#tho i havent fully made a Reason why yet? just an idea. something like he got hurt as a kid and his leg never healed right or smth idk

[plentyofgay]

I need you to tell your parents that we are literally just friends. That that’s all we will ever be. That we had a “talk” and that I’m not physically attracted to you. You’re not my type and that you’re too young for me. That I consider you one of my haunt babies. But that we have a brother like relationship.

But know that I don’t feel like that. You know how I feel. It isn’t gonna change. And it isn’t going anywhere. I can compartmentalism it and have it not be an issue. NOT IN A BAD OR TOXIC WAY. I can have it ready if you decide one day that you’re ready.

Or we can just be best friends. Hopefully best friends that cuddle and still hang out and hug. Cause I love you. Wether it be platonic or romantic.

If you and Kai date. Which I’m worried that you will. And worried that they are going to hurt you. I will be here. I’m always gonna be here. You’re always gonna have a cord of energy attached to you from me and vice versa.

I know your here to show me love that I haven’t received. Whether or not you’re the only one that’s suppose to show me that or not I don’t not know yet. That’s the journey we are currently on.

You’ve never had someone care for you like I do? Have you? Is that the same reason that I’m in your life.

The painting that I made reins true. I’ll find you again wherever we end up next. That resonates with me.

Yes I’m gonna back off with the lovey dovey stuff. The whole reason I think I’ve been doing it is cause I want you to do it back to me. Step out ya comfort zone. I think I like to challenge you.

Don’t be worried that I’m obsessed with you. I just love you. There’s not an obsession. If I was obsessed I would have done some stupid shit. I would have made you think I’m a perfect person and manipulated you. Granted. I don’t genuinely know how I would do that. I’m just being authentic and fully me with you.

I’m attached I believe because you’ve shown me what no one else has. Actual love, kindness, understanding, stability, a genuine connection, you’re supportive. Hell you may not tell me I’m cute and sexy and all the things I wish you would. That’s why I ask you a lot.

I don’t want you to get hurt again. Cause I know you’ve been hurt really badly in the past. I don’t want that for you. I’m so worried that someone is gonna sweep you up. You’re gonna fall for them, they are gonna tell you that you’re not allowed to talk to me or you have to block me, and then boom you’re just gone. I’ve done that with so many people. I always give and give and give. I never get anything back.

But. With you. I’ve gotten stuff back. The energy and effort I’ve put into you I’ve received back and then some.

When you told me earlier that we needed to talk. My brain automatically thought. This is it. He’s gone. This is what you’ve been afraid of. This is your biggest fear. Him showing you something youve never had before. And poof he’s gone like that. But you’re not. You’re still here. You still love me. You still care. Granted we both want what we can’t have. But that’s okay. That’s something we work thru. Nothing is easy. Especially this.

You’re telling me this cause you don’t want me to get hurt. Cause you’re afraid you’re gonna hurt me and I’m gonna get mad and never speak to you again?

That ain’t gonna happen. Ever. Never ever. “I’ll find you again wherever we end up next.” Hold on to that phrase remember it. Cause it’s true. I’m always gonna find you. You’re always gonna be a part of my life. I guess I’ve been waiting for you. That’s that. We may be soul mates we may not be. I have nooooo idea. We are something tho. That I can promise. Shit if I died today. We’d find each other again. I’d always be with you. Honestly I could die happy at this point. I think you’ve shown me genuine kindness and love. You’ve shown me something new.

I’m still gonna buy you shit that you don’t need or want. Just cause I do that for everyone. I literally bought a bunch of worms just cause Emily wanted a worm curtain.

Hell we may move on from each other. That may very well happen. I’m not cutting myself off for you. If someone that I think is cute and that I think they like me too then imma prolly try it. Is that okay? Is that gonna hurt you??? I haven’t really found anyone like that yet. Just you so far. But I’m not gonna limit myself.

I will say tho. That if you say. Yes I wanna try to be boyfriends. It’s not gonna be an immediate yes. You still gotta take me on some dates and we still gonna have to like work on some stuff. Just like anyone would. For right now we are just what we are. I don’t wanna call it just “friends”. Cause I don’t wanna label it that. But I don’t think we are quite romantically talking either. We are just doing what we wanna do. When it’s time to not. Well know.

Also. You’re not even 20 yet. You’ve still got shit to do. I’m 24 I’ve still got shit to do. I’m not ready for a long term relationship anyways. It just wouldn’t work right now. I wasn’t even looking for someone to date. Then you rolled around and I was like. Well shit. I just wanted to have sex with you at first. But then ya worked some kind of avery magic and we are where we are now.

So yes. Date Kai if that’s what you figure you want. I don’t think you really need to tho. I don’t think you need to date anyone at the current moment. I think you need to work on other stuff. Just keep like talking to whoever and having fun. But be honest about it. Don’t hide anything.

Just still love me and hang out with me. That’s all I want and need. Even tho sometimes I long for more. But ultimately that’s all is needed. I know I have some work I need to do on me even before I’d be ready to be your boyfriend or anyone ones.

So. Just keep coming over. Maybe we’ll have some sex, maybe we’ll make out. Maybe I can teach you some stuff. Help you discover new things. But we will still hang out. Cause I love you.

I’m not gonna be missing out on anyone or wasting my time if I wait for you. People do not get romantically interested in me. Trust me. So I’m not wasting my time. You’re not wasting my time. If someone comes along and I fall in love with them. You’ll be there first to know. But rn you’ve got me. Soooooo. Imma just be patient. Until you tell me that I shouldn’t. When you tell me there is no chance in hell that we will date that’s when I’ll start getting over you. Till then imma just be patient.

Typing these out make me less anxious. Granted I’ve HAVENT gotten out of my bed since yesterday. Cause I still don’t know what’s going on. I still don’t know whether to let you go or to keep you close. I’m just confused and sad. I haven’t cried again yet. I haven’t self harmed. I haven’t even really felt like it tbh. I haven’t really felt like much actually. I think I’m still processing yesterday. It was really back and forth.

So what are we now? If we keep hanging out is Kai gonna stop talking to you?? I’m really worried about that. That’s not fair to you. And if you do date Kai. I’m not gonna be mad. I’m gonna be very very worried. I don’t believe your ready for a relationship and I think it would end not so well. BUT that just what I think. And I’m still kinda worried about Kai. I’ve just had a weird feeling and I still do. That’s just me being honest and open.

I think I’m okay with just hanging out and not being lovey dovey for now. I’ll do my best to not be lovey divert. If I do just tell me.

[letstalkaboutshtufff]

Geralt x reader We're Married? Part 2

Ok here part 2! Its probably crap but anyway...

part 1

Pairing: Geralt x reader

Warnings: Blood, cursing, mentions of past sexual abuse, violence

**************************************

The second you entered the hall was the second you forgot who you were supposed to be..

"HOLY SHI-" a rough hand quickly clasped your mouth shut. "If you wouldnt give us away in the first 5 seconds that would be terrific" Geralt muttered.

"Mmmph mmmph- alright alright sorry" he removed his hand. You sighed and looked around, more quietly this time. You'd been to a party like this before, well snuck into a party like this before.. but never this lavish.

The royal family spared no expense it seemed considering every inch of the great hall was exquisitely decorated. Long tables were lined with delectable looking dishes, which you would definitely visit later...

And there were many eating tables that had beautiful flower petals atop them. In between was a large area which was meant for socializing and dancing most likely. Boy did you feel out of place..

The man on your arm felt the same you guessed by the way his face contorted watching all the "fancy people" socialize. "I have a bad feeling.." he spoke quietly to himself.

Curious you turned to him "why do you say that?"

His eyes scanned the room suspiciously, "Because something's not adding up.."

"Y/n listen to me" he suddenly turned to you seriously.

"Hmm?" You eyes rose

"This thing..whatever it is..is different from what we've encountered before" he started

"Yeah I know that.." What was he getting at?

He grunted before continuing, "Promise me something" he said with earnest eyes which was incredibly rare for the witcher. It always made you soften tho.

"Sure anything.." you were worried now.

"When the monster shows up-whatever it is. You will leave with Jaskier"

"Except that" you deadpanned. "Are you crazy?? Why would I leave??" You unlinked your arms and faced him fully.

He pressed his lips tightly and led you to a corner away from people who began to notice the dispute.

Jaskier sensing the rising tension, stepped away.

"Y/n listen to me" he said firmly, "we don't know what we are dealing with, and for that reason it's not safe for you"

You threw up your arms in disbelief, "When has monster hunting ever been safe Geralt?!"

He huffed, clenching his jaw, "You will leave when it shows up and that's final" his tone leaving no room for argument.

You decided causing a scene would not be wise so you settled for giving geralt your best, "I'm angry and this isnt over face" before swiftly walking away.

"Y/n!" He caught up with you and just as he grabbed your arm an older couple blocked your path.

"Why I don't believe we've met before?" The older man dressed in blue said with bright eyes.

Geralt forced a smile and stood beside me, "I suppose we just havent had the pleasure yet"

"Well allow me to introduce myself and my dear wife count and countess Barano at your service" he bowed his head slightly and his wife followed suit.

"A pleasure" you chimed in moving slightly away from Geralt. "This is my husband, sir Bartholomew Tristan, and I'm lady Lina Tristan." You gestured lazily beside you.

The next half hour went similarly like this, a new couple introducing themselves every now and then, and talking about nonsense. You could hardly focus on anything they were saying. All you could think about was how Geralt was being an absolute arse wipe.

How dare he try to keep you away from all the action?! You're training had been relentless since the incident with the visser. And you were more than ready to fight anything that came your way. Geralt has been this way the last few missions. Although he never told you to completely leave before. Maybe a stay back or a few to many be carefuls. But run away?? What's the point of training if you couldn't even use it!

