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milesluna · 9 months

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My Favorite Games of 2023.

Hi. Hello. Thanks ever so much for clicking on this page. Happy to have you.

First thing's first: I'm a little freak when it comes to video games. I don't feel the need to beat most games I play. From Software is one of my favorite studios in the industry and I've never finished a single one of their games. This means, fortunately, that I get to play a LOT more games than the average bear.

I've written up some blurbs about my top ten favorite games from 2023, but before that here's the list of every game I remember playing this year that left any sort of lasting impact on me (in no particular order):

Dead Space Remake Resident Evil 4 Remake F-Zero 99 Humanity Dredge Metroid Prime Remastered Anemoiaplois Alan Wake 2 Baldur’s Gate 3 LoZ Tears of the Kingdom Counter Strike 2 Hunt Showdown El Paso Elsewhere Jusant Slay the Princess| Remnant II The Finals Street FIghter 6 Lethal Company BattleBit Remastered Don’t Scream Homebody The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog Pizza Tower World of Horror Super Mario Wonder Mr. Sun’s Hatbox Fifa 23 Sea of Stars (Demo) Half-Life (25th Anniversary Update)

And the games I played that were NOT released in 2023:

Unpacking Persona 4 Golden Picross 7 The Order 1886 Shovel Knight Dig Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Spider-Man: Miles Morales Pac-Man Championship Edition DX Project Zomboid Quake LoZ The Minish Cap Drill Dozer Wario Land 4 Pokemon Pinball Resident Evil Revelations Summer of ‘58 Trackmania TwinCop We Were Here Visage Cursed Halo CE Half-Life 2 (I probably play this once per year) Witch Hunt Red Dead Redemption 2 Cyberpunk 2077 Borderlands 3 Brutal Legend Cultic Slay the Spire PUBG Rez Infinite Batman Arkham City Alan Wake Alan Wake: American Nightmare Max Payne LoZ: Majora’s Mask 3DS Metroid Prime Metroid Prime 2 Tunic Everhood Final Fantasy VII Final Fantasy VII Remake GOODBYE WORLD Yakuza: Like a Dragon Critters for Sale Dome Keeper Phasmophobia Hades Nintendo Switch Sports

Now that you understand the kind of freak you're dealing with…

Let's dive into my top ten favorite games from this objectively fucked up year.

10. El Paso Elsewhere Developed by Texas indie studio Strange Scaffold, El Paso Elsewhere is a Max Payne-clone with vampires, an opinionated narrator, and lots and lots of bullet time. As a small studio punching well above their weight class, Strange Scaffold leans into abstract, PlayStation 1 minimalism when it comes to visuals and pairs them with a soundtrack that will make your hands sweat. The vibes are here and they're ready for the end of the world. I'm personally also a big fan of everything this studio stands for.

9. Mr. Sun's Hatbox I want you to imagine Metal Gear Solid V. Now I want you to imagine that game as a 2D, level-based, slapstick platformer you can play with up to three friends. If you think that sounds stupid, you'd be right. And it's beautiful. As you build up a secret army of soldiers with various skills (and disorders), you'll start to develop *favorites*. This game constantly asks if you're willing to send those favorites on a harrowing mission and risk losing them forever… or if you'd rather send an idiot you recently captured who blinks constantly and can't kill anyone without fainting.

8. Dredge Every year I feel like I find one game that falls into the “just one more round” category, and baby… Dredge was it for 2023. As a weary fisherman in strange waters, you'll make the most out of your 12 measly hours of sunlight only for your daily voyages to inevitably pull you into the darkness of night, and night is when things get weird. Rocks emerge from the fog that you swear weren't there before, your equipment malfunctions, and you're pretty sure you just saw something in the water… something big. Despite only containing a small collection of islands, the world of Dredge manages to feel vast - perhaps vast enough to swallow you whole.

7. Resident Evil 4 Remake I was curious to see what sort of changes would be made to the timeless classic and father of modern 3rd person shooters, Resident Evil 4. I wasn't let down. RE4 Remake takes all the things that didn't age well about the original, tossed them out, and replaced them with only good things. And MORE things! It's campy, fun, and better than a game of bingo.

6. Jusant I really feel like this one didn't get the recognition it deserves. Jusant is a rock climbing game that combines the quiet contemplation of Journey with the mechanical specificity of Death Stranding. Unlike Death Standing, though, there is very little story to interrupt your flow. There are plenty of collectible bits to find for those curious to learn more about what happened before the events of the game, but the environmental storytelling does most of the heavy lifting. For me, the joy of the game comes from how it feels. Right trigger controls your right hand grip, and left trigger controls left hand grip. Plan your route, manage your stamina, and climb high above the clouds in search of answers.

5. F-Zero 99 This. Shit. Slaps. I've never been a big F-Zero guy, but this MADE me one. The “battle royale”, 99 player format is the perfect fit for the ruthless, high octane world of the game. Races last about three minutes, and friend, they are the most intense, white-knuckled three minutes of your life. The decision to make your boost meter the same as your health meter started in F-Zero 64 (I believe), and it is so much more HARROWING in this game when another player could side-swipe you mere meters from the finish line and blow you to bits. Sadly it's only playable via Switch Online, but it made me cheer, laugh, and scream enough this year to earn a spot in my top 5.

