#'the game has enemies therefore there must be a way for players to defeat those enemies'

[catgirlthecrazy]

Me: you know what sounds like a nice way to unwind before bed? Playing the cat-befriending-robots game, it's so sweet and relaxing. Yeah, there are sometimes swarms of scary bugs that try to eat me but so far there haven't been too many of them, I can deal with it

Stray: SEWER CHAPTER COMMENCE

Me, an hour later: how the fuck did this poor kitty wind up in a Dead Space level

[marrowwife]

A WIP INTRO

"Listen. I'm sure it was a good thing, in whatever backwoods village you crawled your way out of, to be kind, and helpful, and friendly. But you matter now, you're Sainted--- we're Sainted. We're the strongest players of the Court. And in the Court, being kind is a weakness. Being kind will get you eaten alive."

His retreat was cut short with a firm grip around his arm and a pair of eyes, brightened almost as gold as they had that terrible day in the great hall. Alaryk wondered if this was the first time Perryn had ever stopped smiling. He wondered, staring at the boy burning with an intensity as fierce as the High Summer sun, if a single smile had been real to begin with.

"Teach me." Perryn said, and he sounded like the roar of a wildfire, like the intimate crackling of a hearth. "You said it yourself, we're Sainted. The same. So teach me how to be like you."

Alaryk wrenched his arm free, and the thing inside him howled and writhed and whispered terrible promises. "You are nothing like me."

ABOUT

Title: Ravenous

Genre: NA Fantasy

Themes: Monstrosity, Queerness, Identity, Trauma, Legacy & Family, The Nature of Good and Evil (Constructed Morality), Nature vs Nurture

Tropes: The Chosen One, The Main Trio, Coming Of Age, Anti-Hero, Moral Greyness, The Boarding School Setting, Medieval Fantasy Setting, Knights vs Monsters, Rivals to Friends to Enemies to Lovers, The Orphaned Hero, Sun and Moon Coded Characters, Child Soldiers (kind of), More TBA

BLURB

Idrismark is a kingdom fractured, the land sequestered between impenetrable mountains and the gnawing, ever creeping monstrosity of the Ravening Wood, the burial place of the Betrayer. What is left of the inhabitable is ruled by the whims of the Noble Houses, originally claiming lineage of the Six Saints, individuals with untold powers who defeated the Betrayer and held back the corrupt magic of the Wood. Now the Houses are the Upper Class of Indrismark's population, all trained in the arts of Knighthood but focused in the games of Court politics.

It is only the Sainted that truly provide safety from the Ravening Wood, those with the strongest blood ties to The Six and a fraction of their power, most often sacrificed in the war against the Wood. Therefore, when two Sainted appear in one generation, a peasant plucked from the masses and a Noble's son, all of Idrismark is watching. The common people in joyous relief, having been subject to the increasing ferocity of the Ravening Wood. And the Noble Houses in rapt, hungry calculation, ready to do anything they can in the mad scramble for power a Sainted is want to inact upon the Court.

Alaryk has known his place since the moment of his birth. Son of the House Lupei. Disappointment to his father. Neither a first son and heir, nor the daughter his father had hoped for in a third child, to be wed in alliance and used as a pawn in the games of the Court. Alaryk used to pray to be Sainted, to become proof of his Father's power, his House's power, to be useful. But the Sainted were rare, and House Lupei had not produced a Sainted in hundreds of years. He should have known that the truth had never been an obstacle for his Father.

The Academy, where all Noble children are sent to learn how to fight the Ravening Wood, was going to be hard enough. Now with the mantle of Sainted balanced precariously on his shoulders, Alaryk must navigate the politics of Nobility, the grueling regimen of squirehood, the baffling intricacies of making friends, all alongside desperately trying to control the power he has been given. Because Alaryk is not Sainted. His magic is not the magic of The Six, it is not pure and good and heroic. Alaryk is a liar and his magic is ravenous.

TAGLIST (ask to be +/-)

@houndmouthed @tragicbackstoryenjoyer @philocalizt @waestlandbaby @andromedatalksaboutstuff @writingmoth @serenanymph @moondust-bard @ashfordlabs @carnocus @real-fragments7

[nextlevel-hq]

GAME MODES

For the group, the different types of plots and events we’ll have will be referred to as different “modes” in the game. The type of mode you choose to make your character participate in will anticipate how many exp they receive.

TUTORIAL

STARTING OUT

This is just extra information to help provide context for how the game works and to give everyone a semi-mutual experience to talk about. You will not be asked to actually rp this when you first join. When first starting the game, players will be submerged into the tutorial mode. This will consist of an empty training room with JOCASTA, an ai android being your mentor. Tutorials will be 15-20 minutes in length and the character will gain 5 levels from doing them. In order to beat the tutorial, they must prove that they have mastered the basics of their character via a battle. After winning the battle, the player will be transported to the streets of Manhattan with a new mission. This mission will be the main one depending on the on-going event, but they can also start picking up side-missions.

MAIN

THE PORTALS

One of the main features/stories is that of the portals plaguing the universe. This mode is the slowest and has an indefinite conclusion as the main point is for characters and their allegiance (villains, heroes, antiheroes, etc.) to gain control of the portal similar to a capture the flag situation. In some cases, portals will be aggressive towards players forcing allegiances to team together to take down the common enemy before capturing the portal. Portals are captured by finding the KEY which is imbedded within the realm. Keys bare the appearance of an actual key with only cosmetic differences. Gaining control of portals provides your allegiance with more locations for bases, items exclusive to the portal and extra experience points for any enemies defeated within that land. New portals open every so often and will be considered a “portal event” in our group which will explore the story of the portal, any characters, etc.

STORY

The second main mode is a story mode that is based on or inspired by actual comic/movie/tv show events with some tweaks to fit the group. Some of these stories will affect your character’s personal arc in some way or another. These will be referred to as “story events” and certain sections of the game’s map/locations will be isolated for the event. Both main modes will be announced by the admins and will have their own category, these will last from 3 days to 2 weeks depending on how much participation we receive and how quick the plot progresses.

SIDE-QUESTS

SIDE QUESTS/ SUB-MISSIONS/ SIDE-MISSIONS

Referred to as Side-Missions or Sub-Missions, sidequests can come from players themselves or npcs. In terms of our group, these will be in game plot requests from our members that do not affect the main storyline but they can affect your character. You can consider the world of the game as an open exploration game, where your character can go anywhere and sometimes these places will have things like specific beasts, paranormal entities, small rebel groups, etc. Therefore, feel free to do whatever you want for these side quests/plots, you can even adapt your character’s storylines from the games/movies/etc. as long as they are not huge storylines. (So you can’t make something like infinity war, house of m, flashpoint, secret invasion, etc as a side plot as those would be considered main story material) Side-quests/missions can be found and posted in the mission board.

OTHER

These will be short little events such as holiday events that can expand to your characters “reality” such as a player mixer, holiday festivities, etc.

[ff14gil]

Buy Dark and Darker Gold Coins- Get Tons of the Currency in the Easiest Way!

Dark and Darker Gold  is the magic & medieval version of the loot extraction genre, enabling players to take on their preferred RPG class in the hope of riches. It is set to release somewhere around late 2023. It is going to be a great action role-playing game in which players take on quests, engage in combat with enemies, and gather loot. It can be confusing where some things go because the game requires players to sell their goods to several vendors depending on the item.

Gold is a virtual currency that is used in the game economy and is a requirement for users to carry out crucial in-game microtransactions. We at MMOPixel provide Gold for our customers at very affordable prices and that too in a very safe way!

What is Gold in Dark and Darker? Gold acts as the primary currency in the game Dark and Darker Gold. Gold is a valuable resource in Dark and Darker. When trading with merchants or purchasing stuff from NPCs, you must have gold. In Dark & Darker, gold can be found even in the most obscure locations. The main ways to acquire gold are through boss battles or chest looting. Therefore, you must pick a class that has the ability to hide. You can select any class, however, using a potion of invisibility will also allow you to hide.

Dark and Darker Gold

How to obtain Dark and Darker Gold? Gold is indeed a valuable resource in Dark and Darker as said earlier. Visit merchants after a successful extraction to exchange any undesirable things for gold. If you find something valuable but unusable for your class, think about exchanging it with other players or donating it to a player friend who can use it. Please take note that objects cannot be shared across characters.

Players can also obtain Gold through Boss Battles as rewards and chests. So, make sure to equip yourself with a great class that can fight well to defeat the bosses easily. At certain locations look for Chests that are scattered around to obtain some additional gold.

Best place to buy Dark and Darker Gold MMOPixel is your best choice if you're seeking a trustworthy and secure website to buy Dark and Darker Gold Coins. When purchasing Dark and Darker Gold Coins, you will have a choice of various servers or nations. Regardless of the platform, you can choose a server that fulfills all of your requirements. When compared to other Dark and Darker Gold Coins websites, MMOPixel offers cheap Dark and Darker Gold Coins at the best prices. We provide our consumers competitive pricing to entice them to purchase more items from Dark and Darker Gold Coins. Our costs are significantly cheaper than those of our competitors. Most orders may be fulfilled within a few moments, and if we are incapable of doing so, you will get a full refund.

What can players expect from Dark and Darker? You normally play in a party of two partners when playing Dark and Darker. It's also possible to play by yourself or with just one other person, but doing so may significantly disadvantage you when you encounter other players who are playing against you.

Enemies Unwary explorers may encounter difficult AI enemies like skeletons, wraiths, spiders, and more as they make their way through the enormous dungeon, but the more difficult foes can also drop valuable loot that is supplemented by goods found in treasure chests.

Battle Royal-like gameplay Dark & Darker will eventually cram the remaining players into a smaller region at the dungeon's center, similar to most Battle Royale games. When you feel like you've already gathered enough stuff, you can try to leave the level before the end because dying will make you lose everything you've collected there. If you're new to the game and just want to make some quick cash, this is likely something you'll want to do frequently. One portal can only take one person, so if you're playing with your mates, you'll need to find many blue portals to escape.

Combat An encounter with an opponent player will inevitably result in a fight. Whatever the opposing players were carrying can be acquired by whichever side prevails. By doing this, the game makes sure that the highest risks also yield the biggest benefits. As a result, even if you are capable of handling all the PvE portion of the game tosses at you, you would never feel totally safe or comfortable. Along with its traditional RPG fighting, this constant risk management and sense of being on edge in a harsh world is a big part of what gamers have appreciated about the game so far.

Dark and Darker Combat

Why buy Dark and Darker Gold from MMOPixel? You are guaranteed to get Dark and Darker Gold Coins from reputable dealers when you purchase them with MMOPixel. We assemble specialists in the production of Dark and Darker Gold Coins as well as other in-game money. The finest marketplace for buyers and sellers to conduct game-related transactions is the one you select when you purchase Dark and Darker Gold Coins on MMOPixel. It's the ideal market for buying and selling enough gold to help you reach your objectives more quickly.

Customer Satisfaction Thanks to our 10 years of expertise in this area, we can effectively handle any problem. We collaborate with manual farmers of the currency from throughout the world as well as skilled teams. This significantly increases the safety of every product we offer compared to those of our rivals.

24 Hour Guarantee Due to our extensive inventory, we frequently have the ability to deliver your purchase right away. There are now a number of uncontrollable forces at work that could occasionally result in delivery delays. However, the typical shipping time for your order is 24 hours.

100% Refund Policy If you decide to cancel your order & it hasn't been sent yet, you'll get a refund. We will respond to your request as soon as we can, generally on the same business day.

Affordable Prices In a very competitive company environment, we are flourishing because of our affordable prices & dedicated customer service. Although there might be less expensive solutions, no other company offers a better overall customer service experience.

[genshinimpactmerch]

Genshin Impact Puzzles

In Genshin Impact, you can explore a free-to-play adventure world that's filled with puzzles. The puzzles will challenge you and help you discover the secrets of Tianqiu Valley. Each puzzle will increase your skill levels and test your puzzle solving skills. However, be warned: each puzzle can also be incredibly difficult.

