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sombreboy · 4 years ago

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the alpha⇢hybrid!pjm

⤍18+ ⤍pairing: wolf!hybrid Jimin x human!female reader ⤍genre: pwp smut, hybrid, stranger fuck ⤍word count: 8.5k ⤍warnings: sub!y/n, dom!pjm, profanity, drinking, blowjob, jimin’s compliment kink knows no bounds, he calls you little lamb a lot, degdrading names, unprotected sex, creampie/knotting, light impreg kink, mating, rough fucking, licking, torrential downpour of cum.

A/N: Co-written with lovely @ppersonna as an rp. ♡

So why were you dressed up like a bitch in heat, entering the exact club you tried so hard to avoid? Because, deep down, it’s all you wanted. You knew that deep down you desired someone strong and powerful, someone superior to you, to take and claim you as their own—their plaything.

The city never sleeps. A saying that has been true for the past century, and it remains true til this day, where humans and hybrids now coexist as equals. Well, as equal as it gets. Hybrids were a superior species with their mixed genetics, gaining attributes from said animals that they have in them. Whether it be stronger bodies, beautiful patterns and physical alterations– they were seen as the greater species. But yet humans managed to keep up, somewhat. It wasn’t that much different. Park Jimin is one of those hybrids. His genetics were intertwined with that of a white wolf, giving his hair a bright blonde color. However, he had it dyed not too long ago, so the color was instead a washed out purple mixed into his blonde curls. His irises were a bright orange, pupils as black as the leather jacket and pants he wore. One wouldn’t think he looked terribly intimidating at a first glance, but his stare could make anybody feel a shiver run down their spine from the sheer intensity of it.

He was the alpha, after all.

Jimin spent every single night at a nightclub that was famous specifically for being dominated by the predatory hybrids. Lions, tigers, snakes, foxes… Wolves. Jimin’s pack was the hybrids that people came for most of the time.For what, you may ask? To get thoroughly fucked without mercy, of course. But that was only possible if you caught their interest, or you’d have to settle for the snake.

Jimin’s pack consisted of three other wolf hybrids… Hoseok, the beta. Which practically means he’s one rank below Jimin, who is the leader. The other two hybrids are Namjoon and Yoongi, who are one rank below Hoseok, making them the deltas. They don’t care, they are content to just follow along with what their leader says, but are often given their own choice to do however they please either way. Together, they form quite the diverse group, and they were notorious and alluring for newcomers and common faces.

Jimin loved it, the dark, crowded underground venue, flashing lights, alcohol… And humans. More often than not, only hybrid women came by. Rich ones. Easy to spot. But what truly had the wolf riled up, was when a human would stumble in. Their scent was an entirely different game. He allowed his pack to separate, but never going too far as they headed to find their own prey for the night, while Jimin himself remained still, leaning against the bar counter with a pink, sugary drink in his hand, straw tightly pressed between his plushy, glossy lips.

It was time to hunt.

You weren’t sure what came over you—what drew you to the idea of leaving your cozy and safe, structured life and entering the dark unknown. The nightclub was somewhere you previously steered clear of, even crossed the street to avoid being next to it when walking by. It was decidedly not your scene, and the idea of the strong, intuitive hybrids sent a chill down your spine.

So why were you dressed up like a bitch in heat, entering the exact club you tried so hard to avoid? Because, deep down, it’s all you wanted. You stayed away from it like a drug. You knew the moment you gave in, you’d sink down the black hole into utter depravity. You knew that deep down you desired someone strong and powerful, someone superior to you, to take and claim you as their own—their plaything. It was hard to be confident in such a stifling environment. Your tight little crop top covered only the barest of your modesty, and the tight skirt accentuated your curves. The confidence you felt in the mirror of your apartment soon dissipated as you walked into the loud club. You could feel the hungry stares, the intense eyes of all the men and women in the place.

You didn’t know who or what you were looking for—rather, hoping they would find you instead. You craved the idea of giving up your power, your control to someone who could hold it over you and force you into submission. The thought made your core burn with need. The bartender slid your simple cocktail towards you with a wink as you settled into the stool awkwardly, trying to appear much stronger than the scared little human you were. You knew they all could smell it on you—the mixture of fear and arousal. So many of them approached you, attempted to charm their way inside you, but none of them felt right. Maybe this was a bad idea, maybe you should have stayed home. You can’t help but feel a burn of shame and disappointment as you chug your drink as quickly as you can to make a desperate dash towards the door.

Your nervous eyes skittered around the room, watched as each ravenous alpha eye-fucked you. It was terrifying, intimidating. It cemented just how wrong you were to come here, until— he came into view. Your breath nearly collapsed in your lungs as you took in the vision of the lavender haired man. He was gorgeous. Not just attractive but ethereal in his visage. Your pupils dilated, heart rate increased as you stared at him. You were blatant in your gaze, unable to wrench your eyes elsewhere. He was simply the most captivating man you’ve ever seen in your life, and your body burned with desperate need for him. After moments of desperate staring, you finally shake yourself off and peer down at your empty drink. Was it him? What was so magnetic about the lithe man? Could he be the one to finally claim what you needed to give up? Your cheeks burned with a mixture of shame and need, hoping that he didn’t notice your blatant ogling. Fuck.

Jimin’s fiery gaze flickered to meet yours the very second he felt your eyes on him, straw still tightly sucked between his lips. He crooked a coy eyebrow at you as he pushed himself up from his leaning position to stand upright, no hesitation in his bones in the way he slowly sauntered over to you. His hips swayed in a light strut, mesmerizing in every sense of the word; the predatory genes within giving him these very traits to be alluring for it’s prey. And it seemed to be working, with the way your eyes were glued on him. He stopped when he was right in front of you, giving just enough space for him to be able to observe your fit from top to bottom, but close enough for you to smell his distinct scent. Sweet, calming– arousing. His natural pheromones didn’t leave anybody unaffected, even turning heads on his way, eyes wide with both surprise and envy that the alpha had approached… well, you. “How refreshing with a new face.” Jimin’s canary voice was sweet, yet it had an undertone of a light growl. His canines poked out as he smiled, plush upper lip curling up to showcase his pearly whites further.

Your blush furthered a deeper shade of rose as he approached. Fuck. He definitely saw you staring. The power in his gaze and strut over to you screamed alpha. Hopefully he wasn’t the kind to bite and then ask questions. You’d unfortunately run into that type before.

The blood in your veins pulsed hard, skyrocketing your nerves. He looked so good. It was almost unfair that someone so fucking beautiful existed. You felt small and plain in comparison to the gorgeous man. His whole being exuded sultry command. You nibbled at your bottom lip as he sauntered up to you. Your body was reacting already to his presence, his voice. The entire club was staring at you, curious of the exchange that would happen between the exquisite man and you, the nervous little human. “I-,” you struggled to answer. If he wasn’t aware of how nervous you were before, he would be now—surely. “I don’t really come to these types of places.”

Try as you might, you couldn’t stop staring at the man’s gorgeous pout and terrifyingly attractive teeth. Your heart beat pounded hard in your head, overpowering the loud beat of music.

“D-do you come here often?” You asked, hoping to be polite despite the pooling arousal and growing fear.

Jimin’s smile slowly morphed into a wolfish grin, the apple of his cheeks puffing up until his eyes were shaped like small crescent moons. He almost looked harmless and inviting. “Cute…” he mused under his breath before he took a daring step closer to you, his hand reaching out to gently run his fingers through the piece of stray hair that had fallen forward over your face. He brought the locks to his nose, inhaling deeply. A low rumble vibrated in his chest.. You smelled divine. Even through the shampoo and possible product, he could smell your scent behind it all. “Yeah, I come here, every. single. night…” Jimin winked before withdrawing his hand to let it settle on his hip, his stance powerful and graceful. His dark pupils quivered when he raked down your body for a second time, the wolf ears sticking out from his hair flickering with curiosity. “Why are you here, little lamb?” He cooes at you, licking his upper teeth as he steps closer. He had no problem hearing you through the booming music, but how would you know? It gave him more of an excuse to get closer. “Looking like that?” Of course he knew why. He could smell why. But it was of no news that Jimin loved to play with his prey, ramp up the anxiety until he could practically taste it on his tongue.

Your heart thumped so loud in your chest you were sure all of the club could hear it. If they couldn’t, they definitely could smell the thrum of anxiety pulsing through you. His voice sizzled in your veins, erupting into flames as it enveloped you. Then, he touched you. The simple act of moving your hair had your mind reeling. You could smell him—he was so close you wanted to bury your face in his chest and breathe deeply. His question caught you off guard. Why were you here? Did you even know the answer to that? Your cherry cheeks flushed and you ducked your head, trying to avoid his sultry and tempting gaze. He continued to get closer and it made you tremble with a mix of fright and need. His power was overwhelming, and all you wanted to do was kneel for him.

“I’m—…not quite sure,” you spoke truthfully as you took another sip of your rapidly melting drink. “I’ve never been here before. I think I wanted something… scary.” Your big doe eyes sought out his, so mystifying with their exotic color and shape. He was truly so gorgeous it made your mouth salivate. You squirmed in your seat, suddenly feeling self conscious of your outfit. “My friend told me I should wear something sexy.” Your cheeks were so hot, so embarrassed by how easily you wanted to give into the terrifyingly attractive alpha. “I’m wondering if maybe this was a bad idea…”

Although the music around them was blaring, it felt like a long moment of silence dragged on between the two when Jimin didn’t answer for a hot second. He kept his stare fixed on your face, the small expressions of embarrassment, curiosity, and purity drew him in. He’s truly never encountered a human like you before. One that dared to come here despite being so… weak. It was like you were begging to be eaten, dangling like a fresh piece of the finest meat in front of all these hungry predators. Jimin could hear it, the rumbling growls and groans of men in the room, hoping that the alpha wolf would lose interest and leave a piece for them to get a taste.

“Scary?” He suddenly chirped, his smile more of a smirk at this point as he placed his drink on the bar counter, ice jumping in the glass from the harsh clonk. He bent forward to shamelessly brush his cheek against yours, a subtle way of rubbing his scent off on your skin, knowing it’d avert some of the attention around him– he’s already begun to claim you for himself. His hot breath fanned your ear as he spoke.

“I can smell your lust for fear, little lamb… Do I scare you?” Jimin’s hand softly snaked down the curve of your hip, smoothing his ring-clad fingers down your thigh until he was greeted by your scorching skin. He squeezed the flesh between his digits, cold rings digging into your thigh as he exhaled another hot, quivering breath against your neck, loving the way your scent was slowly mixing with his own.

The man’s simple action of brushing his cheek against your own had your body seizing up. You could smell him as he rubbed his soft skin on yours—a heady mix of something fruity and something naturally luscious. It embarrassed you to know how arousing his simple act had been. You chided yourself internally for feeling your body heat at his gentle action. You licked your lips as he whispered hot words into your ear, making a tingle travel down your spine.

“Y-yes,” you murmured. “You scare me more than anyone h-here.” His hands gripping your thigh made a quiet moan escape your lips. It was desperate. You felt overstimulated and yet so desperate to be touched by the terrifying alpha. Suddenly feeling emboldened, your hands gripped at his sides, slipping under his expensive shirt to touch at the toned skin of his obliques and anchoring yourself to him there.

Jimin’s hand flew down to wrap his fingers around your small wrist, blunt nails digging into your soft skin. His hand on your thigh swiftly withdrew, and the loss of his warmth had you internally whining for more. “Did I say you could touch me?” His voice wasn’t hostile, yet it oozed with the asserting of his dominance. “You’re a daring girl.” He smiles at you, the contrast between his hungry gaze and his softly curved lips was confusing to say the least– but there was no doubt that he was not the kind to simply allow anything without permission.

The alpha’s sudden movement and grip on your hand made you squeal with fright—eyes widening and heart stopping its beat in your chest. Your mouth ran dry. Your terror coursed through you with the distinct tang of need. His dominance made you even more desperate. “I’m sorry,” you peeped quietly, itching to move your fingers away in case it angered him further but also needing to feel his tender skin underneath you once more. “I didn’t mean—..” you stuttered as you felt brave enough to peer up in his enchanting eyes. His smile was comforting but the hungry gaze in his stare had you trembling. Jimin cupped your cheek, hushing you with reassurance– although he seemed way too amused with the way you were practically shaking underneath his touch.

“Breathe. We’re all here to have a good time.” He smoothed the pad of his thumb across your lower lip, noting just how dry it had become. He decided to order another set of drinks, handing one to you that was the same pink shade as the one he got for himself. “Drink.” He didn’t ask, but he commanded you to accept his offer.

You were powerless to deny any demand the man made. Even if he had asked, you’d still be eating out of the palm of his hand like a terrified and starved pet. His thumb on your lips made you ache to open and accept his digit in your mouth, swirl your tongue around it teasingly. Your eyes sought his—hoping you could portray some of the arousal you felt over your innocent fright. You took a sip—a large one in hopes of lowering your frightened inhibitions to open up more to the beautiful man. “Mmm—,” you hummed as your eyes fluttered to close. “This is delicious.” It was sweet on your tongue, but not cloyingly. It warmed you and made your body loose.

“It’s my favorite.” Jimin agreed, already half way through his own. The entire time he kept his eyes trained on your lips, the darkening color on your cheeks from the heat that both alcohol and his proximity provided. When finished, he stretched his back with a light pop, the shirt he’s wearing underneath the jacket lifting just enough for the prominent V-line that snaked down his pants teasingly on display. His visuals were unmatched. He took off his jacket, leaving it unattended by the counter. No one would dare to touch it anyway, the leather oozing of his distinct scent. Only somebody with a death wish would. He combed his fingers through his hair, licking his lower lip clean form the residue sugar from this drink. His ears perked up when the lights dimmed further, and a new song came into play, booming through the speakers that caused a pleasant vibration to pulse through the building.

“I love this song.” Jimin reached for your arm to tug you out of the chair with him towards the crowded dance floor. As per usual, there was no question of whether you wanted to or not, but with a few drinks, and his intoxicating presence, it didn’t seem too bad. For Jimin, this was just part of his foreplay. He brought you into the crowd, tightly packed with all kinds of scents and musks. But the only one he could smell was yours, slowly morphing with his own as he placed his hands on your hips from behind, nose brushing against your neck as he inhaled. “Feel that? The beat?” He growled into your ear, swaying his hips along with the way he moved yours back and forth.

The music, once quiet and unassuming to you, now became loud and matched the beat of your heart. The alpha was dragging you towards the dance floor and in the midst of the hungry crowd, staring at you from where they rubbed up against each other. Just as you were trying to understand where to move, how to adjust your body to the dance, he pressed himself up behind you and gripped your hips. You could feel your pulse running through your veins and the way his touch electrified your skin. “Y-yeah,” you murmured as your hips began to move without thought. They easily swayed with the man’s guidance and you shivered as his nose pressed into your neck. It was like he couldn’t get enough of your scent, your being. The man’s hyper fixation on you had your core drenched—and you knew he could likely smell just how aroused for him you were. You let your eyes close and follow his guiding hold on your body, your ass pressing back against him to rub and grind along his length. It seemed the alphas drink was bringing you ever so gently out of your shell. “Mmm, I feel the beat right here.”

“Fuck, you smell good…” Jimin growled into your ear, his claw-like grip on your hips tightening to keep you in place as he pressed his hips right back against your ass, his cock prominent through the thin layer of his leather pants. It pulsed with every beat of his heart, it was driving him near insanity to practically taste your arousal on his tongue along with the overwhelming smell. “You’re dripping, aren’t you?” He huffed, tastefully biting your earlobe as one hand smoothed down your thigh to tug at the hem of your dress, unbothered to the fact that other hybrids were spying on them. He wanted them to see the way he got to have you, and they don’t. The way you were oozing with lust for the alpha, the pungent arousal of yours surely drove not just Jimin feral, but every single hybrid in the venue. And no one could say a fucking thing.

It was hard to hold back the peeps of surprise and arousal as you felt the alpha’s growing cock against you. Your body instinctively continued to rub and further agitate the hardening length to fully erect. When you felt his hands on you, your body reacted. You knew your cunt was oozing, likely soaking the satin panties underneath your tight skirt and soon to drip down your leg in a sign of utter submission and need to the alpha behind you. “Y-yes,” you whined. “I n-need you.” The admittance was shameless–the alcohol and lowered inhibitions making it easier for you to admit your desires to the man without regret. You could sense that he was showing you off and you complied, allowed the man to present you to everyone in the club who stared with bloodlust for you. “Please,” you gasped, not quite sure of what you were asking for other than him–more him. “Please, take me.”

