#will always be very dead after huge projects like this

[mskenway97]

Bot in flames

I have been wanting to write this for a long time and I started thinking about heat cycles in robots.

My mind was focused on bayverse optimus prime and I came up with all this.

Forgive me but I couldn't help but want to XD.

Bayverse Optimus Prime X Fem!Human!Reader

Summary: You are a new mechanic working at NEST after the problems in Egypt, you became very close to the autobot leader, until one moment he started to avoid you, the rest of autobots warnning to you. Until you find out why.

Occurs between revenge of the fallen and dark of the moon.

Words: 2,451

Warnings: heat cycles, belly budge, cumflation, masturbation, multiple orgasm, size difference,possessive, g/t

You had always been interested in technology, you had gone into mechanics although many people would not take you seriously in what you were doing. Until you started seeing something that caught your attention, the Mission City events.

A lot of people said it was a lie, a hoax… Other websites said they had witnesses and testimonies about giant robots. You tried to see more images but nothing.

Everything seemed to be a lie until a giant robot appeared on your TV telling you that you were not alone, that there were more beings in the galaxy. That even though everyone was scared, you were more interested but you were just a mechanic, no matter how much you wanted to meet them you were not going to find them, until you received a letter because of your knowledge, they were needed at the base of NEST.

They blindfolded you and put you in a black car without asking, like the movies, the ride was a bit long until you got to an interrogation room, showing if you had a criminal record, not to reveal the information here without ending up dead. Once finished they took you outside a huge hangar and put you on hold, until a middle-aged man who seemed to be the general, came to pick you up in person.

-Y/N, General Lennox we have seen that your knowledge in mechanics and your project of coexistence between machines and humans is unique. I'm just telling you try to stay calm, you're going to be surrounded by autobots. The first time is usually a surprise.

He wasn't lying when he took me to another hangar with huge beings of different sizes looking at you. I had a feeling of nervousness, butterflies and above all that he would not try to give me a heart attack. It was one thing to see fuzzy pictures on the web sites you had seen and another to see them in person…. Besides your height was not the tallest, you literally understood how the ants felt.

You saw the biggest of them all approaching, it seemed to be the leader, with red and blue flames, with what looked like parts of a truck, despite your situation it seemed interesting to you.

-Y/N, my name is Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots…. It is a pleasure to meet you, we read your project, it caught our attention, in part we need more human allies that promise us their commitment. If you decide to leave I will understand your motives but if you stay you will be apprenticed to one of our best doctors as well as learning about the coexistence you seek. Do we have your word?

You were trying to calm down when you saw that huge being kneeling in front of you and the rest of them looking at you, seeing that your nervous system was somewhat altered by the situation. Trying to calm down until you felt Lennox's hand on your shoulder as they were waiting for your answer.

You nodded as your mouth had gone dry trying to speak, the giant black robot was amused by your nervousness, he moved closer showing his cannons causing you to stumble to the ground, making him laugh.

-I like this squishy…. I'm going to like working with you

Well in the rest of the news they started to introduce you to the rest of the team, you already knew names like Ratchet, Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Sidewispe, etc. And the rest of the facilities, they put you in charge of working with Ratchet.

The weeks of adaptation were somewhat curious, as you were startled by every scare the twins and Sidewispe gave you.

Ratchet carefully taught you the systems of a robot to take care of them carefully: you learned the different parts of the body of a cybertronian, Ironhide taught you the workings of the weapons although his demonstrations still scared you so much firepower that you reflexively hid behind his leg.

Your favorite sessions were with Optimus, even though he was the biggest of them all, he was very nice to you… You started to get a little more trusting as you told each other about different experiences. He told you about his culture, his planet… You were more and more interested, he was also interested in your customs, your history. Besides, I know that his way of treating you was to carry you in his servos with care, sometimes he was contemplating, with his finger he touched your cheek, it was a strange contact but you felt quite comfortable. He had also put you on his shoulder. You didn't know if it was friendship you had with this bot, but you were happy to finally have a confidant.

You had been in NEST for a few months now, you learned quickly but there was something that had been bothering you in the last week about the behavior of a certain autobot leader.

At first it seemed to you that he was stressed out from the missions in order to find Megatron but every time you were near an Autobot he would get sideways and also with the humans you were working with. You don't talk like before either, every time you tried to talk to him alone he would disappear saying he had something else to do. This was starting to bother you a lot but with the meetings you didn't have the time or the moment.

-Y/N aren't paying attention to the lessons…. - Ratchet said as he tapped me on his digit.

-Sorry, Ratchet, I just had something else on my mind.

-You should be focused on where you are right now. Although I guess it's about Optimus right?

You were surprised to see that the doc bot had guessed it. Seeing your expression, he laughed at you a little.

-It's obvious, everyone at the base is aware of you… The truth is, we haven't seen Optimus happy with someone in millennia.

You sighed as I grabbed the tools and went to work on one of Ironhide's weapons.

-I don't understand his behavior lately… He's been acting so strange, I'm worried.

Ratchet cleared his throat as he became serious while forcing you to look at him with his digits on your chin - This business you should stay out of, y/n. He'll get over it, just try not to be alone with him.

You didn't understand why Ratchet gave you that advice you tried, he looked at you again - Believe me y/n, it's best to keep your distance from Optimus for now.

There was something you didn't understand about what was going on, you asked the rest of the Autobots about it, almost everyone gave you fuzzy answers about what was happening to the autobot leader, until you got to Ironhide who gave you another warning that left you even more surprised.

-Squishy, there are some things you shouldn't meddle with no matter how curious you are. Although if you solve your doubts I wish you luck so you can get out of it - said Ironhide

You were thoughtful about everything you had heard from the autobots, you missed Optimus since the last few months you had felt an attachment to the autobot leader that went beyond friendship with him. You admitted that you had fallen in love with that big guy with blue optics, his kindness, his authority and obviously his height and figure.

Although you were still curious about what was going on, you decided to follow the advice of the autobots not to be alone with the autobot leader for the time being. You were succeeding but every time you entered a room his gaze followed you everywhere. You literally felt like cat and mouse, there would come a time when cat would end up getting what he wanted even though you didn't know what.

Until one day when you were almost ready to leave because you had overstayed your welcome at the base, you heard a noise in the hangars.

Lennox and the military team explained to you that the farthest hangars of the base were for storage or special equipment for both autobots and humans. Something in your instincts told you that you should not go there but you decided to go out of curiosity, you opened the big door carefully, that place was dark so you stepped carefully not to touch anything dangerous.

Your nerves were on edge and the adrenaline was the only thing that kept you moving, you were getting closer to the source of the noise, at the same time you were seeing that there was smoke around, making this put you more alert than before, it was clear that you were not alone in this place.

You came to see a dim light at the back of the warehouse, it was difficult to pass with so many boxes around but you passed as you could. Finally you arrived carefully at the origin where you were surprised to see who was there.

It was Optimus, with his exhaust pipes producing smoke while on a large part of his body there was a pink liquid around his body.

You were about to approach to see if he was okay but you stopped when you heard him…

He was moaning?

He was at the same time rubbing what seemed to be his spike, while there was even more transfluid.

You remembered certain lessons that gave you some embarrassment from Ratchet. You were trying to remember but seeing the leader like that made you tingle. You shook your head it was clear you were not supposed to be here. You were going to tread carefully until you heard him moaning your name….

You tried to leave carefully until you bumped into one of the crates making a lot of noise.

-Who's there?" growled the autobot leader.

You tried to hide quickly only to feel a servo around your body. You closed your eyes, you were trembling at the sight.

-Look at me...

You opened your eyes to see how it was caressing you with its digits. - How long have you been here? - asked the autobot leader.

That tone made you shiver, it didn't seem like Optimus was the one he was talking to.

- I haven't seen anything, I'll leave without bothering...

-No... I've been avoiding this situation for the past few weeks, feeling jealous of the rest that came close to you and what hurts me the most is that you started avoiding me. My y/n... This time, you are going to stay by my side.

You didn't understand what was happening, until two of his fingers were touching your thighs making you shudder.

- You know how much I wanted you, your kindness and curiosity. Your smile, your beauty... and your figure. Oh Primus, my spike was begging to enter your body. To make you mine... I know you want it too

You moaned again, as you felt the pressure on your thighs... you were starting to feel hot I knew you should stop but at the same time you wanted to know where I wanted to go.

His optics were watching you seeing a smile on your face.

-Well I see that you agree....

Then you felt his glossa lick your neck and then kiss you while continuing the pressure on your thighs. Right now you were reacting to several streams of pleasure that you never thought was possible.

His digits removed your pants while he kept kissing you and you felt his glossa tasting your taste.

You moaned as you felt a digit around your entrance.

-I'm just preparing your body for the best part... let yourself go, my little one," he whispered in your ear as you felt his digit touching your insides moving up and down making you moan in different ways for the leader's pleasure while he whispered how much he wanted you, he loved you madly but at the same time he didn't want to scare you away.

You moaned again as you looked up at him.

- Then you too... - you said between moans as he digit around your walls.

-Yes... I love you and I need you...

You climaxed as he pulled out his digit and licked it. He smiled at you as you caught your breath. You thought you were going to rest but you saw he was bringing his spike closer.

-We're not done yet... I want to feel you more... Mine all mine

You were going to protest but you felt his spike enter inside of you and saw a big bulge through your body. He started to move slowly.

-You are so tight

As you gasped as you tried to take it, it overcame the digit. Once he adjusted to your body he began to move faster and faster and you both gasped at the same pace. He was about to climax, you fell in as he could.

-Wait I can't... ah! It's going to be too much.

-Ah! -Easy... i can't out! Ah! Oh Primus! - gasped Optimus as well.

You both climaxed as you felt your body fill with the transfluid.

Your belly completely swollen as he carefully removed his spike while some transfluid fell out.

-That was... Intense - you said while touching your belly - What happened to you?

Optimus kissed your forehead as he placed you close to his chest.

- We have heat cycles something your species would say in heat, I couldn't take it anymore.... I should have done it sooner though, my little one.

You smiled and I snuggled close.

-Then I won't move away next time.

Optimus chuckled and held you close.

You had learned a lesson from the heat cycles, something that was not to be the last time.

[dyns33]

The Best Friend

We will have to wait for 2 years to see Homelander again so here's a little new series about him

After realizing that it wasn't really a good idea to raise a child in a laboratory by subjecting him to several tests that were more like torture than anything else, Doctor Vogelbaum decided to start the 'friend' project.

Arranging financially with orphanages, he brought in children whose absence no one would notice, in order to try to develop young John's social skills.

Of course, it wasn't really a success. Most of the children never made it out of the room alive, the others were saved at the last moment but in a catastrophic state, and the lucky ones managed to flee crying, only because John found them too annoying to chase after them.

Then, there was subject 8.

The youngest had no names, and since they were of no importance to anyone, including the doctors, they hadn't bothered to name them. So they introduced Subject 8 to John without much hope.

The little girl was placed on a chair in front of him. With big curious eyes, she watched him while chewing on a finger, but unlike most of her predecessors, she didn't seem afraid.

"Where's mommy ?" she asked timidly to the boy in front of her.

"I don't know. I don't have a mommy."

"Oh. They say mommy's dead, but I want mommy."

"… Your mom's dead ?"

