#the horror game SOMA really did something with this

[lefarte]

Gamer Ranking

(Modern au / any au where they’re given access to video game consoles really)

Abella: A hardcore nostalgia gamer. Only plays on PC (built it herself). Bethesda hater and still won’t let it go. Has a picture of Todd Howard in her desk drawer with his eyes cut out. Her favorite series is fallout and has a solid year worth of time spent on New Vegas alone. Well known in the TF2 community. Used to have a competitive record in Tetris, but lost her touch from spending too much time at work. Favorite games are factorio, subnautica and terraria.

August: Calls every console a ‘Nintendo’. Calls on Abella for help with his computer frequently. It’s still on windows 7. Favorite game is solitaire.

Daan: Wouldn’t call himself a ‘gamer’, but has a steam account which he opens once in a while. Prefers narrative based horror games or puzzle games. Never spends more than 7 dollars on a game. Favorite games are bioshock, disco elysium, signalis and pathologic.

Henryk: Likes to dip his toes into a little bit of everything, but never able to get into the gamer scene. Owns a perfectly good PS4 that sits neglected and unused. Likes to talk about the nostalgia of his favorite games when he was younger and how modern games aren’t as fun. He also just has no taste. Favorite games are detroit: become human, fallout 4, borderlands, until dawn, bully and minecraft (the type of guy who always wants to make a big group world, and then when it’s made he never uses it). Abella trashes his collection.

Karin: Runs every game on her shitty company work laptop. Likes roguelikes, or any game that has a satisfying ‘tactile’ feeling game loop. A big resident evil fan, but they make her computer ‘make weird noises’. Favorite games are: Ultrakill, pizza tower, project zomboid, and multiplayer games like phasmophobia and lethal company. Currently has an obsession with Balatro that has gotten her in trouble with her boss. Has been known to play Fortnite regularly. Note: she’s BAD.

Levi: Definitely prefers 3D horror games. Nothing actually scares him though. Favorite games are amnesia: the bunker, alien isolation and the forest. Fromsoft fan, favorite game was bloodborne. He owns a decent gaming laptop and a PS2 where he plays tony hawk pro skater. Also likes half life, silent hill and the shin megami tensei series.

Marcoh: He owns a crunchy ass Nintendo DSi where he plays some pokemon like, once in a blue moon. He already finished the game 7 years ago but will never delete the file. If you look into it you’ll see that his starter is like level 100 and everything else is level 8. Never learned how to play, probably never will. Not a gamer.

Marina: Marina is a visual novel supremacist who downloaded the entire Fate series off a shady backdoor website that probably did something horrible to her computer. She loves horror, but is also not opposed to lighter fantasy stuff. Doesn’t like games that have no story. Favorites are the WTC series (Umineko supremacist), tsukihime, melty blood and rance. General classic nerd stuff.

Olivia: She runs a custom steam deck with a really cute pastel purple layout. She’s pirated the sims with every single dlc + a disgusting amount of mods (including That mod 😏) and it took up so much space she had to put in a 2 TB sd card to hold it. She likes all kinds of games, but has a preference for games with heavy writing/plot. Favorite games are SOMA, Mouthwashing, Stay out of the house (Really any games by kittyhorrorshow, puppet combo or yames) and Who’s Lila. Similar taste to Daan, but likes her games more gory.

Osaa: Probably the worst gamer of all time. Even mobile games are confusing to him. Always complains that the screen is too bright, even at the darkest setting. All games bore him. Horror games are juvenile. Story games are predictable. Action games are a waste of time. Don’t bother.

…Favorite game: Papa’s Burgeria or Bloons Tower Defense.

Pav: Favorite game series is metal gear solid. Owns a PS3. Another ‘nostalgia gamer’ who won’t touch modern games. Likes the typical PlayStation stuff like GTA, Assassin’s Creed, and New Vegas. Yes, he’s the type of person to play COD. Doesn’t have time to play games much anymore due to work (thank god).

Samarie: The same kind of visual novels as Marina, but worse. Big into denpa horror. Yes, she plays eroge. Has no one to talk about her niche vns with. Favorite games are cross channel, saya no uta (of course), chaos head and gore screaming show. She also read homestuck (which is technically classified as a denpa on the visual novel database, so….)

Tanaka: The number 1 mobile gamer in the world. Clicks on every single weird ad he gets with no hesitation. Like a cocomelon baby. Top of the worldwide charts in candy crush for 3 weeks straight. Plays these apps in public with the sound on. No shame.

[crazysodomite]

soma was good. it was thought provoking. it was really fucking bleak.

it really makes you ponder those existential questions even if they don't really affect anything in-game. at times i was genuinely pacing pack and forth and back and forth for minutes because i couldn't decide for myself what would be the right decision. i wasn't thinking of how it would affect the game but how it would affect me and what i would actually choose to do in this situation. i think in the end i chose to kill whenever i was presented the opportunity to. because i just couldn't leave those people... in that world forever. at the core most of these decisions are repetitive to a fault. kill or not kill. unplug the wires or leave them be. sometimes frankly you weren't even truly given a decision but it still ate at my conscience. but the repetitiveness didn't entirely bother me because i was so immersed. there were many times in the story that i was just petrified and my heart sank. not because of a jumpscare or gorey visuals. most of those moments were probably the 'calmest' in the whole game.

but also this game was more lighthearted than i expected? less dark than i thought actually. not to say it wasn't dark. but i came in with the expectations of some kind of dark space colony with a silent protagonist and nobody to interact with at all aside from voicelogs and such. that was my expectation before knowing anything about the game. so i was actually surprised that the protagonist was quite talkative and much more mentally sound than i would be in this situation. and the fact you had an actual companion for your trip also surprised me. not that it's a bad thing. i enjoyed catherine's company and her story. it was just interesting to see people willing to go on when there really was nothing left. but then again - what else is there to do?

in terms of gameplay it really wasn't anything that interesting. you're really just mostly there for the story. i did enjoy the tactile interactions with the world. pressing buttons, flipping switches, rotating valves. it's pleasant and grounding. the horror mechanics/monsters fell flat for me personally. most of the times the monsters felt annoying more than anything and there were multiple times where i was just saying "are you fucking kidding me?" out loud because the monsters just kinda prevented me from soaking in the story and exploring. i was dreading another monster section not because it would be scary but because it was just annoying.

the elevator section was hands down the worst out of all of them.

i come in and take a chip. i see there's a monster pursuing me. i try to explore, listen to audio logs and read the documents. Every single fucking time i enter a room, open a door, stop to listen to audiologs or read computer logs, the monster immediately comes into the room and i have to sneak away and interrupt my exploration. the game doesn't stop while you're reading or listening to something so it's guaranteed the monster will come for you. so i tried to weave around the monster and lead it away but it seemed to be tethered to me and was always passively aware of where exactly i was. and it can open doors of course so i was only 'safe' while slowly crouching in dark hallways. then i figured out i needed to insert the chip into the matrix near the elevator. and every. single. time. i approached the elevator. the monster would IMMEDIATELY come for me and i only had a few moments to figure out what to do. so i figured i needed to upgrade the chip. i do that while being pursued by the monster in an extremely annoying fashion. and yes i crouched Everywhere and didn't make any noise, i also made a point to try to lead the monster away so i could come into a room in peace. but the monster almost seemed to teleport closer to me at all times. not scary. extremely annoying.

so i upgrade the chip and something is still not working. as i said, i only had a few moments to figure out what to do near the elevator until the monster came for me again. turns out, i needed to flip two small switches that i just didn't see because they were so small and i had so little time to figure stuff out. this whole section just really soured me on the concept of monsters in this game and all the other sections really just amounted to me wasting time trying to avoid the monsters while not really being afraid. just annoyed and frustrated. i genuinely think playing on safe mode would have enhanced my experience. and i don't know how to really solve this. i understand how gameplay wise and even story-wise the monsters probably need to be present. but the execution just didn't do it for me. monsters being tethered to the player and constantly seeming to know where you are exactly no matter what is annoying, not scary.

