#this goes for the other non-humanoid characters as well

[hellishfig]

listen. i love/hate calroy cruller as much as the next d20-obsessed person

but something that never ceases to slightly irk me is the tendency of fan artists to draw him (and other characters that are shaped like the food they are) as humanoid

i understand why it is done, and as someone who doesn’t do visual art i feel like i shouldn’t tell people how or what to draw, so i don’t say it to any artists

however, i still think that if people are attracted to calroy cruller, they should admit to themselves that they’re horny for a slice of cake

[the-art-ghost]

HEY YOU🫵

You ever look at my art and go: “hey you keep saying Imaginer and Frankie hates Jack for being one so like…Tf is going on?”

Well…I can only answer a few of those because:

LORE DROP TIME!!!!

Behold. My redesign for both Jason the Toymaker and Candy pop

First: Jason Toymaker

In simple terms: Jason is essentially a factory worker, Jason made a line of imaginary friends, goes insane from the repetition, rewired his creations to be destructive just to cause havoc, the creations ended up becoming so violent and killed indiscriminately, got kicked out of his reality and stripped of his title, now he makes toys that kill and is the reason most if not all imaginers get a bad wrap.

Fin (for now-)

I’ll probably explain more of his story the more I work on him, but for now you understand the sentiment.

Art Time!!

His face looks and feels like skin, but it’s more like porcelain because it chips and can break

He doesn’t have the parts to fix his eye so he wears a porcelain mask

He literally has a mask of his own face.

Also he doesn’t have ears.

A preview of the Wonder God themselves!

They created Jason and all of the other toy makers to make joy…but…they don’t make joy anymore :( where did I go wrong?:(:(((((

Fuck him: Candy pop

Another simple recap: Was originally an Imaginer, got abandoned, nearly died from neglect, made a deal with a demon, became a demon themselves, kills original owner AND demon he made a deal with, freely fucks up everyone’s lives, and now lives with Jason to cause more suffering

Fin (again for now-)

Art again!!!

I wanted his design to be the opposite of LJ: humanoid head and animal body

I probably gave him the most amount of creative liberties for, I just like my non human characters to not look so human

You can’t blame me :3

Now they live together as terrible roommates

Hopefully I’ll draw more soon!!

((Also you can ask for more info about any character I’ve made from wink ;))

Bye bye!!!!

[iravaid]

Remaking and reopening my commissions :} Am offering three different kinds: character art, faux magazine cover, and character sheet. Feel free to enquire over Tumblr DM, or on ko-fi, which you can find here, alongside commission tickets.

I also take special pokemon commissions.

More information below:

Payment

Payment is taken either through PayPal or Ko-fi. If through PayPal, then an invoice will be emailed to you. If through Ko-fi, then you take a commission ticket with the appropriate selections made.

My process for payment in exchange for the art goes that we chat for a little bit about the piece you'd like me to create (feel free to show pinterest boards/playlists/other art/moodboards of the character), and I draw up drafts based on this chat. Upon agreement of a final draft, you pay the full amount of the commission. I then finish the commission and send it to you via your preferred communications path (eg. email, DM).

Character Art

Typical digital art commission, this time divided into two styles.

Style 1: Black and White, with an accent colour such as red or blue.

Bust - £35

Half-body (typically above knee) - £45

Full-body - £55

Style 2: Full colour render

Bust - £45

Half-body - £55

Full-body - £65

With both styles, included in the price is a solid-colour background + foreground, as well as held accessories and/or equipment, within reason. Simple text can be included. Transparent backgrounds also possible.

For both styles, I'm happy to include an animal/simple non-humanoid (such as a slugcat) companion for £15, and additional humanoid or complex non-humanoids (such as a large/detailed dragon) for £30/£40/£50 depending on if they're a bust/half-body/full-body.

Faux Magazine Cover

Flat rate of £60

We chat about the character (including their story, colour palette, vibes, etc.) and what kind of magazine inspiration will be taken from. We will discuss the text and other elements included in the cover, and what the character themself would be wearing/posed/how much of them is seen.

Magazine examples can be seen via this link

Character Sheet

Flat rate of £100

Similar to the faux magazine covers, involves us chatting about the character to get an idea of what to include within the sheet.

Combinations for size includes: 2x Bust + 1x Full-body, 1x Half-body + 1x Full-body (different pose, different clothing), and 2x Full-body (same pose, different clothing). We can discuss variations on this, but can incur additional charges to make up for extra effort.

Included in this price is text (eg. name, pronouns, height, nationality, descriptors, stats, small abstract), colour reference, a solid-colour background and foreground (can be divided up into different panels), and additional details such as an important accessory, or tattoos.

[neptuniadoesstuff]

The DoD Cast but my Version | Part 01

(Wanna see Part 2? You can click here)

This is part one of the cast of DoD by my ver/AU designs of them.

From left to right we have: Clay, Tsunami, & Glory.

These designs are based on what I would I have done if I made the designs for the tribes (bcs I think the Canon designs for the tribes just look... kinda boring imo? Plz dont attack me plz, i just wanna be creative + THESE ARE MY VERSIONS! Not redesigns.)

Anyways some changes I made to them:

Clay now has a grey-ish brown tint which can become even greyer if in contact with water or a bright red color if he goes into contact with heat.

Clay now has droopy ears (bcs you don't want mud in yur ears do u?) & strange antennas to feel the air when going into mud. They're meant to Mimic cattails or rice plants but whatever I was lazy as hell.

Tsu now has a orange underbelly due to the fact that water can also be a orangey brown. (Alos bcs it felt weird to just have a sea dragon only be blue & green with out taking in the fact the same is pretty colorful)

Tsu has semi-squidish eyes. Don't ask why I gave her these i just thought it be neat to give her the eyes of a squid which are round. (Also gave her more head fins bcs well.. FISH!)

Didn't change much about Glory other than her coloration which is slightly based on the moring glory. I did however give her some more patterns & whiskers. (Bcs of what a frend told me)

I did infact swap the eye color of both Clay & Glory since well... Idk I just like it when the eye is a different color from the main body itself.

Thats really it for the changes of these designs.

Anyways here's a bonus of a non-glowy Tsu:

(Also lil Spoiler for anyone who has NOT read any of the WoF books which includes the first book)

Yeh.. Nothing changed much other than the glowy stuff being there.

I know that they look kinda Goofy, especially Tsu, but I HAVENT DRAWN DRAGONS IN AWHILE, ONLY HUMANOID CREATURES, SO OF COURSE THEY WOULD BE A BIT GOOFY!

Anyways uh... Imma prob gonna draw Starflight & Sumby (Sunny) now & maybe make a Skywing fella afterwards named Sulfer who deff isn't gonna be the Skywing that was supposed to be in the prophecy but then his egg got smushed so in this AU of mine imma make it so the egg he was in was STOLEN from Hutvr (I can't spell his name help-) & was raised as a thief. (Bcs in the original Hutvr fracking dies also)

Anyways uh CreMbiTs.

Characters belong to Tui T. Sutherland but designed by me.

Art is mine.

Program: IbisPaint

Bub's TOS: Plz don't repost/steal, trace, or recolor my art WITHOUT MY PERMISSION! If you do, I'll take yur femur and pelvis.. SO, DON'T THINK ABOUT IT! (The PNS on my profile's bio clearly means "Please No Steal" plz follow that rule.)Also plz only remix this project with a project of the same topic... Unless said otherwise by me.

[blueikeproductions]

Some more anecdotal thoughts on TFONE.

Spoilers still.

The concept of the Worker-Bots being lower class, and several characters having serial numbers over names suggests this is meant to be wide spread. Only D-16 and B-127 seem to be this for some reason, with Elita-1 sorta meeting half way. Instead of Orion Pax, you’d think he’d also have a serial number in C-01 or the more on the nose OP-1984. Jazz is a miner and still named Jazz, rather than J-06. Sideswipe could be SW-04, Arcee RC-86, Ironhide, I-98, and so forth. Maybe I’m looking too much into it, but you’d think considering the ���demeaning” nature, Sentinel would go farther and strip them of their very names as well as their Cogs.

Sentinel never actually Transforms into his Vehicle Mode at all, and is exclusively in Robot Mode throughout the movie. His wings and jet boosters in his feet make it clear he’s a jet like his toys, but the only thing he turns into is his heavy artillery Apex Armor like mode in the climax.

Despite having a toy that shows the Quintessons can Transform, it’s unknown if they can in the actual film. This feels like an unintended side effect of retconning them as being descendants of Quintus Prime, as technically that should mean they’re Cybertronian, and therefore be able to Transform. The EarthSpark ones are unable to as far as we can tell, with the only Quintus descendants that can being the Terrans. Unless the Quints go the way of the Echidnas and Owls in the Sonic movies, maybe that’s something reserved for a possible TFTWO. Maybe their ship Transforms into a robot called Quintus Maximus, I ‘unno.

Due to copyright jargon, the series usually can’t use the terms Transformer or Transform in non modern animated media super well, leading to clunky ways of describing themselves. The EarthSpark and TFONE books have resorted to calling the species “Transformers Bots” which sounds like a bad SyFy parody show. While G1 and Beast Machines in particular freely refer to the species as “Transformers”, more modern material like Prime and EarthSpark imply the Transformers call themselves “Cybertronians” while “Transformer” is a term coined by humans. Though in RiD15, the Bee Team, in particular Fixit, off and on refer to themselves as Transformers, confusing the matter. TFOne goes nuts, not even trying to hide who they are and what they do, with the species collectively called “Transformers”, their Cogs “Transformation Cogs” like in G1 (they never once call them “T-Cogs” like in Prime), with Optimus able to actually say “Transform and Roll Out!” Megatron sadly never gets to say “Transform & Rise Up!” like his Animated self (and to a lesser extent his Prime self), but Megatron nevertheless adapts Rise Up! as his team’s battle cry.

A little boy in the theater I was in got really excited when the Autobots stumbled on the deer-bots, like he was pumped. Where’s the deer-bot toy, Hasbro? You have a customer.

Like other media, it’s not super clear if these examples of Cybertronic fauna can Transform. They’re not shown to, but nothing suggests they can’t either. They probably would turn into humanoid robots if they got toys, but I like to think, similar to Cyberverse, the deer turn into little cars or something.