Most of the children hadn't tried to talk to John, too frightened by the situation, then by his behavior. The others had made too much noise, had been rude, or had talked about subjects that didn't interest him.

Family was a complicated subject for the future Homelander. Abandonment too, the feeling of loneliness.

For the first time since the beginning of the 'friend' project, he looked at another human being with what seemed like empathy. Slowly, with a caution that no one suspected, he took the little girl in his arms.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of you now."

"Okay."

He called her Y/N. He had heard that name in one of the movies they showed to teach him how to become a superhero and he had found it pretty. According to him, it suited subject 8 perfectly, his best friend forever.

Like the children they were, they promised each other to be faithful and to stay together no matter what. Even if they weren't always together.

John didn't like having his Y/N taken from him. The first time a nurse had come to get the little girl to take her back to her cell, he had had a huge tamtrun, killing the poor woman.

Too young or having immediately had blind trust in the one who had said he would take care of her, Y/N had not been afraid, clinging to him while crying because she did not want to leave him.

Doctor Vogelbaum had spent several hours discussing with the boy so that he would agree to let her go, on the condition that he was assured that he would see her again the next day, and the following days after.

This incident scared the team, who wondered if they should not stop this project immediately, or if it was too late. But their leader was certain that it was a good thing, a new way of holding John.

If he behaved well, he would be able to see Y/N. If not, he would be punished.

This lasted for several years, until John's adolescence, the beginning of more intense exercises, and the choice of his future.

They should have known that this would happen. Raising a supe in a cage was one thing, but a little girl without powers, that couldn't last forever.

Doctor Hobbes refused to tell John the news. He had a hard time getting the other doctors to accept it.

"She was fine last night !"

"What can we do ?! Hobbes found her dead this morning, he tried to revive her, but nothing worked !"

"And the V?"

"I panicked…" sighed Doctor Hobbes. "I followed the protocol without thinking."

The protocol was simple. No proof, no problem, hence the importance of having a very powerful oven.

That day, Doctor Vogelbaum thought he was going to be killed by his creature for the first time in his life. He had never seen him in such a rage.

It was clear that John really loved Y/N. In a way, it was a success, proof that this thing was capable of feelings after all, even if he remained just as capable of the worst.

It took a lot of time and patience to heal this wound. No one was stupid enough to try to offer him a new friend. Nothing could have replaced Subject 8.

Homelander tried not to think about all this too much. In his dreams, the moments with Y/N ​​were the only happy ones, until they turned into a nightmare and he saw her dead in his arms.

The first person he had sworn to protect and hadn't saved. What a superhero.

After the revelation about Becca Butcher and his son, he asked Vogelbaum if he didn't have anything else to tell him. Another secret. But no, nothing. If the old man could, he would have kept Y/N alive as long as possible, just to have a chance to control him.

What Homelander had forgotten was that if people lied to him, they also lied to each other.

It took another four years, four years of pain, disappointment, loneliness, for him to have fun searching Barbara's office after visiting the whole new team of doctors.

Among all the files, projects, photos, he recognized Doctor Hobbes. He had retired a little before Vogelbaum, and in the photo, he could be seen next to a young girl, holding her by the shoulder as if she were his daughter.

Except she wasn't his daughter. She wasn't his at all.

"John ?" was the first thing Y/N said, smiling when she opened the door to find Homelander.

She didn't look surprised. Nor scared. She invited him in with a certain cheerfulness that no one displayed in Homelander's presence, especially knowing what he was truly capable of.

And Y/N knew it well, she had grown up with him.

"I'm so glad to see you ! Doctor Hobbes wouldn't let me contact you, he said it wouldn't be good for your career. He's dead, but I thought maybe he was right. I didn't want to bother you, you must be so busy. I didn't think you'd want to see me again."

"… They told me you were dead."

"Yes, I know." she sighed sadly, though she kept her smile. "Doctor Hobbes was selfish. I reminded him of his daughter, whom he lost in a car accident. He saw the opportunity to take me away, saying it would be better for me to be free. Except he kept me here, a new cage. At least he was kind enough to make me fake papers and adopt me before he died…"

"You wanted to leave."

"No ! No, I wanted to stay with you… He said you were going to become important, do important things, and that I would be a burden. It's true after all, like you say, I'm one of the mud people…"

"You're not a mud person !"

He had yelled like he had yelled at everyone for a long time now, but John immediately felt bad. He had never yelled at Y/N, never. He had promised not to hurt her.

It was surprising to see that she hadn't jumped, and that she still wasn't afraid. On the contrary, she only looked sorry for him, coming to sit next to him, putting a hand on his.

"I'm sorry, John. I should have tried to contact you. You would have told me if you didn't want me."

"I will always want you." he sobbed with shame. "You were everything to me ! My Y/N. The only good thing in this damn lab, the only one who cared about me, who comforted me when I came back from the bad room. I told myself… I told myself that I shouldn't get attached to humans after you. Because they're so fragile, so easy to lose."

"I'm here. I'm here as long as you want me."

She was sincere, her heart proved it. Her eyes were looking at him exactly as they had before she disappeared from his life.

With anyone else, John would have doubted. After everything he'd been through, the voices in his head could have told him to test the limits, to break her neck, to make fun of her.

But all he heard was 'Y/N is here ! She's back, she's alive ! Our Y/N ! Do better this time, protect her, don't lose her, tiger !'

When he took her in his arms and she tenderly returned his embrace, he felt what he was missing with Madelyn, with Stormfront, with Becca, with all the people around him.

He finally felt complete. Happy.

And for once, Homelander was going to do everything not to ruin everything.

[art]

Creator Spotlight: @velinxi​

Hello! I’m Xiao Tong Kong, better known as “Velinxi.” I’m the creator of the webcomic Countdown to Countdown and have been doing freelance artwork since I was a teenager. I love telling stories with my illustrations! Tumblr was where I first got my start as an artist, specifically a small fandom artist as a hobby… and now I’m somehow here! When I’m not trying my best to stay awake in front of my tablets, I’m usually cooking, gaming, or sleeping. Sometimes all three, in my dreams.

Check out our interview with Velinxi below!

Did you originally have a background in art? If not, how did you start?

Yeah! I’ve basically been on track to become an artist since I was a child. I went to a middle school with an emphasis on arts and a high school specializing in it. I went to SVA briefly for computer arts but dropped out to pursue freelance and webcomics after my first year.

Over the years as an artist, what or who were your biggest inspirations behind your creativity?

My biggest inspirations growing up were Yuumei and Shilin Huang, two titans on DeviantArt back in the day. They still inspire me today, but the list of inspirations has grown exponentially over the years, including artists, movies, entire art movements, etc.

What was your thought process behind the creation of your webcomic, Countdown to Countdown?

Well, Countdown to Countdown started as a passion project back when I was 15, in high school, and pretty depressed. I just wanted to draw whatever story I thought was cool, inspired by my favorite media at the time. There was a very loose beginning and outline, but I was truly just writing as I drew the story. That’s why I had to stop the comic in 2018 and restart from scratch the year after. Now, the story has a set story and a clear outline. It still has similar roots, characters, and themes of neglect, abuse, and escape—but I think the story is a lot easier to follow now. It’s got an artstyle I can actually keep up with in the long run. The origin of why CTC exists also remains the same: I simply wanted to make a story I wanted to read for myself. Which happens to be about two dumb boys with superpowers navigating a hostile world that wants them dead or caged—together.

Have you ever had an art block? If so, how did you overcome it?

Oh, all the time. It’s part of the process. Personally, though—I just have to draw through it. Every month on my Patreon, I have my patrons vote on a theme I have to draw by the end of the month, and I try my best to make it as interesting as possible. I draw quite a few—tens even, of doodles or compositions for each of these themes to try to make something that tells a story while still being aesthetically pleasing and clear. I think pushing myself like this helps with art block, really. I also do remember to take breaks and simply consume other media I like! It gets the inspiration juices flowing.

Advice you would give to an aspiring creator?

If you do one—your first webcomic should be a short, fun, messy thing. It’s not often you can get it right the first time, but you’ll certainly learn a lot through sheer experience. This goes for a lot of things in art, to be honest.

What is a medium that you have always been intrigued by but would never use yourself?

3D Animation. I briefly learned it at SVA, and I think that’s enough of that tech for me. I accept that there are some things that are truly beautiful if done right, and I am too simple and lazy for it.

What is your goal for the rest of this year?

Get Countdown to Countdown book 2 finished! And live HAHA

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

@yuumei-art on Tumblr, still! They’ve been a huge inspiration for digital artists and storytellers online for years. I have no doubt that many digital artists of my generation have been influenced by them, and they’re still here, making beautiful art and stories. It’s a thing to behold.

Thanks for stopping by, Velinxi! If you haven’t seen her Meet the Artist piece, be sure to check it out here. You can also follow her for more amazing art over at her Tumblr, @velinxi!

[owlespresso]

dogged pursuit. mr dr sir veritas ratio. p4 of ? / part 1, part 2, part 3 summary: you've been appointed as the bodyguard of one doctor veritas ratio after a failed attempt on his life. he's easy to get along with, so long as you learn when to plug your ears and focus on his washboard abs. tags: mentioned violence but nothing huge

It was bound to happen at some point. You’d been hired because someone tried to put their hands on him, and it was assumed that they—or someone else silly enough to nurture a grudge against him, would try again. In hindsight, you should have seen it coming. 

“Is there nothing in that head of yours!? You could have been killed!” his voice cracks across the living room. He’s pacing back and forth in front of the chair where you’re splayed out, limbs hanging off the arm like a bendy willow’s branches.

“Awh, Doc, were you worried about me?” you drawled. You’re not sure what he’s talking about. There might be a few, smarting bruises on your ribs from the scuffle, but you’d done your job. 

There had been a yacht excursion earlier today—one he’d practically been forced to attend because someone important to his project was there. You’re not sure of the specifics of what happened yourself. They were rabble rousers dressed in IPC uniforms who sneaked aboard. The identities of the perpetrators will be sorted out by the folks in charge and handed to you later. All you know is that they’d been trying to put their hands on him. And now, some of them don’t have hands at all.

If anything, you’ve been worried that your display of excessive violence frightened him. He’s been clammed up the whole walk back. The kind of quiet that typically preludes a massive scolding—but this time was different. He hadn’t even looked at you. The  absence of that broiling glare worried you more than the glare itself ever has.

His mouth balls up, like he’s trying to keep the emotion off his face.

Though you often say you know he can take care of himself, that you know he’s a capable fighter himself—sometimes you really do forget. He moves fast, too fast for your weary eyes to track, and those big hands clap on either side of your face. He smushes your cheeks as he ducks into your space, leveling you with the meanest look you've ever seen.

“Of course I was worried! They were armed, you blithering idiot! With rudimentary weapons—but weapons nonetheless! What were you thinking, engaging them hand-to-hand!?” he seethes, and all you can do is stare at him, hapless and helpless as he continues. “When will you get it through your thick skull that I want you alive!?”

You sit up, resting your clenched hands on your thighs, spine ramrod straight as he chews you out. You’ve never had a wife, before, or a mother, but you imagine this is what it feels like to be scolded by either one. He stands above you, his arm crossed. There’s a visible tick to his brow, and a twitch to his eye that you haven’t seen since another IPC representative spilled a mojito all over his expensive silk shirt. 

