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stemmmm · 8 months

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Close to a year and four rewrites later, I present to you...

Stem's Thoughts on the Game Design of Harvest Moon on SNES

I’m not going to lie, if you don’t like farming sims, you won’t like this one. At their core, every farming sim (at least in the rpg genre) is nearly identical, and that’s because of this game. In a way, I might dare to say that Harvest Moon for the SNES is the perfect farming sim because it has every one of the usual elements in their most simplified form and it just works straight from the get-go. It works so well in fact, that after this game came out in 1996, four more entries to the series were released before the year 2000.

If you are someone who does like farming sims, I can’t recommend this game enough. It’s simple and to the point, with a fast pace and enough random events and points of intrigue that the game kept me relatively engaged for my whole playthrough.

Also, by nature of this being the first game and therefore hard to cover concisely and by nature of taking so long to write this... it's long as hell! Enjoy! :) <3

I can’t say my appreciation of this game doesn’t come with a few caveats. I’ve intermittently played HM games all my life, starting with the GameBoy port (GB1) all the way to Pioneers of Olive Town, so while I don’t know exactly how the series has evolved, I’ve seen it at some of its earliest and at its latest. My vague childhood memories of GB1 (a game I didn’t own and didn’t play much of) were that it was pretty sparse and bland, so knowing that this original game was allegedly the same thing but with a little more content, I was expecting the bare minimum. I was prepared to never even be able to leave my farm, but the first thing the game did was shuttle me off to the nearby town and blocked the exit until I talked to everyone there.

(Maps of the town, mountain, and farm via The Spriters Resource)

You learn everything you need to know about the game right here at the beginning; Firstly, that this town is small as all hell and has hardly anyone in it aside from the five girls you can marry and their immediate family members. The next thing you’ll learn is that there’s a fence on your farm, and you need to be taking care of that. Of the few repetitive lines of dialogue any given person in town has to share with you on any given day, a fair amount are devoted to reminding you to fix your fence, to make sure it’s in good repair. There was just a big storm so watch out! Remember to check it every day! Are you chopping enough wood? Because you’ll need it for that fence!

I’m being dramatic of course, you aren’t reminded about it that much, though the thin variation of dialogue means it comes up a lot. The emphasis on your fence does exist, and it isn’t for nothing: while it doesn’t matter as much if all you do is grow crops– if you keep animals, the game tells you that the ideal thing to do for yours and the animal’s happiness is to put the animals outside to graze. Animal feed bought from the livestock shop will keep them fed, but it's nothing compared to fresh grass grown on your farm. You can’t even buy animals without a certain amount of grass planted! And sure, you can cut the grass to store for later, but it’s at its best straight out of the ground. However, the way the game is programmed, the animals only eat when the day rolls over, so putting animals outside for the day and taking them in at night isn’t an option, and on top of that, there’s things that come out at night that can hurt your animals. This is where your fence comes in.

The Utility of Fences

At the entrance to your farm is a cluster of buildings: your house, a small lumber shed, a barn, coop, and silo, a tool shed, and an old, dried up well. Just barely surrounding all of these is a little wooden fence that looks more like a row of upright logs than anything else. Despite this farm having presumably been abandoned, the fence is in perfect repair. You’ll quickly discover that the fence as it is won’t work out; there’s hardly space to plant anything within it, and with the well dried up, you’re forced to hop it to get to a water source to fill up your watering can. It’s pretty clear that you’ll need to expand your fence, and it’s easy to do with all of the tree stumps littering the massive field that it’s blocking off.

On top of needing to expand the range of your fence, the individual planks eventually will rot away and leave useless stumps. They show up more frequently after rain or a large storm. The posts don’t rot away completely so they have to be manually removed, but replacing them is as simple as smashing the old post with a hammer or ax and popping a new post in its place. It becomes a very natural part of your daily routine to run a lap around the farm’s perimeter before you go to bed to make sure everything looks safe and secure. It’s a good way to ensure your animals are put away and debris is cleared out, too! It slotted very nicely into my daily schedule until a certain point.

With how much time you have to spend hopping over the logs to get to the rest of the area too large to fence in, you might be tempted to leave one out of place for easier traversal. When night comes, it’s clear why that would be a mistake. Sometimes when you go to bed, you’ll hear your dog barking. It’s a small detail, one that took me a long time to notice because I didn’t always play with the sound on. There are wild dogs that prowl around the wilderness surrounding your farm, and only at night do they dare to come close. Your dog, if left outside, isn't able to do anything other than warn you of their presence if they show up. There’s nothing to notice during the daytime if it happens, unless you happened to leave one of your animals outside. There was one night that I left my chickens outside, having thought my fence was in perfect order and repair. I went to bed and heard the dog barking, followed by a horrible crunch. When I went out in the morning, I saw where my chicken had been before, it had been replaced by a pile of feathers. On the north side of my farm was a rotted fence post I’d failed to fix.

The Reality of Fences

After losing my chicken, a cluster of pixels on my screen it may have been, I didn’t feel comfortable leaving my animals outside. I didn’t want to take a risk again, the sound and sight of feathers was upsetting enough. On a more logical note, the chickens didn’t even lay eggs if left outside so there was no value in it. Cows were a pain to put back inside the barn too, because of some silliness with the game’s collision. As much of a disappointment as it was to not have my animals roam around, it was just easier. At the time, I was focusing on upgrading my house anyways, so I didn’t have time to take care of my animals outside where time would pass when I could use that time gathering wood, and everything I had was being saved up for the house so I didn’t have any extra materials to repair my fence with. My fence was all rotting away. Because it was inconvenient for getting to my crops, I started smashing all the old posts as they went, too. That’s when I noticed something: the wild dog wasn’t coming anymore.

I didn’t pay much attention to it until I was looking up a completely different mechanic and discovered a forum explaining how the fences were broken. Rotted posts attracted the wild dog, they said. It didn’t matter if you had gaps in your fence, or even a fence at all–in fact no fence was the best kind to have because the mere existence of posts that could rot was a liability.

I was hesitant at first to test this concept, after all there wasn’t much I could gain from it. My chickens wouldn’t lay outside, and my cows would be too challenging to get back in if the forecast called for rain. The thing that got me to finally try it was when I was trying to hatch more chickens. My coop felt like a nightmare to navigate due to its current population. I wanted less animals inside that I had to feed, so I threw a couple chicks outside–they weren’t laying yet anyways. Lo and behold, the dog didn’t come. More days passed and more animals were left outside, and it never came. My fence had rotted until there was nothing left at all. No dogs could ever come to my farm again. And I realized that the game’s own insistence on its mechanics was all a lie.

How You’re Told To Play - How The Game Lies

Of course, my animals didn’t stay outside. For a minute it was fun having a crowd of cows milling about while I tended to my crops, but letting them wander free and uninhibited made it impossible to find and milk all of them without any trouble, and there were the rainy days to watch out for. After the novelty wore off, they went back inside and stayed there. The thing is, that didn’t make a single bit of difference in how much they liked me compared to how they were living in the barn. On top of that, they didn’t seem to care whether I was feeding them grass or store-bought food either, though I mostly stuck to the grasses since they were cheaper and easier to get. Nothing about how I was told to care for animals really mattered past feeding them every day, petting it and maybe brushing it, if it was a cow.

It gets worse. The most basic aspect of the game is the fact that time passes. The story takes place over 2 and a half years, running through each day until the end, and these days last from 6AM to 6PM according to the game’s own internal time setting. After 6PM, all of the shops aside from the bar will close and you lose the ability to sell anything as you’re told it would rot in the shipping bin overnight, so there’s nothing to do but sleep until the next day. Issue with this is that when the days stop at 6PM… they just stop. Time doesn’t flow anymore. The game doesn’t give you any kind of clock to know the exact time it is until after you’ve upgraded your house, so all you have to go by before that is the color of the environment and whether or not your character has played an animation to eat something (you’re automatically fed when you wake up, at noon, and at night). I discovered this because I was curious if I could actually see the wild dog by staying out, and left the game running for probably 20 minutes in real life only for nothing to happen. Because of the time freeze, the time after 6PM actually becomes really valuable for farm logistics. You can’t sell anything, no, but you can pull up all the weeds on the farm, water your crops, fix your fences, feed and care for animals if you hadn’t already, and harvest wood for fences and house upgrades which would have taken a lot of valuable time to get during shipping-hours. The only thing that gets in the way of doing all that is you running out of energy.

Your energy is what allows you to use your farming equipment like your ax or watering can. Running out of it doesn’t mean you fall unconscious or anything, but your character will play an animation of them stumbling over and will fail to use any tools. The most obvious fix to this is to simply go to bed, as sleeping gives you a full recharge. You can also, however, recharge it by going to the hot spring on the mountain, or by eating food bought at the restaurant in town or foraged for in the forest. You can’t tell easily how much is refilled, as there’s no visual indicator like a health bar, but you’re able to eat more than once, and jumping into the hot spring seems to count whether you did it or not more than how much time you spend in there, so you can hop in and out a couple of times and call it good.

Individually, time freezing at 6PM and energy being endlessly replenishable aren’t bad things. Even together, they’re not the worst. Having free time to focus on profitless chores is nice, and I think it’s important to be able to replenish your energy in case you have a limited amount of time to do things like for example, cut all of your grass before winter kills it. What makes an exploit out of these is the fact that the resources in the forest will never run out. Every time you re-enter the forest, all forage items and tree stumps are respawned. The infinite amount of forage makes for infinite energy refills, and could also make for an incredible money exploit if you didn’t have a very limited amount of time to ship things. You don’t have a limited amount of time to cut up tree stumps though. If you wanted to, you could run up to the forest after 6PM, chop every stump, then simply reload the area, and everything’s back. You can get all of the wood you would ever need to fully upgrade your house in one night. It’s a bit of a grind to do all at once, but it’s a grind you’d be doing over time anyways. It’s not the worst exploit in the world, since you still need money to pay for the house upgrade, but arguably because of how you have to focus your energy elsewhere for most of the game, the wood is the harder thing to get. Additionally, when the game has very little to do in both fall and winter due to the lack of crops, this exploit takes away just about any reason to play those two seasons other than to take care of animals. It’s an optional exploit of course–as all exploits are–but once you learn about it, it’s hard to resist the desire to get the grind out of the way all at once and mess up the pacing of the game.

The Charm of the Game

Learning that the fences were completely broken as a mechanic was a huge disappointment for me. From the moment I got a grasp on how the game was supposed to work, I wanted to eventually surround my whole field with fencing and keep my animals outside so I would have some life on my farm while I worked. I didn’t just want this, I was excited for it! This was something I’d never done in a farming sim that didn’t already manage putting animals in and out for you like Stardew Valley or newer Story of Seasons games do. My routine is always the same: I go into the barn and coop to tend to each of my animals, I take care of my crops outside, then run straight to town to talk to everyone, and go to bed. The change in routine that would come from taking care of the animals outside and patrolling the fence every night felt fresh to me. It made me feel that even though this was the first game of its kind, it was different and required new things of me. But in the end, I played it exactly the same.

Harvest Moon is still very different from all of the games that followed it, though. In many ways, it’s because it has less “stuff” in it– both in terms of items and things you have to do. But I wouldn’t say that it feels incomplete. Harvest Moon runs over the course of 2 and a half years before your work is evaluated. Until that happens, you have the ability to farm four different crops, you can raise both cows and chickens, you can upgrade your house to have more features, upgrade your working tools, build relationships with the townspeople to a small extent, go to town festivals that happen each year, and you can get married to one of the five girls living in town with whom you can have up to two children. Everything that you would come to expect as a fan of games like this is already here from the very first iteration. The most notable lack this game has, and one that seems to be completely unique to this game, is that there aren’t any crops in the fall or winter, which means that unless you have animals, there’s a whole half of the year that you don’t have anything to do. The game is clearly aware of this though, because in an average playthrough, this is where you’ll start to run into the story events.