Astral Puzzles

Genshin Impact is a new game that introduces a number of new puzzles. Among them is the Astral Puzzle section, which is arguably miHoYo's trickiest puzzle yet. Players are required to recreate starry constellations, rearranging nodes to form patterns. In order to get a solution, you should consult a guide that explains each of the game's puzzles.

Genshin Impact Blankets Genshin Impact Aprons Genshin Impact Fridge Magnet Genshin Impact Mugs Genshin Impact Pillows Genshin Impact Puzzles Genshin Impact Wall Clock Genshin Impact Canvas Genshin Impact Plaques Genshin Impact Posters Genshin Impact Night Lamp

First of all, you should remember the constellation that is connected to each of the four Astral Puzzles. This constellation will always be near the puzzle location. After you solve each puzzle, you will earn a common chest.

Whirlpool puzzles

The Whirlpool puzzles are among the hardest challenges in Genshin Impact. Players need to work together to solve the puzzles and complete missions. These puzzles feature a co-op aspect and require two players to stand on opposite sides of a heart. However, they are unable to grab the chest unless they swap worlds with their teammates.

In the second part of the game, players must solve a puzzle in order to unlock a Luxurious Chest, located on a small island southeast of Minacious Isle. Players must use a Waverider to navigate into a whirlpool beside the island. Then, players must interact with multiple stone tablets and crush breakable rocks to unlock a chest hidden underneath a whirlpool.

Stone Pillar Seals

Genshin Impact is a puzzle game with a unique twist: the Stone Pillar Seals. These unique, stone structures surround the center of a sealed enemy, which can only be freed by destroying them. To find them, look for three connecting lines. Then, solve the puzzle and you'll be awarded with an achievement called "Now Let Time Resume!"

Genshin Impact's puzzles are a great way to progress through the story. There are many quests and events to complete, as well as a new area called Sumeru. Each of these puzzles is important for the storyline and the elements in the game.

Strange Energy Extraction Device

The Strange Energy Extraction Device is a piece of equipment that players need to complete certain missions in the game. This piece of equipment is located in the north entrance and requires a control key in order to operate. Players need to defeat enemies and climb stairs in order to activate the device and then jump down to deactivate it. Once deactivated, players will find that they are rewarded with the Exquisite Chest.

The control of the extractor is critical for completing the mission in the Genshin Impact. The extractor is extremely sensitive, and the slightest movement will interrupt the process. Therefore, players should ensure that they have a clear area around them to operate it safely.

Tianqiu Valley

In the world of Genshin Impact, there are plenty of puzzles to be completed. The first of these is the Flame Torch Puzzle, which requires players to light torches and follow a pattern. This puzzle can be found inside the North Tower of the ruins in Tianqiu Valley. To solve the puzzle, players must use a Light Actuator to light torches in the correct order.

After completing the Trials, players will have to complete the second quest. This quest is more challenging than the previous one, and will require players to solve several challenges in a short amount of time. It also involves climbing stairs and inserting a prism into a monolith. After this, the player will face a horde of treasure hunters. Fortunately, this quest has rewards for those who complete it successfully. https://www.genshinimpactmerch.com/

[mediaeval-muse]

Video Game Review: Assassin’s Creed Rogue (Ubisoft, 2014)

Genres: action-adventure, third person, open world

Premise: During the mid-18th century, Assassin Shay Patrick Cormac uncovers a First Civilization temple in Lisbon and unwittingly triggers an earthquake that kills thousands. Desperate to keep the Assassins from finding more of these temples and harming more innocents, he joins the North American Templars, whose hold over the British colonies is starting to grow. In the present, research into Shay’s memories triggers a server failure at Abstergo Entertainment, and the unnamed employee from Black Flag must help restore the system.

Platform Played On: PC (Windows)

Rating: 4/5 stars

***Full review under the cut.***

I am evaluating this game based on four key aspects: story, characters, gameplay, and visuals. Because I played this game on a PC, I will not be reviewing the Remastered version, which is only available for consoles.

Content Warnings: violence, blood

Story: Assassin’s Creed Rogue primarily follows Shay Patrick Cormac, an Irish Assassin-turned-Templar who operates during the French and Indian/Seven Years War in North America. Starting as a member of the Brotherhood, Shay is sent to Portugal by Achilles Davenport (the mentor of the North American chapter of Assassins) in order o recover a First Civilization artifact. Unbeknownst to Shay, removing the artifact from the temple triggers an earthquake, killing thousands of innocent people. Furious that Achilles (and perhaps other Assassins) knew this would be a possibility yet refusing to tell Shay, Shay leaves the Assassins and joins the Templars in order to prevent the Brotherhood from accessing more temples and artifacts and from harming more innocent people.

I really liked the overarching story because it gave us clear goals and a clear structure. Shay has one purpose: prevent the Assassins from gaining access to the next First Civilization site. To do that, Shay has to track down and neutralize all of his former Brotherhood colleagues, which adds a level of personal involvement and angst. Structurally, I think this plot made a lot of sense and was well-done, and though it wasn’t as involved as a headliner game (like Black Flag), it did present the player with a straightforward narrative.

The Seven Years War/French and Indian War was an interesting backdrop, though it didn’t have the same entanglement with history as headliners. Shay isn’t really involved with any landmark historical events, but he is responsible for the Templars gaining a foothold in North America, which serves as the setting for Assassin’s Creed III. In that sense, I think this story is more meaningful for people who have played both Assassin’s Creed III and Black Flag. I also think this plot works better for those who intend to continue to Unity, since the end of Shay’s story serves as the beginning for Arno’s.

The main thing I didn’t like was the game’s treatment of Native Americans. While I don’t think it was outright offensive, there was a point in the narrative where Shay had to rescue an Oneida tribe from Assassin thugs, and Shay does have to confront and kill one of his former friends, who is Native. In that sense, Rogue may be triggering for some people, but I personally didn’t find it egregious like the brutal scenes in Assassin’s Creed III. Rogue does contain some missions where Shay has to seek out Native “totems” to unlock some special Native armor, so that could be appropriative, but I’ll defer to Native gamers on that issue.

I also just wish the game was longer, mainly because it’s the only one where we get a full Templar perspective, and it had interesting missions. If it had been a headliner and gotten the amount of time and resources other headliners receive, I think this game could have done really well.

The present-day Abstergo arc continues to be less compelling than the Desmond Miles frame from previous games. I didn’t find the system failure to be very exciting, nor did I think the unfolding narrative about Otso Berg was communicated in a particularly engaging way. I do think the idea of the Assassins confronting the flaws in their belief system is an interesting one, but we barely see any Assassins in the modern day arc, so it’s difficult to feel like there are stakes.

Characters: Shay is a compelling protagonist in that he has complicated motivations and grey morality. He’s obviously very concerned for ordinary people, even as a Templar, and is very conflicted over the prospect of confronting his former friends. I liked that he seemed to have legitimate concerns about the Assassins and the way their hierarchy is constructed, which made his turn to the Templars more understandable. I liked the opportunity to see why someone might join the Templars, especially if that someone wasn’t completely on board with the authoritarian viewpoint the Order holds.

Shay’s Assassin companions are interesting in that they each seem to have their own combat abilities, which made for unique confrontations. Hope, for example, is an Assassin who is skilled with poisons, and Liam is pretty precise with a firearm. Encountering them, therefore, felt like several different boss fights that avoided repetition. I also think Shay spent enough time with each person at the beginning so that confronting them felt like an emotional challenge. I think the emotional stakes could have been enhanced if the game was longer and contained more time for character interactions, but with what it had, I think Rogue used its time effectively.

Shay’s Templar companions are also well-used in that the game makes clear that Shay feels an emotional bond with them. Shay first grows attached to Colonel George Monro, and it’s clear from the outset that Monro’s fondness for Shay is what motivates the latter to devote himself to the Templars, not necessarily the Order’s ideology. I liked this personal dimension to Shay’s Templar companions because it parallels how people in the modern day become drawn to harmful ideologies or groups: they mainly stay out of fear of being socially rejected. It was a pretty nice touch, and I think it worked better than just having players experience a “gritty” game centered on being unambiguously evil and just wreaking havoc and misery everywhere.

I also liked that we got some familiar faces, such as Achilles Davenport and Haytham Kenway. The conflict between Shay and Achilles serves as background for why Achilles is so broken in Assassin’s Creed III, and I think Rogue does a good job in showing how Achilles’ motivations are just as complex and grey as Shay’s are. Haytham continues to be ruthless, and I liked the budding mentor-mentee relationship between him and Shay. It served as a nice counter balance to the lack of affection between Shay and Achilles, while also giving us more of Haytham’s witty banter.

I will say that I am conflicted on whether or not this game did Adéwalé justice.  Adéwalé was an NPC in Black Flag and a playable character in Freedom Cry, so players who have completed both will have some investment in the character. Since Adéwalé is one of the companions Shay must track down and confront, it may seem like an unfair end to Adéwalé’s story, but again, I’m conflicted - mainly because Shay is supposed to be something of a villain.

Gameplay: The core of Rogue’s gameplay is not that much different from Black Flag’s: players explore the open world using Shay’s ship, the Morrigan, uncovering chests as well as collectibles, such as Templar maps (which are functionally the same as Black Flag’s treasure maps), animus fragments, pieces of a Viking sword, totems, shanties, and others. The Morrigan is upgradable, just like the Jackdaw, and Shay can use it to attack French ships to acquire resources such as wood, stone, metal, and cloth. Doing so will raise Shay’s notoriety, just as in Black Flag, but instead of lowering Shay’s wanted status by defeating enemies, Shay can only reset his wanted level by leaving an area until things quiet down. This made for a scaled-back version of ship combat and exploration, but it wasn’t a huge drawback to my gaming experience.

I did like that even though Rogue borrowed heavily from Black Flag, it did put its own spin on several gameplay elements to make them feel more integrated with the setting. For example, the weather at sea revolved more around cold weather than tropical weather, so instead of thunderstorms and cyclones, Shay was subject to icebergs and freezing water. Shay could also go hunting and craft like Edward, but the wildlife included new animals such as polar bears, arctic foxes, narwhals, and other North American or Arctic creatures. On land, Shay can intercept assassin contracts instead of accepting them, so instead of killing a target, Shay will have to protect a target by getting to the Assassin(s) before they can complete their mission.

Players are also able to unlock zones on the map by capturing forts, just like in Black Flag, but there are far fewer of these than in the game’s predecessor. Rogue relies a bit more heavily instead on “Assassin gang hideouts,” which function something like the Borgia towers in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood or the forts in Assassin’s Creed III. For each hideout, Shay must complete a number of objectives (like kill the gang leader, cut down the flag, sabotage a poison barrel), which will then unlock the area’s harbormasters and general stores. Doing so will also unlock renovations, which Shay can complete to increase his revenue, similar to how renovations gave Ezio an income in previous games.

Shay can also gain income by managing a fleet, similar to Edward’s fleet in Black Flag. Players capture ships via boarding them during gameplay, and then send them out on missions to “progress the Seven Years’ War.” Aside from the resources, which change a bit, this aspect of the game was functionally the same as Black Flag, so it was fairly familiar and didn’t take long to pick up.

In terms of weapons, Shay has access to the staples: hidden blade, pistols, smoke bombs, rope dart, etc. Shay can dual wield with a sword and dagger (rather than Edward’s two swords), but the change is mostly aesthetic. Shay also has access to sleep darts, berserk darts, and firecracker darts via an air rifle rather than a blowgun, but again, the change is mostly aesthetic. The biggest change to equipment is probably the grenade launcher, which can fire sleep, berserk, and shrapnel grenades to affect multiple enemies, and the presence of gas as an environmental weapon (the effects of which Shay can mitigate on himself by using a gas mask).

In terms of combat and stealth, not much is different. Shay can use eagle vision, hide in bushes or tall grass, whistle to draw enemies closer to him, etc. The only thing that’s tricky is that Assassin gang members will hide randomly in the environment, ready to take Shay out as he passes through. Shay can avoid attacks by listening for “whispers” and using eagle vision to spot Assassin thugs before they jump him.

