#I will call this canon lore despite trying to play nice in game

[crispy-art-on-fire]

I have been playing a lot of sun haven and my god I hate Xyla it's a problem. I need to challenge her to a duel or something to get these feelings out but for now you have this.

[most-datable-datable-bracket]

ROUND 4 MATCH 7

Chrom propaganda:

“Chrobin (Chrom x player character) is so many tropes in one oml. You have friends-to-lovers (Chrom and Robin are canonically best friends according to Nintendo), enemies-to-lovers (Robin is heir to the Grimleal cult, the enemy of the Halidom of Ylisse which Chrom is the prince, and later king, of), there's amnesia, time travel, official next-gen AUs, changed dialogue to lore important events in the game if you marry Chrom, and Nintendo keeps teasing us with the ship. Cheery prince who knows when to be serious, very strategically smart but very bad at communicating, a guy that can comfort you when you're down, make a fool of himself when you're not around, and he's just generally a very sweet guy. Also please consider the fact that you get to watch a cutscene of him dying in the prologue and despite the horrors he's just so supportive of the protagonist. Chrom doesn't care about where you came from or who you're related to, he cares for YOU. He gets KILLED by the protag and he reassures them that they did nothing wrong and pleads with them to get out, to a safe place. I lost my soul to Chrom, I physically can't play this game without romancing him.”

“He eats oranges with the peel still on, he's an absolute himbo. Also the writers accidentally made his daughter canonically trans so he definitely supports trans rights. And technically you can only marry him if you play as female Robin but their dynamic is still just as romantic if you play as male Robin (they literally call each other their other half and m!Robin and Chrom have a valentine's day duo unit in the gatcha, and in the anthology manga m!Robin asks Chrom to make polygamy legal so he can also marry Chrom's wife and they can be a family) so most people play the game with the gay mod so they can still marry him as a guy. He's incredibly stupid ("yeah, let's set all our ships on fire then walk through a volcano, you're so smart, Robin" "I know you've had prophetic visions about killing me and our daughter came from the future to warn us it would happen but I'm sure THIS TIME it won't because of the power of our bonds") but also really sweet. In the summer DLC they're fighting on a beach and when he sees Robin get excited over a weird creature they found he immediately forgets about the battle and starts trying to make a bunch of crafts (and failing) and cooking food (and failing again) and writing "Chrom and Robin were here" in the sand so that Robin could have some nice beach memories. I'm obsessed with this man”

Asra propaganda:

“He GIVES AWAY HALF HIS HEART TO REVIVE YOU okay but like. He's the MCs roommate and they were together for a few years before the MC caught a plague and died and he obsesses over a way to bring them back before succeeding by making a deal with a god to trade half his heart for MC and betraying the emperor. And then when MC comes back but without any of their memories, he takes care of them and teaches them how to live all over again and he never asks for anything in return. On all the routes where you don't choose him he's really supportive and helps you out despite your history and overall he's just really nice and supportive of the MC and is their rock no matter what route you go down. Also he has a pet snake named Faust and I love her she's so <33 

Idk I just appreciate him so much”

"He gave you half his HEART!! He would literally go to hell and back for you!! He wants to take you on adventures all around the world—doesn’t matter where, as long as he’s by your side!! AND he’s nonbinary!!!"

[crownedinmarigolds]

12, 19, and 17 for Noa and Xandy if not already answered?

*Gasp!* Thank you for asking ahhH! 12. What have you found to be most difficult about creating art for your OC (any form of art: writing, drawing, edits, etc.)?

17. Is there some element you regret adding to your OC or their story?

19. What is your favorite fact about your OC?

Noa: 12. I would say the most difficult part about creating art for Noa is having to really restrain myself! Noa is incredibly repressed and has SUPER staunch beliefs and a code she really sticks to, so I feel weird if I just do certain things with her with wild abandon even if I really really want to. Like if I want to fun crack!ship her with anyone, then I overthink like "well she wouldn't do that," or etc... making her probably the most socially "inept" out of all of my OCs! Like, Nono is not a meme'r. 17. I'm usually very flexible with character stuff, I don't keep things I feel are actively detrimental to the stories I want to tell with them! If they have something going on with them, I put it there purposefully and with good reason. I will say I regretted certain things at her initial conception when I was playing her on a live VTM server. I had made her a Instagram starlet with a cute big butt. I had just added the butt thing as a dumb little "hee hee I got a bubble butt" but a LOT of people really ran with it? It made me actively uncomfortable how people took the "has a big butt" thing and made her to be a very very sexual character. It was this attitude towards Noa that actually had me hard reverse her into being sexually repulsed and also being small and flat as a board. Of course... people still sexualized her even with these traits as well in our next server we played her on. It could just be the way I type making people feel nice, but it's still very annoying to try and play a serious game or write out a serious conversation and people just won't stop writing about how their drooling over her body. So I regret making Noa curvaceous in the beginning of her play, but I'm VERY happy with Noa as she is now. I use the sexualization from these people to fuel a very important part of her motivations! 19. I love lots of stuff about Nono, but I think I love her having a good father despite being a Giovanni? Now her father wasn't good to her brother of course, but so many people go nuts with the more unsavory parts of the Giovanni lore in VTM, so I just feel satisfied with Noa having a good relationship with her Dad while he's alive.

Xandy: 12. Xandy is a bit difficult to write for because I have very specific situations in mind that involve her that are hard to make interesting in a written format? If that makes sense. She's very action oriented, swift, silent. If I could animate I think she'd be a blast to draw - I imagine her operating like Faith from Mirror's Edge - lots of parkour and smooth disarming motions. However writing action isn't my biggest strong suit. One of her coping mechanisms is to try and see herself as a tool for her Master to use, and while writing her breakdowns is very thrilling, I also can't have her upset ALL the time. She fills a great role in the canon but otherwise a little difficult to make the main character. ALSO - a lot of her stuff is history based, and that's a TON of research to fall down the rabbit hole for! 17. Xandy was one of my first REAL OCs... I had a few before her but she's probably the one I've had and kept the longest. [I had a ATLA one for a little bit and a Naruto OC that lasted a while but none stuck like Xandy!] I have changed her a lot over the fifteen years I've had her! There's not much I regret really, she was my Call of Duty Modern Warfare OC, so she was a military woman - which COULD be regretful but nah. It suited what I liked at the time and she's changed for the better I think! I suppose one regret is that she's silent and distant, which makes writing fun interactions hard, but it's still an important part of her character! 19. My favorite fact about her is.... commitment issues? I think I love it because I'm such a hardcore Ride or Die, and so are practically all of my characters. So it's kind of fun to have someone who is like "BAIL" the second someone really shows genuine adoration and interest in her beyond a one night stand or a passing curiosity! She's not against-against commitment... she just knows the life she lives and how "it just can't work."

THANK YOU GORGEOUS FOR ASKING!!!!!

[monochromatictoad]

How did you first encounter Red in your canon? And what keeps you with him, despite (or maybe BECAUSE OF) the Horrors™?

So I'm an avid video game collector. I managed to get my hands on the cursed cartridge when I was shopping around for my collection. I don't get to add onto it often, but sometimes I like to splurge a little on myself. Well, they had the cartridge behind the glass at the counter, and since I wasn't sure if I'd ever find the cartridge again, so I went ahead and bought it.

Once I got the cartridge home, I immediately started it and played it. I've been bitten by getting a game that wasn't in playing condition, and finding out after the warranty. I don't know much about Godzilla lore, so I was a complete noob at the game, but I was having fun. When it came to seeing the glitches and new bosses, I just chalked it up to the age of the cartridge and just part of the game itself.

Then I met RED. He knew I wasn't Zach, so his tactics for Zach weren't going to work on me. Instead I was in awe of all the enemies and the backgrounds. Even the music. Even after the first chase scene, I thought RED's design was so cool. I tend to talk to myself when playing games, so I was audibly in awe. RED was confused why I wasn't scared of him, but he could hear me call him a cool monster design, and that I was wondering if he was in other Godzilla games. Even through the hell stages,.I thought it was the coolest game ever, and wondered why it didn't get more love for this creativity. I especially loved the bobble head creatures. I expressed the design was really cute, so he gave me more of those levels.

Even after I finished the game, he kind of, talked to me. He would send random messages, trying to threaten me at first, but I misinterpreted it as him being in character for the Godzilla game. Later, he started to get more personal with his messages, and stopped threatening me. We grew closer when I realized he was capable of understanding me. So I would leave the game on when I was at home so I could interact with him every chance I got. My house was lonely, so it was nice to have someone to talk to on a regular basis.

It got to a point, that he would cross to other games to interact with me. If I played something else, he would possess it out of jealousy. Eventually, he brought me into the Godzilla game itself, just so I wouldn't ever leave him. Which led to me mutating into a Kaiju/demon. (I haven't decided yet.) Where I serve under RED, but also, I'm his favorite, so I get special privileges. Like keeping the bobble head creatures as little pets.

So I stayed because the horrors (⁠ ⁠ꈍ⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠)

[limpfisted]

@waterdepths shadowlands was the BEST part of the game

So here's what I'd do. Personally

Basically during the day baldurs gate is DEAD to the world except for poor people on the streets that don't have a place to stay

The absolute is coming. The cultists are coming. The bhaal cultists are out there. It's not safe, not without a steel watcher. Children and women stick to them like glue.

The shops, peoples homes---they only open to u at night for 2 gold pieces. Despite everything, this is a baldurs gate tradition, and actually in the canon lorebooks. Everyone offers sanctuary, or they're traitors and scum called "sinkers." People who should sink to the bottom of a sea, and who i believe are blacklisted and often killed for it.

Shop owners and home owners always defend themselves when ur inside. But instead of singing happy birthday, or saying tongue twisters, they talk about the war, and their fears, politics---people going missing in the upper city, people getting drunk by vampires, seeing people sprout tentacles, seeing nautiloud like flesh walls and spinchters appear in the ground and in their basements (where u can go sometimes to help them fight off the mindflayers trapped there. U find personal items on their person. If u give it back to the person u asked them, they go. Oh God. That was my missing son.)

