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interstellar-inn · 6 months ago

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꩜— greetings all, happy wednesday! mod cotton here and i am pleased to announce our creator of the week!

what is creator of the week?

creator of the week is a project started by the network to celebrate different writers and artists in our community. with such a vast network of amazing and talented creators, we think it's only fair we show a little extra love to each one, one creator at a time. creator of the week aims to show a little extra support to creators by shining a special starlight on them and featuring a few of their works. you can help support too by giving them a follow, or if you read their fics and find that you like any of them, make sure to reblog and let them know!

with that, congratulations to fawn a.k.a @dearbraus! as this month being pride month, we wanted to highlight a creator who writes queer fics and fawn is practically the pioneer. they are a very pleasant individual to interview and talk to! during our interview, we talked about their experiences as a queer creator on tumblr, fandom, and the community all together; and get to know them more! touch read more for the full interview below!

1. what made you join tumblr? how long have you been a member all together?

i joined tumblr originally for fanart and fandom! i believe it was for the hunger games and percy jackson! that was back in 2014 so it’s been about ten years as of this year!

2. what's keeping you to the site? is there anything you like about it? what could be changed?

honestly the community! even with all its flaws it’s the community that keeps me on tumblr. i do of course love supporting my fellow artists and writers but this specific corner of tumblr is really special in a way that it cannot be found elsewhere. i really like how tumblr allows you to personalise your blog and the ask function as it makes for fun interactions without the pressure of it being private. i’d honestly only change how the tag system works because it can be so finicky with getting posts to show up lol!

3. what is the most difficult part for you when it comes to brainstorming/writing?

hm, it’s definitely picking a character! i have such trouble picking just one of my favourites because i want to give them all love! and when it comes to writing fics i struggle with starting things off. i tend to get ideas of a specific scene in the middle of the story and have to build around that one scene so it makes the beginnings and endings a bit tricky.

4. what is the proudest/most inspirational moment you've experienced in creating so far?

i’ve had many moments but if i had to choose just one it’d be when i created my royal au series as it pushed me to my limits in terms of creativity and how much i could write. i’ve never written as much as i have for that series and i’m really proud of myself

5. as a queer creator yourself, what was your experience as a content creator? what keeps you going?

i’ve had a lot of ups and downs when it comes to writing as a queer person whether it be due to people questioning my identity or just blatant homophobia. there are times too where it has definitely felt a bit lonely as someone who writes a substantial amount of queer fanfic or at least enough to where i’m know for writing such fics, however i’ve managed to find and make a small community of other queer writers which is really important to me. they’re definitely what keeps me going and so are my readers. i’ve received some very lovely comments on my work that really just motivate me to keep going and remind me why i write what i do even when i feel discouraged

6. where do you find your muse to start creating? what inspires you?

i started writing as a kid and always loved to insert myself into whatever piece of media i was currently fixated on. i didn’t take things too seriously when i was younger and it was very much just a hobby back then but it has now evolved into a passion that allows me to express my innermost feelings even if it’s through writing anime x reader fics. i still am very much inspired by self inserting through my current fixations but it has shifted more towards inserting in the name of representation. while i’ve been a bit too busy as of late to delve into writing longer fanfics, last year i wrote two fics which centred heavily around readers experiencing mental health issues as well as compulsory heterosexuality because these are things that i’ve found to be not so readily spoken about outside of online spaces. i really do enjoy using fanfiction and writing in general to explore things that are considered taboo in a slightly unconventional way

7. do you have any advice for any first-time content creators?

don’t put so much pressure on yourself! i think due to the commodification of hobbies, there’s this idea that if we write or make art that it must be mass produced but what makes art special is that it’s one of a kind! so if you’re a first time writer/artist on tumblr, don’t force yourself to creator in the hopes of appeasing others! create because you’re inspired and because you’re having fun! also, don’t let others ruin your fun!!!! i think that’s the most important thing, block liberally to protect your peace, use tumblrs filtering feature to hide anything that you dislike, and ignore those coming into your inbox looking to cause trouble!!! i definitely struggled with taking things to personally when i first started writing and it sucked the fun out of sharing my writing very quickly until i learned that i shouldn’t let others being negative and mean get in the way of my enjoyment

8. do you have any advice for anyone looking for a server/network to join?

hm, i think my biggest piece of advice would be don’t be scared! join servers and networks even if you don’t know the owners/mods super well! it can be super scary being in a new space with new people but i promise it’s well worth it! way back in 2021 i joined audrey’s very server not knowing anyone and have since join all the other iterations that came afterward because there was such love and care put into her servers (that are still there with the interstellar inn!) and have loved meeting so many new people who are in all kinds of different life paths. and for anyone reading this looking for a server or network to join i definitely think you should join the interstellar inn, theres so many fun events and watch parties being held that make the server a really fun space! and the network is very well organized and cared for that i’m in awe! and of course i would love to befriend any person reading this who ends up joining hehe

visit fawn's blog ( @dearbraus ) or check out their tag at the inn here!

that's all from us! see you next time and be sure to follow fawn and check out their works! <333

— cotton

edit: thank you to the anon who pointed out our oversight! we have since corrected it. fawn's pronouns are they/them. we deeply apologize for our mistake.

#꩜— creator of the week #꩜— member: dearbraus

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bonaesperanza · 1 year ago

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I'm rereading the Lymond Chronicles right now and, as a lover of twisty, strategic bastards, I have to say that Dunnett understands things about how to write them properly that few others do. Everything that happens in these books lands in a very heavy, physical way - like, you can almost feel the physical thunk as events land, whereas most other twisty bastards books feel like floaty CGI whose physicality you're never really fully buying, fun as the special effects are.

So I tried to do a little analysis as to why, because I live for a twisty strategic bastard narrative :)

Lymond has a personality and is driven by his emotions, despite his cleverness and chessmaster tendencies - he doesn't do everything out of strategic consideration, and you can clearly see his fault lines from the start - glimpses of suppressed emotion, flaws that may be his undoing, irrational choices that clearly fulfill a psychological purpose but not a strategic one. Everyone is allowed to be pathetic and annoying and unlikeable. And all this is allowed to shape the plot - sometimes the character will be allowed emotions and a personality but not where it impacts the plot, so you will get a sort of a parallel lines thing where there's an "emotion" plot where the character is perhaps allowed to be flawed and show off their personality, and which perhaps impacts their interpersonal relationships, and a "competence" plot where the character always performs near-flawlessly and their emotions never enter into the game, and never the twain shall meet. No matter how controlled and self-possessed someone is, it strains my credulity when a person is portrayed as someone in possession of major personal flaws or psychological anguish, and yet this is never allowed to spill over into the way they interact with the "competence" plot or derail them in any way. Especially if they are portrayed as someone suppressing everything for efficiency's sake - they are going to crack at some point, and the stitches are going to burst open like a shaken bottle of soda with innards flying everywhere and hitting everyone around them, and if they're not, you're clearly not putting your character under enough pressure. Which makes for a boring story. The fact that Lymond is 100% human 100% of the time actually makes him look more competent and impressive, not less.

He is allowed to fail, because flaws are human and failure is human. The more convoluted a plan the more possible points of failure it has, and this is especially the case if large chunks of it rely on understanding and manipulating human beings: humans are messy complex dynamic systems, like the weather, and are therefore difficult if not impossible to predict to that degree of granularity. Lymond is allowed to misjudge Scott, for example, he is allowed to have his convoluted plans go wrong, and this is allowed to derail him: sometimes he bounces back, yes, but he is not constantly failing upwards, and his failures do have unfixable consequences sometimes. If they never did, the narrative would become boring and void of tension and emotion. The fact that the difficulty of pulling off these plans is realistically portrayed through the inclusion of stochasticity makes me admire his capacity to pull them off as often as he does more and not less.

He is allowed to fail in a way that's his own fault - combining my previous two points, it's not always that circumstances have conspired in such a way that he couldn't possibly predict or influence it; his failures are often a consequence of his own flaws and his own psychological hangups and blind spots, and are therefore all the more pleasing to read about because they tie into the emotional and personal narrative of the books. (Though I do also love the narratives where the brilliant hero does everything right and yet is trapped in a set of shifting wider historical circumstances where whatever he does is doomed to fail eventually, like Bel Riose from the Foundation books or even Thrawn.)

Another important point is when he's allowed to fail - I read somewhere that a deux ex machina or a similar contrivance that kick starts the plot is more tolerable and less suspension of disbelief-breaking than one which resolves it at the climax, and I think that it's kind of the opposite with failures of twisty bastards? So many people writing them seem to adore the competence porn too much to let them fail at crucial moments - if they do fail, even if it checks all my previous points, it's at the beginning, so that they are then allowed to use their cleverness twist out of the situation - see Eugenides in Return of the Thief, whose stubbornness and jealousy loses him the support of his foreign allies, but who then manages to pull through despite it (and is then vindicated by them never having had the intention to help in the first place due to realpolitik considerations). Or Miles Vorkosigan in Memory - he has a lapse of judgement at the start, but he makes no further lapses of judgement, and even his emotional journey of depression and reexamining of his life (the series' high point of characterization complexity tbh) has absolutely no bearing on his efficient functioning within the plot itself.

Which brings me to, consider also the role that this failure has in the narrative - because unless you're writing something that's just hardcore sociological storytelling (again, like the Foundation), this is a story about individuals, and a climax with personal stakes is almost always more satisfying than a more impersonal one where the hero gets to show off his cleverness. When Lymond fails in The Game of Kings, it swerves the plot from a very mechanistic, spy-novel-esque intrigue of finding the right man and clearing his name, to a psychodrama that forces him to confront his brother and face his past emotionally, and that also airs all of Lymond's flaws and misconceptions and pent-up emotions, but also all of Richard's, because this is the driving force of the narrative and it's so much more satisfying to watch it unfold than it would have been to watch Lymond bounce back and execute everything with flawless mechanical accuracy. Compare this to the climaxes of most new canon Thrawn books, or most Vorkosigan books (the one big exception is Brother in Arms - actually the more Mark the book has, the likelier it is to have an emotion-driven denouement), or all of the Inda books, or all of the Gentleman Bastards books - at best they will put a loved one in danger or kill them off to generate personal stakes, but what does Thrawn's personality, for example, have to do with the resolution of the plot in his books? I love those books, but they don't land nearly as hard. Compare and contrast Tyrion's trial in ASOIAF - Tyrion is also a twisty bastard but the process of him defending himself and running away doesn't involve his wits - it involves confronting his father and brother, about whom he has massive emotional baggage.

Anyway the TL;DR is you should all read the Lymond Chronicles.

#lymond chronicles #dorothy dunnett #mentions of:#vorkosigan saga #queen's thief #gentleman bastards #thrawn trilogy #foundation #asoiaf #writing #writing advice #I guess?

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cookieblobber · 1 year ago

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The Dependence of Miles “Tails” Prower in Sonic Frontiers

Tails is probably the character that’s gotten the most flack for how he’s been written, but I think it isn’t exactly because he’s had it way worse than the other characters that I’ve talked about. Rather, it’s the one players had to put up with the most.