also, the monster in omicron that kinda seems to react to sound? probably the worst implemented monster. i just kinda crouched and moved really slowly and it didn't even move from the spot its standing in. and i tried to provoke it so it would go into another direction. i tried throwing stuff repeatedly and it just wouldn't move. but hey, that's still better than the elevator monster. i did die several times on the way back to the power suit room bc i didn;t realize you couldn't sneak past it and had to run away. which was, once again, more annoying than scary.

another thing that caused trouble for me at times is not understanding what could and couldn't be interacted with. i didn't realize i needed to grab a wire in a very specific way to plug it in so i was running around the room confused for a while, even though i definitely noticed the wire on the floor, tried to interact with it, and nothing happened. sometimes i would just miss small buttons or levers. but it wasn't that big of a problem.

also, i thought me not using the healing nodes would do something in the story but it didn't really do anything. which was a bit disappointing. so i didn't heal for no reason.

the sound design was interesting. there was always some noises that just made me stop in my tracks and wonder if something was out there waiting for me. the sounds of the electronics also added a lot to the atmosphere.

the ending was gooooooddd!!!! i sat through the credits just letting it all soak in. the story was good. it really was.

some of the moments i liked:

every time encountering an npc i could talk to. first time encountering a talking robot? wow. wow. the one robot you had to unplug and it begged for mercy? that was brutal. encountering the last human on earth and staying with her as she died... the woman being forced to stay alive with artificial lungs... the woman thinking she ended up on the ark (that one really made me torn as to what i should do). the ocean robot wanting some gel from you creeped me out.

when the elevator to the bottom of the sea stopped and you just saw these colorful glowing jellyfish. at this moment i actually thought i needed to jump off the elevator but thankfully i didn't do that.

the deep sea section of trying to follow the lights in a storm while being pursued by something and your view being all blurry and obscured, limping, feeling barely alive, was really evocative. my favorite moment was when i saw a light and walked towards it but it turned out to be a giant anglerfish. that really was an interesting concept. i felt really lost and desperate during that section.

the moment "simon" was transferred into the power suit made my heart sink. the voice acting during that moment was great.

the underwater sections weren't my favorite but i really appreciated the sealife during those moments, in a way? something survived. those creatures persist even though humanity is basically gone.

the moment in the beginning when the wau pod was speaking to you was really interesting.

[kaiba-cave]

Horror games stress me out so much lmao I want to play SOMA because I’ve heard it’s really good and I’ve had it in my library from PS Plus for months but god I hate the anticipation of something jumping out at me or whatever.

I did finally get to the first monster and it wasn’t too bad. Since they’re robots and shaped more like animals than humans they’re a little less scary than a flesh and blood monster (well, that one was, I don’t know if there’ll eventually be different kinds or not). I also put the game on mute for a bit because it’s the music and sudden noises that stress me out more than the jump scares themselves, pfft. I’d rather just be scared randomly than be constantly expecting it.

Also I put it on normal gameplay where the monsters can kill you and it doesn’t look like I can change it now so welp.

I’m already intrigued by the story though and the game isn’t very long so I’ll try finishing it. 😭

[cringywhitedragon]

Made a tier list for some analog horror

I’mma do an overview for my top and bottom tier placements

S tiers: Lots of classics to me and the community as a whole, including a few that predate the term “Analog horror”. Marble Hornets is a classic. TWF, FnafVHS, HaH, and Gemini are some of the pillars of the genre so of course they’re S tier material.

Now onto some of the oddities: Foundonthetape, NOC 10, and My Happiest Days. To put it simply, I like my horror to be mysterious. Strange videos that give no context save for cipher really adds to the unnerving feeling. But also two of these fall under one of my favorite types of horror, technology based horrors.

Spirits trapped in the digital release unable to get out. Monstrous entities roaming some isolated place deep beneath the surface ala SOMA, Bioshock, or System Shock.

Or somebody using Half Life maps that later get ported to GMod so you can act like a goofball in them.

If anything you need to watch an explanation on these series. Because there’s a lot more than meets the eye.

Onto the Fnaf stuff: So underwater wonders and Fazbear Toddler Fun, which I must day are a breath of fresh air for the Fnaf scene. It’s nice to see something that’s not just animatronics hunting the cameraman or recovered security footage with just the robots. We have a large mystery and some “haunted computer” action to boot.

I will say that FTF still has that odd artstyle that doesn’t really fit the era feel but a later episode I feel really does capture some of that nostalgia better at times (plus I find it kinda believable that FE would scrounge on their development given the timeframe this game would have released).

And finally The Minerva Alliance. The big thing I like here is one word: Variety. It’s kinda like SCP in a way as it’s not just one overall entity or monster, but several creatures which could easily have their own series given only a single episode before moving onto the next. It’s a nice worldbuilding format and something I don’t see often done.

D Tiers: Oh boy, first off Urbanspook is well… Not very good and relies too much on the shock factor. Plus the painter feels very unrealistic with the body count unless you’re dipping into supernatural killer or large enemy faction territory. I will say I do like the concept of a serial killer that does artwork of their victims but not how it was executed with this one.

Now why did I place Lacy and Chezzkids here? Well the big reason is the nostalgia factor as I don’t really feel either of these series hit that well as a person who grew with that type of internet stuff, namely with the artstyle. Plus Lacey’s feels like it dives too quickly into the horror aspect and it’s a bit too direct (Plus I don’t really find this type of trauma horror to be that scary and I feel that it’s been done to death by now.) ChezzKids also falls into that sort of hole as Lacey’s with me, namely with the art not feeling like a website from back in the day. There is love and care put into these projects and I understand, I don’t hate them nor is this an attack on the creators but they just don’t do it for me.

I’m just going to lop these three together. TMK really didn’t do much for me in terms of horror either, the animated bits were fun but basing it off a goofy commercial really takes away the horror from it. Sneaky’s Snack Bar was a weird one, I had no clue what was going on and the artstyle really didn’t cut it. Plus The Walten Files did it a lot better.

The Little Curse is very amateurish, def made by a kid who likes analog horror and I do commend you for trying, it’s really not scary. Just a kid having fun.

[c0d33]

My thoughts on SOMA

Last night, I finished my first ever playthrough of SOMA, and I just needed to put down my thoughts somewhere in a coherent manner

I got this game because of a recommendation from a friend, and I'm very glad I did! This was the first ever horror game I played through in full, and it's honestly gonna be hard to top this I think.

Warning for story spoilers! Don't read if you have interest in playing this game (Which I do recommend)

Story

To start off, the story. I found the story to be super interesting! Between everything that happened at Pathos-II and the story of Simon, it really drew me in. I find the thought of unknowingly being a copy of someone's own brain to be honestly terrifying, and I really felt bad for Simon throughout the game.

Although the story surrounding Pathos-II was a bit murky for me (Probably my own fault, I tend to not be great at picking up minute story details in games), researching it further was a lot of fun! I wish the WAU was more of a character than a sort of background villain, but I still love its inclusion and everything surrounding it was executed very well.

The ending was honestly really sad for me, with both versions of Simon having their own bad ending in one way or another. One is stuck all alone at the bottom of the ocean,

Environment

I absolutely loved the environment. The whole place feels very alien even without structure gel leaking out of every crevice, and really makes me feel like I'm a fish out of water. Everything felt very unique for basically being a bunch of similarly constructed underwater bases, and each section has its own thing going for it! The heavy machinery of Upsilon, the office spaces of Theta, the laboratories of Omicron, everything felt like its own unique space.

I especially liked the underwater sections, which provided a surprising amount of variety for what are essentially the same place. Highlights for me were the MS Curie, the hike to Phi with the Leviathan, and the anglerfish part of heading to Tau.