But also, at night. In the sketchy parts of town. Theres still light and music. (The bards only ever play at night, to lure people into taverns, there's special stuff in the lore books about the fountains and the street lights being so beautiful and magic... and I think the bards are also only allowed to play at night so thars why we didn't see any in the city even tho it's bullshit)

You can ask "thugs" and "pirates" about the various monsters, especially in my favorite tavern which is isnide this big pirate ship run by a cool pirate lady. Even recruit some like the ogres if u have the right amount of coin. They tell u about the flaming fist and the steel watchers, and admit something about them isn't right. They talk about whats inside those things, that smells so funny. Why their voices sound like that. And then each of them actually realizes. It doesn't sound like that to me. Mine sounds kind of like my mother. My childhood crush--a strange, tinny falsetto. Mine sounds like a hoarse dog. A peacock. A zombie, someone says, and they laugh it off. A ghost. And then no one laughs. What does it smell like to you? A body, left out to rot. To most people, that would just smell like rotten pork. But they know. Its a very particular smell, you see. And then the conversation ends, and you leave

Gortash sets you up in the upper city, a nice estate, and there are all kinds of things u and ur party can do there as a little break from the horrors

But also. Its clear there's a lot going on here

The wide is empty, but baldurans statue is there. every time u come back, it's there but in a different place. It always faces u, to greet u

The hall of wonders and the house of wonders, where the gondonians make these beautiful steam dragon creations and there's all kinds of secrets and stuff, seem to be full of people, hard working people. But then u try to talk to them and its revealed they're either doppelganger or tadpol3d. When the doppelganger attack the tadpoled, theyrr too happy to even move to defend themselves as they explode into mind flayers. The place is creepy af also, all weird machines, but stripped for parts that have been all sent to the steel foundry

High hall is cursed with undead dukes of yesteryear, sentencing unlucky prisoners to death. Gortash had kept them subdued, but now they're climbing out of the basement and he wants u to keep them out of his throne room

The famous theater of the spymaster has an audience full of hostages. A mindflayer is eating their brains while projectibg a hivemibd of them alls fantasies on stage, to keep them complacent as he feeds. (Mind fuck fantasy adventures to be had)

I want a whole vampire lords plot, where cazador is ebt3rtianing vampire lords befo4e his cerenoby, and I won't be satisfied unless I get it

Just like. Stuff like that!

In general, baldurs gate is described as having streets so misty and steep and crowded and narrow people aren't even allowed to use wagons or horses. And it's supposed to be a DANG3ROUS CRIME PLACE

Because baldurs gate is about bhaal and irs like infected with death and the death god the guild... theres supposed to be.... so much more. It doesn't even have to be horror. I would prefer it to be horror bc im weird. But I just want. More...

[zeravmeta]

🖊

Aye, let me regale you all of my FFXIV OC who technically doesn't exist because I don't play FFXIV and have only had the lore explained to me by mutuals

So imagine a guy, right? John 'Warrior of Light' Fantasy from FFXIV is whoever you need them to be, and she's also full of a bunch of different versions of themself like Fray and the John Fantasies of Fantasies past and also haunted by Zenos' own shadow self (maybe).

WOL is just Built Different as per the events of the game, surviving things they shouldn't, getting body snatched, soul split apart, the whole nine yards of anime things that happen to people to hurt them. However, they don't ever actually die, because they are the aforementioned super badass hero who ends the cycle of shit once and for all, as Hydaelyn says herself "Now all of you will Walk to your Ends after the Warrior of Light Brings the Shadows."

Having been explained that, I took all the bits of the lore and went "What if my WOL was a zombie?" and thus, we have Z.M., otherwise known as Zombie Mailman (Note: I suck at naming my OC's so I always just have tagline code names for them, but Zombie Mailman is actually called Z.M. because it's funny that he has an actual tagline name of his initials without knowing how on the nose it is)

The basic idea for this guy is that FFXIV is full of guys who don't die: Emmet-Selch, Zenos, the Primals, Niddhog, etc, all these dudes who persist out of spite and willpower for all their various reasons. However, despite all the noble/terrible goals they each try to sell you on, they all share a pretty important distinction: They're super unhappy. All of them are immortals but they also fucking HATE being alive for one reason or another, so I took this concept and went:

"What if the Warrior of Light was sent from Hell to deliver these immortals their last rites? After an eternity of suffering, they've clearly forgotten how to die, so the emissary of hell isn't here to drag them back but to help them pass along." And thus, my WOL OC is a literal zombie mailman who runs around working as a mail delivery man and moonlighting as a world saving hero because Someone needs to help these poor saps fucking die already.

Furthermore, all WOL's in canon just kind of appear one day, so the way my John Fantasy gets Fantasy'd is that he literally just crawls out of the ground naked in true zombie fashion, gets found by the Delivery Moogles and the Lalafel Post Office and is offered a job, and now everyone stares awkwardly as the cute little woodland creature guys have this 8ft intimidating dragon-pangolin guy whose clearly dead helping them in the office and backhanding any and all rude customers through a wall.

He has blue skin and wears the standard mailman fit (colored white because I like it but also the white medical towel doctors put on corpses), uses her pronouns interchangeably (corpse who has no identity except what they make), and they're actually very sweet but always kind of nippy and frustrated because all these guys who keep postulating about the nature of humanity are just trying to dodge the fact that, no they really have just forgotten how to die, like IDIOTS. Also a fun little wrinkle to his design (in my head) is that even though he's this ancient corpse, ZM is actually very youthful in appearance because it's a nice juxtaposition to all these older characters who are literally melting but still alive vs a young person who is very much dead.

Anyways heres a few fun little snippits of ZM from my discord in DM talks

Might I share more about ZM? Maybe some day....

[smolfailure]

FUCK IT, DREAM SMP HOMESTUCK AU

but it's only half shitposts and there are actual Thoughts in there.

You don't need to have read the comic to understand because I tried not to spoil anything major, but it'd help if you knew basic stuff about classpects, SBURB and the hemospectrum.

disclaimer: i'm not a good pixel artist and this is my first actual sprites ever so please be kind to my weird pixels

The Kids:

Tommy

Fundy

Techno

Tubbo

tommy, tubbo and fundy one of the kids because they're the kids in dream smp canon (with fundy being son of wilbur)

techno's there because i want to make a dave strider reference (haha get it because techno's name is also da-- *gets shot) and also because they are both coolguys except instead of using irony, techno has adhd

The Trolls:

Wilbur Soohte (fuschia)

?????? Ehrret (violet)

J????? Shlatt (purple)

Nihacu Niikki (indigo)

Skeppy Diamon (cerulean)

Quacki Tthiey (teal)

Philza Myncra (jade)

Dreame Wastkn (lime disguising as olive)

George Notfou (gold)

Sapphe Nahfpe (bronze)

Badboy Haelow (burgundy)

don't come at me saying only females are allowed to be jades and fuschias; gender is fake and this is an au

more of the AU and the talksprites are under the cut:

Tommy

Lunar sway: Derse. Types in: Red

chaotic. the first person to be introduced.

when he gets introduced instead of the “Zoosmell Pooplord” bit, Tommy is initially going to be the name inputted but then backspaced it and decided that Tommyinnit was better and he was fuming until he’s named Tommy.

Gives me big Blood/Hope vibes. Blood because a lot of the conflict of the dream smp connected to someone breaking his trust or harming the things he cares about, Hope because a lot of the plot of the dream smp stems from Tommy starting shit based on his ideals and what he thinks is right.

the first to instigate fighting against the trolls

bbh contacts him once and tommy keeps cursing until he disconnects from frustration rip

wields Gunkind and his only strife weapon at the beginning is the Vlog gun. He has Gunkind as his strife specibus mainly because he looked up at schlatt and he imitates him.

Fundy

Lunar sway: Prospit. Types in: Orange

it was his idea to play SBURB but only through Dream.

he talks to dream the most among the other trolls fwt stans getcha juice this is the rosemary of the session

dream’s the one giving him exposition about the game so that’s how he knows how to play SBURB.

wilbur trolls fundy once and instantly adopts him.

“You’re my son.” “How does that even work??” “I was one of the people who created your universe. It’s basically the same thing.”

Fundy relents anyway.

Techno

Lunar sway: Derse. Types in: Pink

dave strider but dead-inside voice + rose lalonde english major vibes

he slices the text box when you try to name him "Dave " like in

techno gives me time player vibes (contantly on the move. his skyblock series, his “stays in the pit” monologue,) but also rage vibes (anarchy,  the “theseus” monologue, political alignment is Chaos) alas i am not sure what class

uses Tridentkind and claims "it came from god"

 it was dream, he accidentally transportalized one of wilbur’s weapon while he testing the transportalizer.

Tubbo

Lunar sway: Prospit. Types in: Green

the jade harley of this session. the only thing keeping them from going apeshit. where would they be without him.

but also jade harley in a sense that he seems nice and wholesome but also don’t fuck with them they can mess you up

Heart/Life vibes??? someone good at classpecting help

i put them in prospit bc of the "tubbo third eye" instead of tubbo having a sixth sense or smth, they see the future from the clouds of skaia when they sleep

wields Stress-relieverKind at some point

bonus: everyone’s actual hair colors

Ideas about the Trolls

no i haven’t done their sprites yet bc it would take so much time and i’m not even sure if people wanna see more of this au skjdkdsakdfkl,, but i have Design Ideas.

events of the dsmp revolution are just a FLARP session drawing parallels to how the homestuck trolls had a FLARP session that spoiler alert: destroyed friendships. dtrio, eret, will are involved. eret betrays will's faction and wilbur's still Bitter over that.

on the context of alternia (highbloods and lowbloods) lmanburg and dreamsmp have their roles SWAPPED.  the emancipation theme thing is completely gone since highbloods are in more power than the lowbloods (the dream team) . 

wilbur made a faction called l’manburg because he wants a place where he and his fellow highbloods could make drugs vibe.they take a piece of land that was owned by the dream team. in normal circumstances, they shouldve stood down because lowbloods aren't supposed to start shit with highbloods (especially a group of highbloods that has the alternian heir among them)  but dream turned it into an activism thing about lowblood rights. the story plays as close as possible without tommy or tubbo in it (which is pretty hard ik but this is the best can do).