I think that in sum, the lack of innovation regarding mechanics isn’t as bothersome as some people make it out to be. Because the “flavor” of the mechanics changed, I do think Rogue did a good job adapting what it could in the short amount of time it had. Enough is the same where picking up mechanics is easy if the player has completed Black Flag, but narratively, enough is different to make the experience at least feel tailored to the setting.

Visuals: Rogue’s primary strengths in terms of visuals lies in the unique settings and Shay’s Templar aesthetic. Although Rogue doesn’t have the beautiful tropical waters of Black Flag, I do think it rendered the snow-covered mountains well and made the world feel like a cold environment. It took the best elements of Assassin’s Creed III (the trees, the city layouts) and combined them with the spirit of exploration from Black Flag. I particularly liked exploring the shipwrecks, which were not underwater, but fused with ice to create fun sites where I felt like I was playing “the floor is lava” (the lava, in this case, was freezing cold water that could kill you).

I also really loved Shay’s Templar aesthetic, which consisted of a lot of fancy 18th century coats and vests, combined with a strong black and red color scheme. Everything from the Morrigan’s sails and captain’s cabin to Shay’s “house” in New York repeats this color scheme, which was a nice change from what we typically see of the Assassins. I also liked that a lot of Shay’s design contained nods to his Irish heritage, from the Morrigan’s hull to the knotwork details on his coat. It was a nice touch which made everything feel a little more personal.

In terms of animations, I didn’t notice anything that set Rogue apart from other games. Shay didn’t have appealing finishers, nor did I encounter a lot of bugs that affected my impression of the game. There are some here and there, but I’ve come to expect bugs in every Assassin’s Creed game, so...

Final Verdict: Although Assassin’s Creed Rogue replicates much of the gameplay from its predecessors, the complex protagonist, solid narrative structure, and unique settings make it a memorable game that gives players new insight into the Assassin-Templar conflict.

[nanakibh]

Final Fantasy Agito: Gaiden 2, Chapter 1 Characters: Player, Miyu, Machina, Rem, Lean, Qator, Sice, Trey, Arecia Note: Rather than focusing on multiple different stories, this gaiden recounts the end of another cycle. It gets referred to as the “third cycle” of FF Agito, but I don’t think it’s literally the third cycle of the world. I’m not sure where exactly it belongs in the overall timeline. All I know is that this is the one that was supposed to finally lead to the arrival of the true Agito had the game been allowed to continue.

Thanks to @reverse-vampire for the screenshots which made this translation possible!

Gaiden 2, Chapter 1 The Final Battle of White-Vermilion

--Player, do you remember? The time when you and I first met.

>A cutscene panning over the cemetery with narration from Tohno.

So it seems like… No one came.

…It must have really hurt.

…You must be lonely.

…But, I won’t forget.

I’ll… do my best to remember you.

>The cutscene ends, focusing on a bouquet resting on a grave.

When Player and I met and when we parted, in the first world...

Since that time, the world has turned through countless Spirals, and each time, I was also reincarnated...

[Setting: Classroom]

Miyu: --Player... Hey, Player. Miyu, concerned: What's wrong? It's rare to see you spacing out like this. Were you thinking? Machina: We've been fighting for a while. Even Player must be getting tired. Rem: Are you okay? Player, please don't work too hard. >Lean enters the classroom. Lean: ...Whoops, looks like everybody's already here. Sorry for makin' you wait. Machina, scowling: You're late, Lean. Where have you been? Lean, brows furrowed: I was near the lab and ran into Kazusa. Lean, sighing: He suddenly went, "Wait, could you try this medicine for me?" Machina: ...Don't tell me you drank it? Lean: He said it was for the sake of his research, so I really wanted to help him as a fellow researcher... Lean: But then the Rep called for me, so I had to refuse. ...Uh, why? Would there have been a problem if I drank it? Rem: ...Yeeeah. I think it was probably for the best that you didn’t drink it. Right, Player? Lean: Really? ...Wait, more importantly! Rep, you had something important to say, right? Please, go ahead. Miyu: Alright. I'll explain today's strategy. Miyu: Three months have passed since the start of the fullscale war between the Concordia-Lorica Alliance and the Rubrum-Milites Alliance. Miyu: The Lorican army has already been silenced by our onslaught. The Concordian army is steadily losing their momentum. Miyu: Presently, Concordia's last dragon unit has abandoned their capital's defense to attack the Militesi capital of Ingram. Machina: Their last-ditch effort at a counterattack... or something? Concordia must be desperate. Miyu: However, if we take down their dragon unit, they'll be unable to fight any longer. It should be easy to invade their capital now, as well. Miyu: Therefore, it was decided that we'll be dispatching elite cadets to the capitals of both nations-- Miyu: So that we can carry out plans to subjugate the capital of Concordia and support Ingram at the same time. Miyu: Player. You guys must hurry and head to the capital of Milites! Miyu: Lend support to our Militesi allies in Ingram and defeat Concordia's dragon unit! Rem: Roger that! With this, it's all finally going to be settled... Lean: There's nothing to fear when the cadets and the Militesi army fight together. Lean: Isn't that right, Player?

Rubrum and Milites... Even within the repeating spiral, it's rare to see a world where the two join hands.

And the Representative... Even at that time, I'm sure she could feel it.

Player... Inside of you, there's a strong power that connects people...

Miyu (over COMM): Attention, all cadets! This is Representative Miyu Kagirohi. Miyu (over COMM): Our objective is to support the Militesi army in their battle. Now is the time for us to settle this war with Concordia and Lorica! Miyu (over COMM): Let's grasp the future together! May the Crystal guide us!

[Setting: Ingram, Milites]

Lean: Alright, let's do it! Player, Machina, Rem. Now’s the time to do or die! Rem: Right! When this battle's over, there will be peace... Let's do our best! Machina: Alright, everyone, get ready!

...At that time, they still didn't know.

Because they didn't know, they believed strongly.

Hmm... I wonder if you, who hadn't forgotten, knew what would happen. Player.

That fact that that scene, which had been burned into our eyes hundreds of millions of times, would happen again...

>A battle begins where Player and the others fight their way through Ingram.

Machina: I can't believe that Concordia's dragon unit still has so much strength left... Lean: Their offense is rather intense. This must be what they mean when they say that a cornered rat will bite a cat! But it's not like we can lose, either!

Lean: Player, the timing of that attack was perfect! As expected! Rem: There are still a lot of enemies here! Stay alert!

Rem: They even brought such a large dragon with them...?! A really strong one is coming, everyone! Be careful! Machina: Kgh... Player, please lend me support! I'll cut my way through!

Lean: Hh... Huff... Huff... It's not finished yet. When this battle is over, the war will be over...! Rem: Right. The enemy's desperate, too... We can't lose now! Let's make it through this!

Lean: ?! Crap, that's... That's a really big one! Get ready! Machina: The number of enemies has noticeably decreased, though. If we can beat these guys... It'll be over! Everyone, let's go!

Rem: Huff... Huff... We... We won...? Lean: Yeah. It's over... It's finally over!! YEAH!!

After an incredibly daunting amount of time... Most things have become faded and hazy.

But... Player.

You're the one thing I can still remember vividly.

The good times we spent together and the things we believed in... Those were the things that helped me continue moving forward.

Even if I knew how the world would end...

[Setting: Still in Ingram]

Machina: ...It's over at last, Player. We won. Rem: Peace has finally come to the world... Rem: Our days of fighting have finally reached their end...! Machina: Yeah. ...But, if we aren't fighting anymore, what will we do? Lean: There are a lotta things I wanna do. For example... There are many various things I want to research. Rem: Huhu. I'd expect no less from a researcher! But is it related to magic or machine weaponry? Lean: That's just more research for the sake of war, isn't it? There are many things around us we don't know about. Lean: "How was this star formed?" "What's out there beyond this continent?" Those kinds of things. Lean: There's a lot more I wanna know. Rem: Wow... That's amazing. That sounds really interesting! Machina: I see. There's still a whole mountain of things we don't know... Machina: It might be nice to learn about those things, too. Right, Player? Rem: Umm, in that case, I want to take my time getting to know the country of Milites, the place where Lean grew up! Lean: Oh, that would be nice! Please, come visit. I'll show you around! Machina: Sightseeing in Milites... I've never considered it before, but that sounds like it could be fun. Rem: Hey, Player, what would you like to do? >There's a white flash and the sound of thunder. The atmosphere looks a little darker. Rem: Kyaaa!! Lean: Wh-... What was that...?! >The sky turns red, casting everything in a red light.

Qator (over COMM): This is Qator. Lean, respond! Lean: Brigadier General! Hey, what the hell's going on?! Isn't the fighting over?! Qator (over COMM): It's unclear! However, I can tell you that there's an overwhelming number of soldiers approaching our capital!

Sice (over COMM): Emergency transmission! Can you hear me, Akademeia? This is Sice! Sice (over COMM): Reporting an attack by unidentified troops in Concordia! Their numbers are unknown. There's too many for me to count! Machina: Sice! No way... It's the same over there, too!?

Trey (over COMM): The Militesi allied army has been wiped out by the mysterious enemy! We're also being attacked. At this rate-- >Trey's transmission is cut off. Machina: Wh... What is this...?! What's going on?!

[Setting: Terrace]

Arecia: It looks like the cadets have begun the final battle for their survival. Arecia: Struggle until you can struggle no more. And then, this time... Rise up to Agito. Miyu: Mother. Isn't it a little too early for Tempus Finis to be awoken? Arecia: There should be enough vessels to withstand the trials. Arecia: The battle between humans is over. If Agito still doesn't appear, then my experiment will end here. Arecia: This time, the world will end. Miyu: Not the Spiral, but... the world itself? Is this your will as the Mother Creator? Arecia: If an experiment fails no matter how many millions of times it's repeated, then it's time to abandon the experiment itself. Arecia: This might just be that time. Arecia: I wonder if it could be said that a possibility still exists in Orience. Miyu: ...Then, with my own hands, I'll be the one who determines whether Agito was born in the world this time. >The surroundings rumble and it sounds like something is activated. Arecia: ...Indeed, that was your role this time, wasn't it. Rursan l'Cie, the Judge. Arecia: I wonder when exactly you began cooperating with me...?

>Miyu's eyes turn purple and the purple l'Cie brand appears over one of her eyes. Judge Myuria: I believe... in the people who lived with me in this world. Arecia: Is that so? I hope the souls of the humans in this cycle can fulfill those expectations.

[pocketseizure]

The History of Light and Shadow

At the end of Twilight Princess, Ganondorf delivers one of his most memorable lines, “The history of light and shadow will be written in blood.” He is not wrong. As the player has witnessed over the course of Link’s adventure, Hyrule is haunted by ruins and ghost towns, a mere shadow of what it once was. The landscape is filled with numerous sites of past violence and empty spaces visibly marked by decay and wasted potential.

When Zelda tells Link and Midna that “these dark times are the result of our deeds,” she is referring to specific historical acts of imperialistic aggression. Hyrule established hegemony over its outlying territories by crushing the rebellions against its advances, but the kingdom has suffered from cultural stagnation as a result. Without the dynamic diversity symbolized by Ganondorf, Hyrule finds itself in economic and political decline, isolated from any contact with the world beyond its shrinking borders.

As a representative of a marginalized group of people who have been attacked and driven from their homes, Ganondorf is a tangible manifestation of the horrors of imperialism. He must be defeated, but doing so does not address the underlying problems that have resulted in Hyrule’s decline. I therefore want to argue that Twilight Princess uses Ganondorf to deliver a subtle yet poignant protest against the discourses of empire reflected by the dualistic “light and shadow” rhetoric of heroism that has resulted in tragedy and regret.

