#xenosaga x reader

[frickingnerd]

love triangle with kos-mos & mythra

pairing: mythra x gn!reader x kos-mos

tags: driver x blade relationship, one-sided rivalry, jealousy (mythra), oblivious!reader, kos-mos sucks at flirting

a/n: i haven't played xenosaga yet, so i apologize if kos-mos is a bit ooc! i only went off of her blade appearance in xc2!

kos-mos suspects that mythra has feelings for you too, but she doesn't consider it a problem if she'd act upon her own feelings for you regardless

kos-mos has no intentions on hurting mythra by ‘stealing you away from her’, she simply wants to come clean about her feelings for you and see if they are reciprocated

mythra is quite startled the first time she sees kos-mos do something akin to flirting with you!

she never considered kos-mos would have such feelings for anyone, let alone you! but now that kos-mos made the first move, mythra feels like she needs to do something too!

mythra views kos-mos as a rival, while kos-mos doesn't want a rivalry with mythra. she simply wants to see if she has a chance with you and let you know how she feels about you, even if you end up rejecting her

kos-mos and mythra's idea of flirting vary greatly, as for kos-mos it's small comments and compliments that are nice, but too plain to truly be considered flirting, while mythra gets more clingy, but occasionally reverts to being mean to you, making it hard to figure out she likes you

you don't seem to even notice that your two blades have feelings for you!

mythra grows frustrated with you, while kos-mos is more calm about it. she simply continues ‘flirting’ with you, until you get the hint

though only mythra's flirting could really be considered as such and if you were to pick up on one or their crushes, it would likely be mythra's first

[schismusic]

In the shadow of the horns: meditations on Team ICO's works – 1. Shadow of the Colossus

[DISCLAIMER: Since I cannot assume you people are all in the know and have played the game like five times, have gotten every extra item and found every last secret location, got all the achievements on the PS3 and PS4 versions of the game, have taken all seventy-nine steps to enlightenment, and are so obsessed with intersecting points that your bedroom wall looks like a re-enactment of the Pepe Silvia conspiracy theory, I have to tell you that the following article includes HEAVY, HEAVY, OH-SO-HEAVY SPOILERS for Shadow of the Colossus. Reader discretion is warned.]

[DISCLAIMER 2: you can absolutely bask safely in the knowledge that I have not done any of the things listed in the first disclaimer. I mean, I have played the game more than once, the first time on PS4 and the second on PS2. Whatever.]

It has at this point been a good five years or so since I'd last played the Team ICO games, so as I went to dust off my ol' trusty PlayStation 2 Slim I got reminded of how the world is a fucked up place and decay exists as an extant form in life, by way of the PS2 no longer reading discs. I mean, nothing I can't fix with a 1mm x 1mm square of duct tape or some isopropyl alcohol in the best case scenario, but I wonder: for fuck's sake, did it have to be now? At any rate, I decided to bite the bullet and finally download PCSX2 so I can play the games (and I promise, the BIOS and game ISOs are all mine, so no piracy involved this time). Playing these particular games on a PC feels especially weird to me, in that I can see the blocky ass graphics meant to be seen and blend in on a CRT in all of their squared glory, but not even that is immersion-breaking or ruins the aesthetics – which is a testament to the strength of the team's art direction and design philosophy. This is especially true considering I'd only played the PS4 Shadow of the Colossus before.

Since I can already hear the raging crowd under my window, let me clarify before I get drawn and quartered by an angry mob of PS2 purists.