like in the dreamsmp revolution, dream kinda let wilbur do what he wants but this time he has more reason to because he’s in a lower caste. dream really only fought back when wilbur announced that he’d be building lmanburg on their land and calling it theirs.

eret betrays wilbur by supporting the lowbloods and wilbur and co. technically won but only because he finally called the drones in, as a reference to how lmanburg absolutely got crushed by the dream team in the smp but technically won. l’manburg keeps the piece of land and the dream team scatter away to find a new home.

wilbur soot's a fuschia because a) he's in a position that has a lot of power, b) yknow how he wrote a song about squids and his thing with sally… yeah.

eret's a violet because nobility!! dream looks down on him because he's ambivalent on fighting for lowblood rights when he's in a power to do so "you just sit there, and you look pretty that's it"

also like eridan he has a minor aesthetic mutation (herobrine eyes) that won't classify him as a mutant.

jschlatt is purple because it makes sense thematically because of the gamzee parallels (a. substance abuse b. if you know what happens in act 6, you know this already but spoiler alert, he ruins the main protagonists' lives) also he's a funnyman he deserves the clown caste

 quackity's a teal because he’s a law student. moving on--

 ok but for real it also makes sense thematically because he's the one who wrote the thing that tricked schlatt into agreeing also he gets manipulated by schlatt which also draws parallels to certain events in the comic

skeppy and bbh are BEST FRIENDS despite being highblood and lowblood respectively. initially, skeppy just wanted to bother bbh but they grew to be good friends in time. y’know like how they actually becane friends :D

philza minecraft is a jade because dad friend. also works thematically, because spoiler alert he gets to murder a seadweller for going batshit crazy. 

he also god tiers early. he dies fighting his quick undead denizen (haha baby zombie) but the consorts of his land carry him to his quest bed because he’s treated them all so well.

dream was initially going to be another caste but then i realized that means i have to make his hoodie something other than green which is unacceptable so its a good thing the fact that he's a lime works out

dream was the one who thought of playing sgrub in the first place- initially only planned to have gogy, sap, and bbh in the session but then realized that they four won't be enough so he invited more into his session

he’s also the first to go godtier ez clap blind speedrun not sure what classpect tho

the only reason why dream avoided being culled at birth for being a limeblood is because his rng is That Good. he quickly picked up the fact that he’s not supposed to exist and masqueraded as an oliveblood and kept mostly to himself to avoid suspicion.

george is still colorblind but he has lazer eyes along with it instead. dream lives with him in the same hive since being a mutant means dream doesn’t get a lusus of his own (dnf fans getcha juice “and they were roommates”) 

despite living in the same hive, he never really figures out that dream is a limeblood. possibly because a) he’s colorblind and when he sees dream bleeding he just sees yellow b) he’s just that fucking oblivious and it’s so valid of him.

sapnap’s a bronzeblood mainly because i know he’s the instigator of the pet war with tommy also because i associate him with the color orang in my mind so bronze it is

that’s the end of this long-ass post!! if you have other ideas PLEASE i want to hear them. i don’t know the other streamers i mentioned in here very well so if you have ideas that would be fitting to them like with classpect or lunar sway that would be GREAT. 

the only thing i’m confident about in here are the kids’ lunar sways. i’m not an expert in classpects and homestuck lore so there’s that too!! i just wanted to make this post because adhd means that the idea wouldn’t shut up until i finished it. This initially started as a single shitpost edit of tommyinnit talksprite but then the hiveswap 2 trailer came out and that means i have to combine my two hyperfixations.

also i have ideas about potential quadrants but idk how much of that is breaking some streamers’ boundaries about shipping (even the non romantic quads such as kismesistude, morallegiance and auspisticism) so i decided not to include it.

edit: apparently people want more so i made a discord server as a place to brainstorm!! please pm me to join!

[tigerdrop]

Cringe is dead, talk to me about the funny half-life men and their relationship

okay here is my essay. it is titled These Guys Actually Like Each Other, and Gordon Freeman Is Just Kind Of A Dick*

(disclaimer: these are just my 2 cents. dont take me too seriously! im just some guy online who has watched this shit too many times.)

first things first. these guys actually like each other. this is a key aspect of their relationship. benrey, obviously and textually, digs gordon freeman - you dont flirt that heavily with guys you arent into, and so much of what he says and does is geared around making gordon crack up. thats pretty gay.

but the counterpart to this is that gordon freemans pretty fucking gay for benrey, too. you may say, “oh, but word of god says its not requited!” and to you i will say: bull shit. gordon is uniquely obsessed with benrey compared to all the other characters. if gordon didnt like the fucking guy, he wouldnt giggle with him and share in-jokes with him and bring him up every 5 seconds when benreys not around. thats concern, bro. thats worry. thats real shit

but i cant blame people for thinking that gordon freeman genuinely doesnt like benrey. benreys partially responsible for some of the worst things that have happened to him, the Arm Thing among them. and gordons very insistent afterward that he doesnt like benrey. he even goes so far as to try to kill benrey a couple times. to this, i must argue that gordon freeman is just kind of a dick.

lets talk facts here. canon. Lore. from the moment we hop into gordons shoes, we can see that he is a jerk to every npc on his way into black mesa. this is his default: a dude who just runs his mouth and says rude shit. he calls tommy a freak within 5 minutes of meeting him. he infantilizes the guy and barely considers him a real scientist. he doubts that bubby is a real name for like no fuckin reason. in “real life”, this is because its funny, and wayne is trying to make a funny half-life stream. in a textual sense, this is because gordon “hlvrai” freeman is a dick. this is the way he acts, consistently, throughout the series.

(brief aside: this is why the whole “gordon is a nice guy and a great dad” characterization baffles me. the way he actually acts in canon is, in short, bitchy and lacking in self-awareness. and i love that for him, i really do. it makes the moments where he just tries to be a nice guy stand out. but thats the thing: his intermittent moments of decency and kindness are not the whole of his personality! this dude kind of sucks most of the time!)

the way that gordons general asshole attitude extends to benrey is complicated. in fairness, benrey makes it his job to annoy the shit out of gordon as much as possible, and that warrants a negative attitude, but gordons pretty paranoid and ends up blaming benrey for nearly everything that happens to him, regardless of if its warranted. this is a pattern he exhibits both before and after the Arm Thing. its a little bit of a dick move! especially considering that, prior to the whole “betrayal” subplot (which was not exactly planned very far in advance), benrey is no more malicious or annoying than anybody else gordons having to travel with.

(okay, this is kind of a subjective evaluation, but still. my point stands that benrey is not any more of a hindrance to his progress than anybody else in the science crew, and neither is he particularly more violent or murderous. hell, gordon freeman has probably killed more guys than benrey. benrey just tends to get.......special treatment.)

all that said, i am still convinced that gordon really fucking likes benrey. please consider with me the following: it would be remarkably easy for gordon to just ignore him and do what he has to do, but he doesnt. he could stop engaging. he could stop thinking about benrey. he could stop bringing benrey up to the rest of the crew every time benrey leaves to do his own thing for awhile. but he doesnt. and, again, yeah, the extra-textual reason for this is “two guys are doing an improv comedy thing and bouncing off of scorpy is kind of the point”, but within the text it reads to me as gordon not being about to get the dude off his mind.

and this is in addition to all the times we see gordon being genuinely nice and receptive toward benrey! its in the little things: laughing the hardest and longest at benreys jokes. only ever reciprocating that stupid underwater “BBBBB” thing with benrey. trying to catch benrey when he falls, despite his insistence moments earlier that benrey should hop in the wack ass crystal generator and get hypermurdered. fondly remarking that benreys sweet voice sounds beautiful. his sort of flustered responses to most of benreys overt flirting. none of this is the way normal people react to a guy they hate. this is all fuckin gay to me, man.

its this combination of the outward insistence that gordon hates benrey with his inner eagerness to be around him and think about him and engage with him that gives off strong “repression” vibes, to me. for whatever reason - pride, embarrassment, resentment - gordon maintains a front of hating the guy and wanting to kill him for a lot of the series, but it doesnt gel with the way he fucking giggles and plays along half the time that benrey starts fucking with him. its a game, and that game is one of the only ways gordon knows to manifest affection for him.

(remember “oh my god, hes got a knife!”? that was the gayest shit i ever seen in my life. tittering like a schoolgirl while benrey chases him around like “im gonna get you haha”. insanity.)

the cool thing about repression is that you can have it manifest in a lot of ways! and this is where things like “headcanons” and “my own personal affection for repressed bisexual men” come in. a lot of how i characterize their relationship is an extrapolation of a lot of things like gordons canonical insecurity issues/anxiety, gordons whole anti-bootboy thing screaming “internet wokeboy who means well but probably has a lot of repressed baggage” to me, etc.

how do you get massive amounts of sexual repression out of what you see in canon, you might ask? well. if wayne would stop having gordon talking about being jerked off by the suit, or talking about chugging a 40-gal drum of potion and having to hold his piss, or worrying about being eaten by benrey the moment he sees benrey at setscale 10, maybe i would have a higher opinion of gordon “hlvrai” freeman and whatever latent psychosexual issues hes got going on. but here we are

i havent even touched yet upon how benrey feels about gordon. this one is helpfully made a little more plain by the fact that benrey very much wants to suck his dick in canon. (i dont even have to go into details. we all know.) but IMO the best part about this ship isnt just that they dig each other, but how. benrey gets overtly flirtatious in the second half of the series, but IMO his preferred method of flirting is just fucking with gordon: chasing him with knives, shoving him around in a bathroom, trying to get scans of his feet. but all in like a slapstick, giggly, fun-and-games sense, you know? at least when it works.

a lot of the time, though, it doesnt work out that way. he clearly just likes doing it whether or not gordon responds positively. which is, you know, Weird. not very nice. but also in line with the way everybody else treats gordon freeman. gordons kind of the universes chew toy in any given universe, and the same holds true here. hes kind of helpless......subjected to 4 demons attempting to make his life as difficult as possible. in a way its cathartic.

sorry. i got sidetracked. anyway, benrey very much likes to mess with him and unnerve him and demean him and i will be perfectly frank with you: that is hot. i have problems and illnesses and one of them is that i am a masochist who goes crazy for that kind of thing. calling gordon a “dirty lil boy” and telling him to “look at the mess [he] made” is some straight up kink scene shit.

