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#every time i think 'this device should be more than just a really weird gaming console' i am proven wrong
unpretty · 7 months
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every time i try to use my ipad for anything other than playing video games it's such an exercise in frustration i'm astonished all over again that there are people who live like this.
i try to change my home screen so it doesn't look like shit and all the advice is like "download this app, it's the best one!" so i download the free app and it turns out you can't actually use the free app unless you pay a $5 monthly subscription fee. it changes your wallpaper and adds some widgets that do nothing but open a weird shortcut window before opening the actual app, in a way that makes it look like i accidentally clicked a virus. the widgets are just some pictures.
there's controls that are unintuitive so i try to change the unintuitive controls but it turns out there's no option for that and if you try to look for a way to enable that option you find nothing but people falling all over themselves to tell you why having options is actually bad.
then i think of an app i use on my phone that would be nice to have on a bigger screen and everyone says, "we don't have that app, we have this other app, which does the same thing but better" so i install it but then i can't use it without paying a $5 monthly subscription fee.
i accept the free trial because i might as well and it turns out the app looks like shit. i look for the settings to make the app look like the good app that was free on my phone but i can't find the settings. i do a search to see where the settings are hiding and find a thread where someone is asking where the setting is and the devs tell them that there isn't a setting and actually having options is bad and once they use the app for a while they'll realize that not having options is better. i cancel my free trial and uninstall the app and continue to read on my phone instead of the big fancy tablet.
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lurkingshan · 4 months
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Love for Love's Sake Episodes 3 & 4
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Welp, it's official, I am obsessed with this show.
First of all, a moment to complain about iQIYI once again doing this weird distribution model where the show releases at different intervals depending on what type of membership you have. I hate that some people can access the first four eps and will finish the show next week, and some will get the rest doled out weekly. It makes it so we're all watching at different times and have to dodge spoilers and/or try to discuss the show without half the audience being able to keep up. Will no one think of the discourse??
Distribution complaints aside, I loved these two additional eps that dropped into my lap today. This show really nails that particular Korean brand of poignant melancholy, and I am ready to declare my undying devotion to my precious child, Cha Yeowoon.
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Look at him! Look at that face! We should all be in the game making his happiness our sole purpose. This show continues to be so damn clever about how it uses the video game concept, especially the affection level device, which they use to great effect in every single episode. It's such a smart way to communicate character and relationship progress. And I loved the little teases in episode 4 that took us back to the "real" world with Tae Myungha, assuring us this show is not done revealing its tricks.
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But even more than I am impressed with the way this fictional world is constructed, I am just so moved by these characters. I gasped when this show made Yeowoon's jealousy and confusion and yearning for Myungha so explicit, and I felt for him so much when he finally cracked and asked for some compassion. I don't believe Myungha was really considering how overwhelming all of this sudden affection would feel for someone who has been as isolated and lonely as Yeowoon, or what it would imply about his intentions, but he definitely understands what Yeowoon is thinking now. I am also loving the side characters in this--Kyunghoon and his sis Sia are adorable, and even Sangwon is growing on me as he reveals himself to be fairly decent in the important ways, despite his sad spoiled rich boi schtick. They’ve even set up a nice contrast with the two different bully characters that is adding some depth to the world.
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Now that Myungha seems to have caught on to Yeowoon’s feelings and started having some dreams of his own, I am looking forward to seeing where this story goes, how Myungha navigates their feelings within the game and returns to the real world, and how Yeowoon will get all the happiness he deserves.
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dawnagustd · 1 year
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for hours couple can I get reader wanting to get her nails redone and asking jk what shape and style she should get and if he can pay for them and cus he's whipped he will 🤭
pairing: hours!jungkook x f!reader
genre: fwbs | neighbors to lovers
word count: 0.6k
rating: 18+
warnings: suggestive | strong language | jungkook grabs his dick once | just two idiots who like each other | a bit of insecurity but for a second only | mentions back scratching(the kinky kind)
author's note: This is a month after reader starts visiting Jungkook's apartment but they've know each other longer than this, of course. They're neighbors. I changed the prompt up a little bit because I felt like it'd be more meaningful if he just offered to pay instead of her asking. I think it suits their dynamics better. This can be read as a stand alone but this is the main story. Thank you @hobeemin for looking over this for me. I love you!!
“The usual, right?”
You look at your nails carefully, examining them before you answer. This shape makes your fingers look weird when you don’t choose the right polish. You miss the old days but you had to make some compromises. 
“Nah, let’s try short this time. Same shape,” you reply.
“What?!”
Both your nail tech and Jungkook, who’s paused his video game, look at you in disbelief. Like you're speaking gibberish.
“Why are you getting them short?” Jungkook asks.
Your phone sits on the device station propped against the mount so you can see the FaceTime call and check your notifications without messing up your nails.
You shrug your shoulders. “Just want something different, I guess.”
“You can just try another shape,” your nail tech suggests.
“Yeah, I agree,” Jungkook adds.
You roll your eyes because you don’t think it’s a big deal. You can’t get what you want so the length doesn’t really matter to you.
“Then what should I get then?” 
The question was directed toward your nail tech, but Jungkook speaks up instead.
“How you used to wear them... Like when you first started coming over to my place.” 
He picks up his controller and resumes his game while he talks to you, describing the shape he’s speaking of best he can. “The vampire shape. I like those; they’re sexy.”
“Dude, you mean coffin?”
Jungkook snaps his fingers. “Ah, yes. That’s it.”
You’d kill to have coffin nails again, but they’re too high maintenance for the kind of sex you and Jungkook have. Besides, you remember how badly you scratched up his back the first time he fucked you. You felt bad, so you changed the shape to oval so you wouldn’t hurt him as much.
“I don’t know,” you sigh. “I like those a lot but I don’t wanna rip your skin open anymore.”
You mumble the last part so that only he can hear, and he responds with a laugh.
“I’m good, baby. I like pain.” Jungkook glances at his phone and winks.
Your nail tech can probably see steam rising from your cheeks because they’re on fire. Jungkook is smirking proudly, knowing he’s got a reaction out of you.
“Yeah, we really like those,” he adds, grabbing his dick. The lady walking past you chokes on air after looking the wrong way at the wrong time. You offer a small apology as you're ogling at the bulge forming in his sweatpants. “Matter of fact, how much are they?... Everything.”
“Like my entire appointment?... Gosh, I’m embarrassed,” you laugh.
“Yeah, all of it.”
You go over everything you’ve gotten done at the spa while Jungkook has paused the FaceTime call. You know he’s still listening because he gives an “mhm” every time you pause. Once you’ve come up with an estimate you look at your nail tech, who has your invoice and you’re given a nod, letting you know you’re in the right range.
You’ve been coming here since high school so you already know how much everything costs, but you still ask out of respect. You repeat the total so Jungkook can hear, thinking he’s about to tease you for spending so much, but to your surprise, he doesn’t.
“Cool,” he answers, switching back to the video call. “Hey, I’m gonna finish this game, but I’ll see you later, okay?”
Wow.
“Kay, bye.”
“Bye, love.”
When the call ends, your missed notifications come across your screen. A few from Instagram, Tumblr, and a missed call that says Spam Risk, but the last bubble grabs all of your attention. 
“He Cash App’d me. The fuck?” 
“Someone’s got a man,” your nail tech teases.
Your smile spreads before you can stop it. 
“Will you stop it? He’s not my man.”
Your argument is dismissed with a scoff. “Mhm.”
“I don’t, though.”
Not yet, at least.
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myfairkatiecat · 4 months
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Every line of “anti-hero” Taylor Swift applies to at least one Hawthorne.
I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser
Midnights become my afternoons
Jameson, in every sense of these lyrics. He’s always up at night doing whatever he needs to do to not think about whatever it is he needs to avoid. He chases as much adrenaline as he needs to not feel terrible.
When my depression works the graveyard shift all of the people
I’ve ghosted stand there in the room
Grayson and Nash (Grayson bc he’s distant and Nash bc he’s avoidant)
I should not be left to my own devices
They come with prices and vices
I end up in crisis (tale as old as time)
Jameson, all the way. Also it’s possible that Xander feels this way, even though we all find his scheming quite endearing as he doesn’t seem as bent on self-destruction as Jameson
I wake up screaming from dreaming
One day I’ll watch as you’re leaving
Cause you got tired of my scheming (for the last time)
Grayson and Jameson bc Emily gave them issues
It’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me
At tea time everybody agrees
For Jameson this could be interpreted as him feeling like he’s seen as too “ordinary” by his grandfather compared to his brothers but also knowing full well the disapproval he gets for the things he does to NOT be ordinary.
For Grayson, it could mean that he knows he has to be better than all of his siblings bc everyone knows he’s inheriting it all one day (ha.) and feels like he never lives up to it.
For Nash this looks like being the one brother who was never as involved in their grandfathers games as his brothers and always was a little more distant for the family. While he WANTS to be distant, he probably feels very confronted every time he catches sight of his relatives, even if they aren’t thinking about it that way.
For Xander, this probably refers to how he’s the youngest and least serious of his brothers and probably felt inferior as a child despite the fact that he’s the smartest of all the Hawthorne brothers
I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero
Hm which Hawthorne brother will do literally anything except confront themselves and their own actions? Which Hawthorne would stare directly at the sun, but never really look at themselves? EVERY SINGLE ONE. It looks different for all of them—for Nash, it’s pretending his last name isn’t Hawthorne; for Grayson, it’s burying himself in pressure and stress and work; for Jameson, it’s living 2000 miles an hour; for Xander, who actually probably has less issues with this (he seems introspective to me), it’s always creating other things that do things and never really noticing himself doing things. I could even get into talking about Skye and Zara here if I wanted.
Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby
And I’m a monster on the hill
To big to hang out slowly lurching towards your favorite city
Pierced through the heart but never killed
So, all four of them being extremely attractive means this can’t be taken the way it’s meant, but I imagine Nash probably has weird feelings about all his little siblings being around the same age and having all these shared experiences he is less familiar with.
Do you hear the covert narcissism disguised as altruism
Like some kind of congressman? (Tale as old as time)
Grayson, all the way. Especially after reading The Brothers Hawthorne. It’s part of what I love about his character. His internal monologue is “look at me being manipulative and asserting my power over everyone else” even when what he’s doing is perfectly fair (and sometimes when it absolutely isn’t). It’s almost like at some point, he was raised to take over his father’s business of being a billionaire who plays dirty and never learned any other way to be, and kind of hates that about himself.