There isn’t much of an overarching story in the game, past the general concept that you’ve run away from home to work on an abandoned farm. The conclusion rests on how good of a job you actually do. In between those two points are smaller events, usually tied to when you get tool upgrades or special ones for each of the romantic interests. The first event you’re likely to run into happens on the very last day of summer, where one of the woodsmen comes to your house in the morning to ask if you’re okay because he heard a huge crash at night and you should check your farm. What I found was that a tree in my field had fallen over, and its remaining stump had a big empty hole in it. When I inspected the stump, I was suddenly underground in a cave filled with loud and industrious music, and I was faced with two, little green people–Harvest Sprites, though I don’t know if they’re called that yet here. One asked me if my scythe worked well, and when I said yes, told me that they had made it and that I should check my shed tomorrow for a better one. Other tool upgrades are obtained in similar fashion; one comes from feeding a starving sprite a mushroom and another comes from another hole in the farm opening up to reveal another part of the cave system that has a couple of hints on how to unlock other things.

The events for romantic interests happen at less scripted times, as they’re tied to how strong your relationship is with each girl. Each girl only has one event, and it only triggers when your relationship is high enough that you would ask her to marry you. The events usually take up a whole day, and don’t necessarily add much to each character. Ellen’s revolves around how she’s no good at keeping pets– something established on your second day at the farm when you get your dog from her, Eve’s hammers in her fraught relationship with her grandpa, and Ann’s is about losing the chicken weathervane, or “weathercock” which sits on the roof of her workshop and goes missing every time there’s a storm. Conversely, Nina and Maria’s scenes bring up entirely new events that bring up a number of questions while providing no answers. Nina disappears while looking for a medicinal plant because her mother is apparently sick, and Maria vanishes for days until you find her hiding away with the woodsmen for some reason. All of these events, whether they share new information or not, manage to add some greatly appreciated depth to each character by giving them more room to speak and be sincere than their short and repetitive day-to-day dialogues do.

The dialogue in this game is simple, to the point, and sparse– probably because there was only so much memory that could be reserved for approximately 15 people who all have multiple lines of dialogue, and only so much money to pay someone to write more. There is simple dialogue that doesn’t tell you much more than “hello, how are you” would, more dialogue that I’d label as tutorial text, and a few lines that I truthfully couldn’t understand well because of the sub-par translation this game received for english. The dialogue that exists to inform the world really manages to create a unique vibe though. Nina’s dialogue, almost always about plants, goes into forays about how they’re creatures with wills to live, too. Ellen’s uncle who runs the ranch shop tells you that it’s much better to feed your animals fresh grass if you try to buy any from his store, and if you decline to purchase he laughs as if he’s won something. There’s even dialogue referencing the silent player! Multiple lines exist to comment on him not paying attention, and inspection prompts have people telling you not to touch something rather than being an item description. It was the last thing I expected, to get the same level of personality out of the main character as I did from each of the girls, albeit very subtly. He went from a kind of nothing, self-insert into being what I perceive to be a hyperactive boy, akin to a border collie who was let out into a field of sheep for the first time–the exact kind of person crazy enough to take on an abandoned farm and succeed.

It’s these short little character details that bring life into the game. Each day, you’ll really only see one line of dialogue from each character, be it new or old, with that dialogue usually only changing if there’s a change in season or festival coming up. The repetitive, pretty mindless routine of the game can turn into a sort of meditation if you let it, where you spend your time working thinking about the folks in town and what they had to say to you the previous day. The developers took this concept in stride and gave the side characters loads of dialogue about life, about God and religion, and about… very basic morals, but morals nonetheless. It’s a children’s game after all. When you take the thoughts, questions and prompts the characters give you back to the farm to do your long and tedious routine, you have to ask yourself– what are you working so hard for? For the feeling of accomplishment? Recognition from your peers? For the sake of some higher power, if you worship one? For me personally, it was to write this essay, but it was also for a good grade on the high score screen at the end, so to be honest a lot of this stuff was lost on me until just now when I was reviewing the game to get screenshots.

Setting The Standard - Why You Should Play HM SNES

You may read all of this and still think, well, it doesn’t sound like the game has much in it. And you would be right, it’s a very small game, but it’s also extremely quick. On average, my days only lasted about three minutes of real life time. Everything flew by, and I think I finished the game in 20 hours or less. I barely got a chance to notice that there wasn’t much going on because every second of my day was spent busy doing something, and when I wasn’t busy, the break was appreciated. I didn’t start to run out of things to do until I was finished with the second year, and when I looked up what I needed to do to get a decent ending, I was already most of the way there. It was easy to push through those last two seasons to get to the end, and it was so, so worth it.

As I mentioned earlier, the game ends with a high score screen, meaning it has to track all of your accomplishments. These include, but are not limited to: the number of things you ship, number of each crop you grow, number of animals you have and how much they like you, how upgraded your house is, who you married, how much all of the girls in town like you if you didn't get married, how many kids you have (which basically equates to how long you were married), your happiness score (increased by going to festivals and decreased by having animals die), and how many times you’ve pet your dog. In addition to these being tallied up and presented to you, you get special cutscenes not just for each one of these accomplishments, but additional ones for if you managed to do even better! I got a cutscene for having a cow, followed by one for having lots of cows, followed by yet another for having cows that loved me! Watching them play one after the other felt like taking a victory lap even without getting the best possible result. Seeing all of my numbers come up at the end made me want to try again to actually get those other cutscenes, not to get to see them, they’re so easy to find on Youtube, but because the game made it feel like an accomplishment! If I weren’t following this game up by immediately playing its GameBoy port, I absolutely would have started a new file right away. I’ve been playing the Harvest Moon series since I was a little kid and this was the first time I’d actually managed to beat one of these games. I struggle to think the finale of any game following this will feel as good as this one did.

I started writing this whole thing about the fences because it was an easy and silly entry point to get into my core issue with the game, and so I could have an opportunity to dig into game mechanics and the way the knowledge you have of them will completely alter your playstyle, because that’s all fun and interesting for me to talk about. Another reason why I focused on that was because it was near impossible for me to pick any kind of focus point when talking about this game. After all, I’m trying to study a whole series of games that spans multiple decades, and this is not only the first game in that series, but a game that created the whole genre of farming sims and defined that genre so thoroughly that you can see its DNA in every single game that followed.

I didn’t expect much to come out of my experience with this game. My expectations for it before I even picked it up were that it was going to be basically featureless, as informed by my experience with one of the first games I ever played as a child, Harvest Moon GB, which I will get into next. This game was not that at all. I think that everything it did manage to get working right came together just about perfectly. Harvest Moon is exactly what it wanted to be, and where it wasn’t, it lied about how it worked to try and make you play the correct way anyways. When I believed that lie, my time playing was even more enjoyable. Maybe if farming worked just a little bit more like how you’re told it’s supposed to, and if there was just a little bit more story, those would cover the things I felt wanting for the most. But maybe a little flexibility and ambiguity is a good thing. Maybe actually maintaining a fence is just too hard, and maybe if the girls were more fleshed out, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy filling in their gaps in my head.

There are many more things I could say and wanted to say about this game, but this has grown far too long already so I'm cutting myself off here. I'm sure my later entries aren't going to get near this length. If you managed to get to this point, thank you so much for reading!

#harvest moon #story of seasons #harvest moon snes #hm snes #game review #m.txt #hm posting #i think i hit the image cap also? it wouldn't let me put in more even though i dont think there are that many. maybe it was a different cap #im happy to answer questions about things i didnt cover here too lol and i have notes from my playthrough if anyone is interested in those #those notes are the only reason i was able to keep all of this straight given how long it took me to write #anyways finally hitting post after like 3 days because i keep forgetting until weird hours

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mamuzzy · 3 months

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MAMUZZY READS HARD CONTACT: Prologue

I said I would write about Prologue + Chapter 1 in one single post, but then I ended up actually having more topics to talk about in this chapter. :) It was quite a new information for me that Hard Contact (2004) came out earlier than the game itself (2005 which is also the year of the Revenge of the Sith) which means...

Hard Contact Prologue is actually the first entry of not just Darman but the Delta Squad too!

What you will find here - First glimpses of Darman - First appearance of the Delta Squad - Comparing the events of the book to the game - Commando Squad culture: Names - First differences spotted between Kal Skirata's and Walon Vau's training method

The prologue is using 1st POV in present tense while the rest of the book uses 3rd Past tense. Prologues being in this format actually became a tradition throughout the series, we see different character's povs in the beginning of each book.

I actually have personal preferences for 1st person compared to 3rd person, so I didn't find this disturbing and honestly, it really helped me to get immersed and invested in right away in the character.

This is the first appearance of Darman (RC-1136), member of the Theta Squad and we see the partial events of the Battle of Geonosis through his eyes. The chapter was short, you don't really get the details about their mission objectives, on the other hand it was a really good presentation of a soldier who only has the current task in front of him, and nothing else and using first person view was actually a good choice for this effect.

Also, the memories of the game's first level and Battlefront (classic!) geonosian mission emerged from the depth of my mind, making me reminded why I ragequit all those years ago. :D It was brutal, it was chaotic and unforgiving.

I really liked this starting sentence. Raw, no-nonsense like Darman himself.

If your are not sure about how much bomb you need, use a lot. :DDD And this P for plenty is also a returning common saying throughout the series. Later we actually get to know that Darman is the demolition expert of the team.

The events of the books and the game differ from each other, but Darman is mentioned, so does their mission objective:

Delta Squad's original mission was killing Sun Fac, chief-advisor of Poggle the Lesser, Archduke of Geonosis, and then they were tasked to finish what the Theta squad couldn't. The game is implicating that Darman's squad was already wiped out by this time.

In the books, they are actually communicating, Darman's squad is just about to break in to the Foundry and the Deltas waited for Theta to detonate. Though he wasn't named, Boss is on the other side of the line:

First conversation between clone babus and they are already bickering. :D I love them so much. Interestingly all the Clone demomen are enthusiastically loves to rearrange architechture (as Boss would say), like Scorch or Wrecker, so compared to them, Darman is actually pretty chill even under the pressure of time and an annoying Delta on his back. :D /affectionate

Because I replayed the first mission of the game just for the sole reason I got myself those quotes, while playing and rewatching the captured video, I realized something: Boss rarely called the team members by their choosen/given names or numbers. Scorch calls him Boss, Sev refered him as 'Eight, Fixer calls him Sir which is already giving away some crumbs about their personality too. But Boss always says Deltas. Clone advisors also refer them as Deltas, or Boss as Delta Lead.

But also referring the other squad as Theta, while Darman calls him Delta.

It really got me thinking about this chapter-starting quote later in the books:

It really got me the thinking that Clone Commandos are not particularly taking pride in individuality or at least it's not the priority.

As four-people they are squad. Alone, they are nothing. If you think about it, the Commando squad are highly elite soldiers and their purpose was together team being basicly a four-men-army and do the jobs a regular trooper can't. They were trained to act together, work together, think together, and encouraged to look after each other. Refering them as a whole is not considered as an insult to their individuality.

Meaning, there is no "I", there is no "you", there is only "we" and "us" as a whole.

I want to talk about this topic in the chapter 1 further because in there there is actually mentioning what is the difference between a Clone Commando and a regular trooper, but regarding names it is already an interesting discovery.

But there is already a difference between Delta and Theta. Though you won't know it from this chapter, but Delta is trained by Walon Vau while Thetas are Kal Skirata's trainees and they are known to had entirely different views on how clone cadets should be trained and handled.

Darman refers the member of the Delta Squad as Delta, but his own squadmates by their names even in the narrative, that's why we know the other Thetas are called Taler, Vin and Jay.

This is implicating a less hierarchical structure within their squad and the only way you know that Taler is the sergeant because he gives the shots. Darman also didn't refer Taler as sergeant.

Out of curiosity I checked if wookiepedia has something more about them, and I was able to find their designation numbers:

- RC-1133, Clone Commando Sergeant Taler - RC-1134, Vin - RC-1135, Jay - RC-1136, Darman (SQUADBABYSQUADBABYSQUADBABYSQU-)

Speaking of designation numbers, Boss's number (1138) is actually an easter egg, a constantly recurring number in the Star Wars universe.

Chapter 1 will have another heartbreaking relevation about the names, so I will continue this there.

