#( . i'm sure this'll be more fun anyway lol

[stillsolo]

@forcenexus 𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚍 :: you have to talk to someone, eventually. it doesn’t have to be me, but. you need to.

              𝙲𝙾𝙲𝙺𝚈 𝚈𝙴𝚃 𝚆𝙴𝙻𝙻-𝙸𝙽𝚃𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽𝙴𝙳 𝚆𝙰𝚂 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙸𝙼𝙿𝚁𝙴𝚂𝚂𝙸𝙾𝙽 𝙷𝙰𝙽 𝚂𝙾𝙻𝙾 𝙷𝙰𝙳 𝙵𝙾𝚁𝙼𝙴𝙳 𝙳𝚄𝚁𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙷𝙸𝚂 𝙸𝙽𝙸𝚃𝙸𝙰𝙻 𝙴𝙽𝙲𝙾𝚄𝙽𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝚆𝙸𝚃𝙷 𝚃𝙷𝙸𝚂 𝚂𝚃𝚁𝙰𝙽𝙶𝙴𝚁.     subsequent interactions were a mixed bag: whip-smart and frighteningly perceptive at times, a touch imprudent here and there—especially when rowdy, drunken bastards couldn’t leave a man well enough alone, but still a solid cut above the usual crawl.  a distinct mechanical aptitude and a willingness to talk shop served well to distract from the haunting stillness he’d seen in those blue eyes, the rough corners and jagged edges that bespoke a hard life lived.

now, han couldn’t help but wonder whether this was part of an elaborate façade, an unnecessary continuation for the sake of appearances, or if this was a genuine naïveté he never saw coming.              half-draped over the bar top, solo took in the colorful scenery of club kasakar, downing the remaining half of his whiskey before slanting a pointed glance at the other man.

❝loose lips in my line of work can lead to a lot more than hurt feelings.❞   like empty pockets or a one-way ticket to the top of every bounty hunter’s list working out of coruscant’s capital.  not exactly how he pictured himself going out—though that was hardly the point.   ❝who says i’ve got anything to talk about, anyway?❞

it was almost comical to consider, damned near absurd to even entertain the concept of opening up to anyone about anything.  what good would it do?  moreover, what could he say that wouldn’t immediately land him in a world of trouble?  ‘talking’ wasn’t meant for riffraff like himself—spacers whose lives often hinged on the mercurial moods of powerful men and women.  besides, unburdening to strangers was among the few tricky habits he’d managed to sidestep completely.  solo couldn’t imagine starting now, inside a seedy nightclub on the lower levels of coruscant, and with a total stranger to boot.

[picory]

playing hyrule warriors: age of calamity on yuzu on my laptop at 6 FPS. a perfectly normal way to play that was intended by the creators i'm sure

[sysig]

It’s that quarterly time of year again where I complain about tumblr’s inability to handle 50+ images in one text post

[poohsources]

I'm new to tumblr and i'm not sure how rp bandwagons work on here haha.

I know i have to reblog them, but i'm not sure what happens next or where to put the starter 'n such. so sorry if this doesn't make sense LOL.

hi there! gotta be honest here, i have no clue what bandwagons are ( i tried looking it up but all i gathered was that it's something used in twitter rp ) so i'm not exactly sure this'll be the right answer. but i hope this will be of help for you anyway and is what you're looking for. if not, feel free to send me another ask and i'll try to give a better explanation.

after you've set up your blog and gathered some followers, there are two easy ways to get interactions going. technically there are more, but these two are the ones that work the quickest and make you start doing stuff on your blog.

starter calls. make a post titled starter call in which you give people a chance to request a starter from you. they can like or reply to that post, which in turn shows you they're interested in writing with you. now you can either reach out to plot with them ( if you want to ― usually, starter calls are more of a spontaneous thing that isn't really planned out, although it can eventually evolve into something deeper ) or just make a new post / starter for them. you can keep it simple with just a line of dialogue ( remember to make open dialogue and give your partner something to work with; roleplaying is a back-and-forth that requires some kind of effort being put into it ) or write maybe a paragraph or two ― whatever you feel like doing. it's best to tag the person the starter is for somewhere in the post ( you can do that by using @ and putting the username right after the symbol ) so they'll hopefully see your post. from there on, they reblog your post with their reply, and afterward, you reblog your reply to their post, and so on and so on.

memes. another easy way to get things going is by reblogging memes / sentence starters to your blog. you can find a variety of them either by looking up rp memes ( or if you want something more specific, e.g. angst starters, try looking up that ) and all you'll have to do is to click on the reblog button and put them on your blog. now your followers can send you one or multiple of these through your inbox ( which reminds me that you have to make sure that is turned on. to check that, go to your blog settings, scroll down until you see the switch titled "let people ask questions" and make sure it's on ) for you to reply to. as for your reply, you can either directly do that by accessing your inbox ( if you're on desktop, it's the little mail symbol on top / on mobile you can access it by clicking the profile button on the far right, then going to the settings at the top right and clicking on inbox ) and clicking answer or you can make a completely new post in which you'll copy and paste the sentence starter that was sent to you, and then do basically the same thing i explained for the starter call. write your reply, tag the person who sent it to you in it, and let the reply thread begin.

anyway, it might seem a little daunting at first but once you've got the hang of it, it's really simple and quite fun.

[concealeddarkness13]

Wow, I Can't Believe it's Another Story Idea!

I have way too many, but this one feels really promising, lol. And it's a lot of fun as a concept! Tagging: @ratracechronicler, @maple-writes, @pen-of-roses, and @drabbleitout!

This'll probably be a long one. So, this story happens about 20-40 years before the start of any of my other stories. It follows this one continent on this world (might move to more continents, but right now, just one), and they're in the middle of a war. The Arcadian Empire is totally trying to expand its reaches and pushing into other countries, and the other two main countries are called Terithia and Liliquen. I'll detail these three first and then get into characters and plot.