4. Alan Wake 2 Remedy makes weird games that also manage to exist in the AAA space and for that I will forever love them. Although Alan Wake 2 resembles a 3rd person shooter survival horror, I'd honestly say it's more of a narrative game than anything else. There's sidequests, there's puzzles, there's upgradeable skills, but at the end of the day the characters, world, and story are what kept me playing. If you haven't checked them out recently, you should definitely watch a story recap of the original games before diving into this sequel, but the wild swings for the fences this game takes are well worth that small price of admission. There's a god damn musical number, for Christ's sake.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom I've really got nothing to say about this game that most people don't already know. It's incredible. The fact that Nintendo made a game that redefined an entire genre and then made a SEQUEL to it that ups the ante is remarkable. To be honest, I've only cleared the Rito, Zora, and Goron cities. I got a bit tired of exploring the depths and guiding Koroks to their friends, but I can't deny the sheer level of complexity and polish on display here. I saw someone on TikTok build a functioning Mecha Godzilla in this game. Good God. I've heard that the ending of this game is one of the best in the franchise, and if I'd seen it this year then it may have wound up higher on my list, but for the time being I'll continue picking up this masterpiece from time to time, chipping away at it until the day comes that I can finally smack the tits off thicc Ganondorf.

2. Half-Life (25th Anniversary Update) I know I'm gonna get shit for this, but I don't care. This year was the 25th anniversary of Half-Life and Valve released an update that made playing it (and it's online Death Match) much more accessible. I threw it on my Steam Deck out of curiosity, expecting to play for 20 minutes. I could not put it down. It is unbelievable how modern this game still feels. I simply had so much fun sprinting through the corridors of Black Mesa with a dozen weapons strapped to my back, blasting aliens and military Spec-Op chumps as a 24(?!) year old theoretical physicist.

1. Baldur's Gate III This game is fucked up, man. The sheer amount of writing in this game scares me. We can all talk about how BIG this game is, it deserves it, but the thing BG3 does better than any other role playing game I have ever experienced is actually encourage roleplaying. I've played through Act I four times now, with four different groups of friends, and it has felt fresh every time. I have seen the same events play out in so many different ways that it boggles the mind, but in every one of those play sessions I see players asking themselves “What would my lil guy do here?” rather than "what is the best thing to do here?" The game rewards players constantly for just trying shit and the D&D 5e rule set means playing like the character you said you were from the start leads to frequent Points of Inspiration. Maybe one day I'll see the end of this story (probably not), but I don't have to in order to feel a connection with BG3's world, characters, and most impressively, the characters I made myself.

Honorable Mentions for 2023

5. Dave the Diver 4. Homebody 3. Sea of Stars 2. Humanity 1. Super Mario Wonder

Top 5 Favorites NOT from 2023

5. Metroid Prime 4. Final Fantasy VII Remake 3. Cursed Halo (Halo CE Mod) 2. Red Dead Redemption 2 1. Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (3DS)

Games I didn't have a chance to play from 2023 but still want to when I find more time...

Viewfinder Venba Chants of Sennaar Thirsty Suitors Hi-Fi Rush Moonring Armored Core VI Laika Aged Through Blood Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

OKAY THANKS BYE!

#video games #2023 #GOTY

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silentmoths · 2 years

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A cold cure for Insomnia

Hey look, it's not a genshin fic

wild huh?

I'll preface this with 2 things: 1: I am, for some reason, incredibly nervous abt posting a fic that is 100% outside my wheelhouse. I've never actually posted anything but genshin fic since I started uploading a couple years ago, only like, one friend has ever seen anything else from me so this is a bit of a step. 2: this is nothing put pure, indulgent lesbian bullshit and I'll also note that I have no idea how to write f/f smut, so be gentle with me.

If you're only here for my genshin stuff, have a nice day and we'll be back to regularly scheduled bullshittery shortly. Until then, please enjoy me, self indulging over my pokemon wife.

Elite 4 Rika x Fem!Reader 7.4k words, not proofread, we die like prof. sada

NSFW, honestly it's just a whole lot of fkn smut with some fluff sprinkled in there, praise kink, hair pulling, use of toys, oral, tribbing, koraidon being an unintentional wingman.

What a day.

Sometimes you wonder how Nemona did it, rushing around doing champion things all the time. Honestly, ever since you’d beat Geeta all those years ago while you were still in school, it felt like every day was ‘go here, check this gym, go there, check that gym.’ And you were getting a little tired of it.

Especially recently, with Nemona currently travelling somewhere in the Kalos region doing Arceus knows what, and Geeta being stuck in paperwork hell with the Academy preparing for their annual treasure hunt, you’d been swamped, needing to go and check every. Single. Gym. to make sure they were all up to par.

(who knows maybe this year a new student would claim the champion title and you could retire? That’d be nice.)

Montenevera was the last stop on your trip, and while the vibe was always lovely in the snowy mountain town…you’d never been particularly fond of the cold… Only made worse by Rhyme and her gang of ghost pokemon sending a particular shiver down your spine that you just couldn’t shake.

Night had fallen by the time you finally walked out the sliding doors of the League building, only to be greeted by your one nemesis.

Fucking snow.

Here, on the outskirts of Mesagoza.

You wanted to scream, but that wasn’t very becoming of a League champion now was it?

So with a sigh, you reach for a specific pokeball on your hip. The trek home wasn’t far, but in the sleet and cold, you knew it’d be faster if you rode.

Koraidon however, apparently had other ideas.

The moment his feet touch the cold ground, he yelps and backs right up and into the League building once again.

“Koraidon…c’mon bud, we just need to get home.” you sigh “I know you’re tired too…I promise to make you the best dang sandwich when we get home…yeah?”

The paradox pokemon simply looks at you with wide, sad eyes and a low chitter before he willingly returns to his ball.

Great….just great. Not even your most reliable pokemon was willing to brave even more snow, not after today.

“Woah-ho, what’s gotten under his scales?” a familiar voice sounds from behind you, snapping you from your despondent staring at Koraidon’s pokeball. The familiar click of dress boots give her away before Rika steps into view.

How she always managed to look so very casual while pulling off suspenders was beyond you, but every time you were anywhere in the vicinity of the first member of the Elite four, you found your mouth running dry and your mind wandering very far away from here. She tilts her head at you and it takes her waving her hand in front of your eyes to realise you were absolutely staring at her.

Way to go.

“Woah, you alright? You look wiped.” She comments, her brow furrowing as she looks you up and down.