As for the rest of the chapter? Darman stays behind with E-Web and watches the rest of the Theta die. :'))))

I hope you enjoyed the first entry of my blogging! ^^

I really didn't think I could actually gather content for the prologue but when I saw on the wiki that Darman's name mentioned in the game, I really got inspired to include the game content as well!

Thinking about collecting and mentioning instances of when Dave Filoni smuggled aspects from Repcomm into the TCW or Bad Batch too.

#republic commando #repcomm #theta squad #delta squad #darman skirata #rc taler #rc vin #rc jay #rc boss #walon vau #kal skirata #clone advisor #mamuzzy reads repcomm #mamuzzy reads hard contact #star wars

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marinerainbow · 3 months

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I'm getting back into Mario... And it reminded me of two OC's I made when I was younger... I'll put the second OC on the back burner in case I don't go anywhere with her, but the other OC I know I'm definitely keeping.

The Princess of the Boos, daughter of King Boo

Now, I am still trying to figure out her design and backstory. Her backstory I think I want to keep it a mystery similar to Bowser Jr's origins (the idea I have though is that King Boo had fallen for a human women and used her soul when she died to create the first born Boo; his princess. But I haven't played Luigi's Mansion, so I have no idea if that'd even be in character for him). The only thing that is for certain, however, is that she is King Boo's child and heir.

I keep interchanging between a humanized look for her and her looking like a Boo, however. If she's a royal boo, then she'd be a bit smaller than a regular boo (which is tiny compared to King Boo 🥺), but she has the black sclera like him (or are those dark circles/shadows under his eyes? It's kind of hard to tell), with glowing, opera mauve pupils. She has a jewelry crown like him. However, it's smaller compared to his, and it'd look like a garnet rather than an amethyst like King Boo's crown. Her human form- which I'm not sure if she'd naturally have, could transform into, or would need the Peachette Crown to turn into, I'm still debating on... Though I kind of imagine her having a similar style as Muffet from Undertale 🤔

I couldn't find who the artist of Muffet's illustration was, but this was the best photo I could find. If you guys know, please let me know so I can properly credit them ^^

Yeah, she is still a bit of a mystery 😅 but I still wanted to post about her. Here are some tidbits for her ^^

Personality wise, she is a bubbly goth XD she's the kind of princess who would take you to the cemetery to meet her family, but she's way too happy and excited that you're here so you can't get too weirded out. To her, creepier things are normal; the killer piano is just a lovable puppy to her, the spinning eyeball is a nice decoration, her dad trapping people in his paintings is just 'dad and his collection' to her, etc. She feels curious about the rest of the kingdom, but would also feel out of place in Peach's castle or something.

Even so, when she gets upset, she'll resort to pranks and causing trouble. Like how children will sometimes do if they seek attention. She is a playful soul in general, but her jokes will turn more troubling when she's sad or angry.

King Boo, similar to Bowser with Junior, loves her to peices ^^ even if he is 'working' all the time. He does have a lot of haunted manors to look after and only really gets a vacation when Bowser temporarily takes over, and his time is taken up even more now that he's declared Luigi his enemy. So, unfortunately, they don't see each other too often. King Boo has yet to figure out how to balance his royal duties and family like Bowser (we do see Bowser invading the kingdoms alot, but it's obvious with how much Junior and/or the Koopalings admire and love him that he is a good and devoted father).

Princess Boo keeps a diary, like Luigi in Paper Mario. She writes down everything in it. Little writing blurbs, what she did that day, her thoughts and feelings, etc. Including all the times her dad left her behind.

This does leave Princess Boo feeling pretty lonely and prompts her to show up unannounced. But really, she just wants to hang out with the only parent she has. Sure, her citizen boos will play with her if she asks, but it's not the same... If she was in the games, this could even be a game mechanic; Princess Boo will pop up out of nowhere in the haunted house and pretty much stop everything the player was doing to 'play a game'. Whatever game she chooses, you can only pass the level when you win, but regardles, she looks so happy you're complying with her. On the surface, she looks like a brat interrupting the game, but all she wants is a friend if she can't have her dad.

Which leads me to one of my main tidbits about her; since I hc King Boo and Bowser have some kind of treaty or alliance, especially after the events of Luigi's Mansion, King Boo requested Bowser at some point to make sure his child doesn't interfere with his latest scheme. Bowser agreed, allowing the Boo Princess into his castle. She was pretty hurt by the implications behind this, and she did cause some trouble in the castle. But that led to her running into her best friend, Lemmy Koopa.

Lemmy, as we know, is pretty fun-loving and playful himself. I think he was immediately drawn to Princess Boo, just excited to have another playmate! But also because of how sad she looked. Being part of a mischievous pack of lizard children, he (and all his siblings) can tell the difference between genuine play and attention seeking mischief. Princess Boo at first wanted him to just leave her alone, but it didn't take long of him showing off his ball and magic for her to cheer up and start giggling again. And ever since then, they've been inseparable ^^ in fact, when the koopalings started taking over kingdoms alongside Bowser, she begged her dad to let her set up a haunted house in Lemmy's kingdom so they could team up.

Princess Boo does have varied relations with the other Koopalings too. She and Bowser Jr. And Larry are all similar ages, so they can get along the best (I'm not sure if I want Princess Boo to be younger or as old as Junior. She would definitely be one of the younger kids, though). She was first introduced to makeup and dress up with Wendy- who also taught her the tactic of referring to her dad as 'daddy' to get what she wants, so shes kind of like a big sister to her. Ludwig is a bit stuffy, but he can be cool. Iggy is on a similar level as Lemmy, and Princess Boo adores his pet Chomp Chomp. Roy is also cool, but in a 'the big kids on the block' sort of way to the princess. And she likes playing with Mortan and listening to him blab on about whatever is on his mind. But of course, Lemmy is her bestest friend.

She is envious, though, of their great relationship with their father. She is a bit sensitive about her dad and their relationship and would prefer it to not be brought up whenever she comes over.

Although she doesn't know it, her father is definitely getting dad advice from Bowser when word gets back to him on how sad she really is. He genuinely loves her and wants to do the best for her.

When Princess Boo is really sad to the point of tears, she'll fly away and possess something just so she can be alone and unseen. She has a bed in her room just for the purpose of her diving into it, but she has been known to hide away in paintings, vases, and other furniture and decor.

After hanging out with Bowser Jr., she wanted to try her hand at painting, too ^^ her art is more gothic abstract/psychedelic, and she likes to hang them up in her dad's haunted manors. He refuses to take any of them down, not even to make room for his own collection.

Now, that's all I got for her, but there is one more thing; I have referred to her as Princess Boo throughout this post, but... I don't really like it 😅 I know it'd fit in with King Boo, but I prefer something like Boolina or Booella. I can't decide which one, though. So, even though I doubt this'll reach to a lot of people, I wanted to add a poll ^^ I'd love to see what you guys think.

Edit: I forget that the character Goombella existed. And thinking about it, with Toadette and Gommbella, Boolina would complete the set of 'characters with feminized names of their species' names' xD (but also, Boolina sounds close to Rosalina, and as far as I know, all of the female characters in Mario have unique names special to them 🤔 and I also like the sound of Booella-). So I am leaning a bit more towards Boolina, but we'll see how the poll goes ^^

Also, I meant to add this as an option in the poll, but if you guys have other suggestions for her name, I'd love to hear them! No doubt, you guys are way more creative than me XD

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zetadraconis11 · 11 days

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Writer Interview Game

Thank you, @gingerlegacy07 for the tag! Y'all should check her out! She's amazing and a great writer :]

When did you start writing?

Hm, I think I started writing ever since I was 9. It was at first just a little children's book. I've always liked drawing and writing, and coming up with crazy things, lol.

I loved taking Creative Writing class when I was 17, and that's when I also started writing my own original novel.

Writing fanfiction, I started about a year ago, with Hogwarts Legacy. I just had a couple ideas and decided to just give it a shot and write them. Now, I'm still writing HL fanfics and enjoying it so much :]

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

Ummm, I'm not sure. Maybe enemies to lovers as I personally don't think I can write that wonderful trope well. But I love to see it, like Zutara, lol.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

No, as I write with my own style. I might be inspired by works of others sometimes, but I intend to make stories with my own take and my own way.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

Well, if I write at my home, I usually do it at my desk! Per my name, I have some dragon stuff on my desk, lol, as well as a ceramic cup of pens and pencils and a lamp.

If I feel bored at my desk, I would move to the kitchen table or the living room, just to have a change of scenery. I also sometimes go to a coffee shop and camp there for a few hours while drinking mochas and such.

What's your most effective way to muster up a muse?

I often listen to songs and think of which pairs or characters fit them. And even when I watch a show or movie, I find myself wondering what characters from HL would be like in it, hahaha.

So honestly...the most effective way is just me lost in thought XD. I have one interesting thought, then I keep following that thought, and it just builds up in there. And my creativity has me start to write it.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

Family is huge in my writing. Whether it's blood family or - more frequently - found family. Also friends that are like family. And just being supportive and having healthy relationships. Wonderful happy love and fluff everywhere!

It doesn't surprise me, lol. I don't like sad endings or anything too depressing. I can't handle it, and I always want happy endings after many rough trials or trauma.

With Sebastian, I always have him redeemed when he's in a relationship with my MC Estelle. And she needed healing of her own too. And they just make each other so happy and they love each other so much. All the fluff for them and my other otps :]

What is your reason for writing?

It's mainly because I wanted to a certain story and didn't see it out there, so I decided to write it myself. In doing so, I hope that others enjoy the stories too.

Anyone that's seen the majority of my incorrect quotes or read some of my stories know I'm a huge shipper of Garrelda. I love them to bits, I'll forever captain that ship if need be, lol. So, when HL fics were still coming out, I didn't any (if at all) or Poppinis. I decided to give it a shot and write for those pairings, more of Poppinis at first. I loved Poppinis as a ship first before I fleshed out my take on Garrelda more.

In the end, I write stories that I randomly get inspired to write, and I just send them out there, not knowing if others wanted to read such a thing, lol

Is their any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

Any positive comment showing love for the story just makes me so happy. Seeing them appreciate it always makes me smile. Those comments help me remember people do like what I write, and it's a nice reminder :]

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Eh, I don't know if there's anything I want to be thought about. But I guess a "provider" of Garrelda content, as I often write that pairing, especially with my recent on-going fic. Or just a "truly writing dragon", lol, as I keep sending out more stories for people to read in the HL fandom.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I think writing emotions and characters. I try to make the characters feel real, and I do my best in describing them so they're relatable to readers.

How do you feel about your own writing?

I feel like it's improving, which is great to see. But that makes me grimace about my first fics I wrote, as I know they can be a bit rough. But that's how it goes, and I do feel pretty proud of how far I've come, and I do like my writing more from time to time. I admittedly am still my worst critic, though.

And those are my answers! Thank you for whomever came up with this! :]

Np tags: @polarisgreenley, @mspegasus17, @ravenwind-75

#hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy fanfic #hogwarts legacy fandom #fanfiction #fanfic #writing interview

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7grandmel · 5 months

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Todays rip: 30/04/2024

guess what????????

Season 2 Featured on: Haltmann's Highest Quality Video Game Rips

Ripped by alden wolf

youtube

Requested by eg_9371! (Request Form)

It's Gonna Be May!

Saying that SiIvaGunner has in-jokes is perhaps the most obvious statement of all time - it is an in-joke upon which the entire channel is built upon. Yet there's obviously always different LAYERS to each joke, how obvious each of them are - and even today, there are many running gags on the channel that fly over people's heads despite having followed along for so long. Indeed, such is the case today with guess what????????, as requestee eg_9371 made me aware of a channel in-joke that's been running quietly in the background for the better part of seven years as of today. All of it built on one simple truth - tomorrow, it's gonna be may.