First, the Arcadian Empire. Honestly, not a terrible place to live. The emperor, Vyxis, gives freedoms and protected leave and breaks and living wages to his citizens. He's learned from his father--who was killed by his overworked and starving citizens--to give the citizens good living conditions and make them happy. However, he is ruthless when someone acts out against the empire, and anyone with very powerful magic is taken to be used as a weapon for the empire.

Terithia is more lenient on citizens, barely seeming to have a presence in their lives. They generally worry more about the local governments than the national government. At least, in most things. The government is initiating a program to rid every citizen of their magic and even extend that beyond their boarders. The leader believes that magic is the root of everyone's problems, and since everyone on this world has some kind of magic, everyone should be purged of magic. There are ample underground areas for refugees from other places to hide out in and also not get purged, but those places are starting to get more crowded and in danger of being found because of that.

Liliquen has a great emphasis on the arts. Every city will be filled with art and singing and dancing wherever you look. It's as if they aren't at war. Which, for the citizens, it's as if they aren't. The queen, Requiem, and her sister, Soliloquy, have unique magic. Requiem can reanimate the dead, and Soliloquy can move someone's soul into another object. They ran a campaign to have their citizens die for them so they could take their souls and put them into androids and have an undead army! And it worked well for a while, totally not sketchy at all. But now, after a few years, the androids are rejecting the souls, which means the souls are getting destroyed, and the androids are growing souls of their own. Which is a problem. That Requiem and Soliloquy are pretending is not happening.

So, those are the countries! I will go into the plot first to try and explain what this story is about. I'm going to try to make a story where a lot of the characters are morally gray and readers root for them anyway, and we'll see how I do!

So, plot! Basically, Fate is one of the Variants of the universe. And it controls the fate of the different worlds. It makes sure those worlds stay on their chosen paths and will correct if any of them try to get off course.

About 20 years before the start of this story, the strings of fate were somehow cut from this world, causing a major change in the story initially and the world veering off the course Fate had for it. Basically, in one day, a lot of the young heirs' parents were going to die in a tragic accident, but that didn't happen, so the parents lived! Reverse protagonist backstorying! And that changed these heirs in small but important ways. Which I'll detail the ways it changed one of the heirs when I talk about the character.

So that happened, and Fate came to fix it back on course. It made a follower on this world, and that follower has the power to move in the world and infect others to make them into Fate's puppets. Which means that they'll feel compelled to do what is supposed to happen in the story. Which sucks because I think this whole story ends with either the planet getting taken over by Polaris and used by them or it ends with the planet getting destroyed. So, no one should particularly want that.

So, basically, the story is gonna be fighting against Fate and choosing the future on their own terms. There are gonna be a lot of characters, but I don't know all of them yet. I'll detail the ones I know.

Vyxis! My boy, Vyxis. I adore him, even though he is a piece of shit. He's the emperor, and he is also a trans man! We'll get back to that soon. So, he actually knows about all this Fate stuff and is the one specifically fighting against Fate. Because in the Fated story, he dies alone and humiliated, and he wants to win. He's totally not doing this because of any good intentions. Really, he just wants to win. I'm thinking he has magic that gives him a cool monstrous form that does something cool, but he has to feed on magic when in that form. Because of the strings of fate getting cut, his mother survived, and he didn't grow so isolated and unwilling to tell anyone anything, so he actually admits to his family and closest friend that he's a trans man, and because of magic, he transitioned quickly and is a lot happier like this (in the Fated story, he never transitioned or told anyone he was a trans man). He has a wife named Ishnir that he trusts with his life, and he honestly only truly loves her. Everyone else is more of a pawn to him. He's cold and calculating, doing things only for his benefit, and in most any other story, he would be the villain, but because of a shared enemy in Fate, he has to join with the other more moral characters, but he'll endlessly complain about it.

Ishnir is Vyxis's second in command and his wife. They both know it was a marriage of convenience, but they do both care about each other. I'm toying with the idea of Ishnir being bisexual and aromantic, but I do need to do more research before I can say for sure. She takes care of the day to day issues that pop up in the war and in the empire. She's blunt and pragmatic, never really letting down her walls except when she's alone with Vyxis. She has magic that allows her to create snakes made of shadow, and those snakes can have venom that can kill someone in seconds, if she so wishes for them to. She loves her snakes too and usually keeps one around (which she has named Cici), and she loves wrapping around her shoulders. In the Fated story, Ishnir is supposed to be the last one to betray Vyxis, leaving him entirely alone and desperate, but in this timeline, they actually have opened up to each other, so there is no way that will happen this time. Unless she gets infected to be Fate's puppet...

Espa is the resident Chaotic Gremlin. The first aesthetic I even thought of for them was just a set of vampire fangs. They are actually the one who can see what's fated to happen, and they realized that Vyxis had the highest chance to affect change, so they went to him and gave him the info. They stick around, in the cells because they agree with Vyxis that he can't trust them, and they keep advising him how to keep away from the Fated story. They are also telepathic and potentially also can loop backwards in time, not sure about the latter one yet though. They have a vested interest in this world surviving (because they live on this world), so they're working with Vyxis and Ishnir even if Espa doesn't particularly like them. But maybe Espa will warm up to them eventually. Sarcastic and seemingly having no survival instinct, they banter with Ishnir whenever they see her.

Keir and Arik (both he/him). Since I don't know tons about them, they'll be in this paragraph together. They were soldiers, one fighting for the Arcadian Empire, and the other fighting for Terithia, but they both figured out that both places were terrible, so they defected. And they also fell in love and got married unofficially, since no one would marry two defected soldiers from different countries. They have made it their life missions to fight against Terithia and the Arcadian Empire as best they can while also adopting as many orphans as they can. As luck would have it, they've found some very powerful magic orphans, and they love all of them dearly and want to protect them as best they can. In the Fated story, I think these guys and their kids were the sole protagonists.