The dinging of a bell shook you from your thoughts. Dinner time..great more boring conversations with people you didnt like.

Playing the part of the ever so doting husband, Geralt pulled out a seat for you. You didnt even spare him a glance as you sat down. He sighed as he sat beside you. Throughout the evening he had tried to talk to you but it always ended badly. You were both pissed and stubborn..

"Y/n-" he began but was cutt of by lady borano.

"So tell us about yourselves, it's not often we meet new friends." She smiled sincerely.

Geralt turned with a hand in the air, "What would you like to know?"

"How long have the two of you been married?"

Geralt thought back to the extra information Yavert told him, "3 years"

" Ah still practically newlyweds" sir Borano joked.

"Any children?" A beautifully wicked idea formed in your mind,

"Unfortunately no, my dear husband here can't perform."

The sound of a feminine gasp and the whip of his head made you smirk as you took a sip of the wine before you. Its contents easing your mind, and your tongue for that matter. He forced a smile in an attempt to ease the awkwardness.

" ah I see..." she responded quietly." Well children aren't everything" she also made an effort to improve the mood.

"And thank god for that, because she'd make a terrible mother".

This time you were the one whipping your head around nearly choking on your drink. That little!! "I'm sure that's not true.."sir Barono offered with an uncomfortable smile.

"Well you can't raise children by lazing around all day and eating crumpets" he laughed while the others laughed along too, awkwardly that is..

"Well at least you know where I am, on the other hand I sit at home all day wondering what you and our servant boy could possibly be doing taking so long attending to "business". All eyes shifted to a fumbling Jaskier who stood behind us, "that's uh...not...she didn't..." he tried defending himself.

If looks could kill you would have been a goner. Geralt fists clenched beneath the table. Good, he deserves it for being a butthead.

In a few sentences you had emasculated him and implied he was having a passionate affair with the servant boy. Not bad y/n, not bad at all..

To the relief of the table, the royal family entered cutting off all conversation as everyone stood up. Curiously you peeked over the shoulders in front of you to get a closer look.

The king and queen of servia were announced along with their daughter the princess Annora. She held her head high and had an unreadable expression. She was very beautiful, long flowing hair, slim figure, beautiful blue dress. Total cliche if you ask me. But one thing stood out, the cute little fluffy puppy she held in her arms, he wore a little golden collar with a bell. Awwww litte baby pooooo.

The rest of the family was dressed obnoxiously with large puffy sleeves and glittering jewelry. No question who they were. They were led to a large table in the front center of the hall with 6 ornately decorated chairs. Makeshift thrones basically. They stood in front of them but didnt sit, which meant that you couldn't either.

A moment later another set of doors opened. In walked what you could only assume was the king, queen, and prince of Targeris. There was nothing special about them, without the fancy outfits they would've looked like any other couple. The sons attention was immediately on the princess. His eyes raked over her body without a hint of subtlety. Ew have some class dude. She on the other hand kept a straight face, not acknowledging him in the slightest.

Finally they sat down and dinner went by rather uneventfully. You and geralt hadn't said a word, although the tension was definitely still there.

Most couples had taken to dancing for the rest of the night, you however felt suffocated and decided to escape outside for a breathe of fresh air.

This was not how you wanted the night to go, you let out a sigh, watching the air turn slightly foggy. Why was Geralt acting like this? Why doesnt he trust you? What's it gonna take for him to see you as an ally instead of a weight he has to carry around?!?!

Ughhhhh you dragged your fingers across your face and through your hair. This was so frustrating! Leaning your head back you closed your eyes and let the cool air wash over your flushed face, relaxing you slightly.

When you opened your eyes again a flash of blue caught your attention. You peered downwards leaning over the balcony slightly to see. Oh it's just some couple from the party..

Wait a minute..

You leaned over more narrowing your eyes, Is that?...no way it can't be...but...you quickly walked back into the party, eyes aimed at the royal families. C'mon where are you??

You scanned every inch searching for the princess but she was no where to be found. The other members were deep in a political conversation and hardly noticed that their daughter had snuck away.

So that was her?? What was she doing? Feeling something amiss you made your way to the entrance and down the long staircase. Ugh stupid heels, you kicked them aside on the steps feeling much more free.

Oh I hope no one trips on them..oops...

You ran around to the side of the castle where the balcony was above you. Frowning when all you saw was an empty garden. Now where did she go?? You stepped further into the garden listening for any out of place sounds.

All that could be heard was the wind rustling some rose bushes and the chirping of crickets.

A girlish giggle made you spring into action. Following the sound you discreetly peeked around a column of the garden.

There stood the princess flirtatiously pressed up again one of the Servian ambassadors you were forced to socialize with earlier.

The man himself was wrinkly and balding, why was the princess interested in him when all night she seemed to detest everything?

Why did her laugh feel...wrong somehow? "Let's go somewhere more...private" she smirked pulling him by his wrist. The puppy you noticed was there as well following behind her. What a well trained dog...

Lifting up your dress again you followed the couple at a distance until you saw them stop at a hanging tapestry on the wall. What are they doing?

Annora smiled and lifted back the tapestry, it revealed a small opening only big enough for one person. She led the way and they soon dissapeared from sight.

After waiting a few moments to be safe, you stepped lightly after them. The opening they went through was pitch dark and every bone in your body was telling you to turn back.

Then you heard the giggles again, sucked it up and moved forward.

You kept walking until you ran into something soft.

What? Oh? Another tapestry? You shoved the material aside and it took your eyes a moment to adjust to the light.

You were in a candlelit hallway with several doors on either side. You heard a door click close and laughter coming from inside.

Hmm well you couldn't just barge in now.. I guess she does like him..wonder what her fiance would think of this. Well anyway it wasn't any of your business..

What a waste of time geez.. you spin around in the direction you came about to pull back the fabric.

"WAAHHHHH" you jerked around when a loud scream broke out. And not the fun kind either.

Without a second thought you kicked open the door with a bang.

"What the fu-" the princess snapped her head around with a growl. "Who the hell are you?!" She hissed.

"Better question, what the hell are you doing?!" You questioned eyes wide in disbelief at what you saw. Annora had bound and gagged the pitiful man. He was tied to the end bed post and sat whimpering on the floor. Why was he so afraid?

"Doesn't matter, you're going to die soon anyway" she smirked and her eyes flicked to something over your shoulder. It was then you realized there was another presence in the room.

Whipping your head around you came face to face with a four legged beast. Its ribs protruded crudely and its body was covered in a sickly black goo. Its eyes were red and fiery and the realization came crashing on to you when you saw the same golden collar around its neck. Fuck...

You blindly felt around for the short sword hidden under your dress. You just managed to grab it in time before the "puppy" lunged. Swinging the sword you caught its face. It hissed in pain and you took the chance to bolt through the door.

A loud growl erupted behind you. You sprinted further down the hallway and about had a heart attack when you saw Jaskier casually walking. His eyes lit up when he saw you but then widened in horror. You grabbed his arm probably giving him whiplash and the both of your were running for your lives. There was no way you could fight that beast in the tiny hallway.

"Jaskier what are you doing here?!?!" You shouted panicking.

"I-I was just following you!! I saw you leave all of the sudden and got worried!!" You both sharply turned into a corner. Thank god for these long ass hallways.

"So mind explaining WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING!!" He screamed frantically.

"Princess bad, monster bad, I'll explain the rest later when we're not about to be dog food!!" Fuck you were approaching a dead end, think think think!

"GROWWWWWWWWL" the beast was gaining on you two. You did the only thing you could think of, which was shoving jaskier into an open room and spin around to face the beast head on,

"Barricade yourself in Jaskier!" You shouted.

"W-what no! I'm not leaving you" he yelled back.

Ugh idiot! Theres no point of us both getting chomped! "Then do something to help!" He looked around frantically. Something to help something to help.."GERALT!!!!" He screamed at the top of his lungs.

Youd be lucky if he could hear that..

The beast was finally upon you, its row of razor teeth glinting in the candlelight. Fuck.. one bite and youd be literally chow.

You braced yourself as it charged forward, it leaped up and you waited until that moment to run and slide under it. You were successful but the damb beast was quick to turn around and catch your shoulder with a sharp claw.

"Aghh" you let out a welp of pain as it pinned you down.

"Y/N!" Jaskier shouted worriedly

You gripped your sword and thrust blindly upwards. It howled as the sword ripped through its flesh.

It reacted by throwing you across the hall. You rolled over in pain. Fuck, bad dog.. Its attention was on the frozen Jaskier who lamely held up a candle stick in defense.

"Jaskier run!" You winced getting up again and charging at the monster, you picked up your fallen sword and lunged onto it's back stabbing its head.

"GROOOOOOOOWL" it wildly whipped its head side to side trying to throw me off.

"JASKIER GO NOW!" he wasted no time and bolted around, "I'll go find Geralt!!" His voice faded away with his hurried footsteps.

You couldn't hold on much longer due to the stinging in your shoulder.

You fell off and rolled away nearly getting hit again by its claws.

"Y/N stay down!" A large whoosh of air shot over you as you pressed yourself flat on the ground.

"Geralt!" You exclaimed in relief. He ran over to you and helped you up. Before he could ask if you were alright the monster shrieked. God why wont it just die?!

Geralt grunted pulling out another sword and stepping in front of you.

Jaskier gently pulled you back, "Are you ok? Your shoulder-" he began but you gasped,

"Fuck!" You left him bewildered as you pushed him aside and ran back the way you came. The princess, the man, just what was going on?!?!

You flew into the room, eyes locked on the princess who stood over the unconscious man.

She tilted her head in your direction, and you narrowed your eyes noticing something that wasnt there before. Her eyes were an electric purple, and her hair was flowing around her slightly.

"You're....a mage?" You asked completely confused.

She chuckled sinisterly, "you managed to escape my dear pet, no one has been able before" she walked a couple steps in your direction.

