HOW R WE FEELING ABOUT ACT 5 GUYS?!?!?!?!?!

Girllll I've been spending my holidays with rereading Nobody's Home and I just wanted to ask, are Circe and Loki divorced? If so, what made you divorce them?

YUP the story is set post psp, and part of my backstory for the beakers is them getting a divorce!

so when looking at their relationship i tried to take everything into consideration that the pc and psp game gave to us. let me put a below the cut though so not everyone has to be witness to me inflicting the makings of chronic joint pain on myself:

we know poor nervous died at one point. the implications from both games about how he came to be their test subject are quite conflicting, but i went with emily and annies claims that he signed up to be their test subject for money, as it, from my perspective, tied better into explaining their current situation and provided more detail in general as opposed to maxis' sloppy memory distribution.

with their first subject, the beakers could to some extent rest on the risk a job like this entails and neatly detail it in the contract they had nervous sign to avoid charges as much as possible. in addition to that, they were able to throw a lot of money at preventing the sensationalization of it, but it did come at a cost: 1) selling the castle to make up for it and 2) circe losing her license and the hospital ceasing any affiliation with her. cut to the sad little paradise place house and circe only being hinted at doing 'business' by that time:

left with a less extensive financial repertoire, loki is eager to do whatever it may take to get his precious castle back, and, once he invented something he believed to be a future gold mine, secured some secret patents that will net him millions (quote: circe). with loki, by her assumption, not being willing to share the profits with her, it makes sense for circe to be uneasy and distrustful about this, as the two are already on less safe ground, both in regards to finances and the law, and now he wants to keep all the money he'll be making to himself? her secret about harbouring some underlying resentment for loki's independence and distinction is also pretty convenient here and can be used as an implication that she wasn't as lucky as her husband, particularly regarding him not facing repercussions the same way she did. circe, on the other hand, is having an affair. while that was a product of mind control and not her fault, neither she or loki know that. all that is being revealed to loki is his wife cheating on him. this is where they're left at. depending on the string of dialogue, loki will say that if anyone moves out, it will be his wife, cause it's his house.

after thinking about it, circe would most likely move out immediately. after all of that happening inc. circes slap interaction loop, i can't see either of them comfortable spending even one more night at the same house together. while it is revealed at the end of the game that newlow was mindcontrolling the citizens, we don't know when and how fast these news will actively be passed along, what investigations are being led, etc. - point being, the trifecta of the beakers still being in each others presence, these news reaching them by that time and drawing the correct conclusions from it is the best case scenario but, after the considerations given above, not the most likely one. especially because there's an urgent issue that would capture their attention almost immediately after the game storyline is over: gimi branko. unlike nervous where they could rely on a contract, they literally kidnapped this guy and kept him locked up against his will, and someone had to save him aka he can press charges and tell everything in great detail, with a witness to top it off. they don't have the financial resources to buy themselves out of that anymore (loki's patents aside, but as of now he hasn't seen a cent of that and sure wouldn't consider his wife given recent events), the charges are more dire AND they're at odds with each other.

so i totally had them rat each other out, both hoping to get the lower charge by placing as much blame on the other person as possible. even if gimi being gone were the very first thing they noticed after being at each other's throat, judging by the way they already talked about each other before both their suspicions turned out to be true, there's way too much mutual distrust that built up over a long period of time for them to suck it up for the occasion and not prioritizing their own asses. and thats the end of the evil couple.

How do you rank the companions? Favourite to least favourite?

This question is the worst. How do I even answer this? I love all the companions, and that's not a joke, so this is just unfair lmao.

Uh.

Shadowheart - She's babygirl, she's cutthroat, she's trauma, she's tragedy, she's anger, she's bitterness, she's softness, she's warmth, she's a scared little girl, she's a proud and powerful cleric; she's my everything in this fandom. I literally bought BG3 at launch without even thinking about companions or romance or anything like that, and I didn't even really like her that much when she first joined. Not because of the weird shit about her being "mean" (lol) but because she just seemed like a generic Evil Cleric archetype at first blush. As a writer, her dialogue caught my ear every time she spoke. Everything she said was laced with this... obliviousness to her own situation, her own approval/feelings, that I knew it had to be either intentional or tremendously awful writing. Regardless of which path you take her story, even if I prefer the "good" path, she is just full of details to explore and dissect.

Minthara, Karlach - I love Minthara to the point where the Minthara fuckers are genuinely worse off that Shadowheart even exists lmfao. Karlach is the kinda character that other fandoms would be fucking lucky to have; she's blunt, she's funny, she's crass, she's tough as hell, and she's seven feet tall.

Wyll, Lae'zel - Wyll is a phenomenal romantic, suave, funny, tragic character hiding under a lack of content (including the ability to make his own decisions/take control of dialogue situations like the other origin companions) and I love Lae'zel because she's the intelligent warrior trope that rarely is given to a woman. Even if she is indoctrinated. Also, I adore her hair so much it's unreal.

Gale - I actually love Gale in the playthroughs where I take him along. I understand a lot of people had issues with him coming onto them in unexpected ways, but I personally didn't so he was always a very solid bro. His stargazing scene is actually something that I wish a lot of characters had. The fact that you can share that with him platonically is so very sweet.

Astarion - His story in the game, while not as connected to the main plot as pretty much everyone else, was really touching the first time I played through it. He's enjoyable to have in a party, he has good banter, his quest is great... I'm just not that interested in exploring him beyond that, I guess?

Jaheira, Minsc - The only reason they're this low is because you get them so late. They have tons of great additions and dialogue, and the VAs did a perfectly good job of emulating the characters. I have always loved these two characters throughout BG1 and 2, and having them there in 3 was actually amazing. Jaheira dropping a, "Nature's servant awaits?" Yeah, that hit me in the nostalgia. Minsc and Boo just... in general? Same.

Halsin - I'm trying my best not to fall into the same trap that people who dislike Gale fell into when the game first came out. However, he really would not take "no" for an answer in my first playthrough, and combined with his "I believe in all love" polyamory, he reminded me so much of the worst strain of men in my actual life that it's a genuine struggle to separate those things. I'm working on this every day lmao.

 Previous Dresses: Scarecrow | Riddler, Ra’s, Two-face, & Penguin

I think this will be the last of my Batman Villain Lolita Post for now, with a few of the more challenging villains.  Again, feel free to make your own designs or use these in some way, the more the merrier. :D  

A few thoughts underneath the read more + alt colors for Zsazs & Killer Moth

Black version for Zsazs to keep with his pants & classic Killer Moth:

Pyg: I think he’s one of the most Devianart Edgelord of the Batman villains, but his portrayal in Arkham Knight was done well enough that I warmed up to him.  His plastic surgery nightmare face design is fun and the reactions of the victims & other people worked well, and showed Lazlo as terribly messed up instead of cool edgelordsona.  Like, you know, a person who’d exist.  Good job Batwriters. 

Anyway I leaned towards the guro lolita + simple butcher look his comic and his game designs went for.  There are extra additions of frills for both a more “doll”ish look and a touch of ita, since tacky feels part of his character.  I didn’t want to just make a mask so I framed the hair as “pigtails” (what else?).  I think some make up would add to the look to make the doll idea and the pig idea go farther.  The pattern on the bottom of the skirt and boots is supposed to be those chain link people you can cut from a piece of paper that all hold hands, all perfect, like Pyg declares his dollitrons.  I’m not sure how successful the transparent apron is but at the end oft the day I like it and that’s what counts.

Freeze: This design might lean too much towards literal costume and less into a more practical interpretation of the design, but I can’t help it, I like the Tron and glowy stuff aesthetic.  Doing a retro futuristic lolita look was too fun of an idea to pass up.  Not much has changed outside of converting it to a dress and turning the gauntlets into Miku bell sleeves.  Snowflake earrings & delicate hair for Fries’ one true love & because they’re pretty.

Black Mask: I didn’t want to do all skulls since there’s enough dresses out there that do that, so I ended up with the mask part of his name.  Made sure to give the rich colors of a mobster along with the swag of the suit as well.  I think this one could be designed to be better and less busy (to fit in with the sleekness of Black Mask’s look more) but I wanted to go a bit over the top because why not, Lolita’s very theatrical.  