“You… care about me,” you repeated, blinking slowly at him.

He huffs, looking thoroughly put out. “Did you think I wished you dead? I don't know where you got the impression that I'm such a heartless monster—but I do... care. About all forms of life. I don't think it's a very far reach to say that no one should be stabbed to death and left to bleed out. Especially while surrounded by such insufferable company. Knowing them, they would only complain about how the blood has stained their suits—"

The gears in your head churn, slow as molasses. Memories filter through your hazy headspace, watery and floating, like motes of dust in the afternoon sun. Veritas always having a cup of coffee ready for you in the morning. Veritas herding you off the couch and into the second bedroom, barking at you to get a good night’s sleep. Veritas. Veritas. Veritas.

“Doc,” you say, voice trembling. He leans in. His expression softens, his brows wrinkling with concern. “I think we have to get married.”

It’s almost comical, how quick his face flattens. His hands collapse back to his side as he turns away, heading towards the staircase in long, brisk strides. 

You cry out and fling yourself after him, fingers catching the tail ends of flowing, pearlescent robes. Pride be damned, you’re not letting him go after that admission—getting him to talk about his feelings is like prying teeth, unless it has anything to do with his mission statement. Something has shifted between the two of you, your dynamic changes irrevocably by his impassioned declaration. You want to see him make that face again—the one on the boat, when he’d watched you get hit in the gut. His eyes had gone real wide, face almost blank with surprise.

You want to see him make all sorts of faces. The days where all he shows you is that same, stony countenance far gone. 

“Wait, wait! I’ll be more careful, I promise!” you wail, clinging onto the ends of his robe.

“You—!” he fumes, pulling at the fabric. He shuffles around, his brows furrowed and lips pulled into a thin, straight line. He looks at you like that, real stern, for a few more seconds before the wind seems to wane from his sails. His shoulders slump. “Instead of a knife, it could have been a gun, or any projectile weapon that could have incapacitated you before you even reached them.” He says, combing his fingers through his hair. It’s already tousled from the wind out on the seas. He does this whenever he’s nervous, you realize, and wonder just how much there is of him to explore. “Get up. And get changed. There’s blood all over your sleeves. The leather’s already ruined.” He grouses. 

He bends over and his robes shift with the motion, providing you a glance at his other nipple, firm and rosy. Your mouth waters. Your brain feels like it’s about to melt out of your skull.

His hand wraps around your wrist, long fingers clutching you tight as he draws you to your feet. It’s almost completely unaided. Effortless. A look of the power packed within those flexing muscles. 

“Now go,” your awe-inspired reverie is cut short as he releases you. He snatches his hands back from your person and gives them a cursory look over. “This is a rental. I don’t want you staining the upholstery.”

“Psh. You just wanna see me out of this jacket, don’t ya?” you sneer, poking his calf with the tip of your boot. You oblige him anyways. The black leather crumples to the pale wooden floor in a heap. Your boots, at his insistence, are placed next to the door, right up against the wall. “That good enough? It’s pretty hot today. I could stand to lose a few more layers.” It’s not your intention to be this incorrigible. Old habits are hard to kick, especially when he always gives you such animated reactions.

He lifts his head, probably just to look down his nose at you. “Do as you please,” he says. He pauses, hesitating, before letting loose another great sigh. “But you have to sit down and rest. You may not be hurting now, but the adrenaline won’t last forever. So wash off and make yourself comfortable now, while you still can, before the pain sets in—”

He continues to rattle on. You half-listen, more than happy to bask in his attention while you watch his lips move.

[public-trans-it-deactivated20240]

i would love to hear your dark spore rant. i didnt even know spore had a sequel.

Oh anon. Poor sweet anon. I’m so sorry.

So, the thing about Darkspore is…

… it was a really REALLY… mediocre game.

Like, the moment to moment gameplay was… fine. Just fine. Not incredible. But not BAD! Really, it only had two major flaws:

The first, it was buggy as hell. One particularly nasty bug was present in the games launcher, and on certain systems the game would fail to install at all. They were unable to ever fix this bug, which I speculate was a major reason the game was abandoned by the devs so quickly and lead to it being taken down from every major digital distribution site. You could still install and play it if you already bought it though! If… it actually installed for you.

Which leads us to the second flaw. It’s right there on the box.

“Internet connection required”

The game has Always Online DRM. All the levels, enemies, loot, your entire account, was all stored server side. And servers are expensive. So, when the games bugs became unwieldy and not worth fixing, and they took it offline… it became a money sink. It was a game generating ZERO revenue, but had huge server maintenance costs. So eventually, they just shut down the servers.

It is now very difficult to obtain the game, requiring you to buy one of the few unopened physical copies remaining. And even once you do have it, it is IMPOSSIBLE to play. There is a project called Resurrection Capsule in the works, some fans trying to create a private server for it. But with so much info stored server side, they basically have to recreate entire subsystems from scratch. It’s… not going very fast, and to my knowledge hasn’t been touched in over a year.

Story

The story of the game is pretty basic. A progenitor race of alien super-scientists create a new, synthetic form of DNA, called Exponential-DNA, or E-DNA. This rapidly mutates to create new life, and can be guided to create specific, specialized organisms, condensing thousands of years of evolution to a few hours. It can also be injected into existing creatures to alter them and make them more powerful. However it also linked everything affected by it into a hivemind. So it was outlawed. The creator of it decided to respond by creating a E-DNA virus, called The Darkspore, infecting himself with it, and spreading it across the galaxy and conquering it, wiping out his own race.

You play as another member of that race, who has been in hibernation for 1000 years while that was going down. Your ship AI has woken you up because it has managed to stabilize E-DNA and also keep it disconnected from the hivemind, and needs you to go kill the guy who took over the galaxy. That is how the game starts.

…

And how the story ends. There is not really any more story past that part. You get a cutscene describing each of the games 6 planets the first time you visit it, and a final “Hey you won!” cutscene after killing the final boss which ends with the cliche “implication the villain isn’t really dead” trope, and… that’s it. That’s the entire story. Not really the selling point of this game. Its not even entirely clear if it takes place in the same universe as Spore! It’s just set dressing for “Run through these 24 levels and beat everything up”

Gameplay

Darkspore was created by Maxis. This alone was HUGE. This was a team of developers who only really made lifesims like The Sims and Sim City, taking a stab at making a diablolike game.

And I GENUINELY BELIEVE every single studio out there needs to do shit like this. Designing for something so outside your wheelhouse creates SOOOOO much innovation so quickly. You get fresh new ideas injected into the genre so quickly. The final product won’t be good! You don’t have any damn experience in the genre! But it will create something unique beautiful, and god damn I wish we lived in a world where that alone was enough and devs weren’t focused on chasing profits instead.

Genesis

Genesis is just a fancy way of saying ‘Element’. There are 5 of them: Plasma (fire and lightning), Bio (plants and animals), Cyber (machines), Necro (death and fear), and Quantum (space and time) and the way they interact is… certainly a choice I guess. Each Darkspore you face has a genesis it falls into, and each of your heroes has one as well. If your Genesis matches that of the darkspore you are fighting at the moment, you take double damage and they take half damage. If they don’t match, all damage both ways is neutral.

The system itself is kinda mediocre. The biggest part of it, however, is the Variant Skills. Each Genesis has 4 unique skills tied to it that represent the common elements of that type.

Heroes

There are 25 heroes in the game, which each have one Genesis and one Class (Sentinel which are the tanks, Ravagers which are the DPS, and Tempest which are the Casters/Support)

Each hero has 4 total variants, with the first one you unlock being Alpha, and as you level up your account (heroes do not have their own levels) you eventually can purchase their Beta, Gamma, and Delta variants, with each variant having slightly different stats, and a different one of their Genesis’ 4 variant abilities.

Each hero has a unique basic attack, which USUALLY has a little extra to it. For example Sage shoots a bolt that hurts enemies it hits, but heals allies it hits. Zrin alternates between two different punches, one of which has a short duration DoT and the other of which has a 10% stun chance. Stuff like that.

They also have a passive effect that is always active while you are playing them. Collect a soul from each enemy killed for a 5% damage boost, 10% damage bonus when attacking from behind, a stacking defense buff every time you take damage, stuff like that.

Finally, a character has 2 unique abilities. One that is unique to them and can only be used while you are playing that hero, and a second ability that is everyone in the squad can use if that hero is present.

Squad Decks

Which brings me to the first rant and something I am SO AUTISTIC ABOUT (positive). SQUADS. The game had you craft Squad Decks, collections of 3 heroes that you can swap between during your missions, for a total of 883.2k squad combinations (I think my math might be off on that). Swapping between them is on a cooldown of about 10 seconds, but otherwise is don’t instantaneously and as often as you want without penalty. You always have 5 abilities active:

- The unique ability of your active hero

- The Genesis ability of your active heroes variant

- Hero 1’s Squad ability

- Hero 2’s Squad ability

- Hero 3’s squad ability

The first two abilities change out every time you swap heroes, but the last 3 are fixed. So you have 3 abilities that you always have access to, and 6 abilities that are paired up and you can swap between which pair of those abilities is active.

Your heroes do NOT share a health/energy pool, but DO share healing pickups. Any time you pick up a health or energy restoration pickup, it refills a chunk of the respective health pool of your currently active hero, and a smaller chunk of each of your inactive heroes in the squad.

So the core loop of moment to moment gameplay becomes swapping situationally between heroes both offensively and defensively, to get access to your other heroes skills and also to mitigate damage from enemies based on their genesis or control where your healing is directed.

Loot

Loot in Darkspore is fairly standard for your average Diablolike. Item drops have 4 tiers: Common (Item Level=Account Level-5), Uncommon (Item Level=Account Level), Rarified (Item Level=Account Level+5), and Purified (Item Level=Account Level+10)

Items of higher tiers have more chances to roll on a table to gain beneficial modifiers.

Each item fell into one of a few different categories: Weapon, Hands, Feet, Offensive, Defensive, or Utility.

Each hero has one of each slot, plus an additional slot based on their class. Ravagers have an extra Offense slot, Sentinels have an extra Defense slot, and Tempests have an extra Utility slot. Any hero can equip any item you gain, with the exception of Weapons that are hero specific. Some heroes also lack Hands or Feet, in which case their weapon has extra stats and can get the same modifiers as hands and feet can.

The items you equip can then be added onto the Hero in the Hero Editor. The Hero Editor is often equated to the Creature Editor in Spore, which is BULLSHIT and was a pet peeve of mine the ENTIRE DAMN TIME THE FAME WAS LIVE. This is a FALSE EQUIVALENCE. It uses the outfit editor from the Tribal/Civilization phases of Spore instead. Importantly: this means you cannot alter the overall silhouette of your hero. It will always maintain the same basic profile and animations. However you can freely place the extra parts you equip anywhere on its body, and can also place multiple copies of them.

Additionally, old parts can have their stats stripped, converting them into ‘Detail’ parts with no stats, of which you can equip 6 different parts, each of which you can include 10 copies of on your hero. So you could get some pretty cool looks from it!

However all this loot is garbage and you likely would not use most of it outside of appearance. Which brings me to…

Cash-out Loot

Usually if you mention the word ‘cash’ in any sentence involving a game published by EA, it would be a call for concern. Luckily this isn’t that! It’s just gambling! Everything is fine!