“A-ah…yeah, sorry…s’been a long few days…” you eventually mumble, turning your gaze to the floor as you clip Koraidon’s ball back to your belt with the others. “Geeta’s had me checking and rechecking all the gyms to make sure they’re ready for the next treasure hunt…we just got back from Montenevera…cold…tired…and now it’s snowing a-and Koraidon is just…too tired to take me home..”

A slender, comforting hand gently rests between your shoulder blades, rubbing small, soothing circles and it takes everything in you to not crumble apart there, man, how desperate did you have to be to nearly cry at friendly touch? “You live all the way on the other side of town, dontcha?” She asks, her free hand raising to push some of her green hair from her face as the look of worry on her features only seems to grow “Ain’t no way you’re making that walk in this state…”

“I’ll live…” you sigh, hanging your head and readjusting your bag as you lift your head to look at the snow flurry that was definitely only getting heavier.

“Nah, C’mon, you can crash at mine tonight, it’s closer.” Rika chimes, patting you on the back and passing you a wink before she heads out the door.

You blink, watching her back in silence, there was no way she had just invited you to spend the night, absolutely no way. You needed to go see a doctor and maybe get your hearing checked-

“You comin? Or did Rhyme’s Toxtricity paralyse you up there in Montenevera?” She calls, stopping and looking over her shoulder. There's a…a look in her eyes that you can't quite make out, but it makes your heart jackhammer just that little bit, especially when she turns and offers her hand “C’mon, let's get you home, yeah?”

You swallow the lump in your throat as you blink at her outstretched, gloved hand and then up at her smile.

Arceus, you were weak…how you ever made champion when you can’t even look the first of the Elite four in the eye without feeling your cheeks heat, you’ll never know.

Finally, you reach out and take her hand, not expecting her to tug you into her side, arm draping over your shoulders as she starts walking again, all but pulling you along with her. Her hand gives your shoulder a reassuring squeeze as she shares her body warmth with you on the trek down the mountainside towards the tunnel. For someone so slim, she was…much warmer than you expected, and you find yourself sleepily zoning out, simply focusing on one food in front of the other.

Thankfully, Rika was pretty alright with not needing to make small talk. This wasn’t the first time you had both just…existed in the same space in silence…to be fair the silence on your part before was because you had no idea how to talk to her without muddling your words like a lovestruck idiot, and perhaps that was still the case. Regardless, you play up the ‘tired’ aspect and simply bask in being close.

The unfortunate downside to the tunnel from Mesagoza up to the League headquarters, was the wind. Right now? Frigid and inhospitable, the icy chill stinging at your eyes, at least until your companion comes to your rescue, shifting you behind her taller frame and blocking the wind, hand moving from your shoulder to your hand, giving that same reassuring squeeze as she looks over her shoulder, small smile on her face.

You swear you can feel her thumb gently rubbing over your knuckles as she bends her arm behind her back to keep a secure hold on you.

Rika…she really was something else, something you didn’t deserve.

The moment the tunnel spits you both out into Mesagoza’s side streets, she takes an immediate right. Had you been walking home, you would have had to take a left and trudge all the way to the other side of the city, past the academy and almost to the pokemon centre by the west gate.

The flurry of snow was only getting worse, you can feel your clothes growing heavy and damp, and the concrete was getting slippery. Thankfully it’s not all that long before she tugs you into an apartment building and into a blessedly warm elevator. Holding you steady as your world begins to spin and blur at the edges. Perhaps you really had pushed it a bit too much today, hitting Cascarrafa, Glaseado and Montenevera in a single day…

“Hey.” Rika murmurs as your head rests against her shoulder “Stay with me, nearly there, kay? We’ll get you inside n’warmed up, yeah?”

“Mmh…kay..” you manage to mumble back, simply enjoying being held, even if it was light. Her arm wrapped around your torso as you just breath. She smells like Cedarwood…and maybe a hint of Ozone…might have something to do with her Camerupt… but it’s not an unwelcome scent at all. You only get a few moments to enjoy it before the elevator chimes, and you’re gently tugged out into, and down a hallway. Rika’s free hand fishing her keys from her pocket. She has to let you go to get the door open, muttering something about a stuck lock and needing to call maintenance, but with a bodily shove of her shoulder, the lock clicks and the door swings open.

Her apartment is blessedly warm, she must have left the heater on when she left for work this morning, because the warm air nearly takes you out before you even enter the door, needing to lean against the frame with a relieved sigh, knowing that even if you had made it home tonight, your heater had definitely not been on, and hadn't been for several days.

Rika only laughs softly, gently pulling you inside so she could close the door.

“Here…lets get you to the bathroom and into the shower…you’re absolutely freezing.” She mutters. Half-carrying you down the hall. Her apartment is…honestly what you expected. Neat enough, but not overly tidied. Lived in, comfortable, Inviting. Shades of soft greens and earthy tones scattered everywhere, a few large pokemon beds scattered about for her pokemon to enjoy outside of their balls. The only things really alluding to the fact that Rika was far more well off than most had to be the massive TV mounted to the living room wall, and what looked like one of the newer game consoles…the ones that had been super hard to get because of a manufacturing supply issue…fancy.

You don't quite register that she’s slowly pulling your clothes away from you until she’s already got your beanie, scarf and jacket off, each item thrown into her laundry hamper, at some point she’d also already started the shower for you, the room already beginning to fill with steam. You snap back to reality when theres a gently tug at the hem of your shirt, silently asking for your permission to remove it.

“O-oh, I uh…s-sorry…” you mumble, raising your arms above your head anyway, cheeks flushing pink with embarrassment as she pulls the item away, the tank top beneath still leaving you modest enough to not die on the spot. “I-I can handle it from here…”

“You sure?” she murmurs softly “S’no big deal to me.”

“Y-yeah…I’ll be fine…thanks.”