Ventriloquist: Ok, this is a silly one.  This is nice and casual lolita that doesn’t look too close to Wesker, but that’s because Wesker’s design is supposed to be intentionally plain and meek.  Without the (badly drawn, sorry) Tommy gun purse & Scarface, I don’t think he’s recognizable.  That’s not a bad thing - him and Scarface complement each other perfectly and make a memorable design.  So I did my best to make a cute casual coord and add the few touches to make it look more like Wesker, & drew a teeny Scarface to show such.  I wish I could have done more to reference Peyton Riley/the second Ventriloquist but all I could capture was the color since her design is also very simple. 

Scarface himself only got colors that were closer to the outfit.  I didn’t fancy him up too much since I think it would mess with the gangster look he has, which is already close to aristocrat fashion in the lolita world.  He was lucky not to get extra frills at the ends of his sleeves!

Zsazs: another mainly Arkham Design.  Most of mine are based partially on Arkham since that’s where I get most of my Batman fix, apologies!  Anyway, I just liked the idea of a skin-flesh dress with the locks and buckles of the Arkham prisoner jacket/uniform.  The bell sleeves already being on him made this a lot easier.  I left a spot open where I was going to draw the bat symbol, but I decided against it.

Killer Moth: Top are his Arkham Asylum Artwork colors since I think they’re very nice.  Went for a cute little 1960s inspired fur coat & bob, as his design is already psychedelic. Gave a fun flower crown to round out the colors & hold up some cute moth antenna.

Firefly: His The Batman design was the most unique to pull from and a good starting point to make an outfit.  I took some inspiration of the warning stripes, junk around the belt, & burnt skin tights from the Arkham version too.  *ellis voice* I ever tell you about the time Keith and I made fireworks? Otherwise, his design would have been much harder to work with considering it’s mostly a solid suit with not many features in his apperances.  It would have had to be more abstract if I went for one of those.  

But yeah his The Batman design and designs spinning off from it kick ass, so I did a sporty-ish look.  I hope the bonnet doesn’t look too silly, I just wanted headware that differed the outfit from Killer Moth better.

Strange: Another design that had to go with the Arkham look.  Strange is a classic villain with his face being one of his big, defining features.  This is a great thing in character design, it just means it’s harder to make an outfit around it! 

I love the classic mad scientist look so I didn’t stray too far from it, it looks fun medical Lolita already. All I really did was add the medical book brain pattern (thank you British Library) + little bats, because of course he’d have bats on his brain.  It’s also a nod to his habit of Batman Cosplay & impersonation.

A few people I thought of but didn’t make dresses for:

Joker - He’s fabulous, I just didn’t feel jokery & wanted to focus on others more.

Catwoman, Harley, & Ivy - All three ladies have so many designs it’s hard to choose.  They have so much more freedom with their designs than most of the male crooks.  I’d have to make like... 4+ outfits for each just like I did with Scarecrow if I was to ever be satisifed. ;w;

Mad Hatter, White Rabbit - All the Alice themed supervillains have been done as Lolita Coords by Lolita fashion already since, well, Alice was a big inspiration for the fashion in general. I’d be down for them but I just felt bad because I couldn’t think of how to separate them from others as well as I could, like how I made Black Mask’s design more elaborate as to make sure the themes and connections to the villain was clear rather than just a skull design.

Killer Croc & Man-bat: Also hard to differ between a general animal-themed coord and them.  

Thanks, hope you guys are enjoying your new year so far. :D

A summary and analysis of my thoughts on Rain World: Downpour

Since I've beat the game pretty thoroughly now, I can actually do this. The short version:

Campaign whose gameplay I enjoyed the most: Artificer, by a long shot Campaign whose lore I think fits into the preexisting world best: Gourmand Most interesting story concepts: Saint Heaviest hitting story: Three way tie between Rivulet, Saint, and Artificer, all for different reasons. Honorable mention to Spearmaster Cool specbio possibilities: Spearmaster

I definitely enjoyed Downpour as a whole, both as a DLC and for the additional lore it provides even if some things may not be objectively canon; some things have more wiggle room than others, but considering Downpour is essentially Videocult endorsed, I'm willing to put stock into certain aspects. The new mechanics were fun to learn and mess around with, the stories were overall very interesting, and I had a lot of fun losing my god damn mind over these slugs. There are some major issues I have with Downpour though, one of the most major being how some campaigns diverge explicitly from the core theme of the vanilla game. I appreciate what Downpour added, but this is definitely not going to be all cheers and praise.

The rest of this will be going under a cut cause it's gonna be long.

This will be split into sections for easier reading and for easier writing for my poor sleep deprived brain. Saint's campaign broke me, yall. I've been operating on 5 hours of sleep all day.

Raw gameplay enjoyment

This one definitely goes to Arti. Her movement is practically unmatched; while Riv goes really fast and Saint lets you climb a lot of surfaces, Arti's bomb jumping combined with her permanent spear pulling ability makes her able to traverse almost anything. This is the first time I've ever dared traverse the Underhang, one of my favorite areas, without bringing a grapple worm with me. It was honestly amazing.

Her whole campaign is also just really, really fun for me. I like fighting things, but being forced to learn how to fight scavengers was honestly a delight. This is the most fun I've ever had repeatedly dying in a game, and it was for a multitude of reasons too, be it a stupid platforming death (happened a lot while I was learning how to use her bomb jump), getting overwhelmed by enemies, or just cackling at some wild lucky hit by a scav. And even beyond scavengers, fighting other things that would normally make me shriek and run away as other characters just became... average, really. I took down my first king vulture in Arti's campaign, and all it really took was an explosive spear (and the KV wedging itself into the wall, but shh).

Mechanically she's just... fun. She's so fun. And! You have basically no consequence for dying anyway! You have food EVERYWHERE and it's extremely easy to kill things to eat, explosives thrown at point blank range do little more than stun you, and aggression is encouraged. So even if you fuck up and die 200 times (literally my count was 200+ in 27 cycles LMAO) there's like... zero bearing on your progress in the game. And I really like that. It was still brutal, don't get me wrong. I think around three quarters of those 200 deaths, probably more, were from scavengers. But part of Rain World's original difficulty was that losing karma would lock you out of traversing regions eventually, and Arti kind of... removes that restriction. I will say it's really fucking annoying to have to look for karma 5 scavengers if you're trying to pass a karma 5 gate, but I really only had to do that twice and that was because I wanted to explore. It's kind of just... natural, I guess, for the structure of her campaign. I'm not good enough at combat to really do it cleanly myself, but I imagine people who are even more confident in their ability to go full on warpath mode with scavengers had less of an issue with this.

Gourmand quite easily takes second place after Arti, with almost as much combat ability as her if you use their abilities right and the added benefit of being able to make like half the game's items if you have the right things. Their food requirement was kind of daunting at first, but I was almost always able to eat up to full food, and it really wasn't that much of a challenge. Mechanically, too, their body slam move is really fucking funny, and I will forever be sad they patched out the tendency of Gourmand launching enemies across the map when rolling into them. Shoutout to that one white lizard on the wall that I landed on and totally crushed the spine of without me even seeing it, because I was trying to go fast and was not expecting an enemy one screen down. The exhaustion mechanic didn't bother me too much and honestly made me more confident with the starving mechanic, which I'm grateful for; that was probably the only reason why I even tried to starve on Arti when I had to shelter because of the rain. And overall, Gourmand's campaign was pretty chill, a nice middle ground of difficulty between Survivor and Hunter. It was a good stepping stone after finishing my Hunter run.

Least favorite mechanically was Saint. It got really irritating really fast to not be able to throw spears, and not even to kill things. I can stun things with rocks, sure, but that doesn't help me if I'm in a narrow space (which Saint has a lot of) and the place I want to go to doesn't have alternate paths (which Saint has a lot of). It got so, so fucking tiring to have to wait for enemies to fucking move, especially with the ridiculous abundance of spiders and spitter spiders everywhere I went. This campaign was the one I used dev tools the most on because I genuinely just got sick of waiting, because not only did that mean I wouldn't get anywhere when exploring, I would also waste time that would otherwise be spent eating food—which is also harder to get because Saint is strictly vegetarian!—or finding a shelter so I didn't freeze to death. You can only get spawn camped so many times before you get annoyed and all. Except instead of spawn camping you get the same fucking enemies camping the same fucking pipes forever. Good luck trying to get anywhere if you don't have karma 10. My god. The tongue was fun, but again, it does Not help if you're in a cramped space.

