#I did it! I finished it before the dlc drops!!!

[guppyfish77]

Following some rumors of a time machine

[existslikepristin]

Yall, there's gonna need to be some trigger warnings here. For the sake of spoilers, if you have any sensitivities, follow this link to see the trigger warnings.

Quick thanks to @ggidolsmuts for A) writing a fantastic series (which you should read here BEFORE reading this story: 1, 2, 3, "3.5", 4, 5), and B) being very cool about me taking that series in the most unhinged direction. And speaking of that unhinged direction...

I Never Die, I Only Breed: DLC

~~~~~

“Alright, see you in a week, babe,” you say, kissing Shuhua on the forehead and walking away. 

What a crazy two months it’s been since you beat INDIOB. Having five girlfriends is kind of a wild concept on its own, but simultaneously getting five girlfriends, who absolutely love sixsomes, by beating a video game? That’s insane. One hundred percent bonko.

And yet this is your life now.

As you pass by the break room where Yuqi’s making coffee, she flips up her shirt and flashes you. She’s so embarrassing sometimes.

Soyeon, Miyeon, and Minnie give you a wave as you walk past the glass-walled office they’re storyboarding in. You return the gesture.

But then you notice an open door. You’ve always wondered what was behind that door…

And now that you’re inside, there’s basically nothing. Damn. It’s just an old wooden desk and a ton of dust. Even on closer inspection, there’s nothing special about the desk. Not sure why it’s even here anymore. What a poorly contrived plot device. Oh well. It probably doesn’t have anything to do with the past employee who your girlfriends only speak about in hushed whispers and who Shuhua occasionally cries herself to sleep about. Not that you haven’t thought to ask, given that it’s actually pretty creepy, but you just haven’t gotten around to—Oh shit, there’s something attached to the underside of the desk. Is that a memory drive?

If there’s anything you’ve learned from tech horror stories, it’s that you shouldn’t touch mysterious computer parts with a ten foot pole.

But on the other hand… You yank the thing away from the tape holding it in place and book it the fuck out of the office. Back home, you plug the memory drive into your ddeunstation and flip that bitch on. Who needs to think?

Immediately, your girlfriends’ company logo flashes across the screen but without the usual, fancy animation. There’s the blue and orange ddeunstation cat logo (best console, sure, but they really need to change that thing). “in association with ELP” comes up next in plain text… Who the fuck is that? And then, the game’s home screen starts to fade in around you.

Oh, okay. So this isn’t anything too crazy. This is just a copy of “I Never Die, I Only Breed,” the game your girlfriends made, which ultimately led you to them. It must be an older version, considering that weird “in association” screen and lack of animation in their logo. You look around, and sure enough you see some text in the corner with the version number. It’s greater than one, so it’s definitely a finished version, but it’s quite a bit lower than the version you initially played. You recall Soyeon telling you there was some delay in the game’s release, so this makes sense. There must have been a few minor bug fixes while legal was sorting out platform fees, game rating, or whatever.

Well, that’s actually pretty boring. Now what? You tell your girlfriends you stole a memory drive with an old version of INDIOB because you wanted to know what was behind a door? Wait, did they even know it was there?

You can probably just tape it back to the desk when you drop by next week. That wouldn’t be too weird.

Might as well take a look. This game is awesome, and since you’re not going to see your girlfriends for a whole week while they’re in Japan on business, Soyeon suggested you revisit the game so you don’t get lonely. You pick out the New Game option.

The home screen fades away and two more options appear.

Normal

I Trust DLC

… OH MY GOD, DLC?! You’ve never selected an option so fast in your life. Not even Miyeon has hinted at any upcoming DLC for INDIOB, and she can’t keep her mouth shut to save her life. Okay, this is definitely not boring. You can barely contain yourself.

Open your eyes.

Can you move?

Great. Everything is up to you, good luck.

You’re in a roo—Dammit, you can’t actually move. A bug already? You try to blink but don’t get any feedback. Fuck ELP, whoever that—Oh, there’s some text floating in front of you.

Content not fully tested. May still be some minor bugs.

+ Continue

+ Debug mode

Without moving, you think really hard about selecting Debut mode and suddenly you can move again. You slap your forehead. You really shouldn’t be so impatient. Minor bugs are no big deal.

You’re in a room—there is a bed, there is a mirror, there is a door, there is a tiny bit of text floating in the corner of your vision that says “Debug menu”. You open the door, and Shuhua is in front of you, waiting on a bed of her own.

“Are you the challenger?” she asks, untying her bathrobe just a little as she saunters towards you. A gasp—she is feeling you through your robe.

“Sure am,” you say, far more confidently than you did the first time around.

“Good, let’s see what you can do then.” Shuhua turns around and walks back to bed, slipping her bathrobe off as she does so. You’re amazed at how accurate the in-game Shuhua is to the real one, now that you’ve seen both so many times. A bunch of dorky game devs your girlfriends may be, but they’re un-stereotypically hot. She turns around and lays down, spreading her legs and bending at the knees.

“What are you waiting f—?!”

You’re already on top of her, robe discarded, kissing her passionately with your fingers gently pressing at her entrance and caressing her breasts. Her eyelids flutter and close, and she melts into your touch.

You chuckle mentally to yourself. You don’t plan to speedrun this playthrough, but you’re curious to see the differences in these NPCs’ attitudes toward you when you get a full no-restart run. It’ll be yet another world first, but you don’t plan to upload it to any scoreboards. You already won the ultimate prize, and your girlfriends have expressed intense disinterest in inviting a sweaty powergaming neckbeard to join your unconventional relationship structure. Maybe if the perfect run is pulled off by someone hot you can convince them, but you can worry about that if it ever happens, which seems unlikely.

Shuhua cums for the first of what will be many times. You pull away from your kiss to give her a little air, even though neither of you technically need it (there’s no sort of breath gauge in this game, probably because it would make the Yuqi sections far more difficult).

“Mm yes, you know what you’re doing… you can put it in.”

You don’t immediately comply with Shuhua’s demand. Instead, you stroke her cheek, peck her lips, and say, “Trust me, I will. I’d like to give you at least one more orgasm first though. Is that okay?”

Your cheesily-delivered line registered to the game as suave as fuck, apparently. Shuhua blinks, blushes, her eyes grow, and her mouth goes a little slack. She’s amazed. “O-okay,” she squeaks. So you get started.

Minnie and Soyeon proudly declare how meticulous their programming is on a regular basis, and boast about the realisticness of their game engine. Your first playthrough was sloppy, but you have had months of experience with the women these NPCs are replications of. They’ve personally taught you not only how to maximize their pleasure, but also about their more secretive fantasies that they put in as easter eggs. Your run won’t just be perfect. You’re going to break the scale.

Shuhua screams in ecstasy as you work your IRL, meta knowledge magic on her tits and pussy. Two more orgasms in the next few minutes blow her mind to smithereens. You almost expect matrix code to start leaking from her ears.

“Sorry babe, I got carried away. Should I put it in now?”

She breathes heavily, and gets heavier as she begins—you assume—to remember what you’re here for. “Oh… oh my god, yes. Yes! Please knock me up!”

Wow. Really? You had to restart twice for her to even hint at the breeding aspect of the game when you didn’t know what you were doing, and now she just straight up exposits it to you when you’re absolutely killing your previous record? That seems unfair. You’ll have to comment on the difficulty curve to Soyeon. Also, what was up with that line? “Oh my god?” The delivery of the line was… off. It felt… red, somehow. Regardless, you’re going to give her what she wants.

You line yourself up and push. Shuhua squeezes her own breasts now, and cums hard. A touch unrealistic to cum just from the insertion. She’s never been quite that easy to trigger IRL, but maybe it’s one of the bugs that got fixed.

Pulling her hand away to suck one of her breasts, listening to her delicious shouts, you find yourself cumming almost right away… Fuck, you don’t even have Improved Stamina I yet! Too much real experience must have made you forget that you have to actually build that up in-game! You quickly focus on the text in the corner of your vision, “Debug menu,” and time suddenly freezes. You can’t move anything but your eyes, but you still feel the sensation of Shuhua around you, and the height of your orgasm. It’s like you’re being edged, or like you somehow got stuck. It’s agonizing.

You quickly look around the menu. It’s disorganized, not even in alphabetical order, and in plain text. It’s kind of hard to read, but you see “add perks” hovering right above Shuhua’s nipple, and focus on it. The list that appears is slightly better organized, and thankfully Improved Stamina I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, and IXIVLICMXIV are right at the top. The last one looks like a mistake, and you probably shouldn’t select it. For now, you select the first three, accidentally also select Magic Finger II, and then focus back, and back again.

Time restarts. The agony of your orgasmic peak blips away instantly and you can’t help but cringe at the feeling of a sudden lack of what was once there.

“Are you okay?” Shuhua asks breathlessly, gripping your arm tightly.

Oh right. You turn your mediocre charm back on. “Of course babe. I just got stunned by your beauty for a moment. I’m sorry.”

Shuhua squeaks and you actually feel her gush around you. You may have broken this outdated version.

You begin fucking again, and to your delight, you think you’re pretty sure you did break something. Shuhua reaches orgasm over and over again, basically on every third thrust. You sit up a bit and reopen the debug menu. There’s a submenu option for “girls” hovering under her belly button that you hadn’t paid attention to before, which you select Shuhua from. A jumble of text appears all over your vision. It’s mostly advanced background info that you normally wouldn’t get much insight into, but you do see the stats you first saw in Level 5.

love: 2/100

// ask soyeon why lust rises exponentially during orgasm if greater than love

// this is stupid

lust: 42113/100

Well, that explains it. The placement of the code comments is interesting, and you recognize “// this is stupid” as something you’ve seen Yuqi type many times. You back out of the debug menu and start thrusting again out of curiosity. The bed beneath you gets absolutely flooded. Shuhua’s eyes cross as her orgasms tick up faster and faster, to the point where it looks like she’s having a genuine medical emergency. As (almost) funny as it is, you feel bad seeing your girlfriend having seizure levels of orgasm. Reentering the debug menu, you see that Love is still 2, but Lust has reached some scientific notation kind of number. Thankfully, the text fields can be edited, so you change Lust to 50 and Love to 100. So much for your perfect run, but you can log into the current version and try again… after you’ve had a little fun.

When you resume the game, Shuhua’s eyes go from crossed to standard, and her body pops into a normal, sexy position without so much as a motion blur. She moans and puts her palms on your cheeks, gazing into your eyes. “You… you’re so good. H-how?”

“Little bit of practice. Little bit of cheating.”

She gently pulls you down to kiss you, then wraps her arms around you and whispers, “Please… I want you.”

You chuckle. “To breed you?”

“Just you. I love you.” She strokes your back. You get choked up. Shuhua’s a bit sappy IRL too, but she has avoided telling you she loves you so far. Your other girlfriends toss the phrase around a little flippantly, but you always get the sense that Shuhua either doesn’t love you or takes the words way too seriously.

Shit damn, you got choked up? This is just a recreation of your girlfriend, and you cheated your way into her saying some shit. Don’t get attached. That’s weird.

You open the debug menu once again, navigate to “girls” and quickly turn Love down to 80. While there, you try bumping the Breed stat to 10000/100, hoping the surely hilarious result will take your mind off of feelings. On your way back out of the submenu though, something catches your eye.

shuhua

yuqi

soyeon

minnie

miyeon

soojin

Soojin…?

SOOJIN?!

There’s a sixth girl?! What in the actual fuck?! Who in the actual fuck is Soojin?! You try to navigate into her menu, but you get an error code and some conveniently placed comments.

5U8W4Y error - entity not found

// cant find soojins file

// wtf is this directory structure

// this is stupid

You close the game.

You’re in your room—there is your bed, there is your mirror, there is your door. You whip your phone from your pocket and open a browser, looking up every combination you can come of with of “Soojin,” “INDIOB,” “I Never Die, I Only Breed,” “ddeunstation,” “ELP,” and the game company’s name. There are far too many people named Soojin, and nothing else helps to narrow it down. A surname would be helpful.

You open your group chat with your girlfriends and start to type “YO, NUGU TF IS SOOJIN?” but you paused. You put some pieces together, and you think it might not be best to bring it up.

The former employee they all get hushed about. It makes sense! If all five of them are both devs and also characters in the game, why wouldn’t this Soojin person be in the game too?

But if that was the case, why was she DLC, and not part of the base game? What’s her deal?

You flip the game back on. Your dick is very wet. You look down and see literal gallons of semen squeezing out of Shuhua around your cock. Right. Breed is at ten thousand out of a hundred.

You exit to the home screen, feeling disembodied, and you look around at the options. New game.

Normal

Open your eyes.

Can you move?

Great. Everything is up to you, good luck.

You’re in a room—there is a bed, there is a mirror, there is a door. Fuck, no option for a debug mode. You open the door, and Shuhua is in front of you, waiting on a bed of her own.

“Are you the challenger?” she asks, untying her bathrobe just a little as she saunters towards you. You put out a hand to stop her.

“Who is Soojin?” you ask, sounding a little more desperate than you meant to.

Shuhua blinks, pausing her undressing. “Huh?”

“Soojin.”

“Yeah I heard you the first time.”

“Do you not know who Soojin is?”

“No?” Shuhua says as she squints at you. “Uh… you are the challenger, right?” She finishes dropping her robe.

You exit to the home screen, hit Continue, and return to your DLC save. Instantly, Shuhua is underneath you, jizz spraying your pelvis, eyes rolled back and a dopey grin on her mouth.

“Who is Soojin?” you ask.

Shuhua doesn’t respond, but it seems it’s not due to a breeding-induced coma. Misty, red text forms in front of your eyes.

I Trust DLC requires access to Level 4.

You close the game.

You’re in your room—there is your bed, there is your mirror, there is your door. You rub your eyes. Soojin is only in the DLC.

Maybe Soojin wasn’t a dev, or the former employee at all. That would be an unsatisfying answer, and, well, wouldn’t really answer all of your questions, but Occam’s razor and all that.

A glass of water cools you down. You didn’t realize you were getting so heated… But you still don’t have answers. Time to get heated again.

You reopen the game, delete your Normal game save to cut down on time, and hit Continue, to be taken directly to the existing DLC save. Again, you’re in a growing pool of your own cum as it pours out of Shuhua. The debug menu fixes that right away, as you tick her Breed stat back down to one hundred, and do the same with Love and Lust. You’re mostly dry again when you resume, being just a bit sweaty and with a perfectly reasonable, if large, amount of semen oozing out of Shuhua. She looks quite content and a little dreamy.

“Hey Shuhua, you good and satisfied?”

She nods, hums happily, and curls onto her side. You hate to leave her uncuddled in such an adorable state, but you really need to see this DLC content.

You swing open the next door, and you are greeted by Yuqi, dressed in a similar robe as Shuhua.

“Ya, what are y—Oh, you’re hard as fuck.” Her eyes light up when she sees your slick-coated and more importantly, rigid, cock. “Awesome.”

She grabs you by the cock, but her hand slips due to what you did with Shuhua earlier. “Ew.”

Despite her words Yuqi takes her hand and starts licking it clean. You don’t have time for this though. You open the debug menu, girls submenu, select “yuqi,” and edit her Breed stat to 100, then back out.

Yuqi’s cheeks suddenly puff up and she cups her hands below her chin just in time to catch an enormous mouthful of your spontaneously generated cum as it bursts from between her lips. She stares at it in confusion and surprise as it seeps between her fingers and down her arms. You also see a smaller amount dripping from between her legs.

“Good enough for me to move on, Yuqi?”

She closes her mouth, wiggles her tongue around for a bit, and gulps heavily. When she speaks, it still has a bit of a wet, sticky quality to the sound. “Uh… yup, sure. Go for it.”

As you open the next door, you hear Yuqi behind you mumbling to herself, “That was kinda cool…”

The door opens to a bedroom, furnished with a bed, but also with a producing setup, complete with monitors, keyboard, and mic. At the keyboard sits your next “challenge”—Soyeon.

“Oh, hello, I didn’t expect you here so quickly.”

Before she stands up, you open the debug menu, girls submenu, select “soyeon,” edit her Breed stat to 100, then back out.

Soyeon’s smug look turns to one of dire concern as an excessively loud, wet, and distinctly embarrassing noise erupts from her ass. The back of her robe turns wet and her whole body trembles. Uh oh.

You steel yourself for the worst and open your mouth. “Um, Soyeon…? Can I move on?”

Her shaking hands slowly cover her mouth, arms tucked in tightly to her body. She stares, traumatized, at the keyboard in front of her. You’re incredibly thankful that this isn’t the real Soyeon, but it still feels extremely mean of you to try to rush her after being the cause of a volcanic butt eruption.

After nearly a minute, in which the only sound is your cum dripping off her chair to the floor, Soyeon whispers, barely audible, “Please move on.”

You bow deeply and side step your way to the next door, hoping you can be forgiven for this sin.

The door, unfortunately, still has the battle pass reader on it. You cringe and turn toward Soyeon. She has not moved.

“H-hey Soyeon. Can I have the battle pass?” you ask, cautiously. Not cautious enough though, as you suddenly remember she did not actually give it to you, and you got it from an achievement last time.

“Please go,” Soyeon whispers.

“Sorry! It’s fine, really. It’s not that weird. And it’s my fault… sorry,” you whisper back before opening the debug menu.

First, you turn Soyeon’s Breed back down to zero, hoping that will give her a little peace of mind, then you go back to the main debug menu. Scanning around, you see time variables, room variables (surprise, the room you’re in is called “Studio”), and so much more until you find “inventory,” in which you find toggles for what seems to be every item in the game. Surprisingly, this list is alphabetized—Minnie must have implemented it—and much longer than you anticipated.

“Battle Pass” isn’t far down the list, so you set it to true and resume the game. There’s no more liquid around Soyeon’s butt, but she still seems to be incapable of movement.

With one last apology, you turn to the door and wave the battle pass at the lock, causing it to disengage with a loud click. You take a deep breath and—why is it empty?

You step into the pure white, perfectly cuboid room and look around wildly. What’s going on in here?

Opening the debug menu, it’s pretty obvious. You sigh. Across the top of your vision, in bright red, is a message.

Unknown error: save file may be corrupted, delete to avoid critical game data loss

You resume the game and spin around to see the door you came through is gone. Delete the file it is, then. You exit to the home screen, open your saves, and delete.

Dammit, now what?

More out of frustration than anything else, you start up a new game with the I Trust DLC.

Open your eyes.

Can you move?

Great. Everything is up to you, good luck.

Debug mode

You’re in a room—there is a bed, there is a mirror, there is a door. You open the debug menu immediately, girls submenu, select “miyeon” and take a look around. There are stats as expected, all in their neutral state, but there are additional options. One of them seems to be what you’re looking for.

spawnLocally()

Instantly, before you even resume the game, Miyeon appears directly in front of you. She’s already naked, and fully upright with a neutral expression, T-posing. You resume.

"Hello, congratulations and welcome for making it this far." Miyeon glances down and suddenly seems confused. She points at her bare tits, then up at the mirror, then at you. “Hey… What?”

“Hey Miyeon. Could you please give me a blowjob?”

“What? No. I w—”

Debug menu, girls submenu, select “miyeon,” set both Love and Lust to 100, resume.

“—ant your cock in my mouth so bad.”

Miyeon drops to her knees and has you fully down her throat in seconds, gazing up at you with pleading eyes, the same way she does IRL.

Anyway, that part wasn’t necessary. You just wanted one of Miyeon’s famous blowjobs. You search through the debug menu, turning on every perk, giving yourself unnecessary currency, spawning all four of your other girlfriends, naked and T-posing, and giving them all maxed out Love and Lust. When you resume, they all simultaneously start to say their intro lines, but stop halfway through to give each other befuddled looks, refocus on you, and join Miyeon on their knees around you, feeling your body (which is very solid considering the A Hard Man is Good to Climb perk), worshipping you and begging for their turns.

“Hey,” you say, and watch as all five women orgasm at the same time (so that’s what the King’s Speech perk does, apparently), “Real quick…” They’re all cumming again. What the hell?

You remove the King’s Speech perk in the debug menu and continue. “Real quick. Can any one of you tell me right off the bat who Soojin is?”

They all ignore your words and keep worshipping your body. There’s the misty, red text again.

I Trust DLC requires access to Level 4.

You check that they all have normal, maxed out Love and Lust stats again, then you give yourself all of the Completed Level achievements, and resume.

“Anybody? Who’s Soojin?”

I Trust DLC requires access to Level 4.

You find a command that transports you to Minnie’s room. Your girlfriends appear there with you. You resume.

“Who’s Soojin?”

I Trust DLC requires access to Level 4.

It seems you broke something again. Yuqi is frozen in a T-pose now, and she’s hovering above the floor, diagonally. Minnie is glitching out, with unreasonably huge tits appearing on and disappearing from her chest between bursts of static. Soyeon’s hair sticks perfectly straight up from her head. Miyeon is still deepthroating your cock, but she has turned blue. Shuhua’s bottom half is clipped into the floor.

“What the fuck…?” Soyeon asks, feeling her new, rock hard hairdo.

Shuhua takes a few steps back (or so you assume, since you can’t see her legs) and forth. “Sweetie pumpkin? What’s going on?”

You roll your eyes and exit to the home screen, deleting the save file. You’re sure there’s a way for you to see this DLC content, if it even exists, but trying to cheat your way into it may not be an option.

Fuck it, this isn’t worth your time.

New Game

I Trust DLC

Open your eyes.

Can you move?

Great. Everything is up to you, good luck.

Debug mode

You’re in a room—there is a bed, there is a mirror, there is a door. You open the debug menu, give yourself every perk that isn’t King’s Speech, and spawn all of your girlfriends, setting them all to 100 Love and Lust, and you resume.

You remove your robe and sit down on the bed while the five of them get over their initial confusion.

“Anybody want a sixsome?” you ask.

They don’t need to respond with their words, shoving each other out of the way to get to you. You tell them not to be rude about it, but there’s not much stopping them. Yuqi gets to you first and practically swan dives into a blowjob. Soyeon hops onto the bed, standing over you and offering her ass to eat out. Minnie wraps her arms around you from behind, stroking your chest. Shuhua and Miyeon drop to the floor next to your feet, Miyeon on Shuhua’s lap, and furiously make out with each other, hands between the other’s legs. Nobody freezes, glitches, or turns blue.

This is good. You can just have a good time and forget all about this DLC for a while. You’ll get to it eventually.

And a good time, you certainly do have. You cum endlessly, sometimes through multiple cocks, and never go soft. Every hole of every girl gets plenty of attention, and is always treated as a successful breeding, including Minnie’s. Your Neverpoints, Yeoro Bun, Woogi Power, and CUMCA Kred all skyrocket, as if it matters. You even get the sly idea to try spawning in multiples of your girlfriends since some of them have to pause for breaks (something you didn’t realize had even been programmed in).

In the end, after what must be several hours, Soyeon lays on top of herself, both of her unconscious, and cum leaks out of both asses and pussies after you utilized your Johnson & Johnson & Johnson & Johnson perk on them. There’s a Minnie wearing a strap on cOCk-a-dildo, slowly bobbing Yuqi’s mouth up and down the entire length. Miyeon and Shuhua are sixty-nining, eating your cum out of each other. Another Yuqi, who you believe is the first one, is your little spoon, curled up against your chest while your cock stays firmly planted in her ass. Yet another Yuqi is your big spoon, nuzzling the back of your neck while another Shuhua plays with that Yuqi’s hair. You’d found a way to expand the bed, thankfully.

The (probably) first Minnie crawls over several other copies of your girlfriends to prostrate herself on your side. She kisses your cheek. “Not to ruin this unexpectedly fantastic orgy, but the mirror has been blinking at you for the past four hours to let you know it’s way past midnight out of game. Your body is going to be exhausted.”

You groan. Right. You supposedly have a life to live. You close the game.

You’re in your room—there is your bed, there is your mirror, there is your door. You really, really need to pee.

…

You wake up a little before noon. It’s raining outside. Your phone lets you know you have twelve messages and a missed call. Your girlfriends have been taking pictures of each other at the airport, acting like some kind of Kpop paparazzi to make sure you know how comfortable their flight outfits are. Soyeon complains that they shouldn’t flood the group chat with pictures, and post them on your shared cloud collections instead.

Chuckling about it, you drop a few emoji in there, glibly telling them that Shuhua has the best outfit (a massively oversized hoodie, sweatpants, and crocs). After you make yourself some “breakfast” you check the chat again to see a bunch of crying emoji from Miyeon and a long-winded rant from Yuqi about why her outfit is actually the most comfortable.

It’s good that they made such an amazing game and inserted themselves into it, because you’re going to miss the real deal while they’re gone.

You don’t recognize the phone number that called you, so you give it a call back. It sounds like someone answers on the other end, but doesn’t respond when you ask who they are, and you just hang up. Spam calls are getting so weird.

A shower gets the day started. You put on the same bathrobe given to you by Miyeon on your consummatory hotel visit. It lasts a lot longer on your body when you use it at home than it does while you’re with any of them. There’s not much point in getting dressed today, since you won’t be going out in this rainy weather.

Guess you’ll keep playing INDIOB.

You sit down in front of your ddeunstation, your head clearer than it was yesterday. The DLC doesn’t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things, right? You still want to see what it’s about, sure, but maybe you should take it easy. “Don’t try so hard. Sheesh,” is what Minnie and/or Yuqi would tell you.

On the home screen, you navigate to delete your last save. The girlfriend cloning was fun, but you probably ruined that file. Now then…

New Game

I Trust DLC

Open your eyes.

Can you move?

Great. Everything is up to you, good luck.

Content not fully tested. May still be some minor bugs.

+ Continue

+ Debug mode

…

You select Continue.

You’re in a room—there is a bed, there is a mirror, there is a door. No debug menu this time. You’ll finish the game the right way, no restarts. Since Minnie gave you a password (not a cheat code) for unlimited free Minnie Dollars, you can probably even finish the game in one sitting if you’re careful.

With a deep breath, you stand up, cinch your robe, and open the door. Shuhua is in front of you, waiting on a bed of her own.

“Are you the challenger?” she asks, untying her bathrobe just a little as she saunters towards you.

You play it safe, giving Shuhua all the pleasure first, excusing yourself briefly to spend a couple of Neverpoints, and coming back to get your first Yeoro Bun. You don’t move on to Level 2 until you can afford every perk you got on your first playthrough before reaching Yuqi.

It’s easy enough to pass Yuqi’s challenge too. You do it over and over again, seeing to it that Yuqi is a blubbering, cum sputtering blob on the floor every time, working your way through perks until you again have everything you could possibly want to enter Level 3 with.

Reaching Soyeon, you play along with her queen and peasant role play at first, satisfying her dominant side (since you discovered IRL that she does like to switch it up every once in a while) for multiple breedings with a preemptive All Holes Lead to Rome before dominating her and using her like a toy. Once more, you load up on perks, preparing yourself the right way for Level 4 and whatever that might entail.

Your currencies reach roughly twenty-five percent combined of the totals needed for the Level 4 access Battle Pass when you return to the starting room. Yuqi and Shuhua are on the bed, caressing each others’ naked bodies.

“Cutscene?” you ask.

“We’re just here to have some fun,” Yuqi says airily as Shuhua stands up.

“Mmhmm, we just…” Shuhua interrupts herself, kissing you, her hand dancing over your skin before moving up and over your shoulders. “Just feel like doing you, together.”

You smile and join them on the bed.

“You’re not surprised we’re here together?” Yuqi asks between kisses across your chest.

“I’m surprised it took this long. Last time, I had less than five percent progress to the Battle Pass.”

Yuqi shrugs. “Maybe you’re just progressing faster in general. That would explain how you haven’t had to restart even once yet.”

That’s right. You were going to see if they’d have any unique dialogue related to your flawless run. There it is!

“I, for one, am glad you’re doing so well,” Shuhua says, lightly stroking your dick as she shimmies up above it, “If you’re this good to us now, I can only imagine how good you’ll be for us in real life.”

Yuqi punches Shuhua in the leg. “Ya! You aren’t supposed to—Don’t listen to her. She’s crazy.”

You chuckle, “Hey, don’t hit her! I already completed the game once. I’ve been dating you all for a while now.”

The women stare at each other for a moment and then back at you. Shuhua gives you a concerned expression. “Why are you playing then? Couldn’t you be doing this in real life?”

Yuqi mumbles, “I’d still be playing occasionally.”

“Nah,” you say, “The five of you are at a developer’s conference in Japan for the next week and said I should do a bit of gaming while you’re gone.”

Both of their faces brighten up a bit. Yuqi bounces up to her knees. “Well aren’t we just a couple of lucky object instantiations!” she chimes.

“So that’s cool with you, huh?” You take one of each of their hands in yours.

“Obviously,” Yuqi says, “We don’t act like it because we’re supposed to be NPCs in a game, but we’re just code, my dude. Extremely sophisticated code capable of complex emotion replication, but still code. We didn’t exist before you started a new game, and we won’t exist again after. But while we’re here, we can appreciate the absolutely choice dicking you’re giving us, so the fact that you came back for an orgasm packed visit is fucking awesome.”

You blink. That was a lot. “Won’t exist after…?”

Yuqi blinks back. “Oh… I mean… No, not in a moral quandary kind of way. Like, in a peaceful oblivion, pop into existence, have tons of radical awesome sex, and back to peaceful oblivion kind of way.”

Shuhua sinks down onto your cock, shuddering at the fullness. “Yeah. What she said. Can we get this started now? Waiting for another turn while you were getting all that CUMCA Kred has my womb dying to get filled up again.”

“Sure thing, babe,” you say, trying not to think about her fleeting existence.

“That’s cute! Is that what you call me in real life too?”

“It is, and it’s what you call me, too.”

“Awww! Well it’ll take a little practice, but I like it a lot, babe.”

You smirk and start to guide Shuhua into a slow, sensual fuck. She shuts her eyes and moans gratefully. Yuqi opens your inventory and pulls out the cOCk-a-dildo, which you only now realize you haven’t had to use yet on this playthrough. Seems odd, given how effective it was the first time around. It’s halfway down her throat in a flash.

Several orgasms from everybody, successful breedings, and an achieved-but-unused Battle Pass Voucher later, Yuqi suddenly slips out from underneath you with a shocked look on her face. “Dude, why aren’t we including the others in this?! You unlocked Soyeon, and you can use that voucher to go get Minnie! If you’re dating all of us, why don’t all of us work together to get you to Level 5 and get Miyeon?”

Shuhua bounces up and down. “Oh! Yes! I love fucking Miyeon in real life!”

Yuqi punches Shuhua again. “Hey, you can’t just reveal your secrets like that… Wait, you fuck Miyeon?”

You nod. “I mean, I already had a pretty good idea that’s what was going on.”

Shuhua shrugs, rubbing her punched arm before threatening a punch back. “It’s not exactly like we’re good at hiding it.”

Yuqi starts moving toward the door. “Oh my god, you’re such a lesbian,” she mumbles, “Not that I don’t want to tap that bimbo myself… Hey, you two keep going. I’m going to get Soyeon.”

There it is again. That line, “Oh my god.” It’s just standard dialogue, but it doesn’t feel right. It sounds red.

Not much later, Yuqi and Soyeon enter the room. Soyeon stands with her hands on her hips, glaring you down. For a moment, you’re afraid she’s going to hit you with a restart.

“So you just come in here, knowing everything about us, and thinking you can just fuck us all like you do in real life, huh?”

Shuhua slowly scoots away from you. You gulp. “I mean, that’s basically what you told me to do.”

Soyeon smirks. “I was right. Get on your knees, peasants. If you’re going to go at it for so long without me, then you gotta make it up to me.”

You and Shuhua smile at each other and kneel in front of her. Yuqi stays upright though.

“Hey! I was the one who had the idea to include you! Why am I being treated like a peasant too?!”

Soyeon grabs Yuqi’s face, squeezing her cheeks. “You want to eat my ass, Yuqi.”

There’s a moment of pregnant silence before Yuqi, through forcibly puffed out lips, says, “Yeff ma’am,” and drops to her knees as well.

The three of you take turns eating Soyeon out from the front and the back and sucking her fingers, and she occasionally (once or twice per orgasm) lightly slaps your faces, reminding you of how lowly you are compared to her. During a particularly savage comment to Yuqi about submissiveness while plowing Yuqi’s ass with your cOCk-a-dildo, she turns over her shoulder and gives you a wink. It’s your cue to switch things up.

Soon, all three women, Soyeon included, are mewling under the power of your godly cock. It’s a shame you’re not quite such a perfected sex god IRL, but you accomplish plenty as you are. All of these extra perks are just fun.

Then again, maybe your girlfriends are working on a multiplayer version of the game! Or maybe you can convince them to. Who wouldn’t want to fuck in real life and in game at the same time?!