You watch as the tiniest hint of…disappointment? Flickers across her features…no, surely you were imagining…but she doesn’t push it any further.

“Alrighty, I’ll go find something you can wear for the night and then throw your clothes in the laundry once you’re in the shower, yeah?”

“Mm…t-thank you Rika…you really…you didn’t have to-” you mumble, unable to meet her gaze, but she just smiles and shrugs, her fingers slowly pushing a stray strand of hair out of your face.

“And what if I wanted to? You look like you need a break.” She retorts, sliding past you and continuing down the hall before you can reply.

Soon enough, the rest of your clothes join the laundry hamper and you slip into the shower, beneath the scalding spray and you want to cry all over again, your fingers begin to prick with pins and needles as they slowly regain feeling, serves you right for leaving your gloves at home.

A few minutes into your shower, you hear the distinctive, soft thud of cloth hitting the counter. “Here’s some jammies, sorry if they’re a bit big.” Rika chuckles before vanishing back down the hall. You almost don’t want to get out of the hot spray, especially not once you start giving yourself a good scrub down with whatever fancy-branded body wash she kept in here.

At least now you know what to buy that would make you smell like cedarwood…

After you feel the last of the day’s grime finally wash from your body, you shut off the water and poke your head out of the shower. Thankfully Rika had already left a towel waiting atop the clothes she’d sacrificed to you. It’s as you’re drying off that you finally get a good look in the mirror and…wow…

Now you think you understand why she’d been so concerned…you look like you had two black eyes, that's how tired you were…

–

You find Rika relaxing in the living room watching TV when you finally emerge, changed into a fresh set of long pyjamas and- you can’t even stop the giggle when you notice the clodsire slippers.

“Where on earth did you get those?” you ask, pointing to said slippers, earning a grin and a snicker from their wearer.

“Larry actually.” She chuckles “secret santa a couple years back.” With that, she pats the spot on the couch next to her, and you, now warm and content, plop down beside her without a second thought, leaning against the arm of the couch with a content sigh. “How’re you feelin?” she asks, idly flipping through the channels.

“Mmh…much better…thank you again…I…I don’t think I would have made it home…not in this weather.”

“Oh I coulda told you that, Honey. In fact I’m pretty sure I did.” She snickers, her lips quirking at the side when she notes the way your cheeks flush pink at the pet name. “I’ve ordered some takeout, s’too cold to go out n’ grab food...and I’m usually too beat after work to bother cooking.”

“Then how the hell do you stay so skinny?” You snicker at her, receiving a wink in response.

“Oh I take my cardio seriously.” is all the response she gives before she finally decides there is nothing decent on regular TV, and switches over to a streaming service, throwing on some random popular movie.

Once again, you both settle into a comfortable silence, Rika rising from the couch half an hour in to fetch the dinner left at her door before returning, at some point with a blanket in tow. You sit up a little as she places the food on the coffee table and plops down right beside you this time, draping the blanket over both your laps. It’s not until you take the first mouthful of that delightful galarian curry, that you realise just how hungry you are, barely paying attention to the movie as you scarf down your meal, fighting back tears at Rika’s acts of kindness for the third time today, and only seemingly taking a breath once you’ve finished your meal, leaning back into the arm of the couch with a content sigh, only to squeak when Rika finishes her own a few minutes later and bodily leans into your side, head to your chest and arms slowly wrapping around your torso as she pulls her legs up and gets comfortable beside you with a content huff.

Arceus she was just so…so handsome, breathtaking… and she was just…cuddling you like you’d both been doing this kind of thing for years… it was sudden, but it didn’t feel wrong…and slowly, you bring your arm down from where it had been splayed along the back of the couch, to gently card through her hair, pulling some of her bangs from her face and tucking them behind her ear.

“Hmm…you should get some sleep, kiddo…arceus knows you need it.” She hums, glancing up at you from her spot on your chest. You know she’s right, and she doesn’t complain when you shift, even reaching behind her to hand you an extra cushion to tuck behind your head as you lay out along the couch, Rika coming to rest between your legs, head once again leaning onto your chest, her extra warmth and weight just adding another layer of comfort as you both go back to watching the movie.

Now usually, usually you were the kind of person who could drop off watching a movie quite easily. But on very rare occasions, you would find yourself struck with bouts of insomnia, and unfortunately for you, they always seemed to happen after periods of prolonged stress.

Like needing to go and personally make sure every gym was up to standards…

Before you even knew it, the credits begin to roll, you’re exhausted, but offensively awake, to the point where even Rika is surprised, blinking those beautiful crimson eyes up at you.

“Can’t sleep?” she asks with a tilt of her head.

“Sometimes Insomnia is a bitch.” You concede, she makes a noise of understanding.

“Ah, yeah…I know that feeling…” she admits, staring up at you, to the point you feel your cheeks heating again, and you avert your gaze “but, thankfully, I know the best solution for that.” She adds, shimmying to push herself up on her hands and knees, looming over you, some of her hair, having been free’d of its usual ponytail, cascading over her shoulders to tickle at your face.

“O-oh? And…what might that be?” that look in her eyes is back, the one you couldn’t quite read properly back at HQ, but here, with her inches from your face? It’s loud and clear.

Hunger.

“Do you trust me?” She asks, her lips quirking into a smirk as you shrink beneath her.

“W-would I have followed you home if I hadn’t?” you manage to squeak back at her, nowhere near as confident and commanding as it had sounded in your head. It’s enough to make her chuckle, and you watch in a daze as she licks her lips, a single hand coming up to softly grip your chin, lifting your face.

“Hm, touche…” and with that, her lips are on yours, she swallows the squeaking gasp that you let out, taking the opportunity of your mouth being open to send her tongue in to explore. To you it feels like electricity, like you’d just taken a thunderbolt to the senses; She’s soft, gentle, probing, gauging your reactions. Apparently she must have liked what she got, because she deepens the kiss, nipping at your lips as one hand tangles in your hair, rougher. You like this a bit better.