Stafri is the oldest orphan Keir and Arik adopted. First, I need to explain that there is one constant in the magic of this world: there will always be four elementals: people who have fire, ice, ground, or storm magic. And lesser naturals, who have aspects of those four magics, but not as powerful and more energy-draining. Of course, the countries all really want to find the four elementals, with the naturals being not as important to them. Stafri is a water natural, which means she can control water and listen to it, but controlling it uses a lot of energy. She has harnessed it well enough to not have to use as much energy, but it's still not ideal. She's very protective of the other orphans and of Arik and Keir, but Arik and Keir don't let her come along on their nightly missions, and she wants to help. She's kind and calm and just wants to fight back against the countries who have hurt her and her friends.

Renfel is one of the oldest orphans. He has magic that basically allows him to voluntarily shapeshift into a huge, bipedal wolf, but when he isn't transformed, he's still as scrawny as when he was first adopted. Because transforming uses a lot of energy. He's nervous and shy, but he also wants to help Keir and Arik with their nightly missions, so he convinces Stafri to help him sneak after them and help them. That's all I know about these two yet, lol.

Chesten was picked up by the Arcadian Empire a few years ago, and he has become a loyal assassin and spy for Ishnir and Vyxis. I think his magic has something to do with shadows, but I don't exactly know it yet. He's serious and always hides behind his mask that covers his mouth and nose. He's especially been tasked with finding the elementals, and he especially wants to find the storm elemental, but he won't tell Ishnir why. It's because...

Kirsa is the storm elemental and also Chesten's twin sister! A few years ago, when they were separated, Kirsa was taken by the heat natural and tortured for some reason, not sure yet, but she has a scar like Zuko's from a burn she got from the heat natural. And a scar on her chest that reads "monster". She was rescued by the lightning natural who is trying to help her from getting enslaved. She's sarcastic and loud and smiles easily, but it never reaches her eyes. She doesn't know Chesten is working for the Arcadian Empire, and she won't be thrilled to find out.

So, these are all the characters I know right now! Besides Requiem and Soliloquy, who I just don't know enough about to have a whole paragraph about, and I do have glimpses of other characters, but not enough to talk about. Thanks so much for reading this! If this happens to sound similar to We Stand United, We Fall Together in some ways, it's because I think I'll absorb that story into this one, maybe making WSUWFT into the template for how the Fated story went. But thank you so much for reading!

[marley-manson]

if you feel like it, i would very much like to see the "top 10 episodes marley doesn't care for" list. not episodes you hate, just ones you could take or leave. and not necessarily 10 if you don't want, i'm just really curious.

Ooh yeah this'll be fun, thank you! This is specifically like, episodes where I feel like I dislike them more than most of fandom, rather than known controversial episodes, or bland episodes most of fandom agrees are bland. Cut to spare others my negativity lol.

A Smattering Of Intelligence - I think this is a pretty well-liked episode since it's Flagg's proper introduction, but it's probably my least fave of Flagg's appearances. I find it a little too cartoony, and to me it almost feels like a generic satirical spy story that someone took and inserted into Mash's universe. The vibes feel off.

The Party - lol like Movie Tonight this is another episode that's so beloved I feel kinda bad for not liking it much. There's lots I do like about it (Klinger's mom!) but overall I feel like the off-screen characters are annoyingly softened and made ooc to serve an uplifting, sentimental purpose that I don't really want from Mash anyway lol. Like Margaret's divorced parents getting along for this, or Charles' parents making friends with Radar's family.

And on top of that the vibe is... again, not what I want from Mash. I don't want that sense of uncomplicatedly positive bonding outside the war. Like imo Dear Dad Three's offhand joke where everyone unanimously voted against a reunion, in which the idea of a ten year MASH reunion is inherently laughable, is miles better than this episode in its entirety to me.

Bug Out - some good moments, some great jokes, but the army good vibes are infuriating to me. Potter's "If the U.S. army wants land, we just take it!" in a totally uncritical, ha ha funny context; the end where the US beating back North Korea is played for triumph complete with military remix of the theme... bad stuff.

April Fools - I definitely see the appeal of the squad teaming up together, but unfortunately this episode failed to capitalize on it, and I hate the premise immensely. I'm sure it's intended as a simple "lol the prankers become the prankees!" reversal but Potter enlisting his war buddy to prank the draftees (and Margaret) by making them think they're going to get court martialed and sent to prison for insubordination is just not my idea of fun shennanigans lol, which makes the tone of this very incongruent and awkward. Plus more making fun of Klinger, plus Hawkeye's epic prank finale sucked and we all know he could and would do a lot better than that if he had nothing to lose. It's fun if you totally ignore the lighthearted tone and take it for the mindfuck it is though lol.

Movie Tonight - I mentioned it already but yeah, it feels like the actors rather than the characters and that's not a vibe I enjoy personally, it has its moments but it's kind of awkward and unfun to me overall.

Hey Look Me Over - I've talked about this at greater length before but yeah it's like, I definitely appreciate the sentiment of a story where a not conventionally attractive woman wins a dude over with her personality, but I don't think it accomplished what they were aiming for. To me it made Hawkeye seem like a saint for changing his mind about her after getting yelled at for friendzoning her lol, and I don't think Kellye came across well in it compared to all her much cooler brief appearances. Nice that she tells us she sings and tapdances, but I'll take watching her smoke a cigar over that any day.

Who Knew - boo hiss, I've complained about it before at length. I know a few other people who also dislike it but overall it seems to be taken pretty uncritically in fandom and it shouldn't be, frankly.

As Time Goes By - the whole concept of the capsule is bad, it would've been bad even if Hawkeye filled it with subversive jokes, but then it was taken seriously as a poignant symbol of the army... woof.