In the era immediately preceding Ocarina of Time, the kingdom of Hyrule united multiple geographically proximate groups of people at the end of a devastating civil war. Ganondorf was the leader of the Gerudo, an ethnic minority that resisted Hyrule. After several years of fighting, Ganondorf was eventually captured and imprisoned. The Sages of Hyrule were unable to execute him, so they sealed him away by casting him into the Twilight Realm, a world of shadows that exists alongside Hyrule. The events of Twilight Princess are triggered an indefinite period of time later when Ganondorf manages to persuade Zant, a prince of the Twilight Realm, to stage an uprising against Midna, its legitimate ruler.

Guided by Midna, the player takes on role of the teenage hero Link in order to defeat Zant and Ganondorf and thereby save Hyrule with the aid of its crown princess, Zelda. Many (if not the majority) of players will be influenced by the broad archetypes reproduced in this heroic narrative to understand Link as “good” and Ganondorf as “evil.”   Throughout most of Twilight Princess, Ganondorf is characterized as a ruthless tribal warlord who attacked Hyrule because of his lust for power. As indicated by his monologues and gradual humanization over the course of the final battle, however, Ganondorf represents much more than simply an evil to be defeated. He is introduced to the player as a foolish man who became evil incarnate, and he does little more than scream in rage and pain when the player first sees him in a flashback. When he is allowed to speak for himself, however, he reveals himself to be highly intelligent with motivations that are not unsympathetic.

When Link finally confronts Ganondorf in the throne room of Hyrule Castle, he is sitting alone. The world he once knew is long gone, and all that remains to him is the intense emotion he has directed toward Hyrule, whose wealth and security he simultaneously covets and resents. Ganondorf has succeeded in conquering the kingdom, but his victory no longer has meaning, as his people have been killed, driven away, or assimilated.

As established in Ocarina of Time, the Gerudo historically maintained uneasy relations with the majority ethnicity of Hyrule. The views once espoused by the people in Hyrule concerning the Gerudo are reminiscent of Orientalist stylizations, in which the peoples of certain “non-Western” and therefore “uncivilized” nations are characterized as being either unintelligent animals incapable of governing themselves or decadent and weak and thus a prime target for colonization.

The villainization of Ganondorf and the Gerudo as deceitful and lawless thieves within Hyrule echoes contemporary postcolonial discourse, in which former colonial powers exhibit a longing for “the good old days” of expansive imperial hegemony. The British sociologist Paul Gilroy has termed this fabricated nostalgia “postcolonial melancholy,” a tonal atmosphere characterizing stories that are often haunted by the gothic figure of the postcolonial ghost. Ganondorf is a textbook example of a postcolonial ghost – a menacing supernatural figure who represents the frightening native traditions of the past that the supposedly enlightened colonizers attempted to “correct” but were prevented from eradicating completely.

In order for culturally odorless global capitalism to move forward, the ghosts of the colonial past must be laid to rest, regardless of whether they are symbolic narratives or actual human beings. Such narratives are not uncommon in the political discourse and popular narratives of Japan, which is still struggling to come to terms with its history of imperial violence on the Asian mainland. In essence, the demonization of Ganondorf reflects the historical and contemporary villainization of both specific and broadly defined groups in the real world, including entire nations of people who have been discursively positioned as “enemies.” As a medium, video games require challenges for the player to overcome. Story-based games such as those in the Legend of Zelda series tend to be relentless in their construction of enemies whose unequivocally evil deeds propel the hero to action. In Twilight Princess, there are two primary categories of characters with whom the player can interact: NPCs who offer material assistance and advice on how the hero can proceed through the quest, and monsters who must be attacked and generally yield tangible rewards when defeated.

In other words, the fundamental elements of gameplay reflect a worldview built on the foundation of a battle of “us” versus “them,” which is given literal expression in the dichotomy between who cannot be attacked and who must be attacked in order to advance. Many players take it for granted that a game will present a class or race or species that deserves to be destroyed, and the lack of alternative options for interaction suggests that it is still somewhat radical to suggest that perhaps the player-character is not entirely justified in the demonization of people who don’t look or think like them. Video games are adept at engendering a sense of subjectivity, meaning that one of their functions is to give the player a feeling of controlling their movement through the game while enacting their will via the actions of their character. At the end of Twilight Princess, however, Link must fight and defeat Ganondorf, no matter how much sympathy the player may feel for him. The gameplay elements of Twilight Princess therefore perform abjection, the process by which we demarcate the boundaries of the whole and wholesome “self” by setting up a contrast against a fragmented and unclean “other.” As individuals, we employ this process to construct monsters that violate the sanctity of our bodies; and, as cultures, we employ this process to construct enemies that violate our sense of belonging to a shared identity.

The dualism of “the pure” and “the abject” functions to further erase the nuances and possibilities denied by the artificial designation of the characters in Twilight Princess as either “good” or “evil.” Ganondorf’s cultural barrier-crossing, his shifting physical form, his open physical and emotional wounds, and his occupation of the liminal spaces between one world and another place him squarely in the realm of the impure and abject. Both the story of Twilight Princess and the narrative functions of its gameplay demand that the abject ghosts of the empire be purified and expelled by cleansing Hyrule of the pollution of Ganondorf’s lingering malice.

By humanizing Ganondorf but then forcing the player to fight him anyway, Twilight Princess employs various tropes relating to the figure of the postcolonial ghost not to invoke unironic postcolonial melancholy, but rather to force the player to experience the violence of these tropes in a subjective and visceral way. Twilight Princess is therefore not so much a heroic legend of triumph over “darkness” as it is an elegiac legend of regret concerning past atrocities.   Link’s victory is bittersweet, and it is not presented as a triumph for him or for Hyrule. At the end of Twilight Princess, Princess Zelda barely looks at the young man who supposedly rescued her. Midna, whose people were once banished to the Twilight Realm for opposing Zelda’s ancestors, takes her leave of Link, shattering the gate between their worlds after she departs. Midna explains her decision by saying, “Light and shadow can’t mix, as we all know.”

As Link and Midna’s friendship throughout the game has demonstrated, light and shadow can indeed coexist. Midna does not explain why she would choose to destroy the Mirror of Twilight that connects the Twilight Realm to Hyrule, but it is significant that this occurs immediately after she has witnessed the fight between Link and Ganondorf. Perhaps the prolonged spectacle of Ganondorf’s death has convinced Midna that there is no room for “monsters” in Hyrule, and it may be that she fears that she and her people will always be seen as abject outsiders, just as Ganondorf and his people once were.

It’s not clear to whom the title of Twilight Princess refers, and it could easily designate Midna, who emerges from and returns to the shadowy Twilight Realm. The title could also apply to Princess Zelda, however, as the victory over the forces of evil at the end of the game does not necessarily reverse or alleviate her kingdom’s slow decline. Before the end credits roll, Zelda sends the hero back to his village and returns alone to her empty castle.

Despite the narrative arc of Link’s progressive competence as an adventurer, this element of sorrow has been present from the outset of the game. Unlike the other games in the Legend of Zelda series, Twilight Princess begins not with Link waking up in the morning, but with him returning home in the evening. The opening scene is suffused with the golden light of the setting sun, and the game’s first spoken line is delivered by Link’s mentor Rusl, who asks, “Tell me… Do you ever feel a strange sadness as dusk falls?” The player’s first few minutes with Twilight Princess thereby establish melancholy and lament as two of the major themes of the game. The people of Hyrule are entering the twilight of their civilization under the rule of an ineffectual monarchy that has not allowed its people to be revitalized by change and diversity.

The slow apocalypse suggested by the environment of Twilight Princess, such as eroded ruins and decaying ghost towns, is not presented with an opportunity for renewal along with Ganondorf’s defeat. The potential for energetic dynamism represented by Ganondorf has been violently denied in favor of cultural purity, and the severity of this loss is reflected in the somber tone of the game’s closing scenes. If Ganondorf cannot exist in Hyrule, neither can Midna – and perhaps neither can Link himself.

When Ganondorf speaks of a history written in blood, he is referring to the history that has been lost to Hyrule along with the bodies and voices of the people who have fallen in its imperialistic conflicts. Twilight Princess thereby uses the menacing yet tragic figure of Ganondorf to suggest that, if the lifeblood of the kingdom is to remain vital, its history must be able to accommodate more than a reductive dualism between “light” and “shadow.”

[askmalal]

“the primary mistake that [others who have fought against the Dark Gods]have made, each and every one (including myself) has been to approach Chaos and its agents as if they are as monolithic in approach as they are in purpose. And, in all humility, I am unsure whether the purpose is itself unified. “

“To the Blood God, this is a war of attrition. There is only the slightest need, if any, for subtlety. Its’ agents do not make any serious attempt at infiltration or subterfuge. They are bellicose and blustering. They can be defeated on the battlefield but, perversely, if matters not so much to them that they have won a battle as it is they have begun the war, or continued it. The objective here is rife slaughter and upheaval.

For the Changeling, however, this is all a game, and the mundane is essentially the board on which it is played. Like the classic master of draughts, the objective is not so much to score an overwhelming victory as it is to win; this, often, is deemed a gateway to playing and winning more games. There is a logic to be seen here, but there are only so many ways to win at draughts under normal conditions. Therefore, the Changeling conceives greater and greater challenges for itself: complex schemes within schemes only to make the game more challenging. I have seen old masters of the game so fixated on subtleties and nuances that they forget how to win the game against the average opponent. It is the playing of the game that matters to them.

The Plague God seems to avoid violence when necessary. Contagion can, after all, be spread with the kiss as easily as it is spread with the tainted blade. Easily the most perfidious of enemies from one perspective, for its’ influence can be found in the quiet sneeze or the festering sore, and yet both can exist without any connection to it whatsoever. It is foolish to believe that such an enemy can be broken on the battlefield alone and yet, to our benefit, it is equally implausible to believe that a victory can be wrested by such a thing, as many of its servants seem to believe.

The Lustful one has, perhaps, the easiest means of asserting its’ power, for every mortal has his own weaknesses. Emperors and bishops are no different from gong farmers in this regard. My mother had her secret passions, so did your father. So did the midwife. This is where Lust triumphs: exploitation of the boldest and yet most shameful truths.

And then there is Ruin. Perhaps its’ purpose is, from the perspective of Primordial Chaos, the purest. It is a breaker of cities, like the Blood God: but it can break those cities from within as well as without. It is a player of games, like the Changelimg, but it is just as likely to throw the board from the table as it is to put the enemy in check. It is like the Plague God in that it can pass on its ideas with the subtlest of whispers and yet, I dare say it must needs thrive on violence betimes. And Lust? There is no passion greater than hate. It seeks not the sinful man but the companion he pays for company; it seeks not through depraved mistress but the slave she brutalizes. “

- Magnus the Pious, “Meditations, Volume II,” recovered from the ruins of Altdorf.

[purgatorypress]

The Answer to the Anti-Prompt

Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma - anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution. 

Prompts belong in Purgatory, as should everything that belongs to this blog. To qualify for Purgatorial status, the nature of the matter - in this case being a prompt - must be contradictory and grey. Its’ form must exist in the middle space where right answers do not exist and truth can be called into question, hence the Purgatorial status. 

To begin, prompts smother creativity and restrict the full flow of ideas and thoughts. Though they may seem open ended, like the one written above, they invariably try to guide the writer into giving a specific kind of story or narrative. A prompt is the invisible hand that guides into the belly of the prompt-creator, giving a constricted sense of freedom. The prompt is pulling the story from you, rather than allowing the story to run free from the naval, as would be natural and unrestricted. Therefore, in natural, rebellious behavior, it is only right to combat prompts by writing an anti-prompt. This, of course is ironic as well, because writing an anti-prompt still acknowledges the original prompt and is a prompt in of itself. However, such is the way of antagonism - it cannot stand independent of its’ antagonizer. 

Onto the answer to the anti-prompt. 

Here is a problem that will never be solved: Who is stronger - Kakashi Hatake or Gojou Satoru? 

Both are devilishly strong ninjas and sorcerers in their own respective universes, and though it is wildly unlikely that a cross-over fight between the two would ever happen, the question still stands: who is stronger? 