To reiterate - beyond the funny ha-ha memes we all know like Mr. Grand Dad and more, the SiIvaGunner channel is filled with little nods and gags that oft go overlooked. I of course covered 5 Nights of Snop Dog recently which is a great example of one, there's how rips like Kill & Learn (Recut Ver.) reference a running joke by long-time mashup artist Triple-Q about how Sonic Adventure 2 and Kill la Kill have an immeasurable amount of similarities, rips like Kermit in the Ocean being spiritual successors to very specific years-old rips on the channel - you get the jist. Some of these gags eventually get special attention on the channel through specific channel events, but such has not yet been the case with guess what????????'s joke - it's a gag that's stayed in the background since its very beginnings, and is only being kept running by a select few rippers. If you're listening to the rip now and it still hasn't landed yet, you may need to be enlightened to the ways of hit boy band *NSYNC. Or, well, really the band itself matters very little compared to the song of choice - It's Gonna Be Me.

Boy band music has a pretty interesting track record on SiIva in general, honestly. One Direction, Backstreet Boys, Boyzone, *NSYNC - to me the typical audience that obsesses over these kinds of bands feels at odds with my image of the average SiIvaGunner fan, and yet whenever they're prominently pushed I get reminded of just how good their music can be when wielded by good rippers. We've had two explosively quality events focusing on two bands in particular, the Big Time Rush takeover of Season 5 with Famous Surprise and the One Direction day of Season 7 with Beautiful Dreamer. *NSYNC hasn't had the same explosion of notoriety, but It's Gonna Be Me in particular has stealthily appeared on the channel every year since 2017 on April 30th. The joke is originally an ancient Tumblr meme from 2012, based on the way singer Justin Timberlake (yes!) pronounces the titular line in the song as "It's gonna be May" - the joke writes itself, and so Tumblr users have annually celebrated the day-before-May in Timberlake's honor.

eg_9371 writes in his request for this post that he's actually one of the most active rippers in keeping this joke going on SiIva for all these years, which I find extremely commendable, and it all started in Season 2, with guess what????????. It's a rearrangement of the song in the style of Donkey Kong Country 2's Mining Melancholy, a track most notable for its rhythmic percussion of steel drums sounding like steadily-working pickaxes deep in the mines. Its a fantastic track on its own, yet that percussion especially is a shockingly natural fit for the harpsichord(?) backing prominent throughout It's Gonna Be Me. Mining Melancholy's usual percussion and other parts of its melody stick around for large parts of the rip, making it more of a melody swap/mashup of the two than a full rearrangement a la Sog-Gee Ambiance - but it only serves to enhance the two tracks used, giving It's Gonna Be Me a more melancholic sound and Mining Melancholy a more self-assured feel in return, a super interesting blend of moods. I don't think the It's gonna be May bit would have worked nearly as well if the rip it was paired with wasn't of high quality, and guess what???????? clears that threshold effortlessly - its a great rip that's made me appreciate the quality in both songs used.

*NSYNC rips have, again, continued to show up in all the years since, always on the dot, often even deliberately placed as the LAST rip of April 30th to drive the joke home. I think it's really sweet that the joke has stuck with eg_9371 in particular, likely in part due to alden wolf's initial contribution to the bit - he's even made It's Gonna Be Me rips on dates completely unrelated to the beginning of May, just because its a genuinely fun song to listen to. There's tons of these "secret" gags left to find on the channel, reoccurring dates or rips that reference jokes from other rips that are years-old by now - and really, a huge part of the fun in running this blog is getting to discover so many turning gears of the channel that I'd never been made aware of. Keep an eye out for these gags yourself - and keep an eye out on SiIvaGunner channel itself later today, to see if It's Gonna Be May for yet one more year.

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lemonsrosesandlavender · 22 days

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Writer Interview Tag

Thanks for the tags, @darkurgetrash and @kimberbohwrites <3 I really enjoyed reading yours! I tag… hmmm, who hasn’t done it yet? @dutifullylazybread @commander-krios and @redroomroaving ? (And consider this a free tag if you want it!)

When did you start writing?

I honestly couldn’t say when my very first act of creative writing was, I feel like I’ve been writing on and off my whole life (barring like 5 years from 16-21). When I was 8 or 9 is the first I really remember though. I kept a diary religiously at that time (yes, it’s hilarious), and also attempted several stories that went nowhere, including a glorious portal fantasy about two children who are isekai’d into a kingdom of cats and have to face off against an evil cat stealing wizard. As you can tell, I love cats, lmao. And I have always loved portal fantasies and isekai. A through-line all the way to Planar Tears!

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

Oooh. Well, there are very few genres I *wouldn’t* read, and I’ve only written so much, so I suppose most genres currently sit in this pile for me? I can’t really see myself writing original sci-fi, despite loving it as a genre, because I think it really lives or dies on having an excellent concept more than a lot of other forms of fiction. Short of being struck with a lightning bolt of inspiration, I think I’d lack purpose. But I love, love, love science fiction. Isaac Asimov, Philip K Dick, N.K. Jemisin, Octavia Butler, John Wyndham, Marge Piercy, Ted Chiang… all of these SF authors’ stories have a place in my heart.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

No-one has yet compared me to anyone. I often realise that I’m going a little too Austen in my work, and gently push myself to modernise - but I guess that speaks to the fact that whilst I admire her, I don’t want to exactly emulate her? I love the way she gently teases her characters, the way she makes clear the contrast between what they believe and what’s actually true without being cruel. But I don’t want to write a pastiche.

On the other end of the spectrum, I recently re-read My Year of Rest and Relaxation and was reminded of how much I love Otessa Moshfegh’s cold, somewhat brutal cataloguing of the world around her character; her sparse but vivid imagery (casting aside a pair of shoes like “dead crows”) and her unlikeable but extremely readable MC. I should read more of her work!

Basically, I love to read and have a wide spectrum of influences, but I’m not aiming to emulate any single one of them. I would say my writing swings between archaic and more efficient depending on whether I’ve read classic or modern literature most recently, because I love both.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

I have many. On my phone anywhere - especially the commute - and at home on a laptop, either sat at our dining table (we live in a rental flat in an expensive city, a proper desk would be a luxury), or on the sofa with my girlfriend and flatmate sometimes contributing "suggestions" lol. If I'm in a writing phase, which I have been for a year - every space is a writing space.

What's your most effective way to muster up a muse?

Hmmm. I am rarely in a completely creatively fallow period - unless I'm just straight up obsessed with a game/TV show/the gym, in which case I'm busy having a good time in other ways - but I'm not always in the writing zone. I like textile crafts and sewing, and art hobbies generally. I guess that is to say, if the writing muse is not present, I rarely miss it; I'm probably thinking about something else.

(Barring the times when my mental health is fucked, but even then, I'm probably throwing myself really hard into a hobby as a distraction. I'm an all or nothing person). When I'm struggling with writer's block on say, a chapter of a long fic, it's usually because it's not quite headed in the right direction, and I need to backtrack, take stock of where my characters are emotionally, and try again in a different direction. Honestly... I know it's advised against by some, but sometimes I just have to sit down and make myself write just to figure out what's wrong. Just do it, and rip it up later if you have to. (**put it in a separate doc in case you can use it elsewhere. you probably wrote it for a reason. DO NOT TILT OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH AND DELETE YOUR SHIT, NO MATTER HOW FRUSTRATING).

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

Number one is “coming to terms with making mistakes in your vocation, and recognising that you are more than your talent at it.” It’s the reason that draws me to Rolan in the first place, because it mirrors my own life experiences very closely. I was somewhat picked on and harassed in school (shit that many of us have experienced) and built my whole personality around being smart and having my life planned out as a shield against it. I was going to do [thing], I was really good at it, and it was all clear. Not to mention I loved this subject. So when I got into a prestigious university my life was sorted, right? Except... all of the hideous self-esteem issues and perfectionism I'd been papering over came crashing down all at once, and I was in an incredibly unforgiving environment, in a very male-dominated subject where other (male) students would literally be like huh, isn't it weird more women don't study this subject? Why do YOU think that is? I felt like I was worthless, stupid and useless, and that I stuck out like a sore thumb - and I was carrying the weight of every woman who wanted to do my subject and was afraid they weren't good enough. My life plans crumbled before my eyes, and I was severely depressed, alongside other health issues - which my uni did not give two fucks about, at all.

Which is to say, I draw many parallels between my own arc and Rolan's - being an outsider, the precarity of having your own talent validated only to have your entire future rest on it, and being vulnerable to really shitty messaging about how hard I should be working and how it was obviously my fault if I wasn't succeeding already, when they were one of the best universities around. And then I realised I was writing similar experiences with Catrin and SW Tav - discovering, and appreciating, that you're more than this one crutch you cling to, this singular skill that you desperately need to hold you above the maelstrom of life. And I promise that, like Rolan, this has a happy ending - I personally took some years out after battling through undergrad, faced my demons, and returned to the subject that I loved as a far more well-rounded person, better equipped to deal with failure. I'm not perfect, and I never will be. I'm neurotic and perfectionistic and all the rest. And that's probably why I keep writing, and exploring this theme - to remind myself that I want to avoid that trap, and to deal with the ways I feel when I'm in it. I was gonna write about kink here too, but I think this is enough, lol.

What is your reason for writing?

Joy. I love exercising my creative drive. And I love re-reading what I've written!

Obsession. These fuckers, these plot points, occupy every spare inch of brain and will not stop until I vent them.

Learning. Honing my skills is a frustration and a pleasure.

Connection. I'm so, so grateful to have people who read and care about my work. It means the world.

Horny. Um. Yeah. I have no further explanation for this one lmao. Except. Fantasies are amazing, but then writing them down makes them even better because now you're really thinking about the specifics and those specifics come to mind more easily next time you're [REDACTED. CABBAGE STOP. ENOUGH!!!]

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

I can’t pick just one! A balanced diet of comments is the best ;)

I joke but - I love them all. Shouting about the plot? You're invested, and I'm grateful. "Additional kudos" twenty chapters in? You've stuck with me this far, and I'm grateful. I guess if I had to pick a few:

1. Strong emotional responses. Kicking my feet/biting my keyboard/stressed/blushing/screaming - whatever fits the mood of the scene. I’m so happy my writing evoked strong feelings. That’s a good chunk of the point, right?

2. Writing analysis. Picking out individual lines or highlighting certain aspects - characterisation, dramatic tension, etc. The day someone said that I "had a knack for showing character in a single action" and then provided examples, I nearly exploded. Augh. I particularly love comments on my OCs because they're especially precious to me. My own brain children, and you LIKE them? heaven for reader. heaven for reader for 1000 years.

3. “I should be sleeping but instead I read this” AND I AM KISSING YOU. That’s all.

4. Just straight up compliments. "I love this" thank you I'm crying. ahhhhhhh. Cute lil kudos graphics (you know who you are). I'm over the moon you enjoy my work. <3

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Well, I know for certain that a large swathe of my readers perceive me as “the one who writes good subby Rolan porn” and frankly? I love that reputation. If nobody appreciated the SFW elements of my work, I might feel differently, because thoughtful storytelling is also really important to me - but I feel seen in that regard too, so I can delight in knowing my writing has a distinctive flavour. Kinky chilli ice cream, spicy and sweet.

I would also love to hope my readers think of me fondly when they get the next long fic email, and are excited to continue the story. Oh, and I hope my readers enjoy chatting in my comment section, because I do. All I can aim for is to be the friendly author who "rites gud". Fingers crossed I meet that bar :)

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

You know what? I might not have said this once upon a time, but I actually think I’m pretty decent at plotting. I think I wind various threads together quite well, and with purpose.

I think I’m pretty good at observing character too. I hope. I’ve written so much Rolan that he’s really taken on a life of his own, but I do often rewatch his cutscenes (I know, such a chore 😉) and think I have a good sense for him. I also think that although Catrin started out difficult to write, I developed a very distinct character for her too, which I’m glad about.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely for yourself, or a mix of both?

90% of what I’m writing is for me. I want it to be the best it can be, for me; I want it to cover the themes I care about. I want to tell the story in my head. Before BG3, I wrote for a teeny tiny fandom, inaugurating its fandom tag, and that inoculated me a little against writing for stats because well, thirty kudos felt like an INCREDIBLE achievement in that fandom.

Also, I want to write my kinky filth and not dilute it. That means actively CHOOSING not to worry about whether people are put off, because they absolutely, certainly will be in cases.