The main progression in Darkspore comes from gear, and the best gear comes from how good your ships engines are. These come from account upgrades as you level up your account, determining how many levels you can do in a row. Every time you complete a level, you are given an option: Keep going, or ‘cash out’ and get a guaranteed piece of Uncommon gear, with a 10% chance of it becoming Rarified, as well as all the gear you picked up in the level.

If you choose to keep going, you have to complete the next level. If you die, you lose ALL the gear you picked up, including that guaranteed piece. If you make it to the end, you are given another choice: Risk it all again and go on to the next level, or stop here and get your TWO pieces of guaranteed uncommon loot, which each now have a 20% chance of becoming rarified and a 5% chance of becoming purified.

You can only go another of levels equal to the number of Engine Upgrades you have earned by leveling up your account. So at first, after the second level you HAVE to cash out. As you progress you can start to do many more levels at a time, getting a dozen pieces of gear that are practically guaranteed to be the highest rank.

But of course you have to play these levels in order, and you don’t get a chance to upgrade your character with all the cool new loot you found on the way, so you can’t just jump straight into this. You have to slowly build up to being able to push yourself this much, and once you can, you have a readily available source of some of the best gear in the game.

And that ties into my absolute favorite system of Darkspore:

Catalysts

Many diablolikes have a mechanic called ‘Sockets’. The gear you equip has its own type of equipment slot, and you put gems in there that give you small bonuses. Every game does it a little differently, but it’s kind of a staple of the series.

Darkspore uses a similar system, but utilizes it VERY differently. While you are running levels, enemies will rarely drop Catalysts instead of loot. These come in 5 colors: Purple (boosts your base stats), Red (boosts offensive secondary stats like damage or attack speed), Blue (boosts defensive secondary stats like health regen or damage resistance), Green (boosts utility secondary stats like movement speed or lifesteal), and Rainbow (can contain any of the bonuses of the previous categories) They also come in two sizes: Big and Small. This determines how big the bonus from them is.

You have a 3x3 grid on your HUD that the catalysts you collect go into. You can rearrange them however you want, and if you create a line of 3 of the same color (Rainbow is a wildcard and matches with all of them), it will double the bonus of all Catalysts in that line. This stacks, meaning if you create multiple lines over a single catalyst it could get a x3, x4, or even x5 bonus if it’s the center piece of the grid and forms a line in every direction.

However, you can’t save Catalysts. You can equip it to the grid or drop it on the ground and move on. That’s it. You have to decide now. Do you keep that Big Purple you have for the big buff to your most important stat, or do you trade it for that Small Rainbow for a mediocre stat you just found that you can plug in the middle and double everything else in your grid?

“Surely that only matters early game, and once you have good catalysts you don’t swap them out that much, right?” I hear the diablolike veterans asking, because that is how socketing works in most of those games. And normally you would be right. Except for one major change: All your catalysts only last until the end of your run. When you get to the cash out screen, and choose to keep going? You keep them. But if you choose to cash out, or if you ever die, your catalysts all vanish. Every new run you have to go through and collect them again, which results in you playing your heroes in new ways and adopting new strategies based on what catalysts drop for you each run.

It’s an INCREDIBLE easy to learn system that adds SO MUCH depth and replayability to the game. I love it so incredibly much. Each mechanic flows elegantly into the the next. The catalysts help you do better runs which gets you better gear which upgrades your heroes which lets you do better runs, the entire spiral being locked into your account level to give a quantifiable metric of how far this spiral is gone. It was so good!

And now, it’s gone forever.

Man that sure was a long post. Friends have heard me go on this rant SO many times. Thank god I never got into a second mediocre game filled with novel innovations that are ultimately lost to time and can never be experienced again due to Always Online DRM making it unplayable. Can you imagine if I didn’t learn my lesson and did that a second time? Ha!

… I never did that again. Right?

… right?

…

HEX: Shards of Fate

Hex was a digital TCG legal battle with TCG elements created by Cryptozoic. It was originally put up on Kickstarter, advertised as a digital card game with both PvE and PvP modes, a unique focus on the design space opened up by being a digital game, and gameplay damn near identical to Magic: The Gathering.

The thinly veiled truth was that this game was never meant to succeed. They had hoped it would, and it would be great if it did, but I’m fairly certain that was always a secondary objective. The first objective was to get sued by Wizards of the Coast over the similarities to Magic: The Gathering.

Now, that might sound strange to an outsider, but to anyone in the industry, they are probably nodding along and going “Yeah that tracks actually.”

You see, Wizards of the Coast is… bad. Really bad. They do everything in their power to choke the life out of the industry and have resorted to a lot of questionable tactics to do so. One of these is against anyone who develops any form of trading card game. You see, WotC has a patent on booster packs, customizable decks of cards, and turning cards sideways.

Literally.

U.S. Patent No 5,662,332 (A)

It is not a coincidence that the second two biggest names in TCGs don’t involve turning your cards sideways. Konami contested that Yugioh was different enough to not violate the patent.

WotC responded by suing them. They settled out of court.

Nintendo actually hired WotC to design the Pokémon TCG to NOT violate the patent in return for WotC getting to distribute the first few sets. WotC gladly accepted, distributed the game, got their cut of the sales, and as soon as that was over….

WotC responded by suing them. They settled out of court.

Every single other game out there ended up paying royalties to WotC. Because the cut of the sales to WotC was cheaper than going to court even if you won. WotC had their fingers in every pie, but was smart enough to make sure not to piss people off so much that refusal was ever a viable option.

Cryptozoic was a company that, at the time, was making several licensed TCGs. The big one that jumps out was the World of Warcraft TCG, which they were in charge of (though it was originally made by Upper Deck). Cryptozoic was begrudgingly paying royalties because having the WoWTCG license was too good and they didn’t want to give that up. Then Hearthstone happened and Cryptozoic was going to lose the WoWTCG license as it got discontinued.

So Cryptozoic set up their new game, Hex, specifically to bait WotC into suing them, so they could get the patent overturned.

See, the patent isn’t actually valid. You cannot patent a game mechanic. There are certainly aspects of the patent that ARE valid and CAN be enforced, but the parts about mechanics can’t actually be enforced. WotC uses it because people can’t contest it, but if it actually was used in court it would get overturned VERY easily, and WotC would be declawed.

So Cryptozoic created a game that was a clone of MtG, used a Kickstarter to build up a large amount of legal funds, and got sued by WotC! Yes! Exactly what they wanted!

… and then they settled out of court.

Sigh.

I guess I’ll talk about the game now.

Lore

The lore of the game was solid. Pretty typical fantasy setting. Humans and elves and sort of racist orcs (better than most other orcs I’ve seen at least) and extremely racist tribal coyote people make up the good guys. Undead, spider-orcs, dwarves, and also pretty racist samurai rabbit people make up the bad guys.

There are two types of magic in the world: Blood magic and Wild magic. Elves are adept at wild magic. Shin’hare (the rabbit people) are adept at wild magic as well. The Shin’hare tried to take over the world, forcing the Orcs, Humans, Elves, and Cyotle to ally together to drive them underground into the underworld.

There the Shin’hare met and allied with the Vennen, an all male race descended from Orcs. They were adept blood mages, and they procreated by kidnapping orcs and using them as incubators for spiders. I fucking love the Vennen. I’ll focus on them a lot in this. The Vennen taught the Shin’hare how to sacrifice their young for more power.

The two then allied with the Dwarves, a genderless race of sentient stone statues who excel at creating machinery, and who believe the world itself is a giant machine. Specifically, a weapon of mass destruction, and they are trying to set it off. They believe blowing people the fuck up to be their natural calling.

The underworld and overworld forces go back and forth a bit, with the Elves doing a large chunk of the work as the only overworld race that can use magic.

Then Hex happened. Hex is a massive meteor made up of Diamond, Emerald, and Sapphire. Hex punched clean through the world, scattering gems all across it, before stabilizing in orbit on the other side, becoming the worlds moon.

These gems were incredibly magical, allowing every race to now use magic. Diamonds were restorative, bringing life to things. Rubies were extremely destructive and burned bright and hot and quickly. Sapphire allowed finesse manipulation and control over water. These

Yes this is just the MtG color pie.

Eventually, humanity stumbled into one of their old crypts that was very close to the impact site of Hex, and found it CRAWLING with undead. They were taking the Diamonds from Hex and putting them into the eye sockets of human corpses, causing those corpses to reanimate. These were NOT actually undead, but an alien consciousness that existed within the gems that were using human corpses as a host.

The Necrotic sought a peaceful and symbiotic relationship with humanity as thanks for the use of the bodies. Humanity responded by getting really pissed off that the Necrotic were grave robbing, and went to war over it. Eventually the Necrotic retreated deep into the underworld and allied with the other races instead, eventually helping the Shin’hare with a second attack on the surface.

The lore has a lot more depth than that, but that’s the basic. I liked it a lot. The Orcs being good guys who just really liked tests of strength was a refreshing take on orcs. I liked them a lot. The extremely racist caricature that made up the Cyotle and the Shin’hare? Less so.

Digital Design Space

As for the actual gameplay… it was MtG. Like, almost 1:1.

Like…

Seriously.

Shards work similarly to Lands, with there being 5 basic shards, Diamond, Sapphire, Ruby, Wild, and Blood. You can only play one Shard per turn and when you do you get 1/1 Resource. 1 resource to spend on this turn, and 1 permanent resource. You spend that resource to play a card that costs 1, and you go down to 0/1 resources. Start of your turn, you would go back up to 1/1 resource.

Pretty straight forward stuff. Resources are a card type like in MtG, but once it’s played it acts as a perpetual resource like the Mana in Hearthstone, with no need to care about where the resource is coming from.

… wait a second though, this is a MtG clone. It uses the color pie. Caring where those resources come from is KIND OF a big deal in MtG.

Which is the first really cool difference between Hex and MtG! THRESHOLD! Each time you play a shard you gain 1 threshold in that color. To play a card, you have to have at least as many threshold as are displayed below its cost. See that purple dot below Murder? That means you need 1 blood threshold to play it.

Threshold is NOT consumed when you play a card, which DRASTICALLY alters deckbuilding and how feasible multi-color decks are.

For example, in MtG, if you had 4 swamps and 1 mountain in play, and 5 cards in hand that all cost R…. You can play 1 whole card this turn.

In Hex, if you have 4 Blood and 1 Ruby, and have 5 cards that all cost 1 and have a single Ruby threshold, you can play your entire hand that turn. This made it incredibly viable to splash colors in relatively smaller amounts. It also opened up cool new design space, like cards that cost 1 but still required 3 threshold in a color. Or cards that require 1 threshold of every type to activate a bonus effect (very common among Necrotic) or… for sockets!

HEY WE ARE COMING FULL CIRCLE!

Remember how I mentioned Diablolike games having sockets, but how Darkspore didn’t use it? Well Hex DOES. There was a pair of keywords called Socketable Major and Socketable Minor. Each set, there would be 10 gems (two of each color) that rotated out for Socketable cards. Cards with Major sockets could equip any gem, while minor sockets could only equip half of them. So for example the current rotation might have the Sapphire gems be “While you have at least 1 Sapphire Threshold, this card has Flying” for its Minor gem, and “When you play this card, if you have at least 3 Sapphire Threshold, target player draws 3 cards”

You chose which gem was in each Socketable card during deckbuilding. Different copies of the same card could have different gems equipped, or you could have the same gem equipped across multiple different cards. It was basically a way to go “This card was designed to be splashed in other color decks. You pick what that other color is.”