I wake up screaming from dreaming
One day I’ll watch as you’re leaving
And life will lose all it’s meaning (for the last time)
Still Grayson and Jameson and still bc they have Emily Issues, but this version of the lyrics is how they would feel about losing Avery. Not, “she left bc she got tired of me” but “she’s gone and now everything is back to how it was when nothing meant anything”
(Chorus is the same)
I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money
She thinks I left them in the will
The family gathers round and reads it and then someone screams out
“She’s laughing up at us from hell”
I actually forgot this verse existed when I started making this post. But. This verse belongs to Tobias Hawthorne I. Duh. I guess this fits even better than I thought it did 😂 this is LITERALLY the plot of The Inheritance Games
I rest my case, “Anti-Hero” is the Hawthorne family anthem. Someone get all these boys therapy and happy endings 😭
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chainofclovers · 8 months
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(apparently i will never stop having) ted lasso s3 thoughts
It was such an interesting and weird experience to mostly really like TL s3 because it kind of felt like agreeing to go on a vacation with a large group of people and at the end I was like "well there were some ups and downs but that was a good time and I'm going to put together a scrapbook of this special vacation that broke my heart in ways I kind of appreciated" and then many fellow travelers were like "I can't believe I was stupid enough to get tricked to go on this shitty vacation and that we're all having such a bad time." And also it was like that at every checkpoint throughout the travels. I obviously wasn't alone in loving plenty of things about the season; I feel lucky that there are people who feel similarly enough to me that it wasn't totally lonely, and also of course it doesn't truly matter that everyone has different opinions about the same thing. I don't need a bunch of identical opinions to feel like I've earned the right to my own. It's more that there were multiple points where I was genuinely questioning whether my brain was just working totally differently in a way I should actually explore more because of how I felt about the intentions/intentionality and execution behind certain things on the show. Things that if I'd been watching sans fandom experience but with a similar level of obsession, I think I'd have been pretty unphased by and peaceful with. And it made me genuinely sad to feel like so many people I care about were having such a bad time with something that I, for whatever reason, was just having a mostly good time with in ways that I wish I could have transferred over.
Also, I'm clearly still trying to figure out how I feel because I did have an extremely emotional reaction to the show ending, more akin to something deeply earth-shattering happening in my own actual 3d life. There was a 72-ish hour period in which I cried more than I had in probably a year or two combined before that. I cried in the bathroom at a baseball game because baseball >>> sports >>> Ted. I cried about things I wanted to see on my screen that I did not get to see. I cried about the absolute unfairness of a human being only being able to exist in one physical space at a time. I cried about having a community that was centered around a shared interest and the sheer stress that goes into that. All through the summer and even now, although I am no longer crying about Ted per se, I feel like my ability to cry is way more close to the surface than it used to be.
So it's not that I had some kind of super simple reaction to the show that just made me willing to bop along to everything, even if some of my crying was just about mourning the end of something and appreciating it. There are definitely things I'd change if I'd been involved, including:
Zava's presence would have been a far more short-lived dalliance with the team that would allow them to do the same exact stuff in terms of Zava's recruitment allowing the show to more explicitly discuss Rupert's manipulation of both Rebecca and Nate (I loved that Zava initially felt like a device that would allow Rebecca to make those observations with full awareness that this is what was happening to Nate, and I thought her backstory coupled with Nate's scenes with Rupert were super well done)...but it would not have dragged into so many other episodes (and this would have freed up time for one of the main things I felt was missing, which was a more explicit discussion of the legacy of coaching, which Ted and Roy [and also Beard and Trent via the book and eventually Nate] all needed more room to discuss)
Shandy's role in KJPR would have been more explicitly about mentorship and its limitations and would have afforded Keeley more onscreen contemplation time
Instead of backtracking into raging out with jealousy over Keeley in the final episode, Jamie and Roy would have had their fight sooner in the season and would've spent the finale navigating the ambiguities of simply not knowing what was going to happen with all their relationships (which is what we basically get in the montage, and I believe those characters would get there, but even as a non-linear progress enthusiast I found their final scenes together annoying after having really loved most of their scenes together throughout the entire series...I have no trouble believing that Roy and Keeley would likely reunite in the future, or that they might really pull off the throuple, and I didn't personally need to see that happen on my screen, but I did want a more concretely sunk in growth moment for Roy)
One (1) fewer ambiguous facial expression from Michelle Keller, please, mostly because of how much I've hated talking about it
Ted and Roy would have gotten a goodbye(-for-now) that alluded to their overlapping traumas and things they had observed about each other and appreciated in each other
BUT. In general, I felt like the characters were never unrecognizable (including Ted in 3x12, who was not emotionless and dead inside and cruel and would not need to grovel if/when he returns to the UK and I will totally die on that hill), and the various missed opportunities and unfinished business and open-ended trailings off into the future did nothing to ruin the perfect beauty of s1 (which will always be soooo special and great) or the (often more clunky than s3 in my opinion) complications of s2 (which I did love in its way).
I think I'm just basically at my core someone whose favorite show is this one? So I'd rather, when my brain presents the options, take the more generous interpretation of certain things in a way that allows me to engage more fully than I would otherwise, if disappointment was ruling my viewing experience. And I think a kitchen metaphor is the only way I can make sense of this whole experience and why I'm kinda here for it and find post-canon a compelling place to explore.
I think of a cook performing mise en place to get a dish ready to cook. Or a baker getting all their ingredients out on the counter so they can more easily assemble the cookies or whatever. But if you're making more than one thing, which I think Ted Lasso the show was doing (and your mileage may vary on how well that went), you've got your assembled thing in the oven and then you're also doing prep for the next thing and you're loading the dishes in the sink from the old thing and it's kind of a constant state of prep and action and clean-up. And agree with it or not, s3 ends when pretty much every character has a messy kitchen. I absolutely include Ted in this. The montage at the end feels like Ted's attempt to neaten up the kitchens of every person he knows so that he can survive making his choice to take a long physical break from actually being in those kitchens. (Linked post describes how I feel about that scene, which I do think was reality rather than a dream, but highly filtered through one person's consciousness.)
(((Whispers: and the thing that mystifies me the most about fan reactions--other than the literal threats of violence against creators--is the whole "I guess Ted and Rebecca didn't have any meaningful connection after all and the parallels were just accidents or cruel jokes" thing...which is not something I have really read or seen online much recently at all if you're wondering. Because their parallel journeys matter so much! And the main way I can make sense of it all is by feeling like they did have all the ingredients out for the meal that would allow them to have gotten together during the 3 season arc, and because of Ted's very necessary choice they could not do that, and that doesn't mean the ingredients and their particular arrangement are meaningless even if hurts. That is genuinely what I see. And I completely understand why the missed opportunities or lack of acknowledgment of certain parallels is frustrating, but what i don't understand is the belief that the things we actually did get shouldn't have even been there if they weren't gonna kiss. I feel similarly about where Ted and Beard end up, actually, but that may be a post for another time [or the inside of my brain only] because I'm already very self-conscious about how long this is. The "Jason I am in your walls what was the reason for any of this" stuff just makes me feel so. Incredibly. Tired. The reasons were in the show!)))
Ted Lasso's finale attempted to put one last dish in the oven and bake it and bring it out, but just behind the outstretched arms with the neatly presented dish is a kitchen (a whole ensemble's worth of kitchens) in absolute disarray, no matter how much good stuff the characters have learned about mise en place and being a loving person and all that. Because the dishes literally never stop when you're a person, and neither does the hunger. I am not necessarily interested in analyzing how other shows whose endings I've loved or hated handle their character's figurative kitchens, but I do think that the way this show handled it is a big reason why the finale (and whole final season) was so divisive. I would love to remain as happily obsessed with it as I am while figuring out how to feel less intense feelings about how much some of the communal elements of it stress me out! I am an adult! I get how opinions work! I just have lots of feelings, I guess. :/
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zirawrites · 1 year
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Could you do companions reacting to sole breaking down and confessing to having a weird unique pipboy with a saving/loading function (like having the game mechanic in the real life)? They'd try to use it for good, loading back to get the best outcome in dialogs and quests, or to keep their companions from getting hurt in battles, but it'd make them go mad with time, so they'd start lashing out, hurting people, doing horrible things to them before loading back and being kind to everyone again. They'd regret the things they've done later, but still snap and do these things sometimes.
One of the tropes thst I like really much for some reason lol. Horrors of being a god.
Cait: “If I had one of those Pip-Boys, I’d be doin’ the same thing.” Cait shrugged dismissively. “We all need to blow off some steam. Long as you’re not actually hurtin’ someone, I don’t see why anyone’d get their panties in a twist.” Cait wasn’t sure why Sole felt so guilty. As far as she was concerned, Sole could vent their anger and no one would be the wiser. She just asked Sole not to kick her ass and then rewind time. The idea felt embarrassing.
Curie: “I cannot believe that such technology exists. Is there a way you could prove it to me?” When Sole explained that only the person wearing the Pip-Boy could rewind time, Curie insisted she try it herself. She used a marker to draw on Sole’s cheek (since she’d never hurt Sole, even for science), then reversed time with the Pip-Boy. Even after she watched the colorful mark disappear, Curie wasn’t sure if it was an elaborate prank. “Maybe we leave powerful technology to the experts, yes?”
Danse: “That’s abominable, soldier.” Danse’s face was red and twisted with raw fury. “Your Pip-Boy is the exact kind of damning technology the Brotherhood seeks to eradicate from the Commonwealth. And for the very reasons it is corrupting you.” He held out his hand. “Give it to me so it can be destroyed. I won’t ask again.”
Deacon: “So, how many penises have you drawn on my face? C’mon, don’t be shy.” Deacon didn’t believe Sole one bit, nor did he have any desire to try the Pip-Boy himself when they offered. When Sole wouldn’t let up or admit they were teasing him, Deacon was more worried about their mental health than the inconceivable power they wielded. He asked Sole to start leaving their Pip-Boy behind on missions, even if it meant needing to consult a good old fashion map.
Hancock: “Punching down is still punching down, even if the little guy won’t remember.” Hancock didn’t need convincing to believe Sole really had a time-warping Pip-Boy. He could tell by the anxiety on their face that they were telling the truth. The mayor focused more on explaining to Sole that any act of cruelty was wrong. And, in a roundabout way, hurting someone innocent was hurting yourself.
MacCready: “Have you used it on me?” MacCready felt sick when Sole nodded. “Was it to help me in a fight? Or did you ever, you know...” He couldn’t come out and ask if Sole had ever killed him. Their friendship would be ruined. Instead, MacCready glared at the Pip-Boy around Sole’s arm. “Never use it again. Or we’re through. Got it?”
Preston: “If I get hurt on a run, just use a Stimpack on me. No need to reload my life and try again. How else will we learn from our mistakes?” Preston was gentle with his attempt to get Sole to ditch the Pip-Boy. Even if it put their friends in danger. He just didn’t think it could lead to any real good.
Piper: “And you never stopped to wonder if the Institute made that for you? What if every time you reload something else horrible is happening? There’s no way you can just time travel without repercussions.” Piper was more angry with Sole using technology they didn’t understand than hurting other people. It wasn’t like Sole’s victims would even remember. “I bet it has some fancy tracking device. I dunno, Blue. Just get rid of it.”