Jimins wolfish grin grew against your skin before he swiftly grabbed you by your wrist to pull you with him, guiding the two of you towards privacy. Normally, he’d take his prey to the back, or even home… but there was an urgency within him that was too strong to ignore, there was no time– he needed to claim you now. So he pulled you into the bathroom close by, slamming your back against the wall with a thud the moment the door closed behind you. His heavy breaths were laced with small grunts as he crashed his pillowy lips against yours, hands greedily peeling the skirt of your dress up to expose your ass for him to harshly grab onto, squeezing the soft flesh between his ring clad fingers until it protruded between his digits, sharp nails digging into your delicate skin. “Fuck, you drive me crazy, little lamb.” Jimin hisses between hot kisses, the vibrating growl in his chest growing louder as he bites down on your lower lip to draw more innocent whines from your sweet throat. “Every single male in there wishes they could mate with you, shit… the male pheromones were off the roof, they’re all gonna jerk off to the memory of this–” one of his hands cupped your pussy through your soaked panties, dragging his palm to feel the damp fabric stain his skin. “Of how delicious your cunt smells… it’s like a fucking drug.”

Your eyes widened as the strong and sensual man dragged you from the dance floor to the bathroom. The same terror that once pulled through you now flooded every sense. Had you done something wrong? Was he going to harm you? Your worries were sucked up the second he pressed his lips to yours hungrily. Kissing him was like standing too close to a fire. He was hot, so hot, and before you knew it, you’d be engulfed in his hot, licking flames. His hands felt like palpable sin in your flesh and you needed more. “Please,” you whimpered as his hands cupped at your core. You knew you were a mess—dripping with shameless need for the alpha. The kisses turned deeper as you allowed his tongue entrance into your mouth and sought purchase in his own. Your hands stayed by your sides, itching to touch him but remembering his previous warning. “Please, let me touch you. Anywhere.” It felt like you were dying and the only cure was him—any bit of him on you and underneath your fingertips. “Ahh—,” you whined as his hand continued his assault on your cunt. “It’s a-all for you. I don’t want anyone else, only you.”

Jimin’s auburn gaze glowed as he pulled back from the kiss, his pointy canines poking out as he smiled. “You want to touch me?” He purred as he pressed your body harder back against the wall with his own, gliding the pads of his fingers up and down your clothed slit until he feels the swell of your clit through your panties, only to give it extra attention by circling his digits with just enough pressure. Not enough to satisfy, but not enough to not drive you crazy. “You don’t get to touch me until I say so… But don’t worry, good behavior will be rewarded.” Jimin added with his lighter tone of voice, leaning in to nudge your chin to the side with his nose– like a dog would. He softly grazes the skin of your neck with his nose, lips; a deep inhale through his nostrils triggered a vibrating rumble in his throat, and a prominent, heavy throb in his pants. “We’re not in a rush.” He whispered against your neck before placing open mouthed kisses down your skin until he reached the slope of your neck, feeling as his cock grew harder– the more aggressive his kisses became. From soft pecks, to messy sucking, surely painting your delicate skin with splashes of purple.

Feeling the man all over your body and being denied to touch was maddening, but deliciously so. His fingers dipped into your slit and teased so delicately that you thought you might cry if he didn’t give you something soon. Your moans turned into desperate whines and gasps as you allowed him to continue his thorough torture of your clit. Kissing him felt like sin, like heaven and hell. He was everything you wanted—everything you sought after when you stepped foot into the very club you now were being thoroughly debauched in. His cock felt heavy and thick against you and it made you whisper against his lips in arousal and desperation. He trailed down your body and you let out a shaky moan as you felt his sharp incisors suckle and nip at the delicate skin. “Use me,” you begged gently. “P-Please, make me yours.”

Your hips ground against his, rubbing against his hardened length as much as you could to alleviate the burn between your thighs. “Fuck, I want you so bad, please sir.”

“Such a good girl, asking so nicely.” Jimin’s low voice resembled a mix between his natural voice and a growl, the raspyness of it forcing a chill running down your spine, reminding you that he was indeed not human, but a hungry predator. Which is exactly what he was– well, it’s a part of him he only indulges in on nights like these, in a place like this. Who he was outside of these walls, nobody truly knew. His fingers curled around the fabrics of your panties to swiftly rip them off, carelessly discarding them to the dirty floor. Now exposed, your scent was stronger than ever. He shamelessly inhaled through his nose, eyes fluttering in pleasure, feeling the droplets of precum staining his swollen tip underneath the restraining pants.

“Still reconsidering whether coming here was a good or bad idea?” He asks through his breathy voice as he pulled back to look at your needy expression, all while his hands casually reach down to undo his pants, slowly peeling the leather down his hips. His cock sprung up proudly, drooling with arousal down his glistening skin, a content sigh pushing past his plushy lips. “Hm? You like it?” Jimin’s piercing gaze flickered between his cock and your face, grabbing the shaft with his hand. “Want a taste? All you have to do is drop to your knees on the filthy floor…”

Everything about the man radiated power. He mystified you. He even looked beautiful, gorgeous rather, under the harsh fluorescent lights. You were sure you would follow him off the edge of a cliff if he told you to. You didn’t know his name but you didn’t need to, he had you between his delicate fingers. Your breath hitched as he ripped your soaked panties off your body. The cool air of the bathroom was startling against your heated cunt. It made you gasp out loud. “I-I think it was a good idea,” you gulped. Your eyes were big, pleading and needy as you peered into his own. He had you completely under his spell.

Your mouth watered as the man pushed his skintight pants down and exposed his length to you. It was perfect. Thick and long and curved just right that made your core ache for him. You dropped to your knees without hesitation, ignoring the way the wet floor felt against your body. The floor was disgusting but nothing would stop you from pleasing the alpha. You shimmied your skirt up your body, allowing your bare ass and cunt to be exposed to the open air as you knelt before him.

“Please.” The word was becoming your prayer, repeated to the god above you to grant you your blessings. You opened your mouth and stuck out your tongue—an obedient little dog in heat. You wanted nothing more than to take him in your mouth without warning but you knew now to wait. You wanted to please the alpha so badly.

Jimin’s eyes darkened immensely at the gorgeous view beneath him, the fiery color of his irises barely visible for they were practically blackened out. If there was something the alpha adored, it was to look down on his prey, being begged to use them as he pleased. You were the perfect plaything for him. “So pretty.” He cooed, a small smile curling up on his upper lip to expose his pointy teeth. He gave his cock a few lazy strokes, his other hand gently combing through your hair before he abruptly curls his fingers to tug at it. He drew you in closer to his red, dripping length as he kept stroking it, eyes not even blinking once as he stared down at you. “Can’t wait to pump you full of my cum… Fuck, such a slut for my cock already.” His words grew filthier the more aroused he became. His patience ran low, so he guided the tip of his drooling cock to your lips, tugging your hair to draw you even closer to take his length down your throat. “Only good girls can take it all. You’re a good girl, aren’t you? Come on…”

The intensity of the alphas gaze made you shiver on the sodden ground and you could tell your cunt was dripping, likely even dripping down onto the very same floor. The bite of pain in your hair stung as he gripped you, but it sizzled and burned until it added to the overall sensation and made your nipples harden in delight. You breathed in deep, steeling yourself as his length came closer. His salacious words made you tremble and ooze with excitement. You wanted nothing more than to be a vessel, a hole for him to wrench pleasure from. His length was warm and dripping with precum. It felt so thick and heavy on your tongue as he continued to push it in. You audibly moaned as you felt it push past your uvula. He was so thick and tasted like salt and sweetness. You let your lips close and wrap around him as you took him to the hilt. You flicked your eyes up to him, shining with tears of strain from the thickness choking your throat. You wanted to prove how good you were, how well you could take him.

After a moment of holding his length as deep as it could go, you pulled back slightly to begin a bobbing motion as you sucked greedily on his cock. Saliva pooled around your lips as you drew him in and out, and the sounds you made sucking could be heard over the thumping of the bar music. You wanted to prove yourself to the alpha, show him you could be more than just a one time type of girl. You wanted him to claim you forever.

“Oh, fuck yes…” Jimin’s pillowy lips parted in initial surprise, but quickly he bit back his low groan as it rumbled in his chest. He knew you were needy, but he didn’t expect you to be so greedy to suck him off. And being so good at it on top of being eager to please– it was oddly new. Normally, every past experience of his was not like this, but more like him doing every piece of the work for a ragdoll, so watching you work his cock so willingly, attentive to his own reactions and pleasure in a different way…. It hit something in him that only riled him up further than anybody had ever done previously.

“Deeper. Gag on it, make it messy.” His chest heaved up and down heavily, deep huffs through his nose displaying just how good he feels in between the low moans, no shame in showcasing how good it feels. He presses his back against the wall, craning his neck to get a good look of the way your lips stretched around his thick shaft. “I can hear your cunt dripping… Can scent it, god, it smells divine. Your insides must be aching for me.” He murmurs as he drives his hips forward a bit rougher to meet your movements, eager to feel your throat constrict around him when he hits too far down your throat. “Coat your fingers in your juices, little lamb. Show me.”

The praise made you preen, and even more desperate to prove your worth to the man. His cock was so big inside your mouth it was hard to keep yourself from gagging, but you worked against it and continued to suck and slurp down his length. You obeyed every order, and slicked him up until your mouth was squelching with saliva around him and it dripped from your face like a tap. You whined around his length as you obeyed, keeping up a pace as you buried a hand down to your exposed core. You nearly gasped at the feeling. You were absolutely soaked and dripping with anticipation. Your fingers swirled in the wetness and coated you easily. You desperately wanted to touch your clit and play with yourself to bring you to your own end but you knew now it was better to wait for his instruction.

While maintaining your eager pace and swirling tongue, you lifted your dripping fingers from your cunt and presented them to the man above you, eyes still trained on his own in utter submission.

Jimin’s eyes quivered at the sight, pupils shrinking as he zeroes in on the glossy sheen on your fingers. His cock twitched in your mouth once, twice before he decided that he’d been patient enough… He could not wait any longer to claim you as his own. He pushed his palm against your forehead until his length was ripped from your throat, drool and precum dribbling down your chin. A long string of the juices seeped down his cock, another piece of it connected to your lips. It was an absolute mess, just the way he liked it.

“Up.” He growled, but before you were even able to obey his orders on your own, he pulled you up by your wrist, bringing the very coated fingers of yours into his mouth. All while maintaining eye contact, his swollen, pink lips eagerly sucked your arousal clean from your digits, swirling his skillful, rough tongue. Around, in between… He refused to let a single drop go to waste. “Mm..” he hummed when he let go of your fingers with a pop of his lips, the small smirk in the corners of his mouth widening. A light thudding sound caught your attention from behind him, his fluffy, white tail wagging in excitement, hitting the wall with every whip. “It’s a bit hot… Take my jacket off.” He suddenly asks, but his sweet tone was deceptive with the underlying command luring in his predatory gaze. He turns around, lowering his shoulders to allow you to easily slide the leather off, his tail playfully brushing against your thighs.

You nearly whined as Jimin forced you away from his cock—not wanting to remove yourself from the thick length that fit so perfectly in your drooling mouth. But the whine is cut short by his demand to stand and as he sucks your fingers into his mouth you nearly forget everything else around you. “A-ah, fuck,” you breathed—pupils dilating at the sight of the gorgeous man sucking your juices off your delicate fingers. Your cunt pulsated around nothing, so desperate for his thick cock now that the arousal has dripped down the insides of your thighs. “Yes sir,” you whispered as your fingers found the edges of his jacket and pulled it off his body. His tail makes your eyes widen as the soft fur brushes against your legs. You’ve never been with a hybrid before, never been with an alpha hybrid at that, and you’re eager to learn just how he differs in other ways. You couldn’t help but marvel at the muscles on the lithe man. He’s thin, but built and you found you’re desperate to lick up the defined lines of his abs. “You’re so p-pretty,” you whispered without knowing it escaped you, marveling at the gorgeous man.

Jimin’s tail trembled with more excitement at the praise, oddly enough. He’s been called many things. Sexy, scary, hot, alluring… Pretty? He liked it.

“Yeah?” he breathes out a small chuckle through his nose, pressing his lips together in thought. He shook his head to get rid of his mind wandering too far, instead back to indulging in the moment– focused on the aching throb between his legs. Jimin pulls his shirt over his head to expose his full torso, the tattoo on his ribs on clear display along with the faded, scattered scars adorning his skin in the form of striped, claw like patterns. Now with his body freed from the cage that is fabrics, he didn’t waste another second to grab you by the hips, turn you around to face away from him, and immediately push you forward to force you to use the sink as leverage. The large, dirty mirror on the wall stared back at you, clear enough for you to see the two of you in this sinful moment.

“You’re pretty too. A pretty slut, about to get her pretty little cunt stretched so bad you’ll be ruined for any other male.” Jimin’s canine adorned smile grew as he stared you down through the reflection in the mirror, grasp on your hips moving to the flesh of your ass. His foot kicks your feet apart, forcing you to stand wider and spread for him. A quick glance down and he already sees just how wet and dripping your cunt was. He pushed the head of his cock against your slit, coating it with your juices before gently rocking forward, not going inside, instead just rubbing between your swollen lips.

“So pretty,” you murmured as your eyes washed over him. Your mouth ran dry as he pulled his shirt off and exposed himself to the hard light of the bathroom. He looked like sin incarnate and your body ached to touch. Your fingertips lightly trailed the skin of his abs, grazing over the tattoo with the faintest touch. The cold sink countertop felt like ice against your chest, still heaving with need as the man prepped your body for his entrance. “Please ruin me, alpha,” you begged, peering into his own gaze through the reflection of the mirror. Your knees and legs trembled as he teased his cock against your desperate slit. “Mark me as yours, please. I only want you.” His cock felt so thick even at the entrance, prodding and poking through your sodden folds. A moan wrenched through your lips as it pushed against your clit and slicked with your own arousal.

“Fuck me, please!” The teasing was near torture and you were desperate, pushing your hips back lightly to encourage the man to slip in and ruin you completely.

With lips closed, he smiled, eyebrows raising your desperation. It was almost mocking, yet pleased with just how desperate you were for him. Your initial fear seemed replaced with utter submission and desire to be his. “We’ve only been in here for minutes and you’re already pathetically wet.” As he spoke, his hips snapped forward to grant your one and only wish, filling your soppy hole with his fleshy, rigid cock. He had no desire to ease you into the stretch from his generous girth, immediately pulling back until merely the tip was engulfed by your cunt before drilling back into you with another squelching thrust. “Tight… no other cock must have ever stretched you this well, huh? Fuck..” He bites down his abused lower lip, eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he had to gather himself. The scent you emitted was incredibly strong, intoxicating to his mind. It was like a high he’s never experienced before, and he knew he was already a lost cause to the addiction that is you.

The feeling of the alpha’s cock filling you completely was unparalleled. You’d never felt something within you so deep, never been stretched so far past your breaking point—and unable to care about the tearing pain. The pleasure outweighed the sizzling burn of pain. He was merciless and your whimpering moans echoed around the damp bathroom. “I—ohhhh fuck,” you gasped as he pushed into you yet again, spearing you nearly in half. It was as if you could feel him deep in your stomach, and you never wanted him to leave your soaked cunt. He was claiming his territory with each torturous thrust inside you that made your throat burn for more. “Only you,” you whimpered as his thrusts became merciless and powerful. “All y-yours now. Oh, god, so good,” you praised. You learned the beautiful man thrived on praise as much as you did on the dominant commands. Your hips moved in time with his powerful purses and the sound of skin slapping on skin filled the small room. “Oh my god, sir,” you cried as fat tears of pleasure rolled down your cheeks. “You make me feel so good. I only want your c-cock inside me forever.” You knew now you would be hopelessly tied to the man, and you desperately ached for him to claim you as his own. “P-please, mark me as yours, alpha.”

The low, vibrating growl that rumbled throughout Jimin’s body would have anybody’s fight or flight instincts kicking in– the latter the most logical response from anyone within their right mind. His powerful thrusts were beyond that of what a human was capable of, the skin on your ass bruising with every loud, harsh collision of your bodies. “Only me?” he snarled through a wolfish grin, lips parting in a moan when your cunt clenched around his length. His sharp, claw like nails drew blood as they dug deep into the fleshy part of your waistline, moving your body like a ragdoll to meet his thrusts, your own attempts at doing so barely noticeable. “You want to be my little cockwhore?” Jimin leaned forward, hovering above you as he pressed his chest against your back, the grip on your waist moving to wrap around your torso with one arm, the other clawing at your jaw, forcing you to stare into the reflection in front of you. He keeps you tightly in place, feeling the way your body jiggles and jolts while he fucked into you with insatiable greed. “The alpha’s bitch?” His fiery eyes meet yours through the reflection, his toothy smile growing. He inches closer to drag his flattened tongue up your cheek, a coating of messy saliva dripping down your sweaty skin. Claiming you in every sense of the word.