i like to imagine that a lot of this behavior isnt caused just by the guy who played him wanting to be funny and antagonistic, but by benrey as a character not really understanding what constitutes “pushing a joke too far”. hes not human, and whatever he is doesnt have a very normative way of understanding the world around him, full of people who actually get hurt for real and die for real. benrey expresses what seems to be genuine surprise and distress after the Arm Thing, as if he didnt know that his actions would have serious consequences. and it doesnt seem to fully sink in afterward, either.

it reads a lot to me like hes used to video game rules and treating people around him like NPCs. if they get hurt, its no big deal, because its not real. he likes jamming random buttons on gordons interface and seeing what comes out. its probably a lot of fun for him, the same way that seeing a streamer or a youtuber suffer for our amusement is fun. its like, you know, in my opinion, gordons very cute when hes frazzled. hes also cute when hes laughing. pushing gordons buttons has a 50/50 chance of either of these things. and this is how he ultimately flirts with gordon: by pulling his pigtails.

but at the same time, benrey does legit care about gordon and knows some boundaries. benreys the one most often shooting at enemies to protect gordon, and he spent most of the last act trying to convince gordon to turn around and not fight him because they were friends (best friends, to be specific). he just lacks a lot of the emotional intelligence it would take to express the feeling of “he digs gordon and likes seeing his face get all red and sweaty regardless of the cause”. and gordon lacks the emotional intelligence it would take to express the fact that he doesnt know if he likes or hates benrey and hes scared as hell that its the former

because, lets be real. unironic benrey-liking is a sign of problems disorder. just look at all these words ive written about it.

can you imagine? this bizarrely powerful, non-human entity that can shrug off gunfire and grow to the size of a building has decided that youre his new plaything. benreys the bored guy booting up skyrim and fucking around in the console, and gordons the hapless favorite follower that hes taken a liking to. its a really fun dynamic IMO

after all this, its safe to say my title is a little misleading. the asterisk stands for * and So Is Benrey, Actually. they are both kind of awful dudes who thrive off of teasing each other and they deserve each other. and i am crazy about it. thank u for coming to my TED talk

[redsplash1]

Alright y’all, I was bored and wanted to ignore my hw, so I made a tier list on everyone’s lore and a quick writeup for each placement. Just an fyi this is my opinion and will most likely change as we get more story content, but right now this is where I stand (no arguing please, or at least nothing that’ll result in name calling and such)

But yeah this is something I’ll probably look back on and be like “hmm maybe I was too harsh with my rankings” but rn it’s like 2:30 in the morning so yeah

TW: mention of abuse in Octane’s section

All of it will be under the cut

S Tier

Bloodhound: Maybe I’m biased because I’m a BH main, but imo their lore is the most interesting and nuanced out of everyone’s. From their parents, to their uncle, to Boone, and now their planet, Bloodhound’s backstory, current lore, and character is fantastic and honestly peak writing from Respawn atm.

Wraith: I understand that not everyone loves the “I lost my memory and am now trying to find out who I am” trope, and maybe this is also biased because I’m a complete Wraith simp, but her lore to me is also very unique and well done. The entire Voidwalker cinematic alone is what’s basically putting her in S tier, but I also love how she is the prime definition of “Looks like they can kill you, but is actually a cinnamon roll” instead of your typical edgy girl that coldly pushes everyone away.

A Tier

Horizon: Interstellar but make it Scottish. She has really nice interactions with Mirage and Wattson, and there’s plenty of potential with where her character can go now that Ash is in the picture.

Gibraltar: While his lore isn’t as flashy like the ones in S tier, I still think it’s really good. For one, it’s consistent, and the stuff with Nik and Michael is very bittersweet. I really like how despite the tragedies in his life, like BH, that only made him more determined to do the right thing. 10/10 he’s got your back bruddahs

Mirage: Respawn’s poster boy, so it’s only natural that he gets a shitload of lore. Fortunately, it’s not shit and actually fleshes him out as a character greatly. I also really like the canon sibling relationship he has with Rampart. Now that his dad may or may not force himself into the picture soon, it’s gonna be more character development for Mirage either way.

Borderline

I’ll explain this tier real quick. Basically they’re between A and B; they have the potential to be great, but they’re being held back by a certain something.

--

Bangalore: Pathfinder’s Quest did a really good job fleshing her out, but the love triangle and inconsistent behavior towards Wraith isn’t doing her any favors. It’s a shame, because characters like Anita are really unique and not seen often. I can only hope Respawn realizes that no, love triangles are not the peak writing they think it is.

Loba: Same deal here, that love triangle and her rebounding off Valk is really not doing anything good towards her character. They’re adults, are they not capable of communicating? Like Bangalore, she’s also really unique in the sense that she’s a bisexual woman of color in a video game who is a complete girlboss and inspiration. Respawn stop fucking up your characters please!

B Tier

Revenant: He’s really badass, and his lore is fun, it’s just that the writing is making him look like a complete joke. He gets clowned on every time he’s about to do something cool and it’s honestly kinda sad. If the writing could give him a few kills to his name to actually establish that he’s a threat, I’ll put him up higher.

Octane: If this was fanon Octane, he’d be an automatic S tier. Respawn needs to flesh out his backstory some more, like most of the fanfics do. That one comic where he confronts his dad was 10/10, we just need more of that and actually tackling the effects his father’s abuse had on him. Also the potential history he has with Seer is a good opportunity to explore more of his character, so that’s a good start.

Rampart: Just recently she’s getting lore, and all of it is very good so far. The relationships she has with a lot of the legends are very strong, and the foreshadowing towards Big Sister returning is also a huge plus.

Fuse: The Maggie stuff was honestly really fucking lame (I blame the ingame comics for this), for me what’s really carrying his character rn are the Fusehound interactions. Idrc if it ends up platonic or romantic, all Ik is that there is a lot of potential in fleshing out Fuse as a character either way.

C Tier

Pathfinder: Okay I’m not gonna lie, I have conflicted feelings on Path. He got an entire book to himself dedicated to his own lore, along with a cinematic that gave a visual on what actually happened to his creators, and yet I don’t care for his lore??? Thinking about it, it’s probably because he didn’t really get any character development, he ultimately stayed the same (except that one moment where Revenant screwed with him, but he bounced back literally one chapter later). Also, it honestly looks like his story is over anyway, he just has to find his kid. At least his personality is 10/10 though

Lifeline: Y’all are probably thinking, why is Lifeline here and not Octane + vice versa, isn’t their lore basically the same? It’s because imo Octane has more potential character development atm, and Lifeline doesn’t really have any character interactions that don’t have to do with her childhood friend, so that to me is what’s separating her from Octane. Lol again if this were fanon Lifeline she’d probably be in A tier, borderline S tier.

D Tier

Valkyrie: Literally the first thing that happens to her in the lore is that she gets thrown into a love triangle. I understand that it’s in her character to be flirty and stuff, but a love triangle? Really? Ms. Kairi Imahara deserves sm better than that. Honestly the only reason she’s not in F tier is because I like her personality, along with the Northstar cinematic.

Seer: Tbh, there isn’t a lot we know about Seer. However, what we know about him so far isn’t detrimental and for me the reason he isn’t in F tier. The interactions he has so far have the potential to be explored.

E Tier

Wattson: Man. I wish she wasn’t here, but the fact that almost all her lore involves babysitting two grown men really killed her character for me. Fanon Wattson is a million times more enjoyable to me, Respawn needs to seriously consider giving her independent lore and/or branch out to other characters that aren’t Crypto and Caustic.

Crypto: Same thing, the fact that he’s strictly tied to Wattson and Caustic rn is annoying and stupid. It also doesn’t help that literally nothing about his personal lore has been addressed recently (Mila, clearing his name).

F Tier

Caustic: If he were actually established as a proper villain, he’d be way higher. But no, Respawn wants to play rock paper scissors with this guy; one second he literally wants to gas a city, the next he’s playing nice because “Wattson blackmailed him?” Lol I don’t fucking think so. I’m not saying a redemption arc for Caustic is impossible, it’s just that Respawn did a really shitty job in actually convincing people that he deserves it. And yes, even the whole deal with his mom isn’t doing it for me. Nah fuck this guy sorry y’all, he’d be way better as a villain imo

TLDR: Fanon does it better

[femboty2k]

Long post about something I think about a lot and that doesn’t matter to anyone else but me probably

I’m sure there’s a million posts out there on why good representation is important and good but I just wanted to talk shortly about something that happened to me in a recent span of a few months involving a character in a dumb game about collecting jpegs of anime women and hunky dudes with giant swords.

There’s a game called Granblue Fantasy, its an extremely popular gacha game/JRPG with a very large roster of characters and a lot of stuff to do as far as reading through character lore, fighting JRPG battles, raids, and basically playing VNs for character dialogue. It’s a pretty good game, and one of the coolest things about it, is it has (to my knowledge, I dont play/keep up with it very often) 2 canon trans characters. One is named Cagliostro, an alchemist who was born as a man but through extensive experimentation and some self discovery has since transitioned into a woman, hell bent on making herself as cute as possible. Fun right? She’s presented extremely well and is one of the game’s more fun characters. The second character is one that has become a personal favourite for me for many reasons, her name is Ladiva.

Ladiva is a part of a race of people called the Draph. The Draph are a humanoid, and pretty much human looking, race of people with their defining features being their large stature and bovine like horns and ears. This is important because male draph are usually much larger and more muscular than female draph (but its a horny anime game so who can say they’re surprised lol). Ladiva, as my discussion here makes obvious, is a trans woman belonging to these folk. Because of this, she’s both quite large, muscular(and more masculine presenting on the surface), and has rugged looking facial hair. The surprising thing about her presentation in comparison to how she looks, is that she’s presented incredibly well. despite her appearance being not as feminine as it could be (with Cagliostro even offering to make her a new totally feminine body only to have Ladiva refuse, stating that she should love her own body along with the rest of herself) she’s treated as what she is, a woman.