Nick: “If things do not turn out as we wish, we should wish for them as they turn out.” Nick didn’t care if quoting Aristotle was pretentious. He was worried Sole would lose their ethics. Morals. Grip on reality. “You’re playing god, Sole. That’s never worked out for anyone. You’ve already let it go to your head. Don’t let it go to your heart, too.”
X6-88: X6 deeply enjoyed the possibility that time could be rewound. How many people could be saved from a stupid decision? The Commonwealth was filled with errant bullets, bad calls and careless people. “You aren’t doing anything I wouldn’t do myself with one of those.” X6 pointed at Sole’s Pip-Boy. “With technology like that, the Institute cannot fail.”
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Text
Impossible Sciences
A JSE Fanfic
Septics Inverted AU
Previous
(You guys really liked the last little part I wrote, so I’ve been motivated to write the next part sooner than I planned. :) This AU isn’t going to be back on a regular schedule, just when I get the time. For now, here’s this ^-^)
“Have you ever heard of a company called IRIS?”
Jackie looked up from his computer screen. His boyfriend, Frederick, had walked straight into the bedroom without even saying hi, and asked that bizarre question. “Good to see you too, welcome home,” Jackie said. “And, uh, no. Not off the top of my head. Why?”
Frederick crossed his arms and leaned against the doorway. “They’re under investigation.”
“For what?”
“For being suspiciously weird.”
Jackie blinked. “Okay.” He closed out of the game he was playing and opened up his browser, typing ‘iris company’ into the search bar on his homepage. “I’m gonna need more details. Are they, like, magic?”
“We don’t know. Alright, I’ll start from the beginning.” Frederick took a deep breath. “Me and Yvonne got assigned to this new investigation team. This IRIS? They’ve been setting up in the area, and their buildings are giving off strange energies. The Magi think it might be dark magic.”
“Why?” Jackie asked.
“Because we don’t recognize the energy signatures,” Frederick said. “That doesn’t happen. ABIM has some of the best magicians working for them, and the greatest collection of magical knowledge in the country. We don’t not recognize something.”
“Hmm.” Jackie clicked a few times, scanned information, and then said, “Well, according to Wikipedia, IRIS—or Inspiring Research of Impossible Sciences—is an American company that manufactures technology. Founded in 1920, in Kronolle, California. They have a website. And a Twitter. Huh.” He went back to the search results. “Yep, there they are.”
Frederick walked over to the desk where Jackie was sitting and leaned over his shoulder, looking at the monitor. “Look at the website. I want to know what stuff they make.”
Jackie clicked on the link, taking them to a sleek-looking site, monochrome in color except for some pictures and promotions. “Their breakout product looks like these cameras. Watcher. Or, actually, WTCHR.” He slurred the consonants together, pronouncing it as it was written. Frederick chuckled. “They look kind of old-fashioned, actually. But it claims that they’re really good. Look at this.” He circled the promotion for the WTCHR cameras with his mouse. “‘Advanced Motion Detection.’ So, it's for security and stuff.”
“No, I don’t think that’s quite it.” Frederick leaned closer. “It’s not ‘Motion Detection.’ It’s ‘eMotion Detection.’”
That sent a shiver down Jackie’s spine. “Do you think they can really do that?”
“Maybe. There are spells to pick up on others’ emotions, though I understand it can be overwhelming. If you could somehow put that spell into an object that can see, but not feel...like a camera attached to a computer...” Frederick trailed off. “Look, there’s a link up there for their products. Click it.”
Jackie did so. The page was arranged strangely, with a chronological list of all IRIS’s inventions from their founding onward, many of which had stopped being produced decades ago. But no matter what time period they were from, every invention seemed impossible. “Look at this shit,” Jackie muttered. “Infinity-color TV? What does that even mean?”
“I’m more interested in the Retrowave,” Frederick said. “It says it can restore meals to their ‘freshest’ state? I don’t like that, especially with that picture of the chicken dinner.” Said ‘chicken dinner’ was a live chicken on a plate, along with potatoes that had attached roots. “If it really works like that, that would mean they could somehow reverse the flow of time on an object, which should be impossible. Or at the very least, very, very difficult, even for magicians.”
“You think we’d have heard of these.” Jackie shook his head. “Something like that Lite-R device would’ve made construction so easy. It would’ve been all over. We’d be using those here.”
“Something’s definitely fishy with this company.” Frederick leaned back, standing up straight. “I think the ABIM is right to investigate them. Is there anywhere on the page that says where we can contact them?”
“Let’s see.” Jackie started scrolling. “Also, if you’re gonna lean over my shoulder, don’t do it in my blind spot. It freaks me out when you suddenly appear.”
“Ah. Sorry, Jackieboy.” Frederick shifts to Jackie’s right side—the side where his eye wasn’t covered by a patch. “Have I done that before?”
“A couple times. Don’t worry, though, just thought I’d mention it now. Anyway, I don’t see anything like that. Usually websites for an organization have a ‘Contact Us’ link somewhere, but not this time. Or at least a list of locations.” Jackie clicked into the website’s search bar at the top of the page and typed in ‘locations.’ No results came up. He tried again, with ‘contact information,’ ‘staff members,’ and ‘founder,’ but got nothing. “That’s weird.”
“Very weird,” Frederick muttered. “Oh! Didn’t you say they had a Twitter account?”
“Oh yeah! There was a link on the homepage, too, hang on.” Jackie went back to the website’s homepage and quickly found the link to IRIS’s Twitter. One simple click, and they were there. “Do you think it could be helpful?”
“I’m not sure, but it’s better than nothing.” Frederick stepped back. “Do you mind if I get a chair and sit with you while we do this?”
“I never mind when you sit close to me,” Jackie said impulsively. Then he coughed. “I mean, uh—”
Frederick laughed. “I’ll be right back, melon. Then we can focus and start the case together.”
Jackie nodded silently, face growing red. He watched Frederick leave, then, to take his mind off it, he turned his attention back to the computer screen.
Just when he thought things in his life were settling down...
- - - - - - - - - -
“Mr. Brody, have you ever heard of a company called IRIS?”
Chase thought that was an unusual question to ask. Especially in these circumstances. It wasn’t being asked by a friend as part of a casual conversation. He’d never even met the woman with short red hair sitting across from him. His first thought when he saw her in the visitor’s room was that she was a journalist. There were quite a few of those trying to get access to him now that his security level had been relaxed slightly. But a journalist wouldn’t ask a question like that.
“Uh...no,” Chase said slowly. He looked the woman up and down through the sheet of glass separating them. Maybe she was with the police? “Who starts a conversation like that?”
She laughed. “Oh dear. That was a bit blunt, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. I just sat down.” He glanced over at the guard standing at attention on her side of the room. It looked like he wasn’t listening, but Chase had no doubt he could hear everything they were saying.
“I’m sorry. I had to get a baseline understanding of your familiarity.” The woman clasped her hands together on the table in front of her. “I am here representing IRIS, you see. We just started setting up in the UK, but you are from America originally, so I thought maybe you knew of us.”
“No, I’ve never heard of you,” Chase said. “What is it? And why are you here?”
“Well, IRIS partially sells consumer technology,” the woman says. “But more relevantly, IRIS is an organization that aims to help individuals such as yourself.”
Chase raises an eyebrow. “Do you mean depressed people or murderers?”
The woman laughed again. “You’re very funny, Mr. Brody. In any case, I’m here to let you know about the transfer.”
“Transfer?”
“We’ve made an arrangement with the Mirygale prison system,” the woman continued. “And due to your good behavior, they’re allowing us to take custody of you so you can complete your sentence with us.”
Chase blinked, confused. There was so much wrong with what the woman just said that he needed a second to process it. “Who did you bribe?” he asked.
“That’s a very serious accusation, Mr. Brody.”
“Well this can’t be legal,” Chase added. “You just said IRIS was a company. That’s like, a private thing, not a government thing. So there’s no way you’re doing it through official channels.”
“I assure you, everything has been arranged as it should be,” the woman said, her tone leaving no room for argument.
Chase’s eyes flicked over to the guard again, but he hadn’t reacted at all. “Also, what do you even want with me?”
“I just said that we aim to help people like you, Mr. Brody.”
“With what?”
“I’m not here to explain that. I don’t have the authorization, and I could get in serious trouble for sharing information without it.” The woman’s voice softened a little. “You don’t want that, do you?”
Frankly, Chase didn’t really care if she got in trouble. He cared that he was about to be taken away due to a dubiously legal exchange, for a purpose that was totally unknown and probably malicious. “I think I have the right to know,” he said in a low, somewhat threatening voice. He leaned forward onto the table, getting closer to the glass.
That got the guard to straighten to attention. Chase looked at him, then leaned back. Best not to cause trouble right now. Though, maybe if he did, it would stop the exchange with this... this ‘IRIS’ organization.
“You will know sooner rather than later,” the woman reassured him. “Just not until after the transfer. Which will take place on August 11th, at 8:00 am.”
“You’re only giving me two days of warning?” Chase exclaimed.
“That should be ample time to prepare, physically and mentally,” the woman said, standing up. “I have to leave now.”
“Leave?! You’re just going to leave without giving me any damn answers?!”
“Rest assured, Mr. Brody, we’ll see each other again.” The woman gave him one last smile, but there was no sincerity in it. “Thank you for your time.”
And before Chase could protest any more, she left the visitor’s room.
He sat there, staring at the door on the other side of the glass, for a solid couple minutes. Just trying to understand what happened. The conversation, and the mention of the upcoming transfer, was making his skin crawl with unease and fear. None of this was legal. It just couldn’t be. How did this IRIS company make it happen? Sure, Chase knew from experience that the city legal system wasn’t exactly honorable, but this was different. Considering how many people would be involved, as well as how high-profile his case had been, it would take a major cover-up to smooth this over. Was it really worth it, at that point?
The thought crossed his mind to try and stop the transfer. But... how? It wasn’t like he could run away, being in prison and all. He could try to break out, but he had no idea how to go about doing that. And if his efforts were discovered, things could go quite badly.
There was nothing to do about it. Nothing he could do. He just had to wait for those two days to pass, and brace himself for what was coming.
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some-pers0n · 9 months
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For the ask game: 1, 8, 10, 14, 23
Oh boy quite a lot. Let's do it.
1 - The Character Everyone Gets Wrong
For Wof no joke it's gotta be Qibli. So many people write him off as a goofy silly guy who thinks a lot and is really smart when honestly he's a massive overthinker with horrible social anxiety and uses a cocky and confident persona to a) cope and b) try to make friends. He's not a joke-spewing machine that can't read the room and stop when somebody is in distress.
For TF2 it's probably Saxton Hale. Yeah he's funny and cool, but he's not really a good boss like. at all. Not even a good person before the comics. He was characterized as a guy who liked hunting endangered animals and selling terrible and cheap weapons to keep the Gravel War going. It's 500% more funny when he's got jokes about how unions and workers rights are a nasty thorn in his side.