It opened up a lot of design space! This was something Hex did VERY well. They knew they were making a MtG clone, but they weren’t beholden to the same restrictions a physical card game did, and they THRIVED in those areas.

For example, REPLICATORS GAMBIT, a one cost card that creates six copies of a troop (read: creature) that just… could not exist in MtG.

Another example of this was in my favorite archetype in Hex: Mill. Now, I’m not normally a blue player. I’m not a big fan of the ‘you don’t get to play the game’ archetype. Even mill isn’t really my thing. But the way it worked in HexTCG? God I loved it. I wish I could see my opponents faces as they reached a trembling hand out to their bloated, grotesque deck, a cruel mockery of what it once was. They had started the match with only 60 cards, but now it held twice that number. Knowing every draw was more likely to bring their own skittering death out.

…

Maybe I should back up a bit.

There the Shin’hare met and allied with the Vennen, an all male race descended from Orcs. They were adept blood mages, and they procreated by kidnapping orcs and using them as incubators for spiders. I fucking love the Vennen. I’ll focus on them a lot in this.

Vennen are, in MtG terms, tribal Blue/Black with a focus on control. Specifically an aggressive form of control. Your wincon is still ‘beat your opponent to death’, but the means by which you do it is… spiders.

Lots of Vennen cards work by still allowing your opponent to do the thing that you blocked, but it now creates Spider Eggs in their deck. Lock down a creature as it enters play with ‘Everytime this creature becomes tapped, shuffle 3 spider eggs into your deck’ or ‘Whenever an opponent draws a third card this turn add a spider egg to their deck’ or ‘When this creature is destroyed add a spider egg to your opponent’s deck’ and when they DRAW a spider egg… well… the effect of a spider egg is more or less ‘When this card enters your hand or graveyard, draw/discard another card into that zone and destroy this one. Your opponent creates a Spiderling and puts it in play. “

Spiderlings are 1/1 Unblockable creatures.

The Vennen win con is to just fill your opponent with spiders and then shred them apart once the spiders start hatching. It was a DELIGHTFUL playstyle.

PvE

Hex also features a fairly robust PvE mode with a point crawl encounter map that was quite delightful. There were cards unique to PvE, but all PvP cards were also legal in PvE. In general, all your staples came from PvP and were the same core staples everyone uses to win (they were very generous with handing out common/uncommon PvP cards in the single player mode, which in turn also made Pauper a very popular format), however you also had PvE cards which made up your win cons. PvE cards weren’t balanced as tightly, and allowed to just be dumb overpowered bullshit just because it’s fun to use dumb overpowered bullshit sometimes!

There were also equipment slots that would modify the cards in your deck, turning PvP cards into PvE cards. For example, Replicators Gambit made it so that EVERY copy of that card gained that text.

PvE started with character creation. You would create a character that was one of the 8 races, and one of 6 3 different classes. Warrior, Cleric, or Ranger. I think there was a late update that added Mage but I don’t recall too clearly, and it isn’t document online anymore as far as I can tell!

Each class had a unique talent tree that you could customize and change how you played. Your race determined what colors you could play, and your level determined how many of each rarity you could play.

I played a Vennen Cleric. Cleric’s whole thing was that you would gain Blessings, 0 cost cards that would rise in your deck each turn, and could be played to draw a card as well as additional effects based on your build. My blessings put more eggs in the enemy deck, to the surprise of no one.

As you went from encounter to encounter you would earn new cards to modify your deck, swapping decks between fights. Then there were dungeons, long laborious streaks of a dozen or so encounters, with branching paths and decisions to be made, earning you tons of new packs and equipment and experience to boost your character. One especially fun encounter was crossing a desert with a pack of… I think it was gnomes? There were 20 of them that needed rescuing. The way you rescued them was putting them in your deck, and then leaving the desert through a single combat encounter. Except they were AWFUL. Like 3 cost vanilla 1/1’s level of awful. The more you had in your deck, the harder the encounter became. It was a really nice way to portray the logistical challenge of trying to fight while protecting all these useless tagalongs.

There were plans to even introduce Raids, 3v1 PvE encounters, but they fizzled out as the game got sunset.

The game was good. REALLY good. It relished in the digital design space in a way I haven’t quite seen since then. A few games, like Legends of Runeterra, have come close, but always fall short, and that’s so sad! I DESPERATELY want to play a TCG with this level of customization again!

Luckily that was the end of it. I finally learned the error of my ways, never touched anything ‘always online’ again, and now can live a life without regrets! … except Legends of Runeterra a little bit like I mentioned above but THATS IT! There are no other always online games I have regrets about!

…

ToonTown Online

Okay no, not seriously. I’ve never played toontown. But honestly it looked kinda silly and like a shitpost in video game form. I think it would have been fun to try at some point with a few friends. Not seriously, just to screw around in for a bit.

Never going to get that chance. Just like nearly everyone reading this will never get to play two of my biggest influences that shaped how I think about game design.

Always Online DRM is an insidious beast. It doesn’t just kill games, it kills *archival*. All we have left of these games is a relatively small number of gameplay videos. I was planning on having a lot more pictures in this post of all the interface elements I was talking about as I talked about them, but there just… aren’t any good pictures of them. Even these details are based on my own memory cross referenced with a couple of wikis, and even those were sparse.

Some games can’t feasibly avoid Always Online. MMO’s are a big example. But by adding it into a game that has a single player experience involved, and not making that single player experience a standalone thing on its own, you are destroying any hope that your game will be remembered. It will fade into obscurity. There will never be a cult revival. Your work will be discarded and forgotten and it’s… so incredibly sad to see.

I jokingly titled this section being about ToonTown, but really this section is about Kingdom Hearts: Union X. It was a mediocre and disgustingly predatory gacha. It was horribly managed with horrible issues around localization and it was just… a mess. But it was part of the world of Kingdom Hearts, and it’s story was important and mattered.

The game is no longer playable, but it’s also not entirely lost. The devs created a new version of it, as a gallery to view the cutscenes. The single-player side mode, Dark Road, is also included. The devs didn’t have to do this. They could have gone the same route as Darkspore and HexTCG, and had their work be forgotten. They chose to save it. Not in full, but at least the parts the deemed important.

It also makes me wonder how much this happens in other mediums. Ludology is a pretty new field, and it rarely goes into specific games and their impact on the medium, mostly just focusing on the impacts they have on humanity, rather than the mechanics themselves as these beautiful pieces of art. And it makes me wonder how often this happens with say… film critics. Are there any indie film makers who are deep in the paint of indie films and critique of not just the films themselves, but the very techniques being used, just sitting there going “It’s so upsetting that this big studio managed to do something this beautiful and all of us in the scene recognize it’s beauty, but no one else seems to, and now it’s gone?”

… as I’m writing this I actually realize that this does happen there. It’s how I found out about what became my favorite film of all time, The Man From Earth. It’s a small film that flopped horribly in theaters, and only gained any attention by being pirated by a lot by indies who wanted to talk about it. It’s a good movie, highly recommend. Not for everyone though.

I don’t know. I’m sure I had a point with all this but… seeing it happen again and again and now with streaming services taking stuff down it’s just… I can’t help but seeing not just more and more games, but more and more of EVERY artistic medium ending up in this area. How many digital artists entire portfolios have vanished off the face of the earth because their tumblr got deactivated? How many movies are going to be gone forever when Netflix eventually goes out of business? We can’t even rely on piracy! Many old pieces of media is just lost forever. Just ask the Doctor Who fandom. They probably know more about that than anyone else at this point.

But mostly I just really wish more developers would consider what parts of their games are important, and what kind of legacy they want to leave, instead of just what will generate a short burst of profit, with no care for what happens after.

… I should start doing video essays with how long this got. It’s like some kind of text based video essay. A text essay. Those are a new thing I just invented.

[crazylittlejester]

I wanna share some sleep related LU head canons :)

Sky isn’t a napper. He doesn’t nap much because he always sleep very deeply, it’s hard to wake him up. He also is very slow to wake under normal circumstances, the stress of being on an adventure being the only thing to get him up and moving quickly.

Four is a huge napper, and he loves sleeping. He doesn’t nap as much as he would like to, because this adventure is a lot more stressful than his other ones. He also has the absolute worst bedhead, but he became very good at managing it over the years. Also, if the bed he’s in isn’t comfy enough, he’ll go to sleep with a big ol frown on his face.

Wild barely sleeps, at all. He just doesn’t really get sleepy. Sure he gets tired, exhausted even, but sleepy? Nah. After 100 years of being sleeping beauty, he had more than enough sleep for his lifetime. He only really sleeps when the Chain sleeps because he thinks that they’ll think he’s weird if he’s just running around all night. And he’ll also sleep if he’s hurt, but only if it’s in a very comfy bed.

Wars is a very light sleeper, product of the war. He also wakes up hours earlier than he wants to, so he just lays down until it’s time to get up(totally not me projecting). He has eye bags upon eye bags, and he’s very good at covering them up. He also rarely has bed hair, he wakes up and his hair is nearly perfect almost 100% of the time.

That’s all for now lol

I LOVE THESE

I so agree with Wars just laying in bed awake. That man does not sleep well unless he had a breakdown and crashed, then he’ll be absolutely OUT for a good few hours. Wild just sleeping because he doesn’t want the others to think he’s weird is SO him, if he could have it his way I bet he’d be climbin the trees at 4 am. FOUR IS A BIGGER NAPPER FOR REAL, I know he curls up on rainy days by windows and just crashes. Sky to me takes naps only when he’s so exhausted he can’t stay awake, but he’s definitely a big sleeper and normally on good days doesn’t need to take naps.

If I may add for the others:

Legend sleeps like he’s dead. Yknow how bunnies just crash and look dead? He does that. He absolutely crashes and good luck waking him up when that happens. It’s not an every night thing, but it does happen

Twilight will cuddle up with his wolf pelt if none of the others will sleep near him. He can’t sleep without it, but if he has it he’ll be able to sleep all the way through the night without waking up.

Time wakes up like every two hours and has to get up and walk around before he can go back to bed. He HAS to check on things, and he’s always the first one physically up (Warriors wakes up first but he pretends to be asleep until he hears Time getting up for the day For Real)

Wind has so much energy he struggles to fall asleep and he has to run around sometimes before bedtime or he can’t sleep. He’ll say he doesn’t want a nap because he’s ‘not a child’, but if other people are taking naps he’ll join them because sometimes hes a bit eepy and a good nap will fix him

Hyrule naps so deeply he wakes up like how you wake up from an after school nap. He has no idea where he is, his hair is a mess, there are sticks in it somehow, his pants are rolled up to his knees, and he feels like he’s been dropped through space and time. He can also fall asleep on ANY surface

[charles-simmons-fanfiction]

Meeks and Pitts Headcanons (except it's me projecting in all of these)

-> Both of them know how to solve a Rubik's cube and almost always have one around to do something while they're bored. Probably one of them learned it first for whatever reason, then taught the other. And they also like to race to see who solves it first. (and i'm saying this as someone who won't go anywhere without my cube. It's a life style y'know)

-> They're both very geek and nerdy, but Meeks is more of a nerd and Pitts is more of a geek.