Gameplay

I really liked the gameplay! Of course the parts where you're facing off against the monsters are great (Special mention to the lower levels of Theta against Akers, which had the tensest moment of my playthrough for me where I barely managed to lock down the security room after Akers opened the door), but I think even the exploration segments where nothing is hunting you were really good. There were some really fun puzzles to solve, and although I needed help with a handful of them, I enjoyed all of them!

I really enjoyed all of the monsters having their own unique counterplay around them, which really helped each section feel unique. Some of the best moments of my playthrough came from me slowly figuring out each monster's pattern and weaknesses, which may have led to me being very slow in some parts, but it was very fun!

Final Thoughts

Overall, SOMA is a fantastic game! I really appreciate it not being full of jumpscares like most other horror games, and instead choosing to base its horror around the atmosphere and the knowledge that you're being hunted by something. The story was great and ended up being way more philosophical than I was ready for (/pos).

Highly recommended!

[chessere]

Ethan Winters. Simon Jarrett. Existential Horror. Something. It's 3 AM Man.

First of all I have to say that I've never played SOMA myself before. When I say I'm horrible with horror I really mean it, but the core theme of the game and how it deals with humanity has been a huge source of inspiration for me for a while. The best part is you don't even have to play the game yourself. Just listening to video essays is enough to make you think for hours if you're not careful lol

Obviously spoilers for both SOMA and RE8, but like, the games are out for years now...

The point is, I feel like understanding Simon Jarrett would help with understanding Ethan Winters a lot better, and why just excepting that he's molded might not work for him. I feel like they have some similarities in terms of their existential horror but SOMA showed it better as it was the whole point about the game, while RE8 is left to be just an underlying thoughts as it was more action-focused... If you can't explain it properly using one game, then use another game baby!!!

Now, I don't think Capcom thought that far ahead, but hey, nothing wrong with trying to humanize your favorite character, right? That's my dad, y'know? So in that way it's pretty much a personal interpretation rather than an actual analysis. Again. It is also 3 AM right now. Hot damn.

Pretty early on in SOMA, you encounter a robot, or a Mockingbird, to be exact, who still thought of himself as a human. He fully believed himself to be an injured human and asked the protagonist to help him. Telling him that he was a robot would anger him, and he'd tell you he still had arms and legs... Or after that, another brain scan that shut himself down from stress once he realized something was wrong and had to be convinced that the simulation was real for him to give up. And then there's Simon himself, too. Initially, Simon also saw himself as a human, flesh and all. Only when he looked into the mirror did he become aware of his true appearance. Do you see what I'm getting at here. The brain does weird things to keep itself together is another thing that was also presented in SOMA.

Not only that, but Simon was also repeatedly explained about the process of brain scanning and how it works, how they'd always be left behind while it was their copies that would live on, but he simply couldn't comprehend it, or rather he wouldn't listen. Repressed, in denial, whatever. It was, after all, an awful truth. Anyways, the last thing Simon knew he was a normal guy with a brain injury, and then he wasn't anymore, but he didn't know that and kept thinking he was normal up until a certain point, sounds familiar?

The point is, you could probably apply the same thought process to Ethan, too, although less extreme as he didn't suddenly wake up a robot. I see a lot of people questioning why Ethan thought he could just reattach his hand and not realize that there was something wrong with him. Personally I think that what if, on a certain level, he did know that he wasn't normal anymore, hence immediately coming to the conclusion that he could just reattach his limbs, but he never questioned it or dig deeper because his brain shut it out to keep itself together. He died, literally. Foot to the head right after his wife chainsawed his arm off. That HAD to be one hell of a trauma. And by the time he finally realized he died, Ethan was angry and had a one-track mind. He did freak out for a bit when Eveline broke it to him ("Then what am I?") but he didn't have time to have a crisis. He had to pull himself together ("Family? F-Family? No! Rose! I have to...save...my daughter!") and save Rose. Then he died before he had a chance to fully comprehend the real horror that lies beyond his superficial humanity.

(I also think he's dubiously human as hell. Best case scenario is the mold revived him and he retained his consciousness. Worst case is the real Ethan died right there and the Ethan that lived on was an archived consciousness, or the mold integrated with him so well it inherited his memories and thought it was Ethan Winters. You can pick whichever you like. A little existential dread is fun once in a while-)

There's not much to talk about here but there's also a pretty interesting parallel at the end where the brain scan of Simon got launched into the ark, and as for Ethan, an archive of his consciousness lives on in the realm of consciousness.

That's probably enough for today I think. I really need to sleep instead of rambling about a fictional man's potential existential dread jfjdjfjjdjfj

[blackbloodteeth]

I'm the kinda guy that doesn't shut up so I'm gonna answer as many of these as I can, I'll leave them under a read-more though haha

I don't think I can really answer how many fics I've done this year because I've lost track of both my WIPs and how much I've finished since there's still a lot I posted on my tumblr that hasn't been updated onto my AO3 (and especially with The Ramble Room)... I can at the very least guarantee that I'm still working on stuff so stay tuned for that hahahah

2. First-person perspective, proper. Was for a couple snippets earlier in the year but thought I'd give that a go at least. Also finally wrote SoMa lesbians (not the werewolf ones tho whoops)

3. I mean obviously Soul Eater is where a lot of my brain is because variants, but I get a lot of inspiration from a lot of different horror games. You can mainly see that in my art because I keep writing about insomnia instead

4. [dial-up noises as I try to remember how many AUs I did this year] I haven't actually written anything for my The Edge of Sleep AU, but it did happen to multiple drawings, so that probably counts for something

5. TBH some of you are probably already aware I really only care about ships that involve Soul just because of exploring character dynamics with him (and that's usually not really traditionally romantic), Maka just happens to have the most grabbable chemistry. Biggest reason why I haven't done more Crona x Soul haha I will say that I have ended up paying more attention to Spirit/Stein just because they come across my eyeballs a decent amount.

6. re: Spirit/Stein, Stein has a fun aesthetic. I think I've dipped into drawing characters that aren't Soul a little more this year haha (skater void really kicked off, wow)

7. Kinda reiterating above, but I did write CroMa and CroSo during the ship week event! I think there was also a Stein and Spirit snippet I wrote at some point, although that may not be inherently "shippy"...

8. Alright I'm gonna actually look through my ao3 list hahaha... wow okay, there's a lot from this year even without the scattered stuff on my tumblr haha Happiest to work on? Well I can say the 4/20 fic was definitely extremely funny to work on haha, so that has to count for something (especially with the silly tags and art haha)

9. Most satisfying to work on... Well the reverse vampire fic "And all that counts is here and now" took a lot of energy, it was a big fic! So I was very fulfilled when I finally finished it. I'd say it turned out pretty well, hm.

10. Oh oops, I've gone out of order haha (processing issues strike again). For question 8: What fic meant the most to write... hm. I really live for writing all of my fics, but I guess I can say "Today Is Special" was really stepping outside my norm (surrealism aside haha) by writing about characters I don't usually think about too much. This one also took a lot of work, but it is indeed rather special with the way it all strung together haha

11. Most difficult to write... Probably the previous one given it was with different characters haha, but so I don't repeat any answers... "One Shot" is relevant because I started it... two years ago? And finally came back and finished it. It's hard having so many WIPs because I want to eventually finish all of them, so it's a testament that this can be done, just at my own pace. The biggest struggle I'd say was my writing style changing but it was fun to adapt to that hah

12. Easiest to write? Probably all the snippets because they're so short lmao I guess for this answer I will say "how the Devil was made" was unique in that it spanned over several writing sprints even as I was sleep deprived, so it was something that was kind've done in a day. I suppose to that effect the Thanksgiving work also applies considering I wrote it in like a couple hours at most hahaha Did you know my record for fastest snippet is 15 minutes?