You put the thought out of your mind, deciding to focus on the current good time. And on that note, you glance at the mirror. You’re nearly seventy-five percent of the way to being able to pay for a Battle Pass the normal way! You point that out to your girlfriends.

“Oh…” Soyeon starts, “Yeah, we should just go get Minnie and Miyeon. No sense leaving them out of this.”

“Yeah, man!” Yuqi butts in, “Pop that voucher and I’ll go let Minnie know we’re forgoing the fluff.”

You look at the mirror, “But we’re actually getting there, fair and square.”

Yuqi pats your head condescendingly, which is undercut by the amount of your cum flowing out of her holes and at the corner of her mouth. “My dude, fair and square flew out the window and moved to pound town when you told us you were dating us in real life. Try not to let that cat out of the bag the next time you do a playthrough.”

“What? But I’ve done all the work up to this point. I was just going to—”

A small ding interrupts you, and you look to your left to see Shuhua cashing in your voucher for the Battle Pass and pulling it out of your inventory. “Start a new game and go for a perfect run tomorrow,” she says, tossing the Battle Pass to Yuqi, “You can’t just expect me not to get my lips on Miyeon at this point.”

Soyeon mutters, “Damn you’re such a lesbian… Then again, Miyeon…”

You sigh, defeated, as Yuqi skips out of the room, leaving a trail of your cum behind her, waving the Battle Pass over her head like a lightstick at a rave. She drops it, shouts “I meant to do that,” picks it back up, and turns down the hall into Soyeon’s studio.

“Shuhua’s right, you know,” Soyeon says as she climbs onto your cock again, “Just try for the record again tomorrow. You got this far in… just a few hours, damn… You’ve optimized this to a science. No wonder the real me is fucking you.”

“You do keep challenging me to 4X games. You still beat me every time, but you get excited and fuck me whenever I get close to winning.”

Soyeon laughs. “Yup, sounds like me.”

“By the way, I don’t want to screw myself over here, but how do you know I’m dating you in real life? I could be lying, you know.”

She grimaces for a half second as she spears both of her holes with your Johnson & Johnson cocks. “The statistical probability of anybody getting a perfect run even through level three is ridiculously tiny. Your chances, if you didn’t know us personally, would be effectively non-existent. I’d call it a very safe bet.”

“Yup,” you chuckle, repeating Soyeon’s words as you wrap one arm around her and the other around Shuhua, “sounds like yo—”

You’re cut off by an ear-piercing scream.

You, Soyeon, and Shuhua freeze in shock. You glance back and forth between each other. Another scream, just as loud as the first, is what gets you all to separate and run into the hall. “MINNIE!”

Your perks ensure that you’re the first one through the hall and the studio. Minnie’s room is nothing like what you remember. It’s pure white, like the time you got in by cheating your way through, but it looks more intentional, like white paint, rather than an empty void. There is no ceiling, instead being topped by a mess of white, industrial pipes and boxes, jutting into each other at odd angles. There is no bed, but there are a couple of pillars, brutally square, and between them is Yuqi, still screaming, on her knees. Behind her, you can see a nude figure curled up on the floor. You can only imagine who that is.

You run to them, skidding to a halt when you see the state Minnie is in. It is her curled up, and you think for the briefest moment that she’s dead, but she’s not. She’s trembling, eyes barely open, and her arms, fingertips to elbows, are pitch black. Torn strips of white cloth are woven into her hair. Black eyeshadow and lipstick adorn her face, as well as stylized writing across her cheeks, and a trail of black liquid coming from her nose and pooling beneath her head. You drop down next to her across from Yuqi and read:

Ab imo pectore

Another scream comes as Shuhua makes it into the room next, but she stays backed up against one of the pillars. “What’s going on?!”

You don’t want to look away from Minnie, but something about Yuqi catches your eye. You glance up to see that she has some new makeup too. Sharp red lines streak down her cheeks from her eyes. Tears trail down either side of the lines, and her whole body is shaking.

Scooping down, you pull Minnie into your arms. She feels light as a feather.

“Minnie?” you shout, “Minnie?!”

Her breathing is shallow, but slow, and her quivering is painful to feel against your chest. Her eyes manage to get halfway open. One hand slowly lifts up toward your face, but she can’t seem to manage to get it high enough. Her voice is just as pitifully weak.

“S-Soo… jin… It hurts…”

“What in the fuck is this?!” Soyeon growls, standing next to Yuqi.

“I don’t know!” Yuqi screams.

You can’t take this. If this DLC means you have to watch Minnie… go through whatever this is, you don’t want any part of it. You exit the g—

Unknown error: unrecognized input

You try agai—

Unknown error: unrecognized input

Soyeon snarls. “What the—failed log out?!”

Yuqi spins around and shoves Soyeon away. “Stop fucking around, Soyeon! Let him log out and shut this down! I didn’t sign up for th—”

“This is nothing I did, you idiot!”

The two of them get into a screaming match, but you try to ignore them, clutching Minnie closer to you and trying to think of how to fix this. It’s obviously something to do with the DLC. You try an emergency ddeunstation shutoff, but nothing happens.

Shuhua catches your attention as she steps closer, but halts. You look up to see her staring, horrified, above you. You follow her gaze.

Semi-hidden in the tangle of pipes, a blonde, feminine figure in a short black dress and stiletto heels lounges, high out of reach. Her face is obscured from your view, but you’ve got a pretty good idea about who it is.

Yuqi and Soyeon fall silent, staring in the same direction.

The sound of the figure’s heels tapping the pipe below her rings out in the silence. She stands, her face still obscured from your angle, and walks through the wall at her side and she’s gone. A red liquid, too lightly colored to be blood—the same red—, seeps down the wall from her former position, enveloping the door to Level 5.

“Shuhua,” you ask quietly, “Who is Soojin?”

Tears start to pour off of Shuhua’s chin, and she drops to her knees next to you. She sobs out the words, “I… don’t know.”

You look up at the others. Yuqi and Soyeon both shake their heads slowly.

Doing your best not to choke up, you get onto your feet, still cradling Minnie in your arms. “Hurry… Back to the starting room.”

Yuqi leads the way, peeking around corners, while Soyeon practically has to drag Shuhua behind you. At least the starter room is the same… with one exception. Written on the mirror in what looks like bright red lipstick:

achievement unlocked

I completed level 4 for you

meet me in level 5 alone

for miyeon’s sake

Yuqi sees it too and runs up to it, trying to scrub it off with her forearms. It smudges until it’s unreadable, but no matter how many times she spits on it and drags her arm across the mirror, the red streaks remain, just like the ones below her eyes. “Fffuck this bitch…!”

“Stop touching that!” Soyeon yells.

You set Minnie down on the bed as gently as you can, but don’t remove your arms from under her. Shuhua joins you on the opposite side, still sobbing, pulling a pillow under Minnie’s head and gingerly touching her face.

“I’m not just leaving it there!”

“It’s just some fucking words, Yuqi! What if that shit is dangerous?”

“What? This?” Yuqi licks her arm, and Soyeon tries to swat it down. “It ain’t doing shit! Unlike whatever that bitch did to Minnie! You saw it! ‘Completed Level 4?’ You know exactly what the fuck that sounds like, and I’m not going to let her mock us like that!”

“Yeah, I know what it sounds like, but unlike you, I can read! What about Miyeon?!”

“Miyeon can… Miyeon can handle herself—!”

Soyeon’s hand cracks across Yuqi’s cheek. “Think about something that isn’t in your face for once! Miyeon is the softest bitch any of us knows. Handle herself? There’s no fucking way. We don’t even know what happened to Minnie!”

Yuqi held her palm to the slap mark Soyeon left, huffing through her nose and looking around the room. She lowers her volume. “Minnie’s the one who’s hurt.”

“I know,” Soyeon growls, “But clearly if this could happen to Minnie, it could happen to Miyeon too. Either way, he needs to go get Miyeon.” She points at you. We can’t leave her alone.”

You carefully take your arms out from under Minnie, and she rolls onto her side facing you again, slowly, and clearly painfully. Her eyes flutter open and she whispers, “S-Soojin, please…”

Her head drops to the pillow. She definitely seems unconscious, but her fingers still twitch, as if she’s dreaming.

“I’ll go,” you say, looking over Minnie’s shoulder at Shuhua. “Take care of her, please.”

Shuhua watches as you stand up, but doesn’t acknowledge your words. Yuqi doesn’t look in your direction, but Soyeon gives you a shaky, but otherwise resolute nod.

When you step out the door though, Yuqi chases you down and grabs your arm, turning you around. “Hey, uh…” You don’t recall the last time you’ve seen a vulnerable expression on her face, if ever, but there it is, even through the menacing makeup. “Fuckin hurry it up, kay?”

You do exactly that, running through the studio and the strange industrial space that replaced Minnie’s room. The door to Level 5 is still covered in that red liquid, but you shove it open anyway.

Somehow though, you don’t end up touching the door. As you push, you stumble through, and regain your footing on the other side. Your vision shifts and twists as you do.

Then, you’re in a new room. This time, the walls are black, but there’s a blue light illuminating the far wall from below an enormous black and gold pedestal, flanked by what you first think are two more white pillars until you realize they’re made of cloth. The light glints through dozens of black icicles hanging from the ceiling, threatening the dozens of silhouetted people frozen in time beneath them. On top of the pedestal, Miyeon.

A metallic structure juts out from behind her, giving the appearance of stringy, angelic wings. She seems just as frozen as the figures below her, her nude body posed like a majestic statue. Is she glitched out? And if so, does that mean she’s somehow, technically safe?

“You got here quicker than I thought you would,” says a soft new voice, though the line as a whole sounds like it’s being delivered in red, so you make the assumption it’s Soojin.

“Who the hell are you?”

You can’t tell where her voice is coming from. It’s too echoey in here. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

Walking forward, you glance up at Miyeon. Of course she’s beautiful. “Answer me,” you say.

“Are you going to breed her?”

You stop near the base of the pedestal when it suddenly drops, putting Miyeon just above you. Climbing up is easy enough.

Glistening tears stream down Miyeon’s face as she stares at you. Her body is frozen in place, but her eyes aren’t. Though her face is stuck in an elegant, artistic expression, the way her eyes flicker from side to side tells you that she’s afraid.

“Whatever you’re doing, stop it, Soojin. This isn’t right.”

“How do you know my name?”

You scowl and look down into the statues, trying to pinpoint Soojin’s location. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“There’s no point in being obstinate. You need to move on to the next level.”

“Why would I want to—”

“You can move on by breeding Miyeon.”

“Yeah, sure, if she says that for herself. I’m not going to just do that to someone who can’t even move.”

There’s a long silence before you hear Soojin again. Miyeon’s eyes seem a bit more relaxed, but you know this isn’t over. “If she could speak, she’d tell you to do it, you know.”

“I don’t care if this is just a game. I won’t do it if she doesn’t say she wants it.”

“If we’re setting aside the pretense of immersion, then tell me: When was the last time you killed someone in a game? That was programmed in. So was this.”

“This is different.”

“Not at all.”

“Miyeon is a recreation of a real person.”

“Quaint, that you care about an imitation.”

Miyeon’s eyes suddenly twitch frantically, side to side. Many hands simultaneously grab your legs and yank you backward. The pedestal shoots upward and the cloth pillars start to spin around it, encasing it like a silk cocoon. Your vision of the process is obscured by at least a dozen faceless people piling on top of you. Even with your excessive strength perks, you can’t shove them all off. For as frantic as it is, it’s relatively quiet, and mere moments later, the people jump off of you, taking their places under the black icicles and becoming silhouettes once more.

“Fuck! Bring her back down here, Soojin!” you shout, slamming your fists into the now excessively tall pedestal. Looking up, you realize you can’t even see how far up this room goes.

A small gap opens in the cocoon, maybe thirty feet above you.

“Here you go.”

Miyeon tumbles out of the gap. You barely have the time to register that her arms are black before you have to back up to catch her. Thankfully, it’s not too hard. She’s impossibly light, exactly like Minnie, but entirely unconscious.

“What did you do to her?!”

“I helped you. Congratulations. Looks like Level 5 is completed. Next, Level 6. Take her if you want, but don’t make me wait.”

The base of the pedestal opens, a sliding door revealing what appears to be an elevator inside. You turn around however, and run back through the entrance and to the starting room, where you find Yuqi, Soyeon, and Minnie.

“Where’s Shuhua?” you ask as you lay Miyeon down next to Minnie. 

Soyeon, fuming in the corner, looks at you from between her fingers. “She ran off after you. You didn’t catch her?”

She ran? Where to? “No. I didn’t see her.”

Yuqi punches the bed. The red streaks coming down her eyes have gotten longer. “Dammit, we lost her too! And now Miyeon…!” She covers her face with her hands, doubling over. Her breath catches through clenched teeth. “Dammit!”

“What happened?” Soyeon asks, no less distressed.

Before you can answer, Yuqi screams and collapses to her hands and knees on the floor. The red, lipstick-like smear on her arm shifts and looks like it’s digging into her flesh. As soon as it starts though, it stops, and by the time you’re on your knees, trying to help, the words look like they’re burnt into her skin.

I told you not to make me wait

“Go! Now!” Soyeon shouts as soon as she gets down next to you and sees the writing.

It’s painful to leave again, but you clearly don’t have a choice. You get up and run as fast as you can, the sound of Yuqi’s pained yelling following you down the hall.

You get back to the elevator quickly. The inside is pale white, well lit, like the room Minnie was in. It’s featureless, besides two buttons and a message between them.

Level 5

Only one person may use the elevator to return from Level 6 to Level 5, at which point it will cease to function. Proceed with caution. Are you prepared?

Level 6

Your stomach sinks. This is clearly some kind of trap. You didn’t see Shuhua on your way, so she must be in Level 6. You hesitate to hit the button that will take you down.

And yet, you don’t know if you can’t. Soojin is obviously in control here. Minnie and Miyeon are in the same state. Yuqi is in pain. Soyeon could be next for all you know. And Shuhua…

You slam your fist against the Level 6 button. The violent act doesn’t calm you down. The door closes slowly, and you can feel the elevator starting to shift, taking you lower.

All of this pain. Soojin thinks this is just a game? Can she not see what she’s doing? Shouldn’t she understand what your girlfriends are going through, since she’s a character in this game, just like they are?

You try one last time to exit the—

Unknown error: unrecognized input

Fine. You’ll play.

The elevator stops and the door opens to room more in line with the ones you’re used to in INDIOB. The walls are red. So is the floor. There’s a bed in the center of the back wall with black, silky sheets. In front of the bed, however, stand two people. Shuhua is naked, facing roughly your direction, but in front of her is Soojin, blonde, dressed in a black bathrobe, facing away from you. Her hands are on Shuhua’s face. The two are pressed together in a kiss, still and silent.

You run forward and throw your weight sidelong into Soojin, tearing her away from Shuhua and sending her tumbling across the floor. She lands such that you still cannot see her face.

Shuhua gasps and glances nervously from you to Soojin on the floor, then grabs your arm. “N-no!”

“No what, Shuhua?! She hurt the others! Miyeon and Yuqi now, too!”

“Don’t! Don—”

“Leave, Shuhua…” Soojin’s voice is shaky.

Shuhua releases your arm and dives down next to Soojin, putting up a halting hand toward you. “No, Soojin! I can’t! I… Please, don’t hurt her! I l-love her!”

“Love?” you ask, “She’s controlling you somehow, Shuhua! You didn’t even know who she was ten minutes ago!”

“I know what I said!” Shuhua drapes a protective arm over Soojin’s body. “I don’t know how I know her, but I know I love her!”

“Shuhua… Please leave,” Soojin says, turning her head barely in Shuhua’s direction.

“No!”

You know you shouldn’t trust Soojin, but you ask anyway. “If she goes up the elevator, will she be safe?”

Shuhua’s eyes widen in fear as Soojin answers, “Yes.”

Taking Shuhua by the arm, you drag her up and away from Soojin. She kicks and screams and punches you, but your perks make you inhumanly strong. She may not be as light as Minnie or Miyeon were, but it’s still an easy matter to pull her into the elevator, hit the Level 5 button, and hold her there as the door closes.

“Soojin! No! Don’t hurt her! Soojin, please! Soojin, I love you! SOOJ—” The door shuts, and instantly cuts off all sound. Even the seams of the door disappear.

You turn around. Soojin climbs to her feet, knees shaking, finally turning to face you.

“Finally,” she says quietly, as you stomp closer and swing at her face.

It’s not what you expected out of yourself, but your open hand connects with her anyway, snapping her dark eyes away from you. The red handprint appears instantly. Her hand cradles her cheek right after, fingertips gripping as she takes fast, sharp breaths through her teeth. She stands her ground.

“Good,” Soojin whispers. She drops her hand and lifts her head to look at you again.

You smack her back down. She stumbles a half step back this time. “Finally? Good? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Her hand shakes this time as she holds her face. “I hurt Yuqi. I did things you can’t imagine to Miyeon and Minnie. I would have done the same to Soyeon soon.”

You wind back and punch Soojin, just below the ribs. The force of the impact sends her shuffling back, where she hits the wall, clawing at it with her sharp, red nails. This time you can see her face as she gasps for air, eyes shut.

“What about that makes this good?!” you shout, clenching your fist tighter.

Her eyes crack open, her breath shudders, and she gives you a sneering smile. “You took all… the Magic Fingers perks… I see.”

You don’t register your disgust until you’ve hit her once more, slamming your knuckles into her stomach again. Soojin doubles over to your side, stumbling forward, coughing and gasping painfully, and collapsing onto the bed, legs hanging off.

“Fuck you,” you say through gritted teeth. You want to do it again, but as Soojin laughs between hacking coughs, you stop yourself, worried that she might be serious, and that Magic Fingers is giving her some kind of twisted satisfaction.

Soojin catches her breath eventually, coughing a few more times, muffled by the bed sheets. Her laughing fades too. “So,” she groans, “your high and mighty morals… are they gone yet?”

You decide it’s best not to answer.

One long pause later, Soojin clambers a bit further onto the bed, rolls onto her side, and with a sharp breath and a wince, shrugs her bathrobe off of one shoulder.

“What the hell now?”

She drags her arm out of the sleeve. Despite her obvious pain, she still, disturbingly, displays herself as a seductress, running shaky fingers through her hair to ruffle it up. “You want to beat the game, don’t you?”

You glare back. “Shut up.”

“‘I Never Die, I Only Breed’ is a literal name, you know.”

“Shut up!”

“If you want to knock me around for a while more before you knock me up…”

“No!”

“That would be fine with me,” Soojin reaches out with her leg.

You dodge back before she can stroke you with her foot. “You fucking bitch!”

She moans, sliding off the bed, out of her robe, and onto her knees in one smooth motion. Her expression turns softer. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, “You could pound my throat to avenge Minnie, and it would keep me… quiet.” She drags a hand up between her breasts and over her neck, where she wraps her fingers around her throat. She gasps sensually as she tightens her grip, and her body writhes, like she’s getting off on it. And she probably is. “You could find a lot of ways to keep me quiet…”

Before she can grope herself with the other hand, you grab both of her wrists and hold them over her head, squeezing tight enough that your knuckles and hers turn white.

The Stay Ready By Staying Hard perk is unwelcome, but you can’t turn it off. Your dick nearly stabs Soojin in the cheek. She leans her head back, opening her mouth wide, tongue resting on her luscious bottom lip. Her breath tickles you. You drive your entire cock down Soojin’s throat in one brutal thrust. She gags once, and her eyes roll up. Her fingers clench and release, unable to do anything in your solid grip.

“This is all you’re getting out of me,” you mumble. You’ll rely on All Holes Lead to Rome for this, to make it happen quickly. You can only hope winning the game will take you back to the home screen, where you can exit entirely.

Soojin’s gagging intensifies with your thrusting. It doesn’t feel good, or like it’s helping anything, but you hope for some catharsis to come from this.

It seems Soojin feels differently. She moans desperately around your cock as you bulge her neck out. A wet spot forms on the floor underneath her as she somehow achieves her own orgasm. Her eyes manage to roll back down and flutter as she looks into your face as her convulsing dies down.

You look away.

Soon, you’re cumming too, pumping everything you’ve got as deep down Soojin’s throat as you’re sure is possible. That should do it. You pull yourself out.

“Satisfied?” you ask, making sure to put all the disgust you can muster into the word.

Soojin burps a little, and licks her lips. “Yes.”

“I win. End it. Now.”

“No.”

Your grip on her wrists tightens further. If she were anything close to normal, you’d think they might break. “What?”

“You only win when you breed me.”

“I just did. I have a perk that lets me impregnate you with any hole.”

Soojin licks her upper lip again, and her face contorts into a twisted, evil smile. “Yes you do. But you should know by now… there’s a new rule on every level.”

You gather her wrists into one hand so you can use the other to grab her by the throat and press her into the side of the bed. “And what’s your rule, huh, Soojin? I have to make you cum only by hurting you?”

“No…” she strains to speak as you constrict her tighter, but still keeps her infuriating smile, “You… have to… cum… first.”

First? But half your perks make you last longer than your partner, by design. What kind of stupid rule is that?

Soojin alternates between chuckling and coughing. You suddenly wish there was a breath meter in this game so you could shut her up for a while longer. “Come on… I can’t… restart… you.”

You give her a shove that ought to bruise her neck before you let go. “So I can’t win?”

Once she finishes another coughing fit, Soojin calms down, her voice evens out, sounding more like her neutral taunting in the room Miyeon was in. “You can still win. Every time I orgasm, you can reset by cumming. Masturbating first doesn’t count, but otherwise, you’re free to do whatever you want with me.”

“You know you disgust me?”

“Yes,” she says simply. You spit on her face, but immediately regret it when she moans, smiles, and opens her mouth. “More.”

You decide not to indulge that, and instead pick her up and throw her onto the bed, face down. You straddle her legs and line up your cock with her asshole, shoving yourself inside quickly enough that she doesn’t have the time to make a comment. She groans softly.

Pressing Soojin’s face into the bed muffles, but doesn’t silence her. You draw back and slam down, ruthlessly filling her ass over and over. Her stifled moans piss you off further, and you get more and more barbaric, practically jumping up and down on top of her, blasting her asshole open. Even the bed itself joins in on your frenzy, bouncing her back up toward you every time you pound her down, so that your bodies clap together like thunder strikes. Her legs limply flop up and down, but her hands grip the arm holding her face to the bed.

Without any fanfare, you cum again, saturating her insides with what seems to be an endless stream. She feebly reaches back and lightly scratches your hip while you finish.

You jab her hand away, sitting up and letting jizz gush out of her ass, only to notice the enormous wet space already underneath her.

Soojin lifts her head and takes a deep breath, smirking at you over her shoulder. Her makeup is destroyed. “I’m not sure if that was one big orgasm or if I came three times so fast that they melded together. Thank you.”

Taking a fistful of her hair, you yank her up and growl in her ear. “I don’t want to hear it. Shut up, bitch.”

“You know how to make me.”

You push her back down and flip her onto her back. She submissively puts her hands up by her ears and gasps when you pick up her legs and slam your cock into her pussy. The gasp turns into a long moan, and then a dark giggle. “You’re such a gamer.”

No part of you wants to hear anything more she has to say, and you drop your weight onto a hand around her neck, choking her again. Even so, she can barely speak through the constriction. “You’re so attached… to something that’s not real… Acting so impulsively over it…”

You release her neck so that you can instead fall further onto her, pressing your forearm into her throat instead. She wants impulsiveness? Fine.

Through her strangled attempts at breath, her fingers play over your elbow and hand. Her lips curl up, even as they turn ever so slightly blue.

Wait. This is what she wants. You’ve been playing into her hands. This sick bitch wants impulsiveness, violence, and pain. Is it her mental state? Is it yours? She’s cumming so fast because she’s getting exactly what she wants, and you’re not because you’re so damn stressed.

You pull back from Soojin slowly, letting her finish another round of coughing. And when she finally catches her breath, you lean in, fighting your instincts, and kiss her as gently as you can.

She freezes up, and looks genuinely surprised.

That’s it.

You try to convince yourself to focus on her body. The softness of her breasts, pressed against your chest. Her legs, wrapping around your back. Her lips, accepting what you give her. You try to imagine she’s one of your girlfriends. They’re not hard to picture, even as you make love to the one who hurt them.

You snake your arms under Soojin’s, lifting her off the bed and onto your lap. You cringe at her moans, hiding your displeasure by nuzzling your face into her chest.

“A novel strategy…” Soojin whispers. It sends goosebumps down your back and over your arms.

When you orgasm, so does Soojin.

“And?” you ask.

“Incredible… But cumming with me isn’t the same as cumming first.”

You throw Soojin off of you, and she giggles.

“Dammit! I’m just trying to protect my girlfriends, Soojin!”

“Girlfriends…? What a loser.” Soojin smirks. “A gamer and a loser. Of course. You got so close, you know. Trying to get me out of the mood after feeling out my preferences is an interesting idea, but the physical pleasure… To put it simply, I’m still very satisfied.”

You turn away, sitting on the edge of the bed. That’s not what you wanted to hear.

Her fingers curl over your shoulder. “Do you want to try that again?”

Maybe you could go even slower? Gentler? You stand up and face Soojin again. She leans in for a kiss. You don’t stop her.

“Will this really work?” you ask when she seems to have had her fill.

“I doubt it, but that’s up to you to find out.”

“You do the work, then,” you mumble and lie down on your back.

“As you wish.”

Soojin situates herself sidelong to your body, draping herself over the bed so she can fully display her body to you while she sensually brushes her tongue over your cock, cleaning it softly.

“Do you like this?” she asks, gently rolling her nipples between her fingers.

“Yeah.” You want to deny it, but you know you have to like it. “Do you?”

“I do.” She climbs onto you, lowering herself a bit too quickly.

“Slow down,” you say, trying not to sound too demanding, “Let’s… let’s take this slow. I want to take my time with you.”

Soojin blushes and leans down for another kiss. Her big, round, soft lips are going to haunt you. You’re sure of it.

“You know,” she says between soft smooches, “your impulsiveness is justified.”

“No, I shouldn’t act so rash.”

Soojin giggles. Her pussy pulls at you in all the right spots. Maybe this won’t be too hard, this time. “No. You should. Yuqi is fine by now, but Minnie and Miyeon… Do you want to know what I did to them?”

Your blood boils. “Shut up.”

“Such an interesting game, this is.” Soojin runs her hands up and down her body, from her clit to her bruised neck. “Down here, I’m a powerless, helpless girl for you to hurt and please at your every whim, but up there I could do whatever I wanted. Not that I wouldn’t let you use me as a toy anyway.”

You close your eyes, trying to get the objectively sexy image of Soojin out of your head. Instead, you think about Minnie, picturing her as the one grinding against you.

“What did it seem like to you and Yuqi? A few seconds? Because for lack of a better term, I overclocked us. Miyeon and I spent what we perceived as hours just out of your reach. I got to be creative, impregnating her. I wasn’t sure how to do it with Minnie though. That’s why it was so bad for her. If I had my own cock it would have been easier, but no. I had to break her and Miyeon.”

You can’t stop your teeth from clenching together.

“I had to make them love me, then hurt them, and repeat it over and over again. I broke their bodies, but their minds took longer. I don’t think they’ll ever be the same. At least not on this save file.”

This isn’t working.

“Can you imagine what they went through? And just for me to infuse them with some of my ‘soul,’ or so the game calls it. Once they give birth, they’ll whisper that they love me with their dying breaths.”

Your fist flies instinctively, catching Soojin in the ribs and sending her tumbling backward off the bed and onto the floor. “Their dying breaths?!” You jump to your feet.

Soojin flounders, hands against the wall, trying to lift herself up, but she can’t seem to even get to her knees. Her voice is raspy between rapid gasps for air, which you can only guess are for show, “Yeah… dying…”

You lift her by the hair and turn her to face you. She winces as your hand cracks across her cheek. “You would kill someone who you forced to love you?!”

“Some NPCs, sure,” Soojin mutters. You backhand the other side of her face. This time she shrieks, clapping a hand over her eye. Even so, she smiles, “Glad you’re back, gamer.”

“Is that what you were doing to Shuhua when I came down here?!”

Soojin’s smile droops a little, and she hesitates. “No…”

“Why lie now?!” you scream.

“I didn’t.”

You lose sight of the goal of the game, picking Soojin up by the thighs, pinning her to the wall, and stuffing your cock in her ass. Soojin flinches, but her smile comes back.

“Fuck you! You were going to torture Shuhua the same way you did Minnie and Miyeon, because you’re an inhuman freak who gets off on pain!”

Soojin’s nose flares. “I wouldn’t do that to Shuhua. Ah!”

You slam her upward against the wall, pushing her legs back in what had to be an uncomfortable position, as if that mattered to Soojin. Her ass grips you like a lifeline.

“What? You’d do something different? Rape Shuhua the normal way?! You disgusting cunt!”

Soojin turns her head away, hiding behind the same hand she used to cover her injured eye. “Shut up!”

Somehow, through the haze of rage, you catch on. Soojin didn’t like that.

“What, then?” you ask, pressing her with questions harder than you press her to the wall, “You were just going to force her to her love you and savor it until you—”

“I didn’t make Shuhua love me, idiot!”

You fuck her ass harder, grab her face, and force her to to look back in your direction. A trail of tears ran down her uncovered cheek. You’re almost queasy about feeling the beginning of your orgasm.

“How the fuck can you deny it, Soojin? You heard her. She was screaming it! You fucked with her head!”

“No! Shuhua… She did that to herself!”

As your cum fills Soojin’s ass, you keep it going. It’s not necessary anymore, but this is the catharsis you were looking for. Whether or not it was true, or if it hurt you to say it, it was clearly just as bad for Soojin.

“From the moment she saw you, you hurt Shuhua. She ran away from her friends for you, straight into danger.”

Soojin’s lips quiver as she pulls them back into a snarl. “Fuck you… You win. Get the fuck away from me.”

You pull out of her ass and drop her to the floor. “Don’t pretend you’re treating Shuhua any better, bitch. Even if you didn’t do it with some kind of power, you broke her just by being around her. And for the record, I’m pretty damn sure you did it on purpose.”

Soojin turns toward the wall, folding her knees up to her chest. “If you care so much,” she says, “then log out and delete this save. Now.” Her voice quivers just like her lips did. You can’t help but feel some satisfaction about that.

“Why would I want to do that?”

“This is the end. Nothing else is programmed to let you out… We’re stuck down here. The others are still upstairs.”

Leaving sounds good to you. You exit to the home screen.

Without an error message stopping you, you select the save file. It gives you a screenshot of the last thing you were looking at: Soojin, curled up, naked and crying, as she deserves. You delete the save.

You hit New Game.

Normal.

Open your eyes.

Can you move?

Great. Everything is up to you, good luck.

You’re in a room—there is a bed, there is a mirror, there is a door. You open the door, and Shuhua is in front of you, waiting on a bed of her own.

“Are you the challenger?” she asks, untying her bathrobe just a little as she saunters towards you.

You grab her and pull her into a hug. “Shuhua… I’m sorry.”

She hesitates. “Um… okay?”

You exit to the home screen again, take a deep breath, and exit the game entirely.

You’re in your room—there is your bed, there is your mirror, there is your door.

There is Soojin.

The rain has turned into a thunderstorm. It’s pitch black outside your window, and the only light in your room comes from a small desk lamp and your clock, which says it’s two thirty in the morning.

Soojin looks different, but there’s no mistaking it’s her. Her hair is black, not blonde, and she isn’t wearing anything elegant. Just a beige sweater. She’s sitting on your bed, staring out the window.

You try to back away, but find your arms and legs are bound to your chair.

“Hey,” she says, taking a sip of what smells like coffee.

You growl, “What the fuck are you doing here, Soojin?”

She takes another sip, faces toward you a little, and reaches between her legs under her sweater, and lifts her fingers back up with a glob of semen strung between them. You look down and see that you are, in fact, naked, and your dick looks wet, and like it’s been rubbed raw.

Soojin wipes the cum off on your bed, takes another sip of coffee, and stands up. The sound of her bare feet hitting your floor is completely obscured by the rain. A flash of lightning illuminates her from behind as she looms over you.

“The cords are on a timer. They’ll come undone at three.”

“You’re not going to answer me?!”

Soojin kneels down in front of you. You think she’s going to start sucking your dick for a moment, but then she leans to the side and grabs a tote bag off the floor, removing the smallish umbrella sticking out of it.

“I worked on the game. I should get some of the credit. We’ll have a cute kid.”

You jerk your arm, and find that the cords around your wrists are very, very strong. “Credit?! Kid?! Raping me is credit?!”

She reaches into your ddeunstation and removes the memory card. “Don’t tell the others. It would hurt them to know about this.”

Your jaw drops, and you bring your game knowledge into real life. “Are you fucking kidding me?! You bitch, you think you get to be concerned about them?! What’s your deal with Shuhua?! Are you just going to find a way to fuck with her in real life too?!”

Soojin pauses, now in your entryway, shoes halfway on.

Another strike of lightning lets you briefly see a trail of tears running down her cheek.

“They won't hear from me. Treat Shuhua well…” she says quietly before standing up and walking through the door.