Personally, I wouldn’t say he’s been written poorly for years, mostly just being boring and kind of nothing besides “Sonic’s Sidekick™️”, (which I think is a flaw in it of itself but, we’ll discuss more later), which I think only gave Tails more expectations on how he should be written since well, he’s following Sonic in every game at all times, makes sense for him to not be annoying. It was until Lost World where issues really started to arise with his infamous demeanor towards Sonic because he wanted to have Eggman around to help stop whatever he created, and of course the infamous eye rolling angry groaning tired snoring depressed mourning moment in Forces

Tails folds like a lawn chair towards the weakest version of Chaos

I don’t think I really need to explain what went wrong with this scene, you’ve heard it a million times by now. Honestly though, there could’ve been a simple explanation of how because Sonic was gone, Tails completely lost all hope and confidence in himself since the guy who brought him that confidence was pronounced dead. I feel like that was the intention when Classic Sonic shows up and suddenly Tails is up ready to working with him and all but it was conveyed and presented poorly.

I know btw I keep referring back to Forces in these Frontiers character essays, but can you blame me? When the last big original title had a story that in concept should’ve created such wonderful rich storytelling and character interactions, only to be very mid and leave people with nothing satisfying or interesting story and presentation wise and reminding people how certain aspects of it have been done better in the past, of course I’m going to be compare it to the current game that actually attempts to have real genuine character moments and interactions.

Admittedly, making a long drawn out essay for Tails just like how I did with Amy and especially Knuckles won’t be easy, as there was how Amy’s character helps introduce a lot of what is there to come with the game, Knuckles had his own special animated short that took a whole section of his own to talk about, Tails is kinda just around. Now, that’s not to say this is the fault of the writers or something, it’s just a personal issue cuz I’m not the brightest person when it comes to making essays 😅

Regardless, I still have some stuff to say about Tails and what makes his arc probably the best out of the other two. Without further ado, we fast forward back into Frontiers era.

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Tails

is found in Chaos Island, the third island of the game. Same deal as last time, Sonic collected all emeralds in Ares Island, fought the big titan with the objectively best vocal track in the whole game, and upon heading to the next one, the emeralds get shot out of him and now it’s time to search for emeralds once again. With how Tails has always been the little bro sidekick that follows Sonic everywhere, it’s interesting how he’s the last friend you save. Beta content shows he was most likely going to be the first friend you meet up with in the game, but hey I already explained why Amy was the better choice in my essay on her.

This island btw, probably has had the biggest glow up ever out of the entire game when Update 2 came out. By the game’s standards, it was the least liked out of the whole game, as the whole mountain volcano setting created a lot of bumps which could lead to some janky physics here and there running around, but what was the main offender was how a lot of the little obstacle courses for memory tokens were 2D (personally I didn’t have an issue with it all, but I see why others did). But when the spindash introduced, oh my god Chaos Island went from being considered as the worst island of the game, to the best island of the game, as the spindash helped you easily fly around and make you really feel like you were in a playable Sonic CD Opening. And with the spindash’s new physics, it helped avoid a ton of 2D sections to reach the tokens; truly, replay this island in New Game+ with the spindash, if the whole game in general with the spindash isn’t convincing enough, Chaos Island will be.

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When you free Tails from his cyber capsule thing, Sonic starts clearly suffer taking in all that cyber energy. Tails’s intelligence (aka using big articulate words) and their big bro little bro dynamic immediately established, already reminding everyone what the usual pairing is like. Tails being a more cautious type of character, showing worry for Sonic’s physical state from all the adventuring he’s been doing, but Sonic says it’s no big deal. It’s easily noted Tails is a little bit bothered by something: as he points out how Sonic has saved him once again from some trouble he got into. It’s easily brushed aside as just some little pattern he’s picked up on, as he immediately drops his thoughts and is ready to try and return the favor.

I love these faces they keep making by the way, I really hope more expressions like these are made in the future 💀

After more lore discussion of the ancients later, we meet the main Koco of the island, being the soul of a little apprentice of an ancient pilot (I assume this pilot being one of the ancients who controlled the titans way back when they were defending their home from an unknown force), finding parts to finish building their weapons.

And like other Koco, it strikes a noticeable resemblance to the character following it, that being Tails; being the little mechanic of this piloting ancient who helps out in building machinery. If you recall, the Tornado (the plane Tails uses through the games) was originally owned by Sonic before he met Tails, and in later games like Adventure, Tails would modify it to become the Tornado 2 (though for some reason they went back on the design later on), he would also go on to help build other stuff for Sonic, like a Wisp Translator or a fake Chaos Emerald, to help out with his journey.

What strikes out the most in terms of similarities is how after retrieving parts for the Koco, it starts to get upset, with Tails explaining how the ancient they’re an apprentice of, being called a hero, hasn’t shown up yet. Tails, all of the sudden, trauma dumps brings up his crisis he dealt with back in Sonic Forces, where once Sonic was gone, he felt useless; this leading Sonic to be concerned about what he’s thinking, but Tails tries to change topic and focus once again on the matter at hand.

I think it’s starting to become obvious he’s trying to show he can be helpful to avoid feeling like he’s useless after what happened last time. However, as much as he tries, the seed of doubt continues to be planted into his mind.

Around one of the side story cutscenes, Tails asks Sonic if he’s able to change, explaining how in this cyber space state he was in before being freed, a copy of him was essentially chastising him about who he is as a person: being a follower who depended way too much on Sonic. This presumably seems to be Tails’ subconscious, his deeper feelings, messing with him. Sonic tries to tell him that whatever the copy said wasn’t true, as he’s seen him become more than a follower for him.

In the next main cutscene, he tells Sonic to help follow the Koco somewhere has he studies some ruins. Sage phases through and begins questioning Tails’ faith in Sonic’s ability to help make everything right again, asking if he really does trust Sonic with his life being in his hands. With him explaining its not faith, as he has all the evidence from past adventures to prove he can once again come out on top and save everyone. Sage is fascinated that he’s very loyal to Sonic and willing to trust him that much for a task so big, but like in the rest of the game, keeps taunting on the idea that everything he believes in about Sonic, the inspiration he’s had about him and what he can do will amount to nothing in the end. Tails gets worried and tries to ask more questions, but Sage’s inability to share info with the enemy team leads to her disappearing.

Now Tails isn’t just doubtful about himself, but he’s beginning to become doubtful about the person who has brought him the confidence way back when. If he can’t believe in Sonic, the guy who has helped him throughout in becoming a braver person…it ultimately starts to make him feel once again like how he felt when that guy who helped him disappeared back in forces: he starts to feel useless.

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And this right here, is where the best moment of the game happens.

Tails is following the Koco and Sonic, when he brings up a question. “Am I a burden to you?” Sonic, of course, doesn’t believe that one bit, and asks what’s making him feel that way. Tails starts explaining that any time something goes on, he runs away or stands back, leading Sonic to be doing all the work and rescuing him from danger, with him just always tagging along. This is an understandable concern, as if he’s always needing to be rescued by Sonic, he’s feeling as if he’s wasting Sonic’s time by having to take a detour to save him. Sonic refutes by reminding him of the times he’s helped Sonic or the world, taking on Eggman himself, saving Sonic from captivity in prison or from being captured by the Deadly Six.

Tails straight up admits, “then I’m wildly inconsistent!” However, Sonic reassures him of his powers, and that it’s ok to need help, as he’s still young learning how to fight on his own, with Tails accepting the response and deciding to keep moving forward.

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Now, why do I consider this to be the best moment of the franchise, and why do I consider this to be the best arc of the game?

As you can probably guess, this is such a vindictive moment for so many Sonic fans, as the biggest issue with Tails in Forces was how he immediately cowered in fear from being attacked. It wasn’t just that he curled up in a ball from Chaos 0, but as well as in the beginning of the game where as Eggman was about to attack citizens of Sunset City, he just starts backing up like everyone else until Sonic shows up. Not to mention after Sonic gets beaten down by Infinite and his clones, it’s presumed he ran away from everyone, leaving Sonic to be picked up by Eggman, not even at least telling the rest of the gang what happened as they don’t even know where Tails went after Eggman took over. While I had my complaints about how Amy and Knuckles didn’t really do anything very notable in Forces, for the most part they were ok. How Tails was handled however, as you can already tell, felt like character assassination in a way, and it’s extra damning as he’s basically around Sonic constantly compared to Knuckles and Amy. You can imagine how annoying it would get having to put up with Tails and his problematic characterization constantly if he’s supposed to tag along in every adventure.

They could’ve easily went about pretending Forces never happened, I mean if it was so disliked by many, no point in acknowledging it ever happened, but they do not shy away from the faults in Forces. And while it may seem like this whole thing just done to acknowledge what Tails did in Forces, you gotta understand: the issue of Tails being sidelined wasn’t just a Forces issue, it’s been an issue since arguably in Sonic Unleashed.

When was the last time Tails had a proper playing role in the mainline 3D games? Sonic 06. But after that, he was kind of just diluted as “Sonic’s Sidekick,” where yea he would help him out in stuff, but he was just…there. He would guide us around stuff but he never actively stepped in to fight with Sonic or stepped away from Sonic to do his own thing. In Unleashed, he was being surrounded by dark monsters, and Sonic came in at the nick of time to protect him. In Colors, he was just following Sonic with the wisp translator and pats himself on the back way too much in the final cutscene before endgame for having it. In Gens, he’s kidnapped with his friends by the Time Eater, and needs to be saved. Classic Tails even shows up with Classic Sonic, but he doesn’t really do anything to stray away from him either. In Lost World, he ends up building forced drama with Sonic wanting Eggman’s help in fighting the Deadly Six. In Forces…you can already guess. He has his appearances in box art and official renders and such, but he’s never playable and doing his own thing besides being right behind Sonic.

Again, he was there to help, sure, but he was always directly behind Sonic, without forging his own path of some kind. He was no doubt just viewed as “Sonic’s little brother sidekick” by the more casual players compared to Knuckles and Amy just being looked at his friends, and the franchise kept pushing Tails in that direction.

So you can probably imagine how many felt seeing Frontiers fully acknowledge how Tails is, like he stated, “wildly inconsistent,” and try to rectify things by not just having Sonic reassure Tails is capable of doing things, but reassuring to the players that Tails can do more than just be “in the sidelines.”

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The Koco they were helping finally completes it’s unfinished business, and it’s soul ascends, leaving it’s stone body behind. As Sonic and Tails watch, he assures Tails that he’s proud of him, and to not forget that.

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Later on, Sonic checks up Tails, with him feeling better. He surprisingly starts to explain that he wants to go on his own for a while after this whole adventure is over, in order to try and become more independent, showing that even with the help he gets, he wants to still try to face issues on his own. This is definitely setting up for an eventual Tails spin-off game but, who knows 💀

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With all that, this concludes my essays on Frontiers for now. These were all being made before Update 3 comes out (currently a few hours before it does), so who knows what it might introduce for these playable characters. I will touch on other characters like Sonic, Sage, Eggman maybe, eventually, but since Update 3 is looking to better realize the end game and have a better conclusion for the characters, it’s best I wait for a while for the full picture. If any notable additions are made on Sonic’s friends or just really explaining how their arcs are shown off in the final update, I’ll try to make a post about them. I had more planned like defending that infamous Rhea/Ouranous Island cutscene or discussing the final boss, but I got caught up with a lot of work lol

It’s been great seeing these characters once again taken with the seriousness that was needed in their writing, and trying to show how much they matter just as much as Sonic. And I absolutely cannot wait to see what else is in store for them in the future.