13. I'll just stick to what's on my AO3 because the tumblr stuff is a mess. Shortest: "My chest's a bird's nest and it's filled with feathers of you" (642 words) Longest: the fic under answer 9 (9,800 words), but for added trivia the one below that is "I'm falling down into my shadow" (7,986 words) look I'm having fun answering different fics for different questions

14. Oh I don't really listen to music when I write or draw, stuff just kinda plays through my head. Some fics have songs associated with them when I make them though, so spot them if you can haha

15. There's a lot of times the title ends up coming first or really close to the start of writing a fic. Sometimes, not so much. "Between Two Points" title was very much last second, and only because I was grasping at a song in my brain's playlist. I actually remember at one point not being able to think of a title/summary for a fic to the point I had it sitting completed in my drafts for over a day, but I can't recall if that was even this year hahah

16. Ooh, favourite title, that's a toughie... Not quite the same, but "Purgatory Maybe" has probably the funniest chapter titles to me. My series "The Wolf" has names and summaries that I really enjoyed as well, honestly.

17. Favourite opening line? Killing me with these hahaha Alright I don't think I've brought "What a beautiful wedding" in yet, so I'll say the opening to that is pretty fun:

His fingers brush lightly against his canvas, careful brush strokes painting a scene of darks to draw out that earthy shade of green, like a beacon shining brilliantly through the storm just waiting to begin as it rolls in over the sea to land. …Or something along those lines. He's doing his best to really bring out the colour of her eyes, is what he's saying.

18. And favourite ending? Dang hahaha Alright, wild card, if you get this you win I guess lmaoo

Some would even say Maka is so good at ordering him around that Soul was far too preoccupied with obliging to remember to flip the little demon off on its way out.

19. Man, if only I could share Resbang stuff haha What fics haven't I answered with yet... "Sorry for Party Rockin'" has some pretty fun interactions hah

"Sorry, lady," a dark voice growls from her throat, "need to borrow this for a minute. No time for answers." What are you- With a laugh that isn't hers and a few pops of her neck loosening up under what was her hands, Maka doesn't even get the chance to interrupt her interrupter as she feels her arms now moving around like a puppet show and turning off the bathroom light completely. Hey— "At least I'm saving your power bill."

20. Funniest line, might as well two-for-one it haha

"I'm never asking you for directions again."

21. It's not really surprising if something surprises me or changes the entirety of a fic considering I don't write with outlines and will usually just write the first thing that comes to mind (which is how you get gems like Soul's Hornkler moment). It's also something I like about writing linearly (although I would like to try writing a story out of order someday, not to be confused with writing a non-linear story linearly haha), is that one small action can effect the rest of scenes. First one I can think of is fic from answer 15, where one interaction between Little Oni and Soul led to it being an ongoing thing, and ultimately added the whole scene at the end haha

22. While I have actually written traditionally before (wrote in a notebook and then typed it up on PC), it very much does not play well with my brain's difficulties with processing words, and the fics written during that phase are some of my least favourite. I've jumped from quite a few things though. Google Docs on both pc and mobile, libre office, notepad, Discord. I write pretty much only on Discord now hahaha Kind've a general answer and not just for this year, but technically I did have one fic where I wrote each part in a different text editor so hahaha

23. Most satisfying writing moment? How can you have me just pick one haha Well I've already said finishing up that big fic was really satisfying, so... hm. Here, I'll answer with the first fic I have listed for this year, "I am Maka's Monster". There's a lot I love on how this came together, so I can say I am very satisfied with the way this idea was brought to life. Also the last tag is still funny.

24. Oh huh, doing something special to celebrate finishing a fic... That's a real interesting one. I'm not sure I've ever thought about it before. Oh, actually, I don't really remember if it was this year or not but, I do recall there was one fic... or maybe event? That after I had finished working on something for it, I went and got pizza because I was happy with getting it done haha I don't think I could tell ya what it was in relation to though hahaha

25. Recharging between fics usually is just me drawing or writing something else (usually a snippet), since a lot of times fics vary in size. I'll also read other people's fics but uh... I shamefully haven't done that in a long while. Trying to reread the manga really jammed me up there haha (also guilty that the last fic I read I stopped reading because I didn't want it to end, and then happened to get sucked into a lot of things haha).

26. I think you might just be able to tell I draw outside writing fanfiction. Although I guess with the blurbs, sometimes I'm doing both at the same time haha In rare occasions, sometimes the blurbs are poetry/made-up song lyrics. I'm not much of a musician, surprisingly.

27. How many events did I take part in... shoot there were quite a few haha There was definitely the Valentine's Exchange, March of Madness, Reverb, Soultember, that Thanksgiving thing- oh the trick-or-treating too haha, Secret Santa (almost done making mine), and of course Resbang haha Oh yes, SoMa Day. Looking forward to next year's :^)

28. I would like to thank the entire Grigori Wings server, it's such a nice fandom home there haha. And as always, everyone who enjoys the Soul variant shenanigans! And of course people who comment on my fics haha I don't wanna give a certain someone anxiety if they happen to read this, but shout-out to you as well; you actually make me excited whenever you show up and I wanna dump 100 Soul bnnuys onto ye

29. What's left on my to-do list this... oh fuck I forgot I still need to finish that animation. At this point I have no idea how to approach it anymore, I'm in too deep, chat.

30. Last question! What would I like to do next year? Well, just wherever the wind takes me haha. Though specific things would be working on Resbang, doing my New Years raffle, and hopefully going through and doing one final edit of all my works so that I can update the formatting an' whatnot. I also need to update The Ramble Room as well, but one thing at a time haha I always have so many ideas for so many things, so I just enjoy doing what I can whenever it happens haha. I'd also like to actually not be anxious about going through the Soul Eater tag, and also maybe finish rereading the manga / bonk my brain into reading people's fics again, so we'll see what happens haha

Whew, that should be all the questions haha Of course I always am open to questions all the time (and for those still in my ask box, I didn't forget, I just have to ration out my ability to focus haha), but this was fun to just do for a bit :-)

I will probably not be proofreading this :cartwheel:

A slightly revised version of last year's questions! Two ways to play: Reblog and have your followers send you numbers, or answer the whole list!

How many fics have you worked on since January?

What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year?

What piece of media inspired you the most? (This can be the fandom you wrote the most for, the one that spawned the most ideas, the one you thought about the most, etc.)

How many fandoms did you write for this year?

What ships captured your heart?

What characters captured your heart?

Did you write for any new fandoms or ships this year?

What fic meant the most to you to write?

What fic made you feel the happiest to work on?

What fic was the most satisfying to finish writing?

What fic was the most difficult to write?

What fic was the easiest to write?

What were your shortest and longest fics posted this year?

What were your go-to writing songs?

What was the hardest fic to title?

What's your favorite title of the year?

Share your favorite opening line

Share your favorite ending line

Share your favorite piece of dialogue

Share your funniest line

What's something that surprised you while you were working on a fic? Did it change the story?

What writing programs did you use? Did you write by hand?

If you had to choose one, what was THE most satisfying writing moment of your year?

Did you do anything special to celebrate finishing a fic?

How did you recharge between fics?

Did you create fanworks other than fic?

How many events did you take part in? (bangs, exchanges, ship weeks, zines, prompt memes, they all count!)

If this were an awards show, who would you thank?

What's left on your to-do list for 2024?

What would you like to write next year?

[pushspacetocontinue]

Hey, Russell's older bros! Tell us something about Russell, the littlest bro of the bunch (in both size and age). This includes Lewis.

Lewis: "Despite his self confidence problems, he's a lot stronger than he thinks he is. One day, I hope he'll be able to see himself the way others can see him."

Martin: "He's genuinely kind. There's no doubt about that. But don't think that makes him weak. He's not kind because he's a doormat after all, but because he chooses to be despite everything he's gone through."

Truman: "From what I remember before I ran away from home, he was always pretty good with animals. Knew to give them respect and let them come to him if they wanted to. And he was always the one who had to rescue me or Simon from a spider if it got in. He would always put them outside too. And he also spoils that cat of his absolutely rotten, with all the toys and brushes and treats and other cat stuff he's gotten her over the years."