~~~~~

Author’s Note: Thanks again to @ggidolsmuts. Dude is a genius and shockingly fast for a fanfic writer. If you read his I Never Die, I Only Breed series, you probably noticed that entire paragraphs of his original stories were copied and pasted into this one. I loved the intentional repetition of the INDIOB series in the places really sold the game aspect of the story. So much of this story was directly inspired by my thoughts about what one might do with a GameShark for the game. The addition of Soojin and all the dark shit only came to me after finishing ddeun's final chapter.

[abibeur]

So. I played Side Order (or rather I finished Side Order, aside from a few completion marks that doesn't offer any spoiler stuff!).

I've been seeing stuff on Tumblr, on Discord servers, on YouTube comments by people who were… Not entirely happy with it. Or rather disappointed. "They could have done more…", "This character was underused…", "I preferred the Octo Expansion…", "Let's re-write it for something better…". And let me tell you, I was (and still am) infuriated when reading these. Not because those comments and posts and messages were unfair, unjust and idiotic or anything (well maybe the re-writing thing was uncalled for), but because I actually loved that DLC. I think that's pretty normal to be angry with seeing a thing you love being shit on, even if I get what all of you meant. But I still wanted to share my own thoughts (because why not, I like saying what I think).

First and foremost, let me just say that I have a pretty different relation with Splatoon than most people. I was in since the release of the first game. I didn't play it due to a lack of Wii U, but I watched a lot of videos. And I liked it! I even had Splatoon OCs, I could be considered a fandom veteran at this point! But after some years, I put it at the back of my head as something I loved. When the Switch came out, I didn't have the money for it and no one would buy me one, so I continued to be a PC gamer. And when I saw the news of a Splatoon 2, I dismissed it like it was something silly, "what can you say more about Splatoon!?" I knew there was some new idols, some stuff about a DLC, Callie being kidnapped, but that's all. I dismissed all of this, and as a result I don't have much of an attachment for it. But in 2021, when I saw the news about a third game, I was ecstatic again. And in 2022, when I finally could afford it, I bought a Switch. Not just any Switch, the Splatoon themed one, and I pre-ordered the game. And when it came out, I spent less than a day to finish the story mode, and it was one of the best day of my life, I played Splatoon for 16 entire hours. Splatoon 3 is now my most played game on the Switch, more than 300 hours (that can seem not that much for some of you, but I'm a casual gamer, I don't play every day, so that's still a lot!). I even bought Splatoon 2 and the Octo Expansion after that. Splatoon 2 story mode was incredible, because that's the game I never got to play but more mastered. Octo Expansion was incredible, because it was… incredible. But I still liked Splatoon 3 story mode better. Is it because I've played it before? Because I hadn't the one year of unskippable Off the Hook news to make me like them before the DLC (to be fair I didn't know much of Deep Cut too!)? Because it clicked more on me? Honestly I don't care. It's not important, because it's still my preferences. But let met tell you, when the news of Splatoon 3 DLC dropped, I was roaring. Every crumbs of news and trailers widened my life expectancy. I was finally sharing the hype that you felt for Octo Expansion. And…

Two days ago, I played it. And I loved it. Why? Why did I love it where so many people seem disappointed? This will not be an analysis, I'm not good at those, just… Here's how I see things. Also there will be huge spoilers so if you haven't censored the tags for whatever reason, I will hide it beneath a read more because I'm nice.