"No matter, I'll finish you off myself" she raised a manicured hand up and the air around you seemed to get thinner.

You tried to step back but some invisible force was holding you in place. Fuck it was getting harder to breathe. Geralt I hate being the one needing to be saved but your appearance would be much appreciated.

"I-if I'm going to die anyway, tell me what's going on".you said in a hoarse whisper. The least you could do is have her distracted why you tried to find a way out of her spell.

"Hmm well I suppose it would be entertaining to watch the horrified look on your face". The side of her mouth flitted up.

"Lemme start by introducing myself, my name is Lisanna, and you're half right, I AM a mage, the princess I'm currently controlling however is nothing more that the poor dear that was too desperate to know better"

"W-what?!" You were on the floor now starting to feel lightheaded, you milked it a little so she wouldnt notice your hand creeping to the back of your head un clasping the long hair pin.

"Yes, it was some time ago I came to the princess in a dream. You see I was cursed along time ago, my soul was trapped outside my body, so I improvised. I summoned the power of the dark spirits and was able to enter whatever vessel I so choose. The only downside is they had to be dying or willing which was very annoying. If the vessel I'm in dies, I die along with it. And as you could imagine there weren't many willing people. But that's when I came across dear Annora here." She gestured to herself.

"T-the p-princess was willing??" you coughed out confused.

"Well, when I found her she was desperate you see. Her marriage had just been announced and she was willing to do anything to escape it. I very graciously, offered a solution. Let me temporarily control your body, and I'll make sure no one forces you to do anything you dont want to again."

You gripped the pin and brought it down by your side, "that still doesnt explain everything? The dissapeances the-" you coughed again.

She laughed to herself, "Oh that? That's just good old fashioned revenge, you see our poor princess has suffered at the hands of these perverted old men for years. No one cared enough to believe her, in fact they shamed her. Does that seem fair? No it doesn't" she kneeled before you and tilted your chin upwards.

"I rather enjoyed kidnapping them and torturing them till I put them out of their misery days later. It was the perfect plan, Runald, got a little excited though and killed the man right here on the floor. It was a truly gruesome sight, but dogs will be dogs" she shrugged as if it was the most casual thing in the world.

"W-why would y-you help?" You whispered shakily.

"Well you see it's all part of the bigger picture, the king is the one who needs to suffer" a look of disgust flashed across her face.

NOW! You jabbed the pin in her neck and the spell dissipated instantly. "YOU BITCH" she shrieked crawling back in pain clutching the bloody pin.

You gained your strength and stood back up running to her. "Why the king?! Answer me!" You tackled her binding her arms with the curtain tassels.

She struggled violently, her neck bleeding profusely. "If you keep moving you'll just bleed out faster.." you glared at her.

"Tell me everything and I might save you.." you stood back up allowing her some space.

"He deserves it! He fucking betrayed me!" She said angry tears beginning to fall down her flushed face. "He said he loved me! He said he'd leave her! And then she got pregnant and he threw me out like garbage! He let all those stupid men influence him! I begged him! And when I tried to kill his bitch which I had every right to do, he got a mage to put a curse on me! He has to suffer!! They all do!" She was shaking now.

You thought over her words for a moment, "So the men..the murders.." You couldn't believe what you were hearing.

"Two birds with one fucking stone, the princess and me have similar interests, we deserve justice! It doesnt matter how it happens, one by one or an all out war! They all must suffer! We didnt deserve this!" You looked down quietly ,

"You're right... you both didnt deserve that, but this.." you gestured to the unconscious man, "is not justice, it makes you like them, criminals.."

"So what!? They can call us whatever we want, it doesnt mean anything! If they get what they deserve they can call us whatever the fuck they want!" The angry tears were streaming now.

"No" you shook your head softly. "It does matter, because it's not over for you yet. I won't let it be.." you crouched beside her, "I'm sorry for what they did to you... to the both of you... but there has to be a way..a way to move past the pain and move forward"

She scoffed, "What the hell would you know! You've never suffered like I have".

Memories of your master flashed through your mind and without a second thought you threw your arms around her shaking form.

"I do.." you whispered quietly.."pulling her tightly against you, "Someone came along...someone stronger, and prettier, and better than me...and he threw me aside...like everything we ever went through never happened...he was everything to me and I thought I was everything to him..I felt like the whole world was going to collapse onto me. For a long time I was lost..and so so angry. I too wanted revenge..more than anything..but then I realized I couldn't let him control me anymore..that the best revenge was to live a better life. A life where I didnt have to depend on some stupid guy to give it meaning. And I was ok thinking that I would be alone for the rest of my days. But then things changed because I made them.. I found people who are truly good. And now I thank god that I didnt let myself be consumed by my feelings of rage, because now I'm truly happy...and I promise you" you squeezed her tighter, "your story is not going to end this way.." .

Her soft sobs grew louder as she buried her head in your chest. You smiled gently and with one hand untied her bindings. She immediately wrapped her arms around you and let out all the pain and sorrow she had built up.

"Its going to be ok" you gently cupped her head, "I promise".

When she finally looked up, her tear filled eyes met yours, "It hurts so much" you gently stroked her tears away, "I know, but amazing girls like us cant spend the rest of their lives obsessing over some scumbags now can we?" You laugh softly.

She matches your smile and leans in close to you, "thank you..." she whispers kissing your cheek.

A visible purple aura formed around her before altogether gathering and leaving the princess. You smiled sadly and watched Lisannas soul dissapear through the window.

The princess's body went limp in your arms, a moment later she stirred, "where am I?" She whispered confused and exausted. "Don't worry..you're safe now, everythings going to be alright" you held her close and tied a piece of fabric from your dress on her neck wound. Luckily it wasnt too deep.

That same moment 2 very disgruntled men rushed in, "Y/n?!" Geralt came over and knelt beside the two of you.

"I'm alright..we both are.." you smiled at him. "I'm getting the feeling we missed something.." Jaskier raised his brows looking at the man rousing on the floor.

You couldn't help but let out a laugh as the both of them gave you a weird look.

**************************************

After the events you had a long talk with the princess. You were proud as she stood in front of the room and told everyone of the scandalous crimes that the king didnt bat an eyelash towards. Anybody who looked as if they were going to protest were promptly shut up with one stern glare from the witcher.

Everyone agreed that a new era of peace could not begin with a foundation of crimes. The king and queen were arrested by Targeris guards and the princess was crowned queen right then and there.

There was actually alot of protest but a certain mage was able to convince everyone. Something about making the room dark and the floor quake made everyone agree that you couldn't argue with destiny. Thanks Lisanna, I hope to see you again some day. Well as long as your not possessing someone against their will...then again how will she really live without doing that? Eh whatever shes good now, its probably fine...probably..

The princess-well queen now decided that she would not marry the prince, however the peace had to continue. Everyone was too scared to "go against destiny" again so everything seemed to be ok for now.

As for the missing officials, we explained there was a monster but we swiftly took care of them. Actually, doggy poo was turned back to normal when the suffocating spell broke and he sat wagging happily by the queens side. Usually jobs didnt end this happy. Not bad y/n, not bad at all..

*************************

"Ouch.." you wince as rough hands rub a cool salve on your aching shoulder.

"Sorry.." Geralt apologized and tried his best to be gentle.

The mood was peaceful, the only thing illuminating the two of you was a few flickering candles. The two of you sat quietly on a bed in one of the guest rooms. You felt more vulnerable than usual as the dress you wore was pooled on the floor. A thin strapless slip was the only thing covering you. Geralt was gentle as he tended to your shoulder. You felt ashamed at the way you behaved earlier. He was being annoyingly protective yes but..you may have taken it too far.

"Geralt?" You said quietly turning to face him.

"Hmm?" His golden eyes like fire in the flickering light.

"I'm sorry for the things I said...and how I acted...but I'm not sorry for getting upset at you telling me to leave." I said truthfully.

He sighed and I expected a protest, "No I should be the one apologizing.." he finished wrapping your shoulder and gently stroked the bandage

"I know telling you to back off was unfair but.." he looked troubled.

"But?" You urged him on.

He looked down, "Everytime we encounter another monster, I cant help imagine that its going to end up with you almost dying" he looked back up and the look in his eyes was so raw you caught your breath. He was referring to the last time when the visser had almost killed you.

"Geralt..." you whispered leaning forward so his forehead was touching yours. "I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere..." you placed a hand on his shoulder and leaned back smiling, "Besides who else are you going to engage in witty banter with? Jaskier?" You teased and a corner of his mouth lifted. "Dont think I've forgotten what you said.." he raised a brow.

"Hey it's not all my fault! Just dont leave me out of things again and we'll have no issues"

"Alright..I promise I won't do that again ok?" He offered.

You nodded your head happy now that you had finally come to an agreement.

He shook his head, "Well at least if you're by me, I can keep an eye on you......speaking of..."

Uh oh bad feeling. Geralt was shifting into scolding mode you could feel it..

You scooted off the bed slightly ready to escape if need be, "Why the hell did you go after the princess by yourself!?" He was more stern now.

"Jaskier? Is that you calling? I'm coming!" You dashed off the bed swinging open the door, "We can talk later Geralt! Jaskier needs me!"

You bolted down the hall ignoring his bark of protest behind you, "Y/N! Don't--ugh" he sighed shaking his head. That woman was gonna be the end of him...but he couldn't help the smile plastered on face. His fingers gently touched where her forehead was. She sure was a special one. He grunted and left the room, now where did she run off too...

*******************

Ok so there it is! I didn't feel very confident about this story but wanted to finish it anyway. Hope it was ok xoxo lemme know if I should write more stories, till next time!