Simon: "Luck-based games, like the ones in Mario Party. Bowser's Big Blast. About 8 times of 10, he will win a luck-based game. It's absolutely ridiculous. I don't know how he does it. Horror games don't really scare him either, unless the ocean is involved. He couldn't finish Soma for that reason. Also, Truman, did you really have to go spilling that I don't like spiders?"

Bradley: "He broke his right wrist when he was like eight years old or something, and he did his absolute best to act like it was a mild inconvenience. It was only when David or Travis, I can't remember which one it was now, jerked him by the arm too hard and made it worse and we had to take a closer look that we realised it was broken."

David: "He never used to be scared of the ocean. But he wasn't the same after a beach trip when he was around five or six years old. He got pulled into a riptide and almost drowned. Then he got even more scared of the ocean as the years went by, fearing the abyss and what lurked in the depths."

Travis: "He's small and not very strong. But holy heck, he's fast and knows how and where to hit to make up for it, and he's not above fighting dirty. People pick on him at their own risk. But that aside, he makes a great latte. I love how he makes them."

[lucilleandherrobots]

Okay. I wrote this as a response to an earlier post by @jasmineofthecommonwealth, but I really want it to be seen by others. Not that people can't just read the notes on there, but I really wanted to see what people think which means I'm making my own post about it. 

Fun fact- I don't think Nick can technically die unless they damage whatever runs his personality and stores his memories. So even if he were theoretically uploaded or put into a Securitron, Assaultron, or Sentry bot, or another Synth, in some way he'd still be Nick and he'd still be very VERY much alive so long as his memories and personality subroutines stayed intact. 

In fact if his entire drive could be cloned you'd have a way of making multiple Nick Valentines. Don't think it would end well. They might start trying to fight each other in a self destructive fit of existential crisis and confusion. Then there's that whole theory of if a person's memories and personality were cloned, would their consciousness ALSO transfer into the clone body or stay in the original and all that. 

Which leads me into another theory of how deadly the mind scan was and whether or not the original Nick's consciousness won the proverbial coin toss after all. 

In a way we do have to ask ourselves here- what exactly IS Nick?  What part of him makes Nick... ALIVE?! And in the same vein we could apply what makes a human alive, kind of- once that part of your brain that holds all of your memories goes, you kind of stop... Living. You are EFFECTIVELY brain dead, meaning that even though everything else is still working like normal to some degree,  you, or at least the part that makes you "YOU" is dead. You are lost at that juncture. 

But Nick is a computer. If you rigged it right you could transfer EVERYTHING to a NEW synth body so long as it's compatible.  Therefore he cannot actually die if his entire personality remains intact in long run. 

Of course, there's the whole issue of the coin toss- the transfer of consciousness to the new body vs the old. Usually in most scenarios this whole situation plays out, there's a 50/50 chance the original wins out and transfers over to the new body. Whichever body the consciousness of the individual doesn't choose kind of exists as a separate entity from the one that retains- it's kind of shown as a sudden shift of perspective if it's transferred at all. 

At what point here could original Nick (the synth) be considered dead if a copy of him is killed?  Is the consciousness of him a signifier of Valentine's life? His very soul even? Does the copy count as a new life if he develops some form of sentience and consciousness of his own?  Do I even understand what I'm talking about? 

And if it does count as the original Nick (the synth) being "Alive," what does that say about the cop who lived back before the war? Is he "Alive" then, too? Did he lose the coin toss? Or perhaps, he won it and now has convinced himself he's a copy of a long dead detective from before the war.

I often wonder if Nick the cop survived the CIT scan at all. I wonder if he lived his own life after the procedure- miserable and grief stricken. Or worse, beyond the reaches of the current Nick's memories, did something... that's best left forgotten. Or did the scan fry his brain in the process, making it mout whether or not he won the bloody coin toss or not. Who knows? 

Tldr: As long as the original copy of Nick's personality and memories persists to exist, even turned off/damaged and unresponsive, Nick cannot actually die.

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

nobody asked but anyways here’s my review of Frictional Games I’ve played

Penumbra Overture: 1/10

Forgettable. I had a lot of time struggling to progress as it was unclear sometimes what the next step was. I kept waiting for there to be some conclusion to the plot, but it never came. It just felt like set up to the next game. The only bit of plot that was interesting I suppose was Red.

Penumbra Black Plague: 2/10

There was actual plot in this one. Unfortunately I didn’t really care for it. Its centrally about some organization trying to find an Inuit spirit, which when they find it, it starts infecting and killing them as a parasitic virus. White people being cursed or fucking with indigenous stuff is my least favorite trope. The spirit literally asks the protag to destroy the research and let it rest in peace but white people continue to just fuck everything up.

Penumbra Requium: 1/10

This one is basically just puzzles and I hated it and never finished it. Or if I did I forgot that I did so.

Amnesia the Dark Descent: 9/10

While I hate the plot of the protag having found some Supernatural Ethnic Artifact while on an expedition to Africa, that part of the story is actually pretty minimal to the plot imo. In the sense that you could replace the destination of the expedition to like, any place, and the story is functionally the same. The expedition, mentioned in letters, serves as the inciting incident but the game itself is focused on all the events after that.

The story had me interested, the puzzles weren’t unreasonably difficult, the progression of the story and game is clear so there’s no chance of getting lost. The sanity meter and the darkness were interesting mechanics. There are multiple endings. Overall an enjoyable game.

Amnesia a Machine for Pigs: 0/10

Where the previous installment had the Ethnic Artifact as something not central to the story, the Spooky Ethnic People part of this protags backstory is central to the story. Finding a mysterious artifact at an aztec temple is the inciting incident, and human sacrifice and the visual of aztec temples are a major recurring part of the plot. (not only is the protag engaging in human sacrifice based on what he saw at an aztec temple, but he’s fucking industrializing it)

I was immediately disappointed in how little you could interact with the environment and the lack of puzzles. It felt more like an first person visual novel than anything, it didn’t feel like I was doing anything meaningful. There was no inventory, no health bar or sanity meter. Overall felt lackluster and disappointing. I didn’t have any feelings for the protag, let alone sympathy. I was also disappointed in the story-telling, it felt way more telling than showing. In the previous installment, you had flashbacks and found so many notes and diaries where you could piece together the story yourself. In this installment, most of the backstory comes from essentially the protagonist literally explaining shit out loud to himself. Really the only thing going for it is a steampunk-esque aesthetic and that’s it.

SOMA: 10/10

SOMA was genuinely a fun game to play, and the only horror game I’ve ever played multiple times. The setting and visuals of the game are beautiful, the theme of the game looking at consciousness and humanity is intriguing even if the protag is fucking stupid. Very rich story. Horror, sci-fi, apocalyptic, set underwater. The monsters are such cool designs, just the whole thing has a lovely aesthetic. If you’re going to play one of these games, I would recommend SOMA. It’s not puzzle focused, unlike Penumbra or Amnesia.

A nice feature as well is a “safe” mode, in which you cannot be killed by the monsters which is great for people who want to focus on the game or anyone like me who struggles with controls and stealth.

[lunarimpact]

I don’t usually have final thoughts posts for any fics which are commissioned. I tend to keep those feelings to my self, and whatever thoughts I might have. But I am having DanAya feelings and I need to just talk about @panyum‘s comm.

The first thing that hit me after completing it was the fear that so much would be missed. That small details like the truth behind the figure in the painting and why the room isn’t described from the get go, why the destruction is handwaved. That the existential dread which is supposed to creep in along side the anxiety wouldn’t be picked up.

But I think, I think it shows itself well on an additional read through.

I was writing about Schrodinger’s Ayako. The room, her paint room, is the box. And if you open the door, what will you find? Will you find a girl dead or alive.

I wanted to portray that this Ayako, who is not supposed to be alive, but is alive, is part of a Möbius strip that is falling apart. Dantes has invented a terrible loop for her, where she is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a girl who is DEAD. And because this loop is folding in on itself indefinitely, there may be a space where the veil between the “living” Ayako and the alternative Ayako’s may cross paths.