You’re the one who needs to come up for air first, pulling your face away with a loud, breathless gasp as you try to catch your breath.

The look you find waiting for you is…predatory, is the only word that comes to mind, and if it wasn’t for the fact she was already between your knees, you’d be squeezing your thighs together so tight, because it’s doing something…funny to your insides.

“Hmm…you ever done anything like…this before?” She asks, voice low and husky and you’re very ready to pass away, but you manage a shake of your head and the grin you get in response?

It’s like a Mightyena who’s just found it’s lunch. She was going to eat you, and she was going to enjoy every second of it.

“Well then, we’d best move…couch sex is great n’ all, but I’d rather your first time be somewhere a little more comfortable.” she remarks, pulling away. You whine at the loss of her extra warmth, but that whine quickly turns to a yelp when she takes your arm and drags you up with a strength she hadn’t shown you before. Always full of tricks, Rika was.

The admittedly short trek down the hall to her room is…hindered. Every few steps you’d find yourself pressed against the wall, Rika towering over you as hands tangle in your hair and lips crash to yours as she steals what little breath you manage to catch before you’re separating, taking a couple more steps and repeating the process.

Right outside the bedroom door, the slim trainer actually lifts you up the wall a ways, enough so that your legs instinctively wrap around her waist, nothing but her pyjama pants and the thin boxer’s you’d borrowed off her keeping you apart, but already entirely too much clothing in the way. You moan loudly when she rolls her hips into yours, the sensations all new and overwhelming, but you don't think you’ve ever felt this good before in your life.

Her hands find your ass as she pulls back from the wall, holding you to her firmly as you both finally stumble into her room, only given a second to brace before she’s throwing you down into the blankets, and even less time before she’s on you, grinning and hungry as hands fly up your top, pushing it up your chest so she can finally access some skin.

“A-ah! Rika-” her name was lost on her for the time being, far too engrossed in leaving open mouthed kisses along your chest and stomach, mouth latching over one of your nipples while her hand works at the other. Your own hands twisting and clenching at her blanket, your squirming only made worse when she shifts again, her knee pressing between your legs and right against your aching cunt.

At some point, she manages to wrangle the top off you completely, throwing it to the void so her hands can explore the expanse of your chest properly, she leaves no patch of skin untouched, no freckle or blemish uncharted, and when your whining begins to pitch as the nipple she sucks on becomes too sensitive, she gets go, only to latch to your collar bone instead, hands roaming your body.

You let out an embarrassingly pitiful mewl when her fingers dip beneath the waistband of your borrowed boxers, and you immediately bring a hand up to cover your mouth. Rika, apparently, doesn’t like that. Her hand retreating from its place as she props herself on the other, pulling away entirely, even shifting her knee back, depriving you of that delicious friction. Your hand is tugged away from your mouth and pinned to your side, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

“Don’t.” She scolds quietly “I wanna hear you.”

“B-but-”

“Don’t be a brat.” she interjects, eyes flashing dangerously “I know that aint’ you… you wanna be a good girl, yeah?”

Oh.

Oh no.

That shouldn’t have such an effect on you.

There’s no hiding it from Rika either. Her smirk widens as she stares smugly down at your trembling frame.

“Oh? You like that huh? Well then, are you gonna be a good girl and do as I say?” she hums “I’ll make sure you feel real good, yeah?”

“M-mhm…” is all you manage to squeak out, earning a raised eyebrow.

“What was that? Didn’t quite hear you there, princess.” Rika snickers. She knows exactly what she’s doing, and the humiliation burns your ears and makes your insides squirm in a way you didn’t think would feel as good as it did.

“I-I’ll be good…” you whisper, your hands twisting into the sheets as Rika hums, leaning down to press a chaste kiss to your burning cheek.

“That’s a good girl.” she purrs “you just relax n��let me handle things, kay?”

You actually sigh into the kiss when she does finally return to what she was doing, your arms wrapping over her shoulders as she shifts back into place, hands lightly roaming your skin, teasing and testing sensitive spots, occasionally getting a little rougher, just enough to rile you a little more, before settling again. Before she can get back into your pants however, you tug at her shirt, whining into her mouth; thankfully, Rika is smart, she gets your hint and pulls away just long enough to tug her top off.

Her skin is soft, smooth, a few burn scars and claw marks here and there as she settles beside you, one of your thighs caught between her knees as she wraps an arm under your shoulders, pulling you close to her chest as the other hand grazes southward, she doesn't dally once her fingers breech the waistband of your boxers, quickly locating the sticky mess between your thighs with a pleased hum.

“Mmm, look at that…” she hums as a pair of fingers easily delve through your pussy, retracting from your boxers entirely so she can admire the glistening slick dripping from her fingers. “You’re so wet already, honey…” Rika makes sure you watch as she pops those two fingers into her mouth and you squeak, face burning in embarrassment.

She doesn’t give you much time to react, the moment she pulls those slender fingers from her lips, she shifts, your boxers are wrenched off and you’re left bare before her as she parts your knees to settle on her belly between your thighs, eyes flashing devilishly in the low light, and hot breath ghosting over your most sensitive parts.

“R-Rika-”

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to get you into my bed.” She rasps between open-mouthed kisses along your thighs, arms wrapping around to keep yout hips in place as she takes her sweet time. “When was it… mmh, yeah I think it was…two years ago? Koraidon suddenly came out of his ball all sorry lookin’ in the middle of a meeting…”

Oh Arceus, you remember that meeting… Perhaps you’d been a little soft with Koraidon…he’d learnt that if he looked sorry enough, you’d make him a sandwich… but it was getting awfully hard to focus when a warm tongue suddenly licks a flat stripe into your cunt, and lips seal around your clit, shocking you from your thoughts as her strong hands prevent you from accidentally crushing her head with your thighs.