I did, of course, get my first exposure to Shadow of the Colossus when it was but a humble PlayStation 2 technical marvel (and, later, a PS3 remaster of that same PS2 technical marvel). It was, in all likelihood, through an unofficial PlayStation magazine that was published here in Italy – even though the original format was technically bought from a Spanish publisher – by the name of PlayGeneration. I was always one console generation behind the rest of the world around me, so the magazine allowed me to stay in touch with new technological developments and new titles coming out. I ended up remembering the original critical reaction to, I don't know, your Deus Ex: Human Revolution or your Dead Space or even your Yakuza 4 (which was actually my first exposure to the series, about fifteen years before I actually got to play it myself) better than the actual games themselves, in a lot of scenarios. But what this magazine had, especially, was a whole two-page spread in every issue where they re-reviewed a number of PS2 games, usually showcasing relatively hidden gems – one that stuck with me particularly was their review of Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht, a game that I went on to never play due to my absolute ineptitude at JRPGs. Every issue also included an archive of their older reviews, which for the longest time would reserve a cute little half-page to PlayStation 2 games, with the editors' definitive scores and one-sentence opinions on them. Among these was Shadow of the Colossus, 92 out of 100. I was fascinated by how, well, plain and effective the title was – a non-descript sequence of words that tells you nothing and, as I would later learn, still tells you everything you need to know about the game.

Symbolism of light and shadow, stories that seem to be coming out of children's books (it's always fascinating and, admittedly, quite funny to recall that the original Japanese title of the game is ワンダと巨像, "Wanda to Kyozou" i.e. "Wander and the Colossus"), a unique capability of striking the player in the teeth with a sense of anemoia welling up from somewhere deep within. A friend of mine who's currently playing ICO for the first time mentioned a great emotional response on his part upon revisiting the prison area of the castle – considering exclusively gameplay time, this is a place you're only shown once, about five hours before you come back to it. To better define this feeling for the purposes of this piece, I decided to replicate the closest thing I could achieve: nostalgia. Specifically, I pulled up some old articles I wrote for a gaming blog I helped run between the years of 2020 and 2022, re-read my old impressions of these games, then realized the more I read those (quite pitiful) articles, the more I was thinking "fuck, why don't I just play these again?", which of course led me to what I was saying at the beginning of this article. Running in circles already, aren't I?

One thing I will say: I still believe some of the points I made in those articles to be valid. Specifically, I like the idea of focusing on what the gameplay means. Story and lore analysis of these games is inherently encouraged by the games themselves and their presentation, and therefore way overdone, but I will recommend Leadhead's recent analysis of ICO as a metaphor for escaping an abusive household and Folding Ideas's classic on Shadow of the Colossus as "a game about letting go", as well as admit a certain fondness for the theory of the shared narrative universe as espoused and exposesd by Max Derrat. None of these things will necessarily be central to my own piece, but it's cool to have them, y'know? My main point will have to do with what the games themselves present as their case study. This means analysing and pointing out game mechanics, in and of themselves, as carriers of meaning and implications. As a consequence, for my own ease, I will borrow quite heavily from the old articles (the originals are in Italian, you can find them compiled here, and they are better read in order of release). Lastly, I had originally meant to make this only one article, but it seems to me like there's already enough material for me to stop yapping about methodology and start getting my hands dirty.

God's a short guy, you know, he started in the mail room and, y'know, worked his way up, invested well.

(Tom Waits, in this commercial for Franks Wild Years, directed by Chris Blum)

You're a short guy, as well: too short for your horse, anyway. You carry a special sword – which you stole – and a bow. There's a dead body bundled up in a big ass heavy blanket and you've got that with you, too. It takes a really long time and some seriously deranged route choices to get there, but what do you know – you're good enough to reach the Forbidden Lands, a land that is, well, forbidden, so you probably shouldn't be there. There's a creature, unseen, shouting orders at you out of a window that physically makes no sense architecturally, in two different voices. You have to destroy the statues on this temple's wall, but you can't do that directly, so you have to repeatedly stab gigantic, half-rock-half-flesh creatures that can and will swat you off their back like a mosquito. Only then you'll be able to bring this girl back to life – despite her cursed fate, and the fact that you're in a place called the fucking FORBIDDEN LANDS, and the fact that it hurts more and more to breathe with every colossus you beat.