-> "Don't worry, I didn't have time to study for this either," they say, but know the whole subject by heart.

-> While Meeks is very sociable, Pitts used to be pretty socially awkward and it took him a while to get genuinely comfortable with all the poets. He is that type of person who's very reserved and quiet, then as soon as he gets used to you he suddenly becomes the most talkative and annoying person in the world.

-> They definitely like boardgames and the rest of this post will be about that, as someone who LOVES boardgames with my whole heart. I know dps takes place before most cool games were invented, but let's just pretend they got to have those in their teenage years. Most of this fandom is constantly pretending stuff didn't happen like canon anyway.

-> Meeks is the type of person who would love games that need tactics and strategy, specially card and deck building games. He would be that type of player that makes the biggest combos (there's always one like that and it is so annoying to everyone else, but he has the time of his life). Like, every single round he manages to do some crazy logical move and win more points than all the others combined.

-> Pitts, on the other hand, likes games with plots, characters, maybe even roleplaying. From more simple games, like Coup to some more complex ones, like Above and Below. And I think he would be more into cooperative games rather than competitive.

-> I particularly think both of them would like space themed boardgames, for some reason I can't explain. Games like Terraforming Mars and Nemesis (I only played this one twice, and each time took like 5 hours, but I swear time FLIES in these games. The other poets would surely complain every time Steven and Gerard decided to play those, because it would take the whole afternoon/night.)

-> Sometimes the other dead poets would agree to play with them. Usually after days of them begging for it. When that happens, they would probably play party games. Those games are faster and easy to learn (there's always someone who struggles to understand the rules, and I think it would be Charlie and Knox, but Charlie would get it as soon as they actually start playing). Games like Exploding Kittens, Cards against Humanity, or even Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza (one of funniest games ever btw).

-> Normal card games (like poker, rummy or canasta) are mostly Meek's thing though and he takes it very seriously, although I don't think he'd go as far as betting money on it.

-> Both of them would love RPGs so much.

-> All of those nerdy things might sound stupid to others, but to them, it's a huge bonding moment and it means a lot when they get the others to engage with their hobbies.

💛.

This post feels SO NICHE, bc it has both my love for these two specific characters but also for boardgames. It was fun though, so it's worth it ^^"

[rottenpumpkin13]

Responding to the Zack/Seph friendship thing as an ask because I have no idea how shares work and the comment space isn’t long enough :P

But as fun as that idea is- that Sephiroth didn’t do it because Zack reminded him of his dead friends- I honestly think it’s because he just couldn’t relate/was too distressed from everything else happening. I know CC happened within the span of like… five years? Maybe? And I’m not sure how all those events line up in the timeline but regardless, I think it’s mostly because Zack was young, a couple years younger than Sephiroth, and Sephiroth mostly became friends with Angeal and Sephiroth because he felt they could understand him, since they were also part of a similar “project” like he was and- I believe this played a HUGE part- he thought them to be the closest to his strength level. I think him being so far superior to everyone else in every way was what caused him to be separate and that was something he was very aware of, and now there are these two people who are almost as good as he is and so he knows they’ll treat him as an equal rather than as a hero, idol, or something surpassing a human.

While Zack was also undoubtedly strong, I don’t think Sephiroth ever viewed him as a friend, he just viewed him as Angeal’s student and probably didn’t feel like they could ever be equals. Because as much as I don’t think Sephiroth ever wanted to be different, I think he still had a good degree of arrogance nonetheless. Deep down he knew he was better, and he knew what that entailed, including always being set apart from others unless they were in the same league he was. There’s an argument to be made that Zack DID at least reach the same level as Genesis and Angeal did by the end of CC, but Sephiroth probably already had a notion of what Zack was like and his perception of him never changed even as Zack progressed.

Of course the events happening in the game probably didn’t help, so to that agree I do also agree with your assessment of why Seph and Zack never got closer. I mean his best friends basically both died and now he’s left alone again, and prior to that it doesn’t seem like Seph really knew Zack beyond just as Angeal’s student so they never had time to bond when things were alright, and afterwards Sephiroth didn’t have the will to befriend someone else- who he never saw as an equal, who he always thought was weaker- who would also likely die. If these two people who he thought to be on par with himself died, why would this weaker person serve as a decent replacement?

I have my own qualms with Angeal and Genesis- particularly Genesis- and how they treated Sephiroth, but in Sephiroth’s mind it was enough that they were willing to spend time with him and treat him like a human, regardless of the fact that they were closer to each other than they’d ever be to him. Great and now I’m sad about Sephiroth all over again 🥲 the poor guy really had nobody. It’s no wonder he went crazy. Actually it’s a wonder he was a good person for 25 years before he snapped, most people would’ve gone full Homelander a lot earlier.

Sorry for the rant, it seems like the question riled me up a bit 😅

I'm going to put myself in Sephiroth's shoes and say the emotional and mental exhaustion he endured from everything that happened in Crisis Core—from the training room, degradation, desertion, the Genesis War, Angeal's death, and then Nibelheim—would be overwhelming. If it were me I wouldn't have the energy to relate or form friendships with anyone after that and wouldn't want to, and things like that would be the last thing on my mind. That last post was just a depressing thought I had at *checks watch* wow it's late. I think it was the trauma and exhaustion from everything rolled into one blunt that finally got smoked at Nibelheim.

Though I do think Sephiroth cared for Zack in some way, part of that definitely had to do with seeing a bit of Angeal in him since Zack inherited his sword and all. I can't say it better than @altocat did in this post, but the signs were there.

And I'm going to politely disagree with Sephiroth being arrogant. I don't see him as someone who cares about status and being equals with someone or not. He was thrust into a position at a young age and grew up naturally isolated at the metaphorical top, but I don't think that made him arrogant at all, and if anything this isolation fueled the loyalty and devotion he had towards the few friends he did make. I also see Sephiroth as someone who doesn't open up to people easily. We know he knew Angeal for years before Crisis Core when they were young teens—and if you want to add context from Ever Crisis, this would be right after the Rhadore mission where all that happened, so Angeal's (and Genesis's) friendship came at the right time.

I would say Zack's did too, but again, plot context is key, and Sephiroth was already going through so much in CC. Also, kind of like you said, there's the relatability aspect and the age gap, but I personally don't think it was because Sephiroth saw Zack as inferior to him in any way.

[whereserpentswalk]

When history was still young, and when temples to the old gods still stood in the city center, the city said it was under protection from the seven winged serpent. It was a strange creature that few had ever seen, a massive creature covered in dark green scales and feathers, with shining yellow eyes. It had power over souls, and when the city's ill and wounded would go to it, and the healers and barber surgeons had done all they they could do, it would painlessly take away their souls. They say it once struck the souls from the bodies of an invading army, leaving their swords and spears limb in their grey hands. It would bless and care for people in exchange for gifts of wheat and wine, and lost children would go to it for protection. They say it sang a song of the gods, that would comfort the city in the darkest of nights and coldest of rains.

In a later age, when the church of the new God stood at the city center, they still told stories of the seven winged serpent. The first story the city used its printing press to tell was a myth featuring it. It was a strange creature, it lived out in the woods, and still sang to the old gods, a haunting song in the dark of the night. Most people avoided the part of the forest it lived in, fearing its shining yellow eyes, and its piercing fangs, fearing it's power over their mortal souls. There were some strange rituals around it, and when the very desperate, or very ambitious would go to it they could make a sacrifice to it and gain strange powers from it. Lost children who go into the woods are turned into its soul sucking acolytes, who bring souls of the wicked both low and powerful for it to take. They say one of the witch hunters tried to go to its place in the woods and shot at it twice with his musket, the balls bouncing off its scales, and the serpent just stared at him, with its yellow eyes in the darkness.

They say now that at the edge of the city there's a massive cryptid, a huge black serpent with seven wings and deadly fangs. It's starved of the souls of humans, and hunts those it deeps unworthy of keeping theirs. It stalks the outskirts of the city, the lonely highways, and the dead malls, and the crumbling projects, where a great forest once grew. The police went after it once, in full riot gear and everything, but it struck their souls from their bodies. Nobody would ever dare to go near such a creature, not even the lost and the desperate, it's only allies are twisted creatures that once were humans who thought to serve it. Few people have caught it in camera, but they say it still sings, it used to only sing in the winter but with the forest gone it always acts like it's winter, it's a beautiful and mournful song, and not a soul alive remembers what those words mean.

[euronymous-files]

The following is part of a 2021 interview to Attila by the YT channel Over Music. Read below for the highlights, but definitely go and check the original video.

interviewer: "How was your relationship with Euronymous? Did you have a friendship relationship with him or he contacted you to work on DMDS and nothing more?"

Attila: "First he contacted me about that and he invited me to sing in Mayhem. Also he wanted to release Tormentor, my first band; we had Anno Domini, our debut album which was never released. So he really wanted to do that as well. I don't know how the fuck he phoned me, you know, he had this great network and we had some common friends […] Anyway, he wrote me a very fucking nice letter, kinda like talking like a fine gentleman, you know I really appreciated… in a little bit noble, sofisticated style… and we talked by phone and shared some music, I sent him some photos, stuff like that. He sent me the Deathcrush record and Darkthrone and Burzum records and shit. I think we had been in contact for maybe one or two years. I think he contacted me as I understood not long after Dead commited suicide. Of course he told me about it, and I think I was one of the favourite vocalists of both him and Dead. That's why he invited me in the first place to join the band. I was just thinking about Euronymous, actually, Øystein, who I consider as my brother, I can't say anything bad about him, actually. He was always super cool, very nice, friendly and like a gentleman to me, totally cool… you know, I was thinking about just yesterday because I have this beautiful new speaker system […] I was just listening to music and I put on some Tangerine Dream record to try to relax […] and it came to my mind that Øystein had this huge fucking Tangerine Dream collection […] He had all this collection and even he had all the side projects of the members of the band. So beside he had a very nice metal collection, he had this huge Tangerine Dream collection, I was like man, that's great that you like electronic music. […] So I'm just saying that music for me is everything but also, like you I guess, you're not listening only to extreme metal but that's the driving force that keeps us together […]."

[bonefall]

Hey I was wondering how do the Clans generally treat a cat who killed another in battle, and how easy it is to kill a cat by accident? I always hated how canon treated it where if a ThunderClan cat killed a cat from another Clan, it's an accident and could have happened to anyone battles are just risky like that, but if another Clan cat kills a ThunderClan cat they are treated as a ruthless murderer who did it on purpose when they could have easily won the battle without killing. In BB, what will the reaction be to, for example, Hawkheart killing Moonflower?

I've always been able to accept that as cognitive dissonance in-universe, though some examples (LOOKING AT YOU, LEOPARDSTAR'S HONOR) end up seeming ridiculously out of character for the sake of the plot.

It makes sense to me that Canon!Firestar would have some bias towards Lionblaze, for example, or that the fact the POV is closer to him would let us see his Russetfur kill with more sympathy.

But, in BB, it is MASSIVELY contextual based on the warrior, the situation, and how badly the clans want to maintain relations. So I have to use a few examples;

Hawkheart vs Moonflower

Pinestar massively regrets this battle, and that he listened to Goosefeather. Destroying herbs before leafbare is an evil thing to do. Why would StarClan ever want this...?