The organic plant life is never explained, though Orion and the others don’t recognize it either, and remark in surprise something non metallic can live on the surface. Some fan theories suggest the plant life was due to the Quintessons’ maybe attempting to terraform Cybertron, but the how and why remain unclear. It might just be a throwaway reference to Beast Machines and Galaxy Force, both famously incorporating organics into Cybertron at series end.

The Allspark is never referenced in the film, so how the Transformers reproduce is never specified. Presumably the Allspark still exists, but then again some modern media is slowly moving away from it. IDW never used it in either of its G1 main line books, instead having Vector Sigma, the Matrix, the Moon Bases and Cybertron itself generating life. The Allspark was in TFP and RiD15, but wasn’t crucial to the plot. Prime ends with Optimus and Wheeljack casually fetching the relic in a sector in space, with its (now empty) container used to trap Unicron’s Spark. EarthSpark showed the Allspark existed but quickly tossed it aside, favoring the OTHER life giving relic, the Emberstone. Skybound has yet to reference the Allspark, but going by how close it’s sticking to 80’s material, Vector Sigma is pry more likely. The TFONE Matrix is similar to the Allspark in that it’s connected to Cybertron’s naturally flowing Energon, and without it, Cybertron is doomed to dwindling resources. What this means if the story continues and the Transformers leave Cybertron for Earth we have yet to see.

How the Autobots and Decepticons get their names is a bit clunky. The Decepticons get it in a similar way to IDW, the one reference to it, where they take it from the “deception” of Sentinel and Orion. The Autobots seems to be more spontaneous, it seemingly coming from Orion, now Optimus, reflecting on the miners’ new autonomy with their Cogs, dubbing them “Autobots”. How the Autobots get their logo isn’t known either, the logo just pops up as the credits roll. The Decepticons get their logo from Megatronus Prime’s face mask, as D-16 was a fan boy, collecting related merch. Sentinel, out of spite, torches a crude version of the mask on D-16’s chest which completes the origin. Ironically, as Megatronus never becomes The Fallen and is legitimately heroic as far as we can tell, his symbol being used by Megatron as it is, intentionally by the writers or not, mirrors a similar situation with The Punisher’s logo.

Double checking it, Zeta Prime is apparently a replacement for the 13th Arisen Prime. My guess is they replaced him because without The Fallen, The Arisen word play doesn’t work. Plus, having Orion Pax be preordained to be Optimus like he was in Aligned doesn’t fit here. Zeta Prime isn’t depicted as being the sociopath he’s portrayed as in IDW, but we don’t see a lot of him either, so it’s hard to say for sure (though I doubt he’d be carrying the Matrix if he was). What is for sure is they make it clear, until a future movie retcons it, that the Primes were all benevolent beings shepherding the Transformers. None of that “The Primes are all corrupt and horrible!” nonsense. Sentinel is the only one depicted as being corrupt, but he’s also not a (true) Prime either. Optimus is depicted as the true successor to what the Primes stood for, vs Sentinel who was in it for his own greed. This somewhat mirrors stuff like Nova Prime, though it’s more streamlined so casuals can understand it.

[mrsketchydude]

OKAY HEAR ME OUT I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING This might be kind of obvious but, as always, I like to share my thoughts so that maybe others can share theirs too. It's really interesting how Vash is called "The Humanoid Typhoon", right? Like a straightforward name, a human-looking person who causes destruction wherever he goes, we get that. BUT hear me out, why don't they just call him the Human Typhoon..?

The majority of the people on No Man's Land don't know he's a plant so obviously that can't be the excuse. And I doubt Nightow was like "Well it would be confusing to call him the Human Typhoon when he's not really human" like cmon be real here for a second, he could've easily done that, there is WAY more confusing stuff in Trigun then calling a non-human character a human. I'm bringing in examples from Stampede because it's what I can recall quickly so sorry I cant bring up specific examples from the manga and the 98 anime, maybe later. Well, I mean, when you think about it, most people don't really see this 'Vash the Stampede' guy as a human. We LITERALLY have a whole scene with Meryl poking fun at people for making him out to be this wacky character and not as an actual human. Like she said in the eng dub:

"Real people aren't such caricatures. He's a man, not a monster."

The people of No Man's Land don't view 'Vash the Stampede' as a human. He's basically like an urban legend to them. A rumor you hear about amongst folk sitting on their front porches in the evening. A scary story older siblings tell younger siblings that if they don't behave the Humanoid Typhoon will come and get them. Even Rollo had heard of Vash being talked about this way. He said, after Vash was surprised the kid had heard of him,(again in the eng dub):

"Well, yeah, you're super famous. You're the real-life Humanoid Typhoon, everybody knows you!" "I heard something else, too! You're a walking disaster, a demon who wreaks havoc wherever he goes."

Even in the manga and 98 anime after the JuLai incident, they talk about him like he's this weird cryptid going around causing mayhem and destruction. He's destroyed two whole cities and put a hole in the moon. It would be hard for any human to believe something was capable of this unless they met him in person and saw what he is capable of.

Idk it was just something that literally struck me while I was eating dinner and I typed this up real quick after finishing my meal so sorry if this seems a little messy.

As always, I appreciate the attention to detail when it comes to the writing in Trigun. While this may seem like a small and insignificant thing, I really love how even the smallest of things seem to carry information throughout the story. Just makes it all the more special to me :,)

[toasterbunnicula]

Mass Effect Character Sexualities because I want to project

(Partly headcanon, bi-ased, personal opinion)

Ashley: straight, formerly homophobic until she realized that most of her Normandy crew mates were gay

Garrus: bi energy, its simply unfair to our gay guys for such an amazing and hot character to not go both ways. Ive also seen too much Garrus/Thane/Shepard fanart to see him any other way

Liara: obviously bi, I hc that she was confused when she first encountered homophobia because it simply doesn’t exist in asari culture (closest thing is the asarixasari stigma)

Wrex: for some reason I see him as bi? I have no idea where I got this but I want to see a tough, old warrior casually mentioning being into both men and women and not caring at all about it (even though I think krogan culture probably wouldn’t approve)

Tali: for my sake as a helpless bi simp, I see her as under the umbrella, but doesn’t realize it. Like me before I came out, Tali would say “yeah she’s really pretty and I want to hang out with her and hug her and stare at her but I’m not gay or anything.” You are. You are gay. I think it would be in character for her to completely miss the fact that she’s into girls as well as men

Joker: straight. The kind of straight to make jokes about his friends’ sexualities, but not mean anything by it. He goes to pride every June with his wife EDI (who I will get to)

Jacob: I honestly can’t believe that he was originally intended to be bi, I just can’t see him into men unless I squint. It’s hilarious that they tried to make his male romance more like Brokeback Mountain so it’d be accepted

Miranda: I’ve seen a headcanon on Pinterest about Miranda having internalized homophobia because it doesn’t line up with her view of genetic perfection, something she’s established to be insecure about. I think it would make perfect sense for her character. I think it’s easy to see her as a lesbian practicing het-comp, especially with how awkward her initial flirting with Shepard is, but there are more scenes in her romance that feel authentic than there are that feel performative, so I’m inclined to say she is bi/pan/omni/etc.

Mordin: I’m pretty sure his asexuality is canon. I also think that he’s aromantic as well, but can objectively assess beauty/attractiveness well. For example, his film noir short story in the Citadel DLC involves a hookup with Aria. I personally believe that is him saying “yeah, she’s attractive, and if I were into women, I’d smash”

Zaeed: he gives off straight uncle who would punch a homophobe for you but otherwise doesn’t know how to interact with you after you’ve come out and tries a little too hard to acknowledge your sexuality but it’s definitely well-meaning (think the “anyone could be they!” scene from Brooklyn Nine-Nine)

Grunt: straight and supports his bi parents (Shepard and Garrus/Thane/Tali/Liara), wears rainbows at Pride for them, and regularly headbutts homophobes

Jack: I’m forever salty about them erasing her pansexuality. Also she and Miranda should’ve kissed

Kasumi: also gives off pan energy. She definitely feels like the type to not care about gender at all- as long as they’ve got muscles, that’s all that matters to her

Thane: pan energy

Samara: as established, Samara is bisexual

Legion: ace, non-binary (goes with people using he/him based on its masculine voice, pronouns are they/it)

Kelly: she said so herself, she doesn’t care about race/species or gender, all that matters is the person 💖💛💙

EDI: something about Sentient AI Who People Initially Don’t Trust Until She Gets A Humanoid Body That People Can Better Associate With Her reads to me as a trans allegory. Obviously, she’s not trans, but the vibes are there. Many times, people are suspicious of trans women until they transition and pass more as cis, which is similar to EDI’s story. She learns more about herself after her body changes, and others start to appreciate her more and have an easier time referring to her with she/her pronouns. As for her sexuality, she doesn’t seem to lean any particular way to me. She doesn’t seem like the type who’d use labels, even though it would make sense for her to “categorize” herself. I’d say she’s unlabelled- definitely into men, with her relationship with Joker

James: as much as I wish we could get gay gym bro representation, James is great as he is, being a masculine straight guy who’s best friends are openly gay (Cortez) and bi (Shepard)

Traynor: lesbian (canon), definitely into women who can crush her head under their heel but also has a dominant side herself

Cortez: gay (canon)

Diana: that annoying and popular bi girl you secretly had a crush on but didn’t want to because she was intimidating and popular

[dailycharacteroption]

Races Among the Stars 8: Kobolds

And we end off this week’s special with your, mine, and the internet’s favorite: Kobolds. Those delightful little draconic scamps that have wormed their way into our hearts (and other bodily organs) over the years.

Kobolds weren’t initially in Starfinder officially, partially because when the system first launched, the writers had trouble finding a niche for them in the setting that already had so many small-sized lovable scamp species in it, ranging from old classics like gnomes and halflings, to the recently promoted core option of the ysoki, and of course the Pathfinder staple of goblins, it’s hard to justify yet another such species, or so goes the claim. Personally the fact that there’s literally a planet in the Pact Worlds with an entire continent of dragon-ruled nation-states seemed like the perfect basis for me, but that is just my two cents.

