#this game pretty much saved me

[ashleyleygraves]

I think it's funny how out of the 45 people that voted, no one chose Sane Friendship. I think that means I'm going to go through that route first.

I was one that was going to just choose whichever one lost to play first, then I'd do the next less chosen and so on and so forth until the last ending was the highest voted.

So, I'm playing Sane Friendship, Bullets, Cleaver, and then Questionable Love.

[pup-pee]

she red on my stoner until the red sun never sets IT NEVER SETS I AHVENT SLEPT

[msnihilist]

I still don't think Ben did anything wrong during "Duped." He deserves to do normal teenage boy stuff like see a movie on opening day, and he was trying to give himself that while also saving the world AND supporting his girlfriend's tennis match. He didn't spend enough time with his duplicates to realize that they had opposing personalities to their assignments — it's not like he sent his asshole-self to Julie's match on purpose.

[beanmochiii]

halOPE

[yellowocaballero]

Been a fan of your fics for YEARS. I was just telling my friend how despite how much I read fics I never actually love them, with some of your fics (especially TMA) as the exception. Felt the need to reread some of them and saw you reblogged some ISAT fanart. So. Any thoughts on ISAT you'd like to share?

Hope you have a wonderful day!! So happy I found your fics again!!

I avoided answering this for a while because I was trying to think of a way to cohesively and coherently vocalize my thoughts on In Stars and Time. I have given up because I don't want to hold everybody here all day and I have accepted that my thoughts are just pterodactyl screeching.

I love it so much. I have so much to say on it. It drove me bonkers for like a week straight. I have AUs. It's absolute Megbait. They're just a little Snufkin and they're having the worst experience of anybody's life. Ludonarratives my fucking beloved.

I am going to talk about the prologue.

The prologue is such a fascinating experience. You crack open the game and immediately begin checking off all of the little genre boxes: mage, warrior, researcher, you're the rogue...some little kid who's there for some reason...alright, you know the score. You're in yet another indie Earthbound RPG, these are your generic characters, let's get the ball rolling.

Except then you realize that these characters are people. You feel instantly how you've entered the game at its last dungeon, at the end of the adventure. They have their own in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They get along well and they're obviously close, but not in a twee or unrealistic way. They have so much chemistry and spirit and life. I fell in love with them so quickly.

But Sif doesn't. Sif kind of hates them, because they will not stop saying the same damn thing. They walk the same paths, do the same things, make the same jokes, expect Sif to say the same lines. They keep referencing a Sif we do not see, with jokes we never see him make and heroic personality he never shows - they reference a Sif who is dead - and Sif can't handle that, so he kills them too.

They become only an exercise in tedious frustration. Sif button mashes through their dialogue, Sif mindlessly clicks the same dialogue options, Sif skips through the tutorial, Sif blows through the puzzles. Sif turns their world into a video game. Sif is playing a generic RPG. Sif forgets their names. They are no longer people with in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They're the mage, the warrior, the researcher, and...some random kid.

I did not understand the Kid's presence at first. I had no idea what they contributed to the game. They didn't do anything. As a party member in a video game, they're a bit useless. Why is the Kid there?

Because Sif's life isn't a video game. Because the kid isn't 'the kid'. They're Bonnie. Bonnie, who the party loves. Why is Bonnie there? Because they love them. There is no room for Bonnie in the boring RPG that Sif is playing. And then you realize that Sif is wrong, and that they've lost something extremely important, and that they'll never escape without it.

Watching the prologue before watching ISAT gave ISAT the most unique air of dread and horror, because you crack open ISAT and you see the person Sif used to be. You realize that Sif used to be a person. Sif used to be the person who made jokes, who gave real smiles, who interacted with the world as if they are a part of it. And you know you are sitting down to watch Sif lose everything that made them a person, to lose everything that made them a member of this world, and turn them into a character in a video game who doesn't understand the point of Bonnie at all.

At the climax of the game, when the others realize that something is deeply wrong and that Sif physically cannot tell them, they realize that there is nothing they can do. So Bonnie declares snacktime. And for the first time they have snacktime.

What is snacktime? Classic JRPGs don't have snacktime. There's literally no point to a snacktime - not in a video game, and not in Sif's terrible life. It's not fixing this, because nothing can fix this. But Bonnie gives Sif a cookie and Sif eats it.

It's meaningless. It's a cutscene. It didn't save Sif and it didn't change a thing. It will make no difference in the end.

But it did make the difference. It made all of the difference in the world. Bonnie is a character who you really don't understand the point of before you realize that Bonnie was the entire point.

ISAT is about comfort media. Why do we play the same video games over and over again? Why do we avoid watching the finale of our favorite shows? What is truly comforting: a story with no conflict, or a story where you always know what is about to happen? Do you want to live in a scary, uncontrollable world, or do you want to play Stardew Valley? Do you want a person or a character?

When I beat Earthbound for the first time (and if you don't know, the prologue/ISAT battle system is just Mother) and watched the ending cutscene where the characters part ways and say goodbye...I felt a little bit sad. I wanted them to be together forever. But that's something only characters could ever be.

[danielnelsen]

well that's just a lie

[mokeonn]

I fucking hate the tetris effect so much. Like oooh lemme play this funnie little card game rogue-like, ooh it's so fun it's gonna be the only game I play for weeks now, oooh what do you mean I'm fucking duplicating multi-card holographic sevens in my dreams

[muirmarie]

the little low level grindy tasks for mmorpgs sometimes get hate, but truly those are my favorite things. i want an mmorpg that's just little tasks i get to do. yes i will go fight those wolves for you. yes i will go collect ten yellow flowers so you can make a potion. yes i will read all of your dialogue and talk to everyone i can. i don't want to save the world i just want little achievable tasks i can do for people across the entire realm, please and thank you.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[deus-ex-mona]

farewell, my idiot son…

[lavellane]

last post about it but never underestimate bioware's ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory i guess

[coquelicoq]

Qat lets you search for words matching a given pattern. It is the ideal tool for the discerning setter or solver of crosswords and other word puzzles. Try it now! A French-language version of Qat is also available, with the same search syntax. Essayez maintenant! Qat can find individual words matching simple and compound patterns (much like grep, Word Matcher and similar tools); beyond that, it also has an ‘equation solver’ mode that can find sets of words that simultaneously satisfy given constraints. Using this feature you can, for example, find pairs of words that are single-letter (or multiple-letter) misprints of one another, words that share common segments or that differ from one another in specified ways, words containing the same segments in different orders, and much more besides. See the examples below; a more formal explanation of the pattern syntax appears at the bottom of this page.

oh? my god???

[love-fireflysong]

If until dawn: rush if blood was the game that truly made my PS4 collection complete, than *this* beauty is the one that completes my PS2!

[maxthesillyy]

guy who thought about rachel amber too hard again

[thirddoctor]

if you're planning to play Baldur's Gate 3 I cannot recommend the WASD and camera tweaks mods enough. I mean if you enjoy the movement in the game as is then fair enough! but I played for an hour or two like that and got such a headache that I desperately looked for any way to change it and was so relieved to find these mods (which are very easy to install). total gamechanger and they create a much more immersive experience imo

[lover-of-mine]

before vs after gif coloring game!

i was tagged by @housewifebuck thank you babe 💜

I just scrolled through my recent edits to find something skaoksoaksoaks I really like my outside LA coloring, and since i figured out how to color Buck on the cemetery i had to add him here too. Then is just some gifs I like lol

No pressure tagging 💜: @captain-hen @aziraaphales @uservalentine @eizagonzalezs and anyone else who feels like doing this because I'm completely blanking on anyone else who makes gifs right now lol