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic #sonic frontiers #tails #miles prower #chaos island

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raphaelapproves · 10 months ago

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Today, focus was a precious commodity and I ended up behind at work so did not get the chance to post the conversation as promised.

But now, here we are, the "conversation"--and I do use that term loosely--that I had with an Astarion girlie.

Allow me to set the scene.

This happened on a video where a streamer was, I assume, HORRIFIED to find that if she just self-insert played the game with answers she would give--SHOCK!--Gale was the companion who liked her the most. I can't imagine why.

Anyway, the comments section was the predictable Gale-bashing. Some in good fun. Most of it not. And I'm me, so I just couldn't help myself, because I see too much of my younger self [ who still tried to engage with people and connect but didn't know how ] in Gale, so I responded to a couple of comments. This was the one that prompted this little meeting of the... well, one mind and then whatever the other person was operating with. Must have been a different Operating System, because it sure didn't make sense to me.

It is below the cut, as are my thoughts because it turned into a long post as, apparently, I had many thoughts.

Astarion Girlie [ henceforth AG ]: THEN HE CAN GO SUCK OFF LETTO II ON ARRAKIS CUZ I AM NOT HERE FOR GALE'S SEXIST A$$ 😤

Me: First: how is Gale sexist? Second: and yet you're okay with Astarion [ NOTE: the username had something to do with what Astarion could do for them, so I made an educated guess ] who is canonically racist, knowingly lured people to their deaths, and was fine with condemning the world for himself???

AG: are you serious??? 🤣 Gale mansplains EVERYTHING to the women around him including magic to other magic-user, uses coercion as a flirting tactic, & slvt-shames Tav if you're romancing someone else.

Me: Wow. There is so much wrong with that. 1) Tell me you don't have an autistic friend without telling me. 2) He explains to EVERYONE not just women. 3) Genuinely? What coercion? 4) He just tells you -- He isn't for an open relationship [ says he wishes you had asked him first which is y'know healthy? ] and asks you to choose, then says he wishes you well if you don't choose him.

AG: have you considered touching grass?

Me: This is such an intelligent rebuttal. Brava! So insightful and useful to a debate. Have you considered maybe listening to others without belitting them because you can't have a friendly discussion?

AG: 1) all of my friends are auDHD and so am i. you're an ableist joke. 😘 2) now you're gale-splaining his sexism 😂 3) i'm not interested in continuing with someone as clearly unwell as you are, bye!

Me: I AM autistic, friend. 2) It's not sexism if he's literally explaining his special interest to EVERYONE regardless of sex. 3) Again, quite mature. Thank you. 👏👏👏

I am just. How??? can anyone be so ??? I do not even have a word for it. It baffles me.

Astarion has canonically done terrible things, would canonically do many even more terrible if not swayed from it, and yet Gale??? is the one with whom they have a problem??? And they can't even logic their own argument???

As someone who is autistic and has been a victim of continued mental and emotional abuse from someone who always wanted to play the victim card and as someone who was always given the excuse "well they're not well and you know it, so you just have to deal with it and don't argue" when they're going out of their way to make your life hell and trying to frame you as their own personal villain, up to and including gaslighting you to the point of nearly two decades of depression, making you feel like you were broken and the worst human being in the world, and having you contemplating things you shouldn't, and them lying to others about things that happened or things that were said to get you in trouble, I get very, very tired of the mentality I see so much around the crazed Astarion Girlies of excusing everything he has ever done and being unable to even acknowledge a single flaw and attacking anyone who does say anything.

I have and continue to live that, have been and continue to be on the other side of it having to suffer because someone else wasn't held accountable, and I am Tired. [ At least now, thanks to my best friend in the entire world, I can see it for what it is and I'm in at least a better place now mentally, 98% of the time. ]

[ NOTE: This is NOT against the Astarion writers I have seen on here. Please do not misunderstand. The Astarion writers I follow on here are the only reason I can still even marginally like the character at this point. He is fascinating. He is multi-faceted. It's one of the things I love to see explored by those who I follow. It is always interesting to see people write complex and even morally difficult characters because that, too, is a form of understanding humanity. It's one of the things I love exploring with my anti-heroes and villains. In Baldur's Gate, that would include characters like Raphael, Gortash, Dirge, etc. So please know I am not hating on any Astarion writers! Everyone I follow is amazing! ]

But when you bring up those character flaws and morally difficult things that does make the character so complex and multi-faceted, these are the responses you get:

Astarion is a victim!

Yes, that is true. But Gortash who, let's be honest, at least doesn't fully know what he's doing is wrong [ you pass the insight checks and what not/narration tells you/the VA tells you that he thinks he's doing the right thing for himself and for the city, etc. and with the way he was raised, what example did he have to the contrary but I've already gone on that rant HERE ] is to the smallest degree even less culpable in my mind than Astarion, and he doesn't get a pass the way Astarion does? And he certainly shouldn't. He isn't absolved. He is doing terrible things whether he can fully rationalize it or not with his understanding of life.

Astarion though, acknowledges on multiple occasions, gives excuses, justifies his actions at every turn while still knowing that what he's doing and planning to do is wrong. And it's heavily implied that he really wasn't all that great of a person BEFORE Cazador either [ that is not to say that he deserved what happened either, just to clarify ]. But the point is Astarion did, at one point, having come from what seems an affluent family, have a knowledge of right and wrong and still made decisions that he made, even before Cazador and after once he was free.

Cazador made him do those things! Yes, he did, but that excuse stopped the moment Cazador's control was no longer an issue. He had free will and a knowledge of right and wrong, and he made the decisions he made.

But it was a habit by then! It was what he learned to survive!

And that coupled with the knowledge of right and wrong goes only so far as the moment you choose to knowingly make your trauma someone else's. Cazador wasn't going to force him to do the Ascension ritual and pay 7,000 souls for his own betterment. "Because after 200 years of SHIT, PURE SHIT, I think I deserve better." A paraphrase, but I think I caught the most important parts. He knew it was wrong, he acknowledges it and immediately tries to justify himself, and is still quite willing to do it. Literally, if he kills you by draining your blood, he acts like nothing ever happened and then tries to sweep it under the rug with Tav if they continue to be upset about it by telling them there's no reason to be.

And yet, we have a problem with Gale, who can be or come across as condescending at times, but I think you can hardly call a man sexist who made his girlfriend his entire personality--since she was the goddess of his SPECIAL INTEREST--and continues to put her word above even his own life, prioritize her forgiveness over his continued existence and who takes such great interest in literally everything Lae'zel has to say about the Astral Plane and her people. We have a problem with a man who is honest about his comfort zone? Who loves your PC even if you become a mindflayer? Who only takes issue with you when you do something morally bad? Who literally gives you approval points for anything even remotely resembling a good choice? Who feels like he doesn't even deserve a place in the world and would gladly give himself up for any one of his companions?

He's always harassing me for items!!!! AND HE GOT MAD WHEN I WOULDN'T GIVE THEM TO HIM!!!

The count is THREE and you can give the man the most trash items you have and he still thanks you and tells you that he will repay your kindness because he knows what such sacrifice means. He is thanking you--just as he gets mad at you if you don't--because he literally has a ticking bomb in his chest that would kill not only HIM if it de-stabilized and exploded, but also anyone within the vicinity.

Well he betrayed Mystra!!!

He tried to get on equal footing with someone he loved, to share in something he loved with the person who embodied it. Was he overly ambitious? Absolutely. [ And honestly, tell me it's not Gifted Kid Syndrome -coded to assume that he could do this impossible thing. ] Did it cost him? Yes. And then Mystra, who could have fixed it and didn't cast him off. And he still prayed to her. And took all of the blame on himself, despite the fact that Mystra shares more than a little responsibility for what transpired. [ I.E. all of the Origin PCs have been victims in this game, in some way or another, and some if not all of them to power imbalances in relationships. Why does anyone think Gale is the one exception? ]

HE'S MANSPLAINING TO ME!!!

He is literally telling you all about his special interest and probably assuming that you don't know much about it, or at least not as much as him, because he was literally a Chosen of Mystra and an Archmage. Again, can he be condescending and huffy at times? Yes. He absolutely can. Call it a character flaw. Everyone has them, but you know what? His doesn't condemn anyone to death, so why are we up at arms?

HE DOESN'T WANT ME TO SEE OTHER PEOPLE!!!

And that is his prerogative and he's straightforward and honest with you about it. He tells you--if you already started flirting with or seeing someone--that he wishes you had the courtesy to tell him first [ which, IS IN FACT the healthy way to go about a relationship of that nature, just as shown with Halsin insisting you ask your partner first ]--but if you choose the other person, he wishes you both well, usually gives some compliment to the other person, and then continues to treat you well as long as you weren't rude and demeaning to him during or after the fact.

So why???? Is so much of the fanbase SO AGGRESSIVELY against Gale? But Astarion is uwu Babygirl and can do no wrong? What about defending Gale makes me "so unwell", but how DARE anyone rightfully criticize even the smallest thing about Astarion because [ insert extensive list of reasons why none of that should matter ].

That he is a victim, that he's pretty, that his VA has a great voice and personality, et cetera, does not excuse that Astarion has knowingly done terrible things both against and within his will and will do so again without hesitation if he helps him, particularly if your Durge or Tav doesn't try or manage to sway him.

Make this make sense to me, because I certainly cannot seem to make it do so.

I've said it before with that Gortash post I linked above and I said it on a similar post for Zevlor and somewhere that I was talking about Minthara and Nere, but the double standards within a loud portion of this fanbase--even within the game itself and among the people who worked on it--is not one of its better qualities.

#|| out of charm || { ooc }#|| ' full of sound and fury signifying nothing ' || { psas // thoughts // ramblings }#tw; abuse #tw; abuse mention #tw; suicide #tw; suicidal thoughts mention #// Vague blink & you'll probably miss it on the latter but still there so I'm putting the warning & tagging 'suicide' alone tag blocks

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twilightknight17 · 1 year ago

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Last night on P5T: We start the DLC at last, jet-set into a twister of nonsense, find mice instead of squids, and I freak out a bit over Satanael~

If you want to skip me ranting about the Velvet Room, scroll down to the big bold text. XD

Look at him. He’s beautiful. And he knows megidolaon!

But my Quest for Satanael, I feel, has exposed another flaw in this game. It’s not a problem if you’re just playing straight through, but if you’re my dumb ass and you want to finish the compendium/obtain Satanael/forge the best weapons, it starts to become an issue.

Fusion is expensive if you’re pulling things out of the compendium. You need personas of specific levels to fuse the weapons, and obviously the best weapons are very high level personas, which won’t drop during battle. Special fusions like Lucifer, Chi You, and Satanael have five or six components each. The cost can be mitigated some by using personas obtained during fights, but in that case, you lose skill options if you’re trying to pass on a specific one via fusion chain. (I can’t imagine trying to get a specific skill on a high-level persona in this game. Ugh. At least megidolaon was a base skill on one of Satanael’s ingredients.)

Which brings us to the actual issue: there’s… no good way to get money in this game.