Every core mechanic in this game is a display of strength: to hold on, to stab, to eat. As Mono – that is, according to the manual in the PS2 version of the game, the name of the girl whose corpse you brought here – cannot, in all likelihood, want anything anymore, it's safe to assume that all of the actions you, the player, undertake in the game are to be understood as the explicit will of Wander, the protagonist. This is a relevant distinction to make. Wander is not you, you are not Wander: why else would he refuse to jump off cliffs, or hesitate when you push him off of ledges? I've always liked thinking about Team ICO's work as a sort of hyper-stylized version of what games like Another World or the original Prince of Persia for the Apple II (even though Fumito Ueda probably played the Amiga port of the game, all things considered). Seeing it this way, the more evident influence these titles have had on Team ICO's game mechanics lends itself quite well to what I'm trying to say. The Prince and Lester Knight Chaykin are both painstakingly animated, frame by frame, in order to achieve a lifelike quality, but where both Jordan Mechner and Éric Chahi attempted a crude imitation of rotoscoping by frame-advancing VHS recordings of themselves or other models and model figures, Ueda and his team usually turn to hand-animation of their characters (or, in particularly bonkers cases like The Last Guardian, write up an algorithm to calculate feather motion in real time and burn a hole through your PS4). This seems to me like Ueda & Co. might be more interested in lifelike behaviour, as opposed to lifelike movement, and as such may be trying to conjure up a more psychologically driven type of narrative experience. And like all the best character pieces, there's usually very little people to deal with.

Let's look at it, and to do so we have to delve into spoiler territory, so reader's discretion is advised.

Agro, the only conventional living being other than Wander throughout a good 99% of actual game time, is a literal horse. As such, she does right by you, by virtue of you being, for whatever reasons you can think of, crucially important to her. Seriously, somebody else has already pointed it out: why is Agro so much bigger than Wander? Is it perhaps because they just happened to grow together and ended up adapting to one another, in ways more organic than getting a horse assigned to you by height? Judging by literally every single minute of game time, the two of them seem almost telepathically locked into each other's thoughts, and Agro goes so far as to allow herself to get killed (functionally speaking, at least: there's a reason they shot broken-legged horses in Western movies, and that reason is it hurts like a bitch and the horse simply never fully recovers for that, at least not with veterinary techniques from the eighteen-hundreds) in order for Wander to fuck off and turn into Dormin. Speaking of which, Dormin are the only other character who speak to Wander for a good 99% of cutscene time, and their only motivation seems to be coming back to this godforsaken earth to wreak havoc on those who sealed them – Emon and his guards, who also seem to be mostly interested in fucking you up specifically so that Mono does not get resurrected. Then again, who the hell asked Mono what she wants? I'm not exactly in the habit of directly asking questions to the dead.

…okay, I was lying, considering what my last two long-form posts were about. But I guess what I'm saying is: Wander is literally the only person who intentionally refuses to be open about his motives. Sure, he wants to resurrect Mono. But why? Had they ever met before she had to die? Did she openly express to him how she did not want to die? I hate myself for even considering this question, but what if her fate actually is cursed? How did Emon kill her, anyway – actually, did Emon kill her himself? What did Wander even do to steal the sword, since – considering Emon and his men literally rode all the way to a place they themselves have religious prescriptions not to defile – it must have been heavily guarded or kept in a secure area? A good number of the colossi are not aggressive unless provoked, too, so this means Wander intentionally goes out of his way to fuck with extra-planar powers beyond human comprehension. Ultimately: what if, beyond all the ad-catchphrase rhetoric of "how far will you go for love", this guy was just being a self-centered prick?

It's as good a guess as any, really – here's a piece analysing Shadow of the Colossus as a trans allegory, for instance. But since it's as good, it's worth entertaining it. I also don't plan to present it as an inherent stroke of genius: not per se, at least. What I like about considering this game a metaphor about pulling your head out of your own ass is that – in a spectacular demonstration of understanding what the fuck you're talking about, the likes of which are unprecedented (and nigh-unsurpassed, apparently) in the gaming world – the game never hits you with the "YOU SHOULD STOP PLAYING TO WIN" argument. This is Wander's doing, not yours, which is why the guy goes to the Forbidden Lands in the intro cutscene, before you have any agency at all. Now this guy's stuck in this (stunning-looking) pimple in the middle of the planet's buttocks, where a dark supernatural force's physical manifestation has been torn asunder into sixteen rock-and-flesh mechas and it's his ass on the line to give the dark supernatural entity whatever the fuck they want, otherwise the lady won't be reborn and wouldn't that be awful?, but that also means that you are, essentially, just invited to sit in, scream at the screen for a good ten hours or so at this motherfucking idiot climbing moving mountains, and partake in Fumito Ueda and his gang's own study on negative interaction in videogaming.