The Price - I don't think this is beloved by fandom by any means, but it flies under the radar when by rights it should be hated imo. As perfect as Hawkeye is in this episode, Potter and the war hero's storyline is one of the worst subplots of the show, and I'm not qualifying that with an 'imo.'

Taking The Fifth - I had a hard time coming up with one more lol which just goes to show how good Mash is, but I went with this because I think most fans generally enjoy it and find it fun but I dislike it. I don't hate hate it, but like, Potter and Klinger's subplot is obnoxious, Hawkeye's plot is obnoxious and I hate the pathetic failed womanizer thing, and it's my go-to example of the kind of gay jokes that don't appeal to me nearly as much as the satirical seasons' jokes.

[creaturefeaster]

What's going on in the doodles you posted of Gary, Michael, and bristly I guess

I'm going with the assumption that you're talking about the doodles where Bristly is holding Michael upside down in front of Gary. Pics and description below the cut.

These were a series of doodles I did while messing arorund with a few different ideas back some time in June I think.

The general premise is that about a month into Bristly's reign, Gary finally had enough & managed to split from his group. He managed by himself for a couple of days before Bristly decided to take Michael away from Lauren and toss him in with Gary instead. Literally for the drama of it all.

Here, in an old house Gary's bunkered himself in, Bristly drops Michael down with not much warning other than "new playmate for you."

It's very awkward, they haven't seen each other in a month, they didn't really leave off on the best terms, and it seems like Bristly knew that well enough to concoct a perfectly tense & weird amount of friction between them to boot.

Here, Gary is a bit wary of Michael's sudden appearance, not having been subjected to much to Bristly's dollhouse-like games yet. It's confusing and unnerving, but more than anything it's just... uncomfortable, because all Bristly does for a good several minutes is keep Michael hanging there. Like. Gary isn't sure how he can help, but he also shouldn't just walk away either, so... Yeah just. Awkward o<o

Eventually though, after conversation runs dry and Michael seems to be getting light headed, Bristly lets him go to "let you [two] have fun alone together."

This sudden action kicks Gary into alert, whips out his switchblade defensively, to which Bristly's like oh yeah so scared lol. Anyway *goes up*

Gary knows by now Bristly will never be a battle he can beat on his own, so he gives it a rest. Has to come to terms with the fact that someone is with him again, and that that someone is a guy whom of which he's had a rather intimately awkward encounter with, not all that long ago either. 😳 yes, like that.

He's quick to diss Bristly once he's no longer breathing down their necks, and they can relate for a moment that they both very much dislike the guy. Obviously.

Gary's not so welcoming to Michael though, would rather be alone, tries to remain dismissive and distant like always. Barely 5 minutes alone with Gary and Michael's already like. Upset. And in his head rn he's like wow this is gonna be so awesome.

Gary leaves to another room to let Michael adjust on his lonesome. Out of frame Michael is looking up to the hole in the ceiling Bristly left from, and Bristly is still peeking out to watch. So Michael isn't keen on staying in this room either.

Andddd the only direction he can go to evade Bristly's watchful eyes is the same way Gary went. So yeah. This'll all end up swell for them!!!! (thats his hopeless sarcasm)

That's all I have on these doodles. You can tell by the last several panels I sorta ran out of steam ^^;. Honestly a lot of what I wanted to draw was just that first panel, I wanted to draw Michael upside down and nervous, and I wanted to draw Gary's hair swoop growing out just slightly. Better cut that bitch soon before it turns back into a swirl, dude!!!

Hope this quells your inquiry.

[aggressivelyarospec]

hi! ASAW dorm program planner anon here. heads up: this'll be a bit long, sorry! just wanted to say thank you for the encouragement! I was really anxious about it and that really helped. just finished up the program, and it went great! my hall director was really excited about the idea and the handouts I showed her during our 1:1, so we printed out a bunch (in color, so we've got those beautiful aro greens!) of each for people to pick up. (we used the ones about amatonormativity, intro to aromanticism, and common aro identities from AUREA.) we ended up just decorating cookies instead of doing the speed-friend thing, which I honestly think is for the best lol. everyone was talking with each other and had a really nice time! the cookies were great too, and there were actually people looking at the handouts while they were decorating and taking them with them to read when they left! somebody was flipping through one and really excitedly asked their friend if they'd looked at them yet, and someone else started a (short, but still) convo about WTFromantic with me. it was really relieving, because I honestly thought people would just come for the cookies and leave without even looking at the handouts, or worse, but definitely something I was bracing myself for, people would be making fun of the concept of aromanticism and generally be arophobic—and while a few people definitely did just come for the cookies, no one was a jerk! so, big win! running the event was less intimidating than I thought, especially because we've just started this thing this semester where each event is lead by a different person so we're all taking on different responsibilities and getting more experience and stuff, so it's not like it's just bc I'm aro and I suggested it that I had to do it, which felt like it took a lot of the pressure off. we got a great turnout! really good numbers for us, the table was full almost the whole time, and we were able to get through all the cookies, and without running out early. my hall director and one of the other members of the team were also talking about how the pamphlets are really cool, and the director said she went to the site it was from (AUREA) and some of the resources they had, and that she also looked through the other handouts and things they had on there (in her free time, which she barely has, on her own, without prompting, because she felt like it and thought it was interesting?? !!!), and she thought it was all super cool, really well done, and informative. so. massive success in my book!! can't tell you how happy I am about how this went!

I also made a cookie myself, with green sprinkles making an arrow, and then I had some time to kill while just talking and overseeing things, so I jazzed it up a little with some yellow sprinkles around the edges, and some silver edible glitter, so now it kind of reminds me of the alloaro flag. I'd send in a picture, but I'm a bit too shy to come off anon. anyway, thanks for the help, and thanks for letting me ramble! sorry for clogging up your inbox. have a great day/night! and happy ASAW! :)

Hello! Wow, that sounds fantastic. Congratulations, you did a great job. It's really wonderful they were respectful, but even more that they were interested in it, definitely a big win! You did something amazing there, thank you for sharing it with us.