“Without even stopping to think, you got up n’ you got him what he needed.” she whispers into your thigh once she finally pulls away “middle of a meetin… n’ heres our newest champion, making a sandwich for her pokemon.” she chuckles “I dunno…something about how casually you just…did that…I’ve wanted this ever since but Geeta’s always had you running all over the place, pinning you down has always been impossible…least until today.”

“Rika…”

“You’re always doing everything for everyone else… you deserve to relax.” For a brief moment, she flashes you a genuine smile, not a hint of that handsome smirk that you’re so used to; just genuine warmth before she tugs you down by your hips and returns her mouth to you, long strokes of her tongue between your folds that leave any words dead in your throat, and your hands tangling in her hair for any semblance of control. You didn’t want to hurt her, but when she sucks harshly on your clit, you cry out and yank on her hair a little harder than you’d meant to, any apology dying when she groans and shudders, her eyes rolling back for a moment.

“You’re killin me, kid.” She sighs in the brief moment she brings herself to separate from you “keep doin that and you might end up in trouble.”

It sounds like a threat… but the way she suddenly looks so…debauched, has you tugging at her silky hair again when a pair of fingers slowly begin to prod at your core, spurring her on as you squirm and mewl.

Eventually, you feel something deep in your belly, different from before, something building that has your breath coming harshly as you try to squirm away, stopped by a firm hand pressing just below your navel.

“R-rika-! s-somethings…I-I feel-” you whimper as the pressure builds, you expect her to pull away in concern, but her eyes flash with realisation, and she only seems to double down, her long, slender fingers curling inside of you and brushes against…something. Something that has you nearly scream her name as that pressure snaps and your world turns white, fingers curling harshly into her hair.

Somewhere, through the haze, you feel a weight resting on you, and a hand resting on your cheek, but it takes a little longer for your ears to finally stop ringing and realise Rika was gently calling your name.

“There you are..” She chuckles softly as you finally remember how to uncross your eyes and look at her. “That looked intense…you ok?”

“Uh…uh-huh…” you respond dumbly, resting your cheek against her hand “what…what was that..?”

Rika’s lips pull into a thin, concerned line as her brows furrow.

“They really didn’t teach sex-ed at the academy, did they?” She asks.

“I-I mean…they did…s’just…basic..” you mumble as you slowly come down from…whatever high that just was.

“Obviously.” she sighs with a shake of her head “Was that seriously your first orgasm?”

Oh.

“oh…I uh…yeah…I guess it was.” and the humiliation was back. You knew what an orgasm was in theory…you’d just..never bothered to try it yourself.

“Well…I suppose I should count myself honoured then.” She snickers, leaning in to kiss at your undoubtedly sweaty forehead. “Couple more of those N’ I think you’ll be sleeping like a Komala.”

“M-more…?” you whisper, she laughs, catching your wide-eyed expression.

“Oh yeah, that was just foreplay, sweet thing…you did so well.”

And the praise was back, despite the way your joints feel molten hot, you still manage to squirm beneath her.

“I- s-should I…um…h-help you now?” your question is barely a whisper, all nerves…you have no idea how she did what she did but it felt…wrong to take and not give.

But Rika only shakes her head.

“What’d I say before?” she chides, slowly sitting back on her knees “Your one job tonight is to relax…I’ve got you.”

“But…what about you-”

“Don’t you worry about me. I’ll get off eventually.” She chuckles, smirking when you sigh and relent. “I want one more outta you before then though.” She mumbles as she shifts out from between your knees, sitting and reaching for her bedside table as you stare at the ceiling, basking in the shaky afterglow.

“D-did you…mean what you said before?” you mumble more at the ceiling than anything “that you’ve been…waiting for this..?”

“What reason do I have to lie to you?” She chuckles as she fiddles with…whatever she’s fiddling with. “You earned my respect the day you beat me when you first took on the Elite four, my admiration when you beat Geeta and became a champion…”

“God…those stupid glasses haunt me.” you snicker, remembering rather vividly being sat, alone in a room with Rika when you had first taken on the league, you’d read up plenty on other pokemon leagues in other regions, but never once had any of them had an interview-style exam right at the start.

“Hey, I like my glasses, thank you very much!” Rika snorts as she finally shifts back over, pulling you close with one arm as something…new slides between your legs, a quick glance and- oh.

You never really took Rika for the kind to own toys…but…at the same time, you never really gave it much thought. It’s nothing extreme, but to you, who’s never had anything other than a pair of slender fingers inside you very recently, the silicone toy is still rather intimidating.

“This ok?” She asks, mouthing at your neck and shoulder “if you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”

“I…I do..just..nervous is all.”

“Mmh, good girl, so trusting…” there she goes again with the pet name that makes you shiver, not helped by the cold press of lubricated silicone against your still-sensitive cunt, gently pressing just that little bit further as Rika mouths your neck, nibbling down on the juncture between throat and shoulder, an adequate distraction as she pulls your leg out of the way with her own and sinks the toy in, slowly, almost tender as she coos comforts, coaxing you to relax, praise falling from her easily.

“Look at that, you took it so well.” She praises once the toy reaches the hilt “fuck, you’re making me regret not buying a harness… might just have to pick one up so I can fuck you proper, yeah?”

You can't even bring yourself to respond to her dirty talk, blinking hazily downwards as you gently press a hand just below your belly-button, taking the hint, Rika pulls the toy almost all the way out and then thrusts it back in. The feeling of it inside you, plus being able to feel it beneath your hand makes you moan loud and long, head falling back against the pillows as Rika lets you go, using her now free arm to prop herself up to watch you as she begins rhythmically working the dildo in and out of you, a small shift of her thumb has it brushing against your clit every time she sinks the silicone back into you, only adding to the layers of pleasure as your toes curl and your legs twitch.