The man claimed you roughly, making your throat rip with a desperate and wanton moan. His cock was pushing into your cunt deeper than anyone’s ever gone before, harder and with purpose. It was as if the man wanted to fuse your bodies together, become one. You certainly wanted it. His hands on your skin felt hot, feverish. You wanted him to touch you everywhere, at any time he could. You were hopeless addicted now. “Please,” you cried as the tears of pleasure poured from your face. “Claim this cunt as yours. I’m only yours!” You could feel your bliss piquing, building up to the impossible precipice. You whined as you watched your reflection. Your makeup smeared down your face with your sweat and tears. His fingers held your jaw tightly and your cunt pulsed around his heavy cock at the sight. You could see his heavy and thick length spearing into you and retracting smeared in your juices. Something inside you tells you it’s what you want to see for the rest of your life—only his cock ruining you and coaxing torrential orgasms out of you. “Yes! Breed me like the bitch in heat I am!” You cried out loud, no longer caring about your volume. Everyone in the bar could hear your desperate screams for the alpha and it only made you wetter, more aching for the man. “Fill me up with your seed, alpha! I need it, please! Cum inside me!”

The perked wolf ears adorning Jimin’s head flickered with his excitement, pointed forward to make sure he soaks up every little sound you make for him. You were so loud, shamelessly letting every hybrid in the building know just how good the alpha makes you feel. ‘Breed me.’ The words stuck to him, replaying in his mind whilst stuffing you with his cock over and over, the mix of your arousal and his precum dripping down into a puddle at the filthy bathroom floor. He wrapped his arms around your torso, holding you close as his thrusts changed pace. Still filled with greed and force, but no longer pulling back as much, instead keeping his cock lodged deep inside of you whilst prodding as deep inside of you as he possibly can. Jimin’s cock was on the verge of bursting inside of you, and instinctively he possessively sunk his teeth into the tender skin of your shoulder, shutting his eyes harshly. But just as quickly, his eyes opened back up, staring with wide eyes into the mirror when something he did not expect happened. He knew this was it, there was no going back. With one last, harsh thrust, he stilled his movements abruptly, heavy breathing down your neck as he kept you tightly in place– in case you would panic. “Gonna fill you up with my cum.. Put my little pups inside of you- fuck…” He growled into your skin, gnashing his teeth together. His cock grew inside of you, and he was physically unable to remove himself.

Whether it was intentional or not.. His body had chosen to breed you– to mate with you. “Mine.” He whined, and with that, his cock began to desperately pulsate inside of you as he disposed of his warm cum in heavy, pattern-like gushes. Like a volcano erupting, it didn’t stop, but he kept cumming, holding his hands on your stomach as he felt it start to lightly bulge from the amounts he was able to offer. “Gah…. shit… Look at you.” He could barely hold his voice stable, legs quivering, body twitching with every throb of his rigid length, still snugly wrapped by your cum-stuffed flesh.

Nothing in the world, in your life, has ever felt better than the way the alpha felt as he fucked into you. You barely knew the man, and yet you wanted nothing more than to give yourself over to him for as long as he wanted. You found yourself wanting to surrender your life to him. You felt safe in the security of his arms. As if you were always meant to find him, to be here with him. It didn’t matter that he had you in a damp bathroom, you would have him anyway and place. Your orgasm quickly approached, winding up and throttling you over the edge as your cunt convulsed around him. Your channels tightened and milked him, and you sobbed at the wave of pleasure creating over you.

“Yours,” you whined as your bodies stilled. His cock enlarged inside you, making your eyes widen and whimper as your hands clutched at his arms wrapped around you. You needed to touch him, stabilize yourself as your core widens to accept him and your tummy bulges from the amount of cum he pulses into you. It’s hot, and warm and you can feel it coating your walls thick. Your breathing was rapid, coming down from your high and the minor fright from having his cock widen and remain locked within you as he came.

“So big,” you whispered as a tear rolled down your cheek. “H-hurts… But I can take it. I’ll take it for you.” Your head lolls back and rests on his shoulder, allowing your body to relax around the feeling of his swollen knot. “Anything for you,” you murmured, as if you were in a daze. Your hands held on to his slender arms for support and reassurance, hoping desperately you pleased the alpha enough to keep you forever. “D-did I do okay?” You asked once, quiet as a mouse. Your confidence was quickly diminishing now that your orgasm subsided and your anxieties returned.

Jimin takes a long moment to catch his breath and collect himself, still holding you in his arms as if he never wanted to let you go in the first place. And truthfully, he doesn’t want to. Doesn’t have to…

“You did so well, little lamb.” He purrs as he places a, surprisingly, gentle kiss with his pillowy lips against your clammy temple. His hands roam down to smooth his palms over the swell of your stomach, reassuring you that this indeed did please him to the max.

After another few minutes, his length finally went back to its original size, immediately feeling his cum seep out your hole. He pulls out, and the flood of his cum splattered against the floor. But it didn’t seem to faze him at all, instead his attention was set on you, feeling your stomach deflate with each passing second. He turned you around to face him, brushing the damp strand of hair away from your eyes as his features seemed to display nothing but gentle affection, his eyes almost disappearing into thin slits as he smiled. His tail wagged happily, and he decided to bring you in for a chaste kiss on the lips.

“My mate.” he breathes out as if it was a relief to finally have you. And it was, he’d been looking for somebody that would be his true mate for life, but believed he would simply be a lone wolf for eternity. But then you came along, as if destiny had thrown you (or rather, your friend threw you) into this place at this time, like a piece of meat for the alpha to claim.

#fic: the alpha #jimin smut #hybrid jimin #hybrid jimin smut #jimin x reader #jimin x female reader #jimin x you #jimin x yn #jimin x y/n #park jimin smut #bts smut #bts hybrid smut #sombreboy #ppersonna #hybridbtsnetwork

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salmonid-ink · 4 years ago

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Let’s talk about Salmonid intelligence!

There seems to be a wide misconception that Salmonids aren’t intelligent, or at the very least, aren’t as smart as Octolings or Inklings. This idea couldn’t be farther from the truth! And because I’m the Resident Salmonid Fanatic™ it’s my job to talk about this.

In hopes to make people consider and think of Salmonids in a better light, and NOT as pets, I’m going to do my best to pull evidence from in-game, as well as interviews, that imply or outright confirm that Salmonids are sapient, much like our beloved Octolings and Inklings.

To start, I’d like to touch on their interactions with other creatures, namely their trade deal with the Octarians. It’s hard to argue for Salmonids not being intelligent when you consider the confirmed fact that they actively trade with other creatures to benefit the both of them.

They exchange their useful Power Eggs (and perhaps vegetables and fruits) to the Octarians for mechanical blueprints, weapons, and machine parts (and potentially tentacle cuts for food). We can wager this trade deal has been going on for a long time, as the Salmonids are fitted to the gills with machinery, and you can make the argument that the Octomaw was inspired by Maws!

While the Salmonids could easily take these blueprints and make the machines exactly as the Octarians planned them, these fish take it one step beyond and put their own twist on things! With their intellect, they’ve customized traditional weapons to suit them better, and the examples can be seen in just about every boss you encounter.

Ink Storm + Brella -> Drizzler

Sting Ray -> Stinger

Ink Jet + Tenta Missiles -> Flyfish

Splash Wall -> Steel Eel

Baller/Splashdown -> Steelhead

Shielded Octotrooper + Roller -> Scrapper

Octocopter -> Chinook

Flooder -> Griller

Octo Seeker -> Mothership

Additionally, they are INSANELY resourceful, able to use any scrap of metal or machinery to make their contraptions, and make them decently reliable. Not to mention the fact that Scrappers are able to repair their cars! On the fly! All while under fire! That takes dedication AND smarts!!

Not to mention the fact that Smallfry, who could very well be babies (and I will argue that they are, as there is no benefit to stunting the growth of ANY creature), are able to pilot Flyfish. They were raised just right in the best environment, and now they’re super smart!

Also, Salmonids are crazy creative, with how they’ve incorporated their cookware into their weaponry. They take their aesthetic to the next level, man.

Next, lest talk about their homes!

It’s vastly clear that they have their own society. At the very least, we can take a glimpse of it with their houses. The Lost Outpost (known as the Colony at Sea in Japan) is a great example of this!

While these houses look like they were cobbled together with recycled parts, which falls in line with Salmonid resourcefulness, they are clearly stable living spaces that were built by he Salmonids themselves with ocean living and fishing in mind.

Additionally, towards the back of the stage, we can see another house with a city on the horizon. While this is purely speculation, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to believe that this city is Salmonid-owned. The areas you go to are claimed to be restricted ocean zones, and given that you’re so far out that you need a house-sized radio dish just to communicate, it’s hard to believe that the city would be owned by anyone else.

I think these city-based homes would be owned by Salmonids that work with machinery, such as repairmen and mechanics. This could also include artisans! Farmers would obviously live in more rural areas, where they can plant and grow their crops.

We can also glean a similar idea from the Spawning Grounds (called the Salmonid Dam in many other languages):

I will argue until the day I die that the dam found in the Spawning Grounds, as well as the adjacent city, belongs to the Salmonids, as evidence by its proximity to the stage, the green water pouring from the dam, and the very clear Salmonid mark on it.

Whether this city was built by them, or it’s one they took ahold of and built upon during one of their past migrations is yet to be determined, seeing my speculations are even true. Either way, it’s clear that the Salmonids are capable of building structures and homes with ease!

If we talk about their homes, even if this is much more on the speculative end, we’ve also GOT to talk about the factory we can see at Marooner’s Bay:

Again, given the proximity to Salmonid territory, as well as the various Salmonid-themed items around the stage, we can speculate that these factories are Salmonid owned, and perhaps where they work on many of their machines and devices.

Things such as Scrapper Cars, Steel Eels, Flyfish jets, Grillers, and Motherships could be constructed here, or this place could be used for processing water or chemicals! It’s a rather vague factory, so again, this is all theoretical. I haven’t a clue what they do here.

Next let’s talk about their art. The existence of art alone should be enough of an indicator that they have minds to think and feel with! Especially when their designs are as intricate as these:

The most of these can be seen around the Lost Outpost and Spawning Grounds, but every single stage has a few of these markings floating around. I don’t currently have many in-stage caps on hand, but if you take the time to look around, you’ll find a few on the ground and walls!

While a lot of these are very clearly graffiti markings, the intricate designs may have some meaning. While we haven’t a clue what exactly they mean, or what they represent, I think they’re extremely fascinating, and give us a peek into what culture Salmonids have.

They’re likely made with stencils, but all the same, they were designed carefully, and must hold SOME significance.

I have a theory that these designs are primarily to mark specific territories. Perhaps certain marks mean different schools and families! Or some of them could be warnings, such as to indicate Grizz activity (such as with the bear icon, which appears in a few stages).

I believe in part, these are a form of expression, ESPECIALLY if they indicate schools. There are so many unique fish-shaped designs, it’d be cool to see how these correlate to individual groups!

They could also be a visual indicator for Inklings and Cephalopods that, yes, this is Salmonid territory, so you’d best stay away! Because while it’d be easy for a Salmonid to tell what area belongs to who by smell alone, Inklings certainly don’t have that luxury!

At any rate, I’d love to see what personal art looks like for Salmonids. What kind of crafts do they make? What sort of things do they love to paint? We don’t really know, and we can only speculate...

One thing we know for certain is that Salmonids appreciate music. It even seems as though they’re inspired by it, given the descriptions that the Salmon Run songs have.

I feel like this is worth stating, even if their existence is fairly common knowledge: ω-3. A band. That plays complex instruments. And does all their own mixing.

Pretty freakin’ smart, I must say!

Additionally, each of the members have VASTLY different styles. The Cellist is stern and stubborn, and won’t accept anything but the best, be it in passion or in radical works. The timpanist is soulful, passionate, and is straight to the point. The DJ is reckless and disrespectful, yet puts forth his best effort.

All three of them are so unalike to one another in style and personality. They may not even get along that well, but at the end of the day, they value working together SO MUCH that they make amazing, unique, and great-sounding songs that stir and inspire their people.

It’d be amazing to see what other types of music that Salmonids like, because this can’t be the only kind. However the style of ω-3 certainly goes hand-in-hand with the chaotic, resourceful, and determined nature of the Salmonids.

We should also touch up on the fact that Salmonids are stated to have tradition. Aside from their 70-year migration, they’re also stated to pass cookware from generation to generation in Sunken Scroll #19.

"Salmonids are known to keep their weapons in tip-top shape. The frying pans they wield have often been passed down from generation to generation. You can see the unwavering pride of these fierce warriors in their (somewhat crazed) eyes."

I like to think that they also pass things like recipes and other tools down to their offspring and kin. Family and schools on the whole appear to be very important to them, which ties directly into their drive to work together as a unit, rather than separately as a makeshift team.

For some conventional evidence, look at this one bit from the Merry Fishmas piece, posted by official Splatoon sources:

I LOVE this image, and there are so many tiny details that you can make out in this. Such as these two:

THEY ARE PLAYING CARDS, and this ain’t no dogs playing poker bit, either! It looks like the other one is losing really bad... Or going into a food coma. One way or another, the other Salmonid is trying to check up on them, haha. Or maybe they’re trying to sneak a peek at the other’s cards? Who knows! That sly grin tells a story.

Also, there’s this Goldie, who is fishing:

These are all pretty human-like characteristics, which makes me think, all the more, that they’re on par with Inklings intelligence wise. I REALLY want to see more interactions like this someday, it fills my heart with delight and joy.

Phew.. Well, thank you so much for sticking with me through this whole thing. I hope this helps people get more perspective on Salmonids, and what little we know about their community and culture.

#Salmonid #Salmon Run #Splatoon #Splatoon 2 #Other Headcanons #mod stinky

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lavendermilkandhoney · 4 years ago

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20/22 Temperance

In Game

Temperance is the card of balance. It may symbolize self-restraint of the gradual shift toward a more mature state of equilibrium. Temperance is associated with being in control of oneself as well as the desire to achieve inner peace.

Location

Temperance is found on one of the walls at the Columbarium located in North Oak.

Zodiac Sign : Sagittarius

The Tarot card Temperance is a card of balance, striving for enlightenment a philosophical tempering if you will. The astrological sign of Sagittarius is symbolic of the very same themes. Both Temperance and Sagittarius are embodiments of searching out into the environment in order to refine what has been learned prior.

In Tarot

UPRIGHT: Balance, moderation, patience, purpose

REVERSED: Imbalance, excess, self-healing, re-alignment

The Temperance card shows a large, winged angel who is both masculine and feminine. She wears a light blue robe with a triangle enclosed in a square on the front, representing that humans (the triangle) are bound by the Earth and natural law (square). The angel balances between one foot on the rocks, expressing the need to stay grounded, and one foot in the water, showing the need to be in flow. She pours water between two cups, symbolic of the flow and alchemy of life.

In the background, there is a winding path up to a mountain range, reflecting the journey through life. Above the mountains hovers a golden crown encased in a glowing light, a symbol of taking the Higher path and staying true to one’s life purpose and meaning.

Upright

Temperance is the card for bringing balance, patience and moderation into your life. You are being invited to stabilise your energy and to allow the life force to flow through you without force or resistance. It’s time to recover your flow and get your life back into order and balance.

This card calls on you to remain calm, even when life feels stressful or frantic. Maintain an even temperament and manage your emotions. You have learned to keep composed in stressful situations. Little things don’t get to you, thanks to your seemingly abundant source of patience. Your respect for balance and tranquillity is what will help you achieve and experience fulfilment in your life.

Temperance asks you to take the middle path and accommodate all perspectives. Now is not the time to be highly opinionated or controversial. Be the peacekeeper and take a balanced and moderate approach, avoiding any extremes. Include others and bring together diverse groups of people to create harmony and cooperation. By working together, you will collectively leverage the right mix of talents, experiences, abilities and skills.