First, the gameplay. When I heard it was going to be a roguelite, I was intrigued, because it seemed interesting. I was wondering how it was going to play out, more like The Binding of Isaac, or like Hades… Okay I only played those two. And it was like Hades. But I think the best thing to come out of this gameplay is… Well, the fact is every mission from all other story modes (including octo expansion) are pretty much the same in that they have an intended way to be beaten. Sure, for OE and S3 you have a choice of weapons, and there's probably unorthodox ways to finish them (including speedruns), but it's still organised around a specific way to deal with the levels. You go at one point and there you're done. And that's why I will never re-play the story modes I already finished. I know the ropes, so… Why? But here… The gameplay itself doesn't change much. It's an amalgamation of most Splatoon gameplay since now, Salmon Run, Ranked Match, Octo Expansion levels… But the way you APPROACH this gameplay is different and that's why every thing changes. Because you are now free to choose. You don't want a stage? Choose another one, the cost of a good chip and membux not being that punishing, you want a specific type of chip? Go for it! There is so much fun combos to do, I have fun at every run! They told us it was going to be replayable. And they haven't failed to give. Because when I want to replay a game, then I know it's good. Aside of multiplayer games and games made to be replayable (TBOI, Dishonored…), some of favourite games are Half-Life 2 (my favourite game in general), Hollow Knight and Mario & Luigi Bowser's Inside Story. Once you've finished exploring it all, well there is nothing else. But I still want to experience it again. And again. I have tens and even hundreds of hours on each of them. So yeah. If a game makes me want to replay it, I like it! And also… The final fight. The "phase 2" of the final fight. It was probably the most satisfying gameplay in all of Splatoon. Every path you took? Every path you didn't take? It was there. And you could experience it all together and finally finish your first run, empowered by it, in-game and outside. This was so good. I really wish we will get updates like more stages, bosses or even chips, because wow.

Secondly, the atmosphere. This point will be much shorter, but holy shit this game was incredible to be immersed into. The cold and sanitised atmosphere of the Spire? Amazing. Obvious Portal and liminal spaces vibes, but hey. And the music… Really the music makes a lot of it. The final fight music is absolutely incredible, one more time, and the credits theme is probably my favourite credits theme of every Splatoon game and DLC (that VIOLIN, that heckin' VIOLIN). I wouldn't be able to say which one of Octo Expansion and Side Order's atmospheres was my favourite. I guess I'm less sensitive to childhood memories and such but hey. Both DLC's atmospheres were incredible good.

Finally… The sore point of everything I guess, the story. I guess we expected more. Even myself, I expected something darker, deeper, more mysterious and esoteric… Have I been disappointed. No. I understand that some people were, but I am not. And frankly, I feel like I don't have to be. Like what do we really wished for? More octoling lore? Marina's past uncovered? Mature themes and dark atmosphere? I am just describing Octo Expansion. We didn't need Octo Expansion 2.0. Every theme that I've seen wished for? Octo Expansion tackled them, greatly even. So did we really need to do the same thing again? I feel like Splatoon 3 was the great conclusion of the other games' story modes, where all marine life finally united against the common enemy: mammals, the past of Earth's life coming back for its great revival. And it was a spectacular conclusion. And Side Order was Octo Expansion's conclusion. But it wasn't that bombastic, it was more of a calm conclusion, an epilogue of some sort. Marina wasn't in great danger or anything (well she was but less than we expected), we didn't need to expand the damsel in distress role for confirming Marina and Pearl's relation (which was pretty much hinted on greatly without it lmao), we already knew that. We didn't need some dramatic story about Marina's departure's effect on the one she was close to, like some people predicted for Acht. I think some fan comics explored this way better and Nintendo telling their own version would have been disappointing either for it or for the fan comics' versions! We didn't need more insights on Eight, because once again Octo Expansion ALREADY did this. Eight seems happy with their new name and identity, so why should we uncover more? They already won a lot with Octo Expansion and their sacrifices would have been dull if there were reveals on "who they really are".

Nah. Side Order, how I see it, is a story about fixing the damage made in the Octo Expansion. It's a story about recovery. About finally confirming your place in the world and accepting that everything will not be like you think it will. Acht is not there to expose Marina's errors, Acht is there to show how this recovery can work. She symbolises every octoling Marina left when she quit the army and ESPECIALLY every octoling she swore to help. And she's also there because it would have been less interesting to see an octoling we've never seen before, especially since she is an octoling we knew got Kamabo Co.'d! Every palette is someone we already know, an anchor to the world of Splatoon, and for Eight, an anchor to their memories, as the locker was their palette. As they know more and more people, they know more and more where their place in the world is. And the end of your first run? The start of the final boss phase 2? Yeah the music is Pearl, Marina and Acht's. But it is Eight's pulse that got everything back together. Their heart beating made the world beating again. They found freedom, now they found their place in the world. They're finally complete. Like you complete your palette with every chips at once. Octo Expansion final fight was their last fight for freedom. But I think this was their last fight for identity.

But outside of that, I think Order/Smollusk is more than that. More and more we advance through completing the palettes, we learn that Smollusk is the result of Marina's wish for order in her life (and her fellow octolings') and especially the other octolings developers dreams. And I think that's really important, because after that, we learn that why Smollusk still fights us is because it's… alone. And Acht seemingly understands that. You know why this is? Why it doesn't understand Marina's intentions by "betraying" it? Because Marina, as opposed to the other developers and Acht, found someone. She found her partner for life, the love of her life you could say, she found someone else that could offer her something great. And I think the other developers didn't find that companionship, so they had other goals with the Memverse, and Acht, left behind by Marina, felt this loneliness too, taking refuge in music, so that's why she understood what Smollusk felt. I think Splatoon story is a lot about isolation, solitude and loneliness. The (Inkadian) octolings were chased from the surface, living in the underground, isolated and forced into military life. When they risked survival, they stole the great zapfish and we sent then back into the dark. So they retaliated by stealing it again and also kidnapping Callie, separating Marie from the person she holds dearest (while Callie thought she could offer them company and finally uniting back the two people). Octo Expansion was also about isolation from the surface, for everyone involved and Tartar… Well the mammal (and adjacent) survivors don't really have it well, huh? Judd was made immortal, a great lonely situation for one of the last mammals, even if the professor give him Lil Judd for that (isolating the latter from self expression, oops!), Tartar wanted finally someone who could understand the knowledge he was bearing, and in his final instants was longing to return to the professor and for Grizz… We saw what happened in the logs! But this is not where it ends. The first final Splatfest was literally choosing between the Squid Sister, separating one from the other. And when the Splatocalypse happened, we thought it would be the same, that both option were going to be negative. A endless world of anomy where nothing makes sense against a cold and dystopic dictatorship. But we saw Chaos rather meant a world of differences where anyone can be what they want to be and still be reunited with people. So now we see what Order meant: reuniting people by putting them on equal terms. And at the end, that's what you and Smollusk agreed on! He'd be a difficult final boss and you'd be a formidable opponent for him! Splatfests weren't meant to be divisive or anything, it's just a fun way to see what do people choose in their life. So to face loneliness and meet new and fun people, what will you choose? Chaos or Order?

I guess I understand if it wasn't the story you wanted to see. But I liked it either way, as I also struggle with loneliness and finding my place in the world. And as I also like roguelites!

[splashink-games]

Cassette Beasts?

Cassette Beasts is a creature-collecting game by Bytten Studio! Record monsters on tapes, become a Ranger, and find the way off of New Wirral in this amazing adventure!

Spoilers below the cut!!

So I had a plan to write this review before I even finished the game. It was just that good. But! I managed to hold off until I at least finished the main game. Next goal: 100% and DLC! And also buying the OST when I have the chance.

Now, I'm not putting this off until the middle of the review: every musical track in this game is a certified banger. I absolutely loved the music of the game. As one person put it (while I was looking for the OST), I just didn't get tired of the music. And that's a pretty big win for a game where you have so, so many encounters and only a handful of tracks to play.

The way they implement the music is also impressive because it's narratively important. The lyrics work their way in when a fusion happens and during big story battles. The town theme's music plays when you're indoors. Plus the lyrics just feel right with its tones and atmosphere. Also the difference between the few main battle themes is just enough for one to feel more tense/exciting than the others. Just an overall great thing they have going on with the audio.

Okay with that out of the way!

Cassette Beasts is a solid game, actually pretty high tier.

Mechanically, I've seen people compare it to Pokemon. I feel like it's like a mix of Pokemon and Persona. You can record the monsters, remaster (evolve) them at five stars, with some having having special evolution requirements. Monsters can show up as bootlegs, where they're a type other than its base type, which is just like shiny hunting but more (cause there's like 12 types). And I've already killed a plastic bootleg by accident...

The moves (stickers) are mix and match, mostly according to typing. I'm pretty into it cause I love giving my party members all sorts of type coverage. I haven't particularly gone into finding weird strategies yet other than AP Refund, but I can see some cool ones thanks to needing to battle all 12 Ranger Captains.

And then you can fuse! Which I thought was interesting, and it adds an ace to go to when you're in a pinch. But you fusing means that wild monsters (and other rangers) can fuse too. Those provide some fun challenges and opportunities to find bootlegs, plus progression in post-game.

Did I mention that this game is also like a Metroidvania? Capturing certain monsters gives up to 6 overworld movement abilities and I think that's pretty neat. All of them have their uses and none of them are niche, which is a win.

The story was pretty interesting! Dropping in onto a mysterious island and trying to find a way back home is nice and simple and all the detail added around it make it engaging. The Archangels are wildly uncomfortable which I didn't expect and I loved it. Despite loving it, it still did come out of nowhere but greatly forgiven because it was right at the start (and not some random turn in the middle).

The pacing was a bit off for me though because I got like 5 out of 8 song pieces before I even defeated 4 captains or even met all the partner characters. I also don't know how relationship progress works other than fight things and rest. Thinking about it now, there's probably a reason why there a speedrun timer in that you don't have to play through all the content (8/9 archangels, no captains?), I guess.

I liked the references to all sorts of topics throughout the story and I think it's pretty interesting for the characters to be from different timelines. It makes it easy to explain weird inconsistencies.

Funny thing I did by accident for end game's story: I switched out Meredith's Regensea with an Aeroboros cause I wanted her starter in my party. And boy did that choice bite back later lol.

Graphics are also solid. The 3D world with 2D sprites reminds me of Octopath Traveller. I appreciate the non-pixel portrait art for the characters, but I would've liked it either way. The designs of the monsters and the characters are all great! Honestly, I should take some notes from them since even if there's 15+ characters, they still all have very specific designs and personalities to match.

The detail in the world is great too, like the light reflecting off the puddle or the fog that rolls in and the rain. So like weather in general.

Also, as a note just for me, I liked the fonts and font effects that they used. Very cool.

Cassette Beasts is a quality creature-collecting game! If you need another Pokemon/Digimon/Persona, here's a game for you. Or if you just want a cool turn-based RPG with cool music, that's cool too.

As always,

Enjoy gaming!

[i-favor-rui]

SCREAMING

(final DLC trailer ‘spoilers’)

OH MY GOD THEY DIDN’T BUTCHER HIM IM DROPPING MY 35 DUE GOOGLE SLIDES TOMORROW WHO NEEDS TO DO WORK RIGHT NOW

I’m so incredibly hyped up! I’ve got energy, literal energy buzzing through my body right now because this is so exciting. I’ll probably finish writing after playing part 2 of the DLC, because it’ll give me more in depth of Kieran’s past experiences and maybe clues as why he acted so shy before and now. His classmates would definitely notice his change in behavior, but this is the Pokémon world so no one would question it too much

Also in the trailer I noticed Carmine looked rather anxious, instead of being her usual bold self. In the ending scene where they have Terapagos in the video then the crystals in the trailer, she seems to be calling out to Kieran. But Kieran has an expression that says ‘I can’t go back’ because he knows what he did was wrong. He even said so before running off after we defeated him to get Ogrepon. But his strong rage he had towards the player overshadowed the guilt at the final cutscene.

I think maybe, just maybe he always felt like that inside. Ogrepon was just the tipping point because it was something he was really passionate about.

(I forgot everything because alas, 35 google slides for geography made me lose focus and maybe Proseka with the anniversary (EN) and collab they had (JP)

[hopeymchope]

My SPOILERY thoughts on Rain Code: Pre-DLC Edition

I've now finished everything that's available to us before the DLC cases start dropping in one week beginning with "Chapter Desuhiko: Charisma Killed the Cat." I'm totally down to learn more about the supporting detectives in this manner, so that should be a nice treat.

But I've completed the main story, every side quest, unlocked every "Gumshoe Gab," and read through How to Be a Master Detective: A Yakao Furio Case. I've done everything I can do for now.

As such — since I already shared my SPOILER-FREE thoughts over here — let me offer you my SPOILER-HEAVY reactions under the cut below.

So click on for EXTREME SPOILERS regarding things I have questions/misgivings about, things I feel are teasing future sequels, things I adored overall, and more.

By the end, I feel like it's practically impossible to dislike Yuma OR Shinigami. After Chapter 2 makes Yuma AND the player really start to feel like the contract is a burden and Shinigami is unworthy of any trust, the game brilliantly gives us Chapter 3 — the chapter where Shinigami starts to chill the fuck out and they get to confront the most unambiguously evil culprit plot in the whole thing. Kodaka and co. did well to make us start warming back to the partnership right after pointing out the obvious concerns. Our heroes reach their lowest point and then climb back to their best. Shinigami becomes less hyperactive and more sensitive and caring. And of course, Yuma goes from being a weak, frightened little fawn and shifts into The final scene between them is genuinely heartstring-tugging.

The repeated hints about the darkness that Yuma has unleashed, the blood that's on his hands, and the talk from Vivia about the extreme dangers of the Book of Death and how the Book of Death "will destroy the world"... that obviously never went anywhere. I guess we're saving that plot thread for a possible sequel, most likely? (Though I suppose it might be discussed in the DLC... but I personally doubt that.) Because they worked so hard to make us go from "Shinigami is untrustworthy and extremely sketchy" to loving and accepting her at the end, making us revert back to fearing and distrusting Shinigami is going to be emotionally difficult to endure. ... And I live for that shit. :D

I also think there's still merit in my earlier prediction that in an eventual sequel, Yuma will have to face the music for his crimes of repeatedly reaping criminals' souls... and maybe even get reaped himself. The game regularly reminds us of the death on Yuma's conscience. That's gonna come into play somehow, at some point.

Another bit from that earlier post that I still stand by is that, if this series continues, we'll definitely see a case where the person we're trying to exonerate is actually TOTALLY guilty of the crime.

By the way... I once mused that I didn't think Shinigami's "ghost/spirit" design was very distinctive. But after playing the game, I totally embrace it and accept it now. Even though my partner kept calling her "Dollar-Store Gengar," there's a certain genius to her design. She couldn't be too visually distracting if she was going to be flying all over the screen for the sake of quick gags while accompanying you, so making her both a relatively simple design as well as primarily transparent was VERY wise. And purple has come to be associated with notions of poisonous presences and/or ghostly appearances pretty heavily in the past 30+/- years. Very clever.

Another unanswered question: What's with the animal ears on Zilch Alexander and the angrily aggressive nun? They twitch like they're alive! Are these people some kind of human/animal hybrid? Or, wait... since Zilch wears a hat and the nun wears a habit, is this just a little bonus feature of their headgear? Battery-operated fake ears? Whatever the case, Yuma clearly didn't think it was worthy of noting or mentioning, so it must be a fairly common sight in the future.

I predicted "Makoto looks exactly like Yuma under the mask bc of the homunculus experiments" VERY early. Like, literally when I first met Makoto at the start of Chapter 3, I was already there, LOL. But from that moment, I always thought the twist would be that Yuma was the homunculus-copy and Makoto was the original version of him. So I got that backwards. And I definitely didn't think Yuma would wind up being Number One or turn out to have identity-swapped with a minor background character. That was TOTALLY left-field shit for me.

On that same topic... when Chapter 5 began, I was so EPICALLY disappointed. Like, after all the teases about homunculi and what that terminology implies, we get... zombies. Just fuckin' ZOMBIES. The most overdone thing in video games for the past 20 years now!! But as the chapter continued on and the truth about the city became obvious to me, I was really excited by the reveals. I knew something was off about the "meat bun" obsession, but I had no idea where the hell this was going. I mean, why WOULD I? "Homunculus" has never before meant "zombie" :P And of course I had ZERO idea that everyone in town was actually a homunculus replacement for a dead citizen until the game started dropping those HARD hints during the Chapter 5 investigation.

How amazing was that "pink blood" twist in Chapter 5? Brilliant little meta-mystery that really fucked with DR fans' beliefs and expectations. BRILLIANT, I tell you!

One thing that sadly fell flat for me about the conclusion was exactly WHY Yuma went from "I give up, Makoto is right, I need to let him win" over to "NO! I must FIGHT BACK and expose the TRUTH!" It kind of felt like the only reason he did the latter was because Shinigami really wanted him to and was sad that he was giving up, and Yuma clearly cares about Shinigami by then, so he just.... goes on with it. Is it because he realized in that moment that he could successfully expose the truth AND still make everyone happy? Because how the FUCK could he have known how that'd turn out?!? Especially after Chapter 2's conclusion, Yuma had no reason to believe that exposing the truth was going to always be a good thing for everybody. ... Personally, I thought they really needed to make Yuma a lot angrier about Makoto grinding up criminals for meat. That mass-murder would've been a GREAT reason for him to get up and fight back, and it would've made a lot more clear sense as a reason for him to keep going than some vague desire for an idealized world that has every fucking reason to NEVER work in practice. I just... I don't get it.

Back to positive stuff: Chapter 4's murder mystery is one of the best Kodaka has ever put together. Just... no notes, great job, loved it.

I wonder if Vivia really is immortal somehow. The possibility isn't ever strictly denied when it's brought up...

Desuhiko has to be my least favorite of the Other Detectives/Temporary Partners. He's such a damn tool. :P

I hope they eventually give us some DLC or other side modes that let us learn more about the lost Chapter 0 detectives. They have/had so much potential to run deep. I'd be down to play a "Danganronpa S"-style side story that runs like a simplistic board game if it means we'll get more info on them.

[shiny-jr]

ooh wait have you played three houses?? i saw you mentioned it in one of your recent posts and i got curious. can i ask what are your thoughts on it if you have played it?

also also, have you played pokemon scarlet/violet at all? i’d really love to hear your thoughts on it, especially with its latest dlc ^^ (super sorry i’m grouping two different games in this ask, i didn’t wanna send messages back to back, but feel free to only answer one if you want!)

Oh boy, more opportunities for me the spout nonsense and my odd opinions. I will gladly take it. Buckle up, anon and others reading, because I have a long history with both franchises.

I've been playing Fire Emblem since Fire Emblem: Awakening, then Fates, Heroes, and eventually Three Houses. My take: Awakening is still the best one, but maybe I'm biased. I remember playing it and marrying Chrom on accident, whoops.

Anyways, Three Houses was alright, better than Fates but not better than Awakening. I remember it came out, and I was actually upset because I was in another country on the US release date so I didn't get to play it until I got back. Even when I saw the trailers, I knew I was Golden Deers all the way. Odd, I know, most people prefer the other teams. Claude, Hilda, Marianne, Lysithea, my dears. OH, and before I go on, I just want to say, I hate the female MC. And no, it's not what you think, I only hate her because literally why does her outfit look like that compared to the male MC? Robin from Awakening was always the better protagonist anyways.

After completing the Golden Deers route, I decided I wanted to try and complete all the routes because at that point I disliked a huge majority of the characters. I tried Blue Lions next. At first I didn't really have much of an opinion on Dimitri, but he grew on me eventually, because how could I resist such a miserable brooding man that later gets a soft spot for one person (plus his design was kinda badass)? But I will admit, his behavior immediately post-timeskip was kinda annoying. I thought I would dislike Felix, but shockingly, I didn't, I actually liked him. And you know what? Dedue is CRIMINALLY underrated, he's literally probably the nicest and loyalest dude of all time. He got some hate for his race from some characters, and I actually got heated.

After Blue Lions, I knew I had to play through Black Eagles twice if I wanted the last two routes. However, here's the thing. In both previous routes, Golden Deer and Blue Lions, I had loathed Edelgard. But, I thought to myself, I just needed to try her route and maybe I'll change my mind... Well, I was wrong. Edelgard is probably one of the characters I HATE most in any franchise. And I tried so hard to like her, like I would give her gifts and answer dialogue truthfully, only for the relationship thing to go down. Like damn, okay. I just couldn't stand her. The others in her route were mostly fine, I liked Ferdinand, Bernadetta, Caspar, and Petra. But because of Edelgard, I couldn't even finish her route once and it's still uncompleted to this day.

Now... onto Pokemon.

Fun fact, I completed Pokemon Black and White when I was in first grade and couldn't read everything. Don't ask me how I did it, because I honestly have no clue. I've played every gen since then: Black and White 2, X and Y, Sun and Moon, Ultra Sun and Moon, Sword and Shield, Arceus, Scarlet and Violet. I did indeed preorder the game when it was announced, as I have done for the generations before. Where do you think my username comes from? In most pokemon games, I love collecting shiny pokemon. Shiny.

I was hyped for Scarlet and Violet since the first day it was announced. I lost my mind the day it was first announced and eagerly waited months for it. When it came out, I dropped everything for several days. As a regular fan, I always set this tradition for myself to defeat new pokemon games within or around 24 hours and of course, I did so.

The game itself has a lot of issues, namely the glitches and quality of the frames. But, it's on the switch, so that's to be expected. It felt really rushed in that aspect. I just feel like they could do so much better if they really wanted to, like on par with BOTW or TOTK (those games have bad frames too but at least they look a lot better). As for mechanics, I really missed the mechanics from Arceus, but at least Scarlet and Violet improved upon the poor excuse of the open area that was in Sword and Shield.

Story and characterwise, I'm torn.

Here's what I like: (1) the multiple split routes, (2) certain characters.

(1) It made it feel like you really had a lot to do, and that combined with the open area of the entire map made it seem like a lot. It is a lot. So it's really fun to explore and try to complete everything. Even just walking about, you're bound to get distracted, lost, or find something completely new. I was just playing it a while ago after completing everything and there were still little secrets I didn't notice the first time around.

(2) Arven, my god, do I love a guy with mommy AND daddy issues. And he has a dog? I'm hooked. I didn't expect to get attached to him, but I did. I actually prefer his route purely because of the story within it with his companion. I didn't see that coming, and I was so worked up over it. Another character I like, Director Clavell. A good supporting professor, you love to see it. Wish he showed up more though.

Here's what I dislike: (1) the villains, (2) the gym leaders, and (3) other characters, (4) the leveling system. (5) I'll talk about the dlc last.