Money is purely obtained from winning battles. There are no bits and bobs to sell, no money from releasing unneeded personas, nothing. Which means that if you are trying to raise enough money to pay for your multitude of weapons and high-level persons, you are going to be replaying prior battles.

A Lot.

The battles in the final kingdom give around 10K yen, from what I can tell. That can be boosted to around 18K if all three party members have a sub-persona with the “Easy Money” skill. In comparison, personas like Michael and Lucifer (components of Satanael), cost somewhere in the 20-25K range to call from the compendium. You need Michael to make Lucifer in the first place, so you’re going to have to summon him from the compendium at least once.

I don’t know if I did something wrong or inefficiently or what, but I spent the whole game feeling like I barely had enough money for the things I wanted. New weapons often broke the bank, and I wasn’t always using Easy Money because I wanted to actually take specific skills or personas into battle. By the time I was trying to get Satanael, I was basically grinding the same mission multiple times in a row because I knew I could finish it in the least number of turns. It's a little disheartening after unlocking all the endgame bonuses and tricks in Royal and racking up hundreds of thousands of yen in one go to spend on fusion.

That’s not even counting the fusion accidents. The first time I went to fuse Satan (also a component of Satanael), the forge exploded. That probably should have been my cue to start save-scumming, but I didn’t. I assumed that special fusions were immune to fusion accidents. They are not. I placed all of Satanael’s components in the forge and it exploded, wasting least 30K yen.

In hindsight, I probably could have loaded the autosave. But I honestly forgot that the autosave was happening. I always saved manually when I stopped and didn’t worry about anything else. But that’s not the point.

The point is that Satanael should not have been able to explode. X’D

(Side note: fusing Lucifer got a special animation. It’s the only one so far. Why just him???)

But yeah. My compendium still isn’t done, and I’m not even close to the best weapons. I kind of want to take them into merciless mode for NG+, so that means going back and grinding more. But not right now. Right now, we’re off to Spray Paint Land.

It’s time for DLC!

We begin this chilly November late afternoon/evening/whatever with more Quality Morgana Faces.

It has to be November, because Goro’s on the team at this point. Plain and simple. There’s literally only like a 3-week period this can take place in. Akira receives a text from Sumi that says she wants him to meet her in a nearby alley. I guess she was on her way to the cafe. But Morgana says that he knows when to mind his own business, and to call if Akira needs anything.

Call what phone, Mona? Are you gonna answer the cafe phone? Just admit you wanna nap.

Wait. Wait. Morgana. Wake up. The plot is happening. Wake up!

Well, I suppose that means Goro isn’t the artist. He wouldn't have had time while all the Okumura stuff was happening. All these sad mice, tho. Very strange. And isn’t Guernica the artist from Ib? I went on a classic RPGMaker horror kick a few weeks back. I’d watched Angels of Death a while ago and really liked it, and so I watched playthroughs of Ib and Mad Father for the first time. Ib was good, Mad Father was… mediocre, I think.

...oh. That’s Guertena. Neeeeeeevermind.

So, Sumi wants to show you a mural of Arsène being eaten by a giant rat. Which is… not what I was expecting the mural of Akira’s persona to look like. As they puzzle over how the hell a picture of Arsène ended up in a random alley in Yongen, Goro also shows up, ready to investigate.

…...I swear to god, Atlus, why is he the only one who you won’t call by his first name? Also, how is he here to investigate? How did he know about a random mural in the backstreets when everyone is busy paying attention to the giant one on the security building?

He asks if Sumi and Akira had anything to do with this mural, then laughs at Sumi when she gets all flustered by the question. They speculate on the artist’s motives for a bit, since Guernica’s identity is unknown, and then Akira hears a voice calling for the Phantom Thieves from inside the wall.

This made me laugh very hard for inside joke reasons, but Goro assures Sumi that there is no way that there is a person trapped in that wall.

But the mural starts to glow, Arsène disappears, and everything and all of us start getting sucked into the rat’s mouth. And I love and appreciate Sumi dearly, but… none of us are safe here, and you have had your persona for like a month. I should be protecting you.

Joker arrives in a spray-paint covered cityscape, and I already love this place. Holy shit the colors. We’re immediately thrown into a battle, and shooting the little dudes throws paint all over the ground around them. Hehehe. It’s like we’re in Splatoon or something.

...oh. I was joking. But we ARE in Splatoon!

When you’re standing on the enemy’s color, you can’t do anything. No attacks or skills. So there’s definitely an element of strategizing here. I really like it, even if I did die on my first attempt because I was figuring out how it all worked.

……Lavenza, I appreciate the classic literature, but you’re scaring me just a little. XDDDD

Anyway, Joker gets surrounded, the other two jump in to save him, and we get a minor pointing Spiderman meme of “wait, you have powers?” It’s also a little silly because Sumi’s idle stance is a constant pose. Your arms are gonna hurt.

Sumi clarifies to Goro what happened in the Palace when she awakened, and he’s just glad she can fight, even if she’s not formally a Phantom Thief. He clarifies that he is only sort of kind of a Phantom Thief for reasons that would take too long to go into.

...my dear, that is every situation involving these two.

But no, this is completely unrealistic. Goro would have at least a question or two about a random Palace that just spawned somewhere. If this game doesn’t imply that he asked something before January…….

They hear screaming, and a have their first encounter with a non-hostile denizen of this world, who collapses in Sumi’s arms, begs for help, and explodes into paint, leaving Sumi concerned and traumatized. X’D

Goro reminds her that these are cognitions, not even bothering to hide how confident he is in his knowledge about the metaverse, and the trio follows the continuing screams to a mouse massacre.

A crazed woman with a parrot is just gunning down vast amounts of cute mouse people. Paint is going everywhere. It’s insane. Even Goro is put off by the sight.

Meanwhile, Sumi refuses to stand for this and just goes right up to confront the problem.

The bird’s name is Jerri, and I had to message Po in the middle of this, because I was having a crisis.

I can’t unsee it. Help.

Anyway, this is Guernica, and she wants to paint the walls with our blood!

Fortunately, everyone is rescued by a mysterious hole opening up under us, and we meet our savior.

Well… one of us is.

This is Luca, and she’s so happy to see us, because she wants us to help Guernica. Apparently, she was different before Jerri showed up. She felt a kinship with the Phantom Thieves and their quest against corruption. Now, she has strange powers to "peer into people's hearts", and her art can… basically cause a variation of a psychotic breakdown.

Apparently her mental state is fucked because someone stole her Treasure (the first piece of art she ever made) and broke it into pieces. The memo section says, "She was driven to carnage by the theft of her heart's core, prompting her to go on killing sprees in the Metaverse." Which has some WILD implications that I doubt the game is gonna touch on. X’’’’D

Luka also takes us to see this world’s version of the Arsène mural, which is… gruesome? Like, there’s bones sticking out.

Apparently this art was Guernica’s last cry for help before she snapped completely. And she knows what Akira’s persona looked like because of that power to “peek into people’s hearts”. It’s a bit wobbly, but we’ll go with that for now.

Guernica’s “first statement” is in three pieces, so we’re off to retrieve the first one. And I love Luca already.

Jerri wants us to hand over Luca. I might have considered it if she didn’t call me a mop. She claims she’ll send us right home, but that sounds like bullshit.

Also, shoutout to Goro for using his “real” voice here. Time to get dangerous~

It’s nice to hear, because I actually find myself missing abrasive, snarky third-sem Goro compared to the Detective Prince.

This whole thing is such a wild vibe of Splatoon, TWEWY, and Jet Set Radio. The music is fun, the aesthetics are top-notch, and so far the levels have had that extra level of challenge of working with the paint mechanics. It’s really great.

Luka’s ability is creating “manholes” to warp from place to place, and Goro is quickly getting tired of having to jump down them. XD

Our hideout is basically down in the sewers. Luca fished new weapons out of the trash for us, and there’s no Velvet Room, so I guess we’re stuck with whatever sub-personas drop during the battle stages.

We get to have a fun conversation about bouldering, and I caught Goro blinking in the picture, but he actually looks genuinely surprised that you’d want to come try his hobby.

I love the mental image of the three of them going rock-climbing together.

And then, tragically, the Switch ran out of battery. But I’m loving it so far! This is a fun side-story, even if I am a little skeptical of how they’re going to justify everything when they get back to the real world. I’d need to go watch the beginning of January again, but I’d swear there was explicit dialogue that neither of them knew the other had powers beforehand.

Oh well. A thought for another day. Right now, we wonder what kind of disguised god named itself “Jerri”. XDDD

#Li plays P5T #loooong post #just scraping the image limit; blame the cool spray paint XDDD

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sugarsweets9987 · 1 year ago

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Silly rambles, feel free to read or not. Just thought posting.

Saw a post from someone about SWSH and how it's a little funny coming back to those games and remembering how people complained about them, only for SV to release even worse.

It just brought up a thought for me. SWSH is like XY to me. And I mean this as in you will NEVER catch me whining about them or talking shit about them. Those games, despite their respective flaws, are both incredibly special to me for incredibly different reasons. I'll talk about both of them now because I want to.

XY were my first ever pokemon games. I got Y for my 8th birthday (or that christmas), if I remember correctly, and my sibling had X. I loved playing those games. They introduced me to Pokémon as a franchise entirely, and I still hold those games very dearly despite how everyone talks about how shit they are. I find them wonderful and a really fun trip down memory lane. I seriously hate seeing people so constantly and consistently hate on these games because of how important they are to me, but I get that not everyone feels the same way. These games mean nothing to most people, but everything to me. I wish the games got a little more love.

Sword and Shield, on the other hand, means a lot to me in a different way. Lets start with the innocent fun stuff. I'm going to be honest with you all right here and now; I love Leon. Almost everything about him I love. He's a silly and fun champion who just wants everyone to have a good time. Plus he has a Dragapult. Based. I also love Raihan and Hop. Raihan is just. S+, no notes. I can't explain why I love Hop, but I really just do. His whole arc of wanting to be exactly like Leon, then realizing that's not what he truthfully wants out of life and instead deciding to research pokemon to become a professor instead is just. Super appealing to me! He also probably just gets bonus points for being Leon's brother anyways seeing as how Raihan and Leon are tied for my favorite characters from SWSH lol. Also, all 3 of the starters are awesome. I love all 3 of them. Zamazenta and Zacian are also cool legendaries :) Spectrier too.

Now. On a more personal level. My dad started to play switch games with me and loved to watch me play during the pandemic. We played Animal Crossing New Horizons, Diablo III, Ace Attorney (Trilogy and Chronicles) and Pokémon Shield together. In Shield, he would do whatever he could to get me a pokemon I wanted, especially shinies. I have so many shiny pokemon just thanks to him trading almost all day for me. Most of them are hacked, yes, but I don't care. It was really just the thought that mattered to me. I have a shiny Porygon Z named Jitters that he went above and beyond just to get me. Unfortunately, in 2021 he passed away due to Covid. These Pokémon are. More important to me than ever. Because they were some of the last gifts he got me before he passed. Jitters specifically will always mean the world to me. And I will always name a shiny Grimmsnarl "Mr. Legs" based off a joke I had with my dad about its gigantamax form.

Damn. Now I want to hunt a shiny Scorbunny and name it "Sparky" (one of my dad's nicknames) since that was his chosen starter. I think I'll go start that now.