In any case, kobolds are back, first appearing in the Alien Character Deck along with other Golarion staples, and later being expanded upon in Interstellar Species!

But kobolds have changed a bit in the millennia since the days of Pathfinder, so let’s go over that real quick-like!

When the Gap ended, kobolds were… conspicuously absent from the multiverse, and many assumed that they shared the same fate as the missing world of Golarion.

However, a century later (which is still several centuries before the current point in the timeline), the first experiments with witchwarping magic began, and while those first forays mostly brought into existence strange machines that seemed to be non-functional within the constraints of local physics and reality, with them came reptilian humanoids which were apparently, by all analysis and their own admission, the missing kobolds, leading to an entire population of them inhabiting Absalom Station and beyond.

Where things get especially strange, however, is the effect these first-generation kobolds had on reality. They had in their possession keys to empty apartments that somehow nobody had noticed before, credentials for jobs that seemed not to exist before. It was as if reality was bending to give the kobolds a place in the world. Whether this place was folded into the main reality when they arrived or existed before and was obscured is another mystery.

It seems apparent that during the Gap, kobold-kind, or at least some of it, saw whatever even the Gap obscures coming and use advanced reality warping technology and magic to shunt themselves off into a pocket reality somewhere between another universe and a demiplane, perhaps the border of the main one, until the event had past and further witchwarping events and experiments called them back. Of course, wherever they were, they did not escape the effects of the Gap itself, and have no memory of that time.

The result is an origin that is one part an excellent way to give kobolds a new refreshing backstory in this far-future age, as well as a funny meta-joke about literally injecting kobolds back into the setting.

However, it should be noted that while that first generation warped reality around themselves, kobolds born into the setting’s universe properly have not manifested nearly as many strange, reality warping events, though the secrets of witchwarping are now heavily associated with kobolds in the same way that draconic power and magic is.

Starfinder-era kobolds were introduced after Pathfinder Second Edition came out, meaning that they have the distinctive appearance from that edition, which I was not a fan of, but the design has grown on me over time.

Kobold are small reptiles with somewhat oversized craniums covered in scales that come in a variety of colors ranging across the rainbow and even rare metallic shades, reflecting the traditional colors of chromatic and metallic dragons and plenty in-between. Additionally, they also possess horns, most commonly two oversized backwards-sweeping ones, though some sport up to 8 smaller horns. They also possess sharp teeth and a long tail for counterbalancing their craniums, though their small size and unimpressive physiques usually make these unappealing options for self-defense.

It is also notable that most kobolds also go through rare periods of flux, their bodies changing as the witchwarping magic that infuses them makes changes. Usually these are benign, things like bouts of nausea, developing a new allergy or repelling pathogens, but others are more extreme, manifesting dramatic spell effects. The most disruptive are thankfully rare, but aspiring witchwarpers use them as the basis for their magic, developing and controlling these warps.

Kobolds are a communal species, and so they often seek to aid their communities whenever possible, and a kobold child can be expected to be raised not just by their parents but by the whole community. However, kobolds also have a deep pride as a people, stemming from the truth that they know in their heart of hearts: kobolds are dragons, and the fact that their forms a diminutive and weak is one of the universe’s great injustices. Plenty believe that in whatever reality they were in before returning, they wore the mighty shape of true dragons, while others believe that this is a convenient folktale. Either way, this has birthed several philosophies, including those that seek to unlock their draconic heritage, those that seek to reclaim the power and wealth they believe they deserve, and of course those that seek to ignore all that and just live their lives in the reality they find themselves in.

Kobolds are agile and passionate, but frail.

That being said, their scales provide some decent protection in a pinch.

With their keen minds, these tiny reptiles have a special knack for engineering and physics, true to their long history of trap and weapon building.

The colors of a kobold’s scales are not just for show. Indeed, that coloration indicates some genetic similarities with various forms of dragon, granting them resistance to acid, cold, electricity, of flame to match.

Kobolds have a lot of fun options as characters. Their charisma and association with the art makes them excellent witchwarpers, not to mention other charisma classes like solarian, envoy, and the like. Their agility also makes them good picks for operatives as well as most any ranged combat build, including ranged soldiers, evolutionists (particularly those seeking a draconic form), and so on. Their love of building and intricate devices also makes mechanic and technomancer thematic choices as well, and biohackers might seek to unlock the secrets of dragonhood in their genetics. They also have a history of magic, making mystic and especially precog good choices as well. Their only real weakness seems to be their con, making nanocyte, vanguard, and any especially tanky builds somewhat difficult, but not impossible. Additionally, beyond classes, the Interstellar Species book has lots of feats meant to represent kobolds unlocking their draconic potential, ranging from wings, a breath weapon, and outright gaining a draconic alternate form!

And that’s it for this week! Through a curious accident of how I’ve been picking which species to cover, this week has been mostly species that are relics of the fantasy origins of the setting, which is neat to point out. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed it, and look forward to more options next week!

[say-hi-intrepid-heroes]

D&D basics for first-time watchers

The Player's Handbook is great, but a lot of people want to watch Dungeons & Dragons-centric shows without reading five hundred pages of rules. Below is a crash course of basic D&D stuff that's relevant to watchers (it gets more complex as the post goes on, so just read until you feel like it's getting too complex)

send this to anyone who is watching Dimension 20, Critical Role, or another D&D campaign for the first time!

The Basic Basics:

dice are referred to using "d" (for dice) + the number of sides. So a typical cube die is a d6, and a 20-sided die is a d20. (d20 is the most used one)

"Nat 1" : stands for "natural 1." This is the lowest possible number on a d20, and is considered an automatic fail at most tables.

"Nat 20" : stands for "natural 20," and is the highest possible number on a 20, and an automatic success.

DM/GM: Dungeon Master or Game Master; works as a sort of video game computer. They run the whole game, including the world, combat, and any NPCs, as well as direct plot or storyline.

PC: Player Characters, people who play a single character at a time during a game.

NPC: Non-Player Character, a character played by the DM for PCs to interact with.

The Slightly More Complex Basics:

Ability Scores: the numbers that make the game work and form characters, (ex: Strength, Charisma), higher means the character is better at that skill, details below.

Class: a category which a character falls into, giving them specific skills, spells, or abilities, allowing them to directly manipulate the game world (ex: Wizard, Fighter), details below.

Race: really should be called species (ex: Human, Elf, Dwarf)

Combat: times when PCs are directly fighting NPCs or each other, uses a specific order and series of turns, details below.

Getting Pretty Complex: Skills and Skill Checks:

When it happens: when a character is attempting to do anything not seen as extremely simple (ex: walking in normal conditions does not require an ability check, but swimming in a violent tide probably will)

What happens: the player rolls a d20 and adds their modifier to it. These are specific numbers to each character and aren't worth memorizing, but this is how players will sometimes get numbers larger than 20 or lower than 1.

What are modifiers?: modifiers define how naturally good (positive modifier) or bad (negative modifier) a character is at a given skill. This number then gets added to the number on the d20.

What is a success?: the DM sets a number (known as Difficulty Class, or DC) that is needed to succeed. When the character succeeds using the steps above, they are able to do whatever is attempting to be done.

What is a failure?: when a character does not reach that DC, they fail whatever they are attempting to do.

Note: Saving Throws: saving throws are similar to ability checks but are required by an outside influence on a player. These are super complex and not necessary to enjoy watching.

Getting Pretty Complex: Ability Scores:

Strength: measure of a character's physical ability to punch, lift, push, or break something (raw muscle mass, usually).

Dexterity: a character's ability to be agile, dodge, react, avoid, or pass over difficult terrain (speed or agility).

Intelligence: a character's ability to retain knowledge, objectively analyze, and remember things (raw knowledge).

Wisdom: a character's ability to infer, connect dots without having all the answers, or see something not initially apparent (analysis or reasoning).

Charisma: a character's ability to bend others to their will, whether through kindness, flirting, or threats (influence).

Constitution: a character's ability to endure and resist, affects Hit Points (sheer willpower).

Very Complex: Combat

Initiative: rolled by all participants at the beginning of combat, defines the order of turns, uses Dexterity as a modifier

Turns: include movement of a certain distance (usually 30ft for most humanoids), an action (usually a major spell or attack), and a bonus action (minor spell or extra ability that applies only to certain classes)

Armor Class: the number that defines how difficult a character is to hit.

Hit Points: the amount of damage a character can take before falling unconscious

Falling unconscious: when a character hits 0 hit points, they begin making death saving throws, where they roll a d20 and add no modifiers. A 1-9 is failure, a 10-20 is a success, 3 failures = full dead, 3 successes = stable but still at 0 hit points and therefore unable to take actions.

Full dead: occurs either at 3 death saving throw failures OR when dealt negative damage equal to a character's hit point total, a character can only come back to life when revived through magic.

Very Complex: Spells

Cantrips: minor spells that do not use spell slots

Leveled Spells: major spells that become more powerful with higher levels, consume spell slots

Spell Slots: the limited number of specific level spells a caster can cast between rests, increases with character level

Casting Time: certain spells take a longer time to cast, which is especially important in combat (each round is only about six seconds, so a spell that takes a minute to cast would take ten rounds and is not advised).

Very Complex: Classes

Wizard: Intelligence-based spellcaster, uses knowledge and study to learn magic.

Sorcerer: Charisma-based spellcaster, is born with magical ability and works to harness it.

Cleric: Wisdom-based spellcaster, is gifted with magical ability by (usually) a deity.

Warlock: Charisma-based spellcaster, bargains for magical ability with some sort of powerful entity via a contract.

Bard: Charisma-based spellcaster, channels magic through music or performance.

Druid: Wisdom-based spellcaster, harnesses the magic of nature

Barbarian: Strength-based physical attacker, fights through the power of rage.

Fighter: Strength- or Dexterity-based physical attacker, studies the skills required for effective fighting.

Ranger: Dexterity-based physical attacker with limited spellcasting, focused on survival, tracking, and ranged attacks.

Rogue: Dexterity-based physical attacker, strikes from the shadows and goes unseen.

Monk: Dexterity-based physical attacker, gains ability through meditation and training.