There is alchemy within Temperance. This Tarot card is about blending, mixing, and combining diverse elements in a way that creates something new and even more valuable than its separate parts. ‘Blending’ can take on many forms; for example, a blended family, an artist who blends different materials or techniques, a bartender who mixes new and exciting cocktails, or a chef who combines different cuisines and cooking styles.

The Temperance card shows that you have a clear, long-term vision of what you want to achieve. You are not rushing things along; instead, you are taking your time to ensure that you do the best job you can. You know you need a moderate, guided approach to reach your goals.

Finally, this card reflects higher learning. You are learning a great deal where you are now and are at peace with what you are doing – it is all coming together well. Your inner voice is guiding you to the right outcome, and you are patiently listening and following.

Reversed

If you have recently experienced a period of excess, the reversed Temperance card is your invitation (or sometimes, your warning signal) to restore balance and moderation as soon as possible. You may have been over-eating, regularly drinking, buying things you can’t afford, arguing with loved ones, or engaging in negative thought patterns. These activities are taking you further away from who you are and what you are here to do. So, it is time to stop. As they say, “Everything in moderation!” Or, you may find you need 100% abstinence to break this negative cycle and bring your life back into balance again.

The reversed Temperance card can also be a sign you sense that something is ‘off’ in your life, creating stress and tension. Life is not flowing as easily as you had hoped or there’s a niggling voice from within going, “Wait a second! This doesn’t feel right!” You can ignore it and carry on with life as usual. But, heed Temperance’s warning: If you stay in this state for too long, that voice will just get louder and louder until you pay attention. Or, you can listen to it now and make the necessary adjustments to find your flow once again. Focus on your long-term vision and higher purpose and seek to align your daily activities with this vision.

Temperance reversed may reflect a period of self-evaluation in which you can re-examine your life priorities. Internally, you may feel called in one direction, but your daily life may not match up to what is emerging. See this as your opportunity to align your higher vibration with your outer world. You may need to change your living arrangements, relationships, career, and daily habits so you can cultivate more balance and purpose in line with your new priorities. Don’t be surprised if you run into tension or even conflict as you align your inner and outer worlds; it’s a natural part of the process of levelling up and creating positive change.

Similarly, the reversed Temperance card can be a call for profound self-healing. By creating more balance and moderation in your life, you open the possibility for such healing to occur. Given the reversal of this card, you are doing it in a way that is personal and private to you, without the influence of others. You know you have what you need to heal yourself and create more ‘flow’ in your life.

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Thank you so much @cybervesna for the polish traduction from the official guide book and its associations with the characters!

#cyberpunk2077 #tarot #temperance #ending #cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 tarot

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ghostboy-gamedev · 5 years ago

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Learn Log #4 - Grassy Grove

On week 4 of my pixel art journey, I learned how to make objects of nature including grass, bushes and trees. Unfortunately, I had to postpone this to this week when the learning and blog post was set for last week as I was just preparing for a return to university (it’s all online – social distancing dw). Anyway, I ended up making the forest scene you see above, and it was a lot of fun. I think that the GUI elements last week had a focus on technicality and exactness. Letters are very rigid, and we have somewhat set ideas about what each character should look like. However, nature is more flexible and therefore logic isn’t as heavily involved.

Tile Sets

Before jumping into the actual elements of this week’s piece I want to talk about making pixel art tiles. You will have probably noticed that the nature scene is quite rigid like each element is set into a box. This is because I’m learning pixel art to make games and games often use tile sprites to build their environment.

Tile sprites are the floors and sometimes walls of the environment. They often loop or repeat to cover the environment, however, some engines have tools allowing game designers to build environments tile by tile.

In the first case, the tile sprite will have to be created with its looping in mind and details may be added to provide variation in the environment. However, these added details may highlight the repeating the pattern and the more a detail sticks out the obvious the repetition becomes. Additionally, smaller tiles will repeat more frequently, and this also shows repeating textures.

The second scenario requires variation to be created from the creation of multiple tiles. This is great for creating variation; however, the tiles will also have to line up with each other which may be trickier for more rigid surfaces like rocks or bricks.

Since Unity has a tile builder tool and I was creating a natural environment where tiles wouldn’t need to line up so clearly – I decided to go with the second option.

The size of the tiles may also dictate the size of the rest of the game. For example, a bush may be 1 tile large in terms of level design, so the size of that bush is determined by the size of the tile. This also goes for the player whose sprite will typically range from 1 tile to 2x2 tiles. I decided to just make my tiles 16x16 as I enjoy learning within that space.

Grass

A grass tile is typically made of a green background with blades of grass texturing the surface. Many people may open up a couple of green canvases and start texturing them with green lines, however, there’s a much better way to do things I think. Since we’re working with 16x16 tiles there’s a limited number of shapes that look like grass and are small enough to fit within the tile. So, if we make a bunch of lines in green then we have blades of grass that we can copy and paste into each tile (the blades should typically be a lighter green as light will be hitting them).

However, having blades of grass like this make tiles look flat. Adding shading will fix this issue by giving the grass depth, however, more complicated shading will obviously make the background more complicated which can affect the readability of your game.

Each blade of grass can now be copied into a 16x16 canvas to make grass tiles. I made 4 grass tiles shown below putting approximately 10 blades into each tile. I made each tile with different elements of the environment in mind such as short grass, long grass, bushy grass and leafy grass.

With these tiles, I created a larger image to test the repetition of the tiles. The repetition wasn’t a big issue; however, I didn’t think the leafy grass fit with the rest of the grass, so I decided to leave it behind for the next stage.

Next, I was going to add an extra tile for each of the current textures to reduce repetition as well as two flower variants for each tile type to add some colours into the textures. I did another test of the tiles’ repetition and overall look and it looked good but somewhat cluttered though I figured that this wouldn’t be an issue when I deliberately place the tiles rather than randomly scatter them.

I had in my mind the type of scene I wanted to make for this week, but it required dirt paths. Luckily this wasn’t an issue to make. I made two variations of the straight, one-way paths as they would be tiling and altered one of these tiles slightly to make the curve and intersection tiles.

I then assembled these 15 tiles into the image below.

Trees

Next, I wanted to add some plant life which would involve trees and bushes. I decided to do trees first as they would be larger than the bushes. First, I started with the shape of the tree which would be fairly basic. I made a rough tree trunk shape to start with and topped it with a circle that was a little squished before refining the shape a little more to get what’s shown below.

I then added colour into the tree. A simple brown for the bark and 4 shades of green for the leaves. These greens were made by colour picking the base green background and hue-shifting it towards yellow so the tree would stand out more from the background.

The colours are organised into ovals to help give the tree a sense of depth. The dark shades wrap around the edges of the tree to show the tree’s roundness. The colour thins out as it goes around because you’re viewing the shaded leaves from a side-on perspective.

Next, I blurred the lines between these circles by mixing the colours slightly. This was the start of adding leaves onto the tree. Quickly after that, I added more detail to the leaves by spotting the head of the tree with lighter greens. The details added were in ‘leaf-like’ shapes like hearts, single lines, and arrows. They don’t look like leaves individually and can’t receive much detail themselves (such as a stem) but together they make the tree look nice and bushy. I also added some detail to the tree trunk including shading.

The tree trunk seemed a little off when I checked it out with the image I had so far, unfortunately. So, I added some extra trunk at the bottom along with a nice shadow. This shadow was the colour black at a transparency of 127 (or half transparency). This works really well as a quick and easy shadow on detailed background, but it does, unfortunately, mean the shaded area is not hue-shifted as typically preferred. The final product is below.

Looking at this sprite you may think it would be difficult to construct a game environment due to the leaves, trunk shape and shadow involved. However, we can place each section down as a separate 16x16 tile with the main trunk tile being a collider and other tiles not having a collision box (like decoration tiles – we don’t want players to run into tree leaves). This works out really well, and I focused on the main trunk tile when positioning the sprite in the piece. Which is shown below.

However, the scene below is bit lonely so I thought I’d add some pine trees as a level border. The process of the pine tree is similar so I won’t describe each step but will show the images. This time around I did shape the tree a bit more wildly with branches and leaves sticking out from the tree. I also hue shifted towards bluer colours rather than the more yellow colours I used in the round tree.

Next, it was time to add more trees into the scene and add some grass beneath them. I made the grass beneath them short grass simply because it looks a bit neater than the other grass types.

I think it looks pretty neat! I made a pine tree variant by swapping the colours with that of the round tree for some variation which worked as a nice, easy trick. But it would look livelier with some bushes.

Bushes

You might have looked at the trees just before and thought, ‘That kind of looks like a bush on a stump.’ That’s because the techniques used to make bushes and trees are typically very similar depending on the style of the game. Since we’re using a 16x16 size which is somewhat limited they will likely turn out in roughly the same way.

I started with a circle shape that was modified at the bottom to be a bit flatter. This will hopefully give the impression that the bush is touching the ground and rounds out on the top

I did a similar process in colouring the bush as I did with the tree, however, I used fewer colours as I didn’t have as much room for highlights with the bush. The colours used are actually the same as those in the pine tree.

I then adjusted the outline to give the bush a wilder feel as well as texturing the inside of the bush to create the appearance of leaves.

The bush still felt a little flat, so I added highlights to the top of it to add a greater sense of depth. The highlight was rounded towards its end at the bottom to enforce the rounded nature of the bush. This required me to add another outline tone for highlights which I might apply to other elements of the picture. I was pretty happy with the bush, so I made another for variation and added them into the picture with some shadows.

The picture looked pretty good, but I thought some touch-ups might make it just that little bit better.

Touch-Ups/Conclusion

To touch up the piece I added some more trees for denser looking forest, added the lighter outline colour to the tress and expanded shadows around some of the pine trees. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I think the shadows could use some refinement at the top border of trees. I also think that top border highlights the repeating pine tree trunk which could also be changed to tile better. I do wish my bushes were a bit leafier than shrub-like, however, I think my ability to make leaves on both bushes and trees will improve as I practice. I also think a 32x32 base picture would allow me to make some more defined leaves. The lighting on the pine trees also uses a different technique to the round tree so next time I’ll try to be more consistent with that. Overall though I’m happy and I quite like the outline highlights as they make the image a bit softer.

That concludes week 4 of learning how to make pixel art. Next week I’ll be looking at sand, water and rocks to make a top-down beach scene.

My learning and this blog post wouldn’t have been made possible without these fantastic resources. Go check them out if you wanna learn some stuff about pixel art!

How to Draw Tiled Pixel Art by TipTut

Creating Variation in Pixel Art TutsByKai

Pixel Art 101: Grass by Pixel Pete

How to Make Pixel Grass Tiles by TutsByKai

RPG Grass Background Tiles by HeartBeast

Pixel Art 101: Trees by Pixel Pete

[Let’s Pixel] Tree by HeartBeast

[Let’s Pixel] Spruce Tree by HeartBeast

Pixel Art 101: Bush by Pixel Pete

#pixel art #learning #gamedev #pixel aesthetic #pixel #gaming #learn

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radramblog · 3 years ago

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Some vague concern regarding Modern Horizons 2

We’re getting into the thick of the spoilers for Magic’s next Premier, Big Brains Only set, Modern Horizons 2. Which feels almost too cramped, since the set drops in like two weeks, and presumably the full spoiler will be out by the pre-prerelease, which is..a week away or so? I can’t be arsed looking it up.

(love this art tho)

Considering the absolute flood of releases recently, and how dramatic the impact of the first Horizons set was on just about every format in the game, I’m a little concerned about what this set is going to do to the game. The time since last format-warping card is approximately 6 months- and to be fair, that format was pauper, but the window seems to be shortening every time.

I guess what we need to do is start with an examination of Modern Horizons 1.

Released in 2019, the first Modern Horizons was a set built from the ground up to be relevant in eternal formats, have an excellent draft environment, and add loads of value for casual formats like Commander and Cube. And, for the most part, I think it succeeded. While a few cards (Wrenn & Six, Astrolabe, Hogaak) definitely overshot the mark, a huge number have been generally adopted into various competitive strategies in various formats- Ephemerate is a staple roleplayer in flicker decks, Seasoned Pyromancer has kept Red relevant in tempo, Prismatic Vista is the 11th Fetchland no-one knew we needed. The power in the set is extremely well-spread, with the majority of cards radiating power.

The set also had immense appeal for more casual players, as even the commons and uncommons had unique and spicy effects. Drafting it is like a Masters set draft mixed with time spiral, a high-power environment making high-power decks and all sorts of interesting mechanics mixed together. The set truly does feel like Time Spiral 2. The various cards in the set helped bump up fan-favourite tribes such as Slivers, Ninjas, and Bears, as well as the numerous Changelings making them all sorts of shenanigans more viable.

The set just looks gorgeous as well? It was the first to use the Art cards that would later be used in all the Set Boosters, but this was a great opportunity to try it out, with some of the most divine art collections in any set for the past few years. Adding in all the references to older cards and characters, and non-competitive but enfranchised players like myself are going to be hooked.

What makes me love MH1 so much, I think, is that if you just read the cards, it’s clear that the designers were trying to make every card stand out, by just going “what if” for every single one. What if our typical 3/1 for 1W was a Changeling. What if we did Mother of Runes again, but make her playable without being broken? What if our Convoke creature paid you off for convoking it? What if we made Chained to the Rocks actually good? These are all White cards, but that’s just because they’re what show up first on the list.

So where does that leave us with the sequel? I have some pretty mixed feelings so far- on the one hand, the power is clearly there, the art is on point, but some of this feels like either a mistake or at least a misstep. Where MH1 was Time Spiral, I’m getting the feeling that MH2 is Planar Chaos- and I’m not just saying that because Storm is in Green now apparently.

What we’ve seen so far is pretty clearly (to me, at least) an escalation of what MH1 was- where that set seemed largely to be experimenting with what they could do within the rules of the game, this set appears to be trying to find new ways to bend those rules *just a little bit* while still remaining somewhat inbounds. Carth puts the Loyalty Cost icon somewhere outside a Planeswalker for the first time ever, and the wording on his ability is somewhat confusing. Grist, the Hunger Tide, has one of the most interesting and potentially abusable lines of text I’ve seen in a while, and Garth One-Eye- I mean he speaks for himself. The effects on some of these cards feels reminiscent of the MYB Playtest cards- especially Garth- and while some of those were successfully integrated into the game, there’s a limit to how much of that silliness is healthy for the game.

And if Garth reads like a Playtest card, the new showcase cards look like them. I actually really like how these look, but they come attached to one of the sets biggest problems, and one that’s kind of emblematic of MTG design for the past couple years since MH1- Complexity and Collectability Creep.

Modern Horizons 1 has 254 cards in boosters, that you can get either non-foil or foil if you’re lucky. Each pack has 10 commons (or 9 commons and one foil of any rarity), 3 uncommons, one full-art Snow Basic, one rare or mythic, and either a Token or an Art card. There are two cards with special promos- Flusterstorm, the Buy-A-Box, and Astral Drift, the prerelease promo. You can buy it either in a booster packs or in booster boxes. Relatively simple.

For Modern Horizons 2, WoTC needed two separate articles to explain the various packs and promos, and people are still confused (to be fair fuck reading all that). There are 4 different special frames, and it’s incredibly unclear if they’ll be available in foil, or some even in nonfoil, or how you get each one, and apparently Etched foils are back again? What the actual fuck is going on here? Now, this is arguably not that huge a step up considering Strixhaven and its Mystical Archive, but it feels dwarfing compared to the last MH1. I liked the idea of Project Booster Fun at its outset, but at this point I think it’s clear that it’s gone too far.

(that’s gotta be the most ironic card/art pairing in a while...)

And my biggest concern with MH2 is this. It isn’t that the set will be bad (though based on these current spoilers, if you don’t like Squirrels, you’re SOL), because the set designers know what they’re doing, much as magic players love to complain that they don’t. It’s the precedent the sheer complexity of the collection is setting, I guess. I do think it’s too early to tell whether the set is clearly a mistake or it’s going to be great with some rough patches, but don’t get me wrong- I’m pretty sure this is a polarizer.

Fuck me it does have a Frog Samurai in it though, 10/10

#ramble #mtg #mh2 #modern horizons 2 #medium takes

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rosebloodcat · 4 years ago

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BNHA/AHIT Idea

I’ve had a crossover (multi? Look, it could have a third put in, but that’s just because of how much of a nerd I am for a specific fandom) kicking around in my head for a while now and I need it OUT. I just can’t try to write it myself right now. But it’s refusing to just sit back and let me work on other stuff.