So why am I talking about this? Why am I putting my poorly put together thoughts on this tumblr post no one will read? Well, I am trans. I have felt a certain way about myself all my life that I’m sure most trans people can echoe so I won’t wast time waxing poetic about how I’ve always felt more feminine than I was “supposed” to be. My core purpose of this post comes from the fact that I am 6′2, nearly 300lbs of muscle/fat/body hair, and have had a full beard since I was 14. I am EXCEEDINGLY masculine, which has made my own internal struggle with my transness sort of difficult to accept. A sort of constant push and pull of wanting to just repress it all because I already pass as a man and wanting to work towards being who I know I actually am. Another factor is that I never felt truly comfortable with purely feminine pronouns. In highschool I went by a different name, and I used she/her pronouns and for a while it felt okay. But it was always just, okay. It never felt right on top of several people giving me some rather hurtful backlash for it and how it contrasted so much with my physical appearance. So I stowed it all away until about a year ago. I now have something that I didn’t have before, a truly wonderful and supportive group of adult friends who treat me like an adult as well and take me seriously. So through careful examination of how I felt i began trying new things to explore my identity. It began with me deciding I wanted to use they/them pronouns, this stuck and still feels like its the right thing for me along with the label of Nonbinary. However, slotting myself into this new label and finally feeling comfortable in an identity brought about new thoughts as well as new things to mull over in my head. Things like the fact that most nonbinary representation in media falls under the same category of a waifish AFAB person who presemts femininely if not androgynous, and how people like me are a vocal minority within the community itself even being excluded by a small portion of it. It was a new set of things to tackle and think about. But that aside, with them came the most important thing I asked myself, “am I comfortable with how I am now? Or do those thoughts I had all those years ago mean something?”

This question isnt easy. Gender is a strange subject and is different to everyone who experiences something with their identity, so I wont pretend like I have any definitive answers for anything because, there arent really any of those. The question for myself, boiled down to “Am I more comfortable identifying as transfeminine, or am I comfortable with just being nonbinary.” This question vexed me for a little while. It hurt to think about. A lifetime of bullying and being made to be ashamed of my body type and stature had made my confidence in myself rather lackluster. This made the decision more difficult. It would be easy to try and own a sense of pride in being a masculine presenting nonbinary person. There aren’t many of those in representation as I mentioned before, and at the time it made me feel nice to think that it was what I wanted. But those thoughts I had all those years ago did mean something, and thats not who I am. The answer I ultimately came to, was that I am trans, and want to present more feminine than masculine, because that’s who I know I am, and not just what I think would be easiest. So, to bring it all together, how the everloving fuck does this relate to a character from a gacha game? Well, when i first saw Ladiva I nearly wrote her off as a character that probably was used as a disrespectful  joke on trans women and how they’re viewed. She’s not though. She has an entire montra of loving herself and others for who they are and owning every aspect of herself, including her body. She’s not a small lady, she’s a large/muscular wrestler who, in no mistake of words, still looks very masculine, right down to her facial hair. But none of that matters, not her appearance, not her beard, not her height, she’s still a woman and she’s seen as one by the others around her because, well, that’s what she is. She makes it known and others accept, or at the very least, respect it. It was something entirely new to see something like this in a form of popular media, and in turn it gave me an odd sense of self confidence in my own current appearance, even though I do intend on changing it through HRT and other means (exercise and other health related means). It meant a lot to me to see someone who was, in at least some way, like me who was loved by the community of the game she was in. And it still does. In conclusion, Ladiva is a very cool character, and her existing gave me a boost of confidence that helped lead me towards accepting things about myself that I had found it hard to previously. Go look into Granblue if you like games like that, there’s even a fighting game that came out not too long ago. Thanks for reading, if you did, this whole post is long and kind of dumb because I’m kind of dumb. But I wanted to put it somewhere. Have a nice day <3

[entropic-introspection]

Final Fantasy XIV: A Quick(ish) Summary As Told By Someone Too Lazy To Recheck Exact Times/Things

1.0- We don't talk about it

A Realm Reborn (ARR)- for some strange reason the world got like, completely blown up 5 years ago, crazy! You are some dumb kid from nowhere in particular, with nothing but the clothes on your back and a weapon that is little more than a chunk of wood, or a book. Possibly just your fists. You have got 50 levels and a shitload of lore to get through until you reach the first expansion.

Essentially: you don't have enough money for chicken nuggets, your fashion game is nonexistent, and every high level player calls you a sprout and exhibits Concern about your every action (they mean well).

Garlemald bad, Ascians bad, Eorzea uhhh trying to be good but kinda racist/capitalist/pirates with a history of colonialism, Coerthas is French Catholic and in the Crusades with the dragons. Hydaelin... good? Confusing, for sure, often referred to as Mother in text. Primals bad and scary, but fortunately you are immune to their mind-fuckery techniques thanks to Crystal Mom and surprisingly good at kicking their asses. Garleans mad that you ""savages"" keep killing Primals, despite having a whole mandate against Primals and Primal summoning. Ascians mad that you keep killing Primals because Ascians are dicks. People die, there is an amnesia plot, some annoying twerp is annoyingly right about a lot of things and also you can't get rid of him, Moogles, possession, fucking Ancient Aliens Allagans (if it's a problem in ARR, it's Ascians or Allagans aight), and hey ho you go and kick Garlean asses until they throw a giant machine at you that they stuffed full of Primal juice. Such devastation-!

Then there is the slightly post ARR stuff, where we're still level 50-ish but not really into the next expansion. So basically, we meet Dragon Dad who slaps Crystal Mom's blessing off of you to build character, Ascians are once again dicks, Who The Hell Names These Things, wow Lysanderoth you're definitely not suspicious at all, and our annoying twerp is dabbling in politics and for some reason you're getting fond of him?? Just in time for...

Heavensward (Lvl 50-60)- Congratulations, you are now an enemy of the state! We return/flee to French Catholic Coerthas/Ishgard, where we get to room with our Dear Friend, Haurchefant.

Don't mind how all the high leveled players have started crying. This expansion is emotionally devastating, has a great storyline, and also features canonical consensual dragon vore as a plot point. You know that tweet that's all "Church bad because they won't let you fuck dragons"? Yes, that's Heavensward. You will still cry. We embark on an epic road trip with the annoying twerp (ft his existential teenage crisis), a famous dragon killer and sadboi, and a famous lady who advocates peace/fucking dragons. Somehow, none of you kill each other. Instead, you murder a weirdly attractive bug-man with good music and a desire for violence, a giant flying whale, and some old dudes. You also beat up the same Ascian from the first bit, again. And again, in his final(?) form. Dragon Dad has come along to watch your progress, and also check on his kids cause he's actually, y'know, the entire progenitor of the dragon race. Wow! His family is very sad, mostly. But he does like you, so hey, he can adopt you and have one kid that turned out ok and happy! Hahahahha there's no therapists in Eorzea :')

Then we get to deal with "Hey we ended your like 500 year+ Crusade and kind of upended your social structures, y'all good?" (no), something something Warriors of Darkness, something something Urianger sus, then ALISAIE JOINS THE PARTY. I love her ok, let me have this. She's the annoying twerp's twin, and she's more inclined to hitting things that politics and philosophy. She's also kind of crushing on you. Also Minfillia kinda fucks off to nowhere, which is weird, b/c she has been Important but also Not Involved with the plot for like. 8 years.

Stormblood (Lvl 60-70)- Return of Lysanderoth! Briefly. Before he fucks you over, again. And a bunch of other people, honestly. But hey, this puts Eorzea in open contention with Garlemald for the first time in years, instead of them hovering in an uneasy cold war. For the first goddamn time in the game, you canonically get your ass kicked. Hard. So hard you decide fuck it! And go overseas to Fantasy Japan/China to visit some nice people you helped out earlier. You get catfished. You meet a weeb. There's some pirates, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There's Ravana take 2, this time in a slightly more 'Forever 21' phase. Wild, young, free, REJOICE.

You attempt to inspire rebellion (since your character doesn't talk much, this is quite difficult). Garleans crack down, and hey look, the dude who kicked your ass is back! Prince Zenos Yae Galvus, as by this point you've hopefully learned, even if you're bad with names like me. He kicks your ass again, but this time we break his helmet, and wait shit is he... kind of hot? Maybe? Fuck?? He pins you to a wall and tells you to find him later, it's all confusing and prompts strange butterflies in stomachs. (Side note: as a lesbian, I am making some assumptions here. Mostly based off of how I reacted to the idea of Tsukuyomi doing the same. Mm.)

Then he promptly fucks off, and to work off that sexual tension you square up and work with local friends on Rebellion! You get help from some neighboring nomads after proving you're cool enough to tame a bird, and this proves enough to free the area from Garlean control (for now). We go back to Eorzea, and prepare to kick Zenos' head in. He's playing hard to get though, so we gotta get through some other folks, learn hard lessons about war/colonization, and feel bad. AND THEN WE KICK HIS- oh no wait. Is he... coming on to us again? Oh jesus man, get a therapist, oh my god, this is awkward for us both. Turns out he's kinda depressed and just wants you. To fight him. To the death. There is some bullshittery and he becomes dragon. Fails to kill you, so he kills himself. (Spoiler: it doesn't stick)

The Garlean Empire is now pissed off at you, and Eorzea in general. Everyone is kung-fu fighting, but oops, Garlemald is preparing to commit ~war crimes~! Someone is doing something weird, which is making your Scion friends fall into comas, which is both very convenient and highly inconvenient, cause all of you are kinda needed right now! Zenos, or something in his body, is causing trouble as well. Look, even when we thought he was dead he was causing trouble.

Shadowbringers (Lvl 70-80): We find out what's been making our friends pass out- someone from another dimension has been trying to yoink you over to them, and like all attempts at using the Rescue spell, it just sometimes leads to hilarious accidents. In this case, some epic lag, so although your friends have only been out of it for a week or two at most, they've been in this other world for 5 whole years in some cases. Turns out, Garlean war crimes are all an Ascian plot (what isn't, by this point), and mysterious Crystal Exarch is hoping you can save this world and your own.

At this point, Yoshi P, the lead developer, pulls out a gun and asks if you've been doing all those side-quests and optional 48 man raids. He worked very hard on those, you know. He put in lots of lore. Then he asks if you remember all those dangling plot hooks from previous expansions. We're addressing a lot of those. And adding more. You are sweating and nodding frantically while scrolling a wiki on your phone.