8 - Common Fandom Opinion Everyone is Wrong About
[Insert character] being a Mary Sue. Typically it's Glory or Moon. Glory is a victim of poor character writing and favouritism on Tui's part and Moon's entre character is reduced to a plot device. Those aren't Mary Sues but just poorly written characters in ways different than a Sue. Plus I also just Hate the term and would rather people like...elaborate more on what they say as opposed to using vague buzzwords.
For TF2 it's probably that Engie is boring, both in gameplay and lore. For starters, put on the Gunslinger and Rescue Ranger and stop turtling in the same spots every round. Secondly, Engie's personality is one of the most fascinating due to it kinda being a little cover up. Not even to mention his whole family. So cool and interesting....
10 - Worst Part of Fanon
Hmmmm,,,flanderization is always terrible. I hate it especially with Qinter stuff since a good chunk of it horribly misses the mark of who Qibli and Winter (and even by extension Moon) are and what makes them click. Their whole this is that they have a persona and I feel Qinter as a whole should be based on them putting aside their exaggerated personalities and finding solidarity and comfort within being around each other as their pure selves. This and also the infantalization of characters like Whiteout. All my homes hate that.
Same thing can be said for TF2. Me and my homies hate Nazi Medic. Medic likes his coworkers, he just is a bit silly like that.
14 - One Thing you See in Fics all the Time
For WoF, it's gotta be swearing. I literally don't know why it kinda irks me, but it feels weird when you're writing something serious and straight-forward while the dragon characters say the fuck word. Nothing against it, I just...I dunno.
For TF2 it's always the goddamn shoe-horned in racism/queerphobia. Please man I don't need you to get up on your soap box and tell me that the 60s wasn't good for queers and people of colour I'm trying to read Old Man Yaoi. It's especially annoying when certain characters (ex: Soldier) only exist to really fulfill the role of being the person who make it "period accurate" by including 12 extremely harmful and horrible slurs in every sentence they speak.
23 - Ship You've Unwillingly Come Around To
For WoF: Cleril somehow. The "Cleril is good :)" -> "Peril is toxic and this relationship will never work" -> "Cleril is good :)" pipeline is real. Peril HAS been getting help and is vastly improving. She is doing so incredibly well. She uses Clay as a moral compass, but she's aware of that and trying to change. It's not that bad of a ship ngl.
For TF2: Jagerbombs (Demo/Medic). I'm God's strongest aro/ace Medic enjoyer so I like them best as friends, but honestly they're just great together. Literally written up like 19k words of these morons. Never would've thought in a million years I'd do it (especially considering how I'm the No. 4 Science Party person ever) but they're just wonderful. Honestly like them better than HeavyMed– *gets shot*
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otakween · 2 years
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Digimon Adventure 02 (Blind Watch) - Episode 17
Wait...I literally just remembered that the parents (plus a bunch of other people) saw all the digital world stuff by the final episode of season 1. What exactly is the IRL awareness of digimon?? The kids have to hide that they're going to the digital world from their parents, but maybe that's more because it's dangerous? Or was there some memory wipe thing I'm forgetting about. (This ramble triggered by a line in the dub where Matt says "Don't tell me Myotismon destroyed the studio again!?" to his dad...)
Anyway, putting my confusion aside, I really enjoyed this one. It had the good kind of callbacks instead of some cheap repeats. It was especially nice to see the S1 kids finally sit down with the new kids and tell their story. Probably should have done that already by now, but better late than never!
There was...no battle in this one?? Wild...
Notes:
-I think the movie director in the beginning of the episode had the same VA as Joe. Low key distracting.
-I liked the concept of not just a ghost being caught on camera, but a ghost that changes its movements every time you play the video back. Not sure I've seen that done before...
-Very heartwarming that they've turned Aug. 1st into a special day of remembrance amongst their friend group. I've seen fans making posts about the date before and maybe I'll start celebrating it too! (I'm an August baby so it feels extra special).
-Aside from Bakemon who doesn't count, I guess this is our first ghost digimon? Really unfair that Wizarmon didn't get to be reincarnated like everyone else :'( I wonder if we'll see him again?
-I sighed a small sigh of relief when we got hat!Mimi back. More importantly, her ridiculous pink/starry hair is gone! I hope this isn't just a temporary change. She looks really cute with pig tails
-Didn't really think about the difference between living with a single dad vs. a single mom until Takeru and Yamato had a discussion about it. Is every single mom in this series a homemaker...? (Nothing wrong with that, but it would be awkward if there wasn't at least one mom with a job).
-They censored the curry in the dub lol. American kids in the early 2000s didn't know what curry was I guess
-This episode featured a bunch of MD players to the point where it felt suspiciously like an ad. I had to google what an MD was and it's a mini-disc (like GameCube game sized). Of course, they just called it a "CD player" in the dub
-Dead at the dub line "Don't mind him dad, he's just not a happy little buffalo!" LOL (American kids also don't know what sutras are apparently)
-They addressed a question I had in my earlier post about how they were stuck using the computer lab to enter the digi-world. Koushiro finally figured out that they could connect from any computer and that the D3 device was more important. (Honestly, they should have thought of this sooner, but I guess everyone's busy with school lol).
-It felt kind of weird to me how Wizarmon was showing up on TV to get Tailmon's attention, but we never really see the kids watching TV or catching any of these appearances. They kinda just stumble across him instead because Tailmon's Wizarmon's senses start tingling. Oh well, all's well that ends well...
-Very rare episode where there's no battle and the digimon only evolve to their rookie forms. I feel like this shows that the writers trusted the kids enough to sit through an episode without all the usual stuff, so that's nice.
-I'm going to go ahead and qualify this as a Halloween episode because ooky spooky
-Wizarmon continues Gennai's tradition of giving super vague and unhelpful information. Thanks for nothing! (I guess he was mainly hinting that Ken is a victim of "the darkness." Okay, Kingdom Hearts...)
-Sad Tailmon tho ;-;
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twodollarhero · 11 months
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More like "that demo was sick"-min 4
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So I just got done playing the demo for Pikmin 4 and it was like... REALLY cool!
My relationship with Pikmin has always been kinda weird. I've always merely liked the series a lot, when I've always felt that I should love it. On paper, it's exactly what I love about Nintendo: weird, interesting perspectives on a genre that takes a well-worn concept and makes it clean and accessible. Splatoon is the "Nintendo-ified shooter" just as Pikmin is the "Nintendo-ified RTS" or whatever... so why don't I love Pikmin in the same way that I love something like Splatoon? I really haven't ever been able to put my finger on it. My best guess is that I've never really vibed with the world, the story or the characters. Not because the games have been completely devoid of those things, but there's just enough of a wall of glass between it and me to leave my handprints on the windowpane, begging to be let in. Couple that with one or two too many unfriendly design decisions that have long been innate to the franchise and I think I always come away feeling that Pikmin and I would always be like the couple who date, break up and keep trying because - hey, maybe this time it'll work out.
Like any toxic relationship, Pikmin has done a lot of work on themselves and I really think they've changed this time. Playing the demo for Pikmin 4 has graduated my excitement from a tepid "ah shit here we go again" to actual, factual hype. While it isn't a completely frictionless experience, it solves practically every major problem I've ever had with the franchise and - for once - the glass wall has been shattered and I'm able to tip-toe around the shards on the floor.
First of all, the story setup is actually pretty fucking cool this time around? Look, I get it: diehard Pikmin fans are annoyed that it seemingly retcons the scraps of connected lore the series has had leading up to this point. I can sympathize with that, actually -- it would annoy me if that happened to a franchise whose story or lore I was really invested in. But, looking at it from the outside? I genuinely feel like taking our familiarity with Olimar and using his rescue - and possibly "death"? - as a narrative device to set us out in this new entry is a pretty cool idea! I think it gives people a great jumping on point for Pikmin, which I think absolutely feels like Pikmin 4's mission through-and-through. To the point where they even let you just play as your own character this time around. And while the character creator is simple, I really liked being able to make my own weird little guy for a change. All Pikmin characters look like gross, fleshy homunculi, but this one is mine!
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So yeah, I like having my little weirdo here and I'd love to see yours. But it's the new gameplay additions that really turn my crank. The core of it is still very much Pikmin, but they've added some really nice quality of life stuff into this one in addition to just putting together a really pleasurable loop. You aren't just trying to survive and you aren't even really just trying to rescue -- everything you're collecting feeds into satisfying, measurable improvements. Honestly, just the feedback loop that Oatchi alone provides is satisfying enough to carry it for me: rescue enough lost members of your Rescue Corps (or stranded civilians), earn a point of "Pup Drive" and spend those points to make Oatchi even more useful than he is as a baseline, which is already very fucking useful. Uncover raw materials in the world for the weird scientist dude to turn into interesting traversal applications, puzzle solving applications AND player improvement applications, like new pieces of gear that'll allow you to withstand elemental effects. Rather than needing to forage for food every day, you're instead gathering household items in the name of "Sparklium" to repair your ship, which ultimately just rewards you with new cool areas to explore, i.e. it rewards you with more Pikmin 4. And even just in the demo, you've got an expansive little mini open-world to play in that feels super tight and well designed! But that's before you even touch on the caves.
Oh man, the caves. Apparently this is a returning feature from Pikmin 2, but it's been like 15 years since I've played that game so it feels super fresh to me. Even still, according to Pikipedia, Pikmin 2 only had like 14 caves in total. These feel like Pikmin 4's versions of Shrines in Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom. Little sections of the game that are ripe with rewards, but also super concise little puzzles and challenges that are off the beaten path. And, like Shrines, the sense of elation from seeing one of those blue lids makes me want to stop everything I'm doing to go explore them. The game knows that you'll want to explore them too, by slowing the day's time counter to 1/6th speed. Pikmin 4 has also integrated a system where you can straight up rewind the clock back a few minutes if you want. Like, the game is autosaving every 2-3 minutes and if something crazy happens, you can just rewind back to that previous save state. It's one of those accessibility things that hardcore fans can totally choose not to engage with, but someone like me is happy to have it when I accidentally got all of my Red Pikmin killed and would've been soft locked. It's the little things!
SO ANYWAYS, TL;DR... I really, really dug the Pikmin 4 demo in a way I wasn't expecting. And as someone that was kind of disenfranchised with AAA games - even Nintendo ones - for the first half of 2023... it feels really good to be excited about big budget games again. I love loving stuff.
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devinkrispy · 1 month
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April 8th, the rain isn’t letting up, everyone is trapped in.
As I let this soothing song play in my ears it brings memories back to when I first heard it, my first playthrough in P5, it also brought back specific memories I had to the original thoughts to when I first made my channel, or any online presence for that matter. I simply wanted a community for people who were just as chronically online as I was. However looking back I searched the wrong areas.