Therefore, I’m releasing this idea into the universe just so it will finally leave me alone. (Because I have PROJECTS RIGHT NOW. Projects that will hopefully give me INCOME!!!) I have thought of numerous little details for it, but I just don’t have time to devote to it right now. If you want to write it, go for it!! Please! I will happily read it if you do!

The base idea is A Hat in Time getting mixed with My Hero Academia, specifically focusing around a Reincarnated Snatcher in the BNHA universe. Who becomes a Villain/Vigilante without really meaning to.

(It’ll make sense when I explain, I promise.)

We know Snatcher is a ghost (and the fandom collectively agrees that he’s also the Prince), so it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that eventually Snatcher would decide/choose to move on.

Maybe he’s tired of ruling the forest. Maybe something’s happened to the forest to make him staying seem unneeded. Maybe Vanessa’s finally passed away (she’s powerful, but I don’t think she’s immortal? Not terribly important) and he doesn’t need to protect the forest from her anymore.

Whatever the reason, he’s found his peace and moves on.

Cut to another planet/world/universe in the future where he’s been reborn into the world of Quirks, but doesn’t have one himself. But he does have powers of his own.

Magic!

It could be an HP-style community, it could be video game-style magical world hidden in a non-magical one, or something else entirely. But, either way, Snatcher has magic and has actually bee taught about how it works and how to use it.

(And maybe he’s been having issues? For it seeming Dark when he really gets into using it?)

He’s gotten stuck in a bad/not great situation, being forced into a loveless relationship and getting forced into a role/box he doesn’t want to be in. He wants out, but he’s either dismissed or too polite/nervous/trying to not get in a worse situation (harking back to his origins as the Prince) that he can’t get out.

Eventually, the pressure reaches a point where something in him snaps, and he lashes out with the Dark powers he’s been trying to keep hidden.

After which he passes out, and ends up remembering his past self as The Prince and as the Snatcher. He sees that he’s getting shoved into a parallel of his life with Vanessa and goes “Oh peck no.” and gets his butt out of there.

So he plunges into the non-magic world, which is full of powers and Heroes and makes it surprisingly easy to bend in. At first anyways.

He quickly finds he’s got a few problems, since he lacks a lot of the documentation/records mundane people need to have. So he uses his magic and his knowledge of (his current world’s) law to forge the documents he needs. He manages to contact other magic-people to finalize his works and builds a believable fake identity that close enough to his actual one to pass under the radar.

He even gets the right papers to get him into Law School. (So he can actually finish it this time.)

But, some how, knowledge of what he did gets out.

He gets contacted by one of the people he knew (whom he’d trusted enough to tell that he was getting out of there) saying that someone wanted him to do the same for them.

He (reluctantly) agrees to do it, and tells them to give the pseudonym “Snatcher” to the person looking for him. And creates a disguise to keep his real identity from being recognized. His disguise includes a mask of the permanently smiling face he’d had as a ghost.

It slowly escalates from there, until the “Soul Snatcher” becomes a whispered name in the Underground. Someone that you can go to escape whatever you’re stuck/trapped with now.

(He has limits/standards. Only helping the people he wants, which are usually people stuck in similar situations to his own. AKA people trying to Abusive, controlling environments or trying to bring people who’ve screwed them over to justice. It makes him a vigilante, of sorts. But he can also be pretty terrifying/cruel too. Especially to people who try to lie to him, or are the criminals he’s been asked to help reveal.)

(His title also became “Soul Snatcher” because of the rumored “cost” to his work. He doesn’t actually take souls, but he gets metaphorical/poetic about what his costumers have to pay so that he can be sure that they won’t try to rat him out. He actually come from an Equivalent Exchange view, but based more on what he’s doing means to the person in question.)

(Like getting a new Identity means “killing off” the old one. So it gets worded as “A life for a Life.”)

He crafts two separate persona’s to keep from being caught by Heroes or the Police.

Prince- His harmless seeming, good-natured self . The nice guy who was studying law, and always ready to lend a hand to his neighbors. He’d absolutely do pro-bono cases for people in dire straights and really sticky situations. He’s the kind of person everyone likes/trusts. Very Pro-Quirkless due to being “nearly quirkless” himself. His “Quirk” lets him breathe life back into wilted/dying plants. (I got the idea for that from a fanfic where Snatcher, when he was alive, had the power to make plants/flower grow when he touched them.) (Feel free to use your own ideas for his powers if you don’t like this idea.)

The Soul Snatcher (or just Snatcher)- Basically his flippant, forceful self from the start of AHIT. He’s a bit of a showman, but also very crafty and very obviously out for himself. He can be sly too. Making contracts tends to feel a lot like making a deal with the devil. (He kind of has a Ursula-vibe to his act.) But he’s also very harsh, and can be downright cruel to people who break their contracts or try to betray him. He uses most of the same powers he had as a ghost, and sometimes the magic/energy he uses can coat his body and change him to look like his ghostly self. (His powers stayed with him because of how he used them back then, and the souls he’d absorbed/eaten. It kinda became a permanent part of his own soul, and carried over because of that.) (There’s also a side effect of him being very light-sensitive when he uses them. If he actually changes to become ghost-like, the light can even hurt him. This is mostly because of how shadow-like he is.)

Thanks to the persona’s, he’s able to keep his two identities separate and is relatively assured that no one would be able to connect the two together. Meaning he can live however he likes without trouble.

Even then, he tries to steer clear of the Heroes and Villains, seeing both as more trouble than they’re worth.

(But that doesn’t mean he ignores the various laws surrounding them. As a Lawyer, there’s no guarantee he won’t get hired for a case involving them.)

He could get involved with Izuku as Prince, either as a neighbor or as a case. (Maybe Inko gets tired of all the crap her little boy’s been put through and hires him to sue the school for discrimination? It’s a thought.) And he takes the quirkless kid under his wing to help him out.

(Maybe Izuku could remind him of Hat or Bow? Not majorly, but just enough that he wants to look out for him.)

Or he could have some close calls with Heroes looking to capture the Soul Snatcher and eventually gets caught. And somehow ends up as an insider/informant for a hero/hero agency.

Or it could be both!

Maybe with Nedzu figuring out that he was escaping a bad situation, that he was helping other do the same, and that he possibly wasn’t even a legal citizen for the area. Maybe even mentioning that it would deal serious damage to his identity/reputation if it got out that he’s Snatcher. And the harm it could do to people he knew/was helping/had helped.

So he reluctantly goes along with it.

And that’s pretty much the end of my thoughts on this idea.

There’s a chance of other reborn AHIT characters showing up (like Vanessa, Hat and Bow, Conductor or Groves, etc) but I have no thoughts for that. But now the idea is down and out of my head. So if anyone wants to try making this story, you are welcome to it!!

And if you want anymore thoughts I’ve had, don’t be afraid to ask.

#rosies story ideas #rosies writing #ahit #a hat in time #The snatcher #ahit prince #boko no hero academia #bnha #my hero academia #mha #take the idea if you want it #i honestly want to read it #but i just don't have time to write it

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lost-caticorn · 6 years ago

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Why I think Chihaya Ayase (from Chihayafuru) is autistic

Hello lovely people! Here is an other autistic headcanon. I was writing an essay on karuta (traditional Japanese sport/card game) for university when all of a sudden I realised how autistic Chihaya was and why i relate so much to her. I watched the entire anime again to make this analysis so here it is I hope you’ll enjoy it ~

I changed the format of my analysis a bit I hope it’ll be easier to read. I doubt the fandom for Chihayafuru is big on tumblr so in case you haven’t watched this anime I really recommend it <3

1.Special interest

If you’ve watched the show you know how obsessed Chihaya is with her favourite sport: Karuta. She thinks about it constantly, spend hours every day practicing and plan her whole life around it.

When she has to do something unrelated to karuta she always finds a way to incorporate it so that it doesn’t seem so impossible to focus on something else. (for example in her homework)

She has an other special interest which is the characters that she and shinobu seem so obsessed with. I think it really reflects that autistic experience when you know everything about a topic, collect everything there has to it and everyone around you just find it cringy (every time they talk about that common interest people around laugh at them).

2. Trouble socialize:

She often comes of as aggressive or too invested when she’s just trying to encourage, motivate or gather people together.

She neglects her relationships because of her special interest (karuta). It looks like she doesn’t make friends that aren’t into karuta because it’s all she can ever think about and she just can’t connect that well with people around her that aren’t as into it. (for example her classmates she occasionally talk with)

She can be quite inconsiderate at times because she's bad at reading other people. (for example: she doesn’t realises that the nicknames she gives could annoy or hurt her friends because she doesn’t mean it in that way // that time she insults Arata’s home without meaning to)

Chihaya doesn’t seem to understand implicit meanings in people’s words and as mentioned earlier she’s not good at reading the atmosphere (ex: ep1 when Arata is bullied she calls out on her classmates’s behaviour without even realizing)

She takes things very literally (for example when her teacher tells her to stop climbing on a chair with a skirt on instead of getting the message to just stop climbing on the chair she does it again but this times with a pair of pants under the skirt)

3. Doesn’t get/care about social rules

She’s described multiple times as a “vain beauty”. What they mean by that is that she’s naturally beautiful but as soon as she talks or move she looses her charm. This shows that from other people’s view Chihaya’s behaviour is seen as weird, not understandable and even as repulsive to a certain degree (which is sadly often how allistics view autistic people). Also, as an autistic female I relate to that in a way because people look at me and expect me to act a certain way but I always end up saying too much, not enough, do something inappropriate and so on...

She doesn’t dress for other people and doesn’t care about how she’s perceived. Being seen wearing weird clothes for example doesn’t bother her as other people’s judgement on that seems to not even cross her mind. Also she doesn’t seem to notice when people find her pretty.

Chihaya is often described as not being “feminine” enough. She’s even mocked more than once for being too “manly”. It’s very common for autistic women to feel a disconnection with our gender because we don’t experience it through social rules as most people do (simply because we don’t get the said social rules).

4. Difficulty handling emotions

Chihaya is perceived as immature because she takes a long time to name her emotions and understand them. She doesn’t really have a barrier between how she feels and what she expresses. She’s very spontaneous and is seen as childlike because of that.

She’s often trapped in her own thoughts and disconnects from reality (for example in episode 10: during a match she takes a deep breath after Taichi talks to her and realises she didn’t even know what her opponent looked like until now)

Meltdown/shutdown: when she feels upset she isolates herself in a safe, restricted and less stimulating environment (a closet). She can’t speak for a while. When she looses against the ex-queen (Yamamoto Yumi) she communicates with Taichi by hitting on the door of the closet she’s in. I’d argue that she goes semi-verbal from time to time but I am not sure if this is a stretch.

5. Info dumping

Chihaya doesn’t seem to regulate well what she says and to who. She regularly infodumps people about karuta but also about that character thingy she and Shinobu have in common.

She tends to ramble and even the people involved in the conversation can’t follow her thoughts and what she’s really trying to say.

5. Stimming

Call me crazy but I think the chocolate eating is more than just needing sugar after a match. I think it’s part of a routine, it’s something familiar that stimulates an other one of her senses after he had to focus on her hearing for too long.

Mumbling: she does it quite a lot and yes talking alone, needing to get your thoughts out by mumbling is absolutely a stim.

Playing karuta: I think that sometimes she just needs to do it to calm down. This is more a headcanon but I think that this can also count as a stim.

6. Sensory processing disorder

It is established that her hearing is incredibly good compared to other people. They tend to call it “the intuition of the game” because she seems to hear the syllabes before they are pronounced.

Multiple times it is shown that she’s very sensitive to the sounds and can get overwhelmed by the noise.

She forgets her basic human needs because of her special interest (doesn’t feel hunger)

I think she might even have synesthesia (a condition in which two or more of the five senses that most people experience separately are mixed) because she sees some cards with colours. she never once said that she chooses colours for them or that it was a conscious decision to give them colours, she just spontaneously sees them that way.

7. Her voice

She can't control her voice. Just watch or rewatch the show and you’ll understand what I mean by that. Again very relatable as an autistic person because people constantly tell me that I talk to loud (I don’t actually but I just talk always at the same volume and apparently it’s inappropriate depending on where you are....).

8. Personal space

Chihaya doesn’t understand personal space especially with Taichi who clearly has feelings for her. She’s way too close most of the time but there isn’t any underlying meaning here she’s just not aware that this distance can be inappropriate when talking to a friend.

9. All of these were present in her childhood:

One of the criteria to get a professional diagnosis is that the “””symptoms””” must already be there when you are a child so I thought it was important to mention that when we’re first introduced to her, all of what I’ve written above is already present.

Conclusion:

That’s all for today! If you’re reading this thank you for sticking with me until the end of this long post. There are honestly much more examples and moments in this anime that made me think that she is definitely autistic but I can’t put everything is there so this will have to do ^^

I haven’t seen anything about chihaya being autistic so I thought it was important for this to be at least somewhere on the internet. I’d be glad if it helps/brings something to even one person! :D

#autistic headcanon #chihaya ayase #chihayafuru #anime #autistic #anime headcanons #autism #aspiegirl #stimming #infodump #sensory processing disorder #special interest #trouble socializing #autistic culture #long post #character analysis

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whereissora · 6 years ago

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My Favorite Sora and Riku BroTP Moments

First off, I don’t ship Soriku. Sorry, but I just don’t. I have never gotten a romantic vibe from them EVER and I really enjoy how they interact and work together like a pair of brothers. There are plenty of other tumblrs that post Soriku, and I assure you they’re not hard to find.

Riku is sexy and important and Sora is a literal drop of sunshine, and I love both these boys so much. I really enjoy how much Riku’s character arc reminds me of Zuko from ATLA and how he embodies the “protective big brother” cliche which can be seen in a lot of animes. Likewise, Sora is a wonderful protagonist and the way he adores and actually listens to Riku makes me want to give Riku a thumbs up:

Good job, Riku, on somewhat-raising Sora. He’s wonderful in a million amazing ways~

I know Sora has parents alright, im just messing around~

And so, as I write this, I will be viewing Sora and Riku in a very platonic manner. These two are close to the point of being real brother’s, and since Kairi does play a part in their relationship, she will be mentioned here and there.

Just know that even if you ship SoRiku and I ship SoKai, doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy this list! This is a BroTP post, not an OTP post, but you may find one of the reasons you ship SoRiku on here even if I have a different understanding of the moment in question.

I will be leaving comments open, with one request: you may say whatever you like in response to this post so as long as you are respectful about it. So please, no character bashing, no ship bashing, and definitely no harassment or bullying. I will block any guilty party and/or close the comments for this post.

10) Encounter in the Land of Dragons

Sora spends the majority of KH2 looking for Riku, and eventually, Kairi. By the time he makes his second trip to “The Land of Dragons” (I’m super tempted to write China, here) Sora has still yet to encounter Riku despite all the extra behind-the-scenes help Riku keeps giving him.

They finally run into each other here, but Sora assumes its a member of Org XIII given what he seems to be doing and what he is wearing. Riku casually warns Sora to watch his back by pointing at the heartless, which Sora then takes out. After the fight, Riku makes this hilarious gesture, like he’s saying “well, look at that. You’ve become so dependable,” then runs off. Sora gives chase until losing sight of him at which point he wonders aloud:

“That guy...”

“No...! Why... Would he...?”

Sora thinks that it’s Riku he just met, and kinda reaches for him as he calls his name. He says “Riku?” in a way that doesn’t hide how cautiously hopeful he is, and is overjoyed later when he hears from the emperor that the guy in the black coat “was kinda rude.”

Sora, YOU’RE a little rude.

9) Riku demands to know what Diz wants (with Sora)

Diz is a pretty suspicious character, and Riku trusts him about as far as he can throw him. Unfortunately, the only people Riku trusts implicitly are comatose, absent, or far away. He can’t wake Sora up on his own, so he begrudgingly accepts Diz’s help.

Near the end of Sora’s reconstruction, Diz expresses his thoughts over Sora waking up in a way that’s... mildly creepy.

Diz doesn’t really care for Sora as a person. He’s a means to an end. Riku isn’t stupid--he can tell. His priority is doing everything he can to help Sora wake up. But the minute Diz says Sora’s name--in a tone that makes it abundantly clear he is being used, like Roxas is--Riku takes a seat like “Don’t you f***ing dare. What do you want with us, anyway?” And says the polite version of that.

8) Riku visits Namine

I’m not sure whether Riku knew to go see Namine on his own, or if he was summoned there by Diz. But either way, Sora’s awakening is taking way too long.

After leaving Castle Oblivion, Riku began investigating the Organization since they literally forced Sora into an indefinite, comatose state. Namine promised to look after Sora, and when they meet again, Riku, gently, but firmly, reminds her of this, as if to ask “What’s taking so long?”