Negative as opposed to positive, of course – that would be The Last Guardian, which we will be talking about when I can be arsed to open up my PS4, drive the literal soot sprite motherships living amidst its circuitry out of the case, and then play the console-disintegrating performance-tanking game again. I swear I actually like that game, for fuck's sake…

Like I said, the game has mostly actions aimed at offense (admittedly you can, thank fuck, pet Agro both while standing next to her, and when you're on her back and she's standing still, which I think is actually a key mechanic to explain what The Last Guardian would later try to do), and it says a lot about Wander as a character. There is no contextual command near Mono, there is no interaction with any of the other animals in the Forbidden Lands (I think I saw a tortoise in the PS2 version a while back – did I dream it up?) that isn't hurting them or killing them or maiming them for your own personal gain or just as an accident on your journey to the next checkmark on the list or, potentially, just for shits and giggles. Essentially this guy barges in and destroys everything in his wake – including, whether he wants it or not, his sole companion. The immense irony of this is that Agro, essentially, sacrifices herself for some element of affection towards Wander: no special destiny, no sudden understanding of Wander's motives. Literally just the fact that this guy is her favourite human. But the game itself has to be taken to its gory, bloody end, through trials and tribulations, for it to reveal its actual statement on the matter.

Dormin is banished again in violence, the bridge pylons collapse by magic in on themselves as Emon and the guards make a hasty retreat out into civilised land. Wander is now a bawling, screaming horned baby – the first of his kind, some would argue: like a mark of Cain of sorts. But sure enough, the reborn Mono has no problem picking him up and, if we are to give credit to the special illustration in the Japanese PS3 re-release of the game, helping him grow into a healthy, beloved horned kid. And Agro, despite her broken leg, still finds her way back to the shrine of the cult, and climbs to the secret garden on top of the building, finding a fawn. An animal that means rebirth.

[hrodvitnon]

Yeah, if Monarch can somehow (via some MonsterVerse technology advancement BS) project Godzilla's dream onto a screen, everyone is going to in for a nasty shock when they find out just what kind of dream Goji is having. How do you think everybody, human & Titan alike, will react to witnessing an alternate path where things didn't quite go right? And especially the humans to what their current state could have been?

Just got off work and it's time for *~ASK HRODY POWER HOUR~*!

So, a front-seat viewing of the greatest horror film of the next few centuries otherwise known as Godzilla's Nightmare Coma would result in the bone-deep very very VERY clear realization that things can all too easily take a turn for poor Goji getting beaned in the face with the gift of prophecy... so they need to Xenosaga Encephalon record that shit and send copies to all the major anti-Titan players in the world in deliverance of a clear message: keep up with your shit, and this will become humanity's reality for however long we have left to live.

Naturally, this results in Goji's entire extended family (Mothra, Monster X, Junior and Shin) cuddling up to his big sleepy frame in the hopes their love and support will bleed through the nightmare and bring him into a Sweet Dream Sleep.

Also, I encourage all readers to imagine a big ol' red ball bouncing off of Goji's snoot with a barely audible squeaky toy noise. It makes me smile, and I'd like to spread the feeling.

[bloodfcst-a]

@chhenleng​ said: 7 & 14 ! questions for mun.

7. Who was the very first muse you ever wrote?

I think it was Rikku? I was like hardly in middle school writing on forums. I used to be on EoFF and also jumped on the making proboards trend. However, she didn’t really stick. I let other people decide the muse for me + honestly everything felt really inauthentic. I was also like, 10 or 11 at the time, so y’know. I also remember starting Eiko Carol like shortly after, and she had like a school badge and everything... this was on LiveJournal though. She also didn’t stay very long, but that’s mainly because I had just started going back to school ( I’d been homeschooled for two years ) and it was hard for me to keep up with schoolwork. I eventually explored a few other muses ( Zidane Tribal, Rubedo from Xenosaga, Maximillion Pegasus, Selphie Tilmitt, Fujin from VIII ), all during 8th and 9th grade. Then I stopped again until I got roped to join Tumblr with Yuffie. And then... as they say, the rest is history.