If you read this. Why? But also. Thank you. Sometimes I just need to talk about this stuff. And why certain things mean so much to me. Anyways. See yall later. Maybe I'll reblog and update this post if I get my Scorbunny.

#ramble

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cleopatrachampagne · 2 years ago

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man, i’m rewatching the following, as i do every six months or so for the nostalgia of it all and it really does seem to get worse over time but in reality i just think other media has gotten better or at least i’ve had more access to diverse media that has raised my standards significantly and now representation has improved so much that as an adult i’ve forgotten what it was like to be so starved for it that i didn’t care about quality.

the majority of the characters and media that i was obsessed with as a young person were villains and i assumed that was because i just didn’t know any better but the core of the problem was that the protagonists in nearly everything were generic wasp dudes and the heroes aside from him had to fit neatly into archetypes that served his story. every “good” woman was constrained by the need for her entire being to fit his romantic interests, every poc, disabled or gay character had to be the after school special or the token friend to exist as evidence he was so good that he was totally not racist and nice to the weirdos / down with the homos. meanwhile, the villains got plenty of attention yet got to do and be whatever the fuck they wanted because they were the bad guys. when i look back at my old fandoms and ships and all that it’s basically a “psycho lesbian” trope collage, along with some gnc villains and the big bads’ murderous girlfriends sprinkled in. like, the hunger games is probably the first time i can remember reading an appealing, relatable (in the sense of being flawed and unlikeable in many very real ways) female protagonist with dimension outside of romantic intent and outside of books or horror the situation was ten times as dire.

of course i hated claire and loved emma when the following first aired; claire got zero personality outside of being an object for the leading men to fight over while emma got to have a pixie cut, a personality and kill anybody who gave her shit over it. two main villains with loads of screen time were a compelling, human, multi-dimensional gay couple when that simply wasn’t even a concept in mainstream media only a decade or so ago. i actually wept when korra and asami openly got together because i was so in love with azula and ty lee who got to be subtly sapphic due solely to the fact that they were evil and here two heroic ladies were as a couple in the sequel to the original show. like, it’s odd that i never put two and two together about the fact that villains were appealing because they were intense, flawed, diverse and often gay and lesbian coded people, not because i was irredeemably awful.

i’m wearing a weathered slytherin scrunchie gifted to me eons ago on my wrist while taking a break from a passion paper on protecting endangered tarantulas for the field i’ve been pursuing for years as i type this and quite honestly i can’t help but wonder for the first fucking time how much of my lasting affinity and compassion for the dark side despite having long grown out of my teenage edgelord phase is because during my formative years i may have always rooted for the heroes but i only ever got to see myself in the villains.

it’s kinda sad that it turns out that my entire adolescence had been some scooby doo shit in which fred rips off the monster mask and it turns out my morals were never faulty; the morals of the culture i grew up in were.

(except fred is kevin bacon in this case i guess?)

#the following #feminism #lgbt #representation matters #tyzula #korrasami #social commentary #rant

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northwest-cryptid · 4 days ago

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Sometimes I think about Lost Media in a different sense.

Not so much in the sense of literally media that you can no longer find, obtain, engage with, etc. Rather I think about Lost Media sometimes in the sense of media being changed by time in such a way where you can never get it back. Not how it was, not what it was.

I think for me that's why that spark of love and passion I have for Lob Corp is something that sort of sits idle in me. It comes out around specific folks sure, but for the most part it's not there anymore because Lob Corp and everything around it has changed.

Now obviously the game isn't literally lost media, you can still go play it, it's exactly the same as it's always been. So what do I mean by calling it lost media?

Well when I first experienced Lob Corp it was in it's absolute infancy, THE community around this game was literally just like maybe 20 - 30 people, I among them; for who this game was special in one way or another. Some were younger some were older, but for the most part everyone involved saw roughly eye to eye on what Lob Corp was.

Sure you had the occasional fanfic that didn't really adhere to the canon, sure you had the occasion individual who didn't really "get" what Lob Corp was about. However, the bulk of the community was just like-minded individuals who felt something for this game. Whether a specific character sort of resonated with them, or maybe they enjoyed the themes or the aesthetics.

It was a small community around a small game, where we'd often spend our nights picking through the game files to find unused assets, trying to extrapolate whatever content we could from essentially the bones stripped clean of their meat. Many of us had played the game multiple times over, created mods; even some overhauls to just give us something more to engage with. The community would grow and shrink as people came and went, but the core of what made it Lob Corp was still there. People "got" it and generally agreed on what "it" was.

Then we got Library of Ruina and it felt like a blessing, finally something new to experience, something new from the same devs; for the same characters, but different this time. It was exciting, it was this spark that sort of reignited the community. That was also when the community started to really blow up. Like a lot, it was when we started seeing people begin to be really elitist about this "I was here first I'm the authority" kind of attitude. We started to see this idea of "I know more than you" or "I have done more than you" or "I'm more popular than you" which was never a thing. People stopped caring about the game, the characters, the world, the setting; the themes. They started caring about the clout, the social element of being popular in the fandom.

As more of Library of Ruina came out some people became violently opposed to the mechanics, plot concepts, characters, and just generally the game that was being made. The devs were basically forced to backpedal, remove things, change things, alter the game they were making until the fans were content with what they believed was better. Those of us who started to even think "sure some of those changes were bad, but this isn't the game the devs wanted to make anymore." Would be ostracized or harassed or generally shunned; for voicing an opinion that suggested we wanted a game made by the developers. If we nitpicked everything about Lob Corp that wasn't good game design it wouldn't be Lob Corp anymore. A lot of the charm a lot of what made the game what it was, wasn't good game design. I'd argue a lot of people failed to enjoy the game or even get into it and it's storyline because of the game design flaws. So sure if those were more in line with what is "good" you could argue it'd have been better for the game as a whole.

But then it wouldn't have been Lob Corp.

There came a few points when you could see major rifts forming not just between the devs and the fans of the game, but between specific circles of fans. Some becoming "the official lob corp communities" and others shunning those who would even dare to declare themselves as such because who the hell were they?

That's when it started, and when I had to sort of retreat away from the wider community as a whole. I no longer felt comfortable discussing the game, the characters I related with; the stories I enjoyed, because every time I'd try. Rather than be welcomed and met with like-minded individuals who would eagerly discuss the game and it's canon themes and characters with me. I'd face an onslaught of "I am right you are wrong" or "you didn't understand the character as much as I DO" only for them to not even be talking like they played the same game I did. You'd have people that got upset over fan theories, or who would DM people lashing out because they shouldn't be allowed to talk about a character they like. Whether for kin reasons (even in communities where kin discussion wasn't even a thing) or because someone likes that character more than them, or because the person disagreed with them, argument and general just bad vibes became the norm fast.

People sort of had this violent rush to become the top dog in an indie community so that they could ensure their views and their words were law.

Then Limbus happened. Don't even get me started on that whole sinking ship that people are willing to happily drown on. The sad truth is that Proj Moon isn't what it used to be, the fans and community at large isn't what it used to be, and as a result a lot of what made Lob Corp such a special game to me just doesn't exist anymore.

Obviously I still love Lob Corp, the characters and the story and everything still resonate with me on a personal level sure. However I've stepped away from discussion of it whether because I don't want to get involved in discourse or just because it feels like the community around the game isn't for me anymore. I'm not saying it has to be catered TO ME. I'm saying the vibes are different, the community is different; they prioritize different things, they interact in different ways. It's not my scene anymore, it's not somewhere I feel comfortable anymore. It's not somewhere I enjoy being anymore.

And yea that kinda makes me sad, because it's not the only thing I've seen this happen to.

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peachynocryin · 4 months ago

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A Letter to My Special Person

Hi there,

It's been a while since we last talked to each other. How have you been? Have you eaten well? Have you had enough sleep? Have you still played video games? Have you taken good care of yourself? Have you ever missed me?

Life is short. As well as the time we spent together.

My life has always been a mess gracefully since it enables me to appreciate the present even more.

My life is yet completed without you.

I've missed you and always thought of you. I've wondered if you did the same.

It's ironic how we both agreed on being there for one another in the toughest time. Yet here we are.

Amid the chaos, I've learned to retain peace within myself. We've been through so much together at least, we still don't entirely understand the other person. I feel like I've known nothing about you except for things that are on the surface level.

Do you ever wish it didn't happen? Is happily ever after a fairy tale?

I wish I would be more considerate of your feelings. I wasn't a very nice person, yet I judged and criticized you for what you did instead of having some self-reflection. Looking back, I didn't do much good compared to you. I couldn't control my temper when it came to my own dignity or reputation. I was so proud of myself that I couldn't handle criticism for my own good. I was a rather stubborn person to say at least.

I know everyone is flawed because God created us that way so we can rely upon him. Yet my flaws were so great that I couldn't help myself.

Life is full of surprises. We never know what's coming in the future. But I'm content to have you in my life. Thanks for staying and making it a remarkable one.

I'm sorry for hurting you excessively, for making you endure me this whole time. I wish I would be more mature to settle the problems. They were all tragic because of me. I don't want to turn this on you since you have always loved me from the beginning. It was me that didn't express my feelings well. I caused a scene and it was awful.

But I believe we have a brighter future ahead. Even though I still don't know where you are now. I merely leave my hopes to God, whatever he does I shall obey (although I resist multiple times).

I'm not a good person tbh. I don't treat people well. I always hurt people in one way or another. I acknowledge my faults. Thus, I need time to improve and grow.

Please be patient with me. Bear with me til the end of time so we all can reunite in the Heavenly Kingdom. I'm not indicating that we'll have to go through death to achieve that. Since God himself promises whoever is subject to Him will be given the Heavenly Kingdom. But I digress.

I know you won't be able to read this but I love you and miss you lots.

Sincerely,

Your A xxx.

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interact-if · 3 years ago

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Day 3 of our Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Featured Author Interviews, continuing with Nacre!

Nacre, Author of Joint Venture.

Five years have passed since Eric died in the hands of the Agency. All this time you’ve been on the run with your brother’s murderers on your heels. One day, during a mission on your own, you meet some mysterious strangers who intervene with your plans. Although they turn out to be old friends with your brother, you’re not sure whether you can trust them. Nevertheless you share the same goal: earning back your freedom by taking down the Agency. You play as an ex-agent trying to solve the murder of your brother while you are hiding from your former employers who, unfortunately, want to see you dead too.

Read more about Joint Venture here. Play the Demo here. Tags: Crime, spy-fi, romance, action, conspiracy, bromance

Nacre is also the author of Morning Star, a dark fantasy game where you play as Lucifer. You can play that demo here.

[INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT!]

Q1. Hello! Could you tell us a little bit about to yourself and your project?

I’m nacre (she/her), an aro girl with both Mongolian and Turkish descent and the writer of “Joint Venture'' and “Morning Star'' (and a third project, but it’s still veery early in development). The one I started writing first was Joint Venture, even long before I knew what interactive fiction was, so it will always have a special place in my heart. The project itself and the story (and a bunch of other things related to it) shifted a lot over time and I’m still unsure what to call it exactly, but for simplicity's sake: it’s an espionage thriller with sci-fi elements, set in an unspecified country very similar to the USA. The MC used to work in a secret facility founded by the government until their brother was murdered and their own life was threatened by the incident too; though they don’t know what the incident actually is. Now they are on the run and spend their days trying to survive. One day, they meet a bunch of people who are more or less in the same situation as them and they decide to work together. I know, I’m not particularly good at making things sound interesting or at times even understandable, but yeah…that’s the WiP in a nutshell!