Paladin: Strength-based (typically) physical attacker with limited spellcasting abilities, fights for the sake of an oath.

[disclaimer: some DMs will change up/create classes, ability scores, etc., so these just typically followed rules, also there are many exceptions to the things above, these are just basics]

[misc-obeyme]

CC the "maggot ass horns" tag was the best thing I read today lmaooo😭I took a better look at the plush then and CC the horns look like maggots fr!! Now I'm gonna think about maggots whenever I see the plush

Uhhh to be fair tho the new plush toys are,, ok I'm gonna say it,, no offense to anyone who liked em,, but they look TACKY,, I'M SORRY

-🧼

I'm so sorry to everyone, but the second I saw Whitecifer, the first thing I thought of was maggots 😭😭

Now the thing about the plushies is that I find them to be very silly looking indeed and originally I wasn't going to get any at all. Because I believed that the side characters would not be getting any, since they almost never get the same merch the brothers do.

This matters because I said okay they're a little funny looking, so it isn't worth it to me. If they had a Barbatos one, I would get him even if he was funny looking because it's Barbatos and he so rarely has merch of any kind that I could not pass it by. (Though I refused to get the sheets which I originally thought were body pillows because why did they have to give Barb those feet huh?)

I'm not a huge merch person, I usually only purchase one or two things that I really like. So I tend to wait around for something that I'm super excited about. I have a couple things, but nothing too dramatic. But I feel like I'm always waiting because the Barb merch is almost non existent lol.

So now I'm like, that Barb plushie is mine, I don't care what it looks like. I can finally have SOMETHING. I have one lil Barb standee and everything else is him with the other side characters. Which is fine because I love them all, but still.

And then I was like well if I'm getting Barb... I should get Solomon, too. 'Cause I would feel bad if I didn't. I'm silly like that lol.

ANYWAY. We'll see how it goes when they're released.

But in the end, I'm afraid I agree with you... I'm not sure what it is about them that looks so off to me? Perhaps it's the size of their heads? I don't usually buy plushies that are humanoid for this reason, I find them slightly unsettling.

[papabirdurskeks]

So, a little side note to my headcanon on speculative stuff on the Witness's people with some backup help from my OCs:

A lot of my characters actually have female/feminine voices even if they identify as male. This is largely because the species themselves are intersex and do not rely on the concept of gender to determine who they truly are. They distinguish and choose their pronouns when they are old enough to decide what they feel fits themselves best.

For example, both Turey and Hutia identify as male but have female/feminine voices. Rahe and Zinato also have female/feminine voices but identify solely as non-binary to name a few.

In much earlier times before the species evolved to be more humanoid, the species had a large female to male ratio. A cis male would number 1 to every 50 cis females. Because of this, the species eventually began to evolve with more intersex individuals being born to help reduce the chances of inbreeding between the populous. It wouldn't be long before the intersex gene became the dominant gene to take over in full. However, pieces of prior evolution still linger when vocal cords and language began to develop alongside this gene as well. This is why if one is to find themselves among the species, they would often hear female/feminine voices.

Very seldom do any of them actually have male voices and if they do, they are usually very soft spoken and quiet.

For example, again, both Baracutey and Homayoun have masculine voices. The same goes for Bijirita. Mabuya also has a masculine voice yet identifies as non-binary. And I'naru', who has a masculine/male voice, identifies as female.

Voices are not usually loud or deep within this species as this is a species that heavily relies on body language to communicate with each other more effectively.

Again, in earlier times before the Traveler, the species often found it easier for them to speak more softly to evade any sort of danger while also being able to signal and commune with one another should said dangers be around. Softer tones and effective body language also aided them in hunts as they further evolved to become the apex predators of their world, keeping them out of sight and sound of potential prey. Body language also helps in detecting how one feels without saying it or understanding the state of their overall health.

I'll further explain this with more speculative doodles later down the line, but I felt the need to add this in there for the sake of understanding/knowing what will be when said doodles and posts do come about! Hope this makes sense to some degree.

Again, these are just personal headcanons for my lore/story building.

[lunas-otome-blog]

Luna's Review: Café Enchanté

Official Summary:

When Kotone inherits her grandfather’s Tokyo café, she discovers the shop holds more secrets than anyone could imagine.

The café is a meeting spot for beings from multiple, mystical worlds. You’ll meet the king of demons, a humanoid beast, a fallen angel, and more.

And when government agents monitoring non-human activities show up at your door, your new café is about to become a lot more colorful.

.

(Spoiler Free) Luna's Thoughts:

(Just as a reminder, I'm writing this for myself to keep track of my thoughts and leave a record of the games I've played. Others are welcome to read and feel free to provide your own thoughts, but please, no hate! They're just my opinions, nothing more.)

I was excited for this game. The premise sounded amazing: a cute cafe full of magical beings from other worlds? Sign me up! I love the colorful cast of characters, and the art is undoubtedly gorgeous.

But, while I enjoyed elements of this game, the setting falls apart almost immediately, and has very little to do with any of the routes, with the exception of the true end. The whole game is actually incredibly dark, complete with bloodshed and death in every route, which is normally not a bad thing, but it feels a bit misleading here.

You're told almost at once that the cafe is somehow sustained on payments from only a handful of romanceable characters, none of which use human currency or seem to have jobs that would involve payment, with the exception of the one human bachelor Rindo. This is nitpicky, I know, but I found it frustrating because it would have been so easy to write a way around this.

Let me be clear that I don't necessarily mind a game with a ridiculous premise. I love Mystic Messenger, and the entire game hinges on the fact that you have moved into a stranger's apartment and have somehow remotely taken on party planning for a charity group of people you haven't met. But the thing about Mystic Messenger is that the ridiculousness is upfront, right at the beginning, and once you get past it and accept the game for what it is, you can enjoy it.

This is not so with Cafe Enchante. There are many times in this game where just a little more thought could have made things make more sense. To me, the whole game was plagued with sloppy writing and baffling plot details that could have easily been avoided or explained in a different way — not to mention the litany of literal editing errors. It's also not translated very well in places — or maybe it is, and just written poorly in its original Japanese. Either way, it reads awkwardly a lot of the time

Overall, I was not impressed with this game. It just goes to show that pretty artwork and a fun initial premise do not necessarily make a good product.

Below are my thoughts on each route in the order I played them.

.

(SPOILERS BEGIN HERE)

Ignis Carbunculus Route

This is the route I got first, without trying. I actually did not want to get Ignis first, because I figured he was the tsundere character in this game, and I like to do those a bit later. He's actually not particularly tsundere at all, just hypermasculine and therefore not great at expressing emotions other than rage.

This is one of the darkest and, in my opinion, one of the laziest-written routes in the game. You're expected to believe that Ignis went on a rage, literally killed and ate many of his own people, including his family, forgot about it and then just continues on with his life, only to be conveniently reminded of his dark past at the right moment to advance the game. And the rest of his clan has been tolerating him because they're afraid of him, and for whatever reason, Ignis has never noticed everyone hates or fears him??

Ignis is also the only member of his species who can eat. The rest don't need to because they're born with all the calories they need for the rest of their lives apparently, meaning the beasts of the literal beast world don't kill each other for food, just sport. And oh, yeah, that's somehow also Ignis' fault.

I felt like this route could have been simplified in a way that made more sense. Instead, the writers had a vision and manipulated many small details to make the rest of the game work within that vision, resulting in a lot of strange decisions.

I'm aware this game isn't meant to be realistic, but Ignis' whole plotline seemed very contrived. It's like they had something written already but realized certain elements weren't congruent with other aspects of the game, so they just...manipulated elements of Ignis' route until it kind of fit.

Overall, I think Ignis' route was my least favorite. It felt the most rushed, the least polished, and assumed a lot of things conveniently went unnoticed for years in Ignis' life. There was just too much coincidence in this route for me.

.

(SPOILERS)

Il Fado de Rie Route

This was the second route I played, and overall my favorite route. It felt the most cohesive out of all the characters, and it was the longest aside from the true end.

That doesn't mean I don't have my gripes with it. My biggest one is that Il, who has apparently based his entire personality, including his name, on an otome game character, makes the baffling decision to tell Kotone about the game and literally recommend she try that character's route first, only to immediately regret it when he realizes she's going to notice something is off.

Like, I could understand it if the personalities were just similar, but he took the name, too. I cannot believe he would be so stupid as to forget the game that he stole his persona and name from and then just freely give away that information. What pisses me off so much is that Kotone could have so easily encountered this information on her own. Have her buy the game independently to surprise Il, and then discover the overlap herself. Why on earth would he just give her that information? It's lazy writing.

I did really enjoy how angels are basically human androids and god is a supercomputer. That was rad as hell and is a brilliant explanation for why angel magic is math based. I'd say this route has the best worldbuilding, including the gorgeous pretty-boy side characters.

I don't feel completely satisfied with how Il's route was resolved, as there's still some question to how much of his personality is his own, but ultimately it was the most solid route in the game. I didn't think I would like Il as I don't particularly enjoy his character archetype, but in the end I was pretty attached to him. His characterization in the true end route was adorable as well, and I adore his friendship with Misyr.

.

(SPOILERS)

Kaoru Rindo Route

Rindo was my second favorite route in the game. I think it's super funny that Kotone keeps talking about their age gap even though he's the second youngest character in the game at 42 years old.

His route is also (to my knowledge) the only route that lets you just straight up kill the person you're trying to romance, although it does dead end the game if you make the choice not to save him when you can.

The worst part of this route for me what the treatment of Rindo's sister, Shizuku. She doesn't get a proper sprite in her human form, so you have no idea what she looked like, and it makes it kind of hard to feel anything for her. I did like the utter horror of watching Mikado feed her with his blood with no explanation.

This is one of the darkest routes and the only one where a side character with a sprite actually dies. And when he does, you feel bad for him because he was just trying to protect the woman he loves.

It did feel a little predictable to have Rindo become non-human after oodles of conversations about whether or not humans and non-humans can have relationships. Honestly the game writers are cowards for not making Rindo look more extreme as a non-human. Make him a freak!!

I do appreciate that he remains non-human at the end, though. I feel like forcing him to become human again would have eliminated any of the growth he made during the route.