There can’t be a good reason, so he needs to know. That way, he can help.

Unfortunately, the situation is that some of Sora’s memories currently reside in two different people. Namine carefully explains that there is no way to help Sora without harming them, and if they try to do that anyway, Sora will wake up only to realize no one remembers him.

Here, the camera shifts from Namine to Riku while keeping that one line on the screen, making it clear that’s not an option for them. Sora cannot wake up to find out he’s been forgotten--they are not willing to risk that.

This leaves just the worst possible option, and that is to kill two people.

A role which Riku now resigns himself to.

This might have been higher on the list if not for how SAD it is... For everyone involved.

7) Sora remembers how they grew up together

KH1′s ending broke a lot of hearts (cough not as much as III cough) and final mix’s version just twisted the knife with this little scene. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do not remember seeing this little Sora-flashback first time around.

The door has been shut and locked, leaving Riku and Mickey stranded in the Dark Realm. Sora looks on as he recalls his childhood spent growing up alongside Riku, how they laughed and ran together, and this scene couldn’t possibly be more heart wrenching--

Hears Project Destatis D.B. themes and variations playing in the background~

👏Thank👏you👏Everglow👏

You, too @projectdestati

6) Sora and Riku fight the final battle together

I love all the little scenes in this fight.

You get a lot of these two protecting/supporting each other here.

At one point, Sora is nabbed by Xemnas and is having his HP drained, and you get to fight as Riku in order to free him.

When Xemnas starts firing those light-rods or whatever they’re called at Sora and Riku, the boys stand back to back as they deflect them.

This leaves them so drained that Xemnas is able to kick Riku back and attack Sora, but Riku pulls Sora out of the way AND TAKES THE HIT HIMSELF.

Sora and Riku use their combined strength to shoot Xemnas out of the sky.

And on top of all that, you get this:

SORA AND RIKU STOPPED IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIGHT TO FIST BUMP!!!! This is canon. THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED!!!

It’s as if they’re each telling the other:

“No worries! I’m here.”

5) Riku meets Xion (twice)

For the sake of keeping this list to my top ten, I’m including Riku’s first and second meetings with Xion as one reason. I know, I know, I’m kind of cheating, but I really can’t choose between these two.

While investigating Org XIII, Riku must wear their coat. It allows him to move about without detection. Ironically, this also gets their attention since he’s Riku, he’s not one of their members, and he’s clearly opposed to them. They send Xion to take him out, but he defeats her and is both disturbed and concerned by her appearance.

Xion demands to know why Riku is dressed as one of them, and he answers:

“To make sure my best friend... Sleeps in peace.”

Riku is determined to protect Sora, who is vulnerable in his sleeping state, no matter what Riku is forced to wear, or who he transforms into. This may partly be due to the fact that:

Riku was the one who opened the DTD and destroyed the islands.

Riku is the reason Kairi’s heart was separated from her body and went into Sora’s for shelter.

And Sora ultimately had to stab himself through the heart to free her and complete the keyhole in Hollow Bastion.

And all of this led to the creation of Roxas, Sora’s Nobody, being born. Sora wouldn’t even be in this mess if it weren’t for Riku’s actions. Heck, without Riku, Sora never would’ve gotten the keyblade, which has made Sora a huge target for Org XIII. Riku carries that guilt with him everywhere he goes throughout Days, as he struggles to help Namine complete Sora’s reconstruction.

The next time Riku meets Xion, she’s run off from the Organization because she learned what she really was. She tries to ask Riku where Sora is and he outright tells her:

“That secret stays with me.”

Riku says this in a way that makes it clear he would die before he handed Sora over to the enemy, and isn’t willing to risk Sora’s safety for anything.

Riku, buddy, you’re a priority, too.

He never blamed Xion or Roxas for the Organization’s actions, though, because just like Sora, these two were being used. So when Xion asks “Do you hate me for taking your friend away from you?” Riku’s answer is:

“Nah... I guess I’m just sad.”

Me:

Xion is the reason Sora cannot wake up! On top of that, because Xion exists, Riku must see to it that both she and Roxas meet their ends if he ever wants to see Sora again. And despite all that, Riku doesn’t hate her.

5) “Don’t be so reckless. Do you want to end up like Riku?”

Halfway through KH2, Saix implies that Riku has ended up in a dire situation, causing Sora to react with alarm. As far as Saix knows, Riku was taken out by Roxas, and he’s more than happy to let that slip to Sora who has been searching everywhere for him.

With or without his memories of C.O., Sora’s last real memory of Riku is watching him be trapped in the Dark Realm when they closed the door together.

The Dark Realm is basically the KH version of Hell, and it’s not the place for hearts of light residing within still-living individuals. From what Sora’s seen of the Dark Realm, it is crawling with dark sides, and even if there is a light within the darkness, the Dark Realm is not a safe place to be.

So hearing Saix say “Do you want to end up like Riku?” has a pretty powerful impact on him. Aside from his own firm belief in Riku’s strength, Sora has been given every reason to believe Riku is dead. There’s no sign of him anywhere, no word of him from anyone, and the last place he was seen in is a relatively fatal environment.

And now he has even less reason to hope Riku is still alive.

4) Riku rescues Sora in 3D

Say what you will about 3D, but the bro feels are HEAVY in this game.

Once again, Sora is lured into one of the Organizations traps.

And again Riku attempts to protect him from this trap.

Again, he failed to reach Sora in time. It is only with the help of Donald, Goofy, Mickey, and Axel that he is able to retrieve Sora before it is too late.

Sora’s heart was trapped in darkest abyss, leaving Sora’s empty body in a sleeping state, similar to what Ven suffered through for over a decade. Yen Sid theorizes that Riku, who unlocked the seven sleeping keyholes within Sora’s dreams, now has the ability to retrieve Sora’s heart and wake him from his sleep.

Come to think, maybe this has something to do with why we see Riku looking for Sora in the KH3 secret movie instead of Kairi?

It’s insanely dangerous to venture into the abyss, but Riku goes anyway and is successful in rescuing Sora.

3) Did I mention that Sora called for Riku when YMX nabbed him?

Sora’s afraid! He’s steeming in darkness and he’s struggling to keep his eyes open because he knows there’s a chance this will be the last thing he sees! He’s aware that if his body is turned into a vessel, he’ll be used to hurt Riku, Kairi, and everyone else he loves.

So what does he do? He calls for Riku!

Riku has been taking the exam with him, and if there’s anyone who can pull him out of this mess its Riku, the same person who has almost always come to his rescue.

And Riku does that just that.

I actually really enjoyed 3D just because it was fairly dark, and heroes can’t succeed all the time. Plus, Riku got to play the role of the one who has Sora’s back no matter what and was rewarded with the title of Keyblade Master for his trouble.

Sora deserves to be Master, too--

2) Kairi reunites Sora and Riku in TWTNW

This scene has me in tears, even now.

As mentioned before, Sora has been given every reason to believe Riku is dead.

He saw someone in the Land of Dragons who was using Riku's keyblade, and was kind of acting like Riku. But was that really him? Or just another member of Org XIII messing with him?

What did Saix mean when he warned Sora not to be reckless like Riku was?

King Mickey made a promise to Riku, but what sort of promise? And why won’t he say anything about Riku?

What happened?

Where is he?

Thanks to Kairi, Sora is able to reunite with Riku properly. Riku wasn’t even going to say anything to Sora--he still feels ashamed of himself for betraying Sora, and for looking the way he does. But Kairi takes both boys hands and has Sora close his eyes, and Sora is able to finally figure it out:

Riku was always close by, helping him. He just looks a little different.

Sora raises his head, and his eyes first widen then scrunch up as the tears come.

He takes Riku’s hand and falls to his knees.

Once he’s down there, he can’t hold himself together anymore and just starts weeping.

This is part of the reason people ship SoRiku at all, and heck, I might have too if not for SoKai and the fact that Sora is a super affectionate person.

Also, it’s pretty clear by how relieved and tearful Sora is that he more-or-less believed Riku was gone. He looked for him, but couldn’t find him anywhere. The organization loves to mess with him--maybe that guy who was behaving like Riku in the Land of Dragon’s killed him and stole his sword. Maybe the reason Mickey won’t say anything is because the truth is too much.

I have best friends that I’ve grown up with, too. If they were to vanish like Riku did, and I went from country to country in search of them, and then if I finally found them after being told everywhere I went that they were gone... Well, I’d be more of a mess than Sora because I’m not as strong as him.

Sora manages to choke out that he looked ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE for Riku. To which Riku answers:

This earns a shocked little gasp from Sora, because it’s kind of a slap in the face to Sora’s efforts to locate Riku.

Not that Riku is trying to be cruel here. Sora doesn’t understand yet that Riku only pushed him away in order to protect him. And when Sora demands, “Why didn’t you let me know you were okay?” Riku calmly explains that he couldn’t stand for Sora and Kairi to see him like this, with Heartless Ansem’s face. The face of the man that possessed him and nearly killed Sora and Kairi.

But they don’t care what he looks like, because it’s still Riku on the inside.

1) Riku protects Sora in KH3

Gosh, this was such a heavy moment.

Sora and Riku were just forced to watch as all their friends were whisked away into the Demon Tide. The last person to go was Kairi, and once she’s gone, Sora falls to his knees lets out a scream that destroyed me physically, emotionally, and mentally.

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We have never seen this side of Sora before, and neither has Riku. Just after Kairi is taken away, Riku is standing nearby, staring out at the demon tide, apparently in shock. We can’t see his face, but Riku grew up with Kairi, too, and he’s clearly distressed by what just happened.

But Sora screams his heart out and Riku immediately rushes to his side. He kneels and listens as Sora gives up and claims he is worthless without the others. Riku’s expression is soft at first but slowly hardens, and after Sora cries over his failure, Riku quietly gets up and tells him:

“Sora, you don’t believe that.”

“I know you don’t.”

Riku then walks forward without another word, and singlehandedly keeps the demon tide at bay.

Sora cannot find the strength to get up and help, but Riku doesn’t yield. He screams in defiance as the shadows overtake him, determined to protect Sora until the end.

Overall, I just really like how Riku has Sora’s back no matter what and how Sora quietly acknowledges that in KH3 when comparing Riku and himself to Anna and Elsa:

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These two are bros for life.

#Sora #Riku #Kairi #Elsa #Anna #Kingdom Hearts #video game series #brotp #bros for life #i love these boys #riku is sexy and important #sora is literal susnhine

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brahms--heelshire · 6 years ago

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Patrioto! (USUK)

(A/N): @mysthicrider gave me the honor of getting to write this. she gave me the idea for it so I’m big happy.

I, frankly, thought comic books were a waste of time. I wrote real books. Comic books took so much away from the reader’s experience. It took away being able to imagine the characters’ appearance and being able to see skillfully woven-together words. The only words were the ones that people said. Plus, it took away the fans’ ability to headcanon appearances and stuff. So when my best friend, Gilbert, showed me a new comic book that would be on the shelves of our bookstore, I didn’t want to read it… At least, not until I saw the hunk on the cover. The art was exquisite and the man on the cover winked at the camera, wearing an obvious superhero suit.

“Alfred F. Jones and the Murderer on Second Street,” I read off of the cover.

“The main protagonist is bi, if that influences your decision at all,” Gilbert said, giving me a smirk.

“So that’s one thing he has in common with you,” I said.

“Yeah, but it’s still LGBT representation. You’re gay so you should care about that shit.” Gilbert shoved it into my hands.

“I do care about it! And fine, I’ll read the stupid comic book,” I muttered, rolling my eyes.

It captivated me surprisingly quickly. The main character was a quirky man who was a bit of a dork, which honestly just made him cuter. When he was in his superhero suit- his superhero name was Patrioto, which was rather dumb, but I’d written dumber- he tried to be serious and tough. But when he was just his civilian self, Alfred F. Jones, he was an adorkable main character who wanted the best for everyone. He was charming and heroic. I needed someone like that in my life.

And as I turned the page, I felt a tug in my stomach. And then my fingers went numb. It was a strange sensation.

And before I knew it, I was blacking out.

I rubbed my head, letting out a groan. I was… lying on the street, blinded by the bright lights around me. Last thing I remembered, I was sitting in the back of the store with Gilbert, reading a comic book.

I felt someone take my hand and help me up.

“Are you okay?” The person asked- clearly concerned- as they brushed hair out of my face.

My eyes adjusted to the light to see that the man in front of me was Alfred F. Jones. It was then that I knew it was some stupid dream. Nevertheless, I crossed my fingers and silently prayed that he didn’t have a love interest.

“I’m fine.” My voice came out awkwardly croaky.

“You sure? I found you passed out on the street. I was hella worried.”

He took my other hand and clasped his around them.

“I’m not dead. Just new here and have nowhere to stay.” I avoided any eye contact with him.

“Well don’t sleep on the street, silly! I don’t know where you’re from, but that’s an easy way to get run over in good ol’ NYC. If you really need a place to stay, come over to mine.” He laughed and took his hands off of mine to adjust his glasses.

“I’m from England if you can’t tell by the accent. And how are you sure that I’m not a murderer?” I raised one of my eyebrows.

“I’m stronger than I look. Plus, if you were really a murderer, you would’ve just come with me without asking that.”

I scoffed. “Well maybe I was expecting you to say that.”

“If you really were, you wouldn’t have confessed it.” He tapped his head like he’d figured something out.

And then we made eye contact and simultaneously burst out laughing. Just saying stupid things with someone took weight off of my shoulders. My real life was always so stressful. Besides talking with Gilbert, life for me was always bills and work. No time for dumb shenanigans and fake arguments.

“So whaddaya say? If you really have nowhere else to go, I’ll make the heroic choice and let you stay with me.” He gave me his signature grin- of course, every superhero has one- and swung his keys around on one of his fingers.

“Alright, I guess. You seem like pleasant enough company.” I held out my hand to shake.

Instead, he took my hand and held it. “The name’s Alfred, by the way. What’s yours?”

“Arthur,” I responded.

“That’s a cool name. Really English.”

I nodded.

And before I knew it, we were at his place. Time just seemed to race by when we talked. It truly felt like love at first sight- although it didn’t help that I already knew some of his personality from reading his comic. We just clicked.

“So, here’s the guest room. My room’s right next to it, so come in and bother me if you need anything. I’m gonna go ahead and crash soon, but food’s downstairs. I also have some video games, some comic books, and a TV. Just make yourself at home, Arthur.”

“Thank you. I will.” That was most likely a lie. Not wanting to intrude, I would keep to myself and only accept something if Alfred offered it to me. After all, it was his house.

So I headed to the guest room, already weary. I changed into my pajamas, but then I just lied awake on the guest bed, accompanied only by silence. Alfred lived alone, but had such a large place. I wondered if it ever made him lonely. I was so used to a loud, boisterous environment. There was always background noise when I slept. So the silence kept me awake.

I did end up bothering Alfred.

I knocked on his door, but walked in before he had the chance to answer it.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, practically jumping out of bed.

“Your house is too quiet.” I rubbed my eyes.

“That’s the first time I’ve heard that,” he said with a laugh.

“I need noise to sleep,” I muttered.

“Then sleep here. I snore, so there’ll definitely be enough background noise for you.” Alfred rubbed his eyes and patted the bed next to him.

“So do you have a sleeping bag... or an extra mattress or something?” I looked around at the stacks of comic books and disarray of clothes on his floor, wondering if he wanted me to sleep in his bed with him.

“I have a king-sized bed, Arthur. There’s way too much room in here to just let you lie on some uncomfortable air mattress.”

So I got in his bed and, feeling at ease, quickly fell asleep.

I woke to the sight of Patrioto.

“Shit!” He shouted.

“Oh my god, you’re Patrioto,” I said, pretending to be shocked.

“I have no idea what you mean, Arthur.”

“Alfred, you sound exactly the same, have the same hairstyle and hair color, have the same eye color, and have the same body shape. There are so many more things I could say but I think that’s enough for now. I wouldn’t want to humiliate you any further.”

“Fine. You got me. But you have to do two things for me.” Alfred reached deep into his closet and pulled something out. “You can’t tell anyone!”

“Of course. I wouldn’t dream of revealing your secret identity.” Despite the fact that I had only read half of a comic book, I knew that that was the correct thing to say. Revealing a superhero’s secret identity was basically the worst thing that one could do.

“And,” He turned around with a large grin on his face and it made me uneasy. “You’ll have to be my sidekick!”