You get to feel like you're in an Otome game, because there's two dudes being weirdly polite and interested in you, but also real snappish to each other in terms of "fuck off she's mine". Alisaie and Alphinaud off-screen character development. Urianger still sus. Thancred now a dad? Y'shtola still so good. A lot of things happen, and you get progressively sadder as the expansion goes on. You get a nice, great big burst of hope and love, and then SOMEONE is a DICK with a GUN. (It is not Yoshi P.)

Now you just feel bad. Your character feels bad. This is all build up for the A) some motherfucking revelations and B) the utter catharsis of "If you could take one more step... would you?" "What, all by myself?" "THROW WIDE THE GATE"

I have shed legitimate tears over Shadowbringers ok, between the music, story, and pacing it is an Experience. Oh my god tho, all the music from Shadowbringers is so good. La-HEE

[trashcatsnark]

Ooooh, gimmie those juicy, juicy Johnny backstory headcanons 👀👀👀

Okay, so I always feel kind of bad? I guess, talking about my ideas of his backstory because A) I feel like they’re very cliche, 

B) I know I don’t know every drop of TTRPG Lore, despite that not truly being canon to the game a lot of the time and also the cyberpunk universe timeline is kinda a mess, so i just do whatever i want (like samurai’s starting when he was 15 and also when the war he served in started, like the amount of overlap between the war and samurai’s active years is insane and the game can’t decide when Johnny was a soldier and when he was a grungy rocker)  

C) given CDPR still plans to expand on the game with DLC and stuff, I know it’s fully possible that my ideas will be debunked in the coming months. 

So, take all of these ideas with a grain of salt and as always if your headcanons conflict with mine; that’s cool that’s why they’re headcanons

I feel like Johnny had a rough childhood firstly, cause in the immortal words of Linda Belcher;  “Look at how you stand. People who had good childhoods don't stand like that.” Like everything about him screams shitty childhood. My brain for some reasons specifically imagines, alcoholic abusive father and enabling compliant mother. Which, again, I know is the cliche of shitty childhood backstories, but it is cliche largely because its an unfortunately common reality. I imagine his first guitar is probably one of the only nice gifts he ever got and music was largely an escape. I came up with the idea too of his father having been a blue collar worker who was injured on the job; unable to work afterwards, given barely anything for workers comp and ongoing unemployment. Leaving the family struggling financially. Fucked over by his employers, turning to abusing pills and alcohol to cope with pain and raging at Johnny and Johnny’s mother. Teaching and instilling habits that would follow Johnny too. 

I like the idea of Johnny and Kerry meeting first as kids, junior high to high school. And between the years of at least 13-15, the earliest conception stages of samurai started. And I do mean the earliest, messiest, barebones stages of Samurai; it was basically two teenage boys playing and scream singing their unrefined lyrics in a garage. Cause they were kids and just wanted something to do, something to get their mind off the shitstorm of life. Maybe, i debate internally, they do manage to meet Nancy, Denny, and Henry maybe they all grew up in Texas and with someone more competent even at their young ages, Nancy manages to get them actually going a bit as a young band. A few little underground grungy gigs playing at bars they weren’t old enough to drink in. 

Now again, formation of Samurai and Johnny serving in the war, lead to like the biggest question marks in his backstory because nothing lines up very well. The war he served in started when he was fifteen, albeit that’s not for sure when he enlisted. Given we’ve been told children can in universe be scouted by corps to be their soliders; its not out of the realm of possibility that he served before he was 18 and was drafted as a child. But. Johnny specifically states he enlisted, that he made that choice. I’ve stated before that given how long the war lasted, its fully possible he enlisted at 18, served so much of the last four years of the war then ditched following his friend dying for him. 

However, I have also considered and really do personally like the idea, that Johnny did enlist himself and did so prior to being 18, though not as young as 15. Because, he forged his documents to enlist. There’s incidents and documentation of people as young as 15 faking their birth certificates and high school diplomas in order to enlist. I could absolutely see a 16-17 year old Johnny, frustrated with life and thinking he could have a bigger impact in the world in the military, forging his documents and enlisting. This leads to of course Samurai breaking up for that time. 

He serves around 4-5 years, deserting and leaving around 2009. Spends his month spinning his wheels and staring at the Pistis Sofia. He comes out of his funk and is ready to send his message about the dangers of corps to the world and he knows just how to do it. Fully adopts the name Johnny Silverhand and goes to track down his old friend Kerry. Samurai is freshly reformed. 

Right around that same time, he meets Rogue. (which even this is fucky in canon????? Rogue says lets pretend its 2015 and idk what a bastard you are, Alt died in 2013, he’d already cheated on Rogue by then???? ANYWAY) They meet about the 2009-2010 mark as Samurai is coming back together. Personally, I like to imagine they met while she was on the job. She had to eliminate a target who happened to be at the venue Samurai was doing a gig and Johnny managed to stumble upon her snapping the guy’s neck or something. And she thinks her covers blown, but hahaha Johnny’s into that and is like “hey, you want a drink?” and is then like determined to get with her and they fall into a relationships. Then around 2011-2012 he fucks it all up, cheats, there in my opinion is definite overlap in his relationship with Rogue and his relationship with Alt. 

I also feel like he met Alt at a samurai gig? I can’t remember the TTRPG lore of it, but I feel like in general Johnny met most of the women he had relationships with at Samurai gigs, partially cause he’s a just...a liitle egotistical. Alt however was there as someone who was genuinely into the music, (Rogue at one point in canon condescendingly calls her a groupie and I can’t but feel there’s a bit of truth in thats how it started). But Johnny started to legitimately feel things for her, but being Johnny, he never properly articulated that and always had to keep fucking it up. They fall into a pretty whiplashy toxic relationship over the course of a year or two where they do genuinely feel for each other, but Johnny can’t ever let his walls down enough to tell her that in earnest and is constantly doing things to fuck up the relationship, cause he’s a dick. Until in 2013, well, we know what happens. 

Johnny has to spend some time with nomads, (probably after releasing Never Fade Away, because I do see this man as the kind of guy to postpone going in hiding just to release his song for Alt before doing so) as do Rogue and Santiago after the attack on Arasaka. Because Johnny’s busy trying not to be spotted. They wait for the heat to die down before Johnny comes back to Night City. Him and Rogue rekindle things for a time, but it ultimately is on and on and dies out again, because Johnny is stinky bastard man. Kerry had already been talking about going solo and by the time Johnny’s back in the city he had and Johnny does his solo thing for a while too. But ultimately Samurai reforms for a bit, in 2020, neither Kerry or Johnny quite ready to let it go yet. Somewhere also during this, Spider Murphy helps deliver a message from Alt about her status and asking him to let it go. He does not and joins the Morgan Blackhand mission to attack Arasaka Tower in hopes of saving Alt’s construct in the process. 

Thats the barebones of some of my thoughts and headcanons; Im sure some are not lore compliant, I’m sure my timeline is messy and clashes horrifcally with CDPR’s also messy timeline. But, these are some of my thoughts, headcanons and ideas that will probably be defunct and pointless in a week. 

[most-datable-datable-bracket]

ROUND 3 MATCH 13

Chrom propaganda:

“Chrobin (Chrom x player character) is so many tropes in one oml. You have friends-to-lovers (Chrom and Robin are canonically best friends according to Nintendo), enemies-to-lovers (Robin is heir to the Grimleal cult, the enemy of the Halidom of Ylisse which Chrom is the prince, and later king, of), there's amnesia, time travel, official next-gen AUs, changed dialogue to lore important events in the game if you marry Chrom, and Nintendo keeps teasing us with the ship. Cheery prince who knows when to be serious, very strategically smart but very bad at communicating, a guy that can comfort you when you're down, make a fool of himself when you're not around, and he's just generally a very sweet guy. Also please consider the fact that you get to watch a cutscene of him dying in the prologue and despite the horrors he's just so supportive of the protagonist. Chrom doesn't care about where you came from or who you're related to, he cares for YOU. He gets KILLED by the protag and he reassures them that they did nothing wrong and pleads with them to get out, to a safe place. I lost my soul to Chrom, I physically can't play this game without romancing him.”

“He eats oranges with the peel still on, he's an absolute himbo. Also the writers accidentally made his daughter canonically trans so he definitely supports trans rights. And technically you can only marry him if you play as female Robin but their dynamic is still just as romantic if you play as male Robin (they literally call each other their other half and m!Robin and Chrom have a valentine's day duo unit in the gatcha, and in the anthology manga m!Robin asks Chrom to make polygamy legal so he can also marry Chrom's wife and they can be a family) so most people play the game with the gay mod so they can still marry him as a guy. He's incredibly stupid ("yeah, let's set all our ships on fire then walk through a volcano, you're so smart, Robin" "I know you've had prophetic visions about killing me and our daughter came from the future to warn us it would happen but I'm sure THIS TIME it won't because of the power of our bonds") but also really sweet. In the summer DLC they're fighting on a beach and when he sees Robin get excited over a weird creature they found he immediately forgets about the battle and starts trying to make a bunch of crafts (and failing) and cooking food (and failing again) and writing "Chrom and Robin were here" in the sand so that Robin could have some nice beach memories. I'm obsessed with this man”

Mhin propaganda:

No Mhin propaganda :(

[xenetala]

Piofiore: Fated Memories Review

I’ll keep this as spoiler free as possible, but with this game that may be a bit difficult. This is just my thoughts on the game and its quality. This game overall is really well done and if you are familiar with Amnesia Memories, you’ll really enjoy this one.

There are a few things I’d like to give people a heads up on in this one. First, this is a game about the Mafia. While it should be obvious, many people who play otome games may not realize this isn’t like the sweet games such as Kissed by the Baddest Bidder. Please do not play this game if you are sensitive to blood, gore, death, rape, drug abuse, psychological abuse, torture, violence, general crime, and other such themes. While you can play the best routes and avoid too much of this, you will be exposed to some pretty gruesome and brutal things in this game.

The second thing I’d like to give a heads up on is you have to play the routes in a semi set order to unlock things. By this I mean you don’t get to completely choose who you play at first. While this by no means makes the game bad, it’s something to think about before playing. You may not get to choose your favorite boy right off.