@marvels-gurl @shane-isa-shame @waitingtobeimpressed @viking-raider @dream-alittlebiggerdarling

[macklives]

hey so this is gonna be a long-ish one. ive decided its been far too long since i did a session, and we did so many i can often forget what happened. i started in july and im pretty sure its been more than half a year now since this whole blog happened. and in that time, we’ve gone through 88 sessions and i want to know if i remember the relevant plot points and what we got up to in the last few sessions. a refresh/reminder if you would.

so i hereby commence my own little recap of act 5 because yeah no, its too much to do a recap of everything and i have andrew for that after every few acts. but i wanna refresh my mind on act 5 for now. so here we go.

1. alternia.. fucked up place. but its a place the trolls live on so what are we gonna do about it? overthrow the government? seems about right, lets do that with the next troll that gets introduced and if its not kanaya idk what andrew is doing by not having introduced the best troll yet. why the long wait? it was the second introduced? i honestly expected it to go in order when i first read act 5, because first we had karkat talk to jade which was the first new piece dialogue in the comic besides the main kids, but then we had kanaya with rose, which was followed by tavros, then terezi (iirc). so id assume we were following that order but nope karkat got fully introduced, then this random fucking juggalo called gamzee made its way into the comic. imagine my surprise.

2. theres been terminology throughout act 5, that i do not fucking know and will not remember and probably never will. like tf is a perigee again? i made a doc somewhere ill probably find it.

3. karkat’s introduction... short but very sweet. and by sweet i mean we got to know the depths of the angry edge lord. and by depths i mean karkat got angry at gamzee for typing in a way that he didnt like so he yapped like a chihuahua. nah, but seriously, i do like karkat tho, hes growing on me but only bc hes a bitch baby and his whole personality makes me want to mock him so thats the reason im not that annoyed and think hes funny, and the most harmless troll. even more so than tavros. and thats saying something. 7.5/10 bc im generous.

4. then gamzee... the high juggalo troll who has the worst typing quirk imo, i cannot for the life of me read it. but hes chill, i actually really like gamzee. hes funny and the least problematic as of right now. 8.5/10.

5. terezi’s introduction next i think. she likes playing as a lawyer with her stuffed dragons, ie by roleplay, shes blind, can see through licking, and she likes eating chalk, maybe its even nutritious. shes good. 9/10. 

6. uhh in the process of these intros, there are teams being made? karkat joins gamzee and terezi in, i THINK, the red team?? bc terezi likes red?? could be wrong, i dont remember the teams except that its red/blue to represent sollux’s duality in those colors. terezi then tries recruiting AC but AC is like lol sorry i have to ask this friend of mine who has authority over me for some goddamn reason and terezi goes yuck tf i hate that guy................... yeah thats all we have on the teams. pretty sure sollux had smth to do with karkat about the making of the leaders, and they did the “i hate me” and the “no i hate me more than u hate u” or whatever the fuck that was. they got embarrassed afterwards and deleted their messages. im pretty sure they have no messages because everything ends up being mutually deleted so their logs are actually empty. ngl, kinda enjoyed their convos, made me appreciate their characters. i hope we get more because its good content. i also dont know what order this whole thing is in, who contacted who first? couldnt tell you. ill remember later on. and since im basing this off from memory alone, gotta deal with what i remember. uhhhh so yeah. we havent met all characters yet so the teams have not been officially decided but we got the bases, which is that.

7. god i found it, and the only thing im looking at right now is the terminology list i made and what the fuck?? what the fuck?? you miss a few weeks and suddenly the word nubslurping comes up and you forget what the fuck youre reading.

8. im PRETTY SURE aradia is seen after that whole team fiasco?? or its sollux... maybe. wait. its sollux, right. i just knew someone gets introduced mid way through is all. actually, someone gets introduced after every 20 pages. i have no idea. but ik aradia and sollux go hand in hand.

9. oh shit. OH SHIT! RIGHT! I REMEMBER! so this occurs in the latest session i did, and not the beginning of act 5, but AG and aradia team up, right?? and sollux fucking gets manipulated by them and ??? idk??? they make him find the game, reprogram it and then make him believe its going to end the world (which in hindsight is true, but anyways) so he refuses to play it which was AG’s plan all along so she steps up and becomes leader in his place. but aradia says sollux will still play the game no matter what, but she never went through with the plan for AG but it was apart of a prophecy? that sollux wouldnt be the leader at all? that he’d still play? but it had to go according to plan so it could succeed??? we just dont know why yet. anyways, point being, she still cares for sollux since she did it for him rather than for AG. and thats what i recall. god tf i forgot about that whole drama until writing down “sollux and aradia go hand in hand” which gave me violent flashbacks to the memory.

10. oh and id give aradia 9/10 and sollux 7/10. i do like sollux but if i put him higher than karkat, id get crucified. so im keeping them around the same.

11. man i really like sollux and aradia tho, i may have put him at 7, but i really like their dynamic and i really hope they make up and aradia explains herself about AG. because from one side it looks shitty. and while sollux is rude and never makes up his mind, he apologized to aradia after going off, and that was the only time ive seen him be sincere, so im pretty sure he cares for her to some extent. and i think its somewhat mutual? considering the whole “did it for him” thing. man, i see potential because i actually like both their characters. theyre well written. may not have the best personalities, but i appreciate well written characters and homestuck has the best ones ive seen in a while.

12. oh shit, hell yeah, the more i write, the more im connecting the dots and remembering. however, the more i write, the more i want to just make an analogy post but thats not for now. jesus christ its not all about analogies, mack, this is a recap. but.. how does andrew do it? to not go off track??? hard. telling ya.

13. anyways, didnt we break the fourth wall at some point and have the demon gods or whatever the fuck speak to us in third person for the first time in the comic, after having only gone into second person narrative, right after we were introduced to sollux and his “virus”? the uh, the phrase “the demon was already here” was said, or something along those lines. first line in homestuck to give me the creeps ngl and i appreciate it bc it gives me motivation to know what the fuck its about. its cool bc you have no idea where its going and it sure doesnt have anything to do with the current plot, since the trolls’ session/game doesnt have fucking demons so im curious as to what the fuck that was about. and if i really have to make a theory, i feel it has something to do with aradia’s voices in her head which also connect to the gods rose heard when she started disregarding rules and told dave to look at derse without listening to music bc it was as if he was purposely blocking away their calls. like holy shit, that gave me the shivers. while i do want to know more about wtf happens after act 4, trolls are taking priority right now. just like we did with the intermission. no discussing the kids unless necessary. treat this as its own separate comic. and THEN we can connect.

14. ANYWAYS, tavros’ intro???? that comes afterwards?? with the fiduspawn that made me gag a little on the inside? yep. remember that. fuck that lol. -1/10 but tavros himself is MAYBE a 6/10? i wish we explored his character more in his intro bc right now he just looks like a character made only to be a victim rather than have any depth and i feel thats robbing someone of their full potential. give me more personality andrew, rather than a quivering boy who falls prey to bitches. im expecting more throughout the comic honestly and i hope he gets growth so hes not looked as a “victim” but rather his own character. he is still sweet, and i like him because i want to protect him, but id rather have more info, you know what i mean?

15. oh hell. kanaya had a chainsaw at some point. that made me happy. and didnt she cut off tavros’ legs?? and he got robot ones? and some creepy dude was looking and we called him saggy tits bc hes sagittarius? right? neat. that did happen. pretty sure saggy tits is ACs friend that tells her what to do. the more u know. OH and they all have colored blood similar to their text colors lol. that i remember... so tavros has brown, terezi has blueish green, um. karkat has grey the loser. and apparently it forms a rainbow which is nice. rainbow is good.

16. i dont remember anything else actually

17. wait no i do. AG appeared. shes a petty bully. idk what to say about her. we didnt get that much, except that she hates tavros but is okay with aradia. she also looks like a bottle opener. actually, i think she teamed with aradia to gain leadership rather than to “be friends”. and while that is similar to how karkat did it, meaning the gain, the motivation and how they earned it is entirely different. kinda seeing a trend tho. the leaders of the red/blue teams are both characters who wanted the role, but never had it to begin with. only to win their way into the position. but rather than ask non-stop like karkat did, AG manipulated others so she could be successful. not too sure if she also used aradia for that, or is actually motivated to become friends since they were “past enemies” and she needed a rebound. pretty sure its somewhat both. while AG did mostly use aradia to speak with sollux, what she doesnt know is that aradia is a bad bitch who never even thought about AG and only followed through with the plan bc she had a plan of her own. i guess we’ll look into that later. i lowkey want to know their history.

18. OH AC!!! she appeared for a second as well. love her. shes amazing. 9.5/10. and you may ask yourself, why am i saying “i love this character” but none of them are 10/10?? weellllll its because, and i cant stress this enough, 10/10 belongs to kanaya, i dont make the rules. im waiting for her introduction, shes my favorite and its obvious. sorry.

19. oh huh seems i forgot about the term “lusus”. which.. is.. their parents but not really, its these fucking weird ass creatures that the trolls fought in a cave or something as a child. i dont fucking know. terezi hatched hers and it died? gamzee’s also died but his goat sea dad was never really there to begin with so while it is sad, its more sad that gamzee never saw him? um.. karkat killed his own by exploding his computer bc sollux said dont run the virus and karkat said u cant tell me what to do and did it anyways. so thats on him. but apparently theyre supposed to die, to become prototyped during the game, right? yeah. i remember now.

20. thats.. about it? idk anything else, nothing is coming back to me apart from the shit above. huh.... im surprised how quickly things do come back to you the moment you rant about the plot tho.... handy trick.

cool. neat. fun. this took me too long. but im glad i remember a little bit.