What better way than to pull some Lovecraftian shit for such a moment?

I wanted Ayako to experience not just the overwhelming anxiety of living, but also having perceived an Ayako she shouldn’t even know about. The Lovecraftian horror. The Foreigner. I wanted to draw back to how perceiving an Outter God would usually drive someone to madness, or suicide. So I wanted this portrait to be a focal point to Ayako’s slowly building anxiety. That’s why there’s this implication of the being in the portrait being alive.

Of course, I didn’t want to forget that the reason she has no outlet to deal with this dread and anxiety is because she did something stupid in battle, and got her arm mangled. That was, after all, the plot of the whole comm. It was about Ayako having a mental breakdown because she couldn’t paint anymore. She had lost her only outlet, her only way to unwind when everything was just too much. The events, the nightmares, existing.

But with the room, specifically, I wanted the reader to envision a blank room with only a portrait on an easel and Ayako. A claustrophobic moment where there’s nothing but them. And over time things would just manifest in the room. Other paintings, objects, etc. And when it came to Ayako destroying things, I wanted the focus of the destruction to be the picture. To have Ayako kill the other Ayako, metaphorically speaking.

And the trigger had to be something ridiculous, and mundane. To trigger her mental breakdown, her lashing out. To make you feel the same disassociation from all the fucking destruction. So it was just knocking over the mason jar. The paintbrushes. A fumble.

It was also very, very important for me to use the line: “I’m not recovering”. It could be referencing anything, her physical or mental health, her fragmented soul. That she can’t just bounce back from a breakdown at the drop of a hat. The fact that she is starting to, maybe, pick up on how wrong her existence is. That she’s not supposed to be alive. And I wanted Dantes to not really respond to that sentiment, because if he were honest, he would tell her that the reason she can’t recover is because she’s already dead in a sense. The real Ayako, the OG Ayako is dead. And all he’s been doing is prolonging her soul from it’s actual respite.

My inspirations for this fic were Soma, an amazing video game, Lovecraftian horror in general, Perfect Blue, Schrodinger’s Cat, and just an exploration of Ayako’s amazing lore. There’s a little bit of PMMM as well, dealing with the existence of Homura and Madoka.

And I really, really liked Pan’s simple prompt... I just took it and ran with it. Like really, really ran with it. Obviously you can just take the fic at face value and totally ignore this, but like I just needed to ramble so badly.

[the-insomniac-emporium]

When did you join the resident evil fandom?

I guess that depends on whether you specifically mean, like, interacting with other fans + writing for the characters, or just enjoying the series in general?

My brother picked up RE7 a bit after it came out, despite not having much past interest in horror games, because it piqued his interest. I sat in with him while he played most of it (as in he finished the game, I just wasn't there for 100% of it), half paying attention. Ended up entertained enough that I also got interested when the demo for the RE2 remake came out. My brother and I both played through the demo, and enjoyed it.

When the full game came out, I sat through 100% of it while my brother played. Real quick, lemme just say that this is a common thing for my bro and I to do, and is something we've done since we were kids. We both really love games, and frequently have in depth discussions about all aspects of the ones we like (gameplay, design, social/community stuff, etc). My brother specifically wanted to hangout while doing the RE games because he never really plays horror games (the only other one I know he's finished is Soma), and they're way less scary when you have company. Not that the games ended up being terribly scary, lmao

Anyway, I didn't end up playing RE2 on my own, because some of the gameplay aspects don't vibe great with my ADHD (limited resources/ammo management, constantly forgetting which puzzle I'm trying to solve at any given time, that sort of stuff), but I did end up getting hyped for the RE3 remake, and sat through that with my bro as well.

But it wasn't until Village came out that I could no longer ignore my growing interest, and despite the depressing lack of accessibility options (let me make the subtitles bigger, Capcom!!!!!!!!!) I ended up playing it myself. My first experience with it was still watching my brother play, though, and we went through the whole game together.

It wasn't too long after the game came out (a few days, I think???) that I started writing fanfic for Village, because I'm very gay and the Dimitrescu family stole my heart<3

I do plan on going back and playing RE7 myself at some point, and I'm considering doing 2+3, but idk if the difference in gameplay/presentation will make it better or worse for me.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

watched the end of some guy’s amnesia: rebirth playthrough and i have some boring thoughts @halloweenhavoc have u finished the game i feel like you have more of a grasp on all this stuff than i do lmfao what with having actually played it and also probably remembering machine for pigs better

i really did not like fully piece together either the lore of the Main Story of the game nor the broader Amnesia Universe Lore lmfao but i was interested in the latter especially, but re: the former, i did like having all these other Known People associated with the protag whose fates we could all find out and shit

i’m like, sort of underwhelmed, but that’s b/c even though i was like “okay so just b/c this is a frictional-produced amnesia sequel a decade later doesn’t mean you need to hype it up like it’s gonna blow your mind just coz atdd was That big a deal” doesn’t mean i still wasn’t partially like oh but what if it is like mindblowing horror game tho......it felt a lot more like soma than atdd which isn’t in itself bad b/c soma rules but when i’m expecting it to be more like atdd it just makes things kinda bemusing and hard to recalibrate.....it was a good game though lol just like the whole time trying to figure out what the experience is gonna be i guess

anyways so like in the direction frictional’s games have gone it def feels like they’re more into Game Environments (those ruled in this game....) and being very like Thematic Story-Centric.....atdd was very stripped down and they sure got creative with that and it was as effective as it was but yeah it feels like now that they have the clout from that and the game production experience and presumably more resources and stuff that they’re progressing in This Direction which is not as atdd-esque lmao like good for them if this is the creative vision, follow those dreams and stuff

did not feel at all invested in any of this baby lore lmfaooo like it was very abstract and also i don’t care. but 10/10 for breastfeeding gameplay

i did like the Other World lore like. this is where alexander is from, Maybe?? i remember he’s mentioned as an apostate from [somewhere else] but like, is that somewhere else in another dimension or just another Region in this world lmao i don’t know. out here Inventing the amnesia potion vitae harvesting strategy, and then it’s Something Else he does that is considered heinous and they just banish him to earth lmfaooo like our problem now......and who is alexander’s wife lmfao. in atdd bad ending, when alexander portals back, does he get to come back to the shitty place where nothing’s going on but eternal vitae harvest i guess? sucks. in atdd sorta-neutral-ending, when you toss agrippa’s head through the portal and then agrippa asks [someone, i forget who....the student? weyer? or whoever??] to Help Daniel, does everyone get to go to this crappy world or are there other better dimensions lmao....also i forget how this The Other World got so shitty in the first place. something something they flew too close to the sun with their technology and it got fucked up, i forget what The Gate even is........i do like this origin story for what the fuck is up with the shadow lmfao. that like, it’s just some other alchemical Invention expressly to fuck up the vitae system?? which is sort of counter to the idea that it’s simply a Guardian of any orbs.....but then also, there was some sort of note or memory that seemed to imply that having fucked up whatever Gate they fucked up created something that sounded like maybe it was the shadow?? or was it just something Else fucked up and b/c it was like “uh oh something shitty is happening here now” i just Assumed it was the shadow.....idfk. but idk maybe since Orbs are Other World Tech For Portals the shadow is just like, Other World Tech Ruiner and if you handle one improperly the shadow will like, sense orb-jostling Lol and be On It....i don’t knowwww

i gotta admit i did love the lore tying to atdd lmfao like maybe this game would’ve been better off not really being tied to atdd but i’m still like oh yep i’m a sucker for cameos / lore about these atdd people places and things.....herbert, alexander, daniel, brennenburg, and someone else i forget who was like “i’m the first human to get to this place but i don’t have A Traveller’s Whatever so i have to die here,” rip to him.....kinda funny that vitae-harvesting is like, so Industrialized in the other world with this factory and mass-produced as it were, which is Fucked Up, and alexander got shot to earth for some mysterious terrible thing and had to invite some rando with an orb to his castle and then get his help torturing other randos with medieval instruments like. banging rocks together over there. also i don’t get what the harvesters job was? they were sure Harvesting but if the vitae is just getting Sucked thru tubes why are these guys going around breathing it in also. just like, stray air-vitae filtering system?? idk