14. What are five of your favorite ships? (in the rp community or otherwise)

Winter just wants me to be roasted. Okay then.

If I’m being completely honest, I’ve been roaming in otome land for like the last year & now I read a lot of OC or reader fic ahaha. But! Outside of me trying to fulfill my needs for hugs.......

drumroll please...

okay thank gawd this doesn’t say top 5 bc I would struggle lmao. My default things would say “ character x happiness ” but I recognize that’s like cheating the system so u know.... I’ll be for realsies.

Rufus & any of his Turks. Tseng is an obvious one, but I’ve seen a lot of good fic with Reno and Rude too, so I don’t want them to be excluded.

Wrightworth. I enjoy Phoenix & Maya’s partnership but Miles has been there from the beginning & they each play a role in each other’s redemption arcs. They’re always together anyway. 

Joseph Joestar & Caesar Zeppeli. Easily. 

Snow Villiers & Serah Farron. Snow and Fang are also a cool power couple but honestly, he can’t handle her. So I’ll go back to Snow & Serah.  

Soriku. I don’t read any fic, but like honestly the ending of KH3 was just Sokai forced in there and while I am happy for Kairi to like be remembered in canon and that she for like literally four whole seconds got to be not damsel in distress.... ( bc she did again!!! damn!! chronic Princess Peach syndrome out here!! ), like.... y’all I felt robbed. 

While I’m here can we talk about my five not-predator curated ships for Yufi tho?

Rufus & Yufi. I just want the heir to the throne ship. ghiofghdf okay but honestly I could go into this for ages and they just. mesh well. Thank you Square for going all in on my content kthx.

Reno & Yufi. Very much the “we messed around for a summer and it meant nothing so we still have a solid friendship, but it was fun while it lasted” kind of dynamic. Definitely the “wyd?” kinda dynamic. Both of them are married to their careers, have no time to commit to other people, so like... you know. Bet.

Leon & Yufi. I love their partnership in KH, it’s so good. With the Twilight Town crew and the Ice Cream gang, I think they get overshadowed nowadays. But they were the true MVP. 

I don’t know how I almost forgot Tseng & Yufi. But OH MY GAWD. Look. I have a lot of feelings on this. I am excited to see lately the depictions of Tseng disconnected from his Wutai roots, because I am weak for all iterations of that man, but like honestly I think some of the most enjoyable writing I’ve had here on Tumblr has come from writing this ship. 

Wild card! I’d be remiss to not include @flamereign​ ! I feel like people just see Lea and Yufi as these high energy characters and kinda forget about their tragic backstories. I’m glad that KH3 for one let us see how hot Lea is in updated graphics, but also it really touched on that there are some sore spots & that he’s tender-hearted for those he cares about & he’s still working through his own trauma. Even in a completely safe universe, per say, he’d still have his own healing to work on full time.... so. Also Enya is a true peach and I adore her, so. Thank you for sticking with me through everything. 

Bonus! I want to include @garrotejima​ too. I just think Majima and Yufi have something special, and I love that Dean goes along with any verse and any dumb idea I have. I can say a lot about Majima & I’m biased because... I love him, but like... I just really enjoy how he can kind of see through Yufi’s bullshit and can support her, and I also love that Yufi loves him and all of his antics, not in spite of them or as an exception or anything like that. Whether he’s roughed up from a fight or in the thrill of the battle or in thigh highs or just being silly with baseball, Yufi’s like... so soft for him. It’s fun to write Yufi having tender moments with someone and Majima just... allows her to feel comfortable being vulnerable & it’s so good. It’s so good. I love them. I also love Dean, too. Haven’t bragged about them in a while, it was time I hit the quota!

This was so long i’m so sorry foihgodfg.