However, I do also care about my readers; I love comments and I want to give them the best story I can. I really enjoy my NSFW prompts; since my tumblr connections know the baseline of what I’m into, they can throw out AMAZING ideas that I love writing and am deeply grateful for. I’ve also definitely pushed harder on fics and oneshots because I knew a particular commenter or mutual was super excited for them ❤️ (shout out to my piss kink cheerleader lol, and everyone who has kindly - or ferally - expressed interest in my longfics).

How do you feel about your own writing?

Mostly very good! I do struggle with writer’s block sometimes, but my particular combination of perfectionism and obstinacy means I don’t tend to publish my work until I’m happy with it. I can see imperfections in my work, especially my past work, but I do genuinely enjoy the process of learning even if it frustrates me sometimes. I really enjoy re-reading what I’ve written later, because by the time it gets out there into the world, I’ve always beaten it into something I’m proud of.

I can't deny that I do, occasionally, get bitten by the little green monster though. Seeing someone else's Rolan writing get called "the best" or whatever has me nursing a tiny stab of pain. And I know it's valid - I'm not *the* best writer of all time, I'm just writing my reasonably-good stories out here, but I can't deny that small oof. (I'm tipsy so you're getting rather honest Cabbage tonight). I'm also very aware that I get many wonderful comments and treasure them, so I just accept my limitations a bit and try not to think too much about other peoples' writing that is along similar lines to my own. You're all writing beautiful stuff and I support you, but I will go NUTS if I spend my life reading closely-related fic. (If I have read your fic, know I fought my inner demons to do it, lol). Idk. I write what I want to write, as well as I can, and I'm grateful that people want to read it. Seriously. You have no idea how much every bookmark and subscription and lovely comment mean to me <3 And all I can do is my best to master this lovely art form and carve out from the marble an approximation of what I see in my head.

#cabbage writes #cabbage was tagged #cabbage was overly honest and needs to stop referring to herself in third person #i love you all #writer interview

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utilitycaster · 10 months

Note

On the Midst messages topic:

I thought the discussion about making their original PCs less heroic for the sake of the story was interesting, and “must a character have flaws?” reminds me of “must a story have conflict?” So I was curious if you had thoughts on what differentiates interesting characters in actual play vs. other kinds of storytelling, and how their flaws/virtues play into that.

Like, obviously there are lots of flawed characters in a show like CR that are in fact excellent for storytelling and fun to play, but somewhere else along that spectrum is Moc Weepe who is a fascinating character but (at least for me) would not be fun to play in a TTRPG.

Oh sure!

I think all characters do need to have flaws, and it's worth noting that even the classic D&D character sheets have a box for flaws and that's outside any stat dumps they may have. And to be actually compelling, it does need to be an actual flaw and not "they try too hard and care too much" unless they truly care do the above to the brink of destruction or something. I suspect the original incarnations of the Midst "PCs" still were flawed to an extent; it sounds like Moc was still kind of creepy and weird, Lark still kind of brusque and awkward around people, and Phineas still overly devoted to a horrible cause; they just weren't quite as extreme. (For what it's worth I think Weepe would be super fun to play in a TTRPG provided you all had had a good chat about boundaries and everyone understood that you were playing a complete bastard; I've never really played a TTRPG where you weren't a party working together but Midst clearly is not a party-oriented story so I think that makes a huge difference.)

It's true that a lot of people do make a really cool guy (gn) to play in D&D or similar TTRPGs. Sometimes, to be honest, this means that their game would not actually be terribly fun to watch. I do know people who are mostly interested in playing D&D for mechanics and puzzle-solving and not character development, and that is valid! It's collaborative storytelling, but the experience of playing in the story is a different one from watching it. I think a lot of people don't realize this - a really fun game between you and your friends could be mostly fucking around that makes for a terrible story (*cough* anyone who writes a novella in the replies or tags in a generic D&D post about their home game). That probably wasn't true of Midst even in the earlier incarnations, since they were working outside the bounds of mechanics specifically for the purpose of storytelling, but (for example) the CR cast has specifically talked about some minor changes they made to playstyle compared to a home game, and the reason a game not intended to be actual play from the start made the transition so successfully was in part because of the voice actor angle - these are people who have to find a story and come up with an entire realized character, often from very little, to be able to act.

The biggest thing actual play characters need to do for me is take action and voice their thoughts either directly or through subtext, because actual play has a pretty unique challenge in that it's like film, in that you don't really get a narration of the character's innermost thoughts unless there's some kind of voice over monologue; but you also don't have film's ability to show a character alone for a long stretch of time, at least not frequently; and you have to describe all the visuals. A passive actual play character, even if their mind is full of interesting thoughts, is not interesting unless that's being conveyed somehow. Bold moves are to be rewarded, as are characters who are good at bouncing off others (which means both conflict and cooperation; interaction in all forms). Characters really need to be making choices and those choices need to be communicated.

#answered #helimir #cr tag #midst tag

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catt-nuevenor · 1 year

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Baldur's Gate 3 - Writing

Right, yes. I am a writer, time to put all the pretty screenshots aside and talk about the writing. Still going to sneak a screenshot or two in, but I will try and remain focused on the task at hand.

Spoilers for BG3, BG1 and BG2, visual and textual. The games are best experienced knowing as little as possible going in, so I highly recommend you do that if you plan to or are playing.

Considering just how long the game is and how much story is pack into it, it would be foolish of me to try and condense my thoughts on it down into an itty bitty tumblr post. So, we're going to pick out a few elements and overview their structure, progression, and impact.

These are my opinions, not fact, they are also from a 1 and a half playthrough perspective with far too many additional hours spent in early access, and I'm a good bean who gets physically squirmy with 'evil' choices. In other words, I'm not going to have seen everything. With all that in mind, let's dive in.

As the character who has probably changed the least from early access through to full release (so is therefore the most linear developed character in my head), let's talk about Shadowheart.

When I first came across Shadowheart I was reminded of Sebille from Larian's previous game Divinity Original Sin 2. The comparison didn't hold up long, but its undertones were always there, just under the surface.

Quick catchup for clarity, in DOS2 Sebille is a classic Femme Fatale character. She is openly seductive, dangerous, and introduces herself to your character by sticking a needle in your neck. First impressions very important and all that. After you strike something of an uneasy alliance with her, involving agreement to murder someone, or several someones, her approach to you shifts. She takes nearly every opportunity she can to physically touch you, the first being as you approach her first 'target' she walks up behind you and places her hand to the small of your back. A definite seductive action. It's not your shoulder, not your arm, certainly not your hand, all platonic or affectionate, but the intimate sensitive position of the small of your back. It's a great set up for the breakthrough you get with that character a short while later. You reach for her hand to comfort her, and she recoils bodily. If you apologise, she does the same and compares herself to, "A cat that has known too much unkindness." And so the two sides of Sebille begin to be revealed. (Highly recommend DOS2 by the by)

In my opinion, Shadowheart begins the game with the ambition of being like the initial side of Sebille. I hope you all paid attention to the spoiler section. Considering Shadowheart's parental figure, or at least the only one she initially remembers, this should come as little surprise to the informed player.

She wants to be cold, but appealing, she wants to be able to draw people in, use and discard them, she wants to be ruthless and detached and to be able to use other's weaknesses to get what she needs out of them. Take the moment where she demands to know what the main character thinks about Rafael before she will give them her own opinion. My read on this is that she is trying to use techniques she was taught back 'home'. Find out what facade will fit the best with her current companions. Ideally, if she were successful at the Femme Fatale archetype, she would twist her own feelings to compliment or manipulate the Main Character's. But here is where some of the first cracks show through. She can't twist her opinions, her own morality breaks out.

It's difficult to know at the beginning how genuine her care for the Main Character is. I think of the moment you free Lae'zel from her cage:

"She sees your kindness as weakness. Don't let her take advantage."

Now, with hindsight, she's probably right. Lae'zel doesn't have a brilliant opinion on kind acts. But, one could argue there's a little self projection going on there. It is possible that 'mother' superior said the same to her at some point? Less 'be careful', more 'kindness is weakness, take advantage of it'.

It's interesting to think that Viconia had 40 years of trying, and possibly failing, to beat the kindness out of Shadowheart, yet it's only when she is out from under her control, forced to rely on others, that her personality 'locks in'. If you are kind, above nearly all other things, kind to others, kind to children, kind to animals, Shadowheart softens. She opens up, reveals more, even if you disagree with her beliefs.

Second playthrough my main character is a priest of Eilistraee, the chaotic good drow goddess, who has on multiple occasions had 'disagreements' with Shar, and is allied with Selûne and Mystra, among others. On paper, Shadowheart should hate that character on principle, possibly try to murder them if no Selûnite is available. Yet, she does not. So long as she is not antagonised about her faith, Shadowheart is willing to let the eternal war her own goddess seeks to perpetuate lie.

"A cat that has known too much unkindness."

I keep coming back to that line. I think is sums Shadowheart up, despite it being written for another character. If you coax her out of her shell, if you are gentle and understanding, and do not admonish her for her occasional lashing out, show her that she can relax around you, that you won't punish her for miss-stepping or misspeaking, she uncoils. But if you meet her hostility with the same, or encourage her into hostility against others, she'll draw further into herself, remain hissing and spitting in her corner.

"The fate you seal is your own. To be a Dark Justiciar is to turn your heart from everything but loss. You will know no love, no joy - only servitude."

I just did a little Wiki digging to see what the alternate routes through this scene are, since it's mid-morning here on a workday and I'm not loading up Baldur's Gate 3 before 5pm, I would never get anything done otherwise. It's interesting that many folks seem to have found that you need to convince Shadowheart to do the right thing here.

When I first played this through, I did the same, persuaded her. Due to a muck up on my part and some serious save backtracking, I had to do this section again with the same playthrough, and I quicksaved before the dialogue began and decided to see what would happen if I let things just play out. If Umrae (the Main Character) trusted Shadowheart to do the right thing.

She chose, without input on the Main Character's part, to release the Nightsong. It stunned me, it really did. And I realised that all those little kindnesses had led her up to that decision, that she'd been allowed to show her softer side with the Main Character and the others, and even in the Shadowfell, even in the heart of Shar's domain, she clung to her gentler side without explicit encouragement.

"They trained you well, trained you hard. Chiselled away any part of you that did not fit their plan. They made you forget."

Trusting Shadowheart brings to the table self-motivated development. Later in the playthrough, once we'd kicked Viconia around for a far longer battle than it should have been due to me being seriously under-leveled, I had the opportunity to give the reigns to Shadowheart again.

Shadowheart chose to spare her tormentor.

In hindsight, upon exploring the rest of the cloister, I was very tempted to go back to an old save and have a word with Viconia myself, nostalgia for the old games be damned. But it felt right to respect Shadowheart's decision instead.

In that vein, the conclusion of Selûnite Shadowheart's story can feel a little hollow initially.

The options:

Her parents die, she is free from Shar.

Her parents live, Shar can (and will) torment her for the rest of her life.

I am a wee bit annoyed at Larian for the framing of Shadowheart's final scene at Selûne's statue. If her parents are alive, they get to hug and comfort her. If her parents are dead, she stands alone and sobs, and even in the Main Character has a close or romantic relationship with her, they stand like a statue in the background. Let us give the poor woman a damn hug!

EDIT: You can now give Shadowheart a hug! Thank you Larian!

Because otherwise it can feel like Shadowheart is choosing between having support but never-ending torment, or peace and utter isolation. Imagine how differently that scene would feel if not only the Main Character could hug and support her, but if others, like Karlach, or Gale, or Wyll, or heck even Jaheira and Minsc, could all pile in and remind her that hell no she's not alone.

"Embrace loss."

Personally, I chose to follow her parents' wishes.

I've seen it argued that this is letting Shar win, that Shadowheart is forced to, 'Embrace Loss'. But I'd like to dispute that, if I may. As you're approaching the House of Loss in act 3, you come across a woman on the bridge. She's confused and doesn't seem to remember why she's there, who she is, or why she remembers the words to a lullaby but not who she sung it to. It doesn't take much to fill in a tragic story in place of what the mirror has taken.

This is the loss Shar preaches.

What Shadowheart begins to experience after her parents die isn't this dizzy blank nothing, it's grief.