also what was going on time-wise with this weird accelerated pregnancy. i don’t think i get Why tasi got amnesia in the first place. coincidence i guess??? and why...did she end up back in the plane wreckage. was that just where she got dropped off after they were all like. taken from Our World into the Other World and then....back into our world?? i guess??? i’m just not clear on the Timeline Of Events and how everyone got split up with some people dying and shit....was everyone getting attacked by ghuls i guess. there was a crapload of them in that one place, wasn’t there.....i also forget Where things happened lmfaooo like shit was this in Earth or The Other World.....i guess the latter it was always like, “high tech” with that art deco design shit and green light and stuff.....god i don’t know. like i already forget why richard was like, held captive and tortured. just on evil principle??? augh lmfao

also it was certainly Interesting that people turn into monsters around here with some like, magic + corruption deal going on......felt like the Lore in atdd was sort of vague but that it could Maybe tie into that sort of idea....frictional games sure will like, Metaphorically have the Self and the Non-Self But Which Is Tied To Your Self in all its stories, atdd, soma, rebirth......daniel having this past self he’s now detached from but re-learning of his past exploits.......soma copy/pasting consciousnesses.......uhhh also when it was talking about the ideal Vitae Collecting Cycle being fear, amnesia, and then Hope, and about who was the best candidates for that, i was really thinking that like, we’d learn tasi was being put through a [Hope] sequence, basically

also (rachel if ur reading this lmfao) i remember this pre-release Audio Tape that wasn’t in the gameplay that i think was like, the doctor doing an experiment on a Monster to confirm it had regenerative properties?? i thought we were gonna get a whole fucked up subplot dealing with that guy lmfao but nah just at the end......i guess soma’s promotional stuff was similar, they had all these Files and Videos and stuff which was relevant to the Lore / story but which wasn’t like, flatout in the game......i guess at some point the doctor must’ve been like, experimenting on a crew member who was sort of in the process of Turning or w/e. hank or someone i guess.....UHHH i did like “talking” to so many monsters lmfaooo like leon and crap. wild, tragic, etc.......

RIGHT and i think frictional is really creative in its like, Game Mechanics, like how relatively recently we learned that that whole thing about being told that Low Sanity makes you easier to detect in atdd, but that wasn’t true and was just put in the game to put the player more on edge? i mean, daniel keeling over for a moment if sanity gets too low is probably unhelpful in a chase but. and like, here the “sanity” thing was neat, i liked the Sound lol, i liked the flashing images and how that was like, Relevant, but also it seems like you can’t ever die in this game?? basically, ish?? which i think is neat. like, you don’t really Need to.....said it last time how it feels like the player just is still going to react as Urgently if they’re being chased by the monster lmfaooo

idk there was something other neat / creative element i think i wanted to point out as Cool but i forget (HAHA...manesima.....) i dunno the 0.0001% chance any of you are Coincidentally into amnesia at all and know what all is being talked about here and have thoughts....feel free to send me an ask or whatever.......would be inchrested in hearing other takes on it etc

OH and it didn’t feel like machine for pigs was involved at all lmfao which makes sense since it wasn’t actually produced by frictional but now i’m really struggling to remember the Lore there and if it could Conceivably tie in with descent/rebirth-verse.......oswald’s soul got actually split with Evil Orb-Corrupted Self (which!!!! i forgot there’s even the implication that maybe orb-proximity fucks you up. didn’t seem that relevant here. here magic empress fountain water fucks you up) and Amnesia’d Good (Normal-er) Self and there’s the giant machine which is gonna.....consume the world to protect it from self-destructing in another way......or, that was the reason given to oswald anyways, i remember he like sacrifices his kids to it to save them from [his visions of ww1 being an impending thing] and he doesn’t find that out till the end......his evil self tricked his good self into firing up the machine......i forget where the pig men come from or what their point is, and the machine is like, another Factory Line Vitae Harvesting thing, right?? what’s the vitae For in this case....i sure don’t fuckin know. i forget what oswald does at the end as well to like, fix things, i remember feeling sad about it even though he was a horny weirdo.....i really forget what the full picture was there or what the Orb Involvement was. anyways. idk

would be fun to see more frictional games but it seems like they’re not too interested in doing something as atdd-esque again lol, soma seems more like What Frictional Really Wants To Do, which isn’t a bad thing cuz soma rules and like. objectively i guess soma is the better game, i’m not at all mad at anyone arguing soma is better lmfao, i just sure cherish atdd and it sure is the one that made the whole [subsequent horror game defining] splash lmfao. OH YEAH and i liked they threw in another moment where someone’s been alive for ages and you unplug them and it’s like what the fuck. and i guess you do that but even Harder in the one Rebirth ending where you shadow-infect everything and all the people in the vitae-pods die......which like, it Was def creepy having all those vitae pods lmfao. conceptually fucked up.....uh yeah that’s it i guess. was a sucker for the atdd-lore-fanservice stuff lol. thought it was good but wasn’t like atdd 2.0 which is both Totally Fine and also A Bit Disappointing Of Course lol. now i’m thinking about soma some more though which is Worthy cuz that game rules and i love its story / concepts so much. and i love that you keep fisting sphincters to Save until you have to fist your forearm off. we’ve all been there. and i love the “we have the better view. :)” audio log from someone on the surface. and how the gradual reveal of the [lady you talk to throughout the game who guides you along]’s story. and the Ending. and the gradual reveal of Just What Is Going On Around Here

anyways yeah atdd rules soma rules i thought this game was good too but def is like okay you’d rather make soma than atdd and that is valid

thots????????????????

[zerachielamora]

Wanna throw out that I beat Rebirth yesterday, at around 10 hours. My overall rating for the game is a 7/10, maybe a 8/10.

The visuals are spectacular, that much is for sure. You’ll see some really cool environments and want to explore it as much as you can. But as much as the game encourages you in the opening text to explore and immerse yourself, the sanity meter actively discourages this. It wouldn’t be so bad if you were given more access to matches and oil (even though near the end of the game you lose the lantern and yet the game keeps giving you oil? What?), but the supplies offered to you are very limited, and I found myself running out of them constantly. Also it’s bizarre that you can only carry a finite amount of each kind of item (only can carry 10 matches, because they take up so much room). So because you run out of light items a lot, you’ll end up running through the dark areas just so Tasi won’t freak out.

Some of the monster designs in the game are pretty cool, but monster encounters are brief, because even if they seem like you have to sneak by them, you can’t hide in the dark for too long or you’ll have the jumpscare freakouts Tasi is prone to have. So you’ll end up just running past enemies or speed-crouch-walking past them to the best of your ability, instead of waiting for the danger to pass and then going out.

One kind of monster that kept appearing near the end of the game is complete and utter cheapness, though. Those that have played probably know which one I’m talking about.

Now as for the lore - it’s a bit confusing, but I appreciate all the callbacks to the Dark Descent, and putting things in perspective. It raises a few more questions that sadly go unanswered, but I think there’s enough to help fill in some gaps which I do appreciate a lot. I’m just sad I missed a few notes that had a number of further calls backs to TDD, I would have been so happy to see those in-game heheh.

Tasi as a protagonist isn’t so bad. It’s definitely much harder to blame her for the bad things happening than the other Amnesia protags once you know what happened. Brief Spoilers here though - her story just amounted to ‘couldn’t give her baby up, then shit went bad.’ That’s basically it in a nutshell.

The game does have high tension and scares throughout as you do dread going into the dark, so that was very well done.