Spearmaster and Riv were... eh. Average. Fun in that I enjoyed them, average in that they didn't invoke any particular feelings in me. Definitely irritating that they introduced Spearmaster's dual spear wielding gimmick and then. Took it away from you. Lmao. What the hell honestly. But I had fun with all the campaigns overall.

Vanilla Lore Compliance

Gourmand takes this one easily. I like it because it's one of the most removed from the iterators' stories, similar to Survivor and Monk's campaigns. While that's a little sad, I'll admit, it fits a lot better with the core theme of the game. You're not the protagonist. You're a slugcat, trying to survive in this hostile world that was never designed for your existence. You can stumble your way into the lives of beings truly godlike in comparison to you, but you're not even a speck of dust in the grander scheme of things. You're nothing.

But you are you, and Gourmand embodies that very well. Literally too fat to give a shit, good for them. Their whole journey is just to eat well and sleep well and that translates so well to both gameplay and lore, and it's lovely. Lore wise, I also really like that ascending Gourmand gets you almost nothing, and doesn't even count as a proper game clear, because Gourmand is so so removed from anything to do with the ancients as a whole, which is actually something i had a bit of an issue with even in the vanilla lore. Who gives a shit about ascending? You're a slugcat, god dammit. The only things you think about are food, shelter, and danger. And maybe shiny pearls. What does the cycle matter to you? You're just trying to survive. So I really like Gourmand's true, Outer Expanse ending, especially the story implications of the ending cutscenes if you also finish their food quest. You're just exploring this new land, looking for food and safe places to rest in, because you're a slugcat with a family. What more could you want as a slugcat?

Arti is also fairly lore compliant, mostly because she. Uh. Has like no bearing on the lore lmfao. Her story is the most isolated from those of the iterators; she would have done what she did regardless of Pebbles' input. (Gourmand too, but that's not relevant here.) But her story also doesn't really tie back into the original theme of the game, so I can't really comment much on her campaign in terms of lore compliance. Still loved it though! Really liked the reasoning behind letting Pebbles read pearls for you.

Riv and Saint are terrible in terms of lore compliance, and it's a big issue I have with both their campaigns. I'm sure everyone's thought along these lines already, but both of them go directly against the core theme of the vanilla game, which again, is that you are not the protagonist. Riv is probably worse than Saint in this regard, because the events of her campaign require her direct input to occur, while Saint, you can argue they're just an observer of the world in the distant future. But they're both really really bad on this. I still enjoyed the story, but seriously? You're going to tell me someone purposed a slugcat to intentionally go inside an interator to retrieve possibly the most dangerous item in this world to date? And apparently, according to dev notes, Riv wasn't created by an iterator. Which makes no sense and I've elected to ignore that piece of information considering Riv spawns in with the mark of communication and a pearl with schematics of the inner workings of iterator cans. This is peak protagonist behavior. It's nice to get character development on Pebbles, but this really is just... bad. Lol. For canon lore. I really don't take anything Riv does in her campaign as objective fact.

Spearmaster is kinda just there. Not implausible by any means, given Hunter's campaign, though there's some timeline inconsistencies with Moon's collapse if you look through the vanilla pearls and compare the years. It's not that big of an issue though.

Story Concept Execution

As much as I have issues with Saint's campaign, I have to give this one to them. From start to finish it's just shock after shock, blow after blow after blow of oh god, the world's so different. Every change was at least interesting, even if I don't approve of some of them; I liked piecing together that the rain cycle doesn't exist anymore, and rather it's now based on whether you're freezing or not. The little details in how the world has changed are really charming too, especially in how lots of things are now fluffy because it's bitterly cold. Though Riv, Spearmaster and Arti have marked world changes, none are quite as striking as those found in Saint's campaign. It's truly like exploring a new world, except you can still see the old one in it, and it's a strange, somewhat bittersweet, somewhat melancholy feeling to go through the various areas, especially when Saint's campaign naturally takes you through most of the regions. The Undergrowth as a whole, where it used to be Drainage System, really hammers it home I think. You're witnessing the world reclaim itself from what the ancients did to it, for better or for worse, and though it's sad to see the old world go, it's kind of a relief to see it start to push back.

The layout of the world on a more meta sense is also really, really cool. I loved the detail of the old Underhang-Five Pebbles The Region gate now being the link between Silent Construct and Frigid Coast. I loved seeing, despite how horrifying it is story wise, how Pebbles' can has decayed and changed after all these years, and how life has reclaimed his arrays and chambers. I also really really loved the fact that each area has been renamed to reflect its current state; going through Sky Islands (Windswept Spires) to Farm Arrays (Desolate Fields) to Outskirts (Suburban something, I missed the second word) and beyond... it's very haunting in a way I thoroughly enjoyed. It felt a lot like picking through shattered pieces of glass and trying to piece them back together into a coherent shape again, while also knowing that it's never going to be what it once was.

Additionally, I absolutely adored the monologue changes of the already existing echoes, just mentally comparing the differences between what they say in Saint's time and what they say to the other slugcats. And the new echoes too! I keep thinking about the Undergrowth echo, how they mention they never wanted to ascend. It hits you so so hard with how the old world the ancients built is nothing but rubble and ice now. How they, too, were just people, trying so hard to do what they thought would bring them peace, and some of them not finding it even after what they thought would be an eternal rest. It just adds to the overall melancholy feeling of Saint's version of the world.

I don't think I have a clear second place or last place campaign for this category. They all held up on story execution in their own right, but none stood out quite as starkly as Saint's campaign did. They did well to force you to play Spearmaster and Rivulet first before Saint would be unlocked; without the context of both Spearmaster's pre-collapse time and Riv's post-collapse, heavily Rot infested time, Saint's story wouldn't have hit as hard.

Story Impact

It's really hard for me to pick one definitive favorite for this category because all the Downpour cats have such good stories for such different reasons, but Arti, Riv and Saint's campaigns definitely gripped me really, really hard. Spearmaster's did too, but a little less so, and not for Spearmaster himself; I was in it for Moon.

Arti held my interest from the start. It's no secret I'm an avid tragedy and horror enjoyer, and Arti's whole campaign is painted in the blood of her pups. Besides just being mechanically fun, I found myself constantly on the edge for more of her story, always wanting to find out more about what happened to her, what happened to her pups, what happened to make her hate scavengers so much she committed to killing them all. Though the final execution of her actual story felt a little flat, I still really loved the ideas behind her story, and she was the first one to make me destroy my sleep schedule to try and finish her campaign. The whole concept of a mother's rage extending so far that it locks her out of a true release is so so sad and I love it. I love her rage, I love her grief, I love her ceaseless violence that only perpetuates the cycle further, I love how hard it hits when you kill the Chief Scav and how little you get out of that. Her story is an exercise in futility and yet you will root for her. It's gutting and it's beautiful. I also know most of what happens in her other ending, and that just drives it home even more, I think. That her love and her grief is so strong that it prevents her from obtaining a true rest, forever separated from her pups after fighting for them for so long. It's heartbreaking and yet it fits so well. Very fitting for Rain World's overall melancholy world.

Riv and Saint both went for my throat with Pebbles' state, but in different ways. With Riv you get to see the horror of how much the Rot has overtaken his can. It was a fun and horrifying moment to enter via the wall and drop down, and then get stunned by the fall to finally realize that wait, the zero gravity is broken. And then seeing the proto daddies at the end and then encrusted over the pipe that would normally lead to GSB, and also the gaping hole in the side of his chamber and him just sitting on the floor, dejected. He sounds so defeated from the start, so frustrated but in a way that's more just tired than angry, or angry at himself rather than at the world. How desperate do you have to be as something so powerful, wielding so much knowledge, to ask some random critter that flopped into your chamber to save your long time friend (whose state you yourself caused)? And to ask them to go deep into your systems and remove the power source keeping you alive, no less? It drives home the passage of time between Monk's campaign and Riv's, and really nicely shows how Pebbles has changed as a person, even if it took everything literally falling to pieces around him to finally get there. I really get it, though, the fear of yourself and your actions and knowing you objectively messed up, but being too afraid and ashamed to ask for help. It's very brave of him to even ask Riv to do what he did, when he spends the last six campaigns telling slugcats to fuck off in no uncertain terms because he's so certain he has to fix this on his own. And the post game too, when you go back to his chamber and he just looks sad and finally agrees that he doesn't have to do this alone? Gut wrenching. They really went for everyone's hearts with Riv.