If you do play this, I have a recommended play route. I recommend this based on the lore of the world. That’s not to say you have to play this order, but I think it’ll give a better feel for the world.

While you can start with either Dante or Nicola, I’d recommend playing through Dante’s route first and follow his route with Orlock. While Yang is my absolute favorite boy by far, I recommend playing Nicola before Yang. Gilbert’s route you can’t play until you’ve played the other 4 so Dante > Orlock > Nicola > Yang is my recommended order, but Dante > Nicola > Orlock > Yang isn’t a bad order either.

Overall Story

This is a really good story. There’s a lot of absolutely lovable characters in it and I wish there were more routes. I also wish the stories were longer just because of how good the characters are. Even the supporting characters are great. The setting is in Italy during the 1920′s. There are a few references to world events around that time such as World War I, the depression, American prohibition, and several other things that happened around the world.

The game takes a lot of the terms and historical things and puts them in a nice handy dictionary in case the audience isn’t familiar with them. Personally I find all of the references common knowledge, but then I’m also a history buff so that may not be the case.

As far as the plot goes, the basis is you play an MC who grew up in a church in a small mafia run city. Depending on the route, the MC gets captured or rescued by one of the three mafia groups and ends up in their care as a guest. The three groups are the Italian based Falzone, the mixed heritage Visconti, and the Chinese based Lao-Shu.

Each route has a different part of the story and history of the world and the town as well as a different perspective. Some of the routes are more peaceful while others not so much. In all of them, the MC is one I consistently like. Despite being brought up in a quasi Roman Catholic based belief system, she’s quite down to Earth and many times stands up to the mafia so that earns her many points in my book.

The one thing in this game that I feel is a big missed opportunity is the character Roberto De Feo. I would have loved to see him as an option in this game. Especially after playing all of the routes including the hidden one, I feel like he would have made a nice addition to the story.

Characters

This game has a really good set of characters and even the supporting characters are good so I’m going to go over quite a few people in this. I’ll break these down by factions to help keep things orderly. Each character does have a best, good, and tragic ending. Some of them are really good, but the tragic ones to be pretty brutal to play.

Also, a fun note in the CGs you can press a button to hear the character’s comments on the scene.

Falzone Family

Dante Falzone - This is the first route I recommend playing. He’s kind of the ‘canon’ route in this and goes over a lot of the lore of the world. It can get a bit overwhelming to keep up with all of the mythology of the game, but you will need that information for later routes.

He’s introduced as the cold and cruel boss of the Falzone, but in reality he’s more of the slightly cold gentleman. While he can be cruel as evidenced in a torture scene, he’s really very sweet and you see much more of his caring side as the story progresses. I’m not a fan of his route as it is way sweeter than I’d like for a mafia boss, but it is the most romantic one.

In this route the MC spends most of her time confined with Dante and is more of a prisoner than a guest in my opinion. She’s not allowed to roam free much and is quite dependent on Dante. There is a lot of violence in this route and is one of the more gruesome ones in a few places. I actually like his good ending better than the best ending. His tragic end is really sad so beware. It’s not as brutal as others, but it’ll tug your heartstrings. Death can bring more peace than life. 

Leo Cavagnis - While not a love interest, Leo is an adorable character. He’s assigned as the MC’s body guard in anything related to the Falzone family. I would like to have seen him as a romance option just because it’d be nice to have a choice other than only higher ranking mafia members, but even without him being an option he’s a fun character in all of the routes.

Nicola Francesca - He is the underboss for the Falzone family and is Dante’s cousin. I liked his route much more than I thought I would and he is more what you’d expect for a mafia themed game. It is mentioned in all routes a few times that Nicola is more suited to being the boss than the underboss, and I agree with this.

Nicola is presented as a playboy, but though he’s flirty he’s not really a playboy. He has a lot of charisma and appears nice, but there is a cruel side to him. This is showcased in how he treats his men and in a torture scene. His route has almost none of the lore and is refreshing in that fact.

The MC is still more of prisoner in this one, but she’s not as dependent on Nicola. Even though I’d say Nicola is more ruthless than Dante, this route is actually one of the less violent ones. I will warn that his route is predictable and not quite as exciting to play as far as plot twists and such. Despite that, this is a fun route and the MC gets to showcase a bit more strength than in some of the others.

He is really tied to his idea of trying to free Dante from the curse of his blood and duties so Nicola often acts brashly and without really trying to understand others. This makes him quite focused on his own goals. His best ending is a great ending and for sure deserves to be called the best ending. I don’t really care for his good ending as much. While not sad, he’s too much of a mafia boss for the good ending to really fit him. His tragic ending is a work of art.

Giulia Ceste - She is the motherly housekeeper of the Falzone and takes care of the MC a lot when in the company of the Falzone family. While not a big character, she does help create some humor in the routes and is always a welcome addition when things get really serious.

The Church

Just a few notes on this ‘faction’. This group plays different roles in each route and doesn’t really follow a branch of the Christian religions. Even though the set up is implied to be the Roman Catholic branch, the lore behind this church isn’t really clear on things. There’s a relic mentioned and that relic is given all sorts of explanations as to what it is, but in reality very little of this game really follows any specific branch. So, if you find yourself confused on this group that’s normal.

Josef von Rosburg - Josef is a bishop for the church and has varying roles depending on the route you play. For the most part he’s reasonably pious and does things on behalf of what he believes to be the best for the church. Although, as the saying goes the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions.

Orlock - This boy is all cinnamon roll and I did not like his route until I played all endings. Part of the problem I have with his route is he’s so naïve and innocent that he comes off as childlike. After seeing him in some of the other routes I’d had the expectation that he’d be more of a cold hearted assassin than he is.

That I think colored my perceptions too much to fully enjoy this route and is partly why I recommend him as the second one you play. He is a disciple which basically just means he’s an assassin for the church.

He is absolutely devoted to the MC to the point of basically worshiping her and can see no fault in anything she does. This route is one of the more violent ones and uncovers more of the lore of the world. Orlock feels much younger than the MC because of his innocence despite being able to kill just about anyone.

The good route I liked a lot more than the best route in this one and that’s partly because he didn’t feel as much like a child in that end. The tragic route though changed my mind about his story a bit though. I love his tragic route. It is brutal and merciless, but you see him as an adult and not like a child. Plus, I’m a sucker for a good gut wrenching tragedy that just makes you question why you’d put yourself through the torture of reading it.

Elena Croce - This girl is the MCs best friend and someone she grew up with in the church. Her role varies depending on the route, but she’s generally a quite girl and is good at cooking.

Sister Sofia - She is one of the sisters in the church and is the mother figure of the story. She knows MC’s history and why she’s so important, but keeps things secret from her to prevent her from carrying a heavy burden.

Oliver Haas - Sadly this is another one that doesn’t have a romance option. Oliver is the Visconti family lawyer and helps smooth things over when members of the family get arrested. He is very strict and is often reprimanding Gilbert for things. It would be interesting to see the story from his perspective for sure.

Visconti Family

Gilbert Redford - He is the leader of the Visconti family and was born in Chicago. Gilbert has ties to the US and the mafia in Chicago. Unlike the Falzone family, he had to earn his way to the boss of the faction and wasn’t passed to him through blood ties.

This route is the most peaceful route. Though Gilbert is mafia, he is a businessman first and foremost. In his story the MC has a lot more freedom as she leaves the manor and tours sections of the city with Gilbert. Much of the MC’s time with him is more like being on dates.

Even though this route is far less violent than the others and softer in many respects, this one has more intrigue. Gilbert is the type that fights with strategy more than with violence so there’s a lot of intelligence gathering and plotting.

Basically the premise is that Gilbert is being framed for a crime and everyone is trying to clear his name. Due to the nature of the crime, it affects all of the families and even Yang is willing to help out Gilbert through this ordeal. The whole story is really a build up to the big finale of the case and you get to see aspects of all the characters in a very different light.

I really like his endings. All of them fit the story and are beautifully done. One of the things I like most about Gilbert’s story is everyone sticks together and helps out.

Lan - She is one of the twins that is assigned as the MC’s guard when in company with the Laou-Shu. This girl is absolutely adorable and creates a lot of fun moments. As cute and sweet as she is, she is also very strong and will kill someone without a second thought.

Laou-Shu

Yang - He is by far my favorite of all the characters. Yang is highly intelligent and very skilled in combat. This is show cased by the fact that he is bored without intrigue or other shenanigans to provide him amusement. The MC in this route is one of the more interesting ones in my opinion. Her intelligence really shines through in this one because in order to survive Yang she has to think on her feet a lot.

One of the things I really liked about this route is there were more fun scenes in it. While Yang’s route is by far the most brutal and violent, there are points that are just good fun and provide some of that cute romantic mishap stuff we all kind of want in these games.

The Laou-Shu is a different type of mafia group from the others and this story is in opposition to the lore of the world. Pretty much everyone gets killed and there’s a lot of misfortune in Yang’s route. He is a violent person who grew up under less than ideal circumstances. The MC is gets involved in the goings on with the Laou-Shu and is brought to some pretty grisly things.

I’ve seen quite a few people compare Yang’s personality to that of Hisoka from the anime Hunter x Hunter and I agree that they have similarities. Both live for the moment and share the bloodlust from a good battle with a strong opponent. He is also a master manipulator and very good at twisting words to get exactly what he wants. His best and tragic endings are simply gorgeous, but his good ending isn’t as fun. It’s not a badly done ending, but I would have liked them both to die in it.

Fei - He is the other of the twins that guard the MC when in the company of the Laou-Shu. He’s very protective of his sister and is the calming force for her. Just like Lan, as adorable as he is he can and will kill someone without a second thought.

Marco Caldroni - He is the other detective that comes into the game and is more often than not trying to keep Roberto in check. Marco is more okay with letting the mafia deal with things than his partner is and tends to either stay out of the way or help in cases where civilians are in danger.

Police

Roberto De Feo - This guy grows on you as you play the game. At first I really didn’t like him and especially so after playing Nicola’s route, but they really should have given him an option. I’d rather have been able to play Roberto than Orlock. Roberto is a newer detective with the police force and has a very strong idea of what justice is. He does not like that the town is overrun with mafia and that the mafia controls everything. This guy tends to pop up and pick fights with some of the mafia members.