However, Rebirth wears out its welcome about 4-5 hours in. I know it’s meant to be a slow burn kind of horror, but that’s what SOMA was and it never felt like a drag like the latter half of this game. Here it just seems like the game wants to keep going and going when a lot of the scares and novelty start to wear off and turn into frustration. TDD, AMFP, SOMA - they never felt like they were longer than they needed to be. They had just enough for the story and scares to remain at a high point. Here it definitely starts to affect enjoyment of everything, and even the lore content takes a nosedive in the 2nd half.

I didn’t mind the constant cutscenes and dialogue like a lot of people did - it’s an Amnesia game, I’m here for the story! It was nice to have backstory for Tasi and her family (something I desperately wish Oswald would have had), even if it felt a bit repetitive at times.

It was a little surprising to learn that the endings aren’t affected by how well you look after the baby or watch your sanity meter, not even for a particular choice to ‘help’ the baby in the latter half. I suppose this is good in the sense that it doesn’t punish players for how they play, but then that means you can basically have Tasi constantly “dying” and her condition worsening, but that doesn’t affect the story at all.

All in all, Rebirth is not a bad game, and I’m not mad at it. Just disappointed. It’s a bit of a clunky mess. I didn’t go in which super high expectations, but I expected more from Frictional of all companies. I had thought that after they exceeded the genre with their previous titles that they would know the pitfalls to avoid, but instead they went with a lot of cheap tactics and stretched it far too long over an overly-simplistic story.

[izupie]

1, 30, and 46.

Thanks so much for the questions from this ask game~

1. who are your biggest inspirations? would you link your favorite(s) of their work?

Biggest inspirations... well, there’s a whole bunch from a variety of different fandoms. But usually the slowburns tend to stay with me the longest and impact me the most. I always strive to try and get to that kind of level of storytelling, which is funny because I’ve never had the patience to actually WRITE a slowburn myself. Ah well. Inspirational in any case. 

These are all pretty old, but I think they really shaped my writing style and how I try to write myself. They impacted me enough to remember them even after all this time.

Interstellar Transmissions by  LovelyThings, ricca_riot (Star Wars - Reylo)

Dirty Laundry by Gibslythe (VLD - Klance)

Lost to the Sands by Giga Bowser NS (My Little Pony - No Ships)

Between the Lines by Metalmark (Resident Evil - Steve/Claire)

Now the Light Falls by Lunar_Resonance (Soul Eater - Soma)

Oh and the very story that inspired me to write in the first place... behold! A Neopets story from the early 2000s because I can’t find it’s official publish date! This thing was the first time I had ever read a story by someone online. I was sat at like my dad’s huge windows 95 desktop computer, barely knowing how to use it properly, but I was obsessed with neopets and that fact that someone had just written this because they wanted to just Unlocked something in my head. I realised I could do that too. I was like 10 or something though so I ended up emulating this a whole bunch and writing loads of self inserts - I even wrote something kind of similar to this because 10 year olds do that when they find something they enjoy in that way ahaha.

All the Colours by hot_pink_lizard (even the username is so early 2000s) (Neopets)

A true relic. I had to HUNT this thing down using only what I could vaguely remember about it.

30. which character do you find the easiest/hardest to write?

I find Ochako the easiest character to write ever I swear. I barely even need to really think about her dialogue and actions, because they come so naturally. I channel a lot of her energy when I write her, so she’s just easyyy. I think that’s probably why I ended up writing so much Izuocha to be honest, like, I love the ship, don’t get me wrong, but it was nice to be able to just slip into writing something so easy and natural that it was always fun. But the flipside of that is that it no longer becomes very challenging and I wasn’t pushing myself as a writer much ;;

Hardest to write is Richie Tozier. Because I am NOT witty. At all. Give me like three hours after the fact and I’ll probably then come up with some kind of witty retort I could have said, but at the time? I usually just laugh and let other people do the witty banter thing. How do you write a character who’s supposed to be naturally funny without being funny yourself??? It’s tough.

46. how did you get into your fandom(s)?

My Hero Academia was something I’d seen online a whole lot, especially on tumblr. I think I followed someone who shipped Kacchako, and they posted some gifs of their sports festival fight and I was like huh, that looks interesting. So I youtubed it and watched the clip. Then I watched some more clips. And then I realised I was going to have to watch the show to get context to all of this stuff. And then I was Hooked. But I already knew some pretty random spoilers walking into it lmao. Curse my curiosity!

IT was really random because I enjoy watching some of the Nostalgia Critic videos (don’t boo me!) and I hadn’t been interested in the IT review, because I actually hate horror films, but I was about to wash some dishes and I just wanted to put something funny on my phone to distract me. What really intrigued me was when he said that Richie felt like a character from a different movie, because of how funny and obnoxious he was. So I decided to watch a recommended clip of like Richie Tozier being chaotic for however many minutes straight or something, and I was Hooked. Decided to watch more clips. Got hooked on fanfiction before I’d even seen the film. Needed context. Watched the movie. Loved it. 

I’m like that with a lot of stuff apparently???

[eskewcity]

is the new amnesia game good? :0

i’m only about 2.5 hours in rn but i can give you my initial impressions w/out actual spoilers under the cut since I actually just discussed this on discord w my stream buds today. so get ready for a extremely long and winding spew of my thoughts that you did not ask for. 

first off, I do enjoy the core story itself especially with tasi as the lead. she’s much more sympathetic than Daniel was in dark descent and the relationships you learn about her with those she knew are incredibly well done. frictional games has proven themselves as people capable of good writing before, I mean they did create soma, arguably my favorite game of all time. rebirth is able to invoke emotions from the player without it feeling forced which is great! especially since I’m probably not even a fourth of the way through. the game itself also looks gorgeous and certainly is an improvement from its predecessor (which one should expect given it’s been ten years). I also don’t even think I need to get into the music because Mikko Tarmia is just absolutely brilliant and I didn’t even expect anything different. also I Love the way the connections to the first game are brought up as they arent thrown in your face but rather name drops that make you go AH! 

however, with that being said, let’s go into my biggest gripe so far and what I was talking in the discord about. the main issue in which I found in the game so far is the pacing. there are many moments where the character is pulled from one scene to another without enough of a satisfying transition to make it feel organic. in itself, it feels jarring to be thrown into one moment into a completely different one without much of an explanation. there’s a lot of exposition being thrown at you as the player at once and it feels like your consistently being hit with more and more information. obviously the game has to be set up someway to convey what the main plot is but it just feels very hamfisted and could have used some polish. also minor spoiler but this game now implements pop up jumpscares if you are in the dark for too long and it honestly feels... very cheap, for a lack of a better word. amnesia is known to be the scariest about not knowing if something is actually there and still fearing the possibility there is, hence it being a psychological horror. many times streaming the darkness descent a few months ago, I was the most scared at the points where there wasn't even a monster, i just tricked my brain into thinking there was. even frictional’s very first series, penumbra, despite it’s hiccups was able to achieve this same effect by having philip stumble his way through the dark hoping he doesn't accidentally come face to face with one of the infected. by implementing something like a pop up screamer, it lessens that experiences that one comes to expect from a frictional game. soma arguably had some Not Great stealth even if I love it story wise and even it didn't use jumpscares that often. they are not necessary and it devalues what made people appear to love about the horror of amnesia in the first place

With that all being said, I don’t want to discourage anyone from buying the game because again I am not that far. however as someone that streams games now I feel it’s good to be able to critique what I’m playing and convey to other people that would be interesting in purchasing game even if at the end of the day it’s only my friends who are the ones watching. the game certainly has many bright spots and i certainly wouldnt want to make someone think they shouldnt play just based off my basically worthless opinion and hey! maybe the game will prove me wrong in my upcoming streams and prove all my points moot who knows! this is just what I’ve noted so far as I got through for the first time. so is it good? Who’s to say? the question in itself if subjective and I feel there’s too many nuances to really give a definitive yes or no, especially where I am now. I’ll just have to wait and see how the overall experience goes. also always feel free to pop by when I stream on Mondays and maybe we can explore that question together. have a good night <3