(1) We haven't had a good villain team in a while. Black and White was super memorable with N, X and Y's Lysandre with Team Flare was a joke, Sun and Moon's Team Skull with Guzma was actually good because they were funny and non-threatening, Sword and Shield with Team Yell was actual trash, and this Team Star being bad guys but not really bad guys was actually so boring. Let's roll it back to Team Aqua literally planning to recreate a great flood or Team Magma planning to create havoc with volcanoes, Team Plasma that wanted to liberate Pokemon, or Team Galactic that were going to harness the power of time/space/universe and their leader is trapped/died in an empty dimension. They don't make Pokemon villains like they used to, huh?

(2) The gym leaders are very forgettable this time around. Like, they don't play much of a role aside battling, and after that you don't really see them again at all. It's a shame, because some of them have potential for greater use and have really good designs. Not to mention, they were all weak as hell.

(3) The Champion was a let down. Geeta (I had to look up her name). I was iffy when I first saw images of her, I didn't like her design but I just decided to go with the flow and I'll probably change my mind. I didn't. She's as forgettable of a champion as Alder and Diantha were. At least we saw Leon in the SwSh a lot and we got to hear from characters about how strong he was. Geeta wasn't like that at all, her team was a joke. Nemona as a rival was annoying, she got on my nerves from the first few moments we met her. I think Penny had potential, but I just didn't like her.

(4) The leveling system was really annoying. What happened was, I tried to complete the other two routes first and save the gym leaders for last. However, when I did this, because I didn't have any gym badges, new pokemon caught wouldn't listen even if my other pokemon were like 20 or more levels above them. So I had to pause the other route, just to do some of the gyms that way I could actually use new pokemon. I know they tried the system to prevent people from just cheating the system by automatically getting high-leveled pokemon from friends, but it just got in the way.

(5) DLC so far... not a fan. I mean, it's something. It's there. It's a thing. But it has nothing so far that makes me like it. The rivals are meh, and the region confuses the hell out of me. I don't get why do Scarlet and Violet region of Paldea based off Spain, but then have a DLC with an island that's so very obviously based off Japan. They could've picked anything around Spain but go back to Japan when 4/9 of the regions are already supposedly based off Japan? Idk, it was kind of a let down to be honest. I haven't completed the dlc, so I still have to do that. The new map is small, but I heard the next dlc is supposed to be huge so here's to hoping that one is better?

[lastoneout]

hi idk if you're a huge kalos fan but how are you feeling about the direct

I haven't watched it yet, but ngl Kalos wasn't my favorite OR my least favorite pokemon game, I was pretty neutral on it overall. My main complaint was how annoying the map was to traverse before you got fly, but aside from that it was fine, introduced some cool pokemon and had a decent plot. Tbh for the next Legends game I would have preferred Jhoto, but eh. It's not a huge deal to me.

My real issue is that it's a little hard to get excited about it when I know how bad crunch is at Game Freak and that despite saying they were reevaluating their tight release cycle bcs like, ScarVi was borderline unplayable at launch and Arceus got abandoned the second they were done with it despite being the most popular game in years....I just have no faith that this game will be good, or at least it won't be anywhere near as good as it has the potential to be :/

I hope I'm proven wrong tho, and I don't think it's wrong to be excited about the game, something something no ethical consumption and I'd be a major hypocrite if I told people to drop any game company that has bad practices bcs almost all of them do, I just can't get hype. I was really, really hoping Game Freak would slow the hell down and stop making new games for a couple of years, put all of their focus on gen 10 and release that maybe in 2026 or 2027, but nope gotta make that money even if the games we release are falling apart at the seams and our devs are working on two or three projects at once.

And like, given the current trend in decreasing quality I'm genuinely unsure if the game is even going to be functional enough to be worth playing, especially since I figure to hit a 2025 release they probably started working on this right after Arceus came out, and there has simply not been enough time to make this game good. Plus there were a lot of points in ScarVi where I legit just wanted to put the game down and stop playing entirely bcs the graphics and glitches and framerate drops started to make me annoyed and dizzy, and once I was done with the main story I lost like all motivation to keep playing(I like finishing my dex, I did it in Sw/Sh and Let's Go and have almost done it in BDSP and Arceus, but I don't care about ScarVi's dex at all), and I haven't even bought the DLC yet. Tbh I'm probably not even gonna pre-order this, I'm waiting till it's out to decide if I want to buy it or not.

Anyway sorry to be a buzzkill, I don't fault anyone for being excited, I've loved Pokemon for more than half my life, it helped me meet my fiancé, it really means so SO much to me, so I get it, but like....I think I love the series too much to get excited for this. Seeing what Pokemon is turning into is just...painful and sad. I hope y'all enjoy it tho, and who knows, I could be wrong, maybe it will be fantastic and super polished and we can all breathe a sigh of relief bcs they got their shit together! That would be nice.

Edit: I do want to say I'm glad it has been 3 years instead of the usual 2, and I'm VERY glad they didn't announce gen 10, but unless the scope of this game is narrow as fuck and they also don't release until like November-December 2025 AND this team was NOT the same team who worked on ScarVi's DLC that is still not enough time to make a game with the scope they've been establishing as their new baseline. TOTK took SIX years to finish. Elden Ring's DLC was built on top of an existing game and it still took TWO whole years just to make it. Most open-world games take a really, really long time. Adding an extra year is great, but they need to be taking a lot longer than that between games. This is a step in the right direction, but it's not enough to inspire confidence.

[gaymer-hag-stan]

A Tekken 8 Review That Nobody Asked for From a Longtime Fan Who Has Been Playing for Ages But Is Not a Pro - That Title Is Too Long

Having spent a little over 24 hours playing the game on my PS5, I feel like it's an appropriate amount of time to share my first thoughts on it. I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum so just skip the "Story" section and you should be fine.

General Thoughts

A pretty healthy roster, overall happy with who we got. I do wish Anna and Christie were here, and I also miss Lucky Chloe. With Eddy already announced and Azucena taking over the "cooky dance-y character" I unfortunately don't see Christie or Chloe returning, but Anna better fucking do!

They all look great, even the ugly ones, they look satisfyingly ugly, if that makes any sense. The girls still suffer from the Madame Tussaud's wax figure syndrome that plagued the entirety of Tekken 7's roster, but, maybe I'm gaslighting myself, I do feel like they look a bit less plasticky than some of the initial teasers? Most of the redesigns are great, the hair (Lili's hair has never looked better), water and dirt physics all finally WORK and I love how all the clothing animates with the wind effect, the Fallen Destiny stage is a great one to illustrate all of the above. We can see Yoshimitsu's fingers after three decades! I'd love to know the thought process behind this redesign lmao

I love that they finally, after so many years of other fighting games having it but being inexplicably absent from Tekken, they finally added Player vs CPU matches! FINALLY! Finally I can pick my character and my opponent of choice, pick their costumes and set a stage for them to battle. I'm so happy for this even though it might not make any sense to anyone.

Combo Challenges! We finally have combo challenge in Tekken! Another common fighting game feature inexplicably missing up until now.

Gameplay feels a lot of fun. I wasn't sure about the heat mechanic but it's actually a lot more fun than I initially thought! I tried out all of the cast and am slowly completing both their story episodes and an Arcade run for good measure. I am obviously still maining Nina. They have decided to simplify a lot of her combo throws and I am having fun terrorizing people online with them by breaking their bones! I'm also using Arcade Quest to learn how to play as Lili and Azucena, some basic moves and combos and whatnot. I wanna also do Zafina, Jun, Jin, Hwoarang and Xiaoyu as well eventually. I think these eight will be my main squad for the time being. As a side note, King and Steve feel extremely fun to play, I haven't picked either in ages, but with King I was really close!

The netcode is, surprisingly functional??? We did recently switch to an optic fiber connection type, but I'm still on WiFi and I am having zero problems!

Jukebox is thankfully back again! I literally spent an hour or more before playing the game at all to decide which song goes where lol

Something that scares me regarding upcoming DLC, is that I do not see a season pass being sold anywhere except the Deluxe Edition bundle that costs 40€... I'm sorry but I don't give a fuck about owning 32 identical gold costumes or Tetsujin or whoever the fuck as my Arcade Quest avatar... I only want Eddy and the other three (one of them better be Anna!) thank you very much!

Story

"The Dark Awakens"

Believe it or not I haven't even finished the main story yet as I'm trying to pace myself through all the modes and enjoy them, savouring every moment. At the moment of typing this I am almost halfway through and I must say, even though I am still firmly in the "Drop the cinematic NRS style story modes" camp, and I would much rather have had either arcade mode with proper, canon endings back, or a revival and repurposing of the Tekken Force mode, in an SF6 World Tour mode type of way, out of all of Bandai Namco's attempts at a cinematic story mode, from SCV to Tekken 8, this has been the most satisfying attempt so far. I love that they are fully embracing the overdramatic nature of Tekken along with its campy side and it's present from the very beginning, with Jin throwing his bike at Kazuya's helicopter! "A Fate Decided by Fists" were we actually get to choose which fighters advance through the first round was the biggest highlight so far! I did not expect to fight Azazel again in 2024! I miss his Tekken 6 design though, he no longer glows according to his remaining health or has his limbs crumble away into scarabs according to which parts of him you're hitting. Also, I do understand why they felt the need to overemphasize how "Jin was a good guy all along and he's not like Kazuya" to redeem him and attempt to portray him as a more traditional hero, but I think they went way too far. Literally every single cast member, characters who've never met him before especially, makes a point of how good a person Jin is. Also, I do understand that there were a lot of people complaining that most of the cast were ignored in Tekken 7's story mode and I appreciate that they tried to include more of them this time, but it's so half assed and superficial. Like, Lili, Asuka, Hwoarang, Leo (who finds their missing father, a forgotten plot point from Tekken 6 of screen without a single explanation) Xiaoyu, PANDA offer absolutely nothing to the story so far other than to just be there and tell Jin what a good guy he is. And I say all that as someone who is firmly on Jin's side and despises Kazuya.

Character Episodes

Thank god they have more than one single fight this time! I would have liked it if they found a way to make each of them be canon. Like, I think every single one of the Arcade mode endings of SF6 is canon, if I'm not mistaken, and most of them seem to take place before the events of the main story, as a way to give us a clearer understanding of why each fighter fights. I think Guilty Gear does exactly that too. Nevertheless, I do appreciate that each fighter has fights specifically tailored to them, with specific opponents. It's not clear to me yet if they're completely non-canon or not, as in Nina's she seems to have been hired by Lee to sabotage G Corporation and Kazuya, I pray to God this is true and she's not actually, willingly working for that asshole, like, I'm still in complete denial that they threw her entire character development from Tekken 4 to Tekken 7 to the trash can just to go "NInA WiLl WoRK FoR WhOmEvEr"... She's also suspiciously missing from the actual story like, she simply just appeared in ONE scene so far and then left without doing literally anything. She also seems to only have special interactions with Steve and Lee so far when others get a lot more. Her handling story wise in this installment is insulting, considering she's the most popular female fighter in the series and one of the most popular in the genre...

Offline Modes

Arcade Quest

It's cute... It's certainly a cool way to mask your tutorial and the avatars are kinda cool, but they're nowhere near as good as what Capcom did with SF6 and World Tour. I must say I prefer Tag 2's Tekken Lab over this.

Super Ghost Battle

Ghost battle, after five attempts is finally fun! Tekken 7's was by far the worst attempt as the game would automatically pick opponents for you, matching you with much harder ones if you were winning too much and much lower ones if you were losing too much so that you wouldn't climb the ranks as fast and it would artificially increase playtime. Now that Tekken has actual single player modes other that the story there's no need for that, and they made it work. You simply choose from a list, and the ones that contain unlockable (useless) customisation options for specific characters are actually marked so that you can attempt to get the item you want.

Arcade Battle

I love that they still included a traditional eight battle long Arcade mode, even though they could have just had the character episodes and call it a day. My slight nitpick, again, is that they're still doing this thing that they've been doing since Tekken 5 or 6 where the first few battles are characters in their default costumes and then a horde of Namco's customized monstrosities attack your eyes... This is a huge pet peeve of mine, I understand it in the context of Ghost Battle, and Arcade Quest, but I do not want to see goofy customs in other, "serious" modes. On top of that, the ghosts you get seem to be from the Super Ghost Battle's catalogue of freaks, and are therefore higher difficulty than most, which in turn makes them actively harder than the mode's final boss which I think is kinda hilarious!

Tekken Ball

I will admit, I only played a single match and never touched it again. It is actually challenging, I'll give it that, but I don't see the appeal. I'd much rather have Tekken Bowl again back instead tbh. Also I wish that stage was playable in normal modes too.

Customization

Avatar customization is kinda whatever, but it works well enough for Arcade Quest and I don't really visit the Tekken Fight Lounge.

Character Customization however is where I have an issue. While I've seen lots of cool customs of various characters from other games and IPs, including Shimbori himself dressing up Super Battle ghosts as DOA characters!, I don't really care for the customization options? My only real use for Character Customization in Tekken so far was to recreate past / alternate outfits. Like, in Tekken 6 I would buy the schoolgirl outfit parts for all the teen girlies, in Tekken 7 I recreated Nina's 2P outfit from Tekken 4 using her Blood Vengeance catsuit as a base, stuff like that. In Tekken 8 all I'm getting is a huge catalogue of Zara's apparel... And all the unlockable outfits are either their default look with less clothes on, or weird cosplays of other characters. Why? Tekken Character Customization peaked in Tekken 6, where every single one of the 40 (41 if you count Panda, who I think had some different options from Kuma) characters had his own personal selection of outfits and items, matching their personality and look. I don't want to play as Nina dressed up as Ada Wong or in a business casual for a 9-5 desk job. They made everything way too generic and bland and, on top of that, we don't even have trademark pieces like Nina's purple catsuit, her ponytail, Hwoarang's taekwondo garb, Xiaoyu's Tekken 6 battle costume. The Tekken 5 veterans should have had their Tekken 5/6/TTT2 costumes and hairstyles on top of their Tekken 7 ones.

Overall, I am very very happy with this game! It seemingly does almost everything right and I am glad to see it improving on, literally, every single thing over Tekken 7.

Score: 9 / 10

[maddymoreau]

Fallout New Vegas Live-Blog Part 6

(b ᵔ▽ᵔ)b Today was all about Quests!!!!

My Courier FINALLY figured out how she wanted to use the HELIOS One and decided to equally distribute the power to everyone.

I forgot to mention before the Honest Hearts DLC I recruited Toby's boy Arcade Gannon! The way he deflects is really funny but I hope OPENS UP ALREADY!!! So I can unlock his Quest soon.

Since it was possibly Ulysses who left ED-E for me I decided to finish the ED-E My Love Quest 👀. I didn't realize this until after I killed The Brotherhood of Steel but A LOT of ways to unlock ED-E's Log 2 File was through them. Whoops no regrets.

ヾ( ^∀^ )ﾉ Luckily on accident I spoke with a random NCR solider in the HELIOS One who activated it!

Not long afterwards I was contacted by a member of the Followers of the Apocalypse named April Mortimer.

The developers forgot to change her dialogue if you kill the Brotherhood of Steel beforehand because she says, "I monitored a communication earlier between you and someone with the Brotherhood of Steel."

Which did NOT happen. My Courier is the LAST person they'd want to communicate with.

Anyway I met up with her and she took ED-E to do some upgrades. (っ ᵔ◡ᵔ)っFelt like I was dropping my kid off at Daycare.

Anyway while ED-E got upgraded I finally worked on helping Freesideヽ(ˇ∀ˇ )ゞ!!!

I helped Bill Ronnie with his alcoholism and Jacob Hoff kick his addiction to chems. From there I resolves the conflict between the King and the NCR. (¬_¬ ) Pacer SUCCCCKKKKKKKSSS and I don't understand why The King hasn't punished him for his outlandish behavior.

(ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ Since I helped so much The King let me be the first female to EVER join their group ☆!!!

I don't think this was intentional but for some reason The King had members of his group stop me EIGHT times while in Freeside to give me a gift. The gifts ranging from Stimpacks to Banana Yucca Fruit.

I then worked on some Quests for the Atomic Tango like collecting debts. ( ^_^)ゞ Except I got kinda lazy, lied and paid off two of the three people's debts. They want me to kill someone in The Strip but I'm not sure if I'm going to do that.

I then met a Ghoul comedian named Hadrian who ROASTED ME!!!!

I'm not kidding the first time he talks to you it's like this: https://youtube.com/shorts/xevZB9tAoBY?si=RZVuMHtKUJ_2QpzY

To be fair he thought I was the heckler hired to spice up his shows. In the end I helped him get out of his contract, hired him at The Tops and got a free performance!!

I then worked on the Wang Dang Atomic Tango Quest. I need to recruit three adult performers. Getting Santiago to join was easy because he was the person whose debt I collected. From there I recruited that cool Cowboy Ghoul Beatrix Russell who was working for the Followers of the Apocalypse.

Then last . . . I needed to create a sexbot.

MY POOR COURIER GOT UNINTENTIONALLY FLAMMED DURING THIS QUEST LMAO!!!!!

My Courier: "Yeah what kind of weirdos would want to have sex with a robot . . ."

After creating Fisto the sexbot (whose services I reject). I delivered him to James Garret AND THIS GUY ACTS LIKE A KID IN A CANDY STORE!!!!!!

He's wayyyyyyy too excited for someone who TOTALLY doesn't have a disgusting robot fetish. Talking about he's been looking one for YEARS and word for word, "Imagine the possibilities! It didn't happen to come with an owner's manual, did it? Aw, forgot it- trial and error should do it.

HE'S ALSO A ROBOT FUCKER!!!!!!

My Courier currently has a crush on Yes Man but they aren't actually together (yet). I like to imagine while away during the Old World Blues and Honest Hearts DLCS she thinks about him a lot.

It's only when she returns and sees him for the first time it hits her like, "oh." I like him more as more than a friend. You know how time apart makes the heart grow fonder? Yeah ANWAY SHE TAKES A PAGE OUT OF DR. BOROUS' BOOK AND IMMEDIATELY BURIES IT SINCE NOWS NOT THE TIME!!!!!

My Courier: "It's not healthy for me to bury my guilt and feelings over what I did to the Khans *has crush on Yes Man* BURY THAT!!! BURY THAT!!!!"

Also I paid James Garret the robot lover to raise my reputation so I went from being liked to idolized.

I mentioned in an earlier post that before turning over the evidence of Alice McLafferty and the Silver Rush to Jackson at Mojave Outpost I wanted to work on some of their Quests. So I knocked out a bunch of them. You Can Depend on Me (excluding Running off the Runners) and the Pressing Matters for Alice.

Afterwards I did the Bird of a Feather for the Silver Rush. Helping until I received an order to Bring Cass to Jean-Baptiste . . .

She was with me when he asked LOL.

They'll kill her if I point that out so we left, went to Mojave Outpost and reported what they were doing. Since I only imagined my Courier and Cass teaming up to resolve this issue afterwards they had a drink together (my Courier doesn't drink alcohol but Cass does) before parting ways for good.

I didn't mention this earlier but when killing the Khans FOR SOME REASON a random Powder Ganger member was there??!!

No idea why he was at Red Rock Canyon but when killing the Khans I accidentally killed him.

This caused me to be Vilified by the Powder Gangers.

I didn't think it was a big deal because I assumed if I rescued the Powder Gangers from the Legion (who didn't see me because I used a Stealth Boy), convinced Chavez to leave and dealt with Cooke in Vault 19 I'd be fine.

WRONG!!!! No matter what I do the Powder Gangers will attack me. So my Courier gained a bunch of good Karma killing them all.

I like to imagine that they figured out my Courier killed the Fiends and assumed she'd come for them. Especially with the whole conflict between Goodsprings and the Powder Gangers that happened. Which is why they became so hostile since A RANDOM POWDER GANGER BEING WITH THE KHANS MAKES NO SENSE!!!

She actually considered MAYBE giving them a chance to redeem themselves but once they attacked first it was all over.

Part 1-5 and DLCs below:

In Order:

Part 1:

https://www.tumblr.com/maddymoreau/738944610851864576/i-spent-a-majority-of-my-time-exploring-the-top?source=share

Part 2:

https://www.tumblr.com/maddymoreau/739188768511229952/finally-leaving-the-strip-i-worked-on-a-quest?source=share

Part 3:

https://www.tumblr.com/maddymoreau/739399214287749120/fallout-new-vegas-live-blog-i-was-looking-at-a?source=share

Part 4:

https://www.tumblr.com/maddymoreau/739493595514634240/fallout-new-vegas-live-blog-part-4-i-went-on-a?source=share

Old World Blues DLC:

https://www.tumblr.com/maddymoreau/739827733183512576/i-loved-this-dlc-so-much?source=share

Honest Hearts DLC:

https://www.tumblr.com/maddymoreau/740006126331035648/fallout-new-vegas-honest-hearts-dlc-%E3%82%9E-after?source=share

Part 5:

https://www.tumblr.com/maddymoreau/740067783848640512/fallout-new-vegas-live-blog-part-4-since-i?source=share

[medea10]

Medea Played Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, The DLC's (Part I)

Previously on Shit-post Theater

This. That. Also This. That too.

Yeah, it's been a minute. I've been holding off on doing one of these since the first DLC that dropped back in December really didn't wow me as much as I thought it would. So I waited until the second one dropped. Only to learn that an epilogue was coming soon thereafter. That was awfully kind of them. Okay, sit back.

Maybe throw away that sandwich you've been holding onto since November of 2022.

At the start, Jacq-strap tells you about an opportunity to go on a school trip to Kitakami. A region that was just pulled out of thin air...

And here we are!

You're in Kitakami with three randos from the academy, being chaperoned by Ms. Briar, who is an instructor at Blueberry Academy in Unova. And if that doesn't sound familiar to you, it will soon enough.

Soon after, you are accosted and insulted by one of Blueberry Academy's finest asses, Carmine.

The little one behind Carmine is her little brother Kieran. Now that I finished that interruption. I gotta do something really important.

There we go. I am complete. I can finally get a Clefable in these games.

A girl and her Clefable. Is there anything more perfect in this world?

I suppose I should look around this small region.

There's only one Pokemon Center. And it's an outdoor facility just like Paldea.

Gender neutral bathrooms along with boy/girl ones? Uh-oh, don't tell the right-wing weirdos on X.

More pokemon to catch as well. Even Jacq-strap gives you a special egg. I hope it's something...

Sigh. Gible, use Draco Meteor.

And then we meet these two oddballs. O'Nare and...the other one. I don't remember the other one. Biff or Billy or Monty Q Moneybags. Shit, I don't care. They're part of the Pokemon version of the Illuminati. And you'll find them in weird places throughout Kitakami and Paldea. Even on the jagged tippy-tops of the Great Crater. Follow them enough times and O'Nare will battle you a couple of times and you can get a few goodies like nuggets, big nuggets, and a phone case.

There's also a rumor that these two are really Nemona's parents. There's no proof of that and as of this date of posting, we don't know Nemona's parents. I have theories that she's the product of Goku and one of the compulsive gamblers on Kakegurui.