[solidburnreturned]

by popular demand, here is my oc chatter regarding stuff like relationships n random character traits. its rly long oops but i divided it by character at least lmao,, these are all things that i think id also wanna use if i ever use these characters as humans (which i def will at some point honestly)

- i thinkkkk i want toad and pike to date. toad would come across pike in their lagoon one day while hes wandering around on another wonked exploration and pike is like hey lol :B with their pointy teeth and long ass hair and toad is like :0 he just sits and talks with pike for hours and comes by a few times a week to hang out with them. they fall in LOVE

- fred and lani are def gonna date too. two butches who use he/him pronouns fuck yeah? they have a powerful relationship. mega BDE. power couple. not a lot of pda but alone together theyre both very loving and tender, its a vulnerability thing for both of them. like lani is very cool and can be either stoic or borderline obnoxious while fred is punkish. fred is very head over heels for lani tho 

- mardi n berg.....complicated....i gotta figure out how they actually end up together. berg is a jogger and mardi is a piercer/tattoo artist so that doesnt....make them line up very much in that department. ill think about it more and figure something out. itll probably have something to do with berg’s nose stripes and eye rings

- also side note on mardi......i want his backstory to include a grey period set off by his brother being eaten when they were both young at the troll tree. like he becomes angry and depressed, sorta like branch, his tattoos that he gives himself the only color on his body, until he learns to let go and his colors come back (high key this was inspired by 21 savage, mardi’s voice claim, and the line in his new song A Lot “my brother lost his life and it turned me to a beast”). ill develop this idea further but i just wanted to get it written down

- bismuth.......unsure. they had a crush on pepper and kept trying to ask her out until she came out to them as a lesbian, then they were like :’) but theyre ride or die theyre not gonna be an ass to her because they cant date her. they just care a lot about her. its like icarly

- gazpacho and jupiter CUTE two small trans trolls in That Love. i need to develop them more but. theyre just cute 

- talia is still a little too new for me to develop her......but im thinkin about it...

- kinda same with ernie and olive. they kinda mostly just exist as cute babby characters right now? if anything olive is a trouble maker and ernie is a chatterbox

- clem and thursday also fuckin cute as hell......clem was a nervous wreck asking thursday out but theyve been together like ever since, which is more than a few years. they have a rly cute gentle lovey dovey relationship. thursday is usually hanging around up on her gf’s shoulder giving her kisses on the cheek

- bea and crystal.......adorabl relationship......crystal is another character thats kinda nervous but bea is so chill n confident is helps calm her down. theyre both trans and love the hell out of each other. rly slow n steady relationship, bea is very patient

- pj and marcus!!!! dumb mlm rep relationship. pj is so so gay for marcus he can barely comprehend it. its a dumb ego boost for marcus but hes also very in love with pj, he just expresses it in a weird cocky way idk marcus is a nerd. i need to make more content for them i think about these two way more than it seems

- dwight!! he has a boat. he lives on the boat.....ive thought about maybe pairing him with toad and pike. deciding on his voice claim has been the most difficult thing ever

- kass and current HELL yeah buff gf and tol gf......they spar with swords and wrestle for fun and hang out at the beach a lot. kass fuckin loves the gem on current’s back. i gotta make more content for them 

- celia......i wanna do more with celia. friends with berg probs theyre both sporty. shes just a sweet giant troll who loves mushrooms. i gotta pair her with someone whose palette goes nicely with her pastels 

- carrot and harriet are literally cricket and tilly from big city greens just older. yeehaw siblings. havent thought about relationship stuff with harriet yet.....i think she also needs ANOTHER redesign her colors are just too heavy still. maybe if i can make her colors compliment celia’s that could work as a pairing? hm hm.....carrot tho is dating ford’s oc rye theyre gentle country gays

- rainer. hm. i dont think theyre rly the dating type......theyre just chill with being them. they just wanna swim and be funny

- hammond and andromeda are probs two of my least developed characters.....hammond still needs a redesign. he might be cute to pair with walter, theyre around the same age. andromeda tho i have no idea. she might be a nice pairing with eve? if i ever feel like pairing her with someone...who knows. eve is very carefree and might find andromeda’s energy too intense

- radish i wanna make more content for!! i rly like her a lot....i think shes another troll who isnt interested in dating. shes very focused on being a chef instead. loves her friends a lot!

- mack and pepper 2gether 4ever obvs......they have a relationship that gets richer with age for sure

- im just gonna ramble about mack. i thinkkkkkkk i wanna make her half latina? columbian specifically. she doesnt quite read as white and i didnt make her with the intention of making her white. anyway i love mack a whole lot and should really develop her backstory more. its not rly as like...””tragic”” or whatever as pepper’s i know that but she def has layers. i wanna give her whole family more depth. she has a very complicated relationship with her own feelings and motivations that i need to think about more fully. my powerful femme tho i lov her

- mack’s parents, robin and champagne, i need to like....think about them more. they have kinda a comedic relationship thats sorta inspired by roger rabbit and jessica rabbit. robin is a very caring, gentle troll who’s very smart and cares a lot about his nursing responsibilities in the village. champagne is very relaxed and the “voice of reason” character of the family. she loves a good party and has her party planning down to a science. both are very successful power parents. kickass family

- i already talked about topaz and marney in a separate post but i still love them both so much. big wesbiabs

- pepper....pebber. im gonna talk about her the most obviously gfhjdkrs i wanna talk about her mental health i feel like i think about it a lot but i never write about it explicitly? this is gonna be long oops hgjfksd she has depression and ptsd stemming from the trauma of her crash...im thinking she also has adhd and thats just something shes always had. her depression rly got heavy during her recovery and right after like...she hated being bed/housebound and felt rly powerless to her situation and just let it eat at her until her personality had actually changed considerably. like extroverted wild child rebel to introverted, soft-spoken sulker. this got better with time but she still is pretty introverted, just turned her moodiness into chill energy. 

- she has bad depression habits like letting dishes, old food, laundry, or just stuff pile up in her room until it gets overwhelming and she spends like two days just manically cleaning; or staying in bed for way longer than she should and messing with her hygiene; or eating way more or way less than she should eat in a day. just stuff thats hard to completely break out of when youre recovering. her color is pretty consistently the dark red but if shes having a particularly rough day she might look a little paler, or like a muddy brick color at her worst. thats kinda rare tho

- her ptsd is the thing she hates the most. for a while it made her feel very weak and she’d beat herself up over being traumatized by the crash which was obviously not helpful to her mental state but she was really all over the place during her bodily recovery. its part of the reason why she started working out, she wanted to reclaim some sort of feeling of strength and power that she felt she’d lost completely. she still gets really frustrated with this feeling of loss but she gets a lot of support from loved ones which has helped her not self-blame so much. her ptsd manifests mostly as nightmares/insomnia, chronic headaches/stomachaches, intrusive thoughts and sometimes flashbacks. the nightmares are what rly get to her, she really doesnt get a lot of good sleep and it can get to the point where she just doesnt want to sleep sometimes and she’ll stay awake until she crashes hard

- her scars used to be a big trigger for her ptsd, which is why she has her bangs covering the one on her face and wears long pants (her knee braces are too bulky for pants and would force her to wear shorts which would force her to expose her scars). she just. really really hates them. this is something she struggles with for a majority of her life

- once she and mack start going steady with their dating and start consistently sleeping in the same bed, pepper starts to sleep better. she still has nightmares that wake her up at least weekly, but having mack there to comfort her (whether she wakes mack up accidentally or if mack is already awake) helps a TON with getting her back to sleep soundly. it also just helps her sleep in general to have that comforting, loving presence in her bed snuggled up to her ;w; mack is a big help in general with pepper’s mental health, pushing pepper to make better, healthier choices and get out in the village more and have fun. mack for sure does not “”cure”” pepper of anything but shes a very positive light in pepper’s life that helps her pull thru tough times!

- i love all my goofy trolls so much. its so fun to just chill and blab about them to relax between working on big projects ;o; ty if u cared enough to read this whole thing ur so rad

[unproduciblesmackdown]

yallnve realized by now that this is a fulltime 100% narnia blog...and as i havent slept since finding out someone somewhere was set on making "the silver chair" into a movie & the dynamic world of narnalysis is the best i can offer,

first of all im like.........ya rly gonna just jump into the silv chair!! im not really interested w the details on what anyone plans to do with the content b/c i donno, ive never been really interested in the book. not because its like bad or anything, actually it's probably the most cinematic in terms of things actually happening at a steady rate. i just like what i like, maybe because its sort of lower scale? whatever. its not like its hard to make into a movie i dont think, is what im saying. that would be either the horse and his boy or prince caspian, probably the latter b/c like a genuine 1/3 of it is an expository flashback. but all of the books are bit tricky to adapt coz theyre just short, you have to pad basically all of them in some way or another. but sure. silver chair. w/e

the thing is that you Have to assume despite starting afresh that theyre doing this one since the first three books have been recently filmed? and this being the fourth. but How Are You Going To Just Jump Into This One. thats an awful lot of exposition thats being built on, at this point in the game we're neck deep in the Lore. you'd really just have to have read the previous books or at least seen the movies. are they counting on the audience to have done that? but at the same time its really not fair to fully rely on that. in the book you can go "read the other books" and wave it off in a sentence of "and then they explained it all" which does tend to happen in the actual text a fair amt. its a bit awkward in movie form though? its a plot point right off that eustace knows who prince/king caspian is. so then you have to sum up dawn treader. and that has to do with what happened in prince caspian, in which the plot of lww is pretty important. like, alright, possibly you could just explain tvotdt & take it from the perspective of the girl who doesnt know crap about narnia yet? but thats not nearly as good a starting point as lww. on account of that ones meant to be a starting point! i'll see scholastic / any publishings that try to push magician's nephew as the first book In Hell, frankly. strongest narnpinion right there. the published order over the chronological order

anyways i'm sure it can be figured out, its just.......Interesting to think how the silver chair intro might be made into Intro To Narnia v.2.0? will they even try or will it be "ok but seriously just have read the books or whatever before you come in here." mystery unfolds