You've all heard me exposit on grief and its difficult, painful journey many, many times before, so I won't rehash the same here.

Shar doesn't 'win' if Shadowheart loses her parents. She'd only win if Shadowheart chose to deal with her grief by taking what memories she has of them and giving them up to the mirror.

If you take her to the temple in Baldur's Gate, after everything goes down with Shar (perhaps this also happens before, I haven't checked), and get her to interact with the shrine to Selûne, the goddess welcomes her. It's a scrap of narration, and a blessing if you make an offering, but it feels complete to take her there after the House of Loss.

The seduction of Shar is that she conflates absence with relief, that grief is something to be discarded, thrown away, that silence is peaceful rather than quiet.

Early Access screenshot. Dialogue remains the same, I think.

"Most fear the dark, like children, because in darkness they see their fears reflected. But Shar teaches us to step beyond fear. Beyond loss. In darkness we do not hide - we act."

I've had few more rewarding experiences in a story to walk beside a character who goes from that.

Through little glimpses of sweetness like this:

To this:

Anyway, I think that's enough for now.

Not sure how much analysis went on there, I think I more just gushed. We could have a look at a single scene if you'd all like, if I have an appropriate save or can zip to the point in question in another playthrough.

Kudos if you got to the end, this has definitely got to be up there with my longest post.

#BG3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #long reads #bg3 screenshots #Shadowheart

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rev-feaw · 11 months

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First Impression of Reverse: 1999 from a Long Time Gacha Games Player

Hello! Today I'll tell you my first impression about a new gacha game that just release it's global version not too long ago, "Reverse:1999". I preregistered this game and mind you, I actually had zero intention to add more gacha games into my sleeves especially the turn-based ones, but the art... The ART man!! It caught my attention soo let's dig in!

Before we start I'd like the readers (you) to know that I've been playing gacha games daily for a considered long time, since 2017 and still going on today. Although not a lot of them so here are some that I've played for over 3 months (pretty much understand the overall system):

Fate/Grand Order, Arknights, Genshin Impact, Honkai/Star Rail

Bold are my main daily games. And then here are some that I've tried, well at least I know their UI & prologue lol:

SAO MD (discontinued), Food Fantasy, Granblue Fantasy, Punishing/Gray Raven, Tower of Fantasy

I might bring up some titles to compare and most likely from between the "over 3 months" ones. Then, let's start!

What's the big deal of "gacha game" and why I play them?

I like to draw and gacha games have one of the best community for art clout. No this is serious, and one of my top reason of why I'm playing this borderline gambling type of game.

Gacha games are living from their banner rotation. The second ones are new characters and story reveal that updated regularly... Don't you think these are real good timings for posting?? They also got those art gods that somehow helped the promotion and attract the peasants (me included) to get to know the story and make fanarts too. I'm not kidding. This is why I've been here since I started digital art. Lol.

But every actions need consequences. Gacha games are very high maintenance to stay relevant, from the player's side. You missing one update, you'll feel like an old man. This is the most FOMO (fear of missing out) type of game. The main sacrifice is TIME. So many things need to tend in one game, and if you play multiple it means you have to spare some hours in a day. If you can't, get ready to lose something. Why I don't say money? Because I'm pretty much f2p, I never really spent my money for gacha. But time, time bro. Time also money! This is also why I write this post.

The Premise of Reverse: 1999

The early story kind of reminds me to Persona 3 where there are some special times (Dark Hours in P3) where an ordinary human can't survive and there are some special creatures than survived.

In R:1999 the special time is called "storm" which will turn back time further from your original time. For example, MC is from 1999 but she's sent to 1920s thanks to the storm. So they made a foundation or something to get back to the original time. Well in a sense this is kinda similar to FGO (Fate/Grand Order)'s Chaldea, maybe that's why I'm so driven to try this game lol. The name of those "special creatures" are arcanists.

Actually I don't really understand everything yet, but at least that's the glimpse I got. Also they tried to fix the history or something whenever they're getting sent back so, basically a fancier FGO right?? I have no problem though.

Setting

The game's mainly set in the west in 20th century. I think this is the main perks of the game, because the entire design and aesthetic revolves around this so it can differ greatly from most gacha games that either have fantasy RPG setting or urban post/apocalyptic ones. Personally I really like this.

The Main Character

The MC is such a breath of fresh air!! It's a woman, and people called her "Vertin". So no, not your typical self-insert anime degenerate persona like most gacha games. Here is a very beautiful EP of her:

youtube

The Characters

The characters are pretty unique imo, you can play as inanimate object (visually) like apple and satellites. The arcanists are the playable (and summonable) characters. So expect to see various 20th century-themed designs.

Also the designs are dope!! They're unlike most gacha games' characters designs where they wore something weird that will awaken your darkest corner of brain but here they're just dressed NORMALLY LIKE A NORMAL FANCY PERSON I'm so glad. Normal doesn't mean boring, this is a compliment. Even the "fanserviced" ones are still pretty tasteful than just put random windows everywhere.

Summoning

This game has a carry-over pity on 70th roll, soft pity started like in the 60th. They use the same gacha currency on both permanent and limited banners. There's 50/50 like in Mihoyo games. You need 180 clear drops (?) to turn them into one rabbit statue (?) for a summon. I think this one is very similar with Arknights. Personally in my opinion this is very generous and reasonable, but I'm a FGO player so yeah my "generous" standard may differ greatly with a lot of people lol.

Oh you also can get guaranteed *6 from beginner's summoning banner.

(Early) Gameplay & Progression

The gameplay is like FGO with extra steps. Or FGO with fewer steps... Anyway, it's a card game. Each character has cards you can choose per turn. Once the "stars" are filled you can unleash the ultimate. Honestly? A little boring lol, but things may change once I get out early-game phase. People said this is very similar to 7 Deadly Sins game but I never get close to the IP so idk.

You can set which enemy to hit per card unlike FGO where it's done per turn. Personally I think this is neat. Although among the games I've tried I think Honkai/Star Rail still superior for turn-based system since they can control the speed and whatsoever. However this kind of "fixed" system also nice since you don't need to farm artifacts/relics to be playable.

The early stages are so easy. Well, most games have very easy early stages though, unless a certain popular furry tower defense game (*cough* Arknights *cough*).

For character progression pretty much just level up, no need for artifacts/relics like Mihoyo games so it's fast and easy.

You can set a "replay" for autofarming once you get 2 stars achievement on the node. You can also choose the "amount" of drop rate for just one battle. This is very neat!

Dailies, Weeklies, etc

R:1999 has similar progression with Arknights and Mihoyo games with this one. The daily and weekly tasks literally like Arknight's.

Tbh their dailies are quite a hassle lol, you need at least spend 5-15 minutes to clear all.

And their "battlepass", looks like Genshin's battlepass or HSR's Nameless Honor

Gotta admit between ALL the games I've played, nothing beats the simple daily of LOGIN in FGO (in exchange with disastrous gacha and tremendous farming🙏).

UI & Visual

Maybe I should've put this a little earlier lol.

The UI is AMAZING!! One of the best. Really (once again) reminds me of Arknights, since I like their UI too, and even better I think especially their retro aesthetic.

The visual is GORGEOUS. The game is presented in common gacha game storytelling method: visual novel, however they tried to incorporate like L2D animation in the STORY'S VISUAL.

The characters have different art styles, I think done by different artists like most gacha games (the only one who didn't do this are Mihoyo games, please explain). And the sprites are full body non-chibi 2d animations! This one's like FGO, although still like 10% chibified so in terms of sprite style, FGO still has the crown.

Music & other sounds

Music is BANGER!

I rate it 4.5/5. Maybe the 2nd music of gacha games that I like after Genshin. It doesn't sound like basic visual novel ost (looking at you FGO and HSR) in most part, tho since this is basically *still* visual novel, so in some part still sounds pretty stale after you heard it so many times.

The voice over is dope! They used various accents, so it's pretty interesting!

Housing/Dorm

The name of housing/dorm in R:1999 is "Wilderness", something like islands. This is once again reminds me to Arknight's "Base" but outdoor.

End game

Honestly I haven't found the endgame content for this one, if you're looking for challenges maybe games like Arknights and HSR still better choice.

Conclusion

Based on every gacha games I've played, I can say progression, UI, and summoning from Reverse:1999 is similar to Arknights, but turn-based and A LOT easier at the start. If you've played Arknights before I think understanding the system will like walk in the park.

For the story it's somewhat like FGO, of course not the same, but still both are "correcting the history and go back to our time" kind of story.

The game doesn't ask much, so I think if you're a gacha game player and barely have any time for more games, this one's still enjoyable with very minimal investment. Suitable as your 2nd, 3rd, or even 5th gacha games. Especially when you're just want to vibe with the art and setting like me.

If you're new in gacha game, there's no problem with trying out this, but I think the game is made with thought that the target market are people that familiar with gacha games. Still, enjoy your time!

Tl;dr if you still want to play your main games daily while join the Reverse:1999 bandwagon, it's totally possible without sacrificing much of your time.

#reverse 1999 #reverse: 1999 #games #gacha games #review #first impression

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of-comfort-and-love · 1 year

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Scrubs Are Not For The Summer

Originally started on: 07/04/2023

Word Count: 434

Omg, I just remembered I'm a writer. XD

Finally got inspired to write something. It's summer and it's hot and I'm all sweaty and muggy and yucky and I hate it!!!

So, I figured why not let my Trau.ma Cen.ter insert suffer with me. Pfft- It was honestly about time I wrote something for this game.

It must be very difficult to work in a hospital when it's so hot outside. I hope they have good air conditioning.

For the record, this takes place after the events of Under The Knife 2.

Doubles DNI. If you ship, Der/Ang (Der.ek X An.gie), please be respectful and don't mention the ship to me, as it makes me uncomfortable. Thanks for understanding!

Tag List: @topstarodeo @rose-wine-selfships @syos-princess @ofieugogyshz @vaporvvave @bipocselfship-archive @so-sang-the-hollow @luvsailor @mystrunmah) Please let me know if you want your name added/removed.) 🙏🏾

"I. hate. Summer." I scorned through clenched teeth, dabbing the beads of sweat off my neck with a paper towel.

"Hate's a strong word to use, Crystal.", Dr. Stiles replied with a chuckle as he handed me a water bottle.

I scoffed and rested it on a nearby desk, glaring at the frosty drops of water dripping off the side.

Unfortunately for us, the air conditioner in the offices broke down, so we were stuck with other options to keep cool when we weren't operating.

Chilled water bottles from the freezer. Fans with rotating heads that didn't have strong enough power.

Those were all fine, but it didn't compare to the cool breeze from the AC. It didn't help that we were stuck in our scrubs.

"You know, we should plan a beach day for the whole office," Derek suddenly declared, his eyes focused on the computer as he looked through various files.

"A beach day, huh? I don't think I'd consider myself a beach type of gal," I scratched my chin before sipping my water. It was definitely needed, especially in this god-awful heat.

"Heh, I'm certain everyone could use a day at the beach once in their life. Besides, wouldn't you prefer to be taking a nice dip in the water instead of getting all muggy in this warm office?"

He did make a good point. Although I've never been to the beach before so...

"What do you think would suit me better- a bikini or a one-piece? Regardless, my ass is gonna be out in public."

I couldn't help but chuckle at that last comment. The sudden pause from the keyboard typing took me out of my funny moment.

"O-oh well uh..."

I looked over and noticed Derek's ears were flushed a bright red.

Was he really imagining me in a swimsuit? Geez, what a perv...

"I think you'd look amazing in anythi- AH!"

My sudden kiss on his burning earlobes left him unable to finish his sentence.

"Wrong answer, Dr. Stiles", I whispered teasingly, giggling as he held his head and his hand.

"Derek, you sly dog. Remind me to give you two plenty of alone time on that company retear to the beach.", another voice exclaimed with a suave tone.

Now it was my turn to get flustered. I whipped my head around to see none other than Tyler himself, a wide smirk spread across his face.

"M-mind your business, Chase!"

He burst into laughter, my face now beginning to burn from embarrassment.

Way to ruin the moment. Note to self: put a lock on Dr. Stiles' office door...