Others

??? - This is a hidden route that is only unlocked after you’ve played through all of the others. You learn a lot more about the lore of the world and the MC is pretty much on her own in this route. I found this route very boring and the person you romance in this is too haunted by the past for me to really enjoy them.

As much as I love a good redemption story or even a good tragedy, this route is so boring. I would much rather have this be a totally different character’s route. While I get this person’s story helps fill in the gaps from Gilbert’s route, this gentleman is one of those revenge is everything types and I’m just not onboard with him. The endings are a peaceful kind of harem ending for the best ending and I don’t mind that one too much. There is a romance ending and I just don’t care for this character enough.

I get wanting revenge, but I find the all consuming revenge to the point of self-destruction and destruction of everything you hold dear just stupid. That’s how this romance goes. Reminds me a lot of the Sasuke and Sakura stuff from the anime Naruto.

[khaoscontrol]

oh my man you have no idea how much lore i’ve got. you fool, you’ve given me the excuse to infodump about everything!

(sorry this got super long so i’m making a separate post, also it’s 2am so i’m not gonna format this correctly or do literally anything to it)

i’ll start by explaining the timeline, i find it easiest to categorize it by the different versions of maria that exist in the au.

for starters, we have regular old canon maria. her deal is basically the same as in canon up until her death. i really just wanted a “maria lives” au but with a twist. so basically the lore is professor gerald didn’t have a lot of confidence in finding a cure for maria via project shadow so he came up with a plan b which involved creating a machine that could upload someone’s mind onto a computer (mainly because that’s just a sci-fi trope i always liked). of course this was more of a last resort kinda deal, but when g.u.n. raided the ark they didn’t exactly have a lot of options. maria was still shot like in canon and she did physically “die” but gerald managed to upload her consciousness before she actually died. unfortunately the project was still very experimental and maria wasn’t actually able to respond to any of their tests to see if it worked, leading gerald to believe it had failed. thus allowing the plot of sa2 to still happen.

so the next maria in the timeline is cyber maria. this is just the version of maria that’s living in a computer on the ark... ...for 50 years.... ........alone. unlike shadow, she was completely conscious for this entire time which meant an awful lot of time alone with her thoughts. her memories weren’t totally together at the beginning and it takes her an awfully long time to put everything together but once she finally does she’s not quite the same and her personality shifts quite a bit. she still holds the same love for humanity and her family, but she IS tired of being nice, she DOES want to go apeshit! her main beef is with g.u.n. for literally killing her and everything else they did. she’s honestly quite pissed (rightfully so) but she can’t really do anything about it so she honestly just spends 50 years worrying about her family. she doesn’t know if shadow or her grandfather survived after everything that happened and at this point she has no idea how long it’s been.

50 years pass and the events of sa2 take place exactly as they do in canon (can’t fix perfection babey!) and although she’s on the ark, maria has no way of knowing that any of it’s happening. so it’s not actually until a little while after the events of shadow the hedgehog(2005) that anything actually happens maria wise. so the scene is eggman is looking into his grandfather’s research to see if he can get any ideas that would help him beat sonic and co when he comes across the files about the whole plan b project (lmao sorry i don’t actually have a good name for what he might’ve called it). he get’s real curious about it and decides to head back up to the ark and check it out. one thing leads to another and he manages to have a conversation with maria and she’s just thrilled to know that the outside world still exists, she also makes fun of him because “lmfao what kind of name is eggman?” after all she’s still mentally a teenager. eggman mentions that he’s quite skilled in making robots and could build a body for her back on earth and maria is all for ALL of that.

which leads us into metal maria. as soon as she has an actual physical body again eggman explains to her how long it’s been, who he actually is (literally her younger cousin lmao) and a bit of what’s been going on in the worlds, he lets it slip that he may have blown up the moon a little bit and gets thoroughly scolded on that. he also mentions that him and shadow may sorta kinda be enemies and shadow maybe is working for organization that killed her, which every bit of that makes her pissed. she decides to join forces with eggman so that he can help her take down g.u.n. since he’s not exactly on their good side. she also agrees to help deal with sonic on occasion but she doesn’t do much because “what how old is he? like 15 or something? nah dude become mortal enemies with an adult like a normal person.” despite everything, the protective older sister instinct is still strong within her and she’s super against picking fights with kids (especially ones that are friends rivals with her bro) on the subject of shadows friends, she does not like rouge, omega she doesn’t mind as much but still doesn’t like that much. she meets rouge a while before she’s actually reunited with shadow and they don’t exactly have a good first impression. maria assumes that rouge convinced shadow to join g.u.n. “because why else would he do something that stupid, he’s dumb but he can’t be that dumb?” and rouge just doesn’t buy maria’s backstory and assumes eggman only made her to mess with shadow. also rouge is lowkey jealous of maria because she’s got that v good and strong sisterly bond with shadow and DAMNIT she want’s that! so the two of them are basically enemies for a while until maria finally manages to reunite with shadow and he’s honestly just really fed up with them constantly fighting and arguing so their relationship dies down to less of enemies and more of a petty rivalry. also at some point during all that maria decides that metal sonic is also her brother now and there’s nothing he can do about it (spoilers: he actually really enjoys her affection but tries not to show it)

over time maria and metal become kinda a neutral party between sonic and eggman. and honestly with maria’s constant lecturing, eggman kinda tones it down on the world domination deal and becomes more of a dr. doofenshmirtz type villain because it’s funnier that way. (sorry i ONLY make an au if it’s wholesome) he kinda only keeps up the villain gig for the press and because it’s kinda his brand at this point.

which leads us into neo metal maria, 10 years in the future maria takes over the eggman empire. it’s 110% for show. she puts on this big facade of being a villain with megamind level dramatics but she never does anything other than screw over g.u.n., which team dark has long since stopped working with at this point, finally. seriously that sucked what the heck where you thinking sega? whatever i fixed it for them ;)

in the future of this au (which i don’t focus on a whole lot because i like drawing them as a bunch of kids just screwing around, god i’m so smart sega could never) since eggman isn’t a problem everyone’s whole deal is just dealing with other threats and also just a lot of adventuring. every once and a while some old god will try and destroy the world again as per usual and maria will actually step in to help. because of this and the fact that she’s not actually violent, maria is actually quite adored by the public. which is literally her goal, she’s not a villain she’s an entertainer!

and there’s a whole lot more to this au because i actually focus on pretty much every character and how this all plays out for them. i have a different take on how some games played out with her being there (mainly 06 and forces because they’re not great even tho i love them, but her being there made them funny) but yeah i’ve put a LOT of thought into this au and it means a whole lot to me. this is literally just a summary of eveything that happens. over time i’ll expand on this more.

but hot diggity shit, it’s 2am. so i’m just gonna wrap this up with some sketches of the gal!

[call-2-arms]

Things I like my RP partners to know:

(Repost, don’t reblog!)

I LIKE TO BE CALLED:  Owl or my RL name if known :)

PRONOUNS:she/her | HE/HIM | they/them | whatever you want

ONE THING YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ME: One big thing for this blog in particular is that this is my secondary blog. I can only access it when I’m home because I’m signed in on Kaaras’ on mobile. Which means: I AM SLOW here. But copy/paste from my other blog: I have ASD, which means a number of things. Mostly… I can get extremely ‘people exhausted’. I work full time in healthcare, which is exhausting in itself, so when I get home, it means I’m pretty damn tired and can’t always keep a conversation going. I want you to know that generally speaking I’m exceptionally chill and an easy going person. I don’t want people to be scared to approach me thinking I don’t like them because I’m so quiet in a conversation. I think on this website that people can forget the more negative sides of ASD, which for me (specifically), I don’t always know how to respond. So I just… don’t. I know it can come off as rude, and I do apologise for that, but if I don’t feel like I have anything to contribute to a conversation, then I REALLY struggle to actually talk. It’s not that I don’t like you (because I like every one of my friends here!), it’s simply that I hit a wall in how to express my lack of interest without outright saying “I don’t care/have no interest in this topic” (which let’s be honest, sounds rude as fuck and there’s no nice way of rejecting someone’s conversation). So I do apologise if I don’t respond sometimes, it may just be because I left my PC, or I went to bed, or I’m playing games (which I do a lot lol). Despite my anxiety, I am not anxious to approach people for RP, or chatting, I am just tired ™ and brain frizzled.

ONE THING YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT RPING WITH MY CHARACTER(S): They all vary here. I have some very good, honest muses here and some very dark natured and violent ones. I also RP canon characters and OCs here. It entirely depends on who you’re writing with. I will say I am pretty canon strict with most of the lore and backgrounds when it comes to the canons I write. I don’t like mucking up perfectly written backgrounds. However, they ARE still canon divergent (especially cause Jaime dies so... lol). I prefer to write Elias out of the TAMB universe because I like seeing his character growth as well as the different shapes he might take on due to outside influence. Cass I keep pretty strict to canon because I think she’s perfect the way she is, but I don’t like Dawn of the Seeker because it felt extremely OOC in many ways for her also (although that’s mostly visually.. ). Mostly though, I try to stick to VERY canon personalities and backgrounds. 

FIRST LANGUAGE: English  

AGE RANGE: under 13 | 14–17 | 18–22 | 23–25 | 26–29 | 30+ | 40+ | 70+

AM I OKAY WITH NSFW?:YES (CHEMISTRY NECESSARY) | No | Some nsfw

MY FAVOURITE/MOST COMMON THING TO RP IS: ANGST | FLUFF | SMUT | crack | SLICE OF LIFE | ACTION | PLOTS | AUs are fine | VIOLENCE | DARKER THEMES

CANON CHARACTER RP FRIENDLY?:YES | no

ORIGINAL CHARACTER RP FRIENDLY?:YES | no

RP BLOG: does contain ooc posts | doesn’t contain ooc posts | OCCASIONALLY CONTAINS OOC (I delete most of my ooc stuff unless it’s meme related or muse related).

TAGGED BY: @dragcnlxrd​ (thanks darling!)

TAGGING: If you haven’t already done it, then consider yourself tagged!