another thing thats interesting is that lww is clearly abt like, hey kids here's a version of the resurrection for you. whereas silver chair doesnt have anything to do w any Biblical Events at all (tho of course neither does prince caspian, tvotdt, or the horse & his boy). it is instead about how atheists will try to steal your firstborns for.................reasons. (no reason, theyre just evil.) this one is just a major amplified version of another particularly ridiculous CS Lewis Apologism Favorite that runs through the books: that when it comes to having no Faith (in aslan but you know also the abrahamic god) everyone who doubts aslan/god is like, actively lying to themselves, because they have that Gut Feeling telling themself that their faith is not only whats righteous but also whats true. the gut feeling of truth is a big theme in the books, shit hinges on it all the time and makes doubt all Clearly Sinful instead of a reasonable result of aslan effing off for centuries or whatever. and speaking of, god only knows if lewis is really suggesting that real life doubt or nonreligiousness is 100% populated by people who are clenching their fists like "i know in my heart jesus is real but i dont want to believe it so i won't, damnit!" which yknow makes no sense for like....life, and uh? i dont know what its supposed to mean for like....other religions? i dont think he's about putting the nuance that not every concept of religious Faith is the same as in christianity into this book, i dunno abt his thoughts irl. lord knows its a mystery how he thinks that "if jesus wasnt lying and jesus wasnt Insane then christianity is real" argument means anything. nothing in the world fits that argument for finding out if something is true or not........and also it hinges on that concept of "insanity" which......like.......i'm sure is all about nice 1940s ideas of how "insane" people act. its shit, throw it out, i mean. and besides? as though theres a Logic argument to prove christianity as truth? have you just Solved religion, lewis? have you? sometimes, i swear..

anyhow so in the silver chair its just a big ol festival of his "atheists are lying to themselves" and "atheism starts by someone who Knows The Truth (jesus is real) lying to others, likely aka the devil or whatever, and the stand-in for the devil is a witch again." and lewis really seems fond of the allegory of the cave. smh! like, in that allegory "knowing" that your faith is true is impossible! but youre also out here arguing its logically provable? and don't forget the gut feelings thing. but it makes NO sense for him to drop it into this book universe because in this allegory the prince captured by atheists & the protags are people who have hopped into the cave and seen the sun and shit!! they dont need to be the people who have only ever seen shadows who need to be convinced that an outside world can exist!!! bitch!!! get your allegory in order. silver chair just.....lord. the lying babysnatching atheists

a n y w a y s . . . thats a weird conflict to put in your third act, and its also a weird argument to make re christianity, that even though you acknowledge its impossible to know that your faith is in something thats real, you're willing to risk it? its sort of like that idea that you might as well be religious even if you dont "believe" any religion is true, because you lose nothing and potentially gain both comfort in life and reward in an afterlife. but its kind of a big deal in christianity that you're supposed to believe that what you believe in Is Literally Real. maybe apologists are allowed to do that sort of thing in their arguments, i suppose. its like in the last battle where he has a dude who believes in another deity accepted into the christian afterlife b/c despite a lack of belief, his virtuous nature is, from a practical standpoint, accepted to be for all intents and purposes to be equivalent to having believed in the christian god, like if he happened to follow all other rules except the Believing In Jesus one then he's good to go anyhow. interesting in that its also supposed to be pretty vital in christianity that one has to accept jesus as god in order to be Saved all up into heaven! i suppose that guy in the book was meant to have been converted right before death or whatever. at that point its very unclear who is exactly dead or not, but probably everyone. still, aslan clearly makes the argument that "basically you might as well have been believing in me, so you're good to go." fascinating stuff. another one to ask lewis abt

uhhhh another point is that i think theyre intending to make other movies also? but not all four remaining ones!! and if i had to guess which one they'd be leaving out uhh lets say....the horse & his boy....................which conveniently is the other sort of sparsely plotted one. two kids ride horses towards narnia, briefly have to have a shenanigansy undercover sneak through a crowded city, ride towards narnia some more, and then one of them stays at some guys house while the other kid goes into narnian battle where he himself doesnt actually do anything, but that fact is described pretty funnily. its still sort of a fun one, on account of the sneaking around hijinx, and the fact that it happens to give ANY of the details of what tf the pevensies did for like the twenty years they reigned over narnia's golden age which the lww just tells you absolutely n o t h i n g about! the answer is: a lot of battling probably, on account of narnia went from being ruled for a century by someone who could kill you in a second and also why would you have invaded narnia at that time, it wouldve been like trying to invade russia. but then a bunch of kids took the throne and upended the whole system and the snow went away, it seems like a destabilizey time to invade or whatever. imo. but then again they mightve bought themselves a few years on account of aslan having shown up and all. but lbr, they were just put into battle right off and coronated three seconds later, theres no reason on that front that they wouldnt shy away from having more battles. and the books said there were a lot of battles. and in thahb, its like, well we've been battling a lot lately and now we're in shenanigans and we'll just have to battle our way out of it, which they absolutely do. edmund straight up decapitates a guy. how ARE they supposed to just transition immediately into english schoolchildren after a couple decades of that mess??? they even have the fancy courtly speech. its magic i suppose

the point is its kind of a fun book, oh also, aslan is TOP shenanigans in this one. he straight up actually attacks one of the protagonists, for Reasons, but still. not that he doesn't murder the pevensies in the last book. i mean, i guess you could argue that its just like Divine Coincidence where what with the unaligned timelines betwixt england and narnia, aslan couldve just picked the moment everyone was gonna die anyway and just tossed them over to X point in time in narnia. but I Donno.....im kinda with that university student who's stressing about whether aslan cause ww2 for the purpose of sending the pevensies to the wardrobe. like, that train accident that killed everybody killed four people on the platform & five people on the train in different carriages and everything, or maybe the numbers are switched because i dont remember where lucy was. im saying, that was a hell of a crash. but sure. anyhow, even more fun, aslan appears as a cat to the Other protag while he's spending a night on the edge of the wilderness, and scratches him for saying he once threw rocks at a stray cat. like, hard #same, aslan!!! wtf dude why arent YOU being claimed by satan

whats also fun is that it doesn't really take place in narnia, which is also the reason besides pacing that you wouldnt really want to make this one into a film? because uhhhh the whole worldbuilding lewis crapt upon everyone for calormen is clearly racist as fuccck. if you arent already familiar with all the books (namely this one and i suppose the last battle) then its like.....i guess its some sort of vague notion of the ottoman empire? its really just a mashup of any number of white-english-variety racist notions. everyone is brown, is it an inaccurate stab at an amorphous amalgam of middle eastern culture? east asian? are people islamic or hindu? just try and guess what he was going for because its just. not based on anyone needing to know anything about reality. lewis was against seasoning food i guess, because it will mention i guess like, people cooking with onions like the heathens they are. (spoilers: this country just exists in the narniaverse to represent Those Heathens). its not necessarily an Evil place, they are noble savages ok!! with their formal seriousness and cutthroat customs.......b/c they are not as advanced and peaceful as the white northern christians, see. closer to the less developed violence of their inherently backwards ways and Cruel Society reigned by violence DONT CONVERT OR YOU'LL DIE, KIDS. but also.....you wont be white? the reason of calormens existence is really never explained. telmarines came from englandverse on accident thru a magic portal just lying around, possibly thats whats meant to have happened there too? its never attempted to be explained. anyways its basically the intro to the disney aladdin.

lewis is entirely inconsistent and self contradictory all throughout the series for the sake of the authors convenience. this is part of what makes the stories fun and the worldbuilding charming. it is also what allows him to pull stunts that have you pinching the bridge of your nose in exasperation and writing out essays to try to figure out how narnia is supposed to work. it is also what allows him, five books in, to be like, "here is the country to the south where the demon-worshipping gross scary brown uncivilized folk sit around hating narnia and confirming any racist notion you have about any nonwhite nonchristian country or culture." thanks, clive

its of course ludicrous and, of course, the protagonist shasta just so happens to be white despite being raised calormene. spoilers, he is narnian. or really from archenland, which isnt narnia but is still white and pro-narnia so its alright. i mean, technically narnia is allied with calormen at all points in time of the series? calormen just quietly tries an invasion in that book and also in the last book. so thats interesting. i suppose lewis is anti-crusades, which is big of him. the pevs arent out here trying to conquer calormen and convert them to narnianism. so that must not be the Destiny of the true christian? or are we meant to believe calormenes are beyond help? shasta who is of course secretly not "really" calormene is still representing someone undergoing "conversion," yet again, the guy is white. i suppose being brown is whats hopeless?

theres an inadvertently laughable line at the start of the book where a calormene expositorially points out that shasta is white by comparing him to the "accursed but beautiful" narnians. who are all white? is he just talking about the pevensies? the archenlanders (i cant remember where theyre meant to have come from either.) are like, all humanoid narnian natives white?? wtf, aslan. anyways, the dialogue is unnatural and funny enough, but its also like.....ok lewis, we got it, whiteness is the standard for all universes and everyone wishes they were white. stupid, sexy narnians.

