel-“

“What do we need all that for?” Nero asked. “We’re only going to be in Snowfield for a day. Morrison even told us to make sure we don’t stick around til night time.”

Nico slid out from under the van, raising her hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I’m just saying, ‘just in case.’ You never know what kinda bullshit this place might throw at us. Not that I’m planning on anything going wrong, but… The battery in good condition?”

“Checked it twice. It’ll hold,” Nero replied, glancing over at Felix, who was leaning against the side of the van, holding a set of headlights with an expression that said he’d rather be anywhere else.

“You know, I ain’t no mechanic,” Felix grumbled, rolling the lights in his hands like he might crush them out of sheer irritation. “I’m more into breaking things than fixing them.”

Nero didn’t bother to hide his smirk. “Then maybe you should’ve stuck to what you’re good at instead of whining. Those lights aren’t gonna install themselves.”

Felix shot Nero a dark look, his eyes narrowing. “You wanna say that again, pretty boy? Or are you just looking to catch these hands?”

Nero straightened, the tension between them crackling like static. “I’m saying maybe you should stop bitching and do your part. Or are you too hungover to handle it?”

Felix took a step forward, but before things could escalate, the door to the garage swung open, and Corky strolled in, Marcus trailing behind her with a few bags slung over his shoulder. She was practically beaming, excitement radiating off her like heat from a fire.

“Look what I got!” Corky announced, holding up two ice scrapers with a grin that said she was way too proud of herself. “Got ‘em for a steal! And before you ask, yes, I haggled.”

Nico’s annoyance at the boys faded into amusement as she eyed the scrapers. “Damn, Corky, you’re really on top of things. Speaking of which, I was supposed to go shopping for some cold-weather gear, but…”

Corky waved a hand, cutting her off. “Already handled. I hooked everybody up.” She hesitated, then added with a sheepish grin, “Well, okay, I had to call Blessing for some help because, let’s face it, fashion isn’t exactly my forte. But don’t worry, I made sure to get what we need for the climate. And I’m pretty sure I got everyone’s sizes right.”

Nico’s eyes lit up with genuine excitement. “No way. Lemme see!” She practically darted toward the bags, rummaging through them until she found a bundle of clothes. She held up a thick, fur-lined jacket, a gleam of approval in her eyes. “Damn, this is nice. You really did good, Corky.”

Corky shrugged, trying to play it off, but there was a hint of pride in her voice. “What can I say? I aim to please.”

As Nico ran off to try on the clothes, Corky led Marcus into the van as Nero and Felix continued to bicker outside. “So what’s their beef?” Marcus asked. He was still getting used to everyone here since his arrival. Though he will be holding down the shop while they are gone, Corky has quickly begun to get used to him.

“I dunno, honestly. They seemed fine when we first started working together, but I think its just your typical ‘mine’s bigger than yours’. No wonder Dante only ever worked with women.”

“Speaking of, you think we’ll eventually work with them?”

“Maybe. I’ve worked with Lady for a while. But without Dante they seem more interested in doing their own thing. Which is a bummer, we could use more kick-ass girls.”

They can hear the back end of Nero’s comment about Felix’s cheap thrills and hangovers, “I should probably go out there before they kill each other before we even go on this mission,” Corky groaned.

“Say that again, Felix. I dare you,” Nero snarled as he and Felix were face to face.

“Now kiss!” Corky said with a clap. That was enough for both men to back off with looks of annoyance.

Nico stepped out, dressed head to toe in the gear Corky had picked out. A thick, fur-lined jacket hugged her frame, paired with insulated pants and boots that looked like they could stomp out a snowstorm. She spread her arms out, grinning. “What do y’all think?”

Marcus’s eyes lit up like a kid in a candy store. “Damn, Nico, you’re looking hotter than hell in that getup. You sure you’re not gonna melt all that snow just by walking through it?”

Nico rolled her eyes, though she couldn’t hide the smirk tugging at her lips. “In that case we don’t even need to heat generators, since I can keep the van warm with how smokin’ sexy I am!”

Nero scoffed, “Hey, Nico, which breaker you think would be a best fit for a job like this?”

Nico sauntered over, her eyes bright with the thrill of getting to show off her latest work. “Funny you should ask, because I’ve got something new for you to try out. Took me a while to get around to it, what with all the chaos after Limbo City and, you know, getting shot.”

“You were shot?!” Marcus gasped, having not been present for it.

“Yeah! And it sucked!”

“Because of the pain?”

“Nah! Well, that sucked too. But because I couldn’t do shit while in a sling. I had all these ideas building up with some of the material I was able to bring back from Limbo City. Quality stuff. This was the first work of art, my comeback, if you will. Feast your eyes on the Gloom Claw.”

Nero’s brow furrowed as he took in the sight of the new Devil Breaker. The Gloom Claw was unlike anything he’d seen before. It had a sleek, dark appearance, as if the metal itself was alive, shifting and writhing. The surface was semi-translucent, an oily black that seemed to ripple. The fingers of the claw were spiky, and could extend or retract at will, the tips razor-sharp.

Nico held it out to him, her grin wide. “This bad boy is made from those creepy-ass Stygians you guys kept running into. It’s got a more organic feel compared to your other Breakers, and it’s sharp as hell. Perfect for tearing through whatever nastiness we come across.”