Q2. What inspired your current project?

Apart from gaining personal satisfaction by making badass OCs, I dig conspiracy theories and spy-fi (who would’ve thought?). I’ve drawn inspiration from a lot of things, some even seemingly unrelated stuff, but the most impact definitely had movies when it comes to JV. To name a few: Salt, Red Sparrow, The Tourist (positive) and Mission Impossible, Liam Neeson and Jason Statham movies in general (negative) stuck with me the most for different reasons. Positive is self-explanatory, I think, but when I say negative, I don’t mean the movies themselves are bad; it’s just that I’m over-analyzing everything and don’t let others enjoy movies by pointing out all of the flaws. Like that’s impossible, even if the title literally says “Mission Impossible” and then they do it (bruh). And it made me want to write something myself, something that wasn’t so ridiculously absurd. Like, ok, not do-able for you and me, but imagine someone trained for it their whole life? Yes. Not that my own story will be flawless, no, no, far be it from being that, but well, what can I say, I’m an entitled hypocrite lol.

Q3. Do you pull from your own identity for inspiration? How has that been reflected in your work?

This question made me think a lot, because I don’t even know what exactly my identity is. People like me, who grew up in a different country as their parents did (and in my case they did in a different country than their ancestorsdid) don’t really belong to anywhere, always floating somewhere in-between the many cultures, religions, beliefs and ethnicities with which they are supposed to resonate. So, whatever my identity may be, in the end I’m an individual with my own opinions, values and beliefs and that definitely shows in my writing.

Q4. What are you most excited about your project?

Everything, really. I’m super excited about being able to share my story in general and everything I add makes me feel so accomplished; it’s surreal. Every piece I write and you guys read and eventually make a comment about, be it a major plot revelation or some small detail that only one of you caught; it’s all making me incredibly happy and spurting me on to do more.

Of course there are moments in my stories where I put more effort in writing because I want them to feel special and I think these moments are especially the developments of the different relationships between characters; be it the MC and a RO or them among themselves. People are so complex and so are their relationships and I want the readers to explore all kinds of dynamics.

Q5. What has your experience writing an IF and with the IF community been like?

I’m not interacting much with the community tbh, since I’m barely active on any kind of social media other than Tumblr and even that is pretty scarce. I’m also shy when it comes to the internet (don’t ask me why, I’m just an awkward lurker, leave me alone). But of course there are lots of people I like, admire and who inspire me and I want to thank all the creators for their investment in this community. It’s only thanks to them that I myself was able to learn coding and build the courage to make my own IFs.

As for writing: it’s hard, but coding is harder, RIP. Seriously, all these commands and what not are at times so confusing; like my brain refuses to process any thoughts whenever I am met with a coding example. I always need a minute to take a deep breath and relax before I understand what’s in front of me. And writing can be difficult too, because there are just some points in life where you have a complete block and it won’t go away. And it’s not something you can actively make go away either, so there’s that.

But apart from that, I write for fun and I’m adamant on keeping it that way. That basically means that I’ll stop the moment I feel it stressing me out, because I don’t want it to be a bad experience. Sending out an apology to all my readers btw, because my stories will most likely take at least a century to finish (love yall <3).

Q6. What changes in the IF community would you like to see?

Ehhh, I’m the kind of person who doesn’t really see problems unless I’m directly confronted with them. Ask again, when I’m complaining (don’t worry I do that very often).

Q7. What piece of advice would you give to fellow creators?

Only one (it’s a good one I promise): Whatever you do, do it for yourself. Seriously, the only person you owe an explanation to is you.

So write what you like, however you like it and most importantly, do it at your own pace! And if you don’t like an idea anymore, be it after 10 or 100.000 words- just scrap it. Don’t throw it away completely, because you might use it for other things or bring it back again, but if you don’t like it no one can force you to continue. So, like I said, do what you want and if it’s starting another story in addition to your 500 existing ones, go for it.There’s no stopping creative minds and inspiration, just let it flow~

#if: events #Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month #API 2022

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opheliabloo · 3 years ago

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if you have been overwhelmed by despair and guilt after the last 48 hours, i encourage you to focus on being the good part of the fandom instead of letting the loud, reprehensible minority taint the experience of what could potentially be a source of passion going forward. post about the recent lore, make crazy conspiracies about the upcoming dream team meet-up worthy of the shiniest tinfoil hats, post about the fics you’re writing or the art you’re drawing. no amount of condemnation will change the opinions of those already willing to do such reprehensible things like doxx minors and abuse victims for their own personal gain. if you have genuinely had your fill of this fandom or this content, leave and leave guiltlessly — this post is not a criticism of your actions, nor is it a criticism of those who were dissatisfied with dream during some or all of this. Moving on does not equal forgetting this ever happened. it just means allowing ourselves to breathe now that the situation has reached its conclusion.

this community is filled with some incredible talent, and i never see any lack of amazing art on my dash. as a fic author myself, i have a special appreciation for all the stellar writers here, from the likes of Heatwaves and Passerine to the hilarity of Mangoball and the fics that never go viral but sit in my head rent free for fucking DAYS lmao. over the last two days ive seen countless anons asking the people i follow if they’re okay and reminding them of how much their blog brings them joy, posts of people urging others to step away and focus on themselves if they’re doomscrolling. kindness whispers where cruelty yells, but the kindness in this fandom is not lost on me. ranboo found his foothold in this fandom in a major way, and now he’s off having the time of his life. hundreds of thousands of people all gathered onto a single tommy twitch stream to watch him face off against dream like it was some massive sports game. Quackity makes literal lore movies for us and gets so excited for the community’s reaction he tweets about it hyping it up for days. the analysis posts are always so interesting, the memes hilarious if not a little cursed. it’s a disservice to us all if we forget how good a community can be in SPITE of its flaws. dream obviously cherishes his community if he’s willing to stick around through all this, so never believe that the entirety of the fandom is irredeemably toxic. you’ll drag yourself — and your passion — down too.

tldr; take a breath, relax your shoulders, and let the bad times make you focus on being the good in this fandom that drew us all here to begin with. we can’t control when bad people do bad things, but we can curate our own enjoyment of this online community and lift each other up with the support and kindness ive already seen exemplified over the last couple days instead of wallowing in the despair and guilt of thinking the community is a lost cause. the best way to improve this clown circus of ours is to make an example of what good behaviour looks like. take care of yourselves, take a break from this fandom or this content if that’s what’s best for you, and indulge in your passion in whatever way is most fun for you. <3

#woo that was long mobile spacing got me fucked up #I’ve seen a lot of negative posts (rightfully lmao) but I wanted to say this now that we’ve got a definite Dream statement and a resolution #not the happiest resolution #but it is one nonetheless and I am satisfied with it #it makes me sad when all the good gets forgotten when a couple nasty people get in here and start up shit #we’re millions of people; of course there will be more than a few with questionable or harmful opinions #but when they’re given the spotlight and made to look like the face of the fandom itself we all suffer #this is not a post telling ppl to forget this ever happened and go back to blissful ignorance. i just don’t want ppl exhausting themselves #this was a fucked up and complicated and confusing situation and my condolences to Dream and that girl for having to relive their trauma #lots of y’all are so talented and funny and great to share excitement and passion with. i don’t want anyone to forget it.#dreamwastaken #mcyt #dsmp #georgenotfound #Sapnap #Dream team #Dream smp #manatreed

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smells-like-mettaton · 3 years ago

Link

Rating: T (for inherent neutral ending angst)

Summary: Toriel's old house feels like a mausoleum. She will gladly ignore chisp crumbs and lumpy mattresses for a place that feels more like home. (Queen Toriel ending fic for Soriel Week 2021.)

Word Count: 5211

XXX

The bedroom was exactly how she left it. Her bed pushed up against the gray wall. A book about snails on the wooden desk. A knit sweater with the embroidered words "Mrs. Mom Lady" in the wardrobe.

Even after all this time, she could barely look at it without her soul splitting in two.

She'd known this wouldn't be easy. She hadn't seen this house in over a century. Still, she wasn't prepared for how Asgore had sealed up her old room like a tomb, a photograph of the day that everything went terribly, horribly wrong.

At least the last child was safe. They should not have had to take a life to save their own, but she doubted Asgore had given them a choice. Her own soul felt more numb than anything. To her, Asgore had died a century ago.

What was done, was done. And as usual, she was too late to do anything but sweep up the dust.

She backed through the doorframe, shutting the door with a quiet click. She would have to return eventually, but for now, she yearned for a place with fewer painful memories.

"Hey, Your Majesty." A voice startled her as she attempted to escape the foyer. Luckily it was a voice she would always recognize.

"Hello, old friend." She turned and smiled at the monster leaning against the stair railing.

He was smaller than she expected, with that deep voice. Not that that was a bad thing. As for him being a skeleton, that had been apparent from the abundance of bone puns.

"You know the formality is unnecessary," she told him softly.

"Is it?" He shuffled from foot to slippered foot.

In all her time of joking with him through the door, she had never expected him to be so cute.

"Didn't want to assume, old lady."

He winked, and she felt a weight lift from her chest. At least one monster would still treat her like a person, and not like a mythical figure returned to save them.

"Toriel," she introduced herself for the first time. He had to have heard already, but between rushing to the palace, scattering Asgore's dust, comforting their—her people… she hadn't had time to seek out her friend.

He seemed to feel comfortable walking right into her home, though. Did he ever visit Asgore when he was here? Her friend seemed like the type of monster who went wherever he felt like, and Asgore, for all his flaws, had never turned a monster away from his home.

"Sans." He held out a bony hand. "Sans the skeleton."

"Nice to meet you, Sans," she tested out the name and clasped his hand with her paw.

A loud pthbbbbbt echoed through the empty hall. Her eyes widened.

"Wow, Toriel. That's, uh, some way to make an introduction." He winked.

She squinted down at the inflatable object in his hand, the source of the farting noise. Then she pretended to ignore it.

"It certainly is. I was not aware that skeletons were capable of flatulence."

His eyelights gutted for a moment before he burst out laughing.

"Your jokes are even better in person," he said once he composed himself.

His laugh set her soul fluttering. In all their conversations through the door, he'd never laughed like that. Maybe she should have tried fart jokes sooner.

"I am always happy to tickle your funny bone." She smiled, and his face tinged blue.

"Happy to be tickled. But, uh. I guess that's not all I'm here for?"

Her breath caught in her lungs. Of course he would not visit without a reason.

"I suppose not. Would you like to have a seat?"

"It's nothing that serious," he assured her quickly. "I just thought you'd want an update on the kid."

"You've spoken with them? They are still here?" She tried to keep the hysteria from her voice.

How could they have taken Asgore’s soul and not returned home? Had the Barrier proven too powerful?

"No—geez, I'm making this sound worse." He ran a bony palm down his face. "They’re definitely gone. Papyrus tried to call them nonstop. Besides that, you know the big stuff. The king's dead."

Her lips drew to a thin line, pulling tight across her fangs.

"I can hardly fault them for that."