“Look at you taking it like you were made for this, good girl.” she purrs, licking at her lips “I really shoulda found another reason to get you alone waaay before now.”

“Ungh…please…p-please…more…” It takes more than you feel like it should to beg, good as it felt, you’re worried that Rika was perhaps treating you just a little too softly. “Rika please…please please pleas-”

“Woah there, settle down baby.” She whispers, kissing at your cheek “Lookit you, telling me what you want like a good girl…who am I to deny the champion?”

Your attempt at telling her she didn’t need to use your title is quickly drowned out when she sits up, plunging the toy deeper inside of you with this new angle, brushing up against that one spot that had triggered your last orgasm. Her free hand pins your chest down as she smiles down at you, predatory and hungry for your reactions as she ups the pace, occasionally stopping to really grind the toy deep inside of you, right against that sensitive spot that has your voice pitch higher while you grip at Rika’s hand like your life depended on it.

As your next orgasm draws closer, you whimper, tugging at her hand, overstimulated ,overwhelmed, knowing you needed something, but not quite sure what that something was. At least until Rika pulls you to sit up, not even interrupting her pace as she braces you against her chest so you can hide your face away into the crook of her neck. All the while she mutters praise and pet names into your ear. She groans when that knot snaps for the second time tonight and you cry her name into her throat. You don’t pass out like you’re pretty sure you did last time at least, but as the shocks of pleasure begin to fade out, you really do begin to feel the pull of exhaustion behind your eyes as you slump against Rika’s shoulder, whimpering quietly when she slowly pulls the toy from your sensitive core, feeling the way your muscles involuntarily clench around it.

“How was that, baby? You doin alright?” She asks, gently tossing the toy back towards the bedside table as she turns her attention back to you. You were dizzy, dazed, and exhausted, yet through all that one thought still persisted.

She’d been doing all of this for you, and she still had her goddamn pants on.

Her breath hitches when your hand drops to her thighs, pressing beneath the waistband as you try to swallow down your nervousness to return the favour properly, biting your lip as you find the slick, wet mess already waiting for you; in a way, it was comforting to know that she was in fact, turned on by all of this. You’re clumsier than Rika at this, inexperienced and nervous, but you listen as she lets out a shuddering breath, her head leaning against yours for a moment as you slowly gain some confidence. That is until she grabs your wrist, ignoring your whine as she pulls your hand away and lays you back down, taking a moment to kiss any air out of your lungs, trying to calm your fraying nerves at being denied the chance to please her.

“Hey… It’s ok sweetie.” She murmurs against your lips, uncaring of your wide-eyed pout “One more…”

“Nooo.” you whine, wiggling in her grip “I cant…s’too much Rika…” truly, you didn't think you could take another, no matter how good it felt, the first two had been so intense, but Rika only smiles.

“I know you can give me one more, sweet girl.” she purrs, watching as you squirm and shake your head like you could actually deny her. “Will you stop being a brat if I told you this one will also get me off?”

At that, your squirming stops as you blink tiredly up at her, earning a chuckle and a fond shake of her head.

“R-really?”

“Yeah, s’nice n easy on you too…you wanna try?”

You seriously doubted she could get another out of you, hell, you seriously doubted you could stay awake for much longer, her initial plan definitely working…but if it brought her pleasure too…

“O-ok…I’ll try…”

“That’s my girl.” She whispers softly, pressing just as soft a kiss to your lips “Lay back for me, princess.”

You do just that, shifting a few pillows to get comfortable, if you thought your joints ached before, now you felt like you've made the trip to the three final gyms today on foot…perhaps you should make Koraidon his favourite sandwich as thanks for carrying you around all day.

You feel Rika take hold of one of your legs, lifting it so your knee bends over her shoulder as she settles into place, finally free of her own bottoms as she slots her pelvis against yours. You gasp at the feeling of your cores pressing together. It felt…soft, but almost way more intimate and intense than anything she’d done to you prior…whatever she was doing, definitely wasn’t covered in any sex-ed class you’d taken back in school.

You’re about to ask, when she rolls her hips and oh-

Perhaps it was your already overstimulated state, or just the position itself, but as she slowly grinds herself against you, the friction leaves you breathless, even more so when you look at Rika’s face. Her brow is furrowed in deep concentration as she bites at her bottom lip, face contorting in pleasure as she groans into your knee, her nails digging into the soft flesh of your thigh as she rolls her hips just a little harder, the pain only adding to the sensation.

“S-shit…” she pants, “fuck you feel so good…good girl..” she moans, head tilting back as she stares up at the ceiling, shuddering when you whimper and lift your hips as she rolls down again, sending another jolt of pleasure through you both. “That’s it princess, j-just like that… you’re gettin real good at this…”

Her words of pleasured praise do…something else to you, sparking that last bit of energy you had left to life as you continue to try and keep rhythm with her, grinding together slow and deep and watching in awe as the first member of the elite four comes apart in front of you for the first time, her sounds going from quite whispers to long moans and pleasured keens.

“Rika- R-rika…” you pant “mmf-fuck… can’t believe it’s taken this long..” the words are out of your mouth before you have the forethought to think about them “I’ve had the stupidest crush on you since we first met back when I was taking the gym challenge… you were so- ah! H-handsome and intimidating…I…thought you were a-a man and nearly called you S-sir-”

“FUCK-” her shout actually makes you jolt, and you realise she’s cumming, cunt grinding deliciously into your own as she bites down on your leg, the sudden extra jolt of pleasure-pain sending you over the edge as well with an open-mouthed scream.

Somewhere in the haze before you pass out, you make a mental note to try calling Rika ‘sir’ next time…if there was a next time.

–

It’s light out when you wake the next morning, blinking sleep from your eyes as you look out the window.