what alllllmost suggests that being a poc isnt an automatic fastpass to hell is that im fairly sure the second protagonist aravis is a nonwhite calormene?? i dont remember it ever saying she was "fair" like the narnians the way the book immediately points out that shasta is. she is of course escaping an arranged marriage (the calormene plot to sort of vaguely try to invade narnia is also based on forcing susan to marry a dude she doesnt like yet who she apparently genuinely considered as a suitor when he wasnt acting like a jerk? so not only a dude who isnt white but a dude who isnt aslanian christian. its a whole complicating element to just toss out in this otherwise flat af worldbuilding, dude!! not to mention? despite the battles and shit, susan was out here considering marriage? how absolutely fucked up would it have been if any of them married and then effed off back to england. moving along) but she is from the start portrayed as equally sympathetically as shasta and nothing about her is pointed out as being Bad and Reprehensible, which the narration has no qualms about doing. she even gets to spend some time with her calormene friend, who is not exactly meant to be as sympathetic or noble but certainly isnt portrayed as at all evil. like...theres at least the occasional exception apparently, in which maybe not every person is inherently evil and violent and cruel. who knows

also aravis definitely later marries the white protag?? but apparently interracial marriage isnt entirely Unthinkable here. wait, also, aravis claims to be somehow a direct descendant of the calormene god tash? first of all, is that true, comma, possible? in the last book its confirmed that tash is real, albeit, like, a demon. dunno what c.s. is telling us with that one. is aravis related to a demon. we can only guess on account of the theme of Inconsistency

anyways. i suppose you could make it into a movie if you just threw out the racist shit. but the "calormen is also distinguished from narnia via its religion" element is also a touch janky. can it be thrown out too? if they intend to produce the last battle, will it be thrown out then. it kind of comes up again. if you get rid of those elements though, the stakes get a little blurrier and more political and more "wait well why would they have any beef with each other in the first place" if you cant just easily point out that the calormenes are shaking their fists at the narnians and their demon worship and their jealousy at not being white. again, are all centaurs white or something? wtf

truly calormene is the most racist ass shit in the whole series, but the concept comes up in less painfully direct ways other times, too. why are there native species in narnia that are considered inherently evil?? sure, the white witch as the stand-in for the devil wasn't originally from narnia. was she creating shit too? i dont remember what she was up to on account of i havent read the magicians nephew in a hot minute. i know they had to take a pegasus into a garden of eden type shit to smoke her out of wherever she was lurking for some reason or another. still. whys there whole types of creatures who are universally and unilaterally condemned? i know we're meant to believe that they just have evil intent according to their nature, but uh....theres no point at which any of these creatures are given a chance? maybe they served the white witch because she was nice to them for once. you're not given the chance to know. EXCEPT for the fact that you get shit like: giants are evil save for the occasional exception, like in lww when a "good" giant is described as having like, a long family line, and "traditions." not like Those Sorts. they do talk in like prince caspian and shit, when their numbers are miserable and theyre discussing tactics, whether to get help from the gross hags and harpies and etc and ppl will talk about Those People and Sorts and Rabble and its like...jfc. b/c apparently sommme of them can be decent! if theyre a giant or whatever. and meanwhile the dwarfs are always chaotic neutral or whatever. not believing in aslan but not necessarily being anti-narnia coz they live there. but sometimes being good guys!! but sometimes being bad guys, and jadis was cool to them apparently. like.................theres definitely cases of Types of narnians who fall outside the "born good / born bad" system, and thats pretty fucked. wolves too? theyre the Talking Beasts aslan definitely created, but on the side of the white witch? how was she having trees be on her side, too? whats going on around here. whats the moral meant to be. smh

uhh well anyhow, you could do a nice essay on gender re narnia. on account of sometimes its staleass typical sexist tropes like uhh, say,, the devil stand-ins keep being women? witches, ok. and the idea of "women need to be protected as pure creatures" as a basic sexist notion, and even lewis taking a relatively subdued jab at the idea of calling that sexist. susan being the miniature mom character type, and of course the infamous last battle bit where, in an attempt to describe her lack of spirituality as a self-insert of what lewis considered his own period of fake maturity via rejection of christianity, she's of course not only described as not believing in narnia (which????? what is anyone supposed to make of that. again, in the allegory of the cave shit, she's been outside the cave!!! she lived in narnia for YEARS AND YEARS and then WENT BACK. how are we supposed to believe she just convinced herself it wasnt literally real? its not quite the same as someone losing their faith in christianity.) but as like, wearing makeup, damn her. even if he wasnt trying to make the point that "look at boys and go to hell" which, i suppose he couldnt, as in narnia susan was being courted just fine as queen, yet i suppose also she didnt marry anyone—anyways, of course its still sexist to slight the way she decides to dress as some form of false maturity, even if its meant to be metaphor. just clumsy af & not great when again, devils are always witches around here. and being younger is to be more spiritually pure which like............mmm ok. this is sort of another one of those weirdly sexless fantasy universes, why do those keep happening. i mean sure this is a christian fairy tale for kids. but nobody even gets married save for in the last paragraphs of a couple books. its left a bit ambiguous whether thats even spiritually acceptable in the narnia rules, unless its to Continue the Line a la the telmarine monarchy from caspian the first to tirian the whateverth. hm

but also of course you get the young girl characters being...somewhat almost allowed to fight (archery mainly) but anyways at least being given equal status to the boys who are there also. theres even mention of once apparently narnia being ruled by a queen w no kings around. fantastic. and theres some non-witch lady characters on occasion. the human characters are where the dynamics are most at, i suppose, but anyways this at least has some nuance & at times seems to go just a bit beyond what you might expect from some old dude in the 50s. still not that surprising or innovative, but not completely flat, and seeming to contain at least a little reflection upon the topic

the essay of race re: narnia would be really short though. Its Racist Af. if you threw classism in too, you might get a bit more length out of it. but really its just so flat in this subject, and totally needless. there's the fact that even narnia is ruled by white english people but.....you can really do without juxtaposing this with the heinous nonwhite country somewhere over there. the rest of the books operate just fine w/o this

tolkien mentioned HIS scary brown backwards civilization to the south a lot more fleetingly in lotr but its....v much the same worldbuilding as narnia??? aka middle earth is pretty much an imaginary proto-england where you dont want to go too far east or south or you run into dangerous &/or inherently evil territory!! ok, jrr.....who was the other people in the inklings?? what did they write. could no one rein these guys in. coz lewis is over here with his Alternate Universe england. with uhhhh wilderness to the north and west and the dangerous evilish racismland to the south. and the ocean and dont forget narnia is a flat earth to the east. also? why are the lone islands like that. can aslan take care of some of that shit. for gods sake. anyways. the all-white good guys / evil poc should be thrown out of everything, thats not what makes the worldbuilding in either lotr or chronarnia at all interesting. yet is it is surely a subsection of the inherent Englishness of both examples........it warrants analysis but not "carrying on into films or anything based on either's precedence in the fantasy genre."

god who knows what im talking about at this point. im just saying "if they arent looking to even bother trying to wrangle the horse and his boy into something not ludicrously racist then i wouldnt be at all surprised." still, do you suppose theres like a curse where unless all narnia books are given some sort of film adaptation, the world won't know peace? more likely the world would end, maybe. the curse of clive. i dont really remember but that elder bbc series sure didnt cover the whole saga

well this is long enough but lets all set off in more endless, doomed narnalysis, such as

my thesis on trying to figure out what. the Fuck any reader is supposed to make out of edmund's role in the lww

whats the deal with merpeople?!

where are all these witches coming from, anyways

seriously if the narnians were just less murderous to the Undesirable species would they have been on the pro-aslan side all along

if there was only two humans staying in narnia at its birth, wouldnt their line like, die out immediately with their kid.

where did the archenlanders come from

where did the calormenes come from

oh yeah and like. are we seriously meant to believe that, at the end of the world, when aslan reveals that being goodnatured supercedes having the Wrong Religion, there is only one calormene in all of a) current existence and b) history who fits the bill? really. why even bring it up, then.

how did narnians react to their four monarchs completely disappearing......for real.....and what happened to the line to the throne?? was there just no ruler until the telmarines came in and took things over for the rest of the few centuries or whatevs.

when was that deep magic in lww written? at the start of narnia? coz thats the magicians nephew. again, how tf did the white witch get any leverage in that one. how was that supposed to be a good idea. wtf. see my thesis

whats the white witch supposed to represent as a stand-in for the devil? not helping that i dont remember the details of magicians nephew for shit, but she's definitely in the Multiverse lore of narnia as being from a different world as narnia and england. wtf is like...her nature

how weird is it in narnia that you have a god who drops in confused alien children to both go on personal journeys and save the world? is narnia-aslan/earth-jesus also dropping other children from other worlds into other other worlds? via other forms? hmm

lewis is all but inviting us the readers to be filling in the blanks with narnia fic. he's basically like, outright actually inviting fic with people wanting to speculate what happens with susan, who must inevitably return to narnia as lewis intends her to represent his own departure from (and obvious inevitable return to) christianity

a weird detail that is also never elaborated on: in addition to the narrator freely inserting loads of opinions into the narration, there's a time or two its made clear that like, the narrator has gotten this info from interviewing the characters. how'd you know about that last battle, "they all died and this happened in the afterlife" shit, huh. just another weird element

sussing out other lewispinions, like how he hates all schools apparently

narnia vs middle earth!! both quasi englands, both pre industrialization, both with christ figures running around some more than others, both with the need for rightful kings, totally different roles for humans tho. well, thats the whole comparison

and, inevitably, more.

[wupassman]

Reviewing SweetStoryBro’s Review of the Shenmue story

https://twitter.com/sweetstorybro/status/831177322803892225

Some first ofs:

I am writing this directly adressing Sweetstorybro because it feels more natural and less impersonal to address him but that doesn’t mean it’s not intended for anybody else. I am one of the big backers (toy capsule set pledge) so I have a lot to say about this game I fought 14 years for to get that Kickstarter.

I am sorry if this may read a lil bit like a scatterbrained person wrote this. I basically take notes as I listen and since I managed to lose my write up for the first half of the podcast I had to rewrite that from memory too.

I really like the effort and research you put into this, while in places I can add something overall this is very sastisfying for a long time fan and definately a pretty goddamn complete rundown of what the story is about and how its executed. That being said generally if there’s agreement there is not a whole lot more to add so if I don’t outright disagree you can assume I agreed.