“Oh no,” I muttered.

“Oh yes!”

Alfred made me get all dressed up in a superhero sidekick outfit, complete with awkward knee-high boots and neon colors.

“Oh my god,” Alfred cried out.

I checked the street sign- seeing ‘2nd St.’- and gulped, bracing myself for the sight that would be in front of me. After all, the title did mention the murderer on second street.

First I saw that a man was actively being stabbed.

Then I saw Alfred rushing into action. I hadn’t remembered Alfred really being a violent hero, but he punched and kicked the man who was doing the stabbing with all of his might.

And then he walked back to me, empty handed. Leaving two corpses on the ground behind him. I noticed the tears streaming down his cheeks.

Never the best at comforting others, I gently rubbed Alfred’s back.

“It was my brother…”

And I had a feeling that I had just watched Alfred’s sad backstory play out in front of me.

For a few days, Alfred mourned. He didn’t even get out of bed. The only person he talked to was me and I pretty much did everything for him.

Then, he was a little better. Not much, but a little. He could get out of bed sometimes. He was feisty enough to insult my cooking. He still didn’t feel up to much. Crime raged on the streets, with only the incompetent police to stop it.

By the time I’d been there for almost a month, Alfred finally felt good. Or, at least, good enough to ask me intrusive questions.

“So Arthur, do you have a girlfriend waiting at home and warming your bed for you?”

“I’m gay.” I rolled my eyes.

“A boyfriend?” He asked, leaning towards me.

“No, I’m single,” I replied, dusting off his cabinet.

“Wanna go on a date?”

I felt my face flush. “Alfred, I have to leave soon. I can’t let you fall in love with me.”

“Too late for that, sweetheart. Can I at least know if you share my feelings?”

“I really must go.” I backed away from him, heading towards the door. I didn’t know when I’d be allowed back in the real world, but I had a gut feeling that the time was near.

“Can I just have a kiss? If you feel the same, just give me one kiss. Then we can go our separate ways and repress our feelings all we want.” His pleading voice mixed with my pulsing heart was too much for me to deny.

So I leaned in and let our lips touch for barely a moment, before I felt the feeling. The same feeling I felt when the damned book sucked me in.

“I don’t want to leave you,” I muttered.

His cheerful “You don’t have to!” was the last thing I heard.

Finally back in my little bookstore, I finished the comic book quickly and was shocked at every new page. All of it was what I had done with Alfred. I had no idea how it happened, but I felt somewhat pleased. But on the other hand, I felt a pit of disappointment in my chest. We were in love, but we were torn apart. And we’d never see each other again.

I brought the book up to the counter to see Gilbert in a cowboy hat.

“You need me to ring that up for you, partner?” He asked, in a fake American accent that sounded just as shitty as his fake British accent that he put on sometimes.

“Do I really look upset enough that you had to pull out fake accents?”

“Well, I’m not clueless about what happened,” Gilbert muttered, ringing it up. “The book needed finishing and a hint of romance was the perfect touch.”

It shocked me speechless.

At least, speechless until I looked towards the person who was walking through the door. My eyes recognized him immediately and when he gave me a wink, my heart practically melted. But… how did Alfred get into my world?

#usuk #my fic #fic #usuk fanfiction #usuk fic #this is hella anticlimactic #and there are a ton of time skips but #almost 2000 words babey!!!!

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craftmanatee · 6 years ago

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Sekiro is easier than Dark souls

Its funny, but both games have different philosophies that make them hard.

In short: Dark souls is about answering challenges the best way you can, and is evenly distributed across the environment, enemies and bosses but for the most part your character is unique and may struggle in different areas from other characters. In the end, its about enduring and pulling through with your best tools than it is beating it with pure skill.

Sekiro forces you to get better by learning and reacting faster than you thought you could. So a big part of Sekiro is simply getting used to the game.

Ok, so you are the best player in your area in this one Fighting game. The game is complex but pretty playable. In your area, nobody has beaten you, until someone from a different country comes to play against you. He wins with seemingly even more skill. He did things you never thought you could. He basically rose the skill ceiling of the game for you and is now demanding that you climb that new height.

This is what Sekiro does as a singleplayer game.

Once you beat your 1st playtrough, 2nd playtrough is much more fun and engaging as you have learned everything that it can throw at you. Heck, maybe you have gotten so good that you will have new and better answers against bosses and enemies you have played.

But Dark souls is different in this manner. You may choose to play a different character all together and re-struggle in areas you have played. You MUST answer with things you can only answer with, especially towards the end game.

Sekiro is a pretty different game from dark souls and in many ways is also a lot more polished. But that is because of an inherit design that separates the difficulty in the two games.

Exhibit 1: Character diversity or strength

Dark souls has a character creator and lots of different weapons and tools and spells that make your character unique. Which means your playtrough will be different, and harder or easier in certain areas. Dark souls games also has a leveling mechanic where your character for the most part will be stronger at whatever he is doing best. This also goes for upgrading your weapons. My first playtrough of Dark Souls (1) where i discovered the usefulness of upgrading weapons meant a huge difference.

Sekiro however, you play as a single character and the only difference that makes you different from other people is your strategy and what prosthetic you choose to use. You can even pause the game to use all prosthetics in a single fight, some of which instant kills tougher enemies or disables bosses. This does not make Sekiro easier though, as not all players will discover the most optimal strategy, but you have most of the advantage and the resources, and are free to experiment.

Exhibit 2: Enemies and Environment.

Dark souls features more enemies than Sekiro, it also features better enemy placement with their environment (Particularly Dark soul 2 does this best). This also makes the new areas more interesting and makes it easier or harder for certain characters. The best example is DS2′s Shrine of Amana or Scholar of First sin edition. It mixes and mashes enemies and environment to be harder or more interesting. And again, this can be more or less difficult depending on your character and strategy.

Sekiro also has this, but not as much. It is mostly watered down because of Sekiros unique stealth mechanic that allows you to farm or kill enemies instantly if you catch them without being seen. This makes your path to progression/next boss much faster and less likely to put you in a difficult to pull trough area. Combine it with tools and tricks from Exhibit 1, you can trivialize these areas. Sekiros mobility also helps the game be easier as you can escape the area and “Reset it” in a way. Much like how Dark souls in some or many cases has these zones that enemies do not traverse over.

Exhibit 3: Death Mechanic

In dark souls, your only saving grace is coming back to the place that you died and reclaiming all that you have lost (Souls only). In some Dark souls games, you also loose maximum health, until you humanize yourself.

Sekiro on the other hand lets you die 1 or two more times before truly dying. And you loose half of your money and half of skill point EXP when truly dead. But, your money can always be spent on the Idols before loosing them, and you only loose EXP, not the skillpoint itself. This to me, compared to dark souls is a lot more forgiving because when it is your first time. In dark souls games, you can happen to burn all your humanity resources quicker and or happen to have died in a boss room, which is more difficult to get out of (only escapable with your souls if you have homeward bone, also a resource).

But Lastly,

Game difficulty, and how Sekiro demands 1-upping yourself

The things mentioned do add up to make a point of how Sekiro is trying to be more forgiving than dark souls. Dark souls has a much more general design to fit the online aspect. But there is still one thing unique to Sekiro that makes Sekiro so difficult.

With your character, resources and gameplay in dark souls, you will most likely be stuck with that set of tools across your entire game. All bosses and enemies are killed in the same way that you endured and pulled through. This is the difficulty of dark souls.

Simply pulling through the difficult challenge, and responding to it accordingly as it is presented.

Sekiro on the other hand, forces you to play better. Most of its difficulty comes from getting used to things, such as getting used to deflecting, and learning the parameters of how exactly or when it lets you deflect and countering the Unblockables. As well as learning enemies/bosses methods of fighting so you can better abuse them with tools or sword gameplay.

Once you ARE better, the game turns into Normal mode. or Easy mode. There are obscured difficulty settings to make the game stupidly harder.

But, fuck demon of hatred though... That is a terrible and hard boss. Who invited Dark souls bosses into Sekiro? It doesnt work!

#Sekiro #Sekiro shadows die twice #shadows die twice #dark souls #dark souls 2 #dark souls 3 #game difficulty #hard games #hard game

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ladala99 · 5 years ago

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Spyro Reignited Countdown - Skylanders: Trap Team (Console)

While Giants was boring, Trap Team has the perfect mix of infuriating monetization, cheapness, and charm. Yes, charm!

Here is where I started to despise Activision and the yearly model. Here is where I never 100% completed the game. But here is also where there’s a lot of really great characters, both in figure form and in-game.

Gameplay

Toys for Bob is back and they toned down the knockback combat mechanics. It’s still more playable for melee characters than Giants was, but it’s not nearly as fun as the previous title.

Other than that, it’s par for the course. A lot of combat, some platforming, gated areas, the whole Skylanders deal.

The Gates

Here’s where it gets dicey. Elemental Gates return, but not in the same was as before. These are Traptanium Elemental Gates, which means you need a Trap Master of that element to get through.

If you were part of the fandom during this game’s hype cycle, you would have heard a developer state that ANY character of the proper element would open Elemental Gates as always. As the release date approached, however, an Activision person later said the state of matters that ended up being in the game: that you needed specifically a Trap Master to open the gate. Indicating that this was a change in plan, and Activision was likely the one to request it.

Looking at the design of the game, it shows. In previous games, elements that come in the Starter Pack have more leeway with hidden collectables and show up together in early levels. This happens in this game with both Water gates ( for Snap Shot, a Trap Master), and Life gates (for Food Fight, who isn’t a Trap Master). There’s also Trap Master-specific areas anyways, much like the Giants, so this game would have followed in that game’s footsteps pretty accurately if this change had not been made.

Also, in all games previously, Soul Gems are located in areas that either come with the Starter Pack, or are unlocked by that character. The Light and Dark dragons, however, have their Soul Gems locked behind Traptanium Elemental Gates that match their element. If you don’t have their respective Trap Master, you would not be able to finish their moveset in this game.

But also on top of that, if you truly want 100% you need a full elemental set of traps, sold separately. They’re cheaper than even regular characters and unlock gameplay for several villains, but if you want 100% you need them all.

And there’s two additional elements in this game.

All of this together means that you need to buy 9 $15 Trap Masters and 8 $6 Traps to 100% the game. Oh, and one Mini, which come in 2-packs for $15.

And what’s more is that in the way the game’s designed, you’ll find a hidden area only to be greeted with an Elemental Gate. And it’ll happen over and over. I don’t know if this is different in previous games or not since for those I built my collection quickly while in this one I stubbornly did not and still don’t have everything. But way more often than not you’ll be greeted with a Gate rather than a different collectable.

Old Figures vs. New Figures

They’re relatively balanced in combat. Not the greatest, and characters from this game generally are better than older ones, but old ones are still usable.

The figures from Swap Force seem to be a bit more affected than others. Possibly some developer rivalry?

But the change in Elemental Gates really devalued the old characters, and in fact a lot of the new cast as well. Their uselessness as keys and the fact that Trap Masters get bonuses against bosses (and there’s a lot of bosses), means that there’s little reason to use anybody but Trap Masters.

It’s not as unbalanced as a certain game to come, but it’s not particularly balanced, either.

The Collectables

We’ve got your standard Skylanders round-up: Treasure Chests, Hats, Story Scrolls, Legendary Treasures, and Winged Sapphires. This time, Legendary Treasures are just decoration again. Everything’s back to how it was in the first two games as far as findability.

There’s also Villains and Villain Quests to worry about, too. Villains tend to be in your path as bosses, but Villain Quests can be a bit more out-of-the-way. Villain Quests are like Heroic Challenges: specific minigames for that particular Villain that give them an upgrade. Although some of them are as simple as “jump in this pot,” while others are as complex as an Angry Birds reference.

Bosses

There’s a ton. Each Villain you fight as a boss, and some are in the middle rather than at the end of levels. They aren’t too hard or particularly interesting, and tend to just use their powers against you rather than the environment. Then, after you Trap them, you can play the same way they did.

There are some exceptions, and those tend to be pretty fun. Like Chef Pepper Jack’s crazy fight. Or Dreamcatchers. Basically, the Doom Raiders have more interesting battles. And they actually get more complex in Nightmare Mode I understand, which is an improvement over just making everything take more hits and hit harder.

Levels

I’ve ranted about this above: the whole Elemental Gate thing. I don’t recall my opinion on the actual levels.

I do remember that the more interesting maneuvering and puzzles happen in the Elemental Gates. But that these areas are tiny compared to previous games. So like, they’re marginally more fun for about a minute and then they’re over and you’re back to the main path.

Story

Now I’m going to get this mixed up with the TV show since that used a similar plot.

But I think the game goes about that Kaos freed the villains from Traptanium Prison to be his allies. Ha. Yeah, right. They go rogue.

But, you know, they’re causing trouble so it’s up to you, the Portal Master, along with your new Trap Masters, to take them down. And then they randomly reform in your possession so you can use them against their former allies and Kaos.

I really don’t remember the rest. It just wasn’t that memorable. The characters themselves, though - they were really interesting. Just not the overall story.

Unique in the Series?

It’s the only game with a Trap-like concept, where you have a selection of characters for one figure. It’s the only one with mystery elements that they tried to keep secret for a while. It’s the first game in which you can play as Kaos, (but later games make this not unique).

Other than that it’s pretty standard fare. Aside from the uniquely money-grubbing nature of it.

Conclusion

Many people have different opinions on what caused Skylanders’ downfall. I point to this game. With how Activision betrayed consumer trust by making the Elemental Gates need a Trap Master in particular, gating off parts of the game not designed to have such a high paywall, a lot of people quit the series or just accepted that they wouldn’t be 100% players anymore.

And if you’ve put someone past the tipping point of that, all motivation to continue getting 100% in future games goes down the toilet too. The remaining games are flashy and try to get consumer attention, but the damage had already been done.

This game convinced me that I’d never put too much effort or faith into games made by Toys for Bob again. It was a sinking feeling when they were announced as the ones to make Spyro Reignited. It looks like they’ve redeemed themselves, though, aside from another instance of Activision’s cheapness (the whole fact that only 1/3 of the game is playable out of the box without an internet connection).

#spyro #skylanders #skylanders trap team #video game review #spyro reignited

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frankly-art · 6 years ago

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Frankly-Art’s Top 10 Video Games of 2018

Also available to read on my deviantArt!

With every New Year comes another year’s worth of video games to look forward to, and 2019 promise to be a good one in that regard: the release of Kingdom Hearts III is only days away, Piranha Plant and Joker are certain to be innovative and entertaining additions to the Smash Ultimate roster, Animal Crossing is coming to the Switch… and those mark only a small fraction of the many things 2019 has in store for us in terms of gaming. Amid all of this hype, I got to thinking about the varied gameplay experiences I had over the past year; so, I figured this would be as good an opportunity as any for me to reflect on them with a bit of a critical eye and definitively rank each of the video games I managed to get to during 2018!

Keep in mind while reading that, even though this is a list featuring games I played in 2018, many of these games were ones released in years past that I never got around to until last year—so, if you were expecting a list of the top 10 games that were released in 2018, I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere (but not until after you read my oh-so-important list first! I crave validation!); expect a healthy mix of new and old titles in the list below. Additionally, this list will rank downloadable content (DLC) separately from standalone titles, as I don’t find it fair to compare a DLC add-on to a fully-fledged game. I’ll be weighing the score of each DLC depending on how well it improves and expands upon the narrative and gameplay of its original game.

Without further ado (and with no better means of transitioning from this introduction to the list itself than to use a somewhat tired expression in the realm of video games), let’s-a go! (Please forgive me.)

-SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT-

Favorite Characters: Revali, Urbosa, Kass Favorite Tracks: Monk Maz Koshia (all phases)

It might come as somewhat of a shock that a game with “Breath of the Wild” in its title would rank lowest on my list, but hear me out: no matter how much fun it was to be able to return to Hyrule in this DLC expansion, in my opinion, Champions’ Ballad just felt like more of the same of what we got in the main game.

Despite the nigh perfection that was Breath of the Wild, I have to agree with critics who said that the lack of aesthetic variation between segments of dungeon crawling and puzzle solving was a monotonous bore when compared to the varied themes and aesthetics of the dungeons in Zelda games past, and Champions’ Ballad did nothing to vary the atmosphere in its new shrines and dungeon from those of the main game. This disappointment was compounded with the fact that Champions’ Ballad added no new weapons to your arsenal (aside from a risky-to-use fork that functioned virtually like every other sword in the game) to allow for new types of puzzle solving or exploration. The unicorn motorcycle was certainly a cool reward for completing the DLC (the fact that I got to write the words “unicorn” and “motorcycle” next to each other is reward enough), but I had very little use for it since I’d already combed through the entirety of Hyrule during my first playthrough of the game. I simply believe it would have been nice for Champions’ Ballad to have given players something a little fresher to explore, even if it were just an aesthetic change of scenery.