Never before have there been such characters who are equally charming, childlike, sassy and strong. Of all the white-haired, good-looking senseis, these two take the cake. Between fighting dark-eyed shinobis and demonic curses, both Kakashi and Gojou lead their respective fields in mastery and specialization of skill and strength. They are tremendously feared by their enemies yet dearly cherished by their students. Having achieved god-tier status, Kakashi and Gojou exist in a realm of their own, and their fight scene would be in everyone’s Top 10 for the next millenia - hypothetically, if it were to happen. 

Kakashi Hatake is a masterful shinobi who achieved renown at a young age due to his tenacity, cool temperment and overwhelming ninja-abilities. He has fought some of the toughest shinobis such as Zabuzu and Obito and still lived to tell the tale. Best known for his devilish sharingan, Kakashi has earned the name, “Copy-cat Ninja” for his ability to perfectly imitate any ninjutsu style, making it difficult for opponents to overwhelm him. This particular style causes serious strategic issues for his opponents, who must quickly decide what jutsus to perform so as not to have their own arsenal used against them. Should they risk using a high-skill, deadly jutsu, only for it to be copied and retaliated? Or, should they play it safe and stick to the basics and hope to win based on physical strength and raw skill? Those unfamiliar with Kakashi’s style will quickly find themselves in a game where your own strength will be used against you. 

Gojou Satoru is a newer player to the game, but should be considered lightly. In contrast to Kakashi’s aloof airs, Gojou is like the cool senior with a devil-may-care attitude. As one of the leading jujutsu sorcerers, Gojou has been entrusted with the training of exceptional young, budding students who adore their starlike sensei. When he’s not engaged in experimental training sessions, Gojou is out exorcising special-grade curses - those that even the most seasoned sorcerers struggle to expel. In his iconic fight against Jogo the Volcanic curse, we see the full extent of Gojou’s power with his mind numbing Domain Expansion technique, Infinite Void. In the Void, he exposes his opponent to infinity in which they are forced to feel everything and nothing simultaneously which results in the absolute wreckage of their consciousness. Though curses are not technically humans, the mind is only capable of processing so much information at once. To overwhelm the mind by forcing it to acknowledge the vastness and emptiness of the void in its’ infinity, the mind is unable to cope and compartmentalize, therefore, lobotomizing his opponent. 

Therefore, in battle, the main question that must be addressed is this: Can Kakashi use his sharingan to copy Gojou’s Infinite Void? Is Kakashi’s jutsu capable of immitating Domain Expansion? If yes, then the two would be forced to fight it out within the doman, which boils the battle down to strength, fighting style and jutsu-jujutsu ability. If no, then Kakashi would certainly lose, as it is highly unlikely that his mind could handle the infinite void. Though he has had experience with mind-altering techniques in fights, these battles left him in defeat (see, Kakashi vs. Obito). However, should Kakashi be able to recreate the Infinite Void technique, then the question remains to be answered - who is stronger? 

Let me know what you think!

My money is on....

[hollenka99]

For @averyancora 

Warnings: Implied death, blood mention

It begins with a chance encounter at a bar. Chase seems to be quite talkative with a bit of drink. His wife left with the children? Oh no. How sad. Perhaps Marvin putting him out of his misery would be benevolent. It would certainly save Chase's bank account if he didn't drain it with alcohol.

Given the degree of intoxication, it would be too easy. Marvin isn't here to take the easy route. Besides, what's the point if the fly isn't aware it's just landed on a web?

Days later, they 'just happen to' bump into each other on the street. Chase is a little off put by the fact Marvin knows him while there's barely any memory of the stranger in his own mind. It is shrugged off with self-conscious laugh. Alcohol can have amnesiac qualities in large volumes. It's no big deal. Chase walks away, off to wherever he has to be, as soon as he deems it polite to excuse himself.

Marvin discovers his workplace through routine observation. It's not a particularly exceptional place. Rather dull, actually. All it encompasses are a couple of unused offices available for renting. Then there's the fooling around. Why would he bother do that for money? Perhaps Marvin should find a worthier pursuit. However, he's already invested a week in this human. Marvin is as much of a quitter as he is alive.

He mistakenly gets cocky. Chase notices the figure in the corner of his eye. It lurks and hovers. Ever present, ever slightly behind him. The idiot doesn't even make an effort to lose him.

Oh, look, he's directed his stalker right to his home. How clever of him. Listen, Marvin himself can admit that sometimes he has done things he later regrets. That said, who in their right mind, while suspecting they are being followed, would go straight home? Marvin doesn't know why he's making such a big deal of this. It has worked in his favour, after all. With an evident lack of self-preservation, it was almost as if the human wanted to be endangered.

Chase spots him from time to time. Care is taken to make it often enough to induce stress and a lack of security yet infrequent enough to suggest false estimations of safety. For fun, he develops erratic patterns in his visiting schedule.

The best morning is when the object of pursuit acts as if he believes the key to defeating the undead is a glaring contest. It's made better by a visitor joining him at the window. Oh, oh Chase. No, what have you done? Look at you bringing unsuspecting innocents into this game.

Marvin makes sure to investigate this friend further. Another player was another player. The second human remains nameless. It would only be a matter of time before that changed.

A morning comes when his eyes light up at the sight of Chase's window. Right there, attached to the glass via blu tack, is a piece of paper with a handwritten message. On it are the words:

IF I LET YOU IN, WILL YOU LEAVE ME ALONE?

Well, who was he to refuse an invitation? This should be an intriguing encounter.

As promised, Chase grants him entry into his apartment. While ordering Marvin to leave him and his friend alone, he lets slip the name 'Jackie'. Jackie, huh? Well, sure, he'll leave them be. Or, more to the point, stay out of their peripheral vision.

He cannot help but laugh when the human before him brandishes a serrated knife. Chase moves swiftly to implant it in his pursuer's chest.

"Ow." Marvin grips his wound, doubling over himself slightly. He can't keep the act up for long before breaking into chuckles. The expression he receives in reaction to him straightening again is priceless. "You do know it wouldn't be that easy, right? Here, you probably want this back."

Startled and horrified, Chase simply watches as Marvin places the weapon on the table. The cream cloth is stained red in that one spot. The apartment's occupant snatches the knife and has it aimed at Marvin once more.

"Don't-" His voice quivers. The attempt to feign bravery would be hilarious if it weren't so pathetic. "Don't come here again." "Sure." He winks, heading for the door.

The following days are spent ensuring Chase does not notice his lurking presence. This was getting dull. There was only so much paranoia he could stir in a human. Okay, fine! He'd end this already. The first move was eliminating any potential hitches. An ally is more welcome in the home than an enemy.

Fooling Jackie while at his doorstep is surprisingly easy. He gains the permission he requires. It's disappointing in a way. Through all this, ever since Jackie had inadvertently become entangled in his friend's dilemma, Marvin had admired him for his vigilance. How unfortunate to see him lose that for their final encounter.

The illusion of Chase's presence vanishes. "Hello Jackie-" "Oh no." The young man lets out a few quiet, incredulous laughs. "My friends call me Jackie. You can just piss off and leave us alone."

Marvin is tired of formalities too. Jackie frowns venomously with his body pressed against the wall. It's clear he has plenty he'd love to say regarding his present circumstances. A hand firmly covering the mouth has a habit of preventing such things. Marvin leans in, whispering a parting message.

"You know the whole deal with having to be let in, not passing thresholds without permission and all that? Well, the funny thing is... you can rescind that permission at any time. No-one ever seems to think to do that. And I suppose it's a shame, for you at least, that I won't give you the chance to."

Jackie fights against his fate until the last visible display of strength is depleted. He may have tripped on the final hurdle but at least he regains some of his murderer's respect. Whenever he is found, none of those investigating the scene will be able to locate the victim's phone, nor some of his items of clothing. That team will hopefully be wise enough to correctly deduce it is in the perpetrator's possession now.

Marvin heightens Chase's paranoia for approximately a week before making the move. As he had suspected, Jackie had been his only confidante in all this. Therefore, it is Jackie whom Chase rings when in need of comfort.

The conversation certainly goes smoothly. The guy's so devoid of wits he doesn't even notice any potential discrepancies in his friend's portrayal. This was getting more entertaining by the minute. Marvin almost doesn't want this to end. Still, it's been a while since he's last eaten. Not to mention the thrill of progress won't last long.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Come in." "Thanks."

Just like that he's let in without hesitation. Chase immediately heads to the kitchen, offering drinks. Out of his view, the door latch is applied. The host halts when he spots this and the individual who is not Jackie seated on an armrest. The sight of confusion stepping aside to let semi-defensive wariness dominate is wonderful.

"Where's the real Jackie?" "Well, I couldn't have him warn you, now could I? I suspect he's not smelling so fresh right now. Honestly, I'm surprised no-one's found him yet. Not a very good friend, are you, if you haven't realised he hasn't spoken to you in days." "But... but we spoke yesterday." Marvin stands. "Did you? I must say, though, you are just like each other. You'll give anyone permission to enter without double checking they're genuine." "Why are you doing this? Why me?" The stillness paired with a cup hanging loosely in his grip makes for a sorrowing image. Christ, at least Jackie had gone out fighting. The lack of that in his friend is purely depressing to witness. "You ran." A series of chuckles are emitted. "Simple as. You gave me something entertaining to do for a while."

Several strides and they are standing face to face. There is one final move to be made in this game and it's Marvin's turn.

"But all this is becoming a hassle. I've put too much effort into keeping track of you to give up now. Funny how exercise can make you really work up an appetite, huh. I think it's time I finally get my reward. Don't you?"

[eclectia]

Bosses in Video Games: Spectacular Style!

Bosses in video games are a difficult beast to get right: too easy, and they're boring to play against but too hard and players may give up entirely, or the pacing of the game will be disrupted. If they're a secret boss, do they feel sufficiently “rewarding” for a player who has dedicated time to seeking them out? 

Are they an adequate challenge for this stage of the game? What should the player feel going in and out of this fight? There is a careful balance that must be maintained in order to make a boss fight memorable, more importantly fun, and this gets harder the longer a game goes on, the more bosses a player encounters, the more memorable experiences -not only bosses but characters, cutscenes, levels-, there are to weigh up. Here in this series I'm gonna talk about bosses in games, how they work, how they don't, and why. 

Bosses in video games exist for multiple reasons, dependent entirely upon the genre of game in which you are playing, though primarily as minor “tests” of player skill up to that point. One major problem with bosses is that they are only difficult because of their large health pool, or because of gimmicks put in place rather than interesting design. This is especially a problem in AAA games, where the focus is less upon innovation as it is marketability and a “blockbuster” experience that more often than not hands players wins and power-fantasies. 

This isn't a problem: sometimes, games just want to be fun, rather than challenging, and sometimes gamers want to relax, not be challenged; not every boss need be an interesting, challenging, or gruelling experience nor do they need to be the focus of every game, and not every game has to offer a tricky boss to encounter. There are, after all, many ways you can achieve this – through characters, levels, narrative, combat or puzzles. But good boss design can stand out. Here I'll be discussing strictly combat-oriented bosses, not ones you can “talk” around, such as those in Deus Ex or New Vegas, which will come later. 

Why bother talking about this? Good bosses are memorable and fun to play against, can make or break a game and there are many ways you can go about designing and including them, with varying intents and effectiveness. Action games such as Bayonetta, Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Revengence, and Nier: Automata, excel at boss fights for a multitude of reasons, in much the same way as their combat systems are engaging and dynamic: combat and boss fights are key to the overall experience. Such fights are the focus of the game, the set-piece of every level and so their bombastic nature and spectacle are both integral to the experience. Enemies aren't so much mindless, unending mooks in the traditional sense as they are characters who exist for the player to defeat, in order for the player themselves to feel good. Fun, and challenge both are the main foci of these games – the combat is fast, frenetic, kinetic but not chaotic: there are moves to learn, combos to pull off, enemy patterns to distinguish and feelings of power to reinforce.   