Which is just driven further home in Saint's campaign, when you find him sitting out in the snow in the remains of his can, his chamber not even a chamber anymore, and with barely enough of himself together to greet Saint when they stumble into him. He has only his music pearl left, and even that is distorted by time, and if you take it to Moon she pleads you to bring it back to him because it's all he has left. Any of his former bite is gone, replaced only by stuttering curiosity and confusion, and he even thanks you for keeping him company if you return enough times. You spend so long seeing him as this unreachable, untouchable presence that gives you some directions in an aloof way and maybe helps you out a bit, just to see him in this state of ruin, barely alive. I've never had a more visceral reaction to seeing him than I did in Saint's campaign, nor have I ever been more determined to find him. Like, stepping into what used to be Shaded Citadel, finding the Husk and realizing Pebbles collapsed because of course he did, he tells you that when you play as Riv, realizing why it's not shaded anymore, and seeing the state of his can... it's heartbreaking. The fact that there's so little of him left is heartbreaking.

And then on top of that, you get to actively choose to end his misery. To grant him the one thing he spent literally his whole life toiling for. And to me, it felt cruel, almost. It didn't even feel like mercy. And you can choose to do the same thing to Moon, too. It's all framed in such desolate but clear terms: the old world is dying, and a new one is emerging. Is it better to leave Moon there and allow her to slowly decay? But is ascending her a good option either? Is Pebbles truly more at peace like this? And it just makes me think about how both iterators may have felt watching Saint start glowing and flying, and then suddenly their souls are wrenched out of their bodies. And then after you reach the end of Rubicon, if you ascended either one or both of them, you can find them at the end, talking to you and telling you, perhaps a bit vaguely, that none of this is real. That none of what you did has lasting impact, that Pebbles is likely still out there in the snow, that Moon is still going to slowly decay like he did, that Saint, despite it all, is still trying to do this over and over and over again, because that is what an echo does. I haven't cried this hard at a game in a really long time, and I immediately started sobbing when I poked my head into the chamber and saw both of them there, the way they looked when in their prime, just to be told that my actions meant nothing in the end. It was absolutely devastating, but that really just cements how powerful Saint's story is. And here I realize that probably means Saint has the most powerful story impact, but it's truly hard to compare to Arti's and Riv's because the impact is different for all of them.

Then you have Spearmaster, where you get to explore Moon before she collapsed. I sobbed when I got to Neural Terminus and saw Moon's gorgeous blue and pink interior with Reflection of the Moon playing, just mourning all that she lost, all that Pebbles took from her, and despite it all, somehow, she's still kind and patient. Getting to see her as powerful as we will ever see her, while also knowing how much she loses and that this is not even close to what she would have been like in her prime, was just so so gutting. We're never going to know what Moon was like before it all happened, but this comes close to it, and it hurts. In a sense, it's a nice juxtaposition to what Riv and Saint show of her and Pebbles, and also just draws on an objective fact. Before and after the events of the vanilla game, Pebbles and Moon were or will be different. We only get to see glimpses of it.

Gourmand really doesn't have any stock here. Their ending is sweet, for sure, I cried twice at their ending, but the impact of knowing how Moon and Pebbles change and also the impacts of Arti's grief and rage really stuck with me more.

Uh, a section just for Spearmaster?

As you may have been able to tell from the analysis and summary above, I kind of didn't really think much of Spearmaster's campaign. I personally did not find it too hard (though I had experience dragging around two pups before that, so I was used to only having one active hand by then), but it's just frustrating to be introduced to a cool mechanic and then have it removed from you if you give a shit about the story. I do, however, thoroughly enjoy the concept of them as a purposed being. Why do they have no mouth? Why are they able to secrete spears? How and why do they have to eat from these spears? Why did Suns choose to create this creature? Wouldn't it have been easier to just take an existing slugcat and modify it like Sig did? So many questions. Their biology is funky and I enjoy it.

That's sort of it, though. While I did like Spearmaster's campaign overall, it really doesn't hold up to any of the other campaigns. Which is a bit disappointing, but oh well.

Downpour Overall

The concepts and stories introduced here were absolutely stunning, and I had a blast playing through all the campaigns, even if I did employ the use of dev tools a fair bit in certain campaigns (mostly Saint and a bit in Riv tbh), and I also turned on 'keep key items on passage' to speed things up. I do have a little bit of an issue with how certain parts of some campaigns cough Spearmaster and Saint cough felt very much like you'd need your karma to be high to be able to effectively traverse the map, while also really limiting your options for actually gaining karma, but maybe that's a bit of a problem on my end for not being a good enough gamer lmao. I dunno. I just don't enjoy karma grinding on something so story focused. On Survivor and Monk it's whatever, but I know the world and the story by now. I really hated having to just eat and sleep just so I could move on in the story, and eventually I just resorted to spawning food in with Beastmaster here and there so I could actually fucking save my progress. But overall? It was so so fun.

I am a little miffed that some of the campaigns directly go against how the vanilla game was structured, but I'm also delighted that we pretty much have dev approval for character development of characters like Pebbles and Moon, and to some extent Sig(!) and Suns. I personally work with the iterators a lot with stories, so I'm just piling up all of this information and shoving my face into it. I'm so happy about this asdkfgkklsdkl and generally, I think I'm just going to take the different timelines you can see with the various campaigns as snapshots of different moments in time. Do I honestly believe Riv could have achieved what she did? Do I genuinely believe Saint could or should have helped either iterator ascend? No, not really. Spearmaster I could believe more, but he's really a footnote in the broader story, an observer to this world that he really has no say in. I think that would capture the nature of Rain World better. You may not be the main character, but you can still view this world through the lens of something that exists in it.

Difficulty wise, it was okay for me personally, and mostly the dev tooling and assists were to help with me getting irritated more than objective difficulty I'd say? Like, I definitely could have done it legit, but it would take about three times as long and I just wanted to explore, for fuck's sake, and I wanted the rest of the story. Saint and Spearmaster were definitely harder in some respects, and Arti is a difficulty Cliff for some people, but it wasn't so bad that I couldn't enjoy the game, especially with remix options now.

Remix is definitely something I really really love though. For the longest time, I could not securely recommend Rain World to people because of the glaring accessibility issues it had. It still has some, but it's a great deal improved from what it used to be, and I'm very glad about that. Rain World's never going to be an easy game, but it's a really great one that deserves to be enjoyed by more people, and Remix is a great option for those who need more help along the way.

Some of the new creature concepts are really neat, honestly. I loved caramel lizards, these goofy little red x green lizard mixes with six (six!!!) legs, and also tiny cute pretty strawberry lizards. The Miros Vultures, as much as I fucking loathed having to deal with them, are so so cool conceptually. I just wish they didn't chase you across rooms :/ and, while terrifying, MLL was cool. I like the progression of the Rot. It's just cool details overall.