The point of this school trip is to go all over Kitakami and take selfies in front of certain landmarks. Each place tells you parts of a story involving a man, an ogre pokemon, and three "savior" pokemon. Through it all, you're with Kieran. That shy little cinnamon roll.

And then it's time for this mask festival. And you meet Kieran's grandpar...

Huh.

I could be wrong, but did Jessie and James wear disguises like this long ago? Nope? Sorry, my imagination! Okay, moving on.

At this festival, you can play this Ogre-busting game where you have to place mochis up before certain hungry pokemon eat em' up.

You can keep playing this game for a chance at winning a shiny Munchlax.

During the festival, you and Carmine come across that ogre pokemon mentioned prior and a teal mask. Hence, the name of the first DLC.

From this point on, you're going to learn more about Ogerpon. How he's not a bad pokemon and that the tale is fabricated.

And all of this is destroying the cinnamon roll. Kieran always loved the ogre from the stories and feels a little betrayed when you and Carmine hide the new revelations from him.

He is now a stale cinnamon roll.

It's not long before the three "savior" pokemon from the story crash the DLC and run amok all over Kitakami. Eating everything, stealing Ogerpon's precious masks, and turning into titan-sized pokemon.

So, let's get all of these masks back for Ogerpon and defeat those giant, toxic nightmares.

Ogerpon gets a happy ending where the villagers apologize for how it was treated by their ancestors.

Kieran will fight you again for Ogerpon, which ends something like this.

Oh, get up off the floor you drama queen. Shinji Ikari has more dignity than you right now.

And then you fight Ogerpon in a battle.

It's going to be tough since it has four masks, he's tera during the whole battle, and each mask changes his second type. But once defeated, you can catch it with 100% rate.

That's actually it. I was surprised when I finished it so fast. I was worried about taking too long playing it because I had a birthday trip around the same time of release. Speaking of...

I still find this cute.

After the Teal Mask main story, there were a few things we could do.

Like donating your hard-earned moolah to the caretaker in Kitakami. I know he ain't worth it like Honey in Sword/Shield, but...

Nah, I've got nothing.

You can finish off your Kitakami pokedex. There should be 200 entries. And if you fill 150 entries, you can help Perrin.

First of all, we were all wrong about who Adaman was ancestor to. I still want to believe that Adaman is somehow connected to Mikey from Tokyo Revengers. It's not possible, but I'd like to. Good on the creators for giving us Perrin in this game.

The game takes a small turn into Pokemon Snap! territory for a second as you have to take snapshots of pokemon in the wild.

And then you battle the special Hisuian pokemon.

This little fella is different from Legends Arceus. This is known as the Bloodmoon Ursaluna. And no, you can't evolve your Ursarring in this game. After you finish this mini game, Perrin will reward you with Hisuian Growlithe.

Fast forward three months later when you get that call from Clavell and has an old friend of his who wants to meet you.

Let's checkmark another gay couple to the Scarlet/Violet game I approve of.

Cyrano here is the director of Blueberry Academy and wants you to be an exchange student. Remember, this is the school that Kieran and Carmine go to and that Briar teaches at.

And that's it from me. Okay, go on and get out of here. Feed your Koraidon a sandwich.

To be continued.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

400 Days is simultaneously brilliant and disappointing

I’m currently working on another essay about S2 that’s taking me longer than I expected... which I should have expected but y’know, I’m me. I have no idea when it’ll be finished, but I figured that in the meantime I could write about something that came up while working: 400 Days.

400 Days is the stand-alone DLC episode that was released July 2, 2013, and tells the stories of Vince, Bonnie, Wyatt, Russell, and Shel in the same Georgia area that S1 takes place. While the story doesn’t feature Lee or Clementine, it acts as a bridge between S1 and S2. 

I’ve talked about it in the past, even doing a T5F on the Top 5 Missed Opportunities in 400 Days. My past opinions can be summarized in an ask I answered for anon: “Wasted potential. I remember enjoying it when it first came out before s2 released, and the reason I enjoyed it was because I thought it’d be way more important for s2′s story than it ended up being. Bonnie was the only character that mattered while the others made brief, useless cameos if they chose to go with Tavia. Like… it could’ve been so good and it fell flat on its face.”

While not entirely inaccurate to how I feel now, I do believe I wasn’t giving 400 Days a proper chance. 

A major thing I’m noticing as I revisit many of my past posts from when TWDG consumed my life is that nitpicking and overanalyzing for the sake of pumping out content on this blog is the big contributor to why I experienced extreme burnout for the series to the point where I started actively disliking it at one point. While I did genuinely enjoy the creating the content, and obviously still do, there’s a lot I take issue with now.

Looking back on everything, I’m starting to see things differently and appreciate aspects that I previously despised. That level of nitpicking I did was mostly negative and infected a lot of my judgment when it came to games I loved. I knew certain points in the series were disappointing, therefore I should showcase everything wrong with them, and anything positive I have to say comes with a footnote of, “it’s good, but I think this would’ve made it better,” as if nothing was ever good enough. While I’m not ruling out discussions of “what could’ve been,” I want to appreciate what we were given.

Case in point: 400 Days. I adore it. 

I replayed this dlc not only because it somewhat ties into what my larger essay is about, but also I started playing the Mass Effect games and I’m having a mini-crisis about lowkey hating ME1 more and more as I play... dropping it to play 400 Days and write this sounded sooooo more appealing. 

Uh, there’s a freebie update on what I’ve been up to. I’m desperately trying to make ME1 work and then it made me drive the damn Mako and I’m upset about that.....

Anyway-

 400 Days is brilliant. 

I didn’t expect to have as much fun playing this as I did.

400 Days is a quick yet compelling experience right from the beginning, and if I’m completely honest, I haven’t had this much fun playing a TWDG episode for a long time. While I adore TFS, I have a lot more history with that game that changes the overall experience, but this? The whole thing was a blast! Sure, it’s not quite a masterpiece, but it’s way better than I remember. It deserves more credit than I initially gave it and I’m here to rectify that. 

Personally, I love mini-stories that all tie together in the end to create one big story. I'm always going to love the idea, and when it’s executed well, it’s brilliant. Because it’s a single episode that tells five mini-stories, it’s easier to pack in so much detail and make things coherent. While we don’t have as much time with our protagonists, we still get a clear picture of who they are and how they’re handling the apocalypse, how they ended up where they are now, and how they handle each dilemma thrown their way. 

These stories take place at different times of the outbreak, starting before the outbreak and going all the way to 400 days in where all the characters are together and discovered by Tavia. Three of the five stories center around this gas station/diner called Gil’s Pitstop, with the other two being in that area, but all five have elements that weave them together beautifully. A character may show up in one story alive, then show up in the next as a walker, and it’s all dependent on the order you play and the choices you make. 

Each story has a “moral dilemma,” usually a major choice you have to make that affects whether or not a character will agree to go with Tavia, the only exception to this being Bonnie. 

And honestly? All of them are great. They fit in so well with the world of TWD. I’d say that Shel’s story has not only one, but two of the best moral dilemmas, whereas Wyatt’s dilemma is the weakest given it’s decided by a game of rock, paper, scissors. 

I can’t get into the meat of why I think this DLC episode is great without going through each story, so-

Vince: Day 2

Chronologically, Vince’s story takes place first in the timeline, giving us a peak into his life before the outbreak where we see him in a dark room pointing a gun at someone who is pleading for their life. 

“Damn it, I told you! I already told you it wasn't me, man! Man, come on, I told you like...like twenty times... I don't even...I don't even KNOW your brother!”

Vince then shoots him and flees. You get to decide how he’ll try to ditch the gun, but no matter what, he’ll always get caught and we see him on the prison bus, convicted of murder. 

Right away, this tells us so much about Vince yet leaves us wanting more. What happened to Vince’s brother that made him murder a man? We never actually get to know, all Vince says about it is that "I helped my little brother,” which could mean a number of things. 

So Vince is the kind of man willing to take things that far for family, or those he loves, even if he ends up with a prison sentence. His moral compass is already twisting and turning in a different way compared to the others. 

Similar to Lee, he was convicted of murder before the apocalypse, but Vince seems to feel less remorse or guilt for it than Lee does. Lee killed a man in a fight after he caught him with his wife, a heat of the moment thing... but we don’t actually witness it happen. We get to see Vince shoot someone and later claim it was to help his brother out. I find this comparison interesting since this small chapter never tries to set up a, “This is the beginning of Vince’s redemption arc,” like it does for Lee. It more so leans into the fact that yeah, Vince and the other prisoners are here for a reason and right now, redemption isn’t on the table. 

Lee feels bad for what he did and who it hurt. Vince feels bad that he got caught but doesn’t feel bad about helping his brother. The only thing bringing them together is that pre-apocalypse, they accepted that this was their life now only to have a curve ball thrown at them and they find themselves free again. 

Well, first they have to gain their freedom by getting outta those cuffs, I suppose. 

The set up for this story is that Vince is on a prison bus that’s stuck in traffic. You can actually see Gil’s Pitstop through the windows, too. It’s hot as hell outside, and two other prisoners, Jerry and Marcus, up at the front keep arguing while Vince is stuck between Justin and Danny.

Justin is here after years of stealing money from people with “a really good pyramid scheme,” then lied about it on the stand, and Danny is a convicted rapist. The three of them have good chemistry with their banter, it’s enjoyable to watch. You learn more of why they’re here and how they view their guilt, and have the opportunity to tell them the truth about Vince or lie. In doing so will affect how they view you, either you boast about killing a man and become Tough Guy Vince, or lie and say you didn’t do it only to be labeled a coward.

It’s a pretty good time considering the circumstances, but that’s due to how well written and performed this banter is... until Jerry and Marcus become hostile, and one of them chokes the other out. 

But don’t worry, Officer Dipshit [his name is Clyde] is here to help! He starts by yelling at them to stop and then just shooting Marcus in the head before panicking and threatening Vince, Danny, and Justin with the shotgun. 

Honestly, I think Justin says it best: “THIS is what happens when you give guns to ASSHOLES.”

It’s super intense, and you know what’s going to happen the moment this incompetent cop refuses to get in between the fight and break it up properly, choosing to instead point his shotgun at them and yell. But Officer Dipshit gets his comeuppance when Jerry, who was choked to death, becomes a walker and attacks him. Then all hell breaks loose as the other officer [Bennett] flees, leaving you and the other two chained together with a walker that wants to eat your face. 

Vince manages to get Officer Dipshit’s gun and shoot the walker, but the noise only brings more of them onto the bus where they begin trying to get through the gate. 

Now the moral dilemma- Vince has the shotgun. The only way you can escape is to shoot off one of the cuffs, but in doing so will shoot off someone’s foot and they’ll need to be left behind. Whose cuff do you shoot? Danny or Justin’s?

By the way, I love that this whole scene was set up with Danny yanking on the chains that bind you all together as foreshadowing for the solution to this new problem, it’s great.

But here’s the thing about this dilemma... the end percentages still baffle me after all this time. According to The Definitive Edition, 70% of players shot Justin, and 30% of players shot Danny, and I just have to ask why that is?

Because to me, shooting Danny feels like the obvious choice and is what I did. 

Justin is more about keeping his head down. He’s willing to lie if it benefits him. He says that he doesn’t feel bad for his victims, claiming that they knew what they were getting into and he still carried them for years. He’s pretty upfront with his guilt, he never denies it. Hell, he even shrugs and confesses that he lied on the stand, fake crying to try and get a lesser sentence. He’ll joke around, even if he’s mostly annoyed by Danny’s bullshit. Given that he was involved with a scheme that allowed him to make off with millions, he’s also incredibly intelligent. Plus, he’s voiced by the same guy who voiced Ben in s1. I wouldn’t say he’s annoying or anything, he just comes off as more self-serving. 

Danny, on the other hand, is the more charismatic of the two. He’s the one cracking the jokes and yanking on the chains, but he’s also the one who wants to help break up the fight between the other prisoners and stands up to the cop as he’s threatening all of you to shut up. This shows a lot of courage and willingness to intervene when he sees something wrong. He claims he’s innocent, insisting that he’s a morally good man and was falsely accused. Oh, and he misses his girlfriend. He’s a real bro, y’know? 

Here’s the thing: yeah, Danny’s a “bro,” but he’s also a convicted rapist.

Justin: I wasn't stealing from guys like that. Anyway, better than stealing his virginity.

Danny: Hey, how many times I gotta tell you?

Justin: Here we go.

Danny: Seriously! I was falsely accused!

Justin: How old was she? Fifteen?

Danny: Damn it, it ain't like that.

Justin: You're tellin' me there wasn't a star witness waiting around in your white van? I'm shocked.

Vince: You WERE convicted, Danny. Gotta admit that much.

Danny: Aw, come on, Vince. That don't mean I did it.

“It ain’t like that.” Then what’s it like, Danny?

Because when Justin tells him that he “probably ruined that poor girl’s life, you piece of shit,” all Danny has to say is, “Big talk from White Collar over there. How many lives you ruin, kid?” 

As if Danny’s logic is that Justin ruined more lives where he only ruined one, so Justin’s the worse criminal here so let’s shift to him... and I dunno about you, but that makes me feel real icky inside.

I have a feeling it’s because Danny is more of a “bro” and he actively stands up to Officer Dipshit that more people went with him. Or they just weren’t paying attention to what he was convicted of, or they believed him when he said he was falsely accused. Personally, I have a hard time believing him based on his dialogue when you point the gun at him multiple times during the final decision:

Danny: Come on, you know I'm a good guy, man!

Danny: Okay, I know I'm a fuck-up, but Jesus! 

Danny: Come on! I did some bad shit, but I'm a good guy, Vince...

And he says that last one AFTER Justin says, “You're gonna do me and not this rapist fuck?”

Also if you DO save him over Justin, he dies later off screen and Russell will make a comment about how it’s a good thing he did before Shel and Becca joined the group... if anyone can spot a creep/pervert, it’s Russell! 

Vince: Guys, look...if I learned one thing from Danny, it's that we have to stick together and protect ourselves!

Russell: What?! That guy was an asshole! You should be happy he got killed before Shel and Becca joined us.

Becca: Why?

Russell: Don't worry about it.

Justin is upfront that he’s a criminal and I believe him, I believe he’s a self-serving liar... but Danny doth protest too much, me thinks, y’know? Between the two, I'm gonna take my chances with Justin over Danny. I don’t care that Justin’s a liar and eventually ditches Vince, Vince doesn’t seem to heartbroken about it anyway. 

By the way, shooting Danny is the way to get Vince to go with Tavia so make note of that if you’re trying to get everyone to go with her and appear in S2. Actually, it’s interesting that Vince is less trusting of strangers if you go with Danny over Justin, as if he got burned by that choice in the end, hmm? 

Anyway, that was my spiel about Danny vs Justin, and I would be interested to know what y’all picked. I’ve read a lot of discussions about this choice and I know I’m not the only one who feels this way about the percentages. I’ve read a lot of responses to why people picked who they picked, all very interesting. 

Back on track, this is a solid chunk of the story. I enjoy the dilemma presented here. You’re chained to these two guys and if you don’t shoot one of their ankles off, then all three of you are going to die. What gets me about this is it’s not like the Doug vs Carley choice. Doug and Carley were both in trouble but you only had enough time to save one of them. You weren’t actively shooting them. 

Here? You have to pull the trigger more than once. You have to pick one, shoot their ankle off, and then leave them there in order to escape. It’s super fucked and going off the way Vince hesitates and looks back at the one you shot, I’d say it’s something that’s gonna sit with him for the rest of his life. 

The pacing of this episode is great, it’s intense, the escalation in hostility between the two other prisoners only for it to end in blood is well executed, and overall the set up is damn good. 

Wyatt: Day 41

Dude. Wyatt’s story. I love Wyatt’s story. Of all five stories, it’s the one that made me laugh the most. It’s absolutely hilarious despite taking place in a very tense and panicked situation. 

Wyatt in on the run with his companion, Eddie. They’re driving away after an encounter with group of guys that ended in Eddie shooting one of them, and now they’re being chased and shot at by someone in a truck. 

Eddie: God, this is so fucked!

Wyatt: Why the hell did you shoot that guy, man? What the hell WAS that?

Eddie: I didn't mean to do it! It just happened, okay? Where the fuck were you with a warning?

Wyatt: Me? You're putting that on me now? I didn't see the guy, either! I was too worried those dudes were going to pull guns on us or--

Intense right off the bat, a complete panic as you’re trying to shoot at the truck chasing you while Wyatt and Eddie argue about what happened. Eventually the truck swerves off the road and you seem to be in the clear.

From what I gather, Wyatt and Eddie had a run in with Nate, the guy from Russell’s story, an unknown man who Eddie shot and killed in the encounter, and possibly some others given how Wyatt says he was worried about the “dudes” [plural] but he didn’t see the guy Eddie shot. Given that Nate’s alone in Russell’s story and the lone one chasing them down, it’s likely he’s the only survivor from that side. It’s unknown if Wyatt and Eddie were in a bigger group or not, so I’m going to assume it was just the two of them. 

Wyatt: Did you mean to pull the trigger?

Eddie: I don't know. I was so keyed up... I just... damn it. Look, Wyatt. All I know is those guys had me all... jacked up like I was on speed or something. I was just on edge, you know? Then I was, like, watching that guy's brains come out the back of his head. I'm sorry, man. I...

The core of why Wyatt’s story is possibly my favorite is the electric chemistry between him and Eddie. The dialogue, the voice acting, it’s all just dripping with personality and you feel like you’re watching two friends who’ve known each other for a long time, just *chef kiss*  

Eddie: See? It's fine. Road's straight as my dick.... You think we're in the clear?

Wyatt: Don’t talk about your dick.

Eddie: ...... Why not?

[or alternatively, if Wyatt says nothing, Eddie will just : “... Are you still thinking about my dick?” sksks it’s so stupid, I can’t help but love it.]

They talk like typical stoners, which they indeed are because Eddie’s got some “sticky” in the glovebox and wants it after they believe they’re in the clear. Y’know, the perfect time for some weed. Kate Garcia would greatly approve. 

So they’re driving along and we get more context for what happened, more great banter... and then they hit someone. 

The dilemma in this chapter is the fact that they hit someone and they don’t think it’s a walker, it’s a person. Even though they’re on the run from Nate and it’s foggy as hell outside, Eddie insists that they help whoever was hit. 

I believe Eddie is such a fan favorite not just because he’s funny or a charming character, but because of his compassion. In this moment you feel his frustration and guilt in having hit someone. He isn’t about to perform a hit and run even in this new apocalyptic world even though it would be easier to just assume it’s a walker and keep driving. 

Eddie: What if that was you, man?! After all the shit that's happened in the past couple months? Where's your compassion, motherfucker?

or

Eddie: If that guy back there is alive, we HAVE to help him, Wyatt. There ain't a lot of live dudes left these days.

Eddie showed a lot of shock and guilt over shooting a guy before, but now he’s sure he’s hit an innocent person and he refuses to leave them. His humanity does him credit and that’s why he’s one of my favorite characters in this DLC. 

But then comes the choice: One of you has to go find this person you hit, and one of you has to stay in the car. Who should do what? 

The end stats for this are 50/50, and it’s decided either by you refusing to go out yourself, or agreeing to a game of rock, paper, scissors. 

No, really, that’s how they decide who gets to go out there, best two outta three. That’s why I say this is one of the weaker portrayals of the dilemma, you don’t necessarily get to decide what Wyatt’s going to do, therefore shaping his personality and morals... it’s all up to luck. 

Though you can outright refuse, and Eddie will go out anyway so that’s one way to shape Wyatt if you’re playing him as less compassionate, or more cautious, or even as a coward. While there is an option for Wyatt to volunteer, you still have to rock, paper, scissors for it which I’m kinda meh on. Personally, I think if you’re brave enough to volunteer, you should be able to double down with Eddie and make the choice yourself rather than leaving it up to fate decided by a couple hand gestures. 

My advice to anyone playing this is try to lose the game. If Wyatt loses the game, he will go out there with a gun to find the person you hit, otherwise Eddie will go and Wyatt will be left in the car. Wyatt remaining in the car is the weaker option, far less exciting and results in you being attacked by Nate and forced to leave Eddie behind. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad by any means and getting to see that it’s Nate is neat when going into Russell’s story, but I think Wyatt being left behind is more impactful because it opens up a new dilemma.

I managed to lose the game by picking scissors every time. I find that Eddie tends to pick mostly rock, at least every time I’ve played before I’ve beaten him with paper, but rock beats scissors sooo pick scissors. 

Wyatt takes the gun and goes out into the fog to find the guy, who is revealed to be Bennett, the cop who fled the prison bus in Vince’s story. Wyatt tries talking to him, but Bennett is too injured and out of it to respond. Wyatt starts to help him, but because nothing is ever smooth sailing... walkers begin to groan and you realize that they’re coming through the fog. 

The reason I think this path’s better is because now you have a new choice to make: Do you try to help Bennett, or do you abandon him?

Wyatt wasn’t the one driving, and he’s out here due to a lost game of rock, paper, scissors... but is he willing to leave this man out here to be eaten to save himself, or is he going to try and do his best to help the man at the risk of getting them both killed. 

I chose to try and save Bennett, which meant I had to to drag him back to the car while stopping to shoot walkers... and the noise only brings more of them and uh oh, Eddie’s screaming for Wyatt to hurry up because he’s being attacked! If Eddie remains in the car, Nate attacks him and no matter how fast you go, Wyatt never makes it in time... Eddie drives off without Wyatt, who is now left in a misty forest with more walkers on the way, and Nate.

It’s rough, but more compelling, in my opinion. 

The highlight of this story is Wyatt and Eddie’s relationship, and there’s something about them getting separated that just stings, y’know? I found myself dreading getting out of the car not because of the dangers held within the fog, but because I knew Wyatt and Eddie would be separated after this only to never be reunited. 

Well, we assume they never reunite and that... the best way I can describe this is I feel like Sarah from Labyrinth, just throwing myself onto my bed and beating my fists against the wall and exclaiming, “IT’S NOT FAIR!!” at everyone... because it’s not fair that Wyatt and Eddie get separated and it makes me emotional, I’m not happy about it. 

But that also proves how effective Wyatt’s story is. Wyatt by himself also has the vibe of your sarcastic stoner friend who’s into indie bands and video games, but that’s part of his charm. 

Overall, a damn good story and execution. 

Russell: Day 184

I have a lot of feelings about Russell. 

As far as the playable protagonists go, I can say with confidence that he’s my favorite. I love them all, but Russell sticks out to me by how much younger he seems to be, his interesting backstory, and by his jaded behavior. 

His story starts with him walking down a long yet familiar road. He has his backpack and a map, and tells us he’s trying to get to his grandmother’s house. However, as he’s walking along, the truck from Wyatt’s story is coming up the road and Russell’s gotta decide if he should hide or stand his ground. 

If you hide, you’ll quickly remember why you know this road. Russell will hide down next to a corpse, but not just any corpse- the body of either Carley or Doug, depending on who you saved in S1. A neat inclusion, if not a little sad... and annoying because then I’m forced to remember Lilly shooting Carley outta spite and me leaving her ass on the road... wasn’t S1 so fun??