As bosses with a focus upon action and physicality, the tone of these fights is more often than not focused upon whether or not it feels and looks good for the player. As such all aspects of design lend themselves to this dynamic. The intent is to make the player feel powerful, to put them in the shoes of Bayonetta, Dante, Raiden, et al. Mechanics come into play to encourage feelings of accomplishment and power but also to encourage repeated fights against this boss. These games may be short, but they will have a lot of replayability – often in the form of trophies, collectibles, difficulties, and different movesets.   

Your first playthrough of any action game will probably not be perfect and part of the appeal for some players is to have to learn the manoeuvres and tactics in order to excel, to finally achieve that perfect -or stylish, or platinum- run. To this effect, there are multiple angles to the bosses and gameplay which work in synergy with one another, each of which compound upon this feeling as well as letting players tailor the experience to their own desires.   

Foremost is the variety in weapon-sets and abilities to learn, a mechanic present in all of these games. You obtain weapons and sometimes abilities as you play, spending currency to get different – but not inherently better- items: and instead of obligatory tutorials or weapons “training” lessons, you spend the following level learning how these weapons or powers work, how to execute their unique combinations, how to fight with them effectively. All of this will be rounded off with a boss fight that tests not only this skill, but all the skills thus far, that you must beat to progress. This teaches mechanics through gameplay without restricting the flow of the game or shoehorning the player – combat is fun, weapons are fun, the player decides how best and which weapons to use according to their own preference.   

Of course, some players do wish they had the ability to practice- loading screens in Bayonetta, instead of being “empty” spaces, have tutorial prompts so you can practice moves and use newly acquired weapons before you enter the game. This doesn't disrupt the flow of the game and allows for some experimentation outside of where it could potentially detract from how “cool” a player feels. Executing combos is fine but if its your first time using this weapon and you mess up, you don't feel as heroic; it takes you out of playing that character and therefore out of the action and story.   

This flowing approach to combat encourages experimentation, reinforcing within the player that there is no one way to approach the game insomuch as there's whatever feels right to you. A pair of gauntlets may be faster and closer-combat oriented than a sword, but a sword might hit harder and in sweeping arcs. It is up to you. This choice, a decision on the players' part, effects little outside of a preferred play style, – thus, the decision is firmly in the players' hands and this gives a freeform, flowing style to the whole game. You are not told which weapons to use: you are given the ingredients and told to do as you will.  

Compounding upon this is that bosses aren't so much a test of whichever weapon or power is strongest as they are a test upon player skill: execution of combos, learning moves and reacting in kind. In these games, mastery of the mechanics, rather than “better” items are what's important. This ensures the very gameplay itself encourages experimentation, as well as reinforcing that weapons, combos and attacking are all the focus of the game. This teaches through gameplay how best to learn the mechanics; in these games, you aren't on the defensive – defensive moves will be used, of course, and their correct execution is integral but only insofar as you are then able to follow up with an especially powerful attack. 

Attacking is the focus. Not only that, but looking good whilst attacking – timed button presses, combos, QTEs and cross-cuts to story beats, and so on. But, far be it from the game to just encourage mindless combat, which would get boring very quickly if mashing buttons any which way achieved the same results as a considered attack. Every boss has certain moves, some more difficult than others but all able to be read, learned, and reacted to by the player with enough skill and patience; the ways in which players are given “hints” to learn are in such mechanics as animation wind ups -often known as telegraphing-, audio cues and musical stings.  

This both makes learning skills and combos intrinsic to the core game design, every aspect combining into a uniform experience, and gives each boss a unique personality through gameplay as well as cutscenes, that help to both focus upon its threat, and its story. Frequent cross-cut cutscenes where the boss reacts to a certain damage threshold or where the level itself reacts, by splitting apart or spewing lava – lending credence and weight to the consequences of your fighting, personality to the levels, and another level of difficulty to the fight - or to an action on the players part, turn each battle into a story the player must fight through. This is dynamic, cinematic and more importantly reduces the number of expository cutscenes you might need to tell a story. If the level design and combat both contribute to telling a story you can focus as much on these aspects as a cutscene – which in the case of this sort of game, might otherwise take the player out of the action. The ultimate goal of many of these attributes is to make the player feel powerful, heroic, and as though they are the player character. 

A secondary achievement for many of these games in the players’ eyes is to get that perfect “platinum” trophy: to prove, if only to yourself, that you can ace those combos, dodge every attack, learn every telegraph a boss gives off. These exist only if you want to pursue them, turning levels into less of a slog of repetition and more a self-imposed challenge the player can undertake if they've beaten the campaign. From the ground up these games are designed to be accessible and fun, with easy modes for those who just want to look cool and play through without the difficulty in order to give players the same cinematic, bad-ass combat feel regardless of whether this is their first time or their hundredth; if it is the latter, however, you are probably playing it with a goal in mind, challenging yourself. 

This doesn't mean games are easy; just that you can get to the end of them with basic-level skills or weapons, as long as you “feel” cool. In these games, spectacle is key. Spectacle, and making the player feel powerful and heroic. All aspects of the games design compound upon this as well as making players look, and feel, good. Devil May Cry's “Style” system, wherein you get ranked on how well you defeated a wave of enemies, compounds upon this, as does Bayonetta's trophies at the end of every level: the very way in which you are marked is, in itself, a hint towards stylish gameplay. 

In my next post on this topic, we'll be tackling puzzle bosses: those intricately designed behemoths, and scaleable foes which perplex and encourage players to think on their feet, as well as swing their sword. 

[relaxedmouse]

Yugioh and its (nearly) Invincible Protagonists

I recently watched the first 3 episodes of Yugioh 5Ds. Here are my first impressions.

Before this, I didn’t know anything about the show other than “card games on motorcycles”. I went in expecting a silly premise, and was met with a surprisingly dark, dystopian setting. There are characters forced to live in poverty, a mass surveillance tracking system that can be tattooed onto people’s faces – now that’s some creepy stuff.

And . . . actually, there’s still that silly premise. The high-speed motorcycle antics look ridiculous. But I’ll admit they’re kind of cool, too. If you’re able to overlook how extremely dangerous playing card games on motorcycles would be in real life, then you might find that watching it in an animated show is exhilarating.

I couldn’t find the Japanese version, so I watched the English dub. I don’t know much about what differences there might be, but I did hear that the English version of episode 2 gave Yusei a fear of bugs that he didn’t have in the original, just to add tension. I was looking forward to seeing the stoic Yusei show fear for once. However, as it turns out, that “fear of bugs” had basically no impact. Throughout the duel, Yusei’s supposed fear was never demonstrated in his voice or his face. There was zero indication that he feared bugs, other than a quick comment from another character. We’re just left to assume that he’s silently feeling fear under that blank expression.

This moment from episode 2 is a very small detail, but it does bring me onto another topic: the tendency of the Yugioh franchise to feature invincible protagonists.

As I watch the earliest episodes of 5Ds, trying to get my head into the show, there is one thing that somewhat diminishes the tension for me: I’ve already been spoiled that Yusei goes totally undefeated in his series. (Except for one flashback duel he has against Jack.)

Of course we love to see our heroes win. But isn’t a story more interesting if they lose a few times as well?

I’ve watched the original Yugioh Duel Monsters series, about half of GX, and barely started 5Ds. It’s been a very long time since I’ve watched the first two. But Raphael’s triumph over Yugi in their first match, Jaden’s loss against Zane – these duels stand out in my memory. When I first saw them, they startled me, because they went against the expectation that the hero would win all the time.

I’ve heard that episode 30-something in 5Ds has Yusei nearly lose a duel – but he crashes his motorcycle before it can conclude, causing him to not-lose on a technicality. It really says something that this is the episode I’m most looking forward to reaching. I’ve just barely begun to watch Yusei win duels, and already I’m waiting for him to (almost) lose one.

When I was a little kid watching the original Yugioh series, I was also a big Pokemon fan at the same time. (I still play the Pokemon games, but haven’t seen the anime in years.) It really stuck out to me, how Yugi won all the time and his rival Seto Kaiba could never hope to beat him. This was in stark contrast to Pokemon, where Ash was a perpetual loser who remained a step behind his rival, and never became the champion of tournaments.

Yugioh is the first franchise that pops into my head when the phrase “invincible hero” comes up. But why is that? What is it about Yugioh that causes it to have virtually unbeatable protagonists? It’s not merely a desire of the writers to make them look cool. It’s the nature of the Yugioh world that forces its heroes to pretty much always win.

The main reason is that the stakes are always so high. If losing a card game means the destruction of the world, the death of a friend, or even just giving up your precious motorcycle, then there’s no way you can let the hero lose. The story can’t afford that loss.

Also, there’s no real way to “recover” from a loss. To explain what I mean by this, I’m going to mention another TV show. It’s been many years since I watched Xiaolin Showdown, but if I recall correctly, the heroes and villains of that show were constantly fighting over magical artifacts called Shen Gong Wu. The “proper” way to win one of those was to defeat your opponent in a showdown (games that had varying rules). However, this didn’t stop the characters from trying to acquire them through other means. Both the good guys and bad guys were regularly sneaking into each other’s houses in order to steal some Shen Gong Wu. Basically, even if you lost a showdown, you could still get the item back later on, using good old-fashioned stealing.

But the Yugioh world doesn’t allow that. In the Yugioh world, everything is dictated by the results of card games. For some reason, a police officer losing a card game prevents him from physically walking over to you and arresting you.

What if Yusei had lost the episode 2 duel where he bet his motorcycle? In another franchise, maybe he could just steal the motorcycle back later, but it’s hard to imagine him doing that in the Yugioh universe, where everybody abides by the Law of Card Games. It’s rare to see a character disobey whatever terms were set before the duel. (Or just skip the duel and go straight to trying to punch the hero.)

Oh, and another important aspect is that “fighting”, in Yugioh, means a game. Games have defined rules for wins and losses. There isn’t much room for a hero to wriggle out of a tight situation, other than just winning.

In other universes, where “fighting” means physically beating each other up, there aren’t really any hard rules. If the hero is battling an enemy and realizes they’re being overwhelmed, they can retreat. What matters is they stayed alive to fight another day. In Yugioh, you can’t really run away from a duel, because that’ll count as a surrender and therefore a loss. Duels can end without a conclusion, but these are relatively rare because they require outside intervention, something more complicated than one player choosing to flee.

And then there are other stories where “fighting” also means a game. Stories that revolve around tennis, baseball, cook-offs, other card games, and so forth. While I’m sure that exceptions exist, in general, I’ve found that these stories have lower stakes than Yugioh. If our protagonist enters a mundane singing contest and loses, then he . . . just loses a contest. It might suck for him, but it’s not exactly the same type of loss as the world being destroyed.

So there you have it: Yugioh protagonists are invincible because the story’s stakes are too high for them to lose, and the rules of playing a game mean they can’t do anything more creative than just straight-up win.

If the heroes do lose, then either it’s in a low-stakes environment (such as playing a friendly match against a buddy), or it has serious consequences that the hero must expend a large amount of effort to deal with (such as Atem losing Yugi’s soul and having to spend the rest of the season trying to get him back). Obviously, the latter is not something you can repeat very often.

Despite this light criticism, I have overall enjoyed the parts of the Yugioh franchise that I’ve seen. But this does make me wonder (about stories in general) how a writer might sustain the tension in a story, even if it’s apparent that the hero will win.

[ardenttheories]

Hey been a while, love the rebranding you’ve been done and it’s nice to see you still going! I don’t know if you’ve done a Prince of Light yet, but if not would it be possible to get your hot take on what they’re all about?

Hi! I’m glad you like the rebranding; I’m still not 100% done with it, but when I get the time (maybe Sunday?) I wholly intend on adding a little more to it when I get the chance. Definitely the theme, if nothing else. 

Now, onto the hot take, right off the press!

The Prince of Light is someone who Destroys Light, which is Awareness, Perception, Information, Importance, Probability, Understanding, Knowledge, Clarity, Truth, and literal Light. 

Princes of Light are highly secretive people. Everything about their life is kept safely in the Shadows, Hidden from view and quite impossible to ever figure out. You may never know their True likes, dislikes, favourite foods, age, hair colour, eye colour, skin tone - either because they will Lie about it, or utterly ommit all Information regarding it. 