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ollieoliver910 · 4 months

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First Impressions of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door On Switch

I want to start off by saying if you preordered TTYD, I am so so sorry! I went to GameStop to just pick up the game normally and the guy that worked there told me not everyone got their preorders day one because Nintendo didn't make enough copies. It was something to do with Amazon, I'm not entirely sure as part of what he was saying went over my head and I don't know how true this is, this is just what he told me, but I am having severe Fire Emblem Awakening flashbacks, ironically, another Intelligent Systems game that didn't have enough copies when it launched years ago.

I guess I just got really lucky with my copy because I just went into the store to buy one, I never preordered it, but the truth is I never preorder my stuff anyway. I have only ever done that once in my life for the special edition of Fire Emblem Echos. So I guess I'm old school and I'd rather go and grab the game myself then rely on a service to make sure my copy is there on time.

Anyway, with that out of the way. I am having a great time with TTYD so far! There are some issues, some that might be a me thing while others I feel need to be tweaked (I'll explain momentarily) but I have already put a few hours into the game and I am completely invested.

With that being said, here are a few of my issues thus far.

Firstly, The 30 FPS.

I am one of the ones that wished it was 60 FPS as when I first started the game, It did feel very sluggish compared to the original. However, I did adjust to it overtime and because I am enjoying the game so much. I did forget about it after a while. I just kind of wish Mario's running speed was a little faster. It could be me miss remembering since I haven't played the game in fifteen years, but he feels super slow. If they sped him up just a tad, it would be perfect.

Next, the music.

I turned that shit off and switched it back to the original as soon as I was able. None of them hit me as being better than the original tracks (at least for me anyway), and I became immediately turned off by them. If it's your first time playing the game, the new tracks probably won't bother you at all, but for me. The new tracks were super annoying to listen to. Some of them, especially the new Roughport theme, reminded me a lot of Yoshi's Island 3DS. The blaring trumpets were obnoxious and some of the very first tracks felt tacky. Worst too is the fact that when you do switch over to the GameCube tracks, not all of them are present! When you get a new partner, for example, that specific track is missing from the main game no matter if you switch to the old music tracks. Also, switching to the GameCube version does not apply to the new character themes, which I am ok with as I do like the change! It makes your partners feel more important and I do like them a lot!

Ok, now for the biggest issue I found so far.

The reaction times when it comes to your attacks, specifically, Koop's Shell Toss is...not the best if you catch my drift. In the original, I am pretty confident in saying that when you let go of the stick, the light needs to be red when you do, which is what the remake also tells you to do as well. HOWEVER, that's not how it works. In this version, you need to release the left stick BEFORE the light turns red because if you do when it lights up. The bar will almost ALWAYS pass the red indicator, which means you will not get the extra damage. I hope this situation is only specific to Koop's since, fortunately, you will probably be using Goombella more for single enemy focused attacks then Koop's, but this is something that does legitimately bother me and even when I delay it. I can't hit it every time like I did in the original.

Edit: I put two more hours in after writing this and I did get used to the shell toss imput command over time. I think the description is just misleading, and I don't remember exactly if it was worded the same in the original. If it was, the description needed to be changed here.

Other than that, I am in love with everything else! When I beat the game, I will post a proper review, but these are just my initial thoughts during the first couple of hours. I hope everyone gets there preorders as soon as possible.

#paper mario the thousand year door remastered #paper mario the thousand year door #paper mario the thousand year door first impressions #Mario games #paper mario #intelligent systems

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practically-an-x-man · 4 months

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⭐ for Francesca or the Charbydis chapter in Catch and Release?

Aghhhhhh how can you make me choose?? I'm still buzzing with excitement to talk about Francesca and I have SO many thoughts... but the Charybdis chapter in C&R is the climax of the entire fic and I put so much thought into writing it! This is a really touch choice.

I'm gonna go with Catch and Release for this one. Francesca's still new, and I'm sure I'll get a chance to talk about it again once the hits (hopefully) pick up a little.

Link to the ask game here, link to the original fic/chapter here

____

(very, very long ramble ahead. you have been warned)

Almost as soon as her feet touched down on the warehouse floor, Charybdis was moving. She pressed a button on the dashboard in front of her, and Ophelia watched the spider-machine above Peter’s head begin to descend.

Right from the first line of the fic, Charybdis is trying to get the jump on Ophelia. They're the same person - Charybdis knows that Ophelia will want to analyze the situation before jumping in, and that her motivation will be to protect Peter even before protecting herself. So Charybdis starts moving immediately, and pulls Ophelia's focus by putting Peter in danger.

It's hard to write a fight between multiversal variants. They have the same intelligence and almost-identical thought processes, the same set of values, the same raw strength and tolerance for pain, so writing this fight scene very quickly became an Inception-style game of wits and strategy. Charybdis has the immediate upper hand - control of the situation, more advanced actuators, and she's going into the fight knowing she's fighting a variant of herself - but she's also careless from her grief and obsession with "the justice of the multiverse". They're still evenly matched. This was a very fun fight scene to write.

The claw snapped open, baring a long metal spur as it veered for her heart. If her vest hadn’t been in the way, it would’ve killed her on the spot. As it was, it felt like a kick to the chest, and sent her tumbling across the floor of the warehouse.

This is a reference to Otto's first appearance in No Way Home, when he tries to impale Peter (One) with a spire from his actuators, and Peter's nanobot-suit coalesces to block it. On its barest level, it's just meant to be a reference to the movie, but beyond that it serves two purposes: 1, a reminder of how connected Charybdis is to her father, just like every version of Ophelia Octavius; and 2, a way to illustrate the boons and banes of Ophelia choosing to make her actuators into a vest rather than attaching them.

Because they aren't implanted directly into her nervous system, there's a very slightly signal delay compared to Charybdis' actuators. Ophelia has four rather than twelve, she's helpless if she's separated from them, and destroying the chip would shut down her actuators entirely. But on the other hand, the vest provides protection around her body (as we see here), she's not in danger of being overwhelmed by the actuators' collective conscious (with the chip and its shutdown failsafe), and she can be separated from her actuators if she needs to be (which, as we see from Charybdis' death, is a very important detail). Once again, it's proof that even though Charybdis has the immediate advantage, they're really evenly-matched.

“You just don’t see the injustice of it, do you? You’ve stolen a life that doesn’t belong to you. You deserve what all the rest of us were given, and nothing more.”

It was hard to come up with a motivation for Charybdis that really felt powerful enough to drive this whole scene. Why would she be going after Ophelia in the first place? Why would it be worth designing these machines, kidnapping Peter, and staging this whole fight?

But I figured... it doesn't have to make perfect sense. It only has to make sense to Charybdis - in her mind, it's the gravest of injustices that Ophelia managed to slip by and bypass the fate that every other version of Ophelia Octavius was subjected to, especially when the clocking is still ticking down for Charybdis herself. If anything, that only makes this scene stronger. Charybdis is convinced, from the bottom of her mind, and no amount of logic from Ophelia or anyone else is going to calm her down.

It was plans like these that led to an explosion in a lightning storm.

And that's the other side of this: Ophelia knows she won't be able to convince Charybdis, because she knows how tunnel-visioned she can get when it comes to the things she's passionate about. I wanted to make this whole "reflection of the self" theme apparent even to the characters themselves, where Ophelia can see her own behaviors reflected in a sort of dark mirror.

She can see that Charybdis is cunning and adaptable, and that she won't budge when it comes to the things she's passionate about. In herself, Ophelia has always seen those as positive, helpful traits, but now she's seeing them through the lens of someone who very much wants to kill her and very much has the means to succeed. That's going to cause a few issues for her down the road, that's for sure.

With what little remained of her strength, Ophelia spat a mouthful of her own blood into Charybdis’ face. And Charybdis dropped her.

This is where we start to see the seams between them. Charybdis has planned this fight out the way she would fight it, intending to draw on what she knows to be Ophelia Octavius' thought process and motivation. And for the most of this fight, that strategy is incredibly effective for her! She knows how Ophelia fights because it's the same way she fights, and because she starts the fight one step ahead, it puts Ophelia on the defensive.

But it also puts her in a single-minded track. Here, she's expecting Ophelia to respond with more physical attacks, either by kicking her or using her actuators in another attack. Ophelia choosing to spit on her instead means she's "going off-script", and it surprises Charybdis enough that it knocks the fight off the axis she planned for it.

“Listen.” she gasped, holding up her hands in a gesture of peace, “Just… call this off. Your generator- it’s overheating. Your machines can’t take much more, you’ll-” “Shut up.”

This right here, above all else, is what makes Charybdis a villain and Ophelia a hero. They're both morally-grey and unafraid of violence, and like I said before, they are the same person in both nature and nurture.

But Ophelia's grief has driven her to fight so she doesn't have to lose anyone else, even a stranger or an adversary, while Charybdis' grief means she'll do anything not to be added to the pile. That right there is what divides them.

It was a trick. She knew that implicitly, like a bell had rung in her mind. After all, it was exactly the ploy she’d pull, if it were her. And it was her. Charybdis wanted her to take this open moment and come in swinging - to open that shell, to be so blinded by the opportunity that she missed a following attack. But Ophelia didn’t move in. Instead she turned, actuators aimed straight for the mechanical spider and its weaponized limbs. Four claws struck true, grasping the automaton and ripping it off its port with all the force they could muster. The shriek of metal on metal was horrendous.

This just adds to my previous point: Charybdis expects Ophelia to move in because she thinks Olly will want to protect herself first (because Charybdis, in that scenario, would), but Ophelia turns to protect Peter because she wants him to survive even if it means she gets blindsided by Charybdis. Again, it's their difference in worldview that marks their battle strategies, once they're past that initial onslaught.

She landed hard. She twisted well, and her feet found solid ground below her, but the impact made something snap in her left knee. Ophelia cried out as fire arced up her leg. Her actuators hit the ground around her, briefly overwhelmed by the sudden influx of pain that had overtaken her thoughts. Her lungs refused air for several long, terrifying moments.

It's a running theme in many of my fics for the hero to undergo a physical change or develop a disability through the completion of their hero's journey. Quinn has the ups and downs of her disabilities, Indie needs a pacemaker, Robin recovers from a TBI, Ophelia gets permanent damage to her knee, Katherine develops a tremor in her hands, Madison and Rae have their mutations expressed/enhanced and have to adapt to the physical and societal changes of that, so on and so forth.

For one thing, I think it's unrealistic for characters to undergo so much physical strain and injury and not have lasting damage of some sort. For another, the hero's journey is supposed to be the most significant event of these characters' lives, that's why we write about it, so there should be formative changes that occur in completing it.

(Plus, as a person with chronic pain and other difficulties, it's comforting to me to read about a character having their disabilities attended to and cared for by their loved ones)

She nearly made it to the door before it blew. Ophelia Octavius was always meant to die in an explosion.

It's not just that she's meant to die in an explosion. Ophelia Octavius is meant to die in an explosion of her own making. Ophelia (as in, Argonaut) causes her explosion by being so tunnel-visioned and sleep-deprived that she left a volatile chemical unsecured. Charybdis is so tunnel-visioned on the fight that she ignores her machines overheating until it's too late to stop it.

Charybdis was gone. There was nothing left of her but the shattered remains of her actuators and a few ashen scraps of cooked bone. The blast had more than killed her, more than cooked her- she’d been cremated, and only ashes remained.

This line here is inspired by a scene in my favorite book series, the Market of Monsters series by Rebecca Schaeffer. In the final book of the series, the main character confronts the primary antagonist of the series, and chooses to blow her up with a homemade bomb because there's no other way she can make sure she's dead for good. This in particular is a reference on two levels - the second book of the series is called Only Ashes Remain, for one, and the scene itself references both the first and second books in a line reading "But not even bones, only ashes remained of her mother" after the bomb has gone off.

“Peter?” Ophelia gasped, catching his head with one hand and trying to bring his eyes back to her. He blinked, head lolling in her hands. Ophelia shifted closer, biting down the swell of pain that surged through her bad leg. “Peter, hey- stay with me, baby.”