"Right." He stuck his hands back in his pockets. "I gotta be honest. The way the kid looked when I last saw them… I don't think they did it."

Her brow furrowed. She was inclined to hope that the child had not chosen violence. They had been so sweet, so eager to talk and joke with the monsters of the Ruins, so quick to hug her even after she’d fought them. It was hard to imagine them striking down Asgore.

"But… then what do you think happened?"

Sans shrugged. "Wish I knew. I kept watch best I could, but…"

"I could not expect you to come between them and your king." As much as she wished he could have. She had hardly expected him to agree to watch over the human at all.

“Couldn’t have even if I wanted to. These bones aren’t as sturdy as they look. Maybe I shoulda listened to my bro and drank more milk...” He grimaced and glanced away. “Anyway. Like I said, I don’t know what happened. Just. Be careful, okay?”

“Careful?” She blinked.

“Yeah. You never know.” His gaze flickered to a potted golden flower on the end table next to the stairs.

“Sans. If I did not know better, that would sound like a threat.” She crouched down, so she could better meet his eyesockets. “Is there something you are trying to tell me?”

“Man. First I rip one in front of a lady, then I threaten her. I’m makin’ a great first impression.” He rocked back and forth on his slippers. “Look. Toriel. I don’t wanna scare you, ‘specially since today must’ve been hard. Real hard.”

His eyelights bored into her irises. She found herself needing to look away.

“It has certainly been… interesting. Moreso than any day since I last saw this place.” She suppressed a shudder.

Change. Her life had been constant for so long. There would be no more of that, now. Hopefully that would be for the better, but only time would tell.

“Yeah. Being flung away from everything you’re used to… don’t imagine that’s a cakewalk. Don’t want you to worry about freaks hiding in the shadows on top of that.”

Somehow, she felt he made more sense when he was on the other side of a door. Knock-knock jokes had a formula. Just another normalcy she had forfeited, she supposed.

“Please, Sans. If you believe I am in danger, you may say so.”

“Fine. So.” He grinned, and she couldn’t help a snort.

“Alright, I suppose I walked into that one.” She smiled, despite his warning. “Under normal circumstances, I would say I could handle myself. But I must admit you are more updated on the state of the kingdom than I. Do you have any information that could help?”

“...Not really?” His grin turned sheepish. “You look like a tough lady. I bet my bones are rattling over nothing.”

“I would still humer-us you.”

He gave her a funny look. “You’re actually taking me seriously?”

“Why would I not? You are my friend. Perhaps… my only friend, at this point,” she admitted. It would be foolish to ignore a warning, even if it was based on gut feeling. Or, whatever skeletons had in place of a gut.

“Well. Uh. If someone, something, was behind the king’s… yeah. If it wasn’t the kid, whoever else it was might still be around. So.” He coughed. “Sounds stupid when I say it like that, huh.”

“It does not. I think it is sweet that you are worried.” He wouldn’t be able to see her blush, thankfully. It had been a long time since anyone had looked out for her.

“Geez, Toriel.” He rubbed the back of his skull. “You’re gonna ruin my reputation.”

“What reputation? Are you typically a monster with a heart of bone?” she teased.

“Nah. I just don’t worry. Too much work.” It was difficult to tell if he was joking. “Guess I can make an exception this once, though.”

“Why, thank you, my friend.” She had the sudden urge to reach out and squeeze his hand. It would be more for her own comfort than his, so she did not act on it. “To be honest, your words are a relief. I do not mind the excuse to avoid this place.”

“Oh.” He sounded surprised. “You got somewhere else you’d rather be?”

She both did, and did not. How could she explain without sounding like a clinging child?

...Perhaps that was the wrong metaphor. She would have preferred her children to be a little clingier.

“‘Cause, uh, if you don’t mind a bit of mess… my door’s always open.”

She blinked at the offer. Had he felt the thoughts stirring in her soul?

She didn’t want to be alone. Not again. And she had told him the truth: there were unlikely to be any other monsters she knew still around. Perhaps Gerson; she and Asgore had always joked that he would outlive them.

That joke seemed awfully morbid now.

“Sorry. Was that too forward? Our friendship’s built off closed doors; guess we should just take 'em one at a—"

"No," she interjected too forcefully. “No. I would love to visit your home.”

Though she had never set foot there, she already suspected it would feel more like a home than this place.

“You really—? Great.” His skull tinged the faintest blue. “Just, uh, know that it’s nothing fancy.”

Toriel smiled. “‘Nothing fancy’ sounds wonderful at the moment.”

Perhaps wherever he lived would be out of the way enough that news of her return would be delayed. If she could be lucky enough to pass for an ordinary monster… well, that was likely too much to wish for. It certainly wasn’t becoming of a queen to hide from her subjects.

Stars, there was so much to get used to. So many formalities to reacquaint herself with. She hoped such things would wait until tomorrow.

Sans returned her smile.

“In that case, I know a shortcut.”

XXX

She handled the shortcut well for a first-timer. No stumbling on the other end, no complaints of nausea or dizziness. Of course, she was a Queen. A Boss Monster. Why would a magic trick ruin her composure?

Sans wanted to laugh. All this time, he'd been joking with the Queen. She didn't seem to mind, but she could just be “humerus”ing him.

...Nah. She had every excuse to ignore him if she really wanted to. Instead she'd actually taken him up on his offer.

He almost forgot to drop her hand once their feet landed in the soft snow. Heh. Who was he kidding? It was just nice to feel her fur under his fingers. To touch her, and know that she was real.

"Oh!" Her eyes lit up, reflecting the gyftmas lights strung haphazardly around the house's columns. "I remember this place!"

"You do?" Sans's browbone furrowed.

"I saw it while travelling from the Ruins to…" she trailed off. To stop the kid from fighting Asgore.

Sans felt stupid for not trying to stop them himself. Not that a kid that determined would’ve listened, anyway. Still… he’d believed in them. Hoped that by some miracle, they’d get ‘em out of this mess.

Heh. That was too much pressure to put on a kid, even a determined one.

"Yeah." He coughed quietly. "Guess we're hard to miss. Papyrus did something to the Gyftmas lights—even when the CORE lights go out for the night, ours stay on. Never figured out how he pulled that off."

Toriel laughed before seeming to realize something.

"I will get to meet your brother!" She clasped her hands together. "I wish it had not come about for such an unhappy reason, but I am excited nonetheless."

He chuckled. Her excitement was contagious. That was something she and Papyrus had in common already.

He pushed the door open, called out for his brother—and noticed the monster sprawled out on his couch.

"Oh." Sans blinked at Undyne, who was snoring so loudly, he should've heard it from outside. Guess he'd been a little distracted. "Uh. This is awkward."

"What is it?" Toriel hung back, her head ducking through the doorframe. "Is your brother sleeping? I would not wish to wake him. You said he rarely sleeps, did you not?"

"Nah, it's not him. Forgot his pal's house burned down. Actually, I'm sure you met her. Undyne? Captain of the Royal Guard?"

"I… yes, we met." Toriel edged inside, closing the door behind her with a soft click. "She looks far more peaceful now than she did this morning. From what I understand, my ex-husband was something of a father to her."

"Something like that." Sans nodded in agreement. There hadn't even been a Royal Guard until Asgore created the position for her. Sans wondered if Toriel would keep it around now that Asgore was gone.

Welp. It wouldn't hurt, what with his suspicions about Papyrus's friend "Flowery."

(Maybe Sans should let Toriel sleep on the top floor rather than the couch anyway. No dirt for stray flowers to get into up there.)

"Should we be staring?" Toriel said with a soft chuckle.

Sans shook his thoughts away. "Sorry. Just thinking. I, uh…"

There wasn't room on the top floor. Sans's lumpy, crumb-dusted mattress was out of the question. That left only Papyrus's bed, which while rarely in use, had too much sentimental value to give to Toriel without asking. Where was Papyrus, anyway?

"Undyne!" His brother practically kicked in the door. "I have returned with nutritious—oh!"

Papyrus's sockets blinked at Toriel. Then at Sans. Then at Toriel again.

(Undyne let out another loud snore.)

"Sans?” Papyrus dropped his groceries on the table next to the pet rock. “Why didn't you tell me we had another guest??"

Because he was an idiot who hadn't planned past one impulsive offer. His face went a little blue.

"I guest you would figure it out," he managed to joke.

Toriel let out a bleating laugh at that. The suddenness of it was enough to jolt Undyne awake.

"NGAHH!!" She tried to leap off the couch, but ended up rolling onto the floor. "I'm here, Asgore! I won't—oh."

Her single eye blinked up at Toriel.

"Papyrus?" Undyne hissed through her teeth. "Why didn't you tell me the Queen was coming??"

"Because I didn't know!" Papyrus replied brightly.

"I, uh, promise I'm usually more professional than this." Undyne summoned an energy spear and used it to push herself to her feet. The attack left a small char mark on the carpet. "I am at your service, Your Majesty."

Sans thought she looked real professional in a pair of Papyrus's MTT-brand crop top pajamas. Toriel didn't comment on that though, instead opting for a matronly smile.

"There is no need for that, Captain. I am not here on business, but as a friend."

That smile turned towards Sans, and he fought back a blush.

"Yeah. I was just gonna, uh, make some dinner. Y'know, welcome our queen back with some Snowdin hospitality."

"Dinner?" Papyrus squinted suspiciously. "You don't cook dinner. I cook dinner."

"First time for everything, right?" Sans winked to hide his embarrassment.

Of course Papyrus wouldn't buy his excuse. But he really didn't want his brother and Undyne worrying on top of Toriel. Granted, it was Undyne's job to worry about security threats… but she'd tear up the house's foundation if she thought an enemy might be hiding anywhere in a five-mile radius.

"Sans," Toriel chided him. "You do not owe me that."

"Wowie! You must be a great influence on him, Bald Asgore!"

Toriel blinked before bursting out laughing. Sans's grin widened.

"Her name is Toriel, bro."

"Of course!! Where are my manners?" Papyrus bustled past him to shake Toriel's paws. "I am the Great Papyrus! It's an honor to meet you, Queen Toriel!"

"The honor is mine. Sans has told me so much about you," she said, and Papyrus blushed pink.

"You? Know the new queen?" Undyne whispered to Sans while Papyrus and Toriel got acquainted.

"You know me. I know everyone." He winked.

"She came out of nowhere."

"Yeah. My bro and I know what that's like."

Undyne huffed, but Sans didn't offer a more thorough explanation.

Papyrus's affronted shout signalled that Toriel had dropped her first pun.

"I take it back! This is the worst day of my life!!"

Sans met Toriel's eyes, and they both laughed.

"I suppose I will have to help Sans in the kitchen as my pun-ishment," she said with a coy wink.

"Normally I would object to a guest cooking, but in this case I will make an exception!" Papyrus turned on his heel and grabbed Undyne's arm. "We will clean up the living room in the meantime! Try not to corrupt the queen any further, Sans!!"

"Wouldn't dream of it, bro."

He gave a quick wink to Toriel behind Papyrus's back, and they moved to the kitchen.

"Did I actually upset him…?" She asked once they were out of earshot.

"Nah. He's just dramatic like that. He'll drop three puns per sentence when he thinks I'm not listening."