He must trust their wisdom, their grand plan, their mysterious ways, but... he feels disgusted with himself. Moonflower is dead now. She leaves behind young daughters.

So his talks with Heatherstar are quiet and solemn. She is gracious enough to admit that Hawkheart went too far, and Pinestar is humble enough to admit he was acting as a loyal warrior.

So in an attempt to maintain decent relations, Heatherstar makes some good deals in Pinestar’s favor. She makes payment of flax and herbs, and makes an agreement to help in case of a greencough outbreak for the next year.

Bluepaw is colored by resentment towards Hawkheart for many years, until she becomes friends with Hoprunner and Ashfoot. Suddenly, it puts it into perspective.

Thistleclaw vs Sunfish

He mauled her when she was doing a very minor crime of trespassing. This would have been the last straw for him; Bluestar had given him MANY chances before this, too many.

Thistleclaw would have been exiled for this.

But Leopardstar killed him. He paid with his life. When Crookedstar approaches her to try and negotiate Sunningrocks out of her in payment, she retorts that he was a disobedient warrior, and he has been buried.

RiverClan and ThunderClan have terrible relationships at this point. Bluestar cares for peace and tries to bid for it most of the time, but since they actively fight over Sunningrocks, there isn't much she can do to fix this.

So it is agreed; revenge killings are not persecuted. An eye for an eye is payment.

Lionblaze vs Russetfur

As you know, Blackstar was fucking devastated when his deputy died. This entire battle, in fact, was a huge breakdown in the established alliance between ShadowClan and ThunderClan.

Firestar worked hard on this alliance. Poured his heart and soul into making rules of engagement over the berry patch they joust over, leant aid to Blackstar's bog project, encouraged good relationships between ThunderClan and their neighbors. It was one of his proudest achievements.

But Bramblestar took power after the humiliating, insulting Battle of the False Eclipse, where Brackenfur was killed. Firestar was killed by Ashfur, he believes, someone he trusted. He is determined to rule in a different way; no more Nice ThunderClan.

His deputy, Thornclaw, insists they must rule by example. Yes, ShadowClan had been their ally, but that just presents an opportunity to stab them in the back like the other two. They must rule by example-- and not be lenient towards Blackstar's warriors. Bramblestar refuses to play so gently about the Berry Patch the next time it comes up in negotiations.

But it's about to be leafbare. ShadowClan doesn't care for the berries-- but they DO care for the prey that gets fat there, and the trading advantage of stocking up on berries to bargain with. This fight is lopsided.

Russetfur takes a life from Bramblestar here, and in response, Lionblaze kills her with his brutal strength.

Blackstar was destroyed by this, but too proud to ever lower himself to begging for a life payment from Bramblestar. He won't EVER accept something so insulting, ThunderClan killed his deputy, he would NEVER let them fix this. Their alliance is over, it's open season on Bramblestar, burn the code. Burn the Clans. Burn the Stars, even, what have they done besides put him on ridiculous trials to encourage his "growth" into a weak, sniveling worm to be trodden on?

And from there, he is open to Sol's influence. ShadowClan falls, and the Dark Forest Trainees take over.

So, in conclusion, it varies immensely. Payments and punishments for deaths are contextual, I'd have to explain the political environment around each killing to delve into what was done, and why.

[postal-ech]

Alright no, I need to go into detail on this shit cause I swear to god, it lives rent free in my head. I'll split the post off here cause there's gonna be some spoilers for Lisa the Undone as well as a few other Lisa Fan Games that are on my mind

I'm also giving a CW here, cause Lisa covers some dark topics, and I want to unload it a bit here, especially given what I've seen out of Lisa the Undone.

Buckle up, it's gonna be a long, very autistically hyperfixated post.

So

I initially never really got into Lisa when it first came out. I was a shitlord that saw the fan content first, especially this project known as Interlopers - essentially, a Lisa-Undertale crossover featuring Buddy Armstrong and Chara Dreemur.

It piqued my interest a bit, but I never realized how one sided it was in exploring this stuff, especially given it was this crossover AU. It focused mainly on the Undertale fandom and some of the things that were popular at the time. It WAS going to explore its own version of Olathe on a sequel series but that was canceled later on, and the idea has become dormant since.

Later on, my curiosity grew and I looked into the Lisa side of things more. I discovered Lisa the Pointless, Lisa the Hopeful, and then I started looking into other fan projects here too.

Why this pretext? Because that was the gateway into Lisa proper.

I only got Lisa the Painful and Lisa the Joyful after its definitive edition released. At this point, I was pretty well versed in Brad's story - his trauma and pain, the struggles he faces after, the Joy abuse to numb the pain - so when I saw the campfire scenes between Brad and the other party members, especially with members like Terry or Queen Rodger, Bo and Olan, it sparked something there that's for fucking sure.

And then I got to the secret boss.

I'm a dude thar enjoys reading into shit, looking deep at the meaning of written projects be it games, movies, books, etc - Lore is my god damn drug, to put it in a TL:DR.

Seeing this huge call back to Lisa the First, Seeing the symbolism of joy spiders worshipping a Blue Eclipse above Brad's childhood home, fighting the manifestation of Marty Armstrong and reading the deeper, personal stuff that's said afterwards

That song, too, towards the very end of the sequence, with the music that's reminiscent of s church choir singing as Brad's childhood self descends into the darkness

That's what truly sold me on Lisa.

I know everyone has mixed feelings on Lisa the Joyful of course, especially in the way it handled Buddy - Some people were fine with it, and others didn't like the way she became this bloodthirsty girl out to murder shit indiscriminately

I say fair enough honestly, Joyful was a bit of a slog to get through compared to Painful

HOWEVER

There were two things I still enjoyed about it:

One, Dustin. Dustin was and still is the goddest boy despite his own flaws, and I was upset it wasn't explored more before his untimely death. Buddy actually starting to care about him before it all went downhill was tragic in its own right

Two, the DE content. Again, a lot of people were still mixed on it, but personally I saw it as a better expansion into Buddy healing from her trauma, understanding that- while Brad certainly was in the wrong in the way he raised her, he still tried his best in a world that definitely wanted to exploit her in the most horrific ways imaginable.

I'm fine with her even mentioning Lisa cause let's all be real here, she's definitely at least heard of her through Brad in some way, shape or form, and the ending bit where he explains the dead flower to her only reinforces that for me.

The more supernatural side of things feel interesting too, cause maybe it's just me, but reading into things, The Flash always had this sort of supernatural spin to it - how Olathe got so fucked up, how time doesn't seem to be entirely right in some areas or how everything got all mountainous and the likes. Probably just headcanon stuff but fuck it, I enjoy the speculation.

AND NOW, THE MOMENT YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR: LISA THE UNDONE.

So, with that context out of the way, I'll get into my proper thoughts with Lisa: The Undone.

Firstly, again I know not everyone will really agree with the ideas the Definitive Edition put out, especially in the case of Joyful with its Lisa the First callback and Buddy just slamming on Buzzo the way she does. That being said, I love the way Lisa the Undone tackles these ideas Joyful initially set our and explores them more.

The idea of Buddy being less hateful at first, just wanting to genuinely explore the weird and wacky world of Olathe despite its darkness is very welcome. With Dustin especially, this is only amplified.

A lot of the headcanoned and original stuff feel like they can fit right into the base Lisa games too honestly, and that's another thing I really appreciate about this fan gams

But the most important thing to me is the found family relationship between Dustin and Buddy, as well as the two other companions you can recruit.

Dustin is by no means perfect. This is undeniable enough given his actions in Painful and Joyful - He wants to do good, but it becomes a bit of a messiah complex especially for Buddy - who mind you, is only a pubescent kid during all of this shit. This is still translated well in this fan game, just less of a prominent character point - He still wants Buddy to have a good life and to be safe, but there's a clear struggle with seeing her as the Future of Olathe

And seeing her as just Buddy. Just Her.

And the fact that over the time, throughout the chapters, you see Dustin refer to her less as this important figure for the world and more as like a sibling, or just straight up family, that right there is what sells me on this.

Especially towards the end, where depending on your choices in the game, Buddy does eventually admit she can't help but care about people like Dustin.

That hits. That hits a good fucking bit.

And that's what I love to see in this. Sure, it may end with one of the two dying in part 2 of Undone, or depending on your actions it may end with tragedy for either of them

But the fact it works this found family dynamic so God damn well here, with how Buddy and Dustin care for each other AS that family despite Brad's own fuck-ups between the both of them.

Fuck man. It's good, and I hope this fandom explores it more here - especially with DE putting things into an interesting context too.

On a side note, God I also hope it explores DE's Warlord skills mechanics in the future, it's some god damn martial arts shit I love. Sure it may be Mega Man-esque bur god dammit the idea of Buddy learning and incorporating some ideas given from how each Warlord fights is SUCH a good idea and if there's ever a fan game that had Buddy exploring the greater world of Olathe, meeting the likes of Alex Churchland or Beltboy and shit like that, I wanna see her develop her own form of martial arts with or without the katana she's grown accustomed with god dammit.

God, I love Lisa. I love these games as much ad Undertale and Deltarune, and I need to write out some more shit for this series.

Thanks Austin Jorgensen you god damn mad man, and thanks to the Fandom for putting out such genuine bangers.

[classpectpokerap]

Give meq tgat fefat <> roxy stuffff please

alright bear with me for a second i gotta paint a word picture

imagine youre roxy lalonde, right.

you just entered the game. youve got a bottle of momslime. your modus was literally built to hold ectobiologized goo. youve been feeling the weight of destiny on your shoulders -- YOU ARE GOING TO MEET HER. she might be dead but you are going to meet her.

and you get to your sprite,

and theres just

a fucking

CLOWN

and two corpses that he throws into the kernel.