As glad as I am now, I do wonder what would it be like if I Decided to just dive into the deep web of places like 4 Chan, or niche communities of tumblr.
Community is all I wanted, as of now I can say I have mine now. But the methods of getting here. Were they worth it? Was it worth going through the hell that was shokus, witnessing the hell of troupe, just for internet lore?
That’s all it is at the end of the day technically, if you turn your devices off and act like none of it happened you wouldn’t be technically wrong.
Shit Let’s take the one who shall not be named for example, they left and acted like we didn’t exist (at least I assume) then Beni followed shortly after.
That makes you think of what you could really do with your online persona. Which in itself is a weird concept. How does one make a persona strictly for the online space? How does one separate it from their IRL counterpart without any tension or trouble? Wouldn’t time be a significant factor here?
Then that makes me think of what could happen when I get my own crib, I’ll get the prolonged alone time I oh so yearn. But what’s to say I won’t fall back into the old habits that I did when I was chronically online?
Would I be wrong for being chronically online again? Would I be wrong to be less online? Does it really matter, does anything matter for that matter? Even when you think of everything going on at this exact moment would it even fucking matter?
What would everyone do if the earth explodes in 24 hours? Probably mayhem. But say that didn’t happen, how would everyone feel about their life?
If you 🫵🏾 were to be told your life ends in 24 hours would you be happy?
And if you say no, why? Is it something you can fix? If not why dwell on it? If you can fix it? What’s stopping you? Nothing.
Nothing stopped Beni and them from leaving, Nothing is stopping me from moving out,
Nothing is stopping you from transitioning in any stage of life, why are we as humans so afraid of change when we so desperately need it sometimes?
Of course this applies to me too. But then again who wouldn’t it apply to? Every second I’m awake I’m dedicated my life to change. I don’t care in what form or what way, weather I am changing my ideals, my clothes, my body, my life, my bank, it doesn’t matter what it is, I can no longer stay stagnant, nothing changes if nothing changes. So personally my mask needs to be taken off itself. I can no longer sit here and expect another life changing event to walk in my life like it’s been doing all my life ESPECIALLY since I am an adult now. I have to make change if I want change for the better or worse. I’m embracing the Bad now. I love it, confusing time in identity, that’s great that means something is changing. Financial struggles? That means something changing, friends leaving me? People I was close with not fucking with me? My favorite foods not hitting no more? My gaming hours go down? It all boils down to change and I need to stop resisting it. The only way to do so is to go about life and shut up. Whenever God, the universe, whatever you wanna call it is speaking I should listen. And that’s what I’ve been doing. My outlook on life has been changing recently. Way more than I originally expected, I’m way less strict about everything now. I don’t care what I’m doing in 10 years. What am I doing now ? I woke up, what am I doing with my life currently? I go to school, work, and I come home to game. Rinse and repeat, I’m not living IM just existing.
AND I REFUSE to simply exist when I can experience life and all it has out for me. What would be the point if I couldn’t go out and live my life the way I wanted to. Because at the end of the day we are shapeshifters too. It’s just not physical. We change so much as living beings that there’s no way we can be the same people for our entire lifetime, we probably live 7 lifetimes over, do you know how much can happen in 10 years, 5years, 1 year, 6 months? 2 weeks? Shit nigga A FUCKING DAY????! We have to be more aware of this ! They try to make us Goal driven, which don’t get me wrong is great! But we’re thinking of it all wrong! People think of goals as accomplishments when we should plan our goals based off experiences! My goal is to be a father and a wonderful teacher to three beautiful children so they can also experience life and spread knowledge.
That’s what it’s all about, experiencing life so you have a story to tell.
We are always caught up on what other people’s story is, what they are gonna do, what’s your story?
In story writing they have a term for when the character goes through a journey that teaches them a lesson, they call it an Arc,
What’s your Arc?
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dailyrandomwriter · 4 months
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Day 503
Something I’ve been meaning to do, and finally got around to doing it (because I had time) was to set up a gaming journal. It sounds like a strange thing to set up. Primarily because, it’s a video game, why would you want a journal for it, and two, most people associate video games with those 300 hour monstrosities that come out of the AAA game industry. 
And don’t get me wrong, I play those types of games. Role playing games are some of my favourite genres of video games, and farming based games can rack up a good number of hours. Having played Harvestella, which was both a role play game and a farming game, I had sunk over a 100 hours of my life into that game. So I am aware those games can be very long.
However, most of the games I own are not that crazy long. Most hidden object games are about 3-4 hours long, Small, silly adventure games like Lumbearjack and Lil Gator Game were about 2.5 hours and 5 hours respectively. Lil Gator Game was only 5 hours long because I purposely went out of my way to collect everything, otherwise that game could have been done in probably 2 hours.
The only game I’ve played that was for over 300 hours was House Flipper, and that was on and off for years, because it was an old game that constantly got updated a few times every year.
Which brings the question of, why am I doing this?
The first, has to do with a personal belief I have about consuming media that I don’t always practice. Especially with video games, because I rarely get to talk about video games with anyone. Doubly so in the face of my own unique tastes. 
I believe you shouldn’t mindlessly consume media. It’s fine to enjoy media and just consume it when you want to relax, but I believe you should always try to practice on occasion the act of thinking about the media you consume. Having gone to university as a literature major, I know we practice this concept with written media all the time academically. We even do so for movies (aka film), but TV shows and video games are mediums that we don’t practice that skill with. 
In part I think because we view those more for just purely entertainment than even movies or books. And so we sort of justify not thinking seriously on those mediums and in fact sometimes make fun of people who think a lot on those mediums. I know from the outside, a lot of people are weirded out by those whose hobbies are to analyze and theorize about things like shows and video games. 
Like why would you take this so seriously?
Because one, it is fun to do so, but also it’s good practice to practice critical thinking.
Which brings me back to starting a gaming journal. The journal exists for two reasons. The first is a memory keeping device. I have a tendency of forgetting the small details of a game even if it stuck out to me at the time or was an amazing set piece. Forgetting small details makes it harder for me to think critically on narrative driven games, and it’s a bit sad that I forget that sort of thing. So having a place to store all those thoughts I had about the game I was playing is useful.
The second reason is to force me to think about why I liked a game and how much I really like said game. One of the major issues around understanding video games is that a video game is supposed to be designed to keep a player’s attention. Some developers will use some pretty underhanded tactics to keep you playing but not necessarily engaged. It then becomes a mental exercise of, was I actively engaged or was I just grinding through? If I don’t enjoy something, why am I not enjoying it?
So taking the time out to run through a checklist of questions about a game I’ve played to ask myself if I really like the game is helpful to me and choosing games in the future. Doing this also allows me to take time to acknowledge good games that just might not be up my alley. 
Like I think Inscryption and Balder’s Gate 3 are great games. I enjoyed them when I played them, they’re very well and tightly designed games. However, I am terrible at deck builder games (Inscryption) and apparently get overwhelmed by choices in CRPGs (Balder’s Gate 3) so I’ve not finished either of those games. It doesn’t make either of those games less amazing for what they have done, it’s more of a me thing rather than a game thing.
So yea, a gaming journal, for more mindful consumption of my video games.
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noxiatoxia · 2 years
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heyy yyits been a while
ngl i ran out of hikakao hcs/scenarios. i cant think of anything,, so if u have any please share i want to talk about them but i have nothing in my brain. brain empty
ALSO i want to play sonic now i keep seeing post about it and im like Damn i want to play a sonic game. never been able to play one because ive never been fortunate enough to own a nintendo device, like a ds or a switch. def would've LOVED sonic if i did have one when i was younger, considering how much i love the guy now. unfortunately i have No Money. Sad
also this is unrelated but i really like tetris i like tetris a lot. i play tetris for hours on end recently,, i even started playing it in my head any second my mind wanders. every time i close my eyes, my brain is fitting together those colored blocks. its a lifestyle now, one ill never escape. but thats ok im a little autistic and i like tetris. life is good
HEY it's ok dude i get it!! sincerely just Thankful somebody has as much brain rot as me abt them
I guess I'll take this moment to ramble a teeny bit about them. So the other day I was on a JP doujin site reading this hikakao doujin and I was like "Oh I've seen this one before but in English. Where's the english one" and i almost went searching for it till i realized that. there is no english translation I just can read/understand Japanese so I've read it before and understood it and that translated into my head as "it must have been in english" which is so wild to me. gaslit myself into believing there was an eng version of this doujin bc i can read japanese.
The other thing I've been thinking about is the ship itself and how I like to perceive it.... believe it or not I have rather complicated feeling on it. As in, there's a LOT of thoughts I have about hikakao as a ship. Obv there's the straight forward romantic "they're in love your honor" way WHICH I don't mind not at all, I like it. But I think my favorite dynamic is?? hard to pin point. So ok, in my head, I don't think they see each other (or would ever really see each other) as "boyfriends" or even romantically? But their relationship is def more than platonic. Basically some weird queer shit is happening idk. They're each other's closest and most important person, they are closer than most COUPLES are with each other but they don't see each other as lovers. But they do all those gay things, depending on how I feel I want to portray them sometimes it's just they kiss sometimes bc they're that close with each other and other times it's like. yeah they fuck. But either way it's like. They always see each other as brothers and nothing "more", but "brothers" to them is this very very weird thing. It's what most people would consider "dating" and "lovers" but that's not how they see it. Is this making sense.
I think this fanfic is the closest adaptation to what I'm trying to describe here, it's short but rlly fucking good. But it's a really interesting take on their relationship and tbh? I think I vibe with this the most. They're not "in love" but they love each other, and people on the outside might not see a difference. I guess it comes down to the fact romantic/platonic attraction is a spectrum, and Hikakao lies in some weird gray era.
Of course tho I love the ship in all forms, even strictly only platonic/familial, cuz I guess my interpretation isn't too far off, just a little more "questionable" (lol).
And idk your thoughts on tamahikakao, or haruhikakao, but I love both those ships, too. I have VERY complicated feelings on both much like hikakao itself so if you wanna know more I'll let you know >u< but ANYWAYS yeah, I'm obsessed with these co-dependent weirdos, love 'em (and for anybody new here reading this I think it should be common fucking sense but I do not support incest in real life bc what the fuck)
About SONIC!!! I could talk literal hours. I have before to my friends. Sonic was my first and oldest special interest, the series is so dear to my heart. I don't know EVERYTHING of course, I think that's impossible, but I'm close. I know so much useless facts/watched all the shows + movies/played the games (not all of them, also broke + i suck at sonic games hilariously)/read the comics/etc etc. My favorite sonic games growing up, hilariously, we're not any of the main line games. I always loved the spin-offs. My absolute favorite was Dr. Robotnik's mean bean machine. I played that sooo much, beat it multiple times. It's literally just puyopuyo reskinned. Otherwise, I LOVED Sonic Fighters, Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic R, Sonic Riders and Shadow the Hedgehog. Some may say I have bad taste but I say everyone just doesn't fucking know how good these games were /lh (altho I will defend Shadow the hedgehog to the grave I LOVED that game)
Of course I played all the other major titles, the genesis games, Colors, generations, black night/secret rings, unleashed, etc etc even 06, which back then as a little kid even I knew it wasn't very good... it just wasn't that fun to play.