Also, you can send the picture if you want and we can post it for you so you don't have to come off anon. Either way, we're sure it was gorgeous and tasty!

-- Caro

[gingus-doon]

pov u just shot your childhood hero, wdyd

i.e. i ramble about keiji post-shooting; his occupation, what he does, how he copes, how he feels, etc. etc.

just putting this little thing here because the post got quite long and i couldn't split it up because it's all somewhat related. it started out as a rant / informal ramble but then it got serious lololol

—

one thing i don't understand is why people hc keiji as still having a job with the police post-shooting? like that just doesn't make sense to me– not only based on his character but like... why would you wanna make him a cop with all the talk of how much the police suck lately? personally i'm a brown bitch so i couldn't be down with thirsting over a cop lol. it's just kinda confusing sjdhd

i've seen the hc of him as a private investigator, though, which i like! it's a very neat way to let him flex his detective skills without being part of a corrupt organization and without forsaking his own personal beliefs and feelings about the police, because i don't think those would change anywhere near easily and i just kinda can't see him going back into the police force because of that.

i have often wondered what keiji would do after the death game, and what he was doing before the death game or after the shooting, because i think he'd definitely quit after the shooting, with all the grief and trauma surrounding the job and his newfound cynicism.

i don't think he'd be doing private investigation before the game, or more specifically, before his character develops into something reminiscent of his old self– as he is at the start of the game, he just doesn't have that faith in protection, so i can't imagine him being an investigator at that point. HOWEVER, in a post death game OR non-death game au where keiji has started to pull himself up from that tar (most likely with the help of others lol) i think that's definitely a plausible option for him and i like it a lot :]

as for other options, though... i really don't know! this is more of a stupid idea but i considered him working in a convenience store like shin lol. i had a whoooole au about him, kai, and shin working in the same convenience store just because they can't hold down any other jobs / don't know what else to do for work. shin is able to actually hold down the job because the last manager was mysteriously taken out of commission (i don't know lol) and they were ridiculously short-staffed already so shin ended up being the "most qualified" for the now vacant position. keiji's had a string of odd jobs since the police and this is just the next one. he's hoping to find something with a better wage but this'll do for now, it's even in walking distance from his apartment. and kai, kai's trying to exercise more independence from the chidouins' after becoming his own person! so he gets what i think would be his first job (well, his first official job, anyway... being an assassin and the chidouins' personal maid were more unofficial gigs lol.) ahh that was a lotta rambling about my dumb little au but i just think it'd be neat, they're three of my favourite characters so having them just vibe with each other at work and become friends sounds nice 2 me :] also Coincidentally i ship literally every combination of those three characters so that may have played a part in my casting decisions lmfao

oh wow that was a really long and uncalled for synopsis but this is just a rambly post so it can't really be uncalled for because this post doesn't have any particular point lol (A/N after writing this— IT HAS A POINT NOW, DISREGARD PAST ME)

SO ANYWAY ! i was just considering what keiji would do right after the shooting. honestly i have noooo idea, it's the beginning of a long road of him burying his trauma in a desperate attempt to avoid facing the pain it brings, and it marks a profound loss of innocence which makes his heart begin to grow cold. it's just hard to see the beginning of the process when where he started and where he ended up are very different places.

obviously, he'd quit his job. i wonder if the hallucinations would start right away? him being naïve in the beginning, i'm sure he'd acknowledge them– cry out apologies and plead for forgiveness until his throat is hoarse. the rule of hallucinations in yttd seems to be that if you acknowledge them, they'll burn themselves into your brain and you'll never be rid of them– implying that keiji has done so, as it's likely been years since the shooting and he's still suffering from the visions despite seeming to ignore them now.

ahh, i'm getting in my feelings about keiji now 😭😭 when i started this, i wanted to be held by him, but now i just wanna hug him like damnnnn

but back to what he'd do after the shooting– this scenario is self indulgent, but wouldn't it be nice if he took some time off and just stayed at his mom's place for a while? help her with chores while she's at work, try to regain a sense of normalcy in his childhood home...

i don't think he'd be able to do this right after the shooting. keiji had shame, once upon a time– the guilt would rack him like nothing else. i can imagine him spending a lot of late nights with alcohol, just wishing it was a dream. his resentment towards megumi slowly building as he feels he's being left in the dark as to why, why he isn't allowed to atone, why she's being so cold towards him about the shooting when he's suffering so heavily from the effects of it.

he wouldn't want to be around his dear mom as a murderer, and as a resentful alcoholic who's coping very poorly with his circumstances.

also (tangent incoming), i kind of wonder about keiji and alcohol a lot. in his fondness events with mishima, he says the following—

the "haven't drank that much in years" part makes me wonder– for how long? did he start to restrain himself before the shooting or after? i would say it's most likely after, considering the "feels like it'll swallow me up" comment he made soon after. and, how he talked about binge drinking when he was still a newbie. perhaps it was fine for him to do so, before the shooting— he'd just get wasted and flirt, have a good time. but after, it morphed into an inefficient coping mechanism which he fell far within the depths of to try and control the worst of his grief and self hatred. after that, heavy drinking couldn't just be for fun anymore.

i assume in the "before it got this way" comment, the "way" he's referring to is how he doesn't drink much anymore? or, he could be talking about the depression drinking, but i think the prior makes more sense.

even though i think, given keiji's example of drinking with megumi, that he could have gotten blackout drunk a couple of times purely for fun pre-shooting, i think here he's referring to the painful side of his relationship with alcohol here, the part that took place when he was trying to cope with his trauma. i think he brings up the story of drinking with megumi immediately after, then, to avoid talking about that part of his past. though he doesn't show it much, i think he's deeply ashamed of himself. not only of what he's done, but how he's handled it afterwards.

on a lighter note, though, it's quite funny to think of Lawful Good young keiji shinogi getting drunk off his ass and flirting with every woman he comes across willing to flirt back. like, what's up with that??? he seems like such a serious dork in the flashbacks, but doing well in his police job, he just... lets loose?? no no, honestly i think he hadn't drank much before going out with megumi and he took her insistence on him drinking a little too far, and with his inexperience with alcohol and the successive lack of self restraint that comes with each new drink, you get casanova shinogi, lmao.