(the first homestuck fic i ever read, Conference Call, has a version of the erisolsprite prototyping. they fought gamzee and got their fuckin asses kicked. its great.)

and then youre left with just. Some Alien Bitch. and its like the universe is teasing you, because she's partially the DIRECT DESCENDANT of the fishwitch what killed your mom, and also a cat???? you are so sick to death of cats. you have been up to your fucking ass in cats. its just too much

and then she just. talks to you

and you slowly start to listen

you hear about her lives on alternia. what it was like being a princess, what it was like being the pauper. how they weren't even really friends, before -- they ran in different circles.

but they're one person, now. one person dedicated to *helping you.*

we never find out how roxy quit drinking, or who helped her through it

(it was fefeta)

and fefeta *loves* you. she listens to you talk about boys. you talk about your mom. fefeta never really spoke to her... but her nepeta half *knows what happened to your kitty frigglish* after he died. and frigglish said that your mom was okay.

that everything was going to be okay

and it's just. jane had her shit. jake was up in his shit. dirk had fucked off with his shit. and roxy really only had fefeta!!!!!!!!

and i think they were moirails and i think they loved each other so much. frankly. tbf.

roxy is a trans woman, fefeta is newly plural. they have a lot in common. tbqh. its like. its very beautiful. in my eyes. in my vision.

and then

she dies

and this is like. this is a really big fucking deal honestly?

fefeta's death is like. a huge thing. its one of the only things she tells john about when summarizing the entirety of her session.

and this isnt something she magically gets back in the post-retcon timeline, either

like... when fefeta dies, there isnt a post-retcon fefeta. (we'll GET TO YOU JASPROSE.) it's just roxy who remembers fefeta's existence at all -- her friends dont have any connection to her. *nobody alive in all of reality* remembers her.

fefeta isnt just dead, dude, shes Fucking GONE. shes the goner ever. shes fuckin erased.

but honestly

on a level? good for her.

we've seen what being in homestuck does to people. it warps them, reshapes them. (see the new hsbc upd8 for some cool imagery about it.) fefetasprite was never a real part of the story. she got away with being silent -- her words are hidden from us. she was never in LE's clutches.

and why would LE even want to clutch her

she's the sword that's going to kill him, after all

:3

i call fefetasprite the "cat fish witch" for a very important reason. a) its cute BUT B). if you look at caledfwlch, dave's sword, and just sorta. squint at the word. it looks like cat fish witch. that's fefeta. she Iss the cat fish witch.

so what does her death mean?

well it's not like dave used an UNBROKEN sword to fight LE.

feferi is the part of the sword still left in the stone. the part we forgot and left behind.

which leaves Nepeta, the other half of this broken sword, of the Cat Fish Witch

to kill the shit out of Lord English. B33

the sword was always going to kill him!!!!!!!! fefetasprite was the sword!!!!!!!!!!! NEPETA WAS ALWAYS FATED TO DEFEAT LORD ENGLISH!!!! AM I CLINICALLY INSANE? YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

anyway. all this to say.

i wrote a fic about this.

check out the second work in the series for roxy processing the emotions that none of her post-retcon friends remember her moirail. it's some good stuff i think!!!!!!! also hal is there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

anyway jasprose is just roxy's initial dream of reviving her mom in her kernelsprite brought to life through the most roundabout and indirect and stupid way possible. send POST

[py-dreamer]

I can't believe this is the first goddamn video I post.

But times are funny like that aren't they?

Ok so as the thumbnail says, this is specifically for the first lmk fic I've written:

"When the sun sets forever."

Yes it's shadowpeach, how on earth did you guess. And if you've floated around my dreamscape for a while, you'll know my...

...very enthusiastic opinions of Macaque...

(I promise I do still like him, he's a great character, it's just I get pretty peeved by how the majority of the fandom portrays their relationship a lot of peeps bashing Wukong and saying Mac did nothing wrong-

I have a whole other post about this and the fic, I'm tired man, here're the links:

https://www.tumblr.com/py-dreamer/751398212493000704/oh-its-macaroni-learns-the-consequences-for

https://www.tumblr.com/py-dreamer/751119540805632000/rant-about-shadowpeach-warning-mac-slander)

But regardless, if you enjoy some Macaca slander, hop on board!

If you don't , good for you! Please don't harass anyone who thinks otherwise.

But to sum up:

In this fic we explore a scenario where Macaque finds a time alterating artifact after a huge spat on the mountain (that resulted in the clip above), uses that artifact to make it so he killed Tripitaka during JTTW. Then we see his pov in this universe where things have certainly changed drastically

...and not necessarily for the better.

People change. Friends or foes found dead or alive. Cities fall and some thrive.

But one thing I can assure you?

Neither of our mystic monkeys are having any fun until the end.

But yeah! Formal announcement post for my fic!

Yes this is a big reason why I've been absent for like a month

No I won't stop posting art. I'm taking a short break rn to get into the rhythm of drawing again

No there isn't a formal posting schedule, but I do have it in mind

No this isn't the big BIG project I've been working on for a few weeks

(Forgive me if I missed anything from s5, this was planned and written before that and I haven't watched it yet)

But enough about me!

I want to thank anyone who's already seen the fic and/or left kudos or comments

And I want to give an especially huge shoutout to @furornocturna for beta reading this thing!

Their work is great! And is one of the most enjoyable reads I've read in a long while

And since I haven't seen an official post for it yet...

SHABAM!!! Another great fic! She recently updated it too! It's about amnesiac Wukong who thinks Macaque is still his mate and MK is their child!

Wham bam, pajama sam's christmas ham: hijinks ensue

Very entertaining, good ol Macaque bashing

(she and I like to stand around him in a circle and give him a good whack with the consequences stick sometimes. It builds character.)

And parental Shadowpeach is always appreciated here. 10/10

I have not linked it but also check out:

Fractured pieces make a mosaic

Also written by her! Another great fic that delves into more of the sins of Macaque against EVERYONE not just Wukong

But about the video, yea just heard the audio and thought it'd be funny

I feel like Chang'e would definitely comfort a friend after some harsh words like what happens in the 1st chapter

Or at least she'd hear what Macaque did from Wukong and give massive side eye

(Especially since I figured she'd have a damn well knowledge of bad men *cough* *cough8 the reason Zhu Bajie got kicked out of heaven in the first place *cough* *cough*

I know they've rarely interacted in canon but hey, they've at least met on screen and we know Wukong can build a rocket to visit. Plus both being lonely immortals with cute animal subjects being theri only companions for centuries...

I have a feeling they'd get along somehow

They remind me of friends who exchange pics of their cute pet, only it's more like children for Wukong since they're literally his Sun family

And anyway the fandom pairs Mac and Chang'e just because they have a moon motif so let me have this goddamit.

[tangledinink]

Ok ok hear me out cause I'm not expecting this to be canon but wanted to send this anyway for funsies!

So every time the Swanatello turtles fight someone (Which isn't as frequent anymore? Cause they're doing research all the time now?) the villains ask "where's the purple one?" And they just have to respond "he's busy" right?

What if after this goes on for so long (how long has it been?), with Donnie ALWAYS being "busy" the bad guys start to think that he's actually either

A. Missing/Kidnapped (technically not wrong)

B. They had a HUGE fight and he abandoned them

C. He's SUPER injured

Or D. He's literally dead and the kids just won't admit it to them

So with all of these options being very not great :/ some of the bad guys start to sympathize with the bros.

Maybe they're like "Dang these kids are having a really rough time, I won't hit em as hard" or "They seem really sad today, I guess I'll let them win this one" Or would some of them even start helping them a bit? Idk I just love hearing about the villains

And does not having Donnie there effect their fighting? Maybe they mess up a lot more since they're so used to him being there?

Also what's Hueso up to? Is he worried about them?

Sorry for the super long ask I'm just absolutely obsessed with Swanatello right now <3

Hehe, I love this concept. I think all the villains definitely have quiet conspiracy theories in their heads as to why they've been seeing those turtles so much less-- and haven't seen hide nor hair of the purple one for months. I think Hypno and Warren are most likely to end up sympathizing with them based on the conclusions they've come to themselves lowkey...

They're still capable of fighting without Donnie, though it's certainly more of a challenge, but nowadays they typically leave a majority of crime fighting up to Casey and Casey Jr. while they focus on Donnie.

Hueso definitely ends up worried at some point. He's not necessarily unused to the Purple One going MIA for periods of time, given his tendency to go through periods of anti-socialness while obsessing over projects, but when he realizes he's seeing the others a lot less, too, and it's been a while, he starts to get suspicious. These stupid boys have already given him a heart attack once when they all nearly killed themselves with that whole alien thing, and so he's quick to grow nervous over their wellbeing, not that he'll ever admit to it.

When Leo shows up with a broken wrist, however, he'd definitely demand some answers. Leo's not really in any kind of condition to put up much of a fight and would tearfully recount the whole story to Hueso after minimal prodding.

And Hueso feels awful, but there's not much he can offer but some awkward, gentle encouragement, a listening ear, and free food. He doesn't know anything about lake magick or curses any of that other stuff, but he quietly digs through any resources he and Piel can scrounge up in his free time, hoping that he can find something, anything useful that he can offer the family.

He always asks how Donnie is doing any time any of them come in, and has on multiple occasions sent food with one of the brothers to deliver to him.

[linguist-in-a-blanket]

I saw so many BBC Ghosts fans here trashing the American version that I finally gave up and watched the original.

Well, thanks, I hate it.

Some of the plots were more amusing, yes. I personally liked how the sister story played off. I mean, when in American version we see Jo from Mythic Quest show up with that "nice" smile for one episode, we know what's up from the first second. When it's a seemingly genuine woman who has a couple of episodes to actually earn Alison's and our trust, it's much better. I also liked most of the ones that didn't make it into the remake.

But the core of this premise is characters. And British characters... They're just bad, I'm sorry, they're bad. They are all one note! There is no arc for anybody! Even the most annoying one, Thomas! His whole thing is that he doesn't know what boundaries or consent are, and this goes on for five seasons! Come on, man! Trevor in the American version has charisma, and he comes a long way in just 2 and half seasons we've seen him. This all really makes up for him being a huge jerk: at least he's a lovable jerk, plus he changes. Julian is not lovable at all, Thomas never changes, he's the same since episode 1 till the finale one. Why should we care about two one-note jerks? Flower has a lot about herself aside from being not-all-here: sex-drive, pacifism, commitment issues, basketball, backstories about at least three close people from her life (two boyfriends and brother)... Kitty is just a stupid cutie who is not-all-here, nothing else.

And this drives me to my next point. Such one-note characters without any development simply cannot have a deep connection. Nobody likes each other in this show. I've seen a lot of takes that American ghosts and Sam are friends, while British ghosts and Alison are family. Well, if you mean an abusive family that you can't get away from, that never gives you any good feelings, sure. But do we really need that? Whom of the ghosts does Alison actually like? She hates Thomas and Fanny (never has this realization about her unrealized motherly feelings, and Fanny herself never realizes why she is like she is and how she can change), she doesn't understand Robin (after spending a day with him and learning what he knows, she just gives him to Fanny as a pet), at the very best she pities Kitty. The only one who actually likes Alison as a person is Kitty, but she has her own projections, she is like a duckling who saw the first person near them and said "mommy". She's actually not much better than Thomas in that way, same level of neediness and clinginess, just more lovable than him, and it's not sexual harrassment, more... platonic harrassment? Yay?..

By the way, Alison also doesn't change. Whenever she sees a new ghost in a new place, she is creeped out. This was okay in the beginning, but after living in a house with 9+ ghosts for a couple of years, she is still creeped out by others! Oh, I'm so sorry for your inconvenience, mam, this guy just, you know, didn't have anybody to see him or talk to him in a couple of centuries, but no, no big deal, sure. Sam is fascinated by her gift, she is always happy to explore and talk to new ghosts, Alison just finds it weird and unsettling, even after, what, five years? Girl, you are a fucking superhero! Talk to the invisible people, damn you!

Sure, it could be about not being able to change, especially after you're dead, but then... why? Why should we look at bad people who stay bad, and most importantly, why should we look at them for five seasons?

When Alison weighed pros and cons for staying, she put "ghosts" in both columns. I'm sorry, but why? We almost never see her enjoying their company, almost never see the ghosts helping her (which is petty, but when American ghosts did this for Sam a couple of first times, that's when she warmed up to them)... They are always an incovenience for Alison. Never do they respect any boundaries, all they can do is do one big gesture (song, dance, theater) and move on to being annoying and needy. Never can they hear "no", never can they respect what she asks of them.

Sam says a lot of times she can't leave the ghosts, and I believe her. Even Jay loves the American ghosts! Sam has this whole group of friends and enjoys their company. They all have connections with each other and with the livings. British don't, they move in a pack and look for somebody to annoy, be that Alison or that poor neighbor ghost.