Personality-wise, Rindo is one of the cuter characters IMO. He's flirty but as soon as things get serious he backs off. Super adorable!

.

(SPOILERS)

Canus Espada Route

This route was...ok. Just ok.

Honestly, I was bored through most of it. I can't really say why. It just didn't appeal to me that much.

Right at the beginning it annoyed me by assigning a gender to Vennia. Like, he could have just been left nonbinary. It's canon in this game that fairies don't have genders anyway, so it would have been fine to continue using they/them pronouns. I guess otome games haven't gone that way yet but it would have been nice.

I did like Vennia's relationship with Titania, and in the end, when he betrays Kotone, it felt natural. You can't hate him because you know he just wants to protect his sister.

I thought maybe his headlessness would be plot relevant but on the contrary, we get literally no explanation for why he's headless and nobody else is. I get that they wanted to make him an interesting character, but we know his ancestor was not headless, so why is he? Aren't there other dullahans in Medio?

I do think it's hilarious that we don't ever get to see his face. The implication is that he does in fact have one, so I had predicted it would be revealed as part of his route, but they stuck to their guns and kept him headless throughout the entire route.

Idk why I wasn't impressed with this route. Worldbuilding-wise it was one of the more solid storylines. It just wasn't particularly shocking or interesting to me, so I didn't love it, but I suppose I didn't hate it either.

.

(SPOILERS)

Misyr Rex Route

This route was, quite frankly, absolutely ridiculous. This was the most obvious case of having an overall idea and not having the skills to execute it well.

So many things happened just because Misyr willed it to. For example, he gains magic powers and a semi-human form simply because he wanted to visit a four-year-old on earth? How does that even happen? This is already ignoring the fact that he transformed into an ash monster through forced evolution or whatever, which is already a stretch, mind you.

And if that's not ridiculous enough, we then get introduced to Noah, who is somehow an entire world. I actually found him to be more interesting of a character than Misyr, now that we know that Misyr's entire life consists of going to one cafe and doing nothing all day.

The most disappointing part of this route was Asmodeus, who was largely not relevant at all other than the initial shock of realizing Misyr wasn't the demon king. Why bother making such an annoying character for a brief gag? He could have been so much more but instead he's reduced to an unlikable flirt who kidnaps Kotone in order to provide an excuse for a cute CG, and then we barely see him ever again.

This whole route stinks of worldbuilding with no consideration for how certain elements would affect the rest of the world. You know how sometimes worlds in fictional programs (ie: Black Mirror) build their entire concepts around one aspect of society and don't bother fleshing out everything else? That's basically this whole route in a nutshell. It falls apart under the tiniest bit of scrutiny.

To top it off, the good ending of this route, and therefore the whole game, involves Kotone becoming the world herself, largely losing her human form, now cursed to live for eternity as a realm that turns people to ash????? Who decided this would be a satisfying ending for an otome game?

The one element I did like was the explanation for why non-humans look so much like humans. I think it's super cool that humans used to have superior technology and lost it and everything else grew from that. I like the biblical references as well.

Ultimately, though, this was a disappointing way to end the game for me.

[fumifooms]

Bonbon is fucking me up

Fancy alt title: On coping, safety in the inanimate and helplessness against the animalistic

I don’t care about the storybook symbolism I’m here to talk about the experience of it all and how it’s so viscerally relatable. Watched the new Jacob Geller vid and I am in shambles (< how to say something that immediately ages your draft pfft…) I appreciate this game I appreciate it a lot

I recommend if you’re here but don’t know a thing about Bonbon you just go watch it, here’s a gameplay, it’s short. Or the Jacob Geller video segment at least 🙏 It does an amazing job at covering it.

Official game description:

Bonbon is a thirty-minute long, first-person domestic horror narrative about childhood events you are too young to understand. Playing as a young toddler, walking and carrying objects will be difficult. You will drop things, and you will fall over. Since your parents aren't there to pick you up, you'll be spending time with a large, overbearing and ambiguous visitor... a monstrous, hungry rat named Bonbon.

Official CW: Steam : The player character is a young child who is being traumatised by a giant humanoid rat who appears in the house one day. The traumatic events are symbolic and related to domestic issues. Physical violence is extremely mild, but some players might find the threatening atmosphere to be uncomfortable. // itch.io : Bonbon deals with grown-up themes and suggestions of child-abuse. There is no literal violence or onscreen abuse, it is entirely in the subtext.

If you play through it without knowing anything about it, you’ll have to piece things together to grasp the theme of domestic abuse, but the second you step into official descriptions, it is very straightforwardly about that. I mention this because the game also makes the rat monster, well, a literal rat— a pet rat that is shown in-game to be feral & average in the end credits and to have been adopted into the family from a newspaper rehoming ad. I’ve seen people argue without the extra context that the story has no "fancy" analogy and metaphor for the monster, that it’s pretty literal and is just about a kid’s fear of his own pet rat exaggerated. And, well………. 🧍

So warning for this specific post, we’ll be talking about domestic abuse and trauma, not any acts perse but moreso the feelings it makes you go through- what I think this game is interested in representing.

So I only looked at other non-youtube-comment reviews after writing most of this, but now that I have I do have many nifty little links and snippets to share as cherry on top. If you look on the game’s itch.io page you can find links to some other interesting reviews/analyses. In particular, this short quote by Adam Smith about the game represents well something that people keep bringing up about Bonbon, childhood anxiety :

"the confusion between what is real and what isn’t, and what is threatening and what is malign, rings true."

This reddit thread is another interesting analysis, particularly with the angle of sexual abuse but also goes into the meta mechanics & experience. Only setback is you must have a reddit account to read it. (I won’t be taking the same angle at all but it isn’t incompatible with my reading either, either way it’s very compelling and supported by concrete analysis so give it a look if that interests you.)

And yet even still with all these I wanted to make my own thematic analysis bc I need it and I have other & new things to say. Like how personal experiences have shaped others’ reviews, mine will have a specific angle influenced by my own as well. I don’t consider I was abused- but I was traumatized by a parent, so I do relate to the feelings evoked. Alcoholism, absentness and mild anger issues with an occasional threat of corporal punishment makes for a very fitting cocktail for Bonbon, I feel, but we’ll be getting into that.

The suspense, the fear lingering at the back of your mind that you’re trying to suppress because this is your daily. Domestic horror feels like a quite accurate term. Critiques of the game often agree on a central theme being agency and the lack thereof and that’s particularly interesting, but I want to give a look at the coping angle of the narrative specifically, moreso than the suffering & enduring reactive and active side of it that has been extensively covered.

No the rat man never stops feeling disturbing next question

Before truly getting into it I want to lay out the game’s plot and structure. It has 5 scenes. In the first scene you, the kid, are playing outside when your mom calls you inside, and you have to put away your toys. In scene 2, you play inside and your mom calls you to dinner, and you have to put away your toys. Scene 3, it’s your birthday and you eat cake. In scene 4 a radio with dad’s voice soothingly reads you a morbid tragic bedtime story. In scene 5, it’s night and you can’t sleep, you wander a bit before going back to bed. In scene 3 and 5 the parents are arguing as background noise (albeit very deliberate and purposeful one you’re meant to notice and pay attention to). Bonbon is in all of these scenes, and the aggression he shows/discomfort he causes escalates, until the game abruptly ends when he jumpscares you.

Mild fear, no alarm

Scene 1 and 2 especially are great at establishing normalcy. It feels like routine. The acts are mundane. This is your normal. There is nothing that feels special about today and seemingly nothing is out of place, even a giant rat man suddenly coming crashing in through the fence. No one comments on him, but you interact with him and talk to him. You already know his name, the way you know the name of all your toys, Bonbon.

A significant part of the gameplay is spent with toys, holding them up, manipulating them, playing with them and putting them away. Even in scene 5, toys are used in eerie ways to lure and scare.

Toys are obviously important to the child. They’re the only thing besides the environment and parents that they interact with at all, and the only thing they talk to besides Bonbon. They talk to the toys, saying "hello [toy name]!" almost like a ritual, compulsively, every time to every toy if you the player takes the time to. You certainly have the prompt to do so, and no reason to do or not do it. This ingrained habit shows that they humanize the toys to some degree, and supports that the child has an active imagination.

So, you’re putting your toys away when suddenly Bonbon appears, like I said crashing through the fence noisily. There is no more sudden movement or noise from him, and nothing indicates that this is strange or unusual. Eventually, you’ll have found all the toys you can in the backyard, but that doesn’t mean you found all the toys you need to put away. With nothing else to do, you wordlessly approach Bonbon, and only then does he do anything at all. He watches you, and he drops the last ball you need, it rolling closer to you. You have to approach and bend down to grab it. You do not know why or how Bonbon had the toy in the first place.

There are two levels with this as with any game, the character’s experience and the player’s experience. We have very little insight on the kid’s emotions through all of this, but player wise it’s clear and unanimouse- It’s disturbing. This scene is very powerful in showing how something as simple as help from someone you feel uncomfortable about— someone you’re not sure about— can be very, very intimidating. Uncanny, even. Both during and after, you’re unsure wether the help is genuine or if, like an animal it’ll turn around at the flip of a dime and rip you to shreds if you make one step out of line.

But no, (for now,) the rat helps, and this makes you tentatively decide it’s not all bad. You still feel a little uncomfortable. Bonbon is holding a toy, something that is safe and joyful, helping and giving it, after all. Still, the association between Bonbon and "safe" can’t be made, despite the signs pointing to him not being nefarious we always instinctively hang onto nitpicks of "so far" and "for now". You feel the wrongness, the distrust. Even though by the time the second scene rolls around, the association between Bonbon and "toy" has definitely been made.

You move on to the next scene still wondering if any consequence will come of the encounter. And scene 2 is very similar, almost a repeat in only a different setting. This time Bonbon enters the house and stands in the doorway to the room, almost fully filling it with his size. When he gives you the toy you’re looking for, it’s smaller than a ball and it doesn’t roll toward you. You have to pick it up, bending down right next to his feet, almost touching.

He didn’t hurt you last time, but (in the player at least) there’s something that screams at you to be careful, that that’s no reason it won’t hurt you this time. Still, you need its help, and still, it offers it.