Would I recommend Downpour to people? Absolutely, but definitely play the base game first. Downpour is, as other people have put it, sort of its own game that shares mechanics and certain aspects of lore with Rain World. It was a mod originally, after all. But I think the MSC team deserves the money for the sheer amount of work they've put into this. It was an experience that was well worth the price and more.

arctic monkeys concert review time, for anyone who cares

so I was under the impression that the concert would start at 5:30pm, so I thought, great! I get there at 12 and I only have to wait 5 hours! WRONG.

the headliners would start at 9:40 PM. I WAITED 10 FUCKING HOURS.

when I got there, there were already so many people. the venue was huge and impossible to navigate, I had to go back and forth a couple of times to understand where I was supposed to go. the one highlight was a security guard who saw the books I was carrying (sartre, lol) and the pins (one was of dark side of the moon) and commented on them. that was nice

so, I arrive at my entry, and I still have a couple of hours to kill, since the gates open at 3pm. WELL. SOME DOUCHEBAG decided to cram up at the front of the gates and everyone followed, I was stuck in the crowd for the remaining hours with no water or food, just a cap, and the scorching sun above me (thankfully I had put on sunscreen beforehand)

the staff was also in a panic as well, it took them a while to check tickets and bags.

but I get inside! and the position I get it's great! just a dozen of meters from the stage, meanwhile people keep coming... and coming...

my friend also manages to get inside and we're finally reunited, we're both a sweaty mess. it is 3:30pm.

the bar is expensive and the water is scarce, it is really difficult to sit down given the amount of people (at max capacity, I heard there were 70-90k people inside)

the waiting game starts, but at about 5pm the first opening act (gli OMINI) comes on stage. they're neat 👍 they played covers of boys don't cry and my generation

another half an hour hour passes, it is getting so fucking hot, but some saint starts distributing water, you have to be extremely lucky to catch a bottle, tho.

second opening act (willie j healey) at about 6pm, they have strong dire straits and 70s soft rock vibes, one of their amps busted, but the crowd was supportive

some more waiting, the venue sponsors come on stage (a national radio) and they start randomly djing and chanting, they throw t shirts and gadgets. I didn't get one.

finally, at 7:40 pm the final warm up act, the hives. they even get a personalised stage with big letters and everything. they're absolutely insane, we didn't catch one breath while they were playing. special shoutout to the guitarist who was dying on stage, you're a true champ 👍

one hour left. and that hour feels like 10. at least the sun has gone down, but the heat remains, given how cramped up everyone is. I'm starting to feel very sick, nauseous and with a headache. I try to sit down the best way I can.

BUT FINALLY!! ARCTIC MONKEYS TIME!!! they come on stage and everyone loses their fucking minds, there's a huge mirrorball on the ceiling and a big circular projector behind them

here's the setlist

I had to literally block my ears a few time cuz the screaming was so so strong

alex speaks some italian and that also causes people to lose their minds, the audience mainly cares only for him. sad! I was cheering you on nick, matt and jamie! you were amazing! also the guys responsible for the moog synthesiser and additional guitars, awesome indeed

funny how everyone sang the most popular songs while barely anyone knew the songs from the car, well I sang those the loudest! mirrorball was fucking awesome, the highlight for me, cuz at the end the real mirrorball started spinning and shining. so so cool

I also screamed REALLY LOUD when they played sculptures, I lost my mind. I had waited for it FOR SEVEN MONTHS.

so, was it worth it?

arctic monkeys were amazing, but all the waiting made it unbearable, I couldn't wait to go home afterwards- and that too took a while because the subway was really far away.

so, there you have it, great concert, terrible experience. an overall 4/10, while the band was 10/10 (I wish I heard them more clearly, it was impossible to hear alex through the screaming)

Best Friends Forever

read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/53956339 by sleepinggoddess Mt. Ebott, 201X. Legends say that those who climb the mountain never return. A long time ago, a human fell into the RUINS. Injured by its fall, the human called out for help. *It sounds like it came from over there... *Oh, you've fallen down, haven't you... *Are you okay? Here, get up... *Clover, huh? That's a nice name. My name is... [...] «You wanna know more ‘bout me?» *You're worth knowing. «I think… my life’s better with ya' on it» *You’re good for me, too! «Promise?» *Cross my heart! «Forever? Thank you…» Words: 6179, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Undertale (Video Game), Undertale Yellow (Video Game) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence Characters: Asriel Dreemurr, Clover (Undertale Yellow - Master Sword), Yellow Soul Human (Undertale), Flowey (Undertale), Toriel (Undertale), Asgore Dreemurr, Frisk (Undertale) Relationships: Flowey & Yellow Soul Human (Undertale), Asriel Dreemurr & Yellow Soul Human (Undertale), Asriel Dreemurr & Clover (UT/UTY) Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Character Death, References to Undertale Genocide Route, They/Them Pronouns for Clover (Undertale Yellow), What if Clover was the first fallen human?, that's literally it - Freeform, TECHNICALLY this is Lucky Patch, LISTEN I just want them to get along so SO bad, somewhat graphic depiction of illness, happy-ish ending?, for Lucky Patch at least… read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/53956339

˚✧ BASIC INFORMATION

Name: Eden Aki

Age: 17

Gender: Nonbinary (she/her pronouns)

Sexuality: Bi

Birthday: February 8 (Aquarius)

Species: Human

Homeland: Rose Kingdom

Twisted from Pochacco (Sanrio)

༉‧₊˚✧ APPEARANCE

Height: 162 cm (5’4’’)

Eye color: Dark grey

Hair color: Grey at the top, fades into black

Distinctive traits: Usually has a bandage across her face or arms because of skateboarding accidents

Additional notes/characteristics: Has a habit of wearing mismatched socks

༉‧₊˚✧ PERSONALITY & BACKSTORY

Description: A sporty and upbeat member of Sanwaii, Eden can usually be found around RSA, skateboarding or playing a casual game of basketball. She’s known to have a competitive side and always wants to win, but tries to be a good loser if that’s the case. Slightly scatter-brained, she’s known to forget things quite often, usually thinking about basketball scores or that cool-looking skateboard she saw on Magicam earlier. Speaking of social media, Eden runs a video blog on everyday life at RSA, usually filming videos outside while skating across the campus.

Flaws: Highly, highly competitive, holds intense grudges against people, can be really unlucky at times (although that’s not really her fault lol)

Fears: Getting lost at sea, seeing everyone around her hurt

Talents: Skateboarding, making scrapbooks, forgetting important things but remembering seemingly random details

Family: Mother, father, grandma

༉‧₊˚✧ SCHOOL INFORMATION

Dorm: Sanwaii (created by @twsted-princess)

Class: 2-B (no. 12)

Grade: Sophomore

Best subject: Physical Education

Worst subject: Alchemy

Club: ? (She can’t choose between all of the sports)

༉‧₊˚✧ MISCELLANEOUS

Likes: Springtime, the colors green and yellow, her friends

Dislikes: Needles, arrogance, super salty foods

Favorite food: Banana ice cream

Least favorite food: Oysters

Hobbies: Playing sports, skateboarding, running a video blog on life at RSA

༉‧₊˚✧ UNIQUE MAGIC

“It’s Your Lucky Day!”

This magic allows the user to give anybody they wish increased luck for the next 12 hours, at the cost of decreasing the user’s luck by the same amount for also 12 hours. If the user tries to use this spell on themself, it will work, however the decrease in luck will happen after the 12 hours are up.

༉‧₊˚✧ THOUGHTS ON OTHER CHARACTERS

Kisumi (@windbornearchon): “Kisumi is probably the most upbeat, sweetest person I know! She’s always there for me, and I really really really like her a lot. She has a habit of stealing my basketball shoes though, which is strange but kinda endearing?”

The Itsuki Twins (@starry-night-rose): “The Itsuki’s are so cool! Honestly, they have an amazing sense of comedic timing, and they’re usually super in sync. Wonder if that would translate over to basketball, would they be able to predict each others movements?”

Samuel (@luvkamishiro) : “Sam and I (I think) get along pretty well! Though we’re both pretty clumsy, I would not trust us anywhere near fragile stuff.”

(Feel free to ask for Eden’s thoughts on any other ocs!)

༉‧₊˚✧ TRIVIA

• Eden literally cried tears of joy when she was accepted into RSA because her second option had to be NRC and she is terrified of Crewel.

•She has a pair of glasses but never wears them because they mess with her depth perception and that results in more skateboard accidents than usual.

•She started her video blog as a way to document her scrapbooking progress but then expanded it to as regular blog for fun.

•She literally cannot stand to be around lily flowers.

I actually think it was really neat of Anipoke to (mostly) stop chopping up and clumsily sewing together characters/arcs/plotpoints from the games in an attempt to center Ash entirely while still being able to point and yell "Look!! It's that thing that happened in the game you played!!!"

Like. For the majority of the anime, Ash would literally just replace the protagonist of the game and if they're lucky said protagonist gets a severely reduced role/importance and plays support to Ash for the rest of the generation. They might have some holdouts from their original arc and characterization but most of it's given to Ash and they get to go...Do Contests and Be A Girl and Maybe Have A Crush On Ash.

I'd say Sun/Moon is least guilty of this, but only just slightly, and it's absolutely not blameless considering how it downranked the Trial Captains to schoolmates who sometimes stumble into trials with Ash and how a large chunk of Lillie's in game role was given to Ash instead.