I had also hoped that Champions’ Ballad might have expanded on the lore sprinkled throughout Hyrule and, even though we learned more about the four champions, I was a little let down that they didn’t really expand on anything else (Why can’t I climb to the top of Mount Agaat? Why does the entirety of the Akkala region fill me with a confusing sense of serene dread?? What the hell happened at the Typhlo Ruins???) I appreciate that, by not explaining everything, Nintendo give players the chance to interpret these things for themselves, but, when compared to the lore provided in previous Zelda games, I feel as though Champions’ Ballad fell short in fleshing out the history of this ruined Hyrule.

Favorite Characters: Prompto, Ignis Favorite Tracks: A Retainer’s Resolve, Apocalypsis Magnatus

Given how much of a beautiful mess Final Fantasy XV was upon its initial release, it’s certainly a consolation to the main game to see how well Square Enix supplemented its (rather disjointed) story and expanded upon its (frankly, lacking) gameplay through its various DLC expansion chapters featuring Noctis’ loyal Chocobros. And while I may not love Ignis quite as much as other chocobros like Prompto or Noctis, Episode Ignis was definitely an engaging and welcome addition to the enigma that is the Final Fantasy XV.

Particular highlights of Episode Ignis include its soundtrack, which features a heroic leitmotif for Ignis that really underscores the dire circumstances he and his teammates find themselves in during this segment of the story, and its addition of gameplay modes (Motorboat Simulator 2018 being one of them) are a welcome change of pace to the somewhat rudimentary battle and exploration systems found in the main game. However, a point of contention I have with Episode Ignis is with its narrative: while I appreciate that this DLC chapter finally explains how Ignis becomes blind, its multiple endings completely undermine the storyline of the main game itself. Does Ignis’ sacrifice save Noctis from having to make a sacrifice of his own in order to save the world? Does Ignis regain his sight after Noctis defeats Ardyn? Do Noctis and Luna finally realize that they’d be better off with other people (as it’s obvious that Noctis is already too preoccupied with his three boyfriends to make room for anyone else)? I need answers, Square!

Favorite Characters: Elizabeth, Atlas/Frank Fontaine Favorite Tracks: Patsy Cline – She’s Got You, Johnny Mathis – Wonderful! Wonderful!

I claimed to be a fan of the BioShock series for so long, even though I’d only ever played the first game in the series until the summer of 2017 when I finally bought a PS4 and, with it, the BioShock Collection. Now, I can call myself a fan of the series without reservation, having explored and discovered all that Rapture and Columbia have to offer. To me, BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episodes 1 & 2 are a love letter to the entire series itself, featuring elements from the three main-series games and tying together each of their narratives (save for maybe BioShock 2, which is absolutely criminal, considering 2 is my favorite game in the series) in a way that, while forced in some aspects, felt like Ken Levine actually cared about clearing up some of the more confusing questions that remained at the end of BioShock: Infinite.

Burial at Sea really came into itself during Episode 2, where gameplay was switched up to feature more fleshed-out stealth mechanics that made sneaking around Rapture and Columbia both exhilarating and terrifying. It was also refreshing to be able to finally take control of Elizabeth, one of the most iconic characters of the series after the Big Daddies of BioShocks 1 and 2, and learn more of her own personal motivations and desires as she maneuvers through hostile environments. As I already mentioned briefly, I know some took issue with the way Burial at Sea wove the first two BioShock games together with the third, but, considering the mess that was made when BioShock Infinite introduced multiverse science into its mythos (and the narrative mess that Infinite was in general—I took great issue with the way they framed the oppressed populations of Columbia as “just as bad” as the ruling populations simply because they used violence to, you know, try and liberate themselves from their oppression), I feel that Burial at Sea did the best job it could considering that the setting of Infinite differed so greatly from that of the first two games.

Also, fun fact: I studied this game as a part of my Master’s Project and played it through a total of three times: once in English and twice in French! Isn’t academia weird?

Favorite Characters: Rando, Buddy, Vega Van Dam Favorite Tracks: 666 Kill Chop Deluxe, He’s My Dad, Brokentooth March

Anyone who reads TV Tropes is likely familiar with the trope “Gameplay and Story Segregation” and its less-frequent counterpart, “Gameplay and Story Integration”. In the case of LISA: The Joyful, this DLC game (which could practically be its own standalone title if it weren’t for the fact Steam labels it as “DLC” and won’t let you play it without first purchasing LISA: The Painful) absolutely excels in the latter and completely subverts the gameplay mechanics and narrative structure of the base game, and this can all be attributed to the way both games focus on your use of the cure-all drug that makes you feel nothing: Joy.

Indeed, where LISA: The Painful makes you question your use of the drug Joy, LISA: The Joyful (Joyful) is nigh impossible to complete without taking it in nearly every battle after you’re left to your own devices when the muscle of your party abandons you. As anyone who’s played the LISA trilogy will know, Joy is a dangerous substance, mutating its addicts and twisting the minds of anyone who uses it, and that Joy is an integral piece of the trilogy’s social and philosophical commentary on the freedom and restriction of choice, the commitment and devotion one carries for a person or cause, and the inherent, inevitable grey area of any and all actions one may take. Despite these themes, LISA: The Joyful is far from a demoralizing experience: if anything, the way the game simulates the feeling of being backed into a corner and the refusal to give up despite the odds only affirms whatever moral code by which you may already live, or is at least an opportunity to feel relief that you yourself aren’t forced to make such drastic decisions for your own survivability and freedom.

That’s it for the DLC games I played in 2018; now, the real fun begins! Brace yourself for my list of the top standalone titles I played last year!

Favorite Characters: Katie

This game was recommended to me by a friend, and, as much as I wanted to enjoy it, this game wound up being my lowlight of 2018, with its simplistic, seemingly rudimentary gameplay and conspicuous lack of any compelling narrative. Put bluntly, this game was like a forgettable rendition of Animal Crossing, only without any cute animal neighbors to run errands for. The game’s environment threatened absolutely no danger to your player character, yet still didn’t offer any engaging or challenging puzzles to solve to make up for this lack of danger (most “puzzles” involved figuring out how to get to a particular point on the map… and that was it). Despite this being an open-world game that offered endless opportunities for customization, I found myself hurrying to complete the game’s main (5-hour) campaign so I could feel justified to move on to other gaming experiences. The most unfortunate part of this to me is that I know there’s still more to the game’s world for me to explore, but I’m in no way compelled to do so.

In all fairness, though, I think that I’m a little older than the target demographic this game was aiming for. This game was never meant to be challenging or stressful, it was made to be a relaxing escape for anyone looking to pass the time exploring and discovering a beautifully modeled and brightly colored world. This game also wins serious points for inclusivity, especially considering the age group this game was most likely made for; my fondest memory of this game is of a quest where a woman requests that you find her the ingredients to make a potion that stimulates beard growth because she wants to grow a beard of her own, and not once during this campaign is she ridiculed or belittled for wanting one. Since Yonder seems to be a game for kids, I believe quests such as this are an excellent step to socializing them into a world that’s less judgmental and more receptive to other people. So, despite my earlier critiques of this game, Yonder would be a great game to consider if you’re looking for a low-key and off-beat (and all-human) alternative to Animal Crossing.

Favorite Veteran Fighters: Peach, Zelda, Zero Suit Samus Favorite Newcomers: Daisy, Ridley, Richter Favorite Stages: Fountain of Dreams, Fourside, Hyrule Temple Favorite Tracks: All-Star Rest Area (Melee), Destroyed Skyworld, Athletic (Yoshi’s Island)

We all knew another installment in the Smash series was coming ever since the Switch was first announced back in March of 2017. In fact, you might even say that the quality of each console’s iteration of Smash reflects the quality of the console itself, with Melee demonstrating the power and potential of the GameCube, Brawl being a gimmicky romp on an equally gimmicky console, and Wii U/3DS (what a title, right?) completely failing to capture player interest for longer than a few rounds of Smash (the Wii U era feels like a fever dream to me at this point). It’s a letdown, then, that with the Switch being such a commercial and technical success, Smash Ultimate seems somewhat of a disappointment when weighed against the hype that surrounded it up until its release back in early December.

It’s true that Smash Ultimate really delivers in regard to the character roster (everyone is here!) and stage selection (almost everything is here!), but the cuts that were made to series staples like trophies, event matches, and the like, detract from Smash Ultimate becoming the be-all end-all title in the series that it could have been. Trophy mode was where I learned much about video game history and was introduced to obscure series I would have never discovered otherwise, and their replacement with spirits feels a bit cheap, especially since spirits don’t come with any kind of information to contextualize them. Event Matches were hybridized with Melee’s Adventure mode and Brawl’s Subspace Emissary, creating the “World of Light”; while the World of Light has grown on me the more that I play it, it’s somewhat discouraging to me that, by combining so many modes of Smash games past into one, there will be nothing left for me to do with the game once I reach its end.

Still, Smash Ultimate offers plenty to look forward to. I’m more-than-hyped about the additions of Piranha Plant and Joker from Persona 5 to the character roster, and I can’t wait to see who might be announced next (unless it’s another Fire Emblem character… please God [Sakurai] don’t let it be another Fire Emblem character).

Favorite Tracks: The Bridge, Touching the Stars, Up to the Nest

I could never have prepared myself for the beautiful-yet-heart-wrenching experience this game would put me through, but I’m oh-so-glad that it did. On the surface, RiME is a relaxing exploration and puzzle game that takes place in a beautifully rendered in-game world, with a brilliantly orchestrated soundtrack and a plethora of diverse landscapes to get lost in. And yet, every moment of your adventure is permeated by an inescapable sense of isolation and dread, making you ask questions like “Where is everyone?”, “Just who is that man in the red cloak?,” and, “Is he stalking me, or are I stalking him?”.

Indeed, RiME’s narrative unfolds wordlessly as you explore and leaves you to discover and interpret on your own exactly what tragedies transpired before the events of the game, tragedies of which are far more poignant and moving if you were to discover them yourself. I know I’ve put a spoiler warning in effect, but I highly recommend you play this game on your own (or at least watch a decent Let’s Play of it) if you’re curious to know what unfolds during the game’s narrative. RiME is a relatively short game, too, lasting only between 5-10 hours, so it would be an easy one to fit into your queue if you’re looking for a fun gameplay experience with a story that will haunt you for weeks and months on end after completing it.

Favorite Characters: Terry Hintz, Buzzo, Wally Favorite Tracks: Men’s Hair Club, The End is Nigh, Summer Love

Having already talked about this game’s DLC expansion of LISA: The Joyful, you’re already aware that I hold the LISA trilogy in high regard—it also means I can make this entry somewhat brief, since a lot of what I said about Joyful can also be applied to its parent title, LISA: The Painful. You see, it’s in LISA: The Painful where the conflict in Joyful begins, and where we learn more of how the world came to be so depraved after the White Flash, an extinction event that inexplicably killed all women on the planet (at least, as far as the characters in the game know). The game considers what the repercussions of such an event would be on our society (aside from dooming humanity to die off within a generation) and really explores the darkest depths of toxic masculinity to call into question the detrimental effects it has on our self-esteem, our relationships, and our will to survive. Gameplay-wise, it’s a fairly traditional JRPG, though as I mentioned with Joyful, LISA: The Painful integrates its story with its gameplay by permanently increasing (but mainly decreasing) your stats depending on whatever injuries you escape or sustain throughout your journey. All in all, LISA: The Painful is a truly harrowing experience from beginning to end, but a must-play for anyone with an interest in the more macabre aspects of human nature.

Favorite Characters: Aloy, Erend, Vanasha Favorite Tracks: Louder

You know a game’s going to be good when its title screen holds you in awe before even pressing start. Imagine a sunlit vignette over purple mountains and a glistening river, a haunting and triumphant melody underscoring it all, as the title slowly fades into view in white in the center of the screen: Horizon Zero Dawn. O.K., I’m in. This game just did so many things right as an open-world game during an era where the genre was oversaturated by mediocre games that rehashed the same tired tropes and mechanics in its gameplay and world building. Horizon Zero Dawn truly set itself apart from the crowd for a variety of reasons: its beautifully detailed setting (being a microcosmic interpretation of Western North America), its intricate combat system with a graciously forgiving learning curve, and its compelling and socially-conscious narrative all worked together to distinguish this game within the open-world genre.

What really sets this game apart most of all, though, is the game’s protagonist, Aloy: a rare female protagonist who is a breath of fresh air in a sea of male heroes, whose capabilities and intellect don’t come at the cost of her physical appearance and femininity. Aloy set an example for other game developers that female protagonists are more than viable (and are in fact, overdue) in the video games of today, and her status as a female character never felt gratuitous or shoehorned (e.g. Battlefield V’s inclusion of a female protagonist as an enlisted soldier in the British Army and serving in the line of duty during World War II). It’s difficult (read: impossible) to play Horizon Zero Dawn and not fall in love with Aloy for her wit, her strength, and her general stick-to-itiveness in the face of adversity (not to mention, she’s just really cute and knows how to work a belly shirt). With Aloy as the protagonist, you’ll never tire of adventuring through Horizon Zero Dawn’s 70-hours+ worth of gameplay as you explore the in-game world to learn just what happened to “The Old Ones” and their society all those millennia ago.

Favorite Party Members: Ryuji Sakamoto, Ann Takamaki, Makoto Niijima Favorite Confidants: Hifumi Togo, Sadayo Kawakami, Sae Niijima, Toranosuke Yoshida, Chihaya Mifune Favorite Targets/Boss Battles: Ichiryusai Madarame, Kunikazu Okumura, Leviathan, Yaldabaoth Favorite Tracks: Blooming Villain, Rivers in the Desert, A Woman, Aria of the Soul

I’ll bet no one saw this one coming! Just kidding—anyone who’s exchanged more than a few words with me since the fall of 2018 knows how much this game absolutely consumed my life over the span of, I don’t know, I think it was four months? Indeed, I wound up sinking a total of 123 hours into this game, and there’s still a loud part of me that wants to return to it to begin a New Game+ (you’ll even notice that it was too difficult for me to contain my favorite characters into one category, instead having to split them up in order to represent all of my favorites because of how much I love them all). I’m already a fan of JRPGs, so it didn’t take much for Persona 5 to win me over with its turn-based combat, but the addition of certain gameplay mechanics—like earning an extra turn for exploiting enemy weaknesses or improving your relationship with your friends outside of battle to unlock gameplay bonuses—prevent battles and exploration in Persona 5 from ever becoming stale. Indeed, Persona 5 was truly a masterpiece from start to finish and an experience that I never wanted to end.

Frankly, any drawbacks I could mention about this game feel almost nitpicky, like the way the status ailment “Envy” is represented during the final boss fight by the color indigo instead of green, or how Kawakami can only manage to make me one cup of very useful, SP-restoring coffee over the course of an entire evening. Still, Persona 5 isn’t without its faults: for one, Persona 5 loses significant points for its questionable representation of LGBT groups (the camp gay men who openly harass Ryuji on multiple occasions being the most glaring example), and this isn’t helped by the queerbaiting that’s prevalent in a lot of character dialogue and relationships. Additionally, the fact that you can’t romance any of your male confidants comes across as erasive at best and homophobic at worst, especially considering that 1) all but one of your female confidants are eligible girlfriends, 2) you can two-time all of them at once if you so desire (which isn’t just disrespectful, it’s also flippantly misogynistic), and, most importantly, 3) one of this game’s main themes includes rebelling against oppressive societal norms (a theme that will resonate deeply with any LGBT+ player). Female representation in Persona 5 is also somewhat of a mixed bag: while the game features a large cast of diverse female characters, its constant and blatant objectification of Ann is not only creepy, it’s incredibly obtuse considering the sexual harassment and abuse she suffers by one of her teachers during the game’s first story arc. Fortunately, each of these drawbacks is easy enough to ignore when discussing the game as a whole, but I hope Atlus improves upon them in future installments: considering how incredible an experience Persona 5 was, imagine how much more incredible Persona 6 could be if these issues were fixed!

So that’s it for my top 10 games of 2018. What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with any of my commentary? What were some favorite games you played during 2018? I’d love to hear your responses and start a discussion, so please, leave your comments in the notes!

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