BACK TO THE SERIOUS STUFF THOUGH !! i really like the idea of him going to his mom to help him pull himself back together. i think they'd have a solid relationship, fight me! he seems to adore his mom as a child with a good single parent usually does. i'm sure he appreciates her immensely for all the care and love she managed to give him when he was a kid while also working her ass off to support them financially. this very respect for her is what i think would drive him to isolate himself from her after the shooting– as i said above, he's a murderer now. a disappointing human being in general, and an even worse son. to let down his mother who worked so hard to raise him right... how could he? as his condition worsens and his heart grows colder, i'm sure that feeling would fester inside of him. he'd try to ignore it, as he does with everything else, but it's already wrapped its tendrils around his soul. that particular guilt isn't leaving him any time soon.

now that i'm thinking about it, also, i don't think it's likely that he'd quit his job right right away. it'd be more of a slow descent over the span of a few weeks. immediately after the shooting, he may stop showing up to work for a while. he just can't put on that uniform when it's practically caked in the blood of someone he held in such high esteem for so long. eventually, though, he gets a hold on himself– just a bit. he doesn't want to be cooped up in his apartment with his thoughts anymore, and he doesn't want to lose his job. what else would he do?

so, he takes it easy on the first few days back. megumi tries to make it easy for him. paperwork, whatever job he could do that's not on the field. he clings to her like a wounded puppy, hoping that she'll explain why she's covering it up when he doesn't want her to, what he's supposed to do with these feelings around the incident. he's drowning, and she's made herself a big sister figure to him– she's supposed to help him. but, she shrugs him off when he brings it up. she's so harsh about it compared to how she usually speaks to him. perhaps because of her own guilt around the incident, perhaps it's the family's response and how keiji is now, how panicked and sleep deprived the poor kid has looked since that day.

so he continues to spiral with nothing to hold on to. grasps at alcohol in a futile attempt to stop falling, because it's all he can think to fall back on. he's a wreck at work– he's barely living, much less working. but megumi tries her best to keep him from getting fired. she'll get him coffee and breakfast and try to say something encouraging. "hey. hang in there, shinogi." with a touch on the shoulder. but in spite of her efforts, of course, it hits a breaking point. everyone in the job thinks keiji's too damaged to continue, saying he either needs to see a shrink or get the hell out of the way and let everyone else do their job.

and keiji just stops coming into work one day.

the downward spiral ensues.

[retphienix]

It's been 6 years :)

On March 30th, 2015 I decided I wanted a gaming side blog. (so we're early, but shush, it's the month for me)

I didn't know what I'd use it for exactly, but I had ideas- something I always have even if most of them only get as far as daydreamin' or writing out before closing them :P

For proof on the lack of direction the blog initially had- the March 30th date is the anniversary of my first post, an in-depth and lengthy review of Dragon Warrior Monsters for the GBC.

If you know the blog then you know "Extremely long and in-depth reviews" aren't the norm around here. As a matter of fact, that first post is the ONLY one I've done!

The closest I've come to ever repeating that would be the (word of the day) Directionless video I put out on Hades to get a grip on the concept of making videos, but that wasn't nearly as much of a 'review' as that first post is.

Tangent, definitely planning on trying my hand at videos some more for the foreseeable future. Probably not gonna use the tagline Full Impressions that I tossed as a whim for the Hades video but yeah- I'm excited to try my hand at a few videos :) tangent over.

It didn't take me long to come up with what I'd like to do for the blog though :)

A few months later I liveblogged a challenge run of FFT where I used only Ramza- a solo run. - Which maybe only happened because I tried a nuzlocke run a year prior on my main account-

(Nuzlocke | FFT challenge run)

Thanks to that haphazard liveblog experiment I started to realize a couple things which became the primary motivators behind this blog.

1) I LOVE sharing experiences. No brainer, I'm sure, but being able to share my experiences, and compare them with others' experiences, and just that mutual sharing is uplifting and feels good to do.

2) Liveblogging is an EXCEPTIONAL motivator to buckle down and play all those games I said I'd play (cue everyone laughing because I'm still way behind and have an immeasurable backlog).

But I mean that, on both respects. I have plenty of motivators toward the blog today, but if I were to be concise it's pretty much "It's easier to beat games if I liveblog them- otherwise I get distracted and play other games" and "I love sharing experiences and thoughts with people about my favorite thing- games."

Since 2015 I've tackled around 70 games as full playthroughs, and an untold ton as one offs or just to ramble about for a bit.

I've had a lot of highlights over the years, and I don't talk much about it as an overall experience so I thought for the anniversary I'd try to do just that. Not everything- I can't say I have photographic memory that would bring all of it up without prompting after all :P But whatever comes to mind as I browse some of my old stuff- as well as some thoughts on what I'd like to see in the future.

It's gonna be a bit self-centric I assume as I type this preamble to it, so let me say outright that this blog wouldn't be half of what it is without all the people who've given it the time of day over the years.

From recommending games they love or appreciate, to comparing thoughts, to offering kind words for analysis I've done over the years, to pointing out when I'm dumb and misread a situation :P- to, yes, even the people who decided "Fuck this guy's ramble" and deleted my captions before reblogging my gifs way back during Hamtaro (Of COURSE I remember that! It's amusing lol).