OH I almost forgot the handheld games. I sadly didn't get to experience the ones outside of the Gems Collection for gamecube, so the GBA/DS ones I never really got a chance to play except Sonic Battle (LOVED THIS ONE TOO), Sonic Rush, and Sonic Chronicles which... was a VERY interesting game that confused me a lot as a kid but I still liked it (basically Sonic JRPG)
someday here, I plan to buy the Sonic Advanced titles, since outside of Sonic Ultimate Flash (that fanmade game) I never got to really play them. I like playing on actual hardware, and I have a DS Flashcart, so I can play any DS game, but GBA games I cannot.... maybe I'll get a GBA flashcart if they exist and aren't too pricey.
If you're like me and don't like playing on PC emus bc it's just better to play on actual hardware, all I can really suggest is save up for a ds + a ds flashcart. Otherwise, if you have an Xbox system or Play Station, I know quite a few sonic games are on those! Sonic Heroes (forgot to mention, love this one too) is on the OG Xbox, and Shadow the Hedgehog + Unleashed are on PS2. And of course there's many on Xbox360/PS3, and so forth. So if you have those systems look into what Sonic games there are!!
And of course you can always just read the new IDW comics (much better than the Archive comics IMO, up to issue 52 rn. It's SO good, the story and the new characters are just amazing.
Also, I love tetris, too :) It's a fun calming game for me. Also it's got that sick music, obviously. I have Tetris Plus for the gameboy and play it when I get bored, but I wish I had the OG tetris bc I don't think Plus has the music... it's been a long time, tho. Dr. Mario is another game I have and am kinda obsessed with tbh. Ah good memories man
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hotwings0203 · 3 years
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I feel like Dabi would be the type of dude who would bully you incessantly at the LOV and for the life of you you can’t figure out why. He’s always around you and making snarky comments or pulling your hair, trying to catch you messing up on missions. You’re sure he hates you, and you do well to stay out of his way, or sometimes when you feel bold you’ll offer a quip of your own. The bullying increases whenever you talk to other guys at the bar, especially when you make Tomura crack a smile, Dabi’s breathing down your neck the second your leader leaves, calling you terrible names and pushing past your boundaries.
Cw: language, nsfw, noncon, manga spoilers, some angst?
In a perfect world, Touya would not have been abandoned and rejected by his family. In a perfect world, Dabi would not exist, and Touya would be eating dinner with his family right now as he shows his little brother how to properly wield fire to its fullest extent.
But there was no such thing as a perfect world, and therefore Dabi did exist. And Dabi doesn’t care for anyone, or anything.
Or so he tells himself.
“Slut”
“Nothing but eye candy, and shitty eye candy at that”
It’s nothing you haven’t heard before, but it doesn’t make it any easier to ignore him
“What was that all about, huh? The fuck are you and crusty snickering about?”
Fed up with his continuous antics, you decide to mouth off a little too.
“Oh nothing, just talking about how adorable you and Hawks would make as a couple. And wipe that sneer off your face, it looks like some of your staples fell out of your mouth.”
It’s nothing too snarky, but in a second he’s shoving you in some dark room, forearm pinned against your throat as his hand is lit up with blue flames merely inches away from you, snarling in your face.
“You wanna be funny, bitch? I got jokes of my own too, why dont I show you what happens to dumb little girls who don’t know their fucking place? I think that would be real funny.”
But his hand is stopped from drawing near your wide eyes when you both hear Twice and Toga calling everyone for their next meeting.
He pushes you away from him, giving you a murderous look over his shoulder as he leaves the room, not paying mind to the way you slide down the wall in the dark.
You take extra precaution to try avoiding him for the next few days, not even making eye contact with him when you two get teamed up for tasks. He never mentions the room incident, if anything he acts as if it never happens. It’s like whiplash for you, he tries to weirdly talk to you more but all you offer him is mumbles and hums of agreement.
The conversation is never long, but it starts to be less talk of degrading you and more of begrudging questioning of what you’ve been up to. You never engage, opting to pretend like you never heard him, and strangely enough he leaves it be.
You give him a side eye one day as he joins you at the bar (much to your discontent), downing your glass just to fill another.
He says nothing as he slides into the stool right next to you, and pours a glass of whiskey for himself as well.
It’s awkwardly silent, you’re not sure if you should leave or not, but you’d be damned if you try to initiate small talk with this psycho.
But then, he speaks.
“Is Shigaraki sending you on the mission to get that UA kid?”
His gravely voice rumbles and cracks from his usual lack of use, and he clears his throat after he talks.
“No.”
“Oh.”
This is excruciating, you think to yourself as he mulls over the drink in his hand for a silent minute or two.
Toga calls you over thankfully at the exact same moment, and you breathe out an inaudible sigh of relief as you slip off the stool to join her.
“Wait-“ Dabi grabs your arm and you flinch out of instinct, expecting a slap or a burn to come from him.
He sees your reaction and shakes his head dismissively, letting you go and muttering a “Nevermind”. You don’t ponder over it as you trip over your own feet to join the eccentric blond.
A week passes, and then two. With each day you maneuver your way around him, request to be partnered up with different people in private, and busy yourself in random tasks. Every time you pass him by the bar he lifts his head from whatever he’s doing and tries to maintain eye contact with you, even going so far as to open his mouth to say or ask god-knows-what.
You try to ignore the foreign hopeful glint in his glacial eyes as you walk right past him, ducking your head as you do so.
It drives Dabi crazy.
He can’t handle any more rejection, he thought his family would be the last straw for him to ever want recognition or love validation from again. He wants to talk to you, to hear your voice as it snaps back with witty comebacks of your own that he secretly enjoys so much, even if it means he has to force it out of you with hateful words. He wants to feel your hair underneath his scarred hands, even if he has to mask the soft wanting of you in forms of yanking the strands. He wants nothing more than to see your eyes fill up with no other sight than him and think only of him, even if it means he has to corner you and scare you into submission.
But your silence is something he’s not used to.
Well, to be fair, you weren’t silent completely, but the only sentences he was hearing from you nowadays was when you were speaking to Shigaraki or the other League members.
You were the only idiot who didn’t notice the smoke curling from his nostrils and ears comically when he’d finally see you stop your stoic act just to open up to other men apart from him. Spinner, Twice, and Compress backed off almost immediately from talking to you for too long when they’d see the look on his face as he watched you surrounded by them, but Tomura would merely smirk from behind your shoulders and keep a level gaze with his subordinate, knowing fully well why he was so pissed off.
You began to notice the weird energy at the base soon after the rest of the men would keep curt conversations with you in comparison to your long talks about video games, sex, and life after you would all win the war.
So you thought it would be best to ask the most semi-normal person there that wasn’t fueled with testosterone and aggression.
“I just don’t get it, why are they all being weird? I mean, we all used to talk so much and now they just...try avoiding me. Except for Tomura of course, he’s still normal I guess. But he always has this smirk on his face when I’m with him and I can’t figure out why.”
Toga stops cleaning her blood-laced needle to give you a sly look, all fangs and glinting white.
“And Dabi?”
“What about him?”
She sits back on her haunches and cocks her head at you. “You really don’t know what’s happening here, do ya?”
“No,” you roll your eyes in exasperation. “But I’ll gladly take any theories here, since apparently I’m the only one who doesn’t get it.”
“He likes you.”
You gape at her for a moment and then burst out laughing.
“What? That’s crazy, he doesn’t like me, he hates me!” He can barely stand being in a room with me, all he does is talk shit and harass me.”
The blond curiously licks at a bead of red from the top of the weapon and you cringe when her own tongue rips from the sharp point.
“You say he can’t stand being in a room with you, so then why is it that he’s always there? He might talk shit, but he talks to you out of everyone else right? Regardless of if it’s something mean.”
You’re thoroughly flabbergasted. She had a point, but it was too much to wrap your head around. She cheerfully hums and gets up to flounce around the room, cleaning her already-tidy room up to a T.
“And that little silent treatment act you’re giving him isn’t helping either. I swear, Jin told me Dabi almost burned his mouth off that one day you, him and Spinner were talking about GTA. He totally cornered the poor guy and threatened his life if he didn’t stop talking to you.”
“You’re joking.”
“Am not. He wanted to do the same to Tomura but I figure he wants to keep his job, so he won’t. Doesnt make it any better for him when you’re all chummy with the one person Dabi can’t stand the most, though.”
No wonder your leader was so smug whenever you two were in the same room, your attention solely focused on him.
You run your hands down your face, moaning about the whole situation being fucked. It’s just your luck that you couldn’t take a clue, but to be fair, how could you? Being called worthless and a waste of space wasn’t exactly what you had in mind for flirty banter.
“Soooo what’re you gonna do now? I heard he’s gonna try talking to you for realsies like, tomorrow or something.”
“Tomorrow?” You yelp, jumping up to your feet. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I can’t face him!”
“Oops,” she giggles, twirling with outstretched arms around her room and falling down onto her bed.
“Oh god, I can’t do this. I don’t even know if I like him! He’s such an ass, and even when he tries to come off as normal he’s just so..unsettling. I don’t think I’ve ever had a good conversation with him.”
Toga props her elbow up to rest her chin on her hand, frowning in thought.
“Why not just tell him how you feel?”
You snort and fold your arms. “Yeah, because the psycho arsonist is really gonna take the word no well.”
“Hmm.. I see what you mean. Oh well, whatever you choose, I’ll support you!”
And with that she skips out of the room sing songing for Twice to make a clone for her.
You were fucked.
And sure enough, the next day he approaches you, hands stuffed in his pockets and an almost bored look on his face.
“Yo newbie, I gotta talk to you for a second. Come with me”.
You look blearily up at him through eye bags and mussed hair, a direct telling of your sleepless night. Your stomach drops when you hear his words, but you nod your head and take a deep breath, mentally preparing yourself of the speech you practiced till the sun rose.
No one else is bothering you both today, Shigaraki having gone to visit All For One and the rest of the League left to their own devices. It was something you weren’t so comfortable with, but you doubted a hero would come to save you.
He leads you through the short winding hallways, each step of his growing louder and heavier as the space started growing smaller. Finally, he reaches a dimly lit room and stops outside the door, gesturing for you to go in with a casual wave of his patched wrist.
“After you.”
You raise an unsure eyebrow at his uncharacteristic show of consideration, and do as he says. You’re sweating bullets, fists balled so that your nails are digging into your palms, and vision going in and out of focus as your eyes begin to adjust to your surroundings.
A loud bang pulls you out of your stupor, and you whip around at the sound.