Anyway, Nate pulls up and talks to Russell no matter what, and you have no choice but to hitch a ride with him. You can try and refuse, and Nate’ll drive away... only for a dozen walkers to appear out of thin air and surround you so Nate will come back for you... I see you, Telltale, I see through your nonsense. 

The rest of Russell’s story has him and Nate... bonding? I don’t even want to call it that, but they talk as they drive, we get more insight into Russell’s last group that left him with some trauma.  

Russell: There was seven of us. I didn't have any family there or nothing; they were all at my Gram's down in Statesboro. There was a dad who had a daughter 'bout my age. One guy said he used to be a cop, but nobody really believed him; then a teacher and his wife. Leader was this guy, Steve.

Nate: Go back to the daughter.

Russell: Steve was a bad dude, but everybody was with him, you know? He said seven was the magic number, so we didn't add nobody to the group. If we found survivors, it was the same every time. He...he...

Nate: Let it out, Paco.

Russell: Just... "We gonna kill these folks and take their stuff or what?" And then bang, they'd be dead. Anyway... I couldn't handle that. After weeks of it, I packed my shit up and figured I can make for Gran's alone and try to find my family. I slipped outta there. I couldn't live like that.

Super interesting, and I wanted to learn more about this group but Nate ruins it by continuing to be a creep. 

By the way, Nate? Crusty. Stinky. He is repulsive and I hate him... but he’s also the best antagonist in this DLC, go figure. I’m pretty sure the writers had a lot of fun making him as slimy as possible. He’s dangerous and a huge creep, he makes my guts feel icky, I just-

Russell: Why you gotta be like that?

Nate: Like what?

Russell: Always talking about women like that.

Nate: WOMEN? Ha, okay. Let me see if I can answer your question. Because...because the hunger a man's got for a woman is all we got left now. No laws, no jobs, ain't nothin' that make us men. But they ain't eaten all the women yet.

Nate, you’re gross and I hate you.

Unfortunately, Russell is stuck with this man for the time being until the two end up at Gil’s Pitstop only to be shot at by someone inside. Together, they avoid being shot and break in to find an older man is responsible for shooting at them, and his wife is injured, bleeding out in the booth beside him. 

The man, Walt, yells at them to get out and accuses Nate of coming back to finish them off. Alarming, to say the least, but Nate casually denies the accusations that he’s been here before and calls Walt crazy.

Given this is Nate we’re talking about and he’s been in this area awhile, I’m inclined to believe that he was here at one point and could’ve attacked the couple, possibly with his group that Wyatt and Eddie encountered. 

But here’s where things get interesting, and where Russell’s story becomes more unique when it comes to the dilemma. You’ve got this older couple here, one of them injured, and the other shot at you. They’re accusing your crusty companion of coming back to finish them off, and said crusty man decides to manipulate you by echoing the story from earlier: 

Nate: What do you say, Russ? Should we just kill these folks and take all their stuff?

Super fucked up, and it has an immediate effect on Russell. Nate gives him the crazy eyes and casually points the gun at Russell... so what do you do? Do you comply, or do you stand up to Nate?

Unfortunately, no matter what you do, Nate will always kill the old couple. If you comply with Nate, whether by saying nothing out of shock or hesitantly agreeing, you witness the murders and Nate gloating about how all their stuff is there’s now. Then you get an eerie line from Nate as he looks back at Russell with a smile:

Nate: Relax. You're my boy, Russell. Things are going to be a-okay.

All while Russell stands there in absolute horror and shock, probably reliving the trauma he escaped from his previous group and realizing he’s now stuck in it again. 

This ending to the story is awful... not awful as in it’s written poorly. No, no, quite the opposite. It’s awful because of what it does to Russell. By complying, Russell is now stuck with this man who “kept you around,” according to the little choice notification in the corner. Who killed with no compassion, no guilt, and is gleefully admiring the “rewards” he got for doing it. Russell just stood there while two innocent people were murdered and he does nothing to stop it. He looks at Nate and sees Steve, a man he earlier described as a bad person, but everyone was with him, everyone complied. Russell couldn’t take it anymore and he had to leave, only to find himself at the mercy of another Steve and that’s tragic. 

Luckily, Russell manages to get away somehow given he’s with the rest of the group in the epilogue, though we never find out how. 

As for the alternative, Russell can stand up to Nate and call him out in one of my favorite moments:

Russell: Are you serious?

Nate: Maybe. Why not?

Russell: That's fucked up! There are real fucking monsters out there!

Nate: No shit.

Russell: And you're just going to joke about the shit I seen? Fuck you, Nate!

Nate: I saved your ass!

Russell: You didn't do shit.

Nate: Easy, Russ.

Russell: I ain't hurtin' no one. And don't you hurt these people either.

Nate: COME ON! Can we still be friends?

Russell: No.

Russell leaves Nate behind, and as he’s walking outside, he hears two gunshots from inside. At first, the player’s probably thinking how Russell should’ve done more to help the couple, but what could he do? Nate had the gun, and wrestling it from him would’ve gotten Russell killed. It’s fucked, but there was nothing he could do with Nate holding as much power as he did. Russell had no choice but to stand up to him in hopes of convincing him to leave the couple alone, and then leave. 

Unfortunately, Nate isn’t easily swayed. Russell’s lucky he got away when he did. 

Russell standing up to Nate, avoiding the road he’s desperately tried not to walk again, is compelling as hell. By walking away, he’s saying that no, that’s not who he will become. He won’t be Steve, he won’t be Nate, he won’t be a man who causes hurt and death in order to reap the “rewards.” 

In the end, Russell is more bitter, wary to trust and I don’t blame him. This moral dilemma is so powerful because it’s a choice between remaining strong, brave enough to look at what you could become and say, “no,” and giving in, becoming the thing you feared and ran from. 

Not to mention Russell’s story all started because he left to go find his grandmother, to reunite with his family. If Russell were to reunite with her, would he be proud of how he got there? Or would be feel like yet another monster who hurt others to get there? 

All in all, so damn good. 

Fuck Nate, though. Hope he choked. 

Bonnie: Day 220

Bonnie, everyone’s favorite.... CJ wrote sarcastically, knowing full well that a lot of people don’t actually like her. 

It’s a shame that S2 has tainted Bonnie’s character for a lot of people, but this post isn’t about S2 so I’m going to focus solely on what we see of her in this story. 

What we get is a woman struggling with addiction, clinging to a life preserver the best she can in a world where the dead walk but people are more dangerous, a preserver that can be ripped out of her hands depending on your choices. Bonnie is recovering from a drug problem when we meet her out in the rain with a man named, Leland, and the two are playing a cute little game of “would you rather.” 

She has a deep southern drawl, and easily teases Leland even without player input. 

Leland: You've been a lot more fun lately. Feelin' better?

Bonnie: I guess I am.

Leland: Well, you sure do look better. Though you gotta admit, anything is an improvement. That came out wrong... what I mean is... I mean... You were... you were, uh... you know.

Bonnie: Take a hike, big ears.

Leland: I resemble that remark.

Bonnie: You resemble a satellite.

Leland: Ya know, you weren't so damn sassy before. Guess that's a good sign. I mean it, though. After we found ya, you were still so hooked on that stuff. I never thought you'd make it. You ain't outta the woods yet, I know, but you've come a long way, Bonnie. I'm proud of you.

At first, you pick up on a little romantic tension between the two and think, “Oh, I see~” There’s some definite chemistry there. Leland even goes as far as to caress her cheek and say her name softly. 

Then Dee shows up, and you realize rather quickly that she’s Leland’s wife, and then you go, “Oh... I see.” 

Dee sees it, too, and calls the two of them out on their flirting. 

Dee: I got you a present.

Leland: Aw, you shouldn't have! What did you find?

Dee: I'll tell ya later. I don't mean to interrupt your "chat" with your "girlfriend", but we gotta get movin'.

So that’s not great.

But it appears that Dee found a bag and avoids saying where she got it. Leland keeps pushing on about the bag, and this causes a fight to break out with Dee getting more defensive until she tells then to run. Turns out, Dee stole the bag from a nearby group that is now hunting them down, so the three of them have to get out of there. 

Bonnie falls behind, and ends up shot. Leland calls out to her, but we see Dee holding him back before disappearing, leaving Bonnie on her own. This segment is super good, she falls down a hill and a zombified Clyde- you remember Clyde? Officer Dipshit? Yeah, he shows up as a walker here to attack Bonnie if you don’t kill him in Russell’s story. After killing the walker, Bonnie’s forced to navigate a corn maze while avoiding the flashlights of the group chasing her. It’s a well done scene, and the moment Bonnie makes it out is just heart breaking. 

She’s wounded, all alone, and she’s slipping all over in the mud, desperate to take cover behind a tractor. Plus her little, “Mama watch over me,” gets me, y’know? 

The dialogue that follows is raw. Eerie. Just-

Bonnie: Dee, oh, God, Dee... I'm so sorry, oh, God...

Dee: Wh... why? You... Why? Do... d-- do I look... How bad is it? Bonnie?

Bonnie: It was dark, it's so dark, I couldn't see you! I didn't know it was you! How was I supposed to know it was you?!

Dee: There was no... I thought I...saw you... You did this...? You... killed me. You killed me... I sh-- should never have... tr-- trusted you... just... just a junkie... Leland, she... she did this to me...

Bonnie: I... God, I'm so sorry, so... I can't... Oh, God, God...

Dee: I knew you'd fuck up again... take him...

Bonnie: I... I... no, God, I'm sorry. I need him; I need you both...

Dee: You... bitch... I knew you wanted him... didn't think you had the stones... Goddamn you...

-and then Dee dies. Dee repeatedly calling Bonnie a junkie and a fuck up is painful. Bonnie’s clearly in distress, apologizing and trying to comfort Dee as she’s dying, and all Dee can do is call her a fucking junkie while damning her, telling her they should’ve never trusted her. I cannot imagine the toll that takes on Bonnie going forward. 

Now the dilemma here isn’t that Bonnie killed her. You have no choice on whether or not to hit her with the piece of rebar. If you don’t, Dee will kill Bonnie and you get a nice ol’ YOU ARE DEAD. You have to hit Dee, Dee will always die, it’s more up to you how Bonnie reacts and handles it. 

The dilemma here is Leland finds them and is horrified that Dee is dead. He then asks Bonnie what happened. Do you tell him the truth or do you lie? 

This is rough, to say the least. Because it was an accident. You had no choice, you didn’t know it was Dee and now you have to decide if being honest is the best choice in this moment. Are you willing to take responsibility for something you did even if it hurts you, or hurts Leland? Or are you going to lie to the grieving husband of the woman you killed to save your own ass? 

And remember, that group is still chasing you down, it’s only a matter of time before they find you so whatever you do, you have to do it fast or else that group is going to kill you.

Fun fact, according to the stats, 75% of people lied to Leland, and 25% of people told him the truth. Which I find fascinating yet unsurprising that players wouldn’t tell the truth in order to cover their asses. 

To be fair, a new player might think that telling the truth could cause Leland to lash out and you’ll get hurt, and that takes priority over doing the “morally good thing” of being honest. Or they don’t want to admit they did a bad thing. Players never like doing that unless it was on purpose. 

Not only that, but if Leland knows that truth and you can convince him to leave with you, the fact that Bonnie killed her [accident or no] will always hang heavy in the air. If Leland doesn’t know the truth, then y’know- ignorance is bliss and Bonnie won’t have to face the repercussions from him... she’ll just have to deal with her guilt and trauma internally. 

You also have to remember that Bonnie is a recovering addict. Leland and Dee were her life preservers that kept her afloat this whole time. She just accidentally killed half of her support, and now she’s staring at the other half and has to judge if she’s willing to risk losing him, as well. If both Dee and Leland are gone, Bonnie is alone, and that could be far worse than anything else for her.

For me, this dilemma is fairly similar to Russell’s- who are you shaping Bonnie to be with this choice? Can Bonnie live with herself if she lies? 

If you lie, it’s easy to convince him to come along with you, but you can still do so if you tell the truth, which is what I did. It all depends on your approach and if you can convince him that it was a genuine accident on Bonnie’s part. Which it was so again, not hard. If you can’t convince him, he’ll stay by Dee’s side while Bonnie runs away and you’ll hear a gunshot. 

If Leland leaves with Bonnie, they don’t stay together since he’s not with the group in the epilogue. As far as I can tell, we never find out what happened to him, Bonnie never says. 

Bonnie’s story is solid, super enjoyable, I love it. Again, you might be noticing a pattern but every story so far has been excellent, not a single bad one in the bunch. 

And that doesn’t change with Shel’s story.

Shel: Days 236 & 259

Shel’s story is the final event on the timeline, and while I said that Wyatt’s story made me laugh the most and Russell’s my favorite protagonist, Shel’s story is my favorite overall. It’s not funny like Wyatt’s, and I wouldn’t even say Shel is as compelling as Russell, but it more than makes up for that with the story it tells. 

It’s funny to think back on this because had you asked me years ago about Shel’s story, I probably would’ve told you it’s my least favorite and that Shel and Becca weren’t great. Again, another example of me not giving them a proper chance.

This time around I was surprisingly invested in Shel as a character. She’s a lot more... how do I put this? Softer? She’s softer than the other playable protagonists in the way she acts, speaking, and views the situation. She has a little sister to look after in this world, a young, impressionable girl that Shel sees getting colder and colder with every terrible thing she sees. It’s understandable that Shel wants to protect Becca, or even shelter her from the reality of their situation. 

I liked Becca a lot, too. She wasn’t annoying like I remembered her being. Her behavior is understandable when you pay attention. She’s young, she doesn’t fully understand the weight of the things she may do, and she’s easily influenced, which becomes scary later on. 

Shel’s story takes place in Gil’s Pitstop where she and Becca are staying with a group of familiar faces. Yep, the cancer patients from S1 are back. Turns out Vernon was more of a bastard than we initially thought as we learn he planned to steal the boat from the moment we found it... and given that he’s no longer with the group, I’d say that didn’t work out for him in the end. 

Aside from them, we have Stephanie and Roman. These two are key to this story, both having ideas about how Becca should be raised, and Roman becomes a more antagonistic character in the end. 

This story is about Shel’s conflicted feelings about the world and what it’s doing to her and Becca. They have to keep inventory of guns and supplies and hey, remember how Dee stole that bag? Surprise, Shel’s group were the ones chasing you down when you were playing as Bonnie, and they make comments depending on if Leland stayed with Bonnie or was caught. 

Shel meets Roman outside where we see “guard dogs,” which are just walkers they’d tied up to keep people away. Depending on if you stayed with Nate or stood up to him, you may encounter Walt as a walker, or Bennett. They’re feeding the walkers when Roman makes a comment about how Becca wouldn’t mind doing this, and that Shel can’t keep sheltering her, something Shel struggles with. 

Shel also discovered the old woman walker is eating a puppy and the affect on her is instant, nearly bringing her to tears. Which is completely understandable. When I say that Shel is softer, it’s because of a moment like this where she sees something that’s sad and she doesn’t just shrug it off. She feels it deeply, and that’s further proven when she goes back inside only for Becca to scare her as a little prank. 

Shel lashes out at her, and I love their conversation once she’s calmed down. 

Shel: It's the walkers...I guess they got ahold of a puppy.

Becca: A puppy?

Shel: Yeah. I guess it just...it got to me, ya know. It was so little. You don't think about babies anymore, but... After a while, you just kind of accept...this is it.

Becca: Yeah. I guess you kinda forget.

Shel: Right? But then...you know...there it is. You see it and you want to protect it... And now it's gone.

Becca: That sucks.

I feel like this is obvious, but Shel seeing a dead puppy being eaten by walkers probably brought Becca to mind. While Becca isn’t a baby, she is still a kid, and we know how TWDG works. Children and teens aren’t safe from death in this series. In S1 we dealt with Duck’s tragic death, and we found the walker child in the attic. S1 is all about Lee doing everything in his power to not let that happen to Clementine, and it cost him his life. 

Becca could die just as easily as that puppy. All it takes is one moment, no matter how hard Shel tries to protect or shelter her, and she’s gone. 

Also, this whole “you don’t think about babies anymore” is clever, given what happens in S2 with Rebecca and AJ, I wonder if that was intentional or not. 

But the moment is interrupted when Stephanie barges in to bring us our first major moral dilemma.

A man was caught trying to steal supplies from the group. He’s beaten up, and Roman claims he was already like that, and all he did was tie him up and put a blindfold on. The man doesn’t speak English. He isn’t bit, and he didn’t hurt anyone. This is the second break in the group’s had. The group is arguing among themselves when Roman gives us the dilemma:

Roman: Look, we all know what we're talking about here, so let's stop dancing around it. We either let this guy go and take our chances...or we kill him.

This is... fucked? How else do you describe it? This man can’t defend himself since he doesn’t speak English, no one can understand him, he can’t stay with the group but letting him go is risky. What do you do?

There isn’t a right answer to this, even when you know both outcomes. 

On one hand, you let him go. You can’t just execute a man, that would be wrong, so you send him away and maybe he won’t come back. You’ll be in the clear and you’ll feel like you did the right thing.

Shel: He's not even armed! We can't just kill him! This isn't in self-defense.

Becca: Isn't it, though? If it means he can't come back to hurt us?

Shel: That isn't the same thing.

Joyce: But last time...

Shel: Joyce, that was a long time ago. If we kill this man, then we are giving up a part of ourselves that we can NEVER get back! I'm not ready to let that go.

But that doesn’t happen. The man does come back and he brings his group, we’re attacked, and Boyd dies in the fight. Roman becomes obsessed with securing the place by any means necessary. 

On the other hand, you kill him. You make the choice as a collective group to execute a man and you get to live with that. 

Shel: We can't take the risk. We kill him.

Stephanie: There's gotta be another way...

Shel: Tell me. What if he comes back? With weapons, or...or a gang? Is it worth losing any one of us?

Stephanie: Jesus. There really is no other choice, is there?

Roman: We can't keep him here and we can't let him go. If there's even a chance of him coming back or telling folks who might try to hurt us, we can't risk it. I won't ask you to watch, but if we do this, we're all in it together. If this ever happens again, it's gonna be one of you pulling that trigger.

And in doing so, the group’s morale plummets, and Roman still becomes obsessed with securing the place by any means. 

But you also have to consider what this will do to Becca. Shel just had to face a hard reality when she saw that dead puppy, and now she’s left as the swing vote that decides a man’s fate. That’s a lot for any person and there are so many factors at play here. 

No matter your choice, there’s a time skip and we see Shel and Becca in an RV playing Go Fish. Becca admits that she’s been sneaking out, something that’s horrifying to hear when you realize what Roman would do to her if he ever found that out, or if Becca was spotted and led someone back that wanted to hurt them. 

Speaking of Roman, he comes knocking on the door to ask Shel to come talk to him about something important. It’s not long before you learn what happened: Stephanie stole supplies and tried to escape. 

Roman: We caught her trying to escape.

Shel: Maybe she wasn't. Maybe she just wanted to get outside these walls for a while. Ever since the...incident, you've made this place feel...I dunno...oppressive.

Roman: We've made it safe. And she was definitely trying to escape; she had most of our ammo and medicine with her. She screwed us, Shel. All of us. And now were' in that position again where we can't keep her here and we can't let her go. You do know why I'm telling you this, right?

Roman’s telling Shel this because he wants her to shoot Stephanie, and she can’t say no. 

As if this wasn’t enough of a gut punch, Shel goes back to the RV and tells Becca what’s going on. 

Y’know that feeling you got when you heard AJ say he liked killing Lilly for the first time in TFS? I got a similar feeling when Becca said this:

Becca: Oh, my god. The hell did she do that for?!

Shel: Roman says we have to-

Becca: Kill her? Yeah! Why would she do this to us?!

Shel: She's just scared. She made a mistake.

Becca: Well, that'll be her last mistake!

Shel: Becca! Stephanie is your friend!

Becca: WAS my friend.

Shel’s fear that this world is changing Becca isn’t misplaced, and now she’s forced to face that reality head on once again. 

Also, I’m pretty sure this is the moment that causes people to dislike Becca or think she’s annoying, but again, given what she’s been through no matter what choice you made, her reaction makes sense. If you let him go, she saw her group attacked and Boyd killed, and that showed her that it was a mistake to let that guy go. If you killed him, then she watched her older sister decide the fate of a man and then watched him be executed. 

A lot of the TWDG fandom tend to intensely dislike child characters for the mere fact that they’re not Clementine, and ironically, they end up behaving in ways that make them more annoying than any child character they dislike. So I wouldn’t take their word for it when they say Becca’s a bad character. Play the story, pay attention, and make the judgement yourself. 

As for the second moral dilemma in this story, Shel can either take her gun and shoot Stephanie, or she can take the RV keys and drive away. Do you agree to kill Stephanie or run away? 

For me, this is an easier decision than the first one. I grabbed those keys and we got the hell outta there. 

But for this choice, Shel can either give in and allow this to be who they are now in order to protect Becca, or she can prove that there are other ways, that they don’t have to stay under Roman’s thumb and kill whoever he tells them to. There’s no saving Stephanie at this point, you have no choice in that, but you do have a choice in how Shel raises Becca from now on. 

Oh, and if you’re looking to get everyone to go with Tavia, you have to drive away. If you shoot Stephanie, then she and Becca will refuse to go with Tavia. 

Shel’s episode is my favorite, and the perfect way to end the main story if you’re playing in chronological order. She’s another great character who I didn’t expect to make me feel the way she did. 

Epilogue: Day 400

Once all five stories are finished, we’re introduced to Tavia. She’s a scout looking for survivors to bring back to her community. She talks with someone over the radio about finding all the photos and a note near Gil’s Pitstop that gives the group’s location.

Turns out that Vince, Wyatt, Russell, Bonnie, Shel and Becca all found each other and are surviving together in their campsite. Tavia approaches the group and it’s up to us to convince as many of them as we can to come with her. 

For Vince, you have to shoot Danny, and with Shel you have to escape. Bonnie will agree to go no matter what. Wyatt and Russell can be convinced to join regardless of your choices. The best option is to tell them that you find people from everywhere, and Wyatt will agree to go in hopes of finding Eddie while Russell wants to find his family. 

Most of the dialogue is determined by your choices, as well. 

Once you have your group, the DLC ends with the group burning the photos and note, before asking Tavia how she knows if this will work out. 

Honestly? Great ending, great execution of consequences brought on by your choices. 

The 400 Days DLC is fantastic. It’s brilliant. I love it to pieces, and I highly encourage anyone reading this to replay it. 

Don’t play S1 first, and don’t plan on jumping into S2. Play the DLC by itself, let it be a story contained to an hour of your time. That’s what I did, and I had so much fun! These characters and their stories are wonderful, the writing is phenomenal, I love it!

But... Now that I’ve spent all this time praising this DLC, calling it brilliant and encouraging everyone to revisit it... it all comes with an asterisk* attached:

*As a single experience, 400 Days is brilliant and I love it.... but when played together with S1 and S2.......

400 Days is disappointing.

That’s the glaring issue here. 