The uncertainty. The threat of danger— though you constantly second guess yourself, should you be scared at all? Is there a threat, or only a possibility? Does that distinction matter? Is it your fault for being scared? And you don’t know, you don’t know if you truly should, there’s no way to know until it happens and that’s precisely the thing you’re stressed over and working so hard trying to avoid.

Has it not happened yet only because you tiptoed and walked on eggshells, or would it not have happened either way? The game in this case answers this in its last second of the last scene- and I argue that’s why that’s the end. That answer was given- the game is about this longheld feeling of anxiety and dread and discomfort, that you’re unsure of when the elastic will have been pulled too far causing it to snap. Then it answers this, and it ends just like that.  There’s no proper closure, about what happens afterwards to the kid or anyone else in the family, or even about the meaning of all the imagery and metaphors, but there is closure in one thing: you hadn’t imagined the threat. You were right to be scared all along.

This is the core of what the game was building up with the first two scenes : tension. A balloon swelling until it pops, more and more and more and you keep asking when will it pop.

It’s a never ending suspense, a jumpscare music starts but the jumpscare never happens, rationalizing everything and gaslighting yourself. A child, though, of course, thinks of these things much less clearly, all of this is much more subconscious. Feels things instead of understand them- which is why I think the game was so well thought and made, you’re a child and you don’t really know what’s going on —and you don’t have the tools to either—, everything feels vague and more importantly vaguely wrong. You can only feel. You have no proof and you understand nothing you can only feel. There are instincts but they’ve been dulled by normalization and habit.

Obviously, toys are the opposite of this anxiety. They’re predictable and safe because you know them and what they are and what they do, there is little to no hidden factor and they have no will or intent. The communication there is to be had with them at all is in very predictable standard sentences and onesided, "Hello, [name]!". There is no body language to analyze or keep track of and their faces if any are drawn and designed for a child’s, smiling and bright or teaching emotions through cartoonish exaggeration. A pet rat, or parents, by comparison, have subtle and complex body language, hard to read expressions- You never see your parents’ appearances at all, much less their faces, but what can you read in Bonbon’s face? You can’t read anything, it’s morbidly neutral, it’s not human in a way you can intuitively understand and that makes it feel more unpredictable and scarier. The inanimate is safe. Toys are humanized to some degree to make them warmer more fun company, but other living things are inversely objectified to attempt to make you more comfortable with them. Let’s move on and I’ll get back to this in scene 4.

Deep fear, mild alarm

Scene 3. It gets revealed it’s your birthday! There’s nothing that cements it for sure, but there’s no reason to disbelieve that all 5 scenes of the game are set in the same day. In which case, the mother’s unremarkable mundane behavior can speak even more interestingly about the theme of neglect.

You’ve been called to the table and mom lit up the candles on the cake and sings you happy birthday! You two are interrupted when the phone rings and mom steps away to answer it, breaking the happy mood. You hear a chair scraping on the floor and when the screen shows things again Bonbon is sitting next to you, huge and insistent on getting cake. You cut a slice, for yourself presumably but he asks for it and you give it. Asking for a slice, then another, then another until he pushes you over to eat all your cake and you still haven’t had any. And of course this happens during while you can hear fight on the phone between mom and dad. Mom seemingly blames the mess on you and sends you off to take a bath fondly.

This was the part that made me wonder what line the metaphor was toeing. The dad is busy on the phone, so Bonbon can’t just be dad when he’s physically there. My first impression was that the child brings their rat to the dining table to have company sometimes. Someone to share a cake with even perhaps. But not something they can hold back or make behave, so when they give it some cake it gets out of hand… We’ll come back on this but I think loneliness is an important and supported theme. Is it only the child’s trauma given form, that causes them to lash out and smash the cake or such? Is it the memories, that ruins the cake for them? The official description of the game makes it sound like Bonbon’s presence is only allowed because of the parents’ neglect, some visitor that appears when they’re not watching... This is all interesting to ponder, but ultimately this is the point where the line gets truly blurred, what makes me think that it’s nuanced and situational rather than a black or white answer.

The mom never comments on Bonbon, and Bonbon joins the table quickly only after mom goes away on the phone to talk to dad- Bonbon has inserted himself in the scene both figuratively because he called by phone and it’s distracting from the moment, from the birthday cake and from the child’s birthday, and literally (through Bonbon, perhaps just a personification of trauma) by seating himself at the table.

In this scene the child talks to Bonbon for the first and only time. "Hello, Bonbon!" they say, and after this they get the prompt to either give Bonbon a slice of cake each time they ask or say "No, Bonbon!", but even if you do he’ll only insist and ultimately push you out of the way. The theme of agency is of course central here, the sheer helplessness of it all. To add insult to injury mom comes back and makes light of the situation, dismissing it entirely.

Extra stuff you could read into is how sweets are unhealthy and potentially poisonous to rats. Bonbon in french means candy btw, if that’s anything at all. I also had in my notes written that there was smoke in the scene, interesting because it’s unecessary, helps atmosphere even though it’s illogical or such? Idiom reference, or reminds smoke detectors bc of kitchen for a metaphor? But was it puffs of breathing? The thing is that I physically cannot rewatch the cake scene so, sorry you only have my memory after five months from watching it lol.

Comfort

This is an interlude of sorts. The only thing that happens in this scene is you have to listen to a bedtime story while tucked in bed, one told by a radio at your bedside speaking with dad’s voice.

In meta, this has an effect on you, it slows the pace and the game’s story down. Maybe there’s lingering tension in you and you can’t relax all throughout it, because of what’s happened so far, but personally, I found myself getting sleepy, almost comfortable, soothed. Both are very interesting experiences. The story and scene lasts long minutes where you can’t move or do anything but listen, so it’ll have an effect on you in any case, even if it’s simply breaking tension through boredom, which could feasibly be an emotion experienced by the child as well. A tradition done out of routine, so the story can bore you to sleep lol. The former shows just how much the child’s home life puts one in a constant state of stress and tension, meanwhile the latter shows a potential reprieve from the tension and more importantly where the child would find it in.

I’ll be going forward with the latter. You, the player, get to be soothed with a bedtime story to the voice of daddy. The scene tells a story that can explain the symbolism and is ripe grounds for analysis, but it itself shows you another side to things. Daddy here, through the inanimate object that physically cannot be unpredictable, a recording of sometime nice, is soothing, a bedtime story, it’s a presence that lulls you to sleep with a kind soft voice.

By this point, it’s been cemented that the father is the unstable destabilizing element in the household/family dynamic. This was the scene I was most onterested in analyzing, because I think this goes back to the child’s liking of toys. Dare I say, their coping through toys. The radio shows distance, which both has positives and negatives. This reinforces to me the theme of neglect and loneliness— Daddy reads you a story but it’s through a radio, which supports the dad might be an absent father. Mechanically, you can never give an appearance to either mom or dad like I mentioned, they’re always offscreen or in black screen cutscenes. In this house it’s only you, Bonbon and the toys. The radio is there because dad couldn’t or wouldn’t be physically present to read it to the child, or because… The radio as mentioned is an object, something safe. The recording of daddy’s voice is unchanging and it stays soothing, predictably slow and soft. It could be argued that the radio isn’t even literal and it’s a way for the kid to pretend that the dad has no physical presence. Perhaps because like the end shows, physical consequences can and do happen. With scene 5 it’s arguably, but as of scene 4 with scene 3 we’ve only ever heard dad’s voice through an electronic. There is an association being made between dad and phones and radios, a faraway voice.

The mechanic of the kid saying "hello, [name]!" is very associated with toys, and then we say that to Bonbon in scene 3… Daddy is the radio, the mother never gets any metaphorical or warped form like that, and then there’s Bonbon. This in good part is what makes me think that Bonbon is somewhat considered like a toy too by the child, but unlike inanimate objects they have a will of their own. I think this mechanic is also meant to portray loneliness like I mentioned, that the kid always talks to the toys, always plays with toys, etc. It’s not "stop playing with your friends and come home", it’s the kid sitting on the floor with toys and playing away, and then Bonbon. The kid had the rat to stave through the loneliness I think, and visually/behaviorally it disturbed them even though it got categorized as a toy and then it also grew an association with father.

We’re building a dichotomy here. There is helpfulness and aggression. There is object = predictably safe and Bonbon the pet rat = unpredictably unsafe. And we’re coming closer to me saying it plainly, but I think Bonbon the humanoid rat monster is at once both the child’s literal pet rat, fused with the father, a way to visualize him that puts distance between him and the child, or the child and their parental trauma. I think the father’s bad is being absorbed by the child’s boogeyman vision of Bonbon, and I think the good and comfortable is associated with the radio, is relegated to that visual representation again. The good ol’ coping mechanism of compartmentalization. How to reconcile scene 3 with scene 4, if both Bonbon and the radio are the father? Which part of him is more important, which vision of dad should you go with? The one that’s scary or the one that’s soothing?

Bonbon is great I feel at showcasing what it feels like to be traumatized by the threat of danger but not it being fulfilled perse. Or yes it being fulfilled but- it’s about being scared in your daily life by someone. That suspense I spoke of. Bonbon is a coping mechanism, but in the pet rat becoming associated with the thing it’s helping the kid cope with, it becomes a source of dread also. If Bonbon is dad when he’s mean, then dad’s nice voice on the radio— dad when he’s not physically present- can be comforting instead of scary, because that wasn’t dad it was Bonbon. Personally of course this effect, the need to compartmentalize and dehumanize, reminds me of alcoholism, because when drunk it can truly feel like they become an animal- unpredictable, with baser instincts, more impulsive and primal and messy. Their patterns of behavior are all thrown off so in turn you recognize them less and that’s viscerally scary. If you can’t predict them and you can’t recognize them then it makes them something unknown that’s in your range and could do anything to you- if your brain is to be believed.

To summarize the story that gets told roughly, our poor protagonist gets tricked into doing a bunch of things by a rat guy he thinks is his ally to the rat’s benefit and the trickery is only revealed at the end, upon which the rat villain wins and the protagonist loses. The story reflects well the outline of the game, the first scenes compared to the ending, Bonbon revealing himself to not be as much of an ally as we’d like to think. It also reinforces this sense of helplessness, being at the mercy of others, and the theme of trust.

