#ramblings ramblings

[salbertwolf]

The earth shattering realization the game you have played is the only one like it, there is no other game, there isn't a world like it and you are cursed with that knowledge and abandonment for it, you are happier to have known and experienced the joys of playing, have come out wiser for it, but you'll never get anything like it again.

[bithcisweartogod]

something something possible symbolism of the characters’ assigned chess pieces

i’m not that big of a chess player though, so if you are and have something to add/correct PLEASE DO 🙏🏻

xia fei - a pawn. most commonly met as a metaphor to a person who’s being used by others. but if we consider the pawn’s importance in the game of chess, they’re far from weak. pawns remind us not to underestimate those who wield less power. after all, if the pawn manages to reach the end of the chess board, it can turn into any chess piece, even a queen. and honestly that really correlates with my perception of him so far. xia fei seems way less threatening than vein and liu xiao, but i think he has his own motivation to be with them, and this image of a nice cool popular guy might be helping him in his pursuit. no one expects anything dangerous from him. maybe they should.

lu guang - the knight. knights are unpredictable. they’re the only chess pieces that move in an L-shape, even the queen can’t do that. because of their small range of movement, they have to be thoughtful and tactical. they are not limited by colour. knights are also the only ones who can pose a threat to the queen without putting themselves at risk. all this adds up with lu guang’s character so perfectly. he’s literally a walking unpredictable mystery. his own power is limited - he can only see 12 hours into a picture. he’s tactical and calculating, he quite literally writes down all his steps. he’s quick to come up with new ideas and thinks several steps ahead, like when he put a phone in cheng xiaoshi’s pocket to make a photo of vivian. [lu guang’s also a convincing actor, as it was noted by cheng xiaoshi, so i’d assume he’s good at lying and (reaching omg) maybe he’d even be able to control his heartbeat 🤭]

cheng xiaoshi and vein - the rooks. brute force. they move in a straight line, forward and backward and are not limited by colour. they are the second strongest piece after the queen, but they are way more predictable than knights and bishops. and yeah, that does sound like cheng xiaoshi. in times of danger he acts really quickly - jumping in front of lu guang to shield him from a bullet, or how he acted in that fight with liu min. he’s quick, and sometimes marches forward without thinking. his power is so influential that it is even desirable by others - remember how li tianchen wanted to “try it” for himself. i’d assume vein to be somewhat the same. we see that he also isn’t the type to try and escape a fight, the exact opposite. and if cheng xiaoshi’s goal seems to be more defensive - protecting those he loves, then vein is (seems to be for now at least) full on offence. bold, brutal, unrelenting, moving forward and getting rid of those who stand on his way. liu xiao - the bishop. they own the diagonal lines. they also have to create strategies and need other chess pieces to protect them. they can only move on one colour though, so in that aspect they’re limited. but as the board gets emptier their power grows - they can move a long distance. that’s also how i see liu xiao so far. “mastermind stays in the dark” and all that, he prefers to have others work for him than perform the actions himself. he’s quite young and i’d think he’s generally weaker than vein and maybe even cheng xiaoshi, but he’s dangerous. he pulls the strings and no matter how strong you are, if you’re not careful - you’ll get roped into his game. one more interesting thing about the bishop is the motif of belief and religion which is, well, in the name - we see it played out in liu xiao’s trailer as well.

but the board isn’t complete. we’re missing the queen and the king. just a theory, but i’d assume the beautiful mystery lady to be the queen. in the ending her eyes SHINE just like lu guang’s, so i think she also is an ability user. and if that’s true then well…her eyes shine yellow…looks familiar…haha..;; the queen is the most powerful chess piece, moving in all directions, on all colours. so i’m really looking forward to seeing her enter the game

and the king - if i continue to theorise, i’d say it would be cheng weimin. the king’s range of movement is small - yet he’s the single most important piece on the board. and i’m sorry but if we look at this official art (oh god tumblr wtf what’s up with the quality) then we can see a black king (and i’d assume it’s a king, they’re characteristic of having a cross on top, right??) lying defeated…i’d guess papa cheng isn’t coming home :(

also while i was reading about chess and stuff, i found that bishops and knights are worth roughly the same, though the bishops are considered more powerful. if that matters at all, i’d interpret that as liu xiao and lu guang both being incredibly smart and good at creating strategies, yet liu xiao’s network of connection and influence outweigh lu guang’s. but maybe that’s also why there are several moments that point out liu xiao’s interest in him - maybe he’d think he met an equal.

[onionowt]

i love your sky ocs 🤙🤙 i’d really love to hear your sky headcanons tho

Headcanons you say? Well, if you are interested in my headcanons i HAD to explain them in the best way possible. Because of that, i decided that i want to tell you about the headcanon i've thought of the most

BEHOLD

Well! I don't even know where to start! Probably i need to explain what i think skykid's "core" is and how it works

Skykid's core is located in their chest and acts as their heart (obviously). This core stores all gained winged light which helps skykids upgrade their wings(this is also obvious, im pretty sure that this is canon, even).

What would happen if the core stores too much light?

If there is too much light energy in one skykid, the body just cannot exist. Skykid will dissolve into thin air and particles of their light will fly into orbit, where after a while a new skykid will form.

What would happen if the core stores no light?

This video

What would happen if the core is destroyed?

Skykid is dead

BUUUT!!! WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF THE CORE IS INJURED??? The skykid becomes permanentally wingless

You can imagine an injured core as a poorly glued vase from whose cracks water constantly flows out and only a small amount remains inside.