As Nero tested the Gloom Claw, the dark material shifting seamlessly with his movements, Corky’s was putting away some of the supplies she bought when saw the box by Nico’s workbench, cluttered with various Devil Breakers. Her curiosity piqued, she began rifling through the box filled with older models and what looked like prototypes.

“Hey, what’s the deal with these?” she called out, holding up one that looked particularly odd—like something out of a sci-fi movie, with its bright blue, almost toy-like appearance out the window of the van where the others were gathered outside still.

Nico glanced over, her expression turning a bit sheepish. “Oh, those? Some of ‘em never made the cut. Either Nero couldn’t find a use for ‘em, or they just didn’t pack the punch I was aiming for. A few are duds, no doubt.”

Marcus suddenly froze as his eyes locked onto the same blue device Corky was holding. His face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. “No way! This reminds me of this game I used to play all the time when I was a kid. He’d fight evil by changing his arm into all kinds of weapons. Man, I loved that little fella!”

Nico grinned. “You talking about Mega Man? Hell yeah, that’s the Mega Buster right there. Still my favorite game today, hands down. This bad boy launches charged blasts of light—solar goddamned bullets from a distance. It’ll punch a hole in steel, crush boulders, and send demons running for their mommies.”

Marcus practically swooned, turning the Mega Buster over in his hands like it was a sacred relic. “Man, this thing’s a work of art. I’m in love.”

Felix, leaning against the van and watching the scene unfold with a raised eyebrow, couldn’t help but snort. “You’re telling me Nero’s been sitting on that and never used it? Could’ve been a game-changer on half the gigs we’ve had.”

Nero scoffed, glancing up from the Gloom Claw. “Yeah, and look like a cartoon character? I ain’t trying to look silly.”

Felix wasn’t having it. “Too late.”

Nero’s expression hardened. “I don’t need flashy. I need reliable. That thing’s all show—more gimmick than substance. Sure, it packs a punch, but it’s not the kind of precision I need in a fight. I don’t need a toy when I’m dealing with real threats.”

“Okay, don’t be calling it a toy, alright?” Nico said in defense, “I worked really hard on each of these breakers.”

Corky’s gaze drifted back to the box of discarded Devil Breakers. Something caught her eye—there was a faint, almost imperceptible pulsing coming from within. Her curiosity piqued, she dug around until she pulled out a sleek, white arm with a gentle, almost soothing glow emanating from it.

Is that a…?

Corky couldn’t help herself; a giggle bubbled up as she held the device up for the others to see. “What the hell is this?”

Nico glanced over, and the mischievous grin that spread across her face was a dead giveaway. Nero, meanwhile, was already rolling his eyes, his face flushing a shade of red that made him look like he wanted to disappear into the floor. Seeing him blush made Corky’s smile grow bigger.

“That,” Nico began with a teasing lilt in her voice, “is Sweet Surrender. I originally designed it with Kyrie in mind so Nero here could help relieve some of her tension. You know, since he’s all brute force and might accidentally hurt her.”

Corky’s eyes widened in surprise, but the laughter from Marcus and Felix was immediate, like little schoolboys. “Oh~ Felix cackled, practically doubled over. Marcus was nearly wheezing. “You need a little help there, bro?”

Nero quickly stepped forward and snatched the Devil Breaker out of Corky’s hand, his face a mix of embarrassment and annoyance. “Knock it off, alright? I haven’t used it.”

Corky, ever blunt, tilted her head. “Seems like a waste, though. Could’ve done some good with it.”

Felix snickered, “Should’ve taken it with you to Fortuna, Nero. Who knows, maybe Kyrie would’ve been more inclined to take you back.”

Nero shot Felix a glare that could have melted steel, but it only fueled Felix’s amusement. Before Nero could retaliate, Corky, still genuinely curious, asked, “So, what does it do, for real?”

Nico, still grinning like the cat that got the cream, explained, “Well, it’s got some pretty advanced healing properties. Helps soothe muscles, relieves tension…”

“Relieves tension?” Corky repeated.

“Is that what we’re calling it now?” Felix muttered under his breath, eliciting another round of snickers from Marcus.

Corky, ever the pragmatist, continued, “Seriously, Nero, you never thought to use it to help Kyrie? With her…tension? In her muscles…?”

Nero sighed, clearly exasperated. “I wasn’t sure if she’d be comfortable with it. I mean, I tried it on myself to see how it worked.”

There was a beat of silence, and then the entire room erupted into laughter. Even Nico had cover her face against the side of the van. Marcus was nearly in tears, and Felix just shook his head in disbelief, the smirk never leaving his face.

“Oh my god, can you guys get your heads out of the gutter for five minutes?” Nero snapped, his patience wearing thin. “It’s for massaging!”

“Massaging what?!” Corky blurted out which sent the group into another fit of uncontrollable laughter.

Nero could feel the heat rising in his face again, but there was no winning this one. He just sighed heavily, resigned to the fact that this was never going to be lived down. They had a mission to prepare for, but right now, it felt like the biggest battle was just getting his team to focus on something other than his embarrassing past decisions.

“Alright, enough screwing around,” Nero finally barked, trying to regain some semblance of control. “We’ve got work to do.”

But even as the laughter subsided and the group returned to their tasks, the smirks and side glances told Nero this moment wasn’t going to be forgotten anytime soon.

#devil may cry #dmc #devil may cry oc #Devil May Cry OCs #nero sparda #dmc nero #nicoletta goldstein #nico goldstein #dmc nico

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