[frozendoorgaming]

Morning Mist #84

Announcements, Releases, Trailers

Fire Emblem creator releases new tactics RPG Vestaria Saga on Steam

Iwata's quirky platformer VS. Balloon Fight returns on Nintendo Switch

Mobile MMORPG Tales of Wind aims to release on PC this week

American Truck Simulator goes to Idaho in new DLC

Blending the rules of combat in The Legend of Bum-bo

Gray Zone is a sci-fi RTS releasing in Early Access next year

This deep simulation of space economics is surprisingly compelling

Make drugs and smoke in puzzler Molek-Syntez

Jungle survival sim Green Hell now has multi-story mud huts, co-op soon

Comedy JRPG Cthulhu Saves Christmas is out now

Milestones, Industry

Pokémon the First Movie Screenwriter Posthumously Awarded Lifetime Achievement Award

The Witcher 3 Player Count Jumps After Netflix Series

Dragon Quest XI Surpasses 5.5 Million Units Sold

Superhot VR grosses over $2 million in a single week

Anime Digital Board Game 100% Orange Juice Hits 1 Million Downloads, Offers Free Character

GTA V stream viewers more than triple, PUBG drops off top 10 in 2019

Guild Wars 2 studio ArenaNet seeks art director for unnamed console title

CD Projekt Red "solidifies" relationship with The Witcher author, Andrzej Sapkowski

Embracer Group (THQ Nordic) has bought the Little Nightmares developer

With kinetic gun-fu and tense thrills, Trepang2 is an indie FEAR

Attend GDC for key community management lessons from the Dwarf Fortress team!

Deals, Freeware

Twitch Prime just added a Borderlands 3 trinket (plus golden keys) and a ton of great Devolver games

Sci-fi logic puzzler The Talos Principle is today's free game on Epic

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-like free-to-play shooter MMO Stay Out has begun its early access release

FTL is free, but you have to claim it before the Earth rotates once around its axis

Disco Elysium Launches Soundtrack and Art Booklet

Check out this real life Poltergust G-00 prop from Luigi's Mansion 3

Nvidia claims RTX 2080 Max-Q laptops are faster than next-gen game consoles

MSI undercuts the competition with a 165Hz 27-inch gaming monitor for $350

This VR glove aims to bring the sense of touch to virtual objects

Here's 25 great games for $1 or less on sale for the holidays

Doom 2016 is just $5.49 right now

Titanfall 2 is only $5 or £4.49 right now

Get a Free Copy of Total War: Warhammer With Purchase of Any Physical Warhammer Set

Information

Final Fantasy XIV’s Heavensturn rings in the new year on December 31

Final Fantasy XIV is running a free login event through mid-January

Destiny 2's new Guardian, Saint-14, will notice if you wear his helmet

Ubisoft is putting a free Rainbow Six Siege operator under everyone's tree

Fallout 76 patches up the inventory stealing hack and looks back at the past year

Overwatch is giving away more Winter Loot Boxes through next week

Star Citizen's first system now has its final planet

You can now beat stuff up with your fists in Star Citizen

Every major older version of Dead Cells is now preserved and playable on Steam

God of War's pre-order bonuses are free for the holidays

Go grab some free Zelda Cadence of Hyrule DLC now

Pokemon Sword and Shield Competitive Guide - Core, Weather and Field Effects

Kingdom Hearts ReMIND DLC details new scenario, boss battles and more

PS5 and Xbox Series X GPU specs leak: how powerful is next-gen?

RetroArch update adds a screen reader to emulated games using AI

Etc

The Witcher season 2 will have a 'much more focused' story

This Minecraft texture pack will make you feel like you’ve dropped acid

The Game Grumps are Going to be in a Steam Porn Game for... Some Reason

Sega's director of animation wants another Sonic cartoon, I say bring it on

Baby Sonic debuts in new movie trailer because everyone wants baby characters now

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary has so much to teach modern games

A Xenosaga remaster trilogy was talked about, but never came to be due to profit concerns

Chewbacca has a Life Day message for Star Wars Galaxies Legends fans

[frickingnerd]

Xenoblade Chronicles Masterlist

Xenoblade Chronicles 1

➤ Main Characters

➤ Side Characters

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

➤ Party Members

➤ Blades Masterlist

➤ Members of Torna

➤ Torna: The Golden Country

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

➤ Ouroborus

➤ Heroes

➤ Moebius & More

➤ Future Redeemed