How can it be injured? Probably by anything haha. Red shards? Krills? An unfortunate fall at the very beginning? Anything can cause core damage, but to be real, it almost never happens.(Skykid's core is very fragile, it's easy to destroy it, but hard to "make a crack" on it)

Since core injury means that skykid has a very small amount of light, it also affects their appearance.

Wingless skykids, unlike any other, emit very little light and their limbs are mostly darker than the rest of the body. Looking at them you might think they are sick!

The injured core has almost no effect on the physical condition of the skykid, but it is important to beware of dangerous places!

Aaand i guess that's it. All my ramblings on wingless skykids! I'm pretty sure that someone before me already had a thought of that, but it was fun to write anyway.

Thank you for reading this, im running away

[lt3]

i tend to fixate on disasters and accidents which i know is morbid and weird but that’s how my brain works i guess. the ones i tend to read on and watch a lot of videos of are the challenger disaster, the columbia disaster, 9/11 and the nutty putty cave accident. i don’t know why these are the ones i focus on to be honest or why the curiosity for disasters, although i’ve read about other people with adhd who also happen to fixate on disasters and true crime, so there’s that

[thesovereignsring-if]

I think the strangest thing about the power fantasy crowd is that the lack of power is like the most appealing thing of the story. The idea that you are a mid-skilled player in a GoT scenario sounds amazing. The victories over people better than you will feel greater, the threats will be more threatening, the losses more devastating. IF is an amazing space to play around in because it is free from the constraints of power fantasy. It's fun to play cowards, crybabies, and folks that can't do everything on their own. It's actually kinda baffling that there are so many people in the IF space that don't seem to understand that stories like yours can and do exist in the space.

Yes! You get me Anon!! You get exactly why I made TSR an IF game ; ;

I actually adore disempowered characters placed in helpless/disastrous situations (which is prob why I love characters like Sansa Stark from ASOIAF (Cat, Sam and Davos hold special places in my heart too) and Peeta Mallark from HG). It's just how they interact with the story/characters/narrative are a slightly different flavour than the stereotypical protagonist.

But I understand that it's not for everyone! Sometimes those types of characters hits too closes to home and people play games to dive into the power fantasy of beating the narrative and fight evil and kill god! And there's nothing wrong with that! I love empowering narratives and underdogs rising above their preconceived stations.

But I'm not for bulldozing through the narrative/story under the blanket assumption that becoming Sovereign allows the MC to act unjustifiably brutal without consequence. ^^ I hope it doesn't come across as pretentious.

Going in, I knew I didn't want to make a power fantasy game, especially when the in-game society and characters are dealing with the all the shit that exists in the content warning. It doesn't work for me tonally and I don't want to gratify the acts of brutality that happens in the story by having the MC partake in it without proper consequence. There's a lot of grey in this story and it's probably gonna upset a lot of people, but I like when things are a lil messy and when the good people lose while the bad guys get away and vice versa.

[kozykricket]

im SO gaming i just WROTE like 2k words in an hour. just out of raw FLOW. i didnt set myself expectations of it needing to be perfect or anything, and i just WENT FOR IT and

YIPPEE

[gorgynei]

im joining the war on gross disgusting pornographic content on the side of gross disgusting pornographic content

[pixelprofligate]

"youd do numbers on tumblr" girl i am on tumblr and the numbers? 4

[songsofwaterandnight]

No, app on my phone, I don't want to edit it with AI. I don't want to generate with AI. I don't want to ask the AI. I don't want to make AI wallpapers. I don't want to rewrite with AI. I don't want t-

[salbertwolf]

Playing The Wolf Among Us constantly felt like everything went "Aren't you tired of being nice? Don't you just want to go ape shit?"

and boy did I want to several times which feels like a constant reminder on how the world goes, you can't go to their level, you must be better than them... but should you? Really? When does the line between justice and revenge truly begin and where does it end? Can we really trust this system when it doesn't really work, and we know it doesn't work when something like that is allowed to not only fester but bloom under it? And if we can't trust the system, are ourselves really trustworthy when we have the bias of wanting things to go our way?

Bigby is in no way a morally good person, nor does he live in a society that facilitates redemption in himself, in a way he is forced to retain parts of himself he would rather do without (what those parts are, truly, depends on the person and how you play him, the man or the wolf), it is a battle between himself, and by extension, the world.

I need to play more of it to truly disect everything but these were my first thoughts and impressions (as someone who never saw someone play it, read Fables, or knew anything before)

[goldensunset]

idk who needs to hear this but if you have been putting something off bc it doesn't need to be done until the end of the month. we are almost done with the teens we are approaching the big numbers (the twenties). that date shall dawn upon you swiftly and without mercy before you know it. psa for everyone except me i got plany off time

[darlingofdots]

"gay or european" also goes for middle-aged women btw. that lady with short hair no makeup and sneakers isn't a lesbian she's just german

[yume-fanfare]

i think it's really fun when a rly specific trope is super popular in one particular medium but in other ones it's just totally unheard of. it's the time knife. visual novel players are suuuuper used to death games but many others encountered them for the first time in squid games. the other day my mom showed me all excited the summary of a super original novel she found and it was about a girl who got reincarnated as the main character in her favorite fantasy book

[lockandkeyhyena]

actually we should start headcanoning female characters as being terrible with children

[nickmpreg]