Do you know what ethnicity the Prince is? What religion? Not at all. Whenever the topics come up they are surprisingly Vacant, and don’t seem to want to talk about it at all, regardless of what side of the debate they might be on. You might not even know the basics of what they look like, where they live, whether they have a family or not - they’re complete enigmas, and enjoy the Confusion that surrounds their being. 

In essence, they have no desire to be Known at all. 

They likely act as if they Know nothing or are rather dim, when in truth their ability to Understand is significantly more impressive than you’d expect. They’re quick thinkers and witty Players, but they don’t want anyone to know that. Their Information - even on aspects of their own Intelligence or Self - is theirs and theirs only. 

They leave no footprint behind. You couldn’t guess anything about them from conversation, and they don’t tend to talk about anything that’s Important. All the big topics of the day, all the greatest concerns, even just something that you’re actually trying to talk to them about. They will completely talk you around it until you’re back in the safety of Irrelevancy. 

They honestly might just be the sort of person to Know random and completely Irrelevant facts. Did you know that a duck’s womb is spiralled? That squids have beaks? That a lobster’s nervous system is so similar to a human’s that our antidepressants work on them? They refuse to focus on anything of substance, but at least you get to know this. 

When they do find something of Importance, something with Meaning, they may overanalyse it to the point that it suddenly becomes Meaningless. Some things are only Important because they are left vague - such as endings to movies that are meant to make you think about our society and the path it’s going down - but the Prince of Light won’t settle just for that. 

They will pour over it for as long as they can until it has an answer, whether or not that answer is right or True or even what was Meant by the creator. That, or they just completely disregard any actual Meaning from something and take it literally, and enforce that as the only potential. There is no deeper meaning here; there is only what is on the surface. The Truth is Obscured from view, and that is how the Prince likes it. 

They keep to the Shadows as much as they possibly can, and do everything within their power to Destroy any potential for them to reach the limelight. If they’re part of an Important family, they’re likely to be the blacksheep that tends to avoid every camera, every headline. Their existence is debated by the paparazzi and more fiction exists about them than Truth. They very much prefer it that way, too.

Overall, I think, Princes of Light have such an aversion to Information because they much prefer being a Mystery, surrounded by Confusion and never Known. They dislike anything that could even potentially Reveal who they are, the Truth of their being, and similarily dislike any sense of Importance. It is an underlying terror of being Exposed that leads to them overcompensating by Destroying everything that’s True. 

As with all Princes, in Destroying their Aspect the Prince of Light leaves behind the purest form of Void in its place. 

The Prince of Light destroys all Relevancy and Information, and even moreso Relevant Information. If something is Important, or has Relevance, or is meant to Be, then the Prince can and will Destroy it. Something that could have saved the session will no longer have that power because its fundamental Importance is lost, and something that should have been an aid to another Player, something that might have helped them grow, will be deemed Irrelevant and completely Ignored. 

Relevant Information will be Lost completely. Information may be able to survive, but Meaningless facts and fanciful stories are not the same as actually Knowing what you’re doing. The Prince of Light will leave utter Confusion in their wake, as their coPlayers will have to try and navigate a session riddled with Void - spots of Darkness of Information that they have no hope if filling in. 

They can Destroy Clarity, which may be metaphorical and physical. People might find it hard to Understand anything the Prince is saying because of how they say it, being talked around in circles until they eventually give up, Knowing even less than they did before. 

They might lose their actual ability to Understand anything, to read between the lines and to extrapolate Information. More physically, they may lose some ability to see while the Prince is around; not to complete blindness, but the Clarity of the world around them will start to fade, and they might find that everything goes a bit blurry. 

They destroy the Truth by spreading Lies, creating a web of them until the Truth is completely Obscured. The web becomes so tangled that nobody can figure out what’s True, what’s half True, and what is a flat out Lie - and only the Prince themself can Understand anything that’s going on. 

Of course, they can also just destroy the concept of Truth from something. It’s more metaphorical, once again, but imagine knowing that something is True until the Prince destroys its fundamental Truth. 

There is a door in the doorway. That must be True because we can see the door in the doorway. Except now it isn’t true. The fundamental Truth of the door is gone, and now it will either simply not open, disappear completely, or open to absolutely Nothing. 

They have a tendency to completely disregard things if they don’t like them or don’t adhere to what the Prince wants - which is usually complete isolation and Darkness. This can have its severe downfalls, naturally; if they disregard the point of the session, the game can never be won, and they will likely refuse to even think about stuff like Godtiering or fighting the Black King because of how Important those events are. 

On the other hand, they could destroy the Importance of fighting the Black King - meaning that there’s literally no need to do it to win the game. 

As a general rule of thumb, Princes of Light also hate Light. They’re very likely camera shy, photosensitive, or are susceptible to migraines in bright Light. They’ll do everything in their power to Destroy Light - either by physically Destroying Light sources such as lamps, or by using their powers to cast an area in sheer Darkness. This Darkness cannot be naturally removed, as it is an Absence of Light; even trying to shine a Light on it wouldn’t allow what was one there to be seen. 

That does, of course, mean that they can blind people, too; Destroy the ability for the eyes to take in Light or to Comprehend what they’re seeing, and you have both a literal and metaphorical blindness. Pretty nasty stuff on the second one, honestly. It’d be like knowing you can see, that your eyes are still working, but never being able to process the shapes and colours in front of you. 

In the same vein, they could also turn things - including themselves - invisible. How they do this would depend on the power and control of the Prince themself, but this could be destroying the Light around them, destroying their own Relevance, or destroying their Importance. It could even be a mix of all three - in which case, the Prince could even Hide from someone’s memory.

Additionally, destroying Probability or Importance can be both a good and bad thing. It’s the sort of thing that gave Vriska her Luck; she wasn’t actually Lucky, just so Important that nothing could go wrong. 

The Prince of Light would be able to Destroy a person’s Importance, making them a lot easier to defeat. If they can take away the Importance of an Ogre as a higher-levelled enemy, then they’ll be a hell of a lot easier to defeat. The same with Denizens; Destroy their Importance as bosses and they’ll be as weak as Imps. 

They could turn people or things into background characters using this power, which would be good... if they didn’t do it to their Players. Unwittingly using this power would make their team completely Irrelevant, turning the Players into something that isn’t vital for the game’s progression. Consorts probably wouldn’t even recognise them as heroes, and they’d horrifically struggle to get anything done because the game wouldn’t activate certain events for them.

Light’s focus on Fortune can also become a bit of an issue, as that means the Prince could completely Destroy the Fortunes found throughout the session. For instance, the Grist Hoards, or powerful weapons, or even just favourable Grist drops from Underlings. It can, however, mean that they Destroy the Fortune of their enemies, too - such as the potential for the White King’s Scepter ending up in the Black King’s hands. 

It’s a session that could, therefore, completely avoid the Reckoning, should the Prince know what they’re doing. 

 To become Realised, all the Prince has to do is recongise the Importance (ironically) of Light.

They need to Understand that some Light must be left alive. Some Truths have to be known, some Information left in the Light. Some people and things must be Fortunate, or Known, or Relevant, and some things must be Clarified. Some Perceptions must be left in tact. 

This Prince starts to let themself be seen more. They’ll divulge little pieces of Information about themself, maybe take some selfies. They won’t spend all their time in the Darkness, and will actually start to get involved with the people around them. 

If pre-Realised they cover themselves up almost entirely - or even wear a mask - post-Realisation they let themselves open up a bit more. They still find comfort in not being Known, but they let their likes and dislikes shine through, let their face be seen, and tolerate the Light just a little more. 

They’re still not one for the limelight, per se, but they do at least let themselves have some form of Importance - be that in the overarching story or in the lives of their friends. 

They Lie, but only to cover up Truths that shouldn’t be seen - little white Lies that are kinder to people than Knowing the Truth - and they only outright Destroy fundamental Truths that are going to hurt the session. The Truth is that they’re Doomed? Nah. Not today, SBURB, the Prince of Light isn’t vibing with that. 

They Destroy Perceptions only when they are negative or toxic, such as whether people see someone bad as something good, or when multiple different Perceptions of the same topic causes infighting in the group. Leave only one unified Perception behind - whether it’s True or not - and the group is more likely to stick together. 

In the same vein, Destruction of Clarity and Information would be aimed much more towards enemies than friends. Destroy the ability for the Black Royalty to Understand their plans, and they can get away with anything beneath the Dersites’ noses. Destroy the ability for Imps to collect Information on them and - for instance - Clubs Deuce wouldn’t have known that Jake was allergic to peanuts. 

As a Realised Player, their ability to Destroy Light would get significantly stronger. This could reach the point of them being capable of Destroying the Green Sun - something that is both fundamentally Important and one of the hugest Light sources known to man. 

I think, too, if we go in line with Homestuck’s narrative concepts, they could just... Destroy the Narrative. Light is all about the Story, the Plot, the flow of things to the Conclusion of a long and extraordinary Tale. The Prince of Light could Destroy that. They could Destroy Plot points that are harmful, characters that would have caused significant issues later in the session - hell, they could Destroy the story itself. 

Whether that means the idea of a Story - that they have their lives written out before them, therefore allowing them to act freely and randomly outside of the Narrative structure (going a bit more Candy than Meat, for instance) - or just destroying the Story itself - our ability to see what they’re doing, because they would be Obscured from our view as something Real and not a piece of Media - is entirely up to interpretation. It is incredibly powerful, though, and is definitely more of a Realised, late-game ability. 

Hell. They might even be able to become a narrator, just to Destroy the sense of the Narrative itself. 

So, overall, they’re still a Shadow-lurker, still Mysterious, still shy and quiet and Hidden from view - but they’re much more comfortable in the Light. They aren’t as terrified of being Known and become much more aware that some things are Important for a reason, some Truths have a right to exist. 

[too-right-red]

Master Aryon’s Relationships as his Source of Power

As a councilor, Master Aryon seems to value and derive most of his political power from making and maintaining relationships. He values his established relationships very highly, and is comfortable assuming a very strong two-way loyalty wherever they exist. I think this is overall his biggest strength, and what makes him stand out from the other Telvanni. Whether he is seeking out allies on the Telvanni Council, sending medicine to the Zainab Camp, reaching across the aisle to end the Mage’s Guild Monopoly, or simply treating/paying his employees and peasants very well to ensure their loyalty; it seems to consistently be his go-to method. Aryon not only cultivates important and powerful relationships, but he feels comfortable wielding those relationships to exert and extend his power.

Early in his career, Aryon was mentored by Divayth Fyr. It seems to me that he chose Fyr mostly for the prestige the name would bring him (like a modern academic choosing an institution, advisor, or PI mostly for the prestige of the name). Aryon has always been a very ambitious Dunmer. Especially back when Aryon was untested and green, he would need to make this choice very carefully. He later would go on to become the first rogue Telvanni and take Tel Vos in such a dramatic gesture that nobody could deny his admission to the council.

(From Latest Rumors with Telvanni members: “We’ve been fortunate. We tested the resolve of the Duke and the other Houses when we grabbed Tel Vos. And we found out they weren’t going to fight to protect the settlement charters, we sent out our deviants and malcontents to stake new claims. Some will survive, some won’t. Hlaalu and Redoran have to respond. But in the end, the ones that survive will extend our power and influence here on Vvardenfell.”) https://cs.uesp.net/index.php?game=mw&ordid=347829

Fyr enjoyed such prestige among the Telvanni that Aryon’s credentials would not be questioned – even if the other Telvanni saw him as a precocious upstart. Even after Aryon was an established and powerful Telvanni in his own right, he seems to defer to the weight and prestige Fyr’s name brings; he writes to Fyr “Even Gothren and Neloth must admit that you are older and wiser and in every way superior to them in the arcane arts” when pointing out that if Fyr made a bid for the council it would surely go unchallenged.