Let get to it then:

I think you did a really good job at explaining in which way Shenmue surpasses your average gaming experience, while its clearly a game it kinda goes past playing but experiencing. As you pointed out this game can be a very different experience for each player based on how hard they are looking to find connections and generally explore the world (and progress the story at just the right pace as to not miss a single cutscenes XD It’s not too easy to make a 100% run but if you do, things like Nozomi moving isn't as much out of the blue, yes she basically leaves as abrupt as he does but it's foreshadowed during the convos with her). Yu indeed built a very lifelike world with tons of lil details and NPCs that felt real. I really like how you brought up that book explaining what Yu was trying to do with this world. That was a thing I fan haven't heard of before. Indeed it is a very key aspect to differentiate between japanese and chinese, which of course becomes a much bigger deal in part II even, when Ryo is removed from his stomping grounds but in Hongkong. It's actually p interesting how a game about chinese culture was kinda a main idea from the beginning, as he was inspired to be making Shenmue (then Akira RPG/Project Berkley) many years prior, when he travelled China in order to research martial arts for Virtua Fighter.

As this is a perfect segway I’ll be skipping ahead a little bit here and talk about the fighting system.On of the main genres I always played were fighting games so I personally appreciated the super simplified VF fighting system (try VF3TB from the same time and youll know the difference) and being such a player I wouldnt even have thought of wanting to play this with analog stick. Golden rule of fighting games: dpad = accuracy, analog = wishy washy. That being said I am not at all opposed to change it up for Shenmue III and make it feel more like Sleeping Dogs. After all back in the day it was a different controller not quite as handy for 3D games (the lack of a 2nd stick means a lot). As long as the fighting is tight and responsive it works for me either way, iof there is a change that needs to happen it’s the camera. I am not really holding it against the game cuz it’s really old but the camera screw ups during fights could leave you clueless which way youre facing at times.

I wouldnt worry too much about the thing with the chapters. The games don’t equal chapters. It’s more like arcs/themes (as you later said when talking about the PostMortem). From basically the very start Shenmue was supposed to be split into 5 games and as of yet the plan/hope is that the final game will be Shenmue V. Shenmue I was only 1 chapter but Shenmue II was 3.

At the risk of completly blowing any kind of credibility I might have and just come off as a crazed fanboy: The pacing of Shenmue I had purpose. It very much corresponds with the mental state of Ryo. Feeling of grief and feeling lost. Shenmue I basically is about running into a brickwall and trying a different path until at the end he finally finds a way to get his passage to China. Until then his plans were shattered and ruined a couple of times and it weighs on him. And it should weigh on the player too. It’s part of how you manage to get this deep connection to the character because you as a player are forced to live out the day as is (or just go for the blocking out that your dad was killed and spend all day in the You Arcade). this is further emphasiszed that in Shenmue I theres rarely ever good weather and most of the soundtrack is depressing too. The days getting long is absolutely intentional. I can see how this might not be the most fun kind of gaming for a lot of people, but this is why different games exist. Shenmue’s job is not to appeal to players who can’t enjoy a game where shit doesn’t explode every 5 seconds. It is important to tell people who are interested so they know what theyre in for but its not actually a negative for the game itself because it actually perfectly fullfills what was required for this part of the story.

There is no way to talk about this without explaining how this correlates with the 4 themes Yu brought up and why Shenmue II is such a change of tone. It’s not just the fact that Hongkong is a bustling metropolis. It is very much the fact that due to the unseen part on the ferry and much more so because of all the masters and other freaks he meets in Hongkong that he opens up more. Again the change in tone of Shenmue II is also accompanied by visual and audio cues. THe soundtrack of Shenmue II is overall more upbeat, depressing themes do play in the more run down quarters but overall the game sounds cheerier. Likewise its not just that Hongkong of course is a much more colorful place than the suburban area he grew up in. It’s also basically always sunny in SHenmue II. Granted it makes a lot of sense due to the different seasons the game takes place in but of course with a highly artistic work like this, this is not a coincidence.

Let’s move right into the next part here. Yes Ryo behaves like a jerkass towards a lot of his peers. While there is a chance that the Voice Acting has some to do with it (No dissing Corey Marshall, the man is a hero!) it is still fully intended for him to be as cold and brooding as he is. You can tell by the face animation, which is p goddamn good for a game that old. Every Shenmue player made jokes about how Ryo’s happy face looks the same as his angry face. His moments where he is at least not totally miserable are rare and special. He is consumed with grief in Shenmue I. Shenmue II is about moving forward from that. HENCE DEPARTURE. not just locally but mentally. I really need to compare the interactions he had with the 2 most important females in his personal life.

The first one is obviously Nozomi: These conversations are awkward for more reasons than just them sucking at talking about their feelings (which btw isnt just them being teens but really very much them being japanese in this era too). Keep in mind both are aware of the feelings the other one has so they have a very close relationship. You’d think close enough for him to actually tell Nozomi what hes on and about to do in order to find the killer of his father. He doesn’t He’s very sparse with the information he shares which is entirely rooted in the fact that revenge is highly egoistical (heres a theme that gets such importance placed upon in Shenmue II). That doesn’t even mean hes an egoist, cuz he is not. He is just super preoccupied with his grief and aparently nobody really knows how to help him finding a better way to deal with it (given his age that makes sense too, no complaints there). As I mentioned earlier tho it depends on your play how many scenes with Nozomi you’re going to see (the Shenmue Passport cd is a good reference). Also since it wasn’t actually out of the blue that she would be going to Canada soon it is quite understandable she has a hard time telling him about her feelings too. This is not only a well known story beat but IRL youd think whether you wanna tell someone you love them when you know for a fact you’ll be moving overseas anytime soon. Especially when you consider the circumstance that if Ryo wasn’t on his revenge trip he’d assume his role as patriarch of the Hazuki Dojo.

Now lets fast forward to disc 4 of Shenmue II (THIS GEM!) and inspect the interactions Ryo has with Shenhua. These are amazing. They’re literally the best conversations Ryo has in all of the 2 games. Shenhua’s cheery and innocent, good natured personality makes it exceedingly hard for him to be the brooding jerkass anymore. A lot of that has to do with all the people he met who became his friends/mentors in Hongkong/Kowloon. He grew because of them. But Shenhua’s personality helped a great deal too. All of the sudden there are no distractions. Just the environment and her. What else would he do but chat with her? If you havent played Shenmue II I implore you to just youtube the conversations he has with Shenhua and compare with Nozomi yourself. It’s like night and day and p much the ultimate signifier for his growth throughout the progress of the game. Now this is venturing a into fan theory territory: the fan base is p much split down the middle of what kind of romantic role Nozomi is going to play in Ryo’s future. To me shes the child hood love interest that never became more due to him being preoccupied and her frankly not actually being available either. It would seem sensible to accept this as a chance missed as a part of moving on. I am positive he is going to end up with Shenhua as she resumes transforming him from this brooding dude preoccupied with revenge to a guy who truly internalises the lessons he learnt in Hongkong and adds a big helping of humanity to it. 

Not to excuse his behavior towards Ine-san and Fukuhara-san (because you rightly identify them as cold) part of that is also rooted in japanese culture. With Iwao’s death Ryo became the patriarch of the family. Ine-san may scold him but in the end it is not her place to deny him. Likewise Fukuhara-san was Iwao’s student so that kind of transferred to Ryo now. The bigger point here is that he abandons his responsibilities for them. I don’t think it’ll have actual negative impact for him in story, but there is likely going to be a moment of awakening that it is high time he returns home and takes care of the martial arts school.

I am sorry this actually took a 2nd day to finish but I got busy watching Collisions 2017. I only listened to it once but in seghments. Since I am such a huge fan of the game I wanted to be fair and not overanalyze your review and find nitpicks where there arent any.

While the individual play style is entirely up to each player it is my recommendation for everyone playing this, it to give it time. Let it breathe. Just waste your time away doing fun stuff. You’re going to miss out on a lot if you’re playing it in the way youd play most linear games where you just resume with the next goal in the main quest like crossing of a check list. You are not supposed to leave this early. During my fast plays I still never finished before christmas. At best I managed a jan 15 arrival in Hongkong just to see if I manage to arrive on my own birthday lol. But in all seriousness the time limit for this game is so goddamn long because you arent really suppoed to rush through this too fast. Leaving by the middle of January or even by the end of it makes for an overall better experience IMO (lol I just heard the 10 hours thing and I damn near lost it haha. look as I said it’s ok to play it any way you see fit, but seriously 10 hours literally means just the main quest. no goofing off. You’re missing out on stuff and an overall more majestic experience is all I am saying) To me the harbor segment was super fun cuz it was cool figuring out how you get the most out of each day, incl at least some good toy collecting and maybe training (usually didnt need that anymore at this point). By no means I am trying to tell you to like an aspect you didn’t, but to me this very much comes down to how deep you immerse yourself in the world. If you let the time go by slowly (dont run basically😉) such things as working have a deeper impact on how you experience it - then 2h lunch break still feels like 15 minutes. It was literally the opposite for me in that the harbor is when I am p much forced to move the plot forward instead of just goofing off so much. I know people who share this kinda play style feel the same way that the harbor is - to us - where it really picks up.

Before my review of this is over I’d also like to personally recommend the japanese dub over the english dub. Yeah the english dub feels weird at times but this is also intentional. A good comparision to that would be the lines in the Spartacus TV show. Just like that one was speaking latin in english the Shenmue dub was speaking japanese in english if you get my meaning. The VAs talked about this on the SEGANerds podcast during the kickstarter. Of course due to having played it so much it works for me but it’s easy to tell the difference. At the same time I can not praise the english VAs enough for being incredible heroes who promoted the Kickstarter hard, it was amazing. I love all of you guys. Thank you for your passion. Will def play Shenmue III in both japanese and english to honor all of you!

I warned ya it’s prolly a lil bit all over the place. Anyway thanks for the review. give the man a follow: https://twitter.com/sweetstorybro