He turned away, rummaging through the fridge for something edible they could cook. Discreetly, he tucked his empty chisp bag behind Papyrus’s spaghetti-filled tupperware.

“Oh, good. I would not want to make a bad first impression.”

“Pfft. You’d have to try real hard to do that, Tori. My bro sees the best in everyone.” He smiled and pulled a “pupperoni” pizza out of the freezer. It wasn’t anything fancy, but at least it would be edible.

He turned around, pizza in hand, and found Toriel staring at him oddly.

“What?” His sockets widened. “Uh, you’re not vegetarian, are you?”

She shook her head quickly, her gaze skimming off of his like oil from water.

“Pizza sounds lovely. It has been quite some time since I had one.”

Sans didn’t pry, but he couldn’t help wondering what her expression had meant. Had he said something weird?

...Oh. He’d called her Tori, hadn’t he? He should know better than to use nicknames without asking. Papyrus hated them.

“Please, allow me.” She held out her paws, so she couldn’t be too upset.

He handed over the pizza, and he jumped when fire flared to life in her palms. For a moment he thought the fire would scorch the pizza beyond recognition, but the flames were just pleasantly warm. He’d never known a monster other than Grillby to have such careful control of fire magic.

“Heh. I didn’t know you were so hot, Toriel.”

As soon as he said it, he clamped his jaw shut. Geez, how stupid could he be? Making bad jokes was one thing, but flirting with bad jokes?

The fire went out. She looked up abruptly—er, looked away from the pizza. He was still a good two feet shorter than her.

“Tori was fine,” she said, her voice soft.

“Uh,” he replied intelligently.

She suppressed a giggle, and he was pretty sure his face burned hotter than her fire had. He could stand to take notes from Alphys and throw himself in the trash.

“Or not. Whatever is comfortable for you,” she reassured him. “Now, should we eat dinner before it gets cold?”

Eating was hardly something he could screw up at.

��Sure,” then after a pause, he tested, “Tori.”

Forget her fire magic. Her smile could’ve heated the pizza all on its own.

XXX

For once in a hundred years, dinner was a warm and energetic affair. In addition to the pizza, Papyrus had tossed together a salad from his fresh groceries, and Sans had briefly stepped out to grab a few orders of wings and fries. In the end there was plenty of food for four hungry monsters.

Papyrus apologized for the lack of seating, but Toriel didn’t mind sitting on the couch squeezed between Sans and Undyne, eating off of paper plates. She couldn’t imagine anywhere she would have felt more comfortable.

Before long, though, the day’s fatigue caught up with her. She supposed it was to be expected—she wouldn’t regain her social stamina all at once.

Sans caught her eye, and he nodded towards the stairs as Undyne and Papyrus “owned” each other in an MTT-Brand fighting game.

“Sorry. I know they can be a bit much.” Sans rubbed the back of his skull.

“They’re lovely. I wish I had the energy to keep up with them.” She smiled.

He leaned against the banister, smiling down at them. Papyrus had gotten the upper hand this time, and was punching the air with joy.

“Me too,” Sans said, still looking away. “I was thinking. If you want a place to rest for the night, my bed’s open.”

She blinked. Her face seemed to catch fire. That was rather more… forward than she was expecting. Sure, she had enjoyed his lighthearted flirting, and much as she tried to deny it, feelings had been growing in her for a long time. But to have him return those feelings? And so boldly? It was as unfathomable as it was unlikely.

“I can get ya some fresh sheets, and I’ll crash in the shed. My bro set up an, uh, guest room there when the human was in town.”

Oh. She rubbed the heat from her face while he wasn’t looking. How foolish could she be, to think he would be implying…? Well.

“I would not force you out of your room,” she said. “If your brother prepared a guest room, I am sure that would be adequate.”

He let out a quick laugh. “Uh, you’re not used to my brother’s… decorating. Seriously, I don’t mind.”

She sighed. If he insisted, she supposed it would be rude to deny his hospitality.

“Alright. Thank you very much, Sans.”

“Great.” He smiled back at her, then went into his brother’s room. She waited patiently, and only jumped a little when he suddenly reappeared from the right hand door. Perhaps the two rooms were connected in the back by a bathroom.

“Hotel Sans, one vacancy.” He winked while holding the door open.

She chuckled behind her hand. “You really did not have to resort to this.”

“Heh, I wouldn’t call it much of a resort. The bed’s not even queen sized.” He rubbed the back of his skull.

The bed was smaller than she was used to, but it did have fresh sheets. That was the only fresh thing about the room. Chisp crumbs had been brushed under the dresser, and… that was a tornado. A self-sustaining trash tornado. Though at least there was a pine-scented air freshener suspended in it.

“Sorry, it’s… really not much. Uh. Probably kinda insulting, expecting the Queen to sleep—”

“It’s perfect.”

He blinked. “Huh?”

“I am no stranger to a few crumbs, Sans.”

She remembered days that bled into weeks that bled into months. Months where she couldn’t bring herself to clean, could hardly bring herself to care at all. Months that had grown fewer and farther between since she’d met a friendly voice behind a door.

“I would’ve vacuumed,” he said sheepishly, “but I suck at it.”

More embarrassingly loud laughter burst from her. In front of Sans, though, she didn’t feel the need to curtail her joy.

“Thank you.” She poured as much sincerity as she could into her voice.

“‘S no problem, Tori.” A light blue tinge warmed his cheekbones. How could he possibly look so adorable? “Bathroom’s down the hall if you wanna wash up or anything. And Undyne’ll be on the couch, so this is probably the safest place in the Underground right now.”

Her brow furrowed. Sure enough, there was no bathroom door inside the room—he must have used one of his “shortcuts” to move from his brother’s room to here.

“So, uh. I’ll be in the shed—uh, guest room if you need me.” He flashed one more tense grin before turning to leave.

“Wait.” She stepped towards him without thinking.

He looked up, one brow ridge raised. She found herself biting her lip, wondering if she dared ask what her soul wanted. It was silly, really. She’d been on her own for years, decades.

Maybe that was why she was so hesitant to lose this one taste of companionship.

“I would feel… safer, if you would stay too.” Her face burned beneath her fur, but she projected her usual composure.

“...Welp. Can’t say no to that, huh?”

She was about to reassure him that he could say no—that she was asking as his friend, not as his queen—but the soft smile on his face told her he already knew.

He briefly left to grab a few things, then returned with a few pillows and, for some reason, a dog bed.

“You are not going to sleep on that,” she said in disbelief.

He flopped the dog bed in the middle of the floor and started fluffing it. “Why not? Gotta throw a dog bed a bone, right?”

“Sans.”

The outdoor lights dimmed, as if at her command. Only the colored Gyftmas lights outside and one dim indoor bulb lit the room.

Her confidence waned with the light. What had she expected him to do? She’d asked him to stay. Unless she wanted to…

Oh, to hell with it. She was too old to be so shy about these things.

“If you are not opposed,” she swallowed, “we could… share this mattress.”

When he looked up, she couldn’t make out his eyelights at all. Their glow returned slowly, like the rising of the sun from her memories.

“Heh… you sure? You don’t even know if I snore.”

She laughed and sat on the bed, patting the space beside her. “You do not know if I snore, either.”

“Fair enough, Tori.”

They took turns cleaning up in the bathroom—she was imposing on Sans enough without adding the smell of dirty fur to his bed. Then she did her best to ignore the flutterings in her soul as he slipped off his hoodie and climbed up onto the mattress. She insisted he stay under the sheets; her fur would keep her warm enough with just the light blanket on top.

The sheets were a barrier in name only. There was only so much space on the mattress, so no matter how he adjusted and apologized, she could still feel the curve of his spine against hers.

It felt amazing. It felt terrifying. It felt like a mistake. It felt like the only thing she’d ever done right.

The one saving grace of the whole situation was that it didn’t stir memories of Asgore. Her royal beds had been triple the size of Sans’s lumpy mattress. She and her ex-husband had rarely slept back to back, and if they had, the feeling would have much different.

“...Tori?” Sans’s voice was just above a whisper. “You, uh, still awake?”

As if she could sleep while enduring the wonderful agony of friendly touch for the first time in a century.

“Yes,” she replied softly. “Am I taking up too much space?”

“No, ‘course not. I was just, uh… geez.” He sounded embarrassed.

Risking their precarious balance, she rolled over to face him. Or to face the back of his skull, at least.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Doin’ sans-sational.” He chuckled to himself. “Sorry. Never got to use that one with you before.”

She would have laughed, had she not worried about shaking the whole mattress.

“It was sans-tastic,” she joked back, and he laughed again.

Then abruptly, his laughter cut off.

“Thanks, Tori,” he said in a quiet but firm voice.

“What for?” She wished she could take his hand, see his face, learn what thoughts were passing through his skull. Instead she gave him as much space as physically possible… which still was not much.

A long, silent moment passed. Had he fallen asleep?

“I know it’s not how you wanted,” he finally said, “but I’m glad I got to meet you. So. Thanks.”

Warmth spread outward from her soul to fill her whole body. Sans could probably feel it radiating from her.

“Thank you, Sans. If I had to return, knowing no one…”

He rolled to face her. His eyelights were mere inches from her pupils.

“You would’ve been fine. All you had to do was tell a few of your amazing jokes, and the whole Underground would’ve been linin’ up to be your pals.”

She suppressed a laugh. “I hardly think that would be appropriate, under the circumstances.”

“Eh.” He shrugged. “Plenty of monsters in town cope with jokes. You’d just be relating to the common folk.”

She stared into his sockets a little too intently. At this distance, it easily made her dizzy.

“Would you be included in that demographic?” she couldn’t help asking.

“When I first met you? For sure.” His gaze darted away. “But it’s crazy. Between you and the kid… I’m startin’ to think there’s more to life than good food and bad laughs.”

“Really?” She and the child had made such an impact on him?

“I know. Don’t tell Papyrus. He wouldn’t believe you, anyway.” He winked.

“My lips are sealed.” She smiled.

Silence hung between them. It should have felt awkward, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn away. In the end it was Sans who yawned in her face and then hurriedly flipped back onto his other side.

She laughed, and clearly she was exhausted too, because she pressed a kiss to the back of his skull without thinking.

He froze. She froze. There was no way to play that off gracefully. And there was no way she could fall asleep and pretend that it had not happened.

“Heh… those didn’t feel very sealed to me,” he finally rasped out.

It took her a moment to process what he meant. Meanwhile her embarrassment only burned hotter.

“I am so sorry—”

“I’m not.” When he rolled back to face her, his face was bright blue. “You’ll still be here when I wake up, right?”

His question was tinged with desperation.

“Of course,” she answered automatically, despite the many responsibilities that she would have to attend to in the morning. She was the Queen once more. If she had to, she could adjust the schedule of meetings and speeches to accommodate… this.

Whatever this was to be.

“Remind me in the morning,” he squeezed her hand, “that this is real.”

His hand quickly went limp. She was worried for a moment, before she heard the faint snore escape his nasal cavity.

She gave him a fond smile, and allowed her own eyes to close. She did not know if sleep would come or not. She did not know what challenges the new day would bring, or what old challenges would continue to rear their heads.

But she did know that she was not alone. For tonight, that was enough.

#soriel #sans #toriel #fic tag #tali writes #soriel week 2021 #soriel week #really glad to finally share this one!

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