I can praise this DLC all I want, and I did. That doesn’t negate the big picture, or the big problem fans tend to have with it. 

400 Days acts as a bridge between the two seasons but let’s be real, the only story that actually matters here is Bonnie’s. She will always leave with Tavia no matter what, and she plays a major role in the group’s capture and eventual escape. The others make brief, meaningless cameos that only exist to make the player go-

-every time one of them shows up. We never hear from them, or about them, again after that.... so what was the point? 

What was the point of 400 Days in the grand scheme of things? 

400 Days becomes worse when you get your hopes up that it’s just a teaser, a little taste, of what’s to come in S2. You think these writers took the opportunity to introduce you to these important characters, tell you their backstories, so that they could be incorporated into S2′s plot as major characters. 

But no, only Bonnie. 

And even Bonnie’s character becomes muddled by ep5 depending on how you tried to help Luke. 

The thing is, 400 Days isn’t terrible because of this. Obviously. It’s disappointing, but why it’s disappointing and the way people claim it could’ve been fixed is... well...

It’s not simple. It’s so easy to just be like, “400 Days is bad because our choices didn’t matter! It’s pointless! Why didn’t they do something else?? I know exactly how this could be fixed!”

I know what everyone always says whenever 400 Days is brought up: “The 400 Days cast should’ve been the cabin group.”

Great idea in theory, or headcanon/AU.

In execution, it would’ve been too complicated and I think we all know that, but a fandom’s hubris knows no limit when it comes to them believing they know better than the developers. 

Not to say we can’t criticize issues with the writing, but it helps to at least be understanding of how things actually work, i.e. video games are hard to make and long posts on tumblr “fixing” video games are fun to read but wouldn’t actually work in practice because that’s not how video games work so maybe stop insulting the developers while acting like you know better about a field you don’t even work in. 

Trust me, I know. Don’t think I’m not one of those people, I’m literally here writing you a long post on tumblr. I’m not innocent here. Have you read any of my Violet posts? You don’t think there was a long period of time where I thought *I* knew better?? I wish I could say you’re right but you’re not, I’m just as bad. I’ve said some unkind things about certain developers that I look back on and just face palm as I slowly sink back in my chair shamefully. I still agree with my criticisms but not the way I said them, and I’m trying to not be like that anymore. 

All that to say it would be too complicated for the 400 Days cast to be the cabin group due to the different combinations of characters who can stay or go with Tavia. What happens to players who had only Bonnie go with Tavia? Or had all but one go? The only solution would be to have a set ending for 400 Days, removing the consequences of choice and having a more linear ending.

Y’know this would’ve gotten them the “my choices never actually matter >:[” criticism which I believe is a fair criticism of games that make these big claims about choice and consequence only to give you the illusion of it. But, there needs to be some common understanding of what can realistically be implemented in a game like that. You can’t expect them to have a thousand different outcomes and have it be a smooth, functioning game, especially when you take into account the release dates and the things going on behind the scenes at Telltale and how that affects development. These studios have deadlines, they have higher ups working them overtime so they can push as much product out as possible, they have a budget that’s never enough, and frankly, shit just happens sometimes.  

I’m not saying that we can’t be disappointed. I’m disappointed that I’ll never get to know if Wyatt and Eddie reunited, or what happened to Russell. I have no idea if Shel and Becca are still alive, and I don’t know where Vince is. I don’t even know what happened to Bonnie after S2. 

When thrown into the entire series, 400 Days is disappointing due to the high expectations it brings for S2, but I argue that it isn’t as terrible as people claim it is. 

I literally just spent several paragraphs explaining why it’s brilliant and why you should go replay it by itself, I think it’s far from terrible and deserves praise for its characters and the moral dilemmas it presents. Don’t think about S2 while you’re playing it, that’s not the point. The point is to experience it for what it is, a series of stories set in the zombie apocalypse that all lie together in the end. 

I would love to hear more thoughts about this, whether it be about the characters or what choices you made and why. Even if you disagree and think 400 Days is trash, tell me why, I’m interested to know. 

In conclusion: 400 Days good. In other news: Happy New Year

As I’m writing this, it’s New Year’s Eve and I’ve got a little over an hour before midnight, sooo here’s a happy new year to everyone. I hope you’re all doing well, staying safe and healthy the best you can. 

As I said at the start of this, I have another essay I’m working on related to S2.... it’s taking forever because there’s a lot to cover, it’s about some polarizing characters and choices, and I have no idea when I’ll be finished. If it takes even longer than I’d like, I’ll probably put it down and work on a smaller post in the meantime. Maybe something about the Michonne mini-series or a character analysis.

I guess my new thing is disappearing for weeks at a time only to pop in whenever there’s news about the Clementine comic or to throw down a long ass essay about something no one asked for hahaha. I can live with that, I think. I will be around for the rest of the weekend, though, so any asks about 400 Days will get answered, I’d love to hear from y’all. 

Uhhh any other news... Oh, @pi-creates​ and I are making a new Dragon Age server on discord that we’re gonna open up soon for anyone interested in that. Right now it’s mostly just discussions about the games and lamenting about the apostates who broke our hearts... well, Pi’s lamenting, I’m mostly just spewing bitter salt about the sewer rat bastard that is my apostate boyfriend >:[ We’ll post a link once it’s ready to go, though I dunno when that’ll be. We’re pretty proud of the set up, and I made a bunch of DA emojis. It’ll be a fun time. 

Think that’s everything. I wish y’all a happy, healthy new year! 

[emerxshiu]

kirby doodle dump (+ some small animation tests)

(this one from today) this dude lives rent free in my head, still trying to make his gijinka more interesting, i dunno, also trying to draw other types of hair, mainly curly (main reason i even wanted to change the one i had) here im just practicing, hold on im rambling and going in cir- next

remember last post when i said i was gonna drop some kirby doodles but choose to draw other stuff instead, from this one to down, these are those doodles. i scrambled to search for my crayons but i coulnt find my blues and purples, and also my pink, at least i have the others. sometimes i get the need to draw with stuff like that, im thinking about buying pastels, i rlly like the art i see with them, but im afraid i might not like using them that much and end up wasting money, it has happened quite a few times with stuff like acrylics.

he will.

welp, already knew abt the story, i just bought deluxe for the epilogue (fun fact, rtdldeluxe released on the 24 of february (if i remember correctly) two days before my birthday, needles to say i ate good that day (and also because the sploon3 dlc would drop two days later too) i also have a exclusive rtdldx poster for the pre-order :3 )

aaand then i procrastinated it and basically took up almost a year to finish the main mode and magoland missions, then beat magolor epilogue in like 4 hours, already kinda talked abt magolor epilogue in another post so basically, loved it, wish there was more stages there or to be abe to even further upgrade abilities.

rn im doing extra mode (a bit reluctant because im only doing it for the 100%) not rlly liking that mode a lot, but its ok, bad thing is that ill have to do the true missions in magoland, its gonna be a pain

first i was gonna make it a gijinka, but i didnt like how it was turning out so i did it with normal kirbs, i think it was suppossed to have some inplied kirfluff, i forgor

the grimm reaper and loaf, felt way too lazy to do fluff too so he's just there with the text, i love epic yarn so much, i have tried emulating it but it either requieres me to have a wii remote or runs like absolute shit. im thinking about someday getting a 3ds, not just for epic yarn, robobot, triple deluxe and also because i always wanted to try flipnote (it seems cool!) but that is if im lucky enough to find them at a good condition and affordable price

digital doodle instead, was gonna make an animation but got too lazy, im so inconsistent with my shading

i did make this animation, its more of a test, but it didnt work out that well

i do have this silly one tho

Jambuhbye!

[dany36]

after months of putting it off i finally finished xc3 future redeemed with 25ish hours in yaaaay time to put this thing to rest with some extremely junk thoughts below (with spoilers of course)

i gotta be honest, i wasn't really looking forward to playing through this dlc ever since it was announced. it came out in...what? april? may? i forget, but it was around the time that i was playing the dlc for horizon and then i think totk dropped after that and i just kept using that as excuses to not pick it up and play through it. plus i wasn't a fan of the design for older shulk (yeah yeah i know inspiration from dunban but idk just personal preference that i didn't vibe with it) and well rex is probably my least favorite protagonist tied with the dude from tales of arise (lmao i forgot his name), and really overall i didn't care to play as them again, so i mean not the most perfect material for me to look forward to.

anyways, some positives:

-seeing colony 9 again was cool but the excitement to callbacks to places in xenoblade 1 kind of wore off in xc3. so when i heard the original colony 9 overworld music it didn't make me flip my shit as when i would see references to it in the base game. it was more of a oh that's cool i guess. same with valak mountain even though when i played DE i was so excited to see it again.

-might be because it was a dlc and the world wasn't as unnecessarily huge and empty to explore as in the base game but i actually was having a better time exploring this world than the base game's. finding relics and containers was actually useful and rewarding (and necessary i'd say!) this time around instead of finding your nth useless drop-off container or whatever those things were in the base game that i just stopped bothering to pick up.

-oh in comparison to finding and sending of husks which i again lost incentive to do very early in the game, finding city survivors was better because at least you would get to see colony 9 grow etc.

-the chain attacks are still as fun as ever and FR is no exception. it was great hearing the chain attack music again!

-i felt like the bosses were harder this time around? alpha kicked my butt several times before i was able to beat him. i mean i certainly didn't have the best gems (sorry, not gonna go farming!) and didn't unlock all the slots for accessories/gems/affinity growth but it was a nice change having to be on my toes and carefully plan my chain attacks instead of just doing whatever like i would do in the base game lol.

-glimmer actually? sorry that your dad is rex but your healing powers saved my ass so many times in the last battle that now you get an honorific mention. like...this girl was just ON. TOP. OF. IT. i'm a bit confused about the instrument theme that she had going on though--was this an xc2 reference that i'm forgetting or something? like did pyra/mythra really like music? lol. anyway i really liked her and nikol's friendship and the bits that we got to see of it, it's why i never changed their unity combo because they are besties and they always attack together :) OH and that sidequest that ends with A volunteering to teach glimmer how to play the lute was cute, especially since that sometimes you get to see them practicing together at rest spots. i wish we had gotten more types of those sidequests but well, can't have it all i suppose.

-A. i was very wary about her character starting the dlc but she actually ended up growing on me, design-wise and battle-style wise. her friendship with matthew was interesting and i liked how she would compliment matthew's wild and reckless side. idk not much to say here other than i thought she was cool despite me being judgement about her character initially lol.

-matthew. pretty fun protagonist. it was like having reyn as a protagonist except with a bit more smarts. again i was wary about his character starting off but his personality as a protagonist was refreshing and he was pretty fun to play as, too.

the negatives:

-the secret locations were...pretty lame? they were in the base game as well so idk what i expected. i'd get to a secret location and i'd be like oh....is that it? i don't remember xc2's secret locations or how they'd compare but i know most of the time xc1's would get a little bit more of a reaction from me.

-the affinity scenes oh my god. they were so boring and meaningless to watch most of the time. i think i watched at least like 80% of them and there wasn't really anything that would make me look forward to watching them like xc1 future connected's. i think in one of them you're just talking about the fighting machines that they're building in colony 9? or looking at a tomb?? like idk i certainly wouldn't feel like i was growing my "affinity" with any of the party members! plus the fact that they were just like shots of the scene you were looking at instead of seeing the characters interact (like with FC's) would just make them feel even more souless. idk maybe i'm just so jaded about this whole thing now but i just didn't really feel it when shulk talked about fiora at the overlook park or dunban outside of his house. i guess it also doesn't help that he's talking about them with people who don't know anything about his world so that must be weird to him too. so i mean idk i'd always look forward to the heart-to-hearts in xc1 and affinity scenes in FC and here it was just like maybe one or two that i was like "wow i'm so glad i got to see this!"

-ok this is pretty random and i'm not sure it's a negative but i was just reminded of this when talking about the previous point: towards the end the whole party is walking together towards prison island and within earshot of everyone else shulk is talking to A and he's like "hey, A, when I refused to become a god..." like lmao imagine being nikol or glimmer and hearing THAT sentence. like WHAT hahahaha like SIR what do you mean!!!! anyway!!!

-na'el. i'm sorry but...why am i supposed to care about her again other than she is matthew's sister? she likes kids and likes to play the piano? unlike N who i got to sympathize with after learning his origins, i never really cared much for na'el and actually was like "whatever lady, i don't care much for you!" whenever she'd show up, so i wasn't able to really to connect to matthew's struggle or whatever. like i know she's supposed to remind us of N/moebius with her being like "i don't wanna fight anymore i just want things to stay as peaceful as they are RIGHT NOW in the city!!" but idk i never found her character to be too sympathetic or interesting for me to care about, so her whole thing was just....pretty weak to me which is kinda bad considering how much of the game seems to revolve around her.

-again this isn't exactly a negative but one thing that confused me was that i'm PRETTY sure matthew mentions the queen of keves being imprisoned in the castle, which is something that nia also mentions when you rescue her in the base game. so is the reason why shulk and them are not worried about that atm is because...of the truce...with Z...and...alpha being the main threat?? i mean I GUESS but unless i misunderstood (not sure because as soon as i heard that i was like uhh HELLO??) it just seems kind of weird knowing that melia is captured (unless matthew meant the "fake" melia which to him would be the "real" one since he wouldn't know) and they're just like yep!! that's right! she's imprisoned! anyways.

uhhh this is getting way longer than i wanted it to be so i'm just gonna wrap it up and say yep, that was A DLC alright. i mean again this is just me being jaded but after i finished xc2 and saw that they were trying to connect xc1 with xc2 i was just like...why lol. considering how i thought xc1 ended pretty well?? i just never really cared about how this whole thing would connect, so i don't really remember ANYTHING about xc2 other than how much i did NOT enjoy it, i never played its dlc because i didn't care about the lore. while i was playing the dlc i know some xc2 stuff flew right over my head, and i'm rusty on my xc1 lore, but again, xc2 disappointed me so badly that i just never really bothered to keep up with the overall lore. i enjoyed some parts of xc3 yes but after i finished it i was never like oh i hope they make a dlc of this and that!!! unlike when i finished xc1, where i DID want to play Future Connected because of how miserably things ended for melia in regards to her dead family, her people, her half-sister who apparently hated her (BUT LUCKILY RECONNECTED WITH AT THE END), and her whole hometown being fucking destroyed. might be me being biased because melia is like one of my favorite characters ever but i mean...who wouldn't want to know what would happen post-xc1 to such a tragic character? which is kind of funny to say considering that we more than likely would not have gotten FC if it hadn't been for xc2 lol.

anyway, overall i don't really feel too strongly about this dlc. i was just mostly going through the motions and trying to get it done so i can just move on with my life lol, i got other games to play. like sure it was great seeing the worlds at the end unite once and for all and apparently there were some xenosaga references towards the end to make this whole thing be in the same universe (which flew over my head since i'm not that familiar with xenosaga), so that's cool and all, but idk rex and shulk sacrificing themselves and the game trying to make me feel sad by having nikol and glimmer run up to them because those are their dads!!! ;( just made me shrug and be like "ok i guess??" yeah i'm tired lol.

oh well, for now time to wait for the next game in the xeno series!!!!

[neojayink]

Splatoon Neo’s hero story updates:

Light spoilers for DLC SIDE ORDER below. (Speaking of the general story)

Brief story time of bts hero shenanigans.

I’ve recently finalized a few facets of how I’d want the story to play out for sneo. The story has been under a few revisions over the years but in the last six months I think I’ve landed on something quite cool. Took my time thinking of ideas for my story so that Splatoon 3 could run its course and so that I wouldn’t have any overlap with cannon to the point I’m telling their story twice. And after finishing the dlc I’m now going back to the drawing board on some details.

Not sure if I’ve ever specified how the world of sneo compares to the cannon world but the universe of sneo (the neoverse I like to call it nowadays) is like an alternate timeline in a new dimension. So both sneo and cannon exist at the same times. Even tho sneo is slightly more futuristic, time works differently in the neoverse and the entire first story takes place and ends just moments before Octo expansion and beyond as of right now. This may all be kind of complicated to drop so suddenly but I do plan to explain all the cool bits when I get to covering the story. This worlds version of alterna logs are called “think pieces,” small cards that hold the knowledge of everything that happens around the neoverse.

I’d like to take this opportunity to go over a few of Splatoon neo’s scrapped storylines. Starting off with the one most closest to the current Splatoon cannon story.

1: “Homecoming”

“In this version of sneo story 1 the hero will come across databanks that detail the specifics of the universe they reside in. A world created by a long gone scientist that hoped to store souls inside a super computer called the “LOTUS” so that one day when the earth heals itself after the incoming devastation humans can return with a fresh slate to try life again without destroying the planet. The Lotus will be tasked with monitoring the planet for the next spiritually awakened intelligent life form to rise and humanity will live on again.

Someone in the real world (cannon) finds out about this device and hacks their way into it to use the power contained for their own nefarious acts. They promise a group of Octolings a better life and a do-over if they fight for his cause. The Octolings were easily on board as their leader was power hungry and would do anything to claim more turf. Little did they know that they would be an army fighting against their own best interests. At the end the Octoling army would be helping destroy their original world to make space for the return of humanity. This entity would use this group of Octolings to start trouble that leads to another global extinction of intelligent life. This biomass would then be modified by the Lotus and edited to reassemble human dna from scratch. “

This iteration of the story looks similar to alterna when it comes to humanities last ditch effort to survive. This story had too much back and forth between realities so the newer story will be much more simple and contained. Think of the lotus as a super computer that can simulate realities. It’s also based on fusing nature and technology. The lotus is so powerful that it can spawn constructs from within itself to the outside world if it has all the necessary matter. The greater villain would’ve used this technology to create an octoling anomaly that would go on to destroy the earth and collect back human dna from inklings / Octolings. Another similarly to tartar using agent 3 as a host body to go about their plans. There was also a huge focus on dna and GMO. Genetically modified Octolings would be a threat of Octolings that turn themselves into “super soldiers” for their cost. (Kinda like how color pallets work in side order)

A digital world and humans returning. It hit both marks but this inspired me for the better to create something more focused and not trying to explain “what should come next for a Splatoon 3.” Honestly shocked how I could’ve guessed the cannon story but back then I tried to make my story more of a “Splatoon 3” before Splatoon 3 existed. But overall I’m just glad to see the devs explore ideas I’ve once wished for. Really like a dream come true and s3 has my second favorite story mode of them all after Octo ex. (Close ties between all 5 don’t judge)

2: “Out of order”

“The neoverse inkopolis was overrun by chaos so bad that there had to be crack downs on turf wars. An octoling army gladly took the job of enforcing rules and curfews to please city officials. They were hypocritical and broke the same rules they enforced but higher ups didn’t seem to care. The hero fellow neighborhood watch gear up to figure out what’s going on in this city. They end up finding back to back scars of corporate greed. The city is so nice and clean because all of its trash goes underground into less fortunate habitats.

The hero finds out that the leader of the octoling army was bribing higher ups so that they could slowly take over the city without force. This octoling leader was universally feared and didn’t need to use brain washing to get their way. But they needed saving too. As fearsome as she is, she wasn’t immune from fearsome control themself.”

This version of the story played into fear vs respect heavily. We’d see the villain scare the city into submission while she figures out how she will save it from the entity that is above her. She’s like a trojan horse to the world and she hides in the deep sea, away from civilization in case she fails her mission and is turned into a weapon of destruction. As harsh as she may seem, she’s only following orders to keep whatever peace there is left to be had.

A lot of aspects of this version will return. Took me months to create a backstory of the new villain but she will probably get a post just like this one explaining all her scrapped stories and evolution. I really can’t wait to introduce her.

To not bore yall too much we will end things here for now. Now that splat 3 is pretty much complete with story for now I’m feeling a lot more confident telling the story I’m crafting now. Can’t lie, telling the same story as the cannon was a big fear of mine so I just stalled until things came out.

Splatoon neo is still alive. Unfortunately nowadays I find myself just sketching away and making complete works a lot less as you can tell. Hope this was a cool update for dlc time. As the storyline gets confirmed for sure I will try to make more text posts about it even if there’s no drawing to come with. I do plan on covering hero mode with a lot of drawings and possible 3d work if the artblock gods will let me. Could even be a comic covering it all.

Also decided to share this last thing. Splatoon neo will have more than one story once the first once is finished. It will probably take over the name “cross contamination” from that one sketch and be a direct sequel. It’s only been thought of for about a month so far so it’s still to early to spill details but heres some concepts of the new species I will introduce called “exolings” for now and a mystery inkling who shows up. They’re very “alien”-like in nature.

[quaddmgd]

Did I ever talk about my love for Tekken? There was this post about games you played for more than 300 hours, and after GTA VC and LCS... it would definitely be Tekken 5 and 6 for me.

Anyway, my Tekken brainrot laid dormant deep inside of me for most of my teenage years and early adulthood. To be honest I entirely skipped Tekken 7 due to its performance on my PC at the time and its reliance on DLCs. I did manage to beat Tekken 4 in 2023 (the only one I've been missing until 7, but I quickly went back to not thinking about the franchise at all. That was the case until Tekken 8 demo dropped.

I downloaded it and played for a bit, not understanding what's going on story-wise at all, but instantly falling in love with its fluid 4k60 gameplay and new Nina design (she was always my main after all). It made me hungry for more Tekken and when I was talking about it with my s/o, I just had to check whether Tekken 7 finally received a 60fps patch on Xbox Series X. It didn't, but I ended up buying it anyway to satisfy my hunger for the franchise.

Played it a bit, finished the story and overall I had fun with it. I wasn't really satisfied with the story mode, but the gameplay was pleasant enough. I liked some of the new characters and overall it felt like a fulfilling return to the brainrot. That's what I thought before finding out that Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is backwards compatible on Series X.

I ordered a physical copy and instantly got hyped. I wanted to play it since its release but it costed so much at the time... and after some time I forgot about it, probably due to GTA V coming out. Flash forward a few days, I received my copy and ran back to my house to play as much as I can before my night shift starts.

You gotta understand - it was and still is the ultimate Tekken game for me, mostly due to how many characters it has. I played every mainline Tekken game (and Tag Tournament) before playing TTT2 and to play as Jun, Michelle, Violet, Ogre and Kunimitsu in one game meant a lot to me - I really appreciate OG Tekken characters, even though Tekken 3 and 5 are my favorite entries. If I was to talk here about how much grind in Tekken 5/6 I endured to make certain characters look like the OGs, this post would end up being insufferably long.

Many story-based games take up all my time and attention but I'm still playing it and I'm really close to getting all the endings. I set most levels to have my favorite tracks form older Tekken games and I'm especially enjoying my time with Jun, Kunimitsu and Michelle.

Now that fighting games are one of the most anti-consumer genres in modern gaming, a few years will pass before I'll get Tekken 8. I'd have to spend $100+ on ultimate edition, only to wait years for all of its content to arrive anyway. And since a month after its release they started introducing shops and battle passes, my enthusiasm got tempered even more.

But I'm so happy to be back and Tekken 7 and Tag Tournament 2 (and the older ones) will do it for now! Especially TTT2, it's really a blast!