This is the first time Ophelia calls him "baby", or even by any pet name. You'll notice that's a bit of a repeat theme in some of my fics (mainly the Eris fics, though the first time Billy calls Quinn a pet name other than his usual "love" is after she's injured in a chapter), where the first use of a pet name is during a time of desperation, injury, or other intensity. It's not true of every fic I write, not by a long shot, but it's definitely my go-to for my more emotionally-constipated characters lol

Her actuators nudged her some time later, and Ophelia pulled herself up from her stupor. She ran a tired hand over the nearest folded claw, and it wormed under her hand like an eager dog. “You’re right,” she sighed, swallowing the last of her pain, “You’re right. We should go.”

You'll notice that throughout this fic, Ophelia has a much more positive bond with her actuators than any of the other characters we see with them. Her father, of course, is poisoned by them once his chip is destroyed, and uses them only as tools when the chip is in place. Charybdis has no inhibitor chip, but she also treats the actuators as tools or tertiary limbs rather than separate creatures.

But Ophelia's actuators behave more like trained animals - separate entities, with thoughts and behaviors of their own, but that behave in ways that benefit her. This is canon in-universe too, since she put a lot of effort into familiarizing them with her before she put them into the actuator tentacles, as another failsafe to prevent what happened to her father. In the early chapters, we see her chastising them for getting distracted during a fight, or wanting to be more violent than she'll allow them to be.

However, the fight on the Statue of Liberty acts almost as a bonding moment for them, and once she's returned to her own universe, Ophelia grants the actuators a bit more of her trust. They're given a port in the corner of her lab, freedom of movement even when she's not wearing her vest. And in turn, they act a bit more symbiotically towards her, like we see here - gently prodding her on when she falters.

This is another difference between Ophelia and Charybdis. Ophelia sees her father's death as a failing of his machines, and implements various failsafes and improvements to his design so she doesn't go through the same. Charybdis, on the other hand, sees her father's death as his failing to wield the machines, so her "improvements" are about bonding herself to the machines in a deeper way (welding them to her body, not having an inhibitor chip).

Anyway, wildly long ramble finally complete. I had way too much fun with this, I put so much thought into how Charybdis and Ophelia interact.

#my friends!!!#answered asks #ask game #my ocs #ophelia octavius #my writing #catch and release fic

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glapplebloom · 6 months

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I do wonder how I would write a Death Battle script. (No images in this one)

Wiz: Sugar. Spice. And everything nice. These were the ingredients to create the perfect little girl.

Boomstick: But Professor Utonium accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction... A can of Whoopass!

Wiz: No, it’s called Chemical X.

Boomstick: It might as well be whoopass! Anyone who takes a swig of the stuff gains superpowers.

Wiz: And it was no different here, as after his Monkey Assistant knocked the Professor into the Chemical X...

Wiz: The Powerpuff Girls were born!

Boomstick: Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup. Despite being a bunch of ankle biter they really live up to their original names: The Whoopass Girls!

Wiz: Indeed, for they’re the sole reason Townsville maintains a crime rate percentage ratio of point zero-zero-three over zero. That’s a ridiculous number.

Boomstick: And it's not just your run of the mill bank robbers or muggers. They deal with Giant Monsters, Evil Monkey Geniuses, my second cousin twice removed, and even the Devil himself!

Wiz: But it wasn’t always easy for them. Like any child, they were still learning about the world they were living in and the social norms to follow.

Boomstick: And like every newborn, they cause a lot of trouble for you and the people around you.

Wiz: Not to this extreme. In a simple game of tag, they basically destroyed Townsville easier than any criminal before it.

Boomstick: They eventually figured out that kicking major butt is the solution to help them fit in and now whenever the Mayor needs anything from saving the city to opening a jar of pickles, he just gives the girls a ring and they’ll be on their way.

Wiz: They accomplish this by using their various super powers. Like early Superman they have your usual Super Powers like flight, super strength and speed and even laser eyes...

Boomstick: But they also have some freaky one shot powers like setting themselves on fire, creating shadow clones, or turning themselves into a puddle of water. Heck, when they got older they got Green Lantern Powers!

Wiz: While they are virtually identical in stats, they each have their uniqueness. Blossom, for example, has superior intelligence compared to her sisters as well as an exclusive Ice Breath.

Boomstick: Buttercup is a lot more butt kicking than her sisters, but her exclusive power is curling her tongue. I can do that. Look.

Wiz: That’s not even close.

Boomstick: Bubbles is definitely the sweetest of the girls, but if pushed too far she would go into Hardcore mode. And she’s definitely scary when that happens.

Wiz: What I find impressive about her unique power is her ability to understand language. Originally, it was just Spanish but as she got better she could understand any language. This includes squirrels and even computer language. She was a programming wizard by the time she was in grade school.

Boomstick: How long were you in college to do all that?

Wiz: Don’t remind me.

Wiz: Despite these differences, and occasional squabbles, the Powerpuff Girls show why they’re one of the greatest heroes in Townsville.

Boomstick: Together, they can create the Furious Fiery Feline, the Razzle Dazzle, the Cherry Bomb, and even with their 4th Sister create a Giant Fusion of them all.

Wiz: Fun fact, the original concept for Dynamo was the three girls fusing into one.

Boomstick: And these girls are fast. In a race, Bubbles was facing this Quicksilver knock off and he can circle the world in seven seconds. Not knowing what the goal was, she was keeping pace easily. But when she found out she had to beat him, she reached the finish line two seconds ahead of him. Imagine how fast she would have gone if she actually tried.

Wiz: No need to. They can travel from the Earth to the Sun in a short amount of time and from an Asteroid Belt in space to earth within a second. The shortest distance between Earth and the closest edge of an Asteroid Belt is said to be 1.2 AUs, or 179.5 million km. To travel that fast in such a short time would be almost 600 times the speed of light.

{NOTE: I specifically got 598.74755 c, so a second look at the math would be required if I did something wrong}

Boomstick: Wow! No wonder they can move so fast they can travel through time.

Wiz: They also have strength to match. They’re strong enough to destroy asteroids, nullify a solar flare...

Boomstick: And even lift a really muscular man, while he’s lifting a mountain!

Wiz: They’re also comparable to the likes of HIM, who is capable of casually stopping the planet from heading towards the sun with ease and caused the solar system to go out of whack.

Boomstick: Perfect Little Girls? More like Miniature Supermen! What can stop these little bugged eyed freaks?

Wiz: Few things. Antidote X will negate their powers, but not destroy them despite being made of Chemical X. Fly Paper for some odd reason. And surprisingly they can still get sunburned.

Boomstick: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Wiz: Regardless, as long as the three work together, Townsville can rest knowing that the city will be saved, thanks to the Powerpuff Girls.

#research bin

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todayisafridaynight · 6 months

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Dude saying people haven't had any major complaints about rgg games after 0 is DERANGED LMAO did you conveniently forget about the response to 6 💀 most you hear about it is people disliking it... the response to 7? wasn't all that sunshine and flowers either considering the new protag and gameplay style. gaiden was also not that appreciated by quite a few people.

Also in case you forgot gaiden was written after 8...... not before...... the quality did not "go down"

Saying they hyped 8 too much as an excuse to hate on the story is also hilarious... that's on you my guy all they said it that it would be the longest game yet + a grand adventure... which... it was...

IMO Maybe you should replay the game and pay attention since stuff you complain about is... just wrong? You have the entire security company plot wrong...

It really seems like you're just viewing 7 like it was the best masterpiece ever written now that 8 has come out. Be honest dude 7's story is just as messy as you make out 8 to be

response became longer than i thought it'd be LMAO SO rest of the reponse is under the cut so i dont jumpscare anyone with a wall of text

If i made it sound as though i think titles from 0-7 were all perfect with no flaws nor complaints, then i’m happy to agree that those titles actually aren’t perfect and they do have flaws (as if i have to remind everyone anyway how i feel about Y7’s ending, but i dont think its ending is its only flaw on top of that). Highlighting 6 in its entirety is a great example of that really, as i still (rightfully lol) regularly see criticisms for 6 without needing to look for it. However, acting as though- bar 6- the rest of the rgg titles following 0 haven’t received minimal complaints is just dishonest. As i said prior, i don’t doubt that people have their issues (i remember specifically that someone criticized yagami’s character as saying it was nonexistent and that lost judgment as a whole is awkward with its characterization of its previous cast members), but compared to the likes of 1-5, it’s less common to see people’s grievances naturally; original titles following 6 were both judgment games, Y7, and gaiden, entries that i seldom see get the same treatment as pre-0 games (plot wise anyhow- i still remember when everyone was complaining about y7’s gameplay to me LOL). That’s what makes the quality of IW’s story so jarring: nearly five games in a row (again, minus 6) of satisfactory stories, and now there’s an entry whose shortcomings are glaring in comparison. Whatever ill will people had towards 0 especially back then doesn’t compare to how often 0 nowadays is put on a pedestal as one of- if not the best- title in rgg’s history (whether that title is accurate is subjective of course, but as a consensus that’s the opinion easily observable)

Gaiden being written alongside- if not mostly after- IW isnt grounds to excuse its writing. Arguably, the timeline of the games being produced could have ended up shooting IW’s writing in the foot (off the top of my head, i think of hanawa’s presence feeling less significant not just to the plot, but to kiryu compared to how we saw them in gaiden. He isn’t a major character overall of course, but kiryu’s reaction to his death felt more cold than you would’ve expected considering their established relationship). The overall warm reception gaiden received, once more, is what makes IW’s story’s shortcomings more obvious, especially when the titles were released less than three months apart.

The atmosphere leading up to IW’s release additionally didn’t help hide its storytelling quality. While i concede that yokoyama didn’t word-for-word say it would be the ‘best game’, alongside the RGG summit and yokoyama building up the hype of the game and wanting to build upon their prior successes was the start to building expectations. Particularly the quote saying that the efforts they put into Y8 compared to Y7 made the game ‘end up being about 130%’.

Alongside that quote, hiroyuki sakamoto and yoko promoted that IW was a result of ‘gritt[ing] [their] teeth… put[ting] everything we have at ryu ga gotoku studios’

in fairness, it is their job to build up hype for their products, especially when using language like ‘festival-like’ in interviews. With that anticipation however, it’s expected that we find the final product warranting these praises (and gameplay wise, it absolutely does- it’s just the story that falls flat).

even despite the team’s advertising, IW was nominated for one of the most anticipated titles at the game awards last year, and the copious amounts of early-launch reviews giving the title a clean, unanimous 10/10, 9/10, and 5/5 and dubbing it not just one of rgg’s best entries, but one of the best rpgs period was- again- doing an excellent job at making the title worth looking forward to. If the official team wasn’t calling it their best entry verbatim, then consumers were doing so, which is typically the reviews we value the most in practice. All of these in mind, there’s minimal fault on the players for walking into the game imaging they’d have an exemplary experience both gameplay and storywise.

As i previously admitted, i can accept that my memory can be spotty and i’m absolutely capable of misremembering things. However i don’t imagine i got the security plot wrong: after the tojo and omi dissolved, daigo and co set out to start their security company as they said they would. Business was fine until rumors began to spread, and despite doing ‘all they could’ they ultimately had to shut down. Im not sure what i could have missed, though i dont doubt that’s the basic rundown of the plot- a plot that, if portrayed efficiently, wouldn’t have garnered so much criticism from myself.

Rounding things off, i agree that i can let my biases guide my opinions- but that doesn’t mean it’s accurate to say y7 (and other recent entries- subtracting 6)’s flaws are comparable to IW’s storytelling. again, by no means are the other entries perfect (nor did i say they were, just that they demonstrated enjoyable stories compared to IW’s and less casual criticisms), but when comparing the quality of them to IW’s plot and characters, it’s fair to say there was a noticeable shift in quality. I still enjoy IW and i agree with the reviewers praising its gameplay, its story is the only gripe i have with it.

#long post #snap chats #good morning everyone sorry to start the morning like this vjeLKJLKJ #i am incredibly embarrassed about the 'best game' thing tho im HORRIFIED because i could have sworn they said that #i got a pal agreeing with me that they def said it but i mean. if i cant find it i cant find it so ill totally admit fault to that #everything else tho im like. fine with LMAO AGAIN sorry for the length but. 🤷‍♂️

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