But guess what? This is barely an issue whatsoever in the Journeys anime?

During Journeys, Ash stays at the Cerise Institute as a research fellow. Which isn't a thing in the games. Ash's companions are Goh and sometimes Chloe. Who do not exist in the games. Ash's whole main goal is to win the World Coronation Series. Which does not exist in the games. And thats great!

Ash repeating the same repetitive gym badge/championship journey cycle every season, usually with major characters from the games who have been forcefully contorted to varying degrees into a support role , and then just running off to do it all again? It got a little old.

It's honestly refreshing to actually see him in a plotline that was written for him instead of shoehorned into the writer's best imitation of what his newly demoted companions did in the game.

It's even more refreshing to see him mostly engage with character's specifically designed for this story (which also allows for other characters from the franchise to appear when/how it feels natural and have a life outside ash instead of the previous season's style of watering down the characters and waving them in your face while giving their achievements/arc to ash).

More than anything else it's refreshing for one of the character's designed for this story to be made as an equal partner to Ash with their own unique personality and arc also originally designed for the story the anime is telling!

The storyline for Journeys isn't exactly revolutionary or never seen before in the Pokemon franchise. "Win big competition" and "catch every pokemon" are both pretty standard goals. But the story being told didn't need to be completely unlike anything else in the franchise. Pokemon plotlines are usually pretty similar even from one game to another and I wouldn't expect complete originality from the anime. The story being told just needed to be a story of it's own with characters of its own. And that's what it is!

In my opinion, Anipoke actually feels like it's standing on it's own feet as an addition to the Pokemon franchise instead of a slightly out of place remix of whatever the most recent game is featuring incredibly forced protagonist, Ash "the world revolves around me" Ketchum, for once.

The change in how Anipoke has been written is genuinely a good and needed switch that mediates the issue of how stale the Anipoke plot was getting, gives it at least a little bit of identity outside of whatever the current game is, and let's a lot more breathing room exist in places where Ash once would've been forcefully crammed into the spotlight for no good reason.

Which is honestly what annoys me so much about half the Anipoke fandom being up in arms about how "Goh is given too much attention" or "We don't get to explore Galar enough". Would you people rather we go through Galar, collect the gym badges, take part in the championship, and lose horribly, featuring companion girl Gloria who has a crush on Ash for some reason and wants to become a Wooloo Herder and barely gets any character development or something completely stupid like that? Is that your ideal? Cause to be frank, I found it in poor taste the first four times they went with that idea and painfully stale the next three.

I'd honestly prefer the Journeys anime and Goh any day and I really hope Anipoke stands it's ground on this matter.

After Hours

https://ift.tt/iVcf5zg by BakaDoll “You’re a lucky man, Detective Reed,” Nines’ voice was low, a snarl that sent a hot shiver up Gavin’s spine, “Very lucky indeed. Because if I was a lesser man, I would have bent you over your desk right then and there, while you were running your mouth. Again.” Gavin wanted to respond, wanted to run his mouth yet again - because that’s what he did best: throw snarky comments at people, be an insufferable little shit, make everyone’s day just that little bit more miserable.   --- Honestly just shameless Reed900 PWP, literally zero plot found here Words: 4934, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Upgraded Connor | RK900, Gavin Reed Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed Additional Tags: Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, like seriously this is nothing but porn, Rough Sex, Rough Oral Sex, Blow Jobs, Face-Fucking, Partially Dressed Fucking, Dirty Talk, Enthusiastic Consent, Hair-pulling, implied praise kink, Self-Lubrication, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex

Thank you for the well wishes! My cold has gotten much better by now and I started to play again. Not much progressing the story but rather breeding myself a good Tynamo. I felt a bit like Emmet again. I think this time breeding is kinda weird but I’m getting used to it and just now I’ve gotten the Tynamo I wanted. (Still so happy I got a Tynamo verrry early in the game in one of these Tera Cave thingies literally the first one I approached had my firs Tynamo in it, not sure if Normal type is any good for it but I breeded myself one now)

Anyway getting sidetracked here! I’ve also read the new story and boy was it fun! Melli kinda felt like that annoying little sibling trying to bother you when you have a friend hanging out with you. Haha, I don’t even completely relate to the feeling since I was the youngest sibling, but I remember that when I was at friends houses. Each time Melli came back I was wondering what he did this time. And how annoyed Ingo gradually gets. Thanks for his Customer Service skills he kept his cool for the most part. As someone who works in retail it’s so satisfying to see characters keep their cool despite them being treated like that. It takes sooo much self control not to blow up in the customers face if they’re annoying. Also I love how far Ingo is willing to go to support Akari on her Survey. He’s the best! (Hope it doesn’t get bad consequences for that… who am I kidding there will be consequences. And there were already!)

I have to say I did NOT see the end coming until it bit me (or should I say bit Melli?) but I loved everything about it. Karma bit Melli right where it should (if not for the whole Kana business I think Karma would have been a nice nickname as well but then again it also sounds similar to that so there’s that!)

This was such a joy to read. I love the way you portrayed Melli here. He’s perfect in here. Also nice of both Akari and Ingo to leave out the details of why it bit him. Gosh I was so invested in this it’s written so well! A slow built up with a satisfying payoff! Thanks for the story I really enjoyed that one. Hope to see more of Melli in the future you really nailed him here!

Continuation of this ask, and additional regards to my newest fic, Gone Fishing

You’re welcome Anon, glad to hear you’re feeling better!! And hey, that’s how I got a tynamo too!! I randomly found an ice-tera-type tynamo super early in the game; we both got very lucky!

And in regards to your comments on Gone Fishing; thank you so much!!! I am very happy to hear you enjoyed it! ^^

Melli was definitely meant to feel like that ‘annoying’ younger sibling. He can be a handful, but he doesn’t set out to be a genuine, mean-spirited bother. He’s just more high maintenance. It’s a very good thing Ingo is so well-versed in customer service, but even he was starting to wear down a little; it’s not every day you see a shiny alpha! But if you are kind to Melli, he is kind back, which can make it easier for Ingo and Akari to initiate it. And of course, Ingo always wants to do his best to support her! (Especially if Kana is making things difficult!)

And you’re right haha, Karma would have been a great name!! I did not think of that; either way, Kana would not have appreciated how close the name was to hers!

Once again, thank you for such a thorough review and compliment, Anon. It really makes my day to hear the appreciation, and motivates me to write more! (And I do intend to write more of Melli as well! ^^) Thank you!!

Ask game

Tell me about your favourite npccccc

Alsooo tell me about a time the party took you by surprise

(Im a playerrr if there be spoils tell me I'll eat my hat but I won't look)

Favorite NPC

So my favorite NPC is probably the hardest question to there are so many of them and I love them all, so ill just list a bunch of my favorites

So I created an NPC adventuring party to mirror everyone's characters. I dont remember exactly where the idea came from, but for a party of characters who are mostly NPCs (shady sellsman, mysterious fortuneteller, stripper clown) and morally gray, it would be funny to have an actually good traditional adventuring party to go up to each of their characters. They were just going to show up very occasionally, but my partner cried at me to have them in every arc just somewhere, you also agreed on that, so here we are XD

Sorcha Fiddlecloak is a happy go lucky trickster cleric gnome who is the head of that party. She hates when people don't like her, so she will go out of her way to have them do so. She's a direct foil to Todd, a PC who is a fiendish warlock, capitalist enjoyer, and gnome hater. She currently thinks they are friends, and will continue to annoy him for the foreseeable future.