But Aryon’s old mentor seems, by all accounts, to be completely apathetic and apolitical. Despite this, Aryon seems confident that if he could convince Fyr to join the council, that he would be a strong political ally. Since Fyr seemingly has no political position, I therefore can only assume that Aryon was completely counting on their history together to be enough for Fyr to back up Aryon’s positions whenever needed. Unfortunately for Aryon, Fyr’s history with Aryon was not enough to overcome his apathy, and he declines.

He also is willing to rely on his friendship with Baladas Demnevanni to ensure him as an ally, which seems reasonable as Baladas had been in Telvanni politics before and is presumably a known political fit for Aryon. But (perhaps) even riskier, he is willing to rely heavily on his mentor-mentee relationship with the Nerevarine to solidify his political influence. The Nerevarine is literally the player, and therefore is untested and we have no guarantee for what their politics are. They could be apolitical (like Fyr), or they might even be more conservative (like Aryon’s enemies). But once again, Aryon is confident that their history and relationship will be enough to earn the Nerevarine’s support.

Aryon is consistently loyal to the Nerevarine, and expects absolute loyalty in return. He talks about plans and allies with the Nerevarine in terms of “us” and “we,” no question in his mind that they are operating as a team. And his consistent kindness and loyalty to you, the player, really do make you want to return in kind. When he talks to you, he makes you feel like you are the most important person in the world and that you have his full attention in all things. No concern of yours is too small for him. This is how it feels talking with real life people with very high interpersonal skills, and often those sorts of people genuinely do feel a deep compassion and concern for the people they talk to. It seems natural, that if he extends that concern to you, he feels he can assume you likewise extend it to him. Since your concerns are his concerns, he assumes his concerns are your concerns. And it is this dynamic that he also seems happy to wield as a weapon.

This is also how he approaches more traditionally political situations outside of interpersonal relationships, like negotiations. Before Aryon was the Lord of Tel Vos, the peasants of Vos used to be consistently raided by the Zainab. Where almost all other House Mer (and Imperials) on Vvardenfell respond to Ashlander raids with an even greater show of force, Aryon wants to address the root of the problem. He realizes that, short of wiping out the Ashlanders, responding to them with force won’t ever make the problem go away. He has identified the root of the problem to be resource insecurity among the Zainab tribe, and seems to think that if he addresses that resource insecurity, he can count on the raids to stop.

Is this out of genuine compassion for the Ashlanders, or is this out of an attempt to better control them? And ultimately, does it matter? Certainly, Aryon won’t allow the Zainab to continue raiding his small-folk. That is the minimum obligation of a Lord to his peasants in textbook Feudalism – the lord is expected to defend his peasants from attacks. If he fails to do this, then the lord is not upholding his side of the contract, and they are free to seek work elsewhere with another lord.

But in addition to stopping the raids, sending the Zainab regular shipments of medicine will certainly make them reliant on Aryon and exacerbate the power imbalance. It might appear to be a relationship built out of the best of intentions, but it also puts Aryon firmly in control.

The Zainab wise woman, Sonummu Zabanat, sees right to the heart of it, saying to the Nerevarine: “So you come to ask me about the trade goods wanted by the Zainab. Perhaps I should ask you why you want to know. But perhaps I already know why. The mage-lord Master Aryon is shrewd. He thinks to bind us to Telvanni ways by binding us to Telvanni things. But I see no harm, and much good, in giving you an answer.”

Ultimately she decides that it is better to allow her tribe to rely on Aryon for medicine than to continue to clash with (and be defeated by) his mercenaries when they try to take such resources by force. And it is this exchange that I think is the best summary and example of Aryon’s politics and methods of negotiating relationships. He is incredibly shrewd and savvy, and is unafraid of using his interpersonal skills to further his own ambition. But at the same time his relationships are meaningful to him, and he is trustworthy to those he counts as his allies.

[gascon-en-exil]

FE16 Golden Deer Liveblogging

Chapters 16-18. Just like the Lions route, until it isn’t. There’s also some Dimidue content here, but not enough for its own post.

Chapters 16 and 17 are virtually identical to those chapters for the Lions apart from which army you’re controlling. Ferdinand still shows up to die on the Great Bridge, with a generic taking the place of Lorenz. (Oh, and I’d forgotten to say last time that Ashe appears in Ailell. I read somewhere that he can be recruited somehow here, but I didn’t see it.) The big battle at Gronder Field is a fair bit easier with the Deer; the Lions are less mobile and I believe fewer in number, with the only thing that surprised me being Sylvain and Ingrid coming from behind with reinforcements a few turns in.

Keeping Dedue alive is fairly simple in Chapter 17 since you only have to defeat Edelgard and Dimitri to end the chapter, but I’m not entirely certain I got anything special out of it? In any case, I did so by rushing Edelgard’s lines as fast as possible to get close to taking her out before the Lions start moving. Once they move it looks like Dimitri and his two boyfriends’ AI is specifically trained on Byleth (...why?) unless that’s only because mine was about 30 levels below the rest of my army and cowering in a bush because I’m not using him. It’s therefore not too hard to leave a few units behind to rush Dimitri on his way north as soon as Edelgard is down.

Chapter 18 at first looks like it’s going to be a retread of the Lions’ Chapter 20, the showdown vs. the Death Knight in Fort Merceus, but then the plot happens and you’ve got a bunch of Almyran NPCs led by Nader backing you up while everyone other than Claude assaults the fort from a different starting location. Then the DK surprises everyone by retreating, turning it until a rout map unless you can kill him before he leaves. On that plot point, see below.

Claude’s paralogue is technically the first new map I’ve seen on this route, although it’s really just the story map for the Sreng desert one used for skirmishes. It’s not completely awful to navigate once you realize that there’s a path of normal terrain circling the central structure, which was very helpful when trying to grab the loot from a bunch of thieves determined to commit suicide by dragon. The Wind Caller/Macuil wasn’t particularly worse than any other major monster boss I’ve yet encountered, and he was great for dropping little worldbuilding hints. It’s funny to me that the other house leaders’ paralogues target major military installations while Claude goes on a field trip to another country for information.

Character/Story observations

Let’s start with the Dimidue. The reason I say that I’m not sure that sparing Dedue accomplishes anything is that he retreats from battle and the post-chapter cutscenes play out as if this had happened anyway. Hilda describes Dimitri charging after Edelgard alone before collapsing and getting run through by Imperial soldiers. Claude then asks after Dimitri’s vassal whose fate was unknown - and then it cuts to Dedue alone, saying this: “Your Highness! Your ambitions are my own now! I...I will bring you Edelgard’s head... I swear it!” This is indeed the route where these two go full Quan/Finn, and although Dimitri’s offscreen end lacks the poignancy of Yied the results are no less tragic or less gay. And because Dimitri has no son to be fueled with righteous anger, Dedue has to carry within him not only Finn’s unbroken loyalty but Leif’s rage. I know he’ll be making a reappearance in a later chapter, too, so this isn’t the end for them. I wouldn’t be surprised if the anons I’ve gotten on the subject were really about the chapter where you kill Edelgard.

I made a point to defeat Dedue first before rewinding time to see what would come of it, and actually I think that adds even more to where their relationship is/was on this route. In this version of events it’s left ambiguous who’s leading the mysterious Faerghus army until Dimitri appears on the battlefield, and apart from the bit about Cornelia’s coup right after the timeskip no explanation is given for why Dimitri is his one-eyed feral self. Unless the game says otherwise, I’m going to assume that events played out as they did in the Lions, with Dedue rescuing him from prison but needing to sacrifice himself and inadvertently leaving Dimitri to wander alone as a vagrant for five years. This Dimitri is as such violent, contemptuous, and obsessed with revenge, and when his allies die in battle his “mourning” quotes are nothing but ellipses (Sylvain), dismissive grunts (Mercedes), or their names (Felix, Ingrid). For Dedue, though, who protests that he can keep fighting after being defeated, Dimitri says this:  “Shut up and retreat. You must live, Dedue.” So I was right about how this storyline plays out; per his Gilbert support, Dedue has to have his prince command him to live for him to have not charged to his death alongside Dimitri. Also, way to have all that homoromantic co-dependence flow both ways to have even a feral, death-seeking Dimitri insist on Dedue’s survival while all his childhood friends (and Mercedes) are dying around him and he barely spares them a word.

Anyway...let’s talk about lighter things. Not many supports left for me to get; I finally finished off Catherine and Shamir’s line, and it is blatantly romantic down to marriage propositions. As a counterpoint Claude’s last support with Shamir is one of his more romantic and one of the few endings that sees him eventually abandon Almyra. Flayn/Manuela dances around prostitution - good thing Flayn is secretly hundreds of years old, right?

Monastery tidbits: an NPC soldier confirms that the Fódlan year begins with the Great Tree Moon - the April equivalent. This means that numbering the months to match up with the Gregorian calendar was solely so the player could give Byleth a real world birthday. So worth it. I’ve also noticed that there’s a line of minor quests for supplies and skirmishes in Part 2 that are the same across all routes, with the only difference coming from who’s handing them out. For Edelgard it’s Hubert and for Claude it’s Hilda, but for Dimitri it’s Gilbert as yet another thing Dedue misses out on by being dead by default.

In a rare bit of honesty that’s kind of hilarious, Claude admits that he’s using Byleth for their connection to the church, now as a means of smoothing over tensions within the Alliance.

I complained about how the Alliance’s presence and behavior at the Gronder Field rematch on the Lions route has little explanation, and unfortunately the way the Kingdom remnant is handled is only slightly better here. Claude’s forces don’t try allying with them first because their movements have been erratic, and then later because it’s foggy at Gronder...fog that doesn’t stick around for the map itself, thankfully. Dimitri may be feral and unable to be reasoned with, but what about Gilbert or Rodrigue? The rematch is a big marketing moment, but having the Kingdom and Alliance fight each other instead of unifying against the Empire feels like a contrivance either way.

One thing I think Three Houses does really well compared to earlier games is that there’s less of a sense of what I think of as arbitrary chorus characters: people aside from the leads who show up in most dialogue scenes for the protagonist(s) to play off, who get to be there because they have plot armor or are NPCs so they can’t die in battle and therefore don’t need to be written around. FE16 goes out of its way to include every character in your army at one point or another in story cutscenes, sometimes even in plot critical ways. For example, after Chapter 17 it’s Lysithea who provides the plot hook to bring Those Who Slither back into the story by sharing her traumatic past. Meanwhile in Chapter 18 it’s Hilda who comes up with the ruse of invading Fort Merceus disguised as Imperial soldiers...as well as a gag about dressing Claude in drag that’s mildly amusing but goes nowhere.

Oh, right...I need to talk about the DK, and Those Who Slither’s nukes. The DK retreats from Fort Merceus because his side has “javelins of light” that totally obliterate it in the same way that Arianrhod gets obliterated in Edelgard’s route. As this happens in a cutscene I assume the DK doesn’t die there if you defeat him, as he does in the Lions route. If it seems odd that I’m not dwelling on the fact that the enemy now has anachronistic nukes, it’s nothing compared to Claude, who takes the opportunity to have an extended discussion on racism. Lorenz takes him to task for allying with the Almyran general Nader, and Claude reveals his plan to solve racism with imperialism. As silly as that is, he’s still deft (and manipulative) enough not to do so by revealing his own heritage but rather by dragging Cyril into the spotlight as an example of an Almyran among their own forces. Cyril protests, but that’s just how Claude rolls.

Part of Claude’s big speech references the Officer’s Academy bringing together people from many different backgrounds, among them the princess of Brigid and a man of Duscur. You know, an Imperial hostage and the vassal/boyfriend of the mentally unstable crown prince of Faerghus, because those are completely normal circumstances for adding diversity to the student body. It’s also strange to me that he considers Duscur as outside Fódlan. Ethnically and culturally distinct from Faerghus, yes, but Fódlan is a continent with three independent political entities that also includes the peninsula on which Duscur rests. To use a real world comparison close to how I imagine the relations in question, this would be comparable to saying that the Basque people do not live in Europe because they are an ethnic group distinct from the people of France/Spain. I’m clearly putting more thought into this than the game does, but still.