Dabi is already staring back at you with lidded eyes, leaning his weight against the door, his arms crossing over each other.
You shift on both feet, picking at your nails nervously.
“So, what did you wanna talk about?”
He says nothing, but just observes you, his head slightly tilted as if you were some abstract art piece.
“Dabi.”
“You got a lot of nerve, y’know that?”
He pushes himself off the wall and advances slowly towards you, hands stuffed in his trench coat pockets.
You immediately back up with raised palms, sputtering indignantly at his offensive movements coming closer and closer. However you thought his ‘confession’ would go, this was most definitely not starting out like how you planned
“Excuse me? What’re you talking about-“
“I know what you’re doing. You think whoring yourself out to ol’ crusty and the rest of the guys here is gonna make everyone forget just how useless you actually are. What the fuck do you even do here? You fuck up half the missions which I have to come bail your ass out of, you constantly put us in jeopardy by being all friendly with everyone, and you can’t even keep your mouth shut when I need to let off a little steam, as I rightfully should.”
In a perfect world, Dabi would be the light of your eyes, the hero of your world. In a perfect world, Dabi would be able to hold your hand in his smooth one and tell you that he wants you so much that it impairs his rational judgement and makes him say things he doesn’t mean. He��d tell you that your presence is like a weight lifted off his chest, your presence means he doesn’t have to think or worry about the outside world, he just wants you all to himself without anyone interfering.
But this is not a perfect world, and Dabi is not a hero, but rather one of the worst villains.
So he does exactly what one does as a villain.
Instead of a loving look that he knows he’s incapable of, Dabi looks down into your horrified gaze as he traps you against the wall between his scarred arms, spewing misplaced venom at you.
“I don’t know what your problem is, but you need to chill out. First you go ballistic on me ‘cause I talked to Tomura for no reason, then you act all weird and quiet as if you’re some decent person, and now you think you can just bring me in here and tell me how worthless I am? Go fuck yourself, seriously.”
You scoff and make your way to push him but stop when he does what he did a couple weeks ago. You hold bated breath as he casually brings an inflamed hand to scratch at his face as if he can’t feel the hellfire emitting from it, and let out a whine of distress as he lowers his head mere inches from yours, lips almost touching.
“Stop talking to the rest of the guys,” he breaths. “Stop smiling, laughing, or going near anyone who isn’t me.”
You wonder if he knows how insane he sounds. He does, but that’s nothing he doesn’t know already. If anything, it solidifies in his mind that if he is to be as bad as the world has made him out to be, then he is acting exactly fit for the role.
“Why?”
“I don’t need to give sluts like you a reason. It should come as easy, right? What’s putting out for one more person?”
Your eyes are brimming with tears now, your stoic facade showing cracks as you sniffle a little bit.
He eats it up and groans watching salty rivers cascade down your cheeks. Suddenly, he feels as though he can no longer hold back anymore, he feels as though if he thinks for one more second he’ll combust.
So, acting on instinct, he surges forward and presses his lips against yours, swallowing your cries of distress and holding your hands above your head in midst of them frantically beating on his chest.
Your lips are so, so soft compared to his and it’s making him sink deeper into this instinctual daze. He puffs against your writhing lips as he thrusts his hot tongue in your mouth.
You try to bite him but when his hands heat up against your skin you resign to your fate and wail, allowing him to pull his hips flush against yours and start humping your thighs.
He draws back and bites your lips, teeth clacking against yours as he does so. You open your terrified eyes and blanch when you see the look on his face.
Lust is clearly drawn everywhere, from his blown pupils to his heaving chest, all the way to his flushed face and wild eyes. He looks as though he’s about to eat you alive and it’s appropriate that you feel like a lamb about to be slaughtered.
“Dabi, wait, please stop-“
But he cuts your pants off again in favor of slamming his hips against yours again and grinding impossibly hard on your legs, the friction of his jeans catching on your clothed cunt and forcing a mewl out of you.
“I’m not gonna stop. I’ve had enough of you teasing. You’re mine now, and if it takes burning our dear leader alive and this whole place down for you to understand that then I’ll fucking do it.”
He thought that terrorizing you would ease the empty feeling in his heart, that continuously berating you would force him to see you as what he always said you were, just another empty headed cunt. He thought that distancing himself from you and focusing on other things would make him forget about the soft feelings he longed to share with you, feelings he thought perished in the fire he was in when he was a young boy .
Even now, there is an ache in his chest as he hears you beg for him to stop, to let you go, that you’re sorry for whatever you did.
But this is not a perfect world, and not everyone gets their way in life.
You should really learn that, because Dabi already has.
And so Dabi will act accordingly to what life has put out before him .
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gb-patch · 3 years
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Ask Answers: July 10th
I really let asks get away from me lately. I was super focused on working on that Patreon Moment. With that done I can finally think about doing other things, so here’s a new collection of answers!
Thank you for sending in questions everyone ^^.
For the new Patreon moment, will you be able to reference it in step 4? Or just like a tiny nod to it if you pick certain choices?
There won’t be. I’m sorry if you were hoping for that! The Patreon moment is meant to be entirely optional, it’s not something that gets you extra content in the main game.
Is the new CG artist the main one now? :0 I’ve noticed theres been a difference in the art style recently. Is the old CG artist still going to make art for the game? :0
The original artist still makes CGs for the game sometimes, but he mainly focuses on character sprites.
Are you going to put the NSFW our life moment on a website other than patreon? I would love to get it but I can't use patreon atm.
I don’t know. I'm afraid we can't release the Patreon Moment on a normal game storefront because we can't mix 18+ content with our family friendly game. If there's some other place similar to Patreon where it's not the normal type of full-scale public content releases we'd consider using that, but I’m not sure if there is another site that’s better than Patreon in that regard. I'm sorry.
Out of curiosity, in all of your games so far, which characters in each were the most fun to write? They obviously don't have to be your favorite characters!
Buffalo Seer in AFA, really everyone in XOD/XOBD is pretty equally entertaining to write, The Guide in LoV, and Cove in OL!
idk if you accept "personal" questions, but is there anything you've been watching/ listening to lately
Mostly, I’ve been watching/listening to Authortube videos as of late! It’s people who talk generally about the process of how books become traditionally published and/or share their own experience as they attempt to be published. I don’t have an interest in writing normal text based books, but it’s really interesting to hear about that world. I’m listening to a video about royalties right now as I answer these asks.
Will one of the desserts we get to pick be fudge? That'd be such a cute reference! 
Haha, yeah, it should. Unless I completely blank on it and forget when trying to include the various referential food options.
I don't know if this has been asked previously but what would be the approximate heights for the presets MC can choose from Step 2 ~ 4? Are there any measurement you had in mind? Sorry if I didn't make myself clear kk I've been struggling with my English lately 💀 
I don’t know, ahah. I didn’t have any numbers in mind for that. So it’s whatever you imagine it is!
I noticed a bug with the Patreon moment when it comes to what your character wears. When Jamie and Cove are kissing while my character only had dresses selected, I had both the option to remove the dress or to remove the shirt... Picking one of the options to interact with Cove, after he removed his shirt, it had Jamie remove their shirt followed by ther pants despite only having dresses picked. 
Thank you for reporting ^^
I keep refreshing steam to see when the new doc for xobd will be released. I noticed you haven't posted anything about it in quite some time. Would it be possible to ask about a timeline/potential date? (If it's even this year—) I know you and your team are probably working super hard, I'm just super curious! ~Thank you!~ 
There are more stories done, I just haven’t gotten around to publicly releasing them. Hopefully I will have a chance to spend the time on that sooner rather than later!
hello!! i’m not sure if it’s an update but i’ve just replayed our life and at the end i can’t propose to cove anymore? :(( i’ve actually tried playing twice but the options are not there anymore, did you guys remove the options? i’m sorry if you’ve answered this before!! thank you and have a good one :) 
I’m afraid things haven’t been changed or removed, so I think you might’ve accidentally picked the wrong things somewhere along the way and locked yourself out of being able to propose by mistake. Sometimes you meant to say you want to get married but instead you mis-click and have it so the MC isn’t thinking about marriage or something. All I can suggest is starting from the beginning of Step 3 and making sure to follow the steps listed in the FAQ. I’m sorry for that.
Did yall remove some of the options for when youre making out with Cove in the charity moment? I could've sworn you could grab his bonkadonk and its not there anymore 
This is the same situation as the above. We didn’t remove things and you’re not wrong that there are sometimes those options. But there are various choices you have to make to get those options and it sounds like you accidentally missed something. If your relationship isn’t long-term, you can’t do it for example.
HI IM SO EXCITED I CAN FINALLY GET THE STEP 3 DLC 
Thank you for getting it!
Is Shiloh super totally straight bc I’m very gay and a huge Shiloh fan, would my man make an exception?😩
Sadly, he is one of our super straight characters. I’m sorry.
Hi, I have a very dumb question. In Step 2 does Cove not wanna share his drink with us at the mall (or rather why he stops drinking it) because it's an indirect kiss? Or is it like ...weird to him to share? Because if I remember right he eats off our spoon in the birthday scene right? 
Yeah, he’s awkward about it because he likes the MC and it feels very personal to share a straw with his crush.
Hi! If you don't mind me asking, who is the artist for OL2? Their style is so pretty! 
Thank you for saying so! This is her Twitter- https://twitter.com/redridingheart
Do Beginnings & Always and Now & Forever exist in the same universe? 
Yep! XOXO Droplets also exists in the same universe. It’s one big GB Patch world, haha.
Do Pran's parents regret the way they raised him? Do they feel ashamed of it?
No. They’re the type of people best cut out because they’re not gonna change. Which is why Pran does go very limited contact when he’s an adult.
Hi! I just wrapped up my second playthrough of Our Life, and I absolutely adore it, but I had a question. I went to the gallery and found I was missing 2 CGS (specifically Step 1-3 and 2-3) and I had no clue where they would've shown up. Which moments are those found in? 
You get it by telling Cove about his dad offering you money to be his friend in Step 1 and Step 2. You can’t get both in one playthrough, since you can only tell Cove the truth once. I’m really glad you liked it!
Hi hi! Please, how tall is Baxter and Derek? Love the game so much and I can't wait to see more! 
I don’t know, aha. I think Baxter was around 5′10 and Derek was like 5′8/5′9, maybe. I really am not one who has specific heights for things in mind.
is adult cove a bottom, top, or switch? 
A switch, though would choose the top if he had to pick.
I was wondering if there is a way to transfer save data? Even if through the game files. I wanted to be able to transfer my save data from my desktop over to my laptop so that I could continue playing right where I left off from but I'm not entirely sure how to go about that. 
If you save the save folder/persistent data of the game from your desktop and put it into the game folder on your other device, that could work.
Hi! Is it possible for us to know the date when our life: now and forever comes out on steam? Sorry if you've mentioned it before but I haven't seen it and I'm looking foward to that happening and just wanted to know :) 
It’s gonna be a long time, I’m afraid. There’s no estimate right now.