This is better because of others, because of the interactions and the people I've gotten the chance to chat with or befriend. It's just a liveblog more or less, my own little bit of fun I toss out for myself if for anyone- so seeing others enjoy this or that from the work I put into sharing my experiences or thoughts is always a joy in itself :)

Anyway, onto selfishly rambling about some tidbits of the past :)

Also sorry but no, opted to not shove a ton of photos in, it does have a handful of links to old posts though :P

This'll be disorganized as heck as I'll add to it over time before I feel it's worth posting (or the tumblr post editor becomes a hassle and more or less forces me to).

First~

FFT Solo Ramza Challenge: Considering it was roughly the first thing this blog has done, it's also something that's stuck in my head a lot more clearly than most of the other stuff I've done to be honest lol.

In truth, this is partially because FFT is my favorite game, bar none. But it's also because the whole experience was pretty new to me. Prior to it I had really only done one self-imposed-challenge that wasn't requested by the game in some manner and that was a nuzlocke run of Blue version.

So adding a challenge to my favorite game was a fantastic experience!

Notes I just wanted to say today about that run: If anyone enjoys FFT I honestly recommend giving it a shot for the unique story it lends itself to. I do recommend skipping the rules until after the second battle but that's up to YOU to decide.

My first post on the subject is me complaining about spending 4 hours grinding out the second fight and, despite hyperbole being my natural state, that was NOT hyperbole.

It DID take 60~ restarts to beat. It DID take 4 hours. The reason is that that 2nd battle is RNG as HECK, you HAVE to have Delita do some meaningful actions, you HAVE to have the enemies miss and make poor plays, you damn near HAVE to crit a few instances to save yourself from taking too much damage.

It's a numbers game to the extreme, so I wouldn't fault anyone for 'cheating' and skipping the 2nd fight for the ruleset lol.

The memory that stands out the most for that run is actually isolated in a post in which Ramza (Purrick in this run) talks like a total badass as just ONE DUDE running into a room full of enemies. I just think on that as a great encapsulated view of what it was like. The run started off face grindingly difficult, but because FFT is a game that offers so much freedom to the player it was extremely easy to 'break' the game into making Purrick overpowered as hell.

That's something I love about some tactical RPGs, I love having the ability to play smart so that I can play stupid later on, and breaking the game into making him one shot god is certainly a good payoff for playing smart early on :P

RetQuick: I miss RetQuick, it was primarily a short experiment I did in 2015 where I'd play a game for a short span of time (REALLY short, like 10-20 minutes) and record that for the purpose of making gifs and saying a short piece on what I thought.

It's one of those formats where the purpose was pretty shallow- but had a reason. I wanted to try making some gifs with some tools that existed online, so I made an excuse to do just that.

I also wanted to play a TON of games, usually through emulation on my sister's PSP, and this let me do that.

These two minor goals came together and so I spent a while making RetQuicks which were honestly more fun to make than they had any right to be. I mean the gifs were tedious but the playing? The thought sharing? The end product ocassionally having more appeal than just a photoset? It was fun.

I'm thinking whenever I have trouble picking a game for the blog I'll revisit the format... sorta.

I already reused it for a short stint to show clips I had no plan on expanding into a playthrough, but that died as well as it was too similar to Tidbits posts (another tag I no longer really use).

My thought is to rebrand retquick as something of a tryout for what game comes next. Play a handful of my backlog games for an hour or so each and say some thoughts before saying which one I'll continue as the main game for that period of time.

Old Tag Stuff: One of those things that only sticks to me since I made the decisions but it's always funny for me to look back on my old posts because I was apprehensive as hell toward making my posts visible. The reason my early playthroughs on the My-Tags page are variants of Ret instead of just "The name of the game so people can find this post" is because I felt like a liveblog would just spam the tag to hell-

Something I don't remotely feel bad for doing anymore.

So I avoided getting any sort of spotlight for quite a while on the blog for little reason.

Why Retphienix?: This is just a dumb thought I wanted to share and I'm sure I've said before.

It stands for retro!

Yeah!

Ain't that dumb and also not a real shorthand? lol

I think I have some sort of deer in headlights anxiety towards naming things, I mean do you think I think Full Impressions is a good summation for a video? I don't. But perhaps that's overshadowed by the other inexperiences and anxiety driven decisions that had- doesn't matter.

Retphienix is Retphienix because I sat there in 2015 and thought "Well... what do I name an alt account?"

My main is Redphienix, which yes, is ALSO a terrible name AND is misspelled. But it's that because of sentimental reasons. As a kid I misspelled Redphoenix when making my gamertag (I knew how to spell Phoenix back then as well, I was too excited about xbox live and misspelled it) and it's become something of a sentimental misspelling.

So I wanted to make a mix on that for my game blog, but I had no idea what. In the end I thought "RetroPhienix? I don't know. Retphienix is closer to Redphienix. I'll do that" and so it was done.

And just like how Redphienix is both bad and misspelled but exists because of sentimental reasons- Retphienix has acquired the same 'flavor' in my eye lol.

Aspirations for the blog: I have no immediate ramp up plans or road map or whatever, and in truth I'll be happy if the blog stays just as it is forever- up until tumblr ends- I cry over lost posts- and I reopen it on another platform.

But I do have blurry half-considered daydreams that I'd like to see happen for the blog through some hard work or shifts on my part.

One is something I'm already doing kinda, hence my embarrassing means of bringing it up a lot lately. Videos- I want those. I wanna make some looks back on series people don't talk about that I enjoy, I want to make videos sharing my thoughts on games I beat for the blog (like what full impressions kinda was, but I don't think they'll have a unified name from here on out). Maybe retrospectives, but mostly when I think of making a video tied to retphienix or me in general it's me looking at a game that said something to me, and saying it louder with my own interpretations on it.