Palen Nightvale is a werewolf blood hunter who's kinda the bitch (figuratively and literally I guess lmao) of the group. Pulled from an old character sheet of Yikes' when he was a COMPLETELY different character, she now serves as his foil by dealing with acceptance and perception issues. She ask Doesnt Like Him after Yikes messed with her a little after she misspoke on changelings. She has a whole tragic backstory and mission and stuff that the party hasn't learned yet, so I'll keep that for a separate reblog with all the spoilers lol

Roza Vova is the newest addition to that party after our newest member, @sleepyforestbeast , joined with their character, Husk! She literally only got talked to last session, but there's a WHOLE lot surrounding her after Yikes thought she was the person who tried to STEAL HIS SKIN. Thankfully, she isn't, but she's the identical triplet (there's another sister out there in the world lol) of her. The party has some suspicions of her, but that and her tragic backstory will again probably be a separate post to not give you direct spoilers XD

Anzor is the last member of the party, a human paladin of Kelemvor, and I think he narrowly beats Roza in being my favorite of the party (but I love all of them and wanted to talk about them lmao). He's the foil to Azule (the person asking the question's character actually!!), a mysterious fortuneteller and medium who's actually a fraud and also a changeling and also a necromancer. Anzor is probably the character talked to the least, or at least the one who's gotten the least info talked about him other than what you can just see. He has A LOT with him, NONE of which has been revealed in game, and he is probably the best foil imo to one of the characters, and I can't say why that is here, which again, probably going to get that in a separate reblog.

There's a lot more characters I seriously love, but I think my top two outside of the adventuring party are Gleam and Frizzle

Gleam is an elf wizard who is based on the character from the Witchlight campaign. She was given to me by my partner to have as a member of The Eclipse, the traveling circus Yikes is at. I, however, have never read Witchlight, and turned her into an exploited child star who grew up to be a mall goth. Her interactions with Yikes are immaculate, protective of him but ready to insult him at a moment's notice. I think I described it as "annoying kid next door who always annoyed you, but now he's grown up and hot now???" She also keeps having to deal with problems, the most reoccuring one is Kera, a runaway from a town that joined because she's also into the goth aesthetic, and Gleam hates kids. She's great, love her.

Frizzle is a fire genasi warlock, and an NPC from the original mini campaign that kicked off the game. She was a maid at the mansion that everything originally went down at, and for most of the game, kinda in shock and non-functional. She does not do well in extremely stressful situations, especially not in those where her closest friend at the time dies when you weren't in the room and then you get accused of his death. However, after leaving the mansion (which was set on fire) with all of her belongings gone and burned, she's hit the "ok what the fuck do I do with my life". I stumbled onto this character motivation/aspect with her, and I've really been enjoying putting that to different use. She's currently just working as a cook at the Eclipse because she has culinary experience, but she just doesn't know what she wants to do, and that's really interesting to me.

Party Took Me by Surprise

Honestly, half of the Husk has been doing has made me go "ok we're doing this now" in the best way possible XD. It's been a really great exercise in improv and doing things on the fly which I've been getting much better with!!!

Probably the biggest time I've been taken by surprise with the entire party is still just how impressed I was with how you guys did with the original mini-campaign. Many more people were intended to die, but you did a great job keeping everyone together, and only 4 people of the 12 in that house died.

It’s happening again, guys

Major/Minor is worming its way into my life AGAIN.

Every now and again I go through my Steam inventory to delete backgrounds and icons that I’m not interested in and aren’t worth selling, because they’re more valuable to me as gems. As I was doing so today, I checked on a background I have lingering in my account from Major/Minor, and noticed that it’s now non-marketable. That means that the game was delisted! I went back to my game library to double-check, and I ended up discovering that the original Major/Minor is delisted (finally), but the “complete” edition or whatever it was called is still on the market, still free-to-play. That’s when I remembered that this one background in my inventory is not from the version I played. I bought it on the community market back when I did one of my long breakdowns of the game here on Tumblr, and I was using Rook as an example. It was just easier to buy the background for a few cents than to try to find the image I needed in-game or go spelunking on Google.

Initially, I was happy to discover that the original was delisted; I’ve boggled for years at the fact that both the original and the “complete” editions were simultaneously listed on Steam when they are literally THE EXACT SAME GAME and neither has anything that the other doesn’t have. Honestly, this is long overdue. But then I realized, I have a problem; while I have eased my need to 100% the achievements in the games I play, I do still care an awful lot about getting the badge for any game that does trading cards. One of the only things that actually DOES differentiate the original Major/Minor from the rerelease is its trading cards and badges, which are all completely different. The kicker: This is a 15 CARD SET, and those cards are now non-marketable. Even in the best case scenario, I now somehow have to find at least 7 non-marketable cards.

In some ways, I guess you can say this is a good thing; in addition to just plain never wanting to play the original, because it’s literally just me putting myself through exactly the same nonsense for a second time, I also hesitated to farm it for its card drops because buying the rest of the cards on the community market still puts money in the dev’s pocket, however little of an amount it may be, and fuck that noise. The cards going non-marketable means that I literally CAN’T pay money that the dev would ultimately get a portion of. However, that’s still a really small consolation, given that non-marketable cards are much harder to even find in the first place, and then more difficult to get the other party to let go of if you do find some. And again, this is assuming I get lucky and the 8 card drops I get are all for unique cards! I can’t speak for everybody, but I notoriously tend to end up with duplicate cards. Sometimes that comes in handy, like if I intend to level up the badge at least once, but I definitely don’t intend to do that here, so a card dupe only helps me if I find someone willing to do a 1:1 trade.

Now I can already hear some of you saying, “But Sally-mun, you can create booster packs! You can create the cards you need on your own!” and I’ll definitely give you that. Worst case scenario, yes, I can handle this myself. There’s an enormous downside to this, though: Booster packs, just like regular card drops, are also very unreliable in terms of getting the cards you actually need and can also just keep doubling up. Not only would that just saddle me with even more cards that I wouldn’t even be able to sell on the market, but it’s a complete waste of gems! I have a fair enough stockpile of gems right now, and I sure as hell don’t want to blow them all on fucking Major/Minor of all games, for a badge I really don’t even care about other than for the sake of completion. Yes, I can break any extra doubles down into gems again, but you don’t get as many back as you put in. It’s doable, but it’s not desirable.

Regardless, though... Looks like I’ll have to wade into the cesspool of this stupid game at least one last time to take care of this. Someone hold me, this is not going to be fun.

name: yung ae jung. pronounced "yoong ā-ah joong." the first name "yung ae" means "long love" in korean. gave the mirror their korean name as it's prettier, yung ae is their middle name kept by their adoptive parents, and their real name is a bit long.

nickname: yun. pronounced "yoon." crowley, ace, deuce, and grim kept butchering it for a while. so yung ae just settled for them calling them "yun" instead.

age: 18. they say that though they're really 20 years old. due to being self-conscious about a 20 year old attending high school, they lied to crowley and said they were 18.

best subject: history. whether it's the ancient war between humans and fae, the first magical pen, or the tragic, unknown history of blot, yung ae will always be a major history nerd.... even in a completely different world.

worst subject(s): alchemy and potionology with magical analysis [aka. math] being a close second. yung ae jokes that "they are so not big-brain enough for crewel's classes." but they're right. their brain is not a logical-thinking brain. and, just like in chemistry and physics, they are only barely passing. the amount of explosions and fires yung ae and grim have accidentally started broke the previous world record. even with vil and rook taking them under their wing, their max grade they got on an exam was a C+.

birthday: January 16th. a certain horned, nightly companion gets very excited by this and tells one of his most loyal companions the next time he returns to his dorm.

class: 1-B, seat no.5. they joke that they have no braincells but yung ae doesn't give themselves enough credit. their perfectionist nature drives them to give their all in their exams, assignments, and projects.... even if "it's a subject i am ass at," as they've complained to the other first years. therefore, yung ae's grades are pretty decent much to the shock of crowley and the other professors who originally worried that "the magicless prefect of ramshackle dorm won't be able to keep up with the primarily magic-based curriculum."

club: equestrian club. they originally weren't planning on joining a club, actually! what with keeping up with classes, attempting a social life, their duties as grim's "housewarden," and running errands for crowley, yung ae didn't think they had time for clubs. but they heard in passing some random student mention the equestrian club and that was it! horses were one of their favorite animals, after all. no way were they passing up a free opportunity to ride and care for their "own" horse. they were easily one of the first people who showed up beating sebek's arrival time by a long shot..... no, they totally weren't early! wdym?! thank their lucky stars that they took horseback riding lessons back in their world.

height: 149.86 cm or 4'11". there's an extra three-quarter inches which are very important to yung ae. hence the addition of the ".86;" they are a bit sensitive of their height and allow certain people to tease them about their height or give them "short" nicknames. anyone else and watch out for a kick to the shins from them before getting thoroughly chewed out.

hobby: writing fictional stories, stargazing, reading history books, playing video games, baking and cooking food from her home.