I started playing Our Life with my sister a while ago, and I think you guys should know that we discovered your secret. >:)
L from death note and Cove are clearly the same person, and this whole game is just an origin story!!
I’ve never seen that show so I’m sorry to say I don’t understand the connection/reference you’re trying to make. I’m pretty out of the loop when it comes to media. I don’t watch movies or TV.
Will OL2 have options for disabled MCs?
I understand if it's too complicated, just curious
Unfortunately, it’s not really something we have a plan for. We couldn’t finish the game if we tried to include every disability and have it be meaningful. It’d just be too much content to create. But if we decide to only include a few, how would we choose which disabilities get to be represented and which are left out? I don’t know. It’ll probably have to be something we don’t include as an option again, sadly. I’m sorry.
playing our life > anything else 
Haha, I’m glad you’re enjoying it.
Honestly, I would like to thank Our Life for helping me come to terms with my sexuality. Before, I never would've actually thought that it was possible to like boys romantically and still be asexual. Almost all of the BL visual novels I've read had unskippable sexual content in them and it honestly just didn't click with what I feel. I'm glad I found Our Life. I love the game, the developers, and this fandom so much. Now, I can safely come out as homoromantic AND asexual (at least anonymously here anyway; my parents are still huge homophobes 😂). 
Aw, it’s great to hear you felt comfortable being yourself in the game! That’s wonderful. I’m really sorry about your parents, though.
Will the demo for OL2 be on android? Really not sure if I could wait any longer than I have to aha 
Yeah, it’ll be available for Android once we eventually release a demo!
Do all these reveals perhaps mean development is progressing ahead of schedule? Please let that be the case I'm already obsessed with Qiu 
No, sorry, aha. Art comes along much faster than script/programming-work for us. It’s gonna be a long time before the game is a finished thing you can actually play. But at least we can look at the beautiful images.
Hey! First of all I wanna say I reallllllyyyyy loooovvveeee Our Life and XOXO Droplets! I have over 300 hours of playtime on Our Life… Anyways, I was just wondering, are the Derek and Baxter DLCs going to come out at the same time? If not, which one do you plan to release first? :3 
They will come out separately and Derek will be first! Glad you like the game.
I keep replaying Our Life to get every possible iteration and I am loving it <3 I was wondering if Cove gets locked out of his confession because MC was talking to Lee, would it be possible to confess to him in step 4? 
Yeah, you can avoid the confession in Step 3 and then get it in Step 4.
Hi, my Cove wears bracelets through step 2 and 3 but I still don't get an option to give him a bracelet? I didn't even know that was possible until I seen someone else ask about it lol 
Hm, did you use the Cove creator? Maybe there’s a bug where using the creator to add bracelets doesn’t fulfill the requirement to give Cove a bracelet in Step 3.
Wait, I'm dense, when does Baxter appear in step 2? Is it from big park firework? I feel so bad since i really love Baxter and waiting to buy his dlc. 
It’s in the Soiree Moment. You have to be just friends with Cove, indifferent, or crushing but not ask Cove to the dance at all. Then while there you can find someone new to dance with. But if you bring Cove to the dance while crushing, the MC won’t wanna dance with anyone else so you can’t get the scene.
In step 2 when we go to the soiree I made my mc go alone and baxter chooses the mc to dance, i'm curious, why did he pick the mc? sorry if this has been asked before! 
Because the MC looked to be around his age, seemed to also be searching for a partner, and had nice legs. A perfect option for him.
I read some of the FAQs, and I saw that we could tell Baxter about the condo that he rented there was previously the mean old grandparents. how do we get the mc to tell him that? 
It happens in the DLC Moment “Late Shift”. If you don’t have a job you instead get a longer scene with Baxter.
I don’t know if you’ve addressed this or not, but are you planning on paying voice actors for our life: now and forever? 
Yeah, we pay our VAs in all our projects.
hey can i ask how you did the moments thing in ol? im trying to get into making visual novels and while im VERY sure its out of my comfort zone and all that atm i kinda wanna know just for the future, bc im p sure it would work well for something i wanna do :O but its also fine if you cant say for other reasons :> 
I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean. Are you asking how we programmed the screen or something script related? Adding Moments like that is pretty straightforward, though. You just have buttons that open to different labels and then the scripts are essentially individual short stories/vignettes. Good luck with your VN!
Since Autumn becomes gender fluid later in the game, will there be a character who remains as he/him to romance in game? 
OL1 has the he/him LIs, OL2 is all about other genders.
I don't want to impose on your creative plans, but a parrot could possibly make a good pet in an OL-type game? They're pretty long-lived and likely to still be thriving by the end even if the MC got them back in step 1. 
I do appreciate the suggestion, but I’m afraid it’s not likely going to happen. I understand there are technically some animals that could theoretically live long enough to last the whole game that or we could have the MC only get a pet after some years have already passed. But the many things that would have to be considered/accommodated for makes it just something we probably can’t manage adding. I’m sorry.
As time passes will we be able to see Qiu and Tamarack's other stage arts as well?
They are both so cute i can't wait to be friends with them!
Yeah, we’ll show content from other Steps in the future. It’ll be a little while from now, though.
Can you date Cove and still have your family comfort you in the car?
You can’t get Cove’s Step 3 confession scene if you have the family comfort you in the car. But that’s not the only way to date him. You can get together with him earlier in the game or later on in Step 4.
Is Mc always going to be the one walking down the aisle or could Cove do it? Also could you choose to have one of your moms walk you? 
No. Cove wouldn’t want to walk down the aisle like that and the MC automatically respects that. And the MC also gets to have their preferences respected, so it’s up to you whether they want to do an aisle walk or not. You also can pick who, if anyone, walks with you.
Once step 4 is out, will you be able to go the whole game on crush/love without either of you confessing? 
Yes, as long as you tell the game you don’t want to progress the relationship. Even in Step 4 it won’t force you to officially get together.
Howdy, so in Step 4, there will be any Romance with Derek that is not part of any dlc? 
He’s only a friend unless you get his romance story.
Will the step 4 in OL2 be one big step or are you considering moments? 
Step 4 is just an epilogue in both games.
hi kind of a weird question but!! we know tht cliff doesn't start dating again but. wht abt flings? like does he ever do 1 night stands or anything? thank u!!!!!!!!!!!! 
Nope. Cliff has a very small interest in sex. If he’s not in a real relationship with a partner he’s crazy about it simply isn’t something he feels a need for, so one night stands wouldn’t even cross his mind.
sorry if you've already answered this, but i was wondering if there were plans for there to be bonus love interests in OL2 like how we have derek and baxter in OL1.
Maybe! There are side characters who could be given romance stories, but whether or not it will happen depends on funding and how long everything else takes to finish.
I don't know if i'm allowed to ask about ol2 here yet, if not u can ignore this or answer it later. My question is can you date one of them and be good friends with the other? I don't want to be strangers with the other bcs i love them both a lot :<
Yes you can!
what patreon level do i have to be to unlock the nsfw moment? im on the $5 one right now, will that give me access to the moment, or just access to the moment progress? 
That’ll give you access! Tier 2 and anything higher allows the player to download it.
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itsbeaker-bxtch · 2 years
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Why Newlow had to take down Circe first
I read @to-fu​ mind blowing theories about PSP Circe being a clone created by Loki, explaining why she is so different. I have my own weird and convoluted theory I would like to share. Listen- What if she is so different because she was Dominic Newlow first subject testing the mind-control helmet?
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In the PSP Game, Circe is a white woman with blue eyes, while she should be tan with brown eyes. I don't think she is a robot like Rebecca, otherwise Dr. Dominion would have used her instead, since he had easy access to her. When confronted about her affair Circe says: « I know.... I know I did... [a horrible thing] I just wish I knew WHY ». Why? So she doesn't know about the mind-control device. Her intimate secret reveals that nothing excites her more than volunteering for crazy science experiments. This rings close to PC Circe to me. Could it be that Newlow somehow tricked her into testing the device without her being fully aware? She stated to the player she would NEVER betray Loki. Of course it could be a cheater trying to make excuses. But what if it's not the case? 
Circe has definitely a strong personality. If Newlow made her have an affair with him, then his machine was operational. What made me think of that is her personal secret: Every time she sneezes, she forgets what happened in the last five minutes.There could have been a thousand silly secrets to imagine for her, so why mentioning the memory loss? This seems so out of character for her to not notice nor fix something this annoying. It really seems like a side effect to a brain experiment of some sort. I also wander why would Newlow start an affair with her? I mean, yes maybe they were attracted to each other. But I can’t picture Circe being the flirty type. Anyway, Circe is quite attractive (three men were after her, four with Dominic), but she is first and foremost intelligent. She’s so clever, in fact, that I strongly believe she started having suspitions regarding Dominic’s behaviour.
Dominic Newlow is described as a genius (evil supergenius to be precise). Who could have stopped him? Isaac is his friend, Loki is too busy with his patent, most scientist are focus on alien....no one but Circe Beaker. On top of that, she is supposed to be a doctor right ? But wait, how come everyone refer to Dominic as Doctor Newlow but not Circe, who is supposed to also be in the medical field? What if he made sure HE was the ONLY doctor in town? Nothing hint at Circe’s career...or maybe there is a clue. Her bio says she leads the buisness end of the Beaker operation. Of course she does, she is a fortune Sims. Maybe it’s because english is not my first language, but I think their is a play on word here : buisness operation also meaning a medical operation. In this case the Beaker are a powerfull science oriented couple that posed a serious threat to Newlow’s ambition.
What if he made sure HE was the ONLY doctor in town? The only one with a strong reputation. Circe's was the only other clever Doctor around, he had to take her down first. That's why he tested the helmet on her. Not only he got a gorgeous woman, he also made sure the Beaker couple is out of his way. Circe stated two things about her affair:
1. She felt like a little worker ant that had to obey. I think Circe was/still is in the medical field in the PSP game. That's how she met him. That's why she also could be useful as a slave. 2. She was like a different person when she was with him. Again, she could be trying to make excuses. Let’s assume she was not herself, like, at all. Now, that's a statement! The character who looks is so different from her PC counter part is saying that she WAS different.
Now, this could be a little twisted but please consider this: The mind-control device, when first tested on her, changed her physical appearance. This sound crazy, but if Newlow was trying to break free from the simulation, he could also have made Circe's face corrupted. The game constantly break the 4th wall so, why not ? What if the changes aren't random? Blue eyes, white skin, blue sweater. Perhaps she tried to resist the mind-control, maybe it was guilt, or love, that made her think of Loki during the all process, impacting her appearance that way.She felt different because she was indeed becoming different. 
She is left with memory issues and only works for Newlow. Slowly, he become the only renowned Doctor in town and gain respect. He improve his device: after taking down Circe, he will take down Strangetown, and then, the Watcher themself.
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