You know the kind, videos where they talk about a video game but not the whole thing- just a singular message they really heard loud and clear from it intentionally or not. I dig those and I know I end a lot of games having plenty to say that could be directed into such a format.

We'll see.

And I'm along for the ride on that one as well- currently I'm keeping my eyes on whatever is directly next, which happens to be "I plan on playing Omori, if it clicks as something to talk about I would like to take a shot at that in a video too!"

The other is that I'd like to build a small community. Wouldn't know the first thing on doing that in a modern sense, but just a little online friend group to chat with and play games together. Something that could open up multiplayer and coop experiences being better shared on the blog and would just in general expand my gaming to what it used to be back on the 360 when I had a large group to play with.

Since the 360 era ended I've pretty much closed off- stopped playing competitive games due to lack of interest- and slowed down to playing all games either solo, with randoms (and no mic usually), or with my cousin. It's a rare instance when I play with some good people like @gamesception or another friend of mine, John.

When I diverted from playing competitive games nonstop toward other genres I didn't intend to also cut out all my online gaming buds, it just kinda happened, and I never really put any effort into rectifying that.

So more or less I'd like to one day sit down and work on a discord server, and then buck up and put the leg work in to make some gamin' buds again, but that's such a vague concept anymore.

Sounds all sad and what not but it's more ambivalent, I made decisions that

changed how gaming worked for me after the 360 and this is just where it landed for better and worse- I'd just like to see if I can make it a little better :P

General things I think when I think retphienix: Honestly? I think of how much fun I've had over the years and how thankful I am to have had an outlet that encouraged me to explore more of the medium.

I REALLY love games. I went to college for games, I've written LEAGUES about games, I've played countless games, my childhood was games, my adult life is games- games games games yada yada yada.

So when I think of retphienix I think of how without it I probably wouldn't have explored a lot of the corners of gaming that I have.

I genuinely, and I mean this, might not have sat down and beaten FF7 for myself and would have considered the amount I played as a kid to be enough.

I might not have played Chrono Trigger yet, and I KNOW I wouldn't have played Chrono Cross, and I'm happy as hell to have played both of those. CT was a mind blowing moment for me that showed me just how good an RPG can be, and CC gave me miles to think of in terms of innovating an RPG and how beholden to the narrative a sequel should be (I don't feel CC should have been chrono at all lol).

I DEFINITELY wouldn't have given New Vegas another chance. And I know I'm a sourpuss on NV, I've been that way since I maxed my achievements on the 360 for it, but replaying it really did reveal to me how exceedingly negative I was being.

My memories had become "It's brown and a boring location >:(" and "The factions all suck and it doesn't do anything with the idea of bad factions >:(" and became "It's... a little brown guys, not a big fan of the area" and "They didn't do enough with exploring the gray factions" while adding "Wait. This is pretty damn fun. And 90% of the additions are stellar. And I forgot about Dead Money, my favorite dlc in any game ever with a story that tears at my heart every time I think of it, NV good actually?"

Faxanadu would have remained a cool game I saw on SSFF and not a game I played to the end and fell in love with the aesthetic feel it has!

Also that's a game I cheated like crazy on lol, I would do it again! Save state scumming games meant to be rudely difficult is only fair :P

I probably would have never sat down to play through Windwaker which was such a positive and uplifting experience that I now get the most relaxed and warm feeling in my heart when I see those blue waves.

There's so many experiences I would have left on the table in favor of like... putting more hours into a live service title or something.

Maybe, and no offense to my cousin or anyone else playing it, but maybe I'd be no-lifing World of Warcraft nonstop just stagnating my interest toward the skinner box mechanics of an MMO?

Some offense, actually but lightheartedly lol.

But beyond the entire games I've played for the blog, when I think retphienix I picture all the time making gifs, all those games I played on the PSP for short stints, buying a retron 5 to add to what I could explore and being stoked when they shipped a freebie box of old controllers to go with it, getting angry at the retron for being a Piece Of Shit lol, crying at the end of damn near every game with an emotional story because I'm a big emotional mess of a person who finds investing and crying at a story way too easy thanks to empathy pulls, oh!-

Getting excited whenever I found that I had a "*controversial*" opinion that no one would care about lol. Like the one that comes to mind is that I thoroughly believe that Dragon Ball Z II: Gekishin Freeza!! for the NES is WAY better than the fandom recognized and appreciated sequel/remake Dragon Ball Z: Legend of the Super Saiyan!

How many people do you hear talking about either game, let alone saying the NES game that is roughly half of the SNES remake is the better one :P But I stand by that! The SNES one is a remake of DBZ1 and 2 for the NES but it loses all the charm and some of the fun of the NES ones by being a lackluster SNES game!

lol

I admitted wholeheartedly that this post would be a lit-

little directionless (gotta love the new tumblr poster making me break sentences like that), but to sum things up.

It's been 6 years. It's been an untold amount of work to be honest- liveblogging a game, at least for me, hasn't been the easiest thing. It's a lot of thinking out my thoughts (heh), it's a lot of learning tools to make the capturing process possible, it's a lot of experimenting, it's a lot of writing and editing, and, well, sometimes it's just tough.

I mean I went to school for coding, not video editing, not writing, not image processing, not this or that- but this hobby has introduced a lot of things even if only at a VERY base level (I admit fully to using online alternatives to make gifs for instance).

I learned a lot about, well, a lot of things in order to use this blog to learn more about games- and all that work has become part of why I've loved all 6 years of this blog.

6 years of gaming, work, and you all- and it's been worth the investment :) Here's to many more and all of you whether you stumble upon this post or not- literally anyone who's interacted in these 6 years, thank you, and anyone who hasn't I offer you well wishes as well.

<3