There are a lot of associations in the game, rat and dad, rat and distrust— which is perhaps why these three got tangled together in the first place. The story’s scenes evoke routine, so presumably this isn’t the first time they hear this storybook, so then just how formative was the story for them? Do they listen to it every night And then, my main argument, other associations: Toys and bonbon, toys and safety— If Bonbon, a pet, is a toy but he’s also a rat, then what is he? Safe or untrustworthy? Again the confusion from these contradictory associations could have been what kickstarted this analogical hot pot.

Bonbon as a pet being halfway between toy and unpredictable animal. Pets as more property than separate living being. Something that is not allowed to hurt you, but can sometimes surprise you with shows of agency and aggression if you neglect its warnings. Because pets are infamously easy to neglect and commonly mistreated, they’re often seen as possessions. Or yes, just toys for their kids, fish and small rodents especially. How many afternoons has the child spent inside, in the room of the end credits, with Bonbon in its cage as their only company… If the parents tend to neglect the child, who’s taking care of Bonbon? Bonbon might be our protagonist’s only friend-adjacent being. Like with toys conversations are also onesided with animals, and there’s also how a pet is a bit like the responsibilities of having a child, sometimes a violent one especially when starved or mistreated. There’s lot of things pulling them in different directions with Bonbon. So then we’re left with a mix of contradictory concepts and feelings, somethings that triggers your fight or flight but is too confusing to settle on anything, instead just leaving you restless yet used to it.

Associations like that a subconscious thing, human pattern recognition is a strong and instinctive thing. That his dad taught him that rats are to be distrusted and that he then visualizes him as a rat… I don’t think it was a conscious thing —and in many ways it’s a coincidence that both the pet they got and the story character were rats— but it could have become a subconscious way to rationalize both the fear the child feels (because they were taught rats are to be mistrusted so they’re validated in disliking and fearing it, not the way kids’ fear of their parents often get socially invalidated), to deflect and to warn themselves. They’re trying to rationalize and normalize it, has done so, but a part of their brain keeps begging them to be careful, to not trust it, to keep a distance and keep safe from it.

Deep fear, no alarm

So, final scene. You wake up in the middle of the night and hear your parents arguing, leaving the bed to take an eerie trip through darkned halls where supernatural things happen.

And something that interests me about the game is how the child never speaks up about their experiences with Bonbon right. Their mom cares, why not try to tell her, or get her help if they’re scared? But, why would you seek out help from mom or anyone in the first place? It’s scary, but it’s your normal. It’s normal so it’s nothing you can or should get help for. It’s just a natural part of life to endure, just a silly fear you’re unsure if you should have. What would asking for help or crying about it help, change, at all?

So after this then you get back to bed, still wondering, when will it snap? When will it snap? You hear an argument that you can’t tell the words of, but it’s dad and he’s arguing. The argument stops and now the silence is complete. But the angry one hasn’t stopped existing, he had to either go silent or go somewhere. Which is it, where is he? There’s a fear as you face away from the door. If you turn over, will that fear be confirmed or undermined?

The game abruptly ends on a jumpscare that occurs when the player character is in bed. Bed, the place that should be your safest, in your room. The same bed in which daddy radio nicely reads you a story, the same bed where Bonbon will get you. The framing feels like where a game would cut off and say "game over", what regardless of game over animation is usually synonymous with ‘death’. You as a player have to push a button to roll over, that triggers the jumpscare and thus progresses through the game. But this scene removes the artifice of agency that was present in previous scenes and Bonbon directly attacks the child player character at their most vulnerable moment, no matter how soon or late you push that button. Placed in the narrative’s broader context, it reads as an escalation of the abuse and as confirmation that the player character was always already powerless—the exchanges and negotiations of prior scenes were facades, and the abuser was never going to let the child assert themselves in any meaningful way. On a meta level, the game being a linear narrative (as opposed to offering the player meaningful choices that might affect the game’s outcome) reinforces this lack of agency communicated by the story and gameplay mechanics.  I was really intrigued by how well the interactive aspects of the gameplay contributed to tensions surrounding power and autonomy. I can’t not see it as being about the visceral experience of child abuse from a child’s perspective and logic, and I think it evokes those feelings so well without ever becoming so literal as to be triggering (for me), which was very welcome.

Making my research on this game’s reception like a scholar by reading Manlybadasshero’s comment section I saw many different theories and appreciative or unappreciative comments, and I have to say I think going "it strictly symbolizes the father or this specific trouble" or inversely "there’s nothing deeper to it" misses the purpose of ambiguity. In ambiguity there is the possibility of letting every individual in the audience come up with their own most satisfying conclusion yes- hence me being able to relate so much despite having never had a pet rat— but there is also an implicit nuance to be had, that things aren’t clear cut, and coping mechanisms or trauma or discomfort is something we can feel and visualize in big or subtle ways. The game is great at capturing a feeling, and I think that above piecing the lore is what’s important to experience with it. Of course, the game works to convey the experience of child abuse in general, and the game’s mechanics here articulate a vulnerability and sense of entrapment well regardless of whether they evoke that specific concept for a particular player.

Someone said that it should’ve been a short story instead of a game and, disagree. I think having it as a game instead of a short written story is good, because one the sound design is great, two the visuals are disturbing and the atmosphere– everything greatly enhances the whole thing. And most of all, as always, agency is the crux of games. Again it enhances the powerlessness here ironically, that you can do nothing, and it isn’t unrealistic, not when you’re a child in a home situation like that. And even as you the player are the one choosing when to roll over in that bed sealing your fate, you know it had only ever been a question of time.

Conclusion

The scenes can be referred to by time of day (afternoon, dinnertime, evening, nighttime) but also by room (backyard, living room, dining room, bedroom). By being a domestic horror slice of life story with a sense of routine we can assume these are snippets that embody the rooms for the child, the kitchen is for tense meals shared, the bedroom is for comfort and terror alike. I think it’s an interesting angle to ponder it from that I won’t go over more extensively since this is already so so long.

My thesis in the grand scheme of this is that Bonbon, the rat monster and not just the feral pet tat, is for the child that middleground between toy (predictable, safe) and animal (unpredictable, unsafe). It uses that complex ~harder to deal with and wrap your head around~ dynamic between material possession that’s also a living thing to show a child trying to cope with a relationship they don’t know how to understand or process. An attempt to make it more digestible, but mostly more stomachable I think. An attempt that fails, but an attempt nonetheless.

The unknown is scary, because then you don’t know wether you are safe or unsafe, and that uncertainty and confusion can be even more unsettling than knowing for certain that the enemy is hostile or aggressive. A nice video on the topic. This in good part is what can make us more afraid of animals, or people we can’t read well, etc etc.

I said that my own experience growing up was that I was under the occasional threat of corporal punishment, but the truth of the matter is— once you teach your child to be scared of you physically hurting them, the threat doesn’t feel occasional, it feels constantly lingering. On an edge, teetering, just waiting to be pushed and then you’re in danger again.

And there’s a lot of compelling things you could assume about the father. The game gave me the impression that he was an absent one, because his presence was through a phone and a radio, plus he misses your birthday, parents are heard arguing in scene 5 at night but it could be argued that there’s no proof the dad was ever even around or in the house during the game. If he was home in scene 5, was it because he got home from work or whatever he was doing or was it because he wanted to come even if say, they were divorced and he had a restraining order on him? How closely is the rat meant to be dad being physically present? Because I can also see the narrative where it’s the latter, where Bonbon coming crashing through the fence is a way for a dad to steal little moments with the kid it was discouraged to see again. The coaxing undertone to the first scenes can also recall grooming specifically. In the first two scenes, the dad is cautiously on his best behavior to gain your trust and approval, in the third one where he argues with mom on the phone he loses his temper, perhaps because he wasn’t welcome to the birthday party he’s invading as Bonbon, in scene 4 you try to calm yourself with memories of a better moment but in scene 5 he’s home and bad things happen. It’s notable that he never talks to us, either because he never asks to like in scene 3 on the phone and the child’s just that unimportant to him in the grand scheme of arguing with mom, or mom won’t let him. Mom talks to us but dad never does, closest is a radio telling us a story, again through a filter, through the object, a step removed, through distance. You could also say that there’s a contrast between mom and dad-bonbon, mom giving you directives and orders in a way that feels very warm and fond, and dad talking very little to you at all, instead coaxing and leveraging gestures in a way that feels disturbing and wrong.

someone brought up "if you give a mouse a cookie", the story where a mouse just asks for a cookie but if your provide it then it asks for milk then if you provide it it asks for a straw etc etc, and I think that’s an interesting link to make with the theme of ceding ground to an abuser with trust or complacency. It’ll always take more and more. Most explicitly represented in the cake scene.

I went with inconsistency as my core analysis theme but there is an argument to be made for the level of Bonbon’s intentionality in its actions, wether its gestures are purposeful to gain trust before abusing it, or wether it is truly acting on impulse and whims at all times, wether it was truly well-meaning in helping you with your tasks in the moment and angrily hungry the next. Ultimately, it matters little, because your cake still got ruined and you still got… Well. There is a lot of elements that give the game a somewhat dreamlike atmosphere, the hazy lighting being one, your garbling voice when speaking to the toys, and so much more. In the end all we can do is theorize for the sake of theorizing, and try to cope with the reality of things as the game showed us.

[fantasyfantasygames]

Narcissist: Antedesertium

Narcissist: Antedesertium, Aetherco, 2006?

Narcissist is a dimension-traveling game that revolves around a central timeline, ostensibly our own world. Your characters ("Drifters" or "Crashers") skip in and out of that timeline, creating new worlds in an attempt to generate the perfect one they want. You can find my review of Narcissist back in mid-November 2023.

The future of the central timeline is home to the Inheritors, post-human people with advanced technology and incredible psychic power. In its past, from the years of about 18,000 BC to 14,000 BC, is a period known as Antedesertium. This era is home to the Inheritors' opposite numbers: the Kings of Yrnë.