homeland: ??? seeing as how they came uninvited to night raven college from another world, yung ae wouldn't exactly know how to answer this. not to mention crewel and crowley swore them to secrecy about their literal other-worldliness.

likes: snow, winter, the cold, dogs, horses, anime, games, soup, coffee, tea, fashion, music, cars/magical wheels, some horror, crime dramas, and dark nail polish

dislikes: exercise, insects and spiders, heights, certain horror, needles, hospitals, toxic/rude people, bossy people, waking up early/mornings, rainy days, overly sweet, overly spicy, and greasy foods.

unique magic: "The Walking Barometer." being magicless has its downsides. but it also has its perks! see, they get frequent migraines which are triggered by weather pressure changes. so yung ae can tell when a rainstorm or thunderstorm is coming because they'll get sick with a migraine and leave grim in jack's and epel's capable hands while they stay behind at ramshackle.

appearance & personality:

as shown in yung ae's picture, they have short, dark, messy hair that normally looks black unless the sun catches the strands. then they glow a dark brown. a tiny, cute, gold clip in the shape of a crown — gifted to them by riddle rosehearts ("stop twirling your hair. here; wear this clip in your hair. that should keep you from pulling on your strands.") — pins back their side bangs on the left side of their face. thin, dark eyebrows are normally crooked downward as their expression usually is that of teasing or mischievous. almond-shaped eyes also look almost black when yung ae is indoors are under the shade of a tree. outside, though, with the sun shining down upon the campus, it's easier to tell by how the sunlight reveals brown tones for their irises.

beige patches and strips usually can be found on in varying places throughout the day on their yellow, asian skin. sometimes it's bullies messing with them between classes but most of the time it really is just because yung ae is incredibly clumsy and often getting their face, hands, arms, and legs marked up with scratches and slight bruises. same with their eye color.

their oversized beige sweater, given to them by kalim al asim, wraps around their narrow, boney torso and arms. a white button-up shirt fits snugly underneath with a black and white striped bow tie nestled nicely under the clean, pressed collar. in the left pocket of their sweater hangs a fake magical pen with a plastic magestone — the same color of the pomefiore stone, in fact — a gift from epel felmier and vil schoenheit after the two of them noticed how yung ae never had any writing utensils for classes. ("stop bothering epel, prefect, and get your own pens and pencils." "but vil, i don't have any writing utensils of my own. grim and i have to borrow epel's for now until crowley gives me more madols to buy a set." the next day before class began, epel handed yung ae a set of pomefiore magestone adorned pens: "these are from vil.")

as much as vil pesters yung ae to act and dress like a proper young lady (they haven't told him their gender yet.), yung ae refuses to wear the skirts he lays out for them the night before classes. instead, they wear a pair of knee-length, rolled up shorts, a belt, white knee-socks from mr. s, and a pair of dark gray, denim converse. even though they despise P.E. — and by extension Flight Class — they like to move and dance and run [to an extent]. and skirts and dresses greatly limit how they can move. thus they often send back vil's choices in clothing irritating him further.

when yung ae's not getting a tongue-lashing studying with riddle, getting dragged by vil to his walk-closet in pomefiore, or hanging out with kalim, they are usually in the library reading up on all kinds of history regarding the dorms, the Great Seven, and the different species that share Twisted Wonderland. ....or rather, they try to. more often than not they're either running around campus causing chaos with epel, ace, deuce, and grim, helping ruggie or jamil with their chores, or studying with either epel and jack, the heartslabyul third years, or jamil and kalim. who yung ae studies with depends on what they need help with.

on days when yung ae and their little chaos group terrorizes the school, vil and riddle take two asprin before sending rook, cater, and trey after their students.

yung ae also loves music. so whenever they see cater coming to drag ace and deuce to heartslabyul, they try bribing the third year by promising to sing a duet with him the next time they're off from equestrian training. "that's only if you leave and pretend you didn't see anything." 9/10 times it works to kalim's and lilia's great delight! (yung ae doesn't like to sing for an audience.)

speaking of personality, lilia and yung ae like to bond over rock music, dark nail polish and being old. he, sebek, malleus, crowley, and the professors all know yung ae's true age. crowley and the teachers practically threatened them to tell them. the fae from diasomnia could easily tell yung ae was lying when they told silver one night that they were older than him. later, they got them to confess their true age. fae can be extremely intimidating.... maybe even moreso than crewel, trein, and crowley combined! still, though, with yung ae hanging around diasomnia the whole dorm collectively breathes a sigh of relief because they all know that despite the new prefect's lack of magical abilities, they sure can cook!!

moving on to food, yung ae brings their own lunch to school which normally was leftovers from dinner they made the night before. this makes everyone jealous to point where ace and deuce often sneak insude.

trivia:

testing testing

Jim Corbett National Park - The Tiger Camp

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💫 FROM NARUTO TO BORUTO FANFICTION💫

(An additional part. "Zeal")

Only here on En here. From author personally.

Official name: Unexpected

P.s. sometimes dumb! Oops.

Weekends are the best days of the week..

The young man looked at his watch for the umpteenth time.

- That's usaratonkachi for so many years and always be late!

Menma tapped his foot impatiently. I looked around again..

Saturday. 6.30 am.

Just yesterday, as usual, they were playing video games together and gorging on fast food. And today - for the usual weekly workout.

He remembers the last awkward conversation perfectly. Where will they go to study, what to do..

"- ...HOW DID YOU GET INVITED TO AN INTERNSHIP IN THE VILLAGE OF SAND? It's two days away from here!

Menma looked at Boruto with disappointment. I put the chips and the gamepad aside.

- Generally in three.. But damn, you know, they appreciated me, dattebasa!

- Yes, of course.. Bo, uh... would you like to go together? I think my company will be welcome too. And anyway, I passed better! ..."

Do not bother if they grow up, and... They'll just leave who's where.

Of course, over these ten years they have become strong friends, walking together, training, and ... and why, in fact, Menma does not want to part? Boruto still pisses him off incredibly, but we have to admit that.. It's bland without it.

- Menmaaa! I met Sarada. Think about it, she's going to practice in Tanzaka! This is how lucky, dattebasa!

The black-haired man smiled, extending his fist.

- Yes, it's cool. And... Bo, can I ask?

- It wouldn't hurt me either... In short, I'm the first! I know that everything is cool with you, and you will probably say no ..

Uchiha was wary, squinting his eyes. He was punched in response. He put his hands in his pockets so as not to crack his fingers..

Or maybe not to hit usaratonkachi.

- I could go and practice martial arts teacher in the village of sand! They say there are capable children there, but they lack strategy..

- I hear this from someone who tried to cheat on the last mission.

Menma chuckled, but kindly. Well, he likes to tease his friend about everything, like a child.

- Cunning is also a strategy, dattebasa! Shortly.

- Relax. I thought about it.. And I don't mind going with you. Hinata is still worried, so at least it won't be a daily call.

At one point Boruto outgrew Menma by a couple of centimeters. The second one was terribly infuriated, but the opponent just smiled triumphantly..

- Because Daichi will be calling. And... okay, maybe that's it. Let's go to the training ground, otherwise they'll take more.

Uchiha turned around to go to an inconspicuous path.

- You haven't said everything, dattebasa! Spit it out before you start.

It seems that the stubborn Menma does not think to continue. So it's kind of useless to try..

Here they pass under a wild cherry tree. Pass a couple more bushes, hummocks. And finally, a large green stadium with exercise equipment and a treadmill is shown.

Boruto just snorted something like "that's the topic!"and is already running after the young man.

"Not enough people.." - Uchiha is both pleased and annoying. It's a nice day, and there are only a couple of runners.

- So I understand that aliens kidnap people, so they don't come? - Uzumaki smiles with his own joke.

- No. They say the war will begin soon.

- Come on..

Boruto stares at him like he's an idiot to the core who said the Earth is flat.

Menma responds with a completely serious look.

- Daichi was reinstated in the local military medical unit. So it's almost a literal phrase.

- But the village of Liszt conducts a peaceful policy!

- And on her side is the village of Sand. It really is, but things.. mm.. Bad. You saw, they even lowered our payment inside the village in order to scrape together finances.

Now both have already started silent training.

The thoughts converged on one thing.

"Naruto won't pull this war"