The Inheritors seek to preserve the central timeline, apparently successfully. The Kings of Yrnë seek to splinter it, a task at which they eventually fail. There are millions of Inheritors; they may actually compose the majority of living beings after the Hour of Inheritance (sometime around 2221). There are twenty Kings of Yrnë. The Inheritors look like "grey" aliens, but still basically humanoid. The Kings of Yrnë look like nothing that was ever remotely human - and yet each of them once was.

The Antedesertium supplement for Narcissist details the era when the Kings of Yrnë ruled the world. It describes the Kings themselves, the non-dimension-traveling people of Yrnë, and the many forking timelines that clutter these four thousand years. It's an incredibly chaotic period. The farther downstream (into the future) one goes, the more overlapping, shattered worldlines stack up upon one another, until the Interregnum, when a massive explosion shifts the Earth's axis and turns the Sahara into a desert.

The descriptions of the Kings of Yrnë set them up as driving forces for the game, the same way that 13th Age does with its Icons or Exalted does with the Deathlords. Seven of them get multi-page writeups of their personality, powers, goals, and supporting characters. The rest get about a half-page each. The people of Yrnë get a 20-page chapter, which honestly feels a little short to cover 4000 years of history. Three main time periods are covered: the rise of the Narcissists when the Kings were still honorable, the turning point when things start to go wrong, and the chaotic end-times before the Interregnum. The book does a good job of not falling into the usual tropes one sees depicting Africa and/or prehistoric times. People are described as, well, people, rather than as animalistic idiots.

Art and layout are very similar to the rest of the books in the series. Each King gets an illustration, some of them simple and concrete (a black dome), others abstract and confusing. It's serviceable.

The best part of Antedesertium is that it's full of plot hooks. There are over a hundred mysteries, side characters, cool moments, and whims of the Kings that could provide grist for the adventure mill. The weak part is that there isn't much that ties them together. The book seems to assume that the GM will be creating antagonists using Span 4 or 5 characters from Continuum. I suspect a lot of games will pit a group of Narcissists against the servants of other Kings in an attempt to bend the timeline to their will, rather than protecting Yrnë from its actual enemies. Still, I'll take 100+ plot hooks over the one half-baked adventure that most games have. The best piece of GM advice it gives is that most of the inconsistencies in the book are intentional. In a game like Narcissist, every plot hole is a plot hook.

My copies of Narcissist and Antedesertium arrived unexpectedly in the mail quite a while back. I still haven't found any reputable sources for physical or PDF copies of the books, but I'll keep looking.

[ramshacklestar]

SHIPPING INFO. Answer the following for your muse(s) so people know how shipping works on your blog.

What’s your OTP for your Muse(s)?

I do not actually have a OTP for Yuuna, and she's relatively open to anyone and everyone. I however do not personally care for (though rare but it exists) GrimxYuu and humanoid OrthoxYuu, but I'd be open to an au scenario where Ortho actually survived~.

What are you willing to RP when it comes to shipping?

There really isn't a limit when it comes to what I'll rp, I personally do not have any triggers but the concept of non intimate related physical abuse (ie: spanking, grabbing onto each other in the heat of the moment, etc.) is not something I'm comfortable with. So as long as we remain tame in that sort of department, we'll be golden.

How large does the age gap have to be to make it uncomfortable?

Age of consent varies country by country, so long as our muses are at the age of consent you're not too young.

Are you selective when shipping?

Big yes, though I do enjoy a lot of the Yuu ships I see I'm not the type to straight up throw my muse at my rp partners without discussing the idea with them first, and would love if I was given the same courtesy.

I do also prefer to be writing with my rp partner and have some semblance of chemistry formed between our muses before we start to talk about that. If you have the idea to ship your muse with mine I'll certainly hear you out at any point but Yuuna's not the type to be instantly head over heels in love.

How far do steamy moments have to go before they’re considered NSFW?

I'm not uncomfortable with writing NSFW, I'm just also not very good at it, so when we get to the point in which the passionate hugging part is happening I will typically fade at that point.

However; kissing, touching, pressing up close to each other, clothing discarding, that is open and welcome.

Who are other muses you ship your muse with?

At this current time I have an AzulxYuu ship, a RuggiexYuu ship, and a FloydxYuu ship but those are not exclusive and I am definitely willing to ship with duplicates and potentially other Yuu's as well if the other rper and myself agree on that.

Yuu is a open character and I am adaptive to many different fandoms (so long as they aren't part of my hard no fandoms cause of the toxicity), so Yuu is shippable in any sort of situation. Just know though, she is complicated to ship with due to her being pretty oblivious to someone having feelings for her.

Thus why I only really have 3 ships at this time

Does one have to ask to ship with you?

I do prefer we at least talk about the idea first but you don't directly need to ask if we can ship our characters. Just popping in my dm's and being like 'hey I think our characters would work well together' will get you a response either ranging on some form of yes or agreement or it'll be a matter of me saying perhaps we should rp a bit first and feel it out.

I'm not going to outright say hard no on any ships, aside from the underage thing or one of my two NOTP's but if I'm just not feeling it I will let you know that at least.

I will say though despite the relationship between Mc, Ace and Deuce I will not immediate ship simply because the characters get along in the game. This also goes for the McxMal relationship; so please just don't do that :3

How often do you like to ship?

I love exploring shipping ideas with people, and if I happen to be feeling it I will also likely slide into your dm's. But that's not the point of this rp blog either and Yuu is more that character that wants to primarily be your friend before being your girlfriend/lover.

Are you multiship?

Yes, it is also not limited to just the twst fandom.

Are you ship obsessed or ship more-or-less?

Ship more-or-less typically, again I didn't make the blog for the sole purpose of shipping. I certainly enjoy shipping though.

What is your favorite ship in your current fandom?

All I'll say is there's at least 3 at the top cause I can't decide which I like more. >;3

Finally, how does one ship with you?

Talk to me :) my discord is available for mutuals or if you just want to dm me here that works just as well. I'm a pretty open person and will certainly respond when you send me a message, may not be immediate cause work and life, but I'm not the type of person to fully ghost another.

Tagged by: @wishkept

Tagging: @kkriitters, @sleeplesswork, @halfafishandawholehuman, @paramythas (whoever you're feeling)for the 4 of you) & anyone else who wants to do it~

[alliluyevas]

not to devote extensive worldbuilding analysis to the scintillating film Alien versus Predator but here goes:

I was actually thinking a bit about gender in the two franchises wrt the human characters already, because even the original Alien features the iconic Ellen Ripley, who is very much a different type of action lead than Arnold Schwarzenegger. I haven't seen all the Alien films, but of the ones I've seen even the non-Ripley-centric films have a female human protagonist. The Predator franchise, with the exception of most recent entry Prey, is generally much more male-centered.

One thing I'd found interesting wrt gender in the Alien movies is that there are several prominent characters who are androids but they are all male, at least in the films I've seen, which is a bit of a bummer for me because I love the Alien androids and I like female characters. This is interesting and in some ways a little surprising because Ridley Scott also made Blade Runner, whose replicants deal with a lot of the same themes around synthetic humanity as the androids in Alien, and 2/3 of the prominent replicants in Blade Runner are female. (Unless you interpret Deckard as a replicant as well, but that's a matter of debate and personally I think the movie is more interesting if he's not.)

So I'd already thought a bit about the treatment of gender for both human and human-adjacent characters in both franchises, and then Alien versus Predator raised further questions. AVP, which I guess we consider both an Alien movie and a Predator movie, also features a female human protagonist, which is typical for Alien movies but I believe was the first entry in the Predator franchise to do so. It also really leans into something else that I had already thought about when comparing the titular monster from both franchises: the comparative anthropomorphism of the Predator species as opposed to the insectoid and much more animalistic Alien species.

And this made me consider for the first time: do the Predators have a concept of gender? As in, within their own species?

The Alien species is pretty clearly modeled off of hive-based insect species like ants and bees, with a "queen" Alien that is much physically larger and produces all the eggs, and a much larger number of smaller drone or soldier aliens that perform most of the colony tasks.

The Predators, on the other hand, appear to be more mammalian, and even humanoid, in their appearance and their traits/abilities. Which begs the question: are the Predators, like most earth mammals, also sexually dimorphic? Most of the Predators we see in the films appear relatively similar, and certainly more "masculine" by human standards in terms of their build (male-presenting Predators, lol). I don't want to project human body standards onto an alien species, but are all the Predators supposed to be male? Are the female Predators all back on Predator Homeworld and don't go on hunting trips? Or are the Predators we see in the films a mixed-gender group and that's just not visible to a human audience? They could definitely also be a species that produces both "male" and "female" gametes and reproduces in a way that is foreign to earth mammals.

In terms of how Predators interact with male and female humans, they definitely seem to repeatedly underestimate female humans or perceive them as unthreatening. In the original Predator movie, the Predator essentially ignores Anna because he does not see her as a threat. (From a Watsonian perspective, this could be just because she's unarmed, because she's physically smaller than the men in the film, or because he perceives her as female, or some of all three. From a Doylist perspective, it's a male-centric action movie made in the 1980s). The Predator in Prey also underestimates Naru and initially judges her as unthreatening. (Again, because she is female or because she is young and small?) In Predator 2, a Predator spares the life of a pregnant woman, which indicates that Predators possibly have an understanding of pregnancy. They could have this because their own species experiences it, or alternately because they've observed it in other species. They clearly see pregnant women as weaker and more vulnerable (ie, not honorable prey), but that doesn't necessarily indicate that they see this difference between them and male humans as a gendered marker.

(Of course, this is an alien species and I don't want to assume that even if they are sexually dimorphic that they have a system of gender roles that is at all comparable to humans, even if they are obviously humanoid in many ways. After all, most earth mammal species have sexual dimorphism but they certainly do not have a human concept of patriarchy in any sense.)

My final thought on the matter: in Predators, there are three main Predators hunting the human characters. They discover a smaller Predator tied up in the other Predators' camp. At the end of the film, the humans free the captive Predator and it helps them defeat the larger Predators. It seems like most interpretation of this is that the two "types" of Predators are members of different tribes or subspecies. On the other hand--is it possible that the smaller Predator which is being held captive is actually just a female?