Seems the snow had only picked up during the night, most of which you don't remember after…well, everything. Save for a straw in your mouth, Rika’s gentle voice coaxing a few sips of fluid into you, and a damp cloth wiping you down, hushing your overstimulated whimpers of protest.

Somehow she’d even managed to get you dressed again without waking you…you must have crashed hard. Yet the thing that sticks out to you is that the bed is severely lacking in another body, Rika nowhere to be found.

At first, a pit of worry sows itself into your gut. Had she gone to sleep on the couch after all that? Had she had second thoughts-

A clatter from down the hall, and her warm laughter however, abate that somewhat.

“You’re such an ungainly thing.” you hear her snicker “Hold on a second it’s nearly done, needy lizard.”

Koraidon’s telltale ‘i'm hungry and sad, feed me’ whine quickly turns to happy chirping at the promise of food, his head turning to the hallway as you shuffle out of bed, blanket and all to trudge down the hall. happily leaving Rika to her business as he trots over to greet you, shoving his massive snout right into your belly.

“See? All your complainin’ woke her up!” Rika snorts, resting a hand on her hip. “N’here i was trying to make you breakfast before you woke up…”

Your cheeks heat a little at the sentiment.

“Keyword is try…good luck getting any cooking past Koraidon…” you mumble softly, petting said pokemon’s head feathers down as the other trainer leaves the kitchen, pressing a soft kiss to your temple.

“Well, initially I’d enlisted him to help, but that turned out to be a bust..” She snickers. “G’mornin.”

“M-morning..”

Rika tilts her head at you with an amused grin “aw, actin all shy after everything that happened last night?” she muses, chuckling when all the response you give is a slightly redder face before you drop your head into Koraidon’s feathers. Her amusement soon melts away as a warm, now intimately familiar hand, comes to rest on your back.

“Hey…” she sighs “I enjoyed myself last night… I hope you did too…”

“I-I did… its just…I…” you nibble at your bottom lip, unable to come up with the words to describe how you’re feeling. Giddy and nervous, emotional and excited, all wrapped up into one package.

Thankfully, your companion seems to take it in stride, pressing another kiss to your temple before she returns to the kitchen.

“Oh by the way.” She pipes up after a moment. “Geeta called this morning…snow’s a little too heavy today so HQ’s shut…looks like we have a long weekend.”

Oh, an extra day off? That's probably the best news you could have gotten today, considering your legs were still shaking like a newborn deerling…

“Nice..” you giggle, slowly shuffling towards the couch, pulling her blanket up over your shoulders as you flop down by the arm and get cozy.

“Thats what I said.” She snickers, soon joining you with a hot plate of food. If you’d thought the galarian curry last night had been good, this trumped it, your body screaming for food after last night’s exertion.

“Y’know, if you want…you’re more than welcome to crash here for the weekend…” Rika throws the offer casually as she eats, content smile upon her face as she watches you from the corner of her eye “Snow’s only gotten heavier since yesterday, n’I don't wantcha getting hurt tryina get home..”

This time, you can hear the intent behind her words, the intent you couldn’t read yesterday as you turn your head towards the window, to the almost whiteout of Masagoza. You contemplate the offer as you polish off your breakfast, placing the plate on the coffee table before you, watching as Koraidon happily trots up to lick the plate clean with a happy chirp.

“Hmmm…well, if you’re happy to have me…who am I to say no…sir.” you know it’s cheeky, you know it’s going to end badly for you, but watching Rika’s face suddenly go from cool, calm and collected, to beet red is totally worth it before she shoves the last mouthful of her own food into her mouth, slamming the plate onto the table before she grabs you by the collar of your shirt and hauls you up.

You cackle all the way down the hall as she all but drags you back to the bedroom.

You were in for a long weekend indeed.

#pokemon scarlet and violet x reader #Rika x reader #elite four rika x reader #Rika x reader smut

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neon-moon-beam · 1 month

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I started reorganizing my Pokemon cards today and decided to continue in the middle of the night because I was up. I have a bunch of cards I acquired in recent years at cons, a certain fast food joint that gave them away in kid's meals, local shops that sell cards (really useful for just getting favorites), one person gave me a Trick or Trade pack last Halloween because I was Mimikyu, and then somehow I was given a bunch of Trick or Trade card packs after Halloween? I also retrieved my cards that I got mostly in 1999-2001 within the last year.

I was trying to figure out how to organize them and because so many Pokemon aren't the same type from card to card (and the types are simplified for the game), I'm just going to have pages of my favorites, and then go in numerical order, and keep legendaries, trainers, etc separate at the end.

Also found with my old cards were these other Pokemon trading cards depicting scenes from the anime and the first movie, or cards just depicting the Pokemon on the front with stats on the back. I'm not sure what the latter really were, and they seem to have been discontinued fairly quickly, likely because most people who wanted Pokemon cards wanted the official game (even though a lot of us collecting cards weren't actually playing the card game!). While they were certainly cards meant to be collected and traded with friends, they weren't what people thought of when they thought of "Pokemon cards".

I know I have the Team Rocket expansion deck from the year 2000 still in the (beat up) box, packed away with my anime figurines. I could add the cards to my new binder but I feel like leaving them as-is for now. I know I took the coins out (they're in my first binder) because they have Meowth on them, and I took out the Here Comes Team Rocket! card and put it in an additional plastic sleeve before I'd put it in my first binder because they were my favorite characters. I might have pulled a Meowth card out of the deck but I'm not totally sure. Either way, I know I begged for the deck because I loved Team Rocket, even though I didn't play the card game.

#moonbeam's personal posts

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sonicasura · 3 months

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Trainer: Nothing like the cool wind hitting your face, eh Pidgeot.

The giant bird pokemon let out a chirp of it's own name as the duo flew through the night skies of Japan. Taking the time to admire the faint glow of the towers and buildings that rose above the city that one could see for miles. It was an amazing sight to behold especially when you and your pokemon could easily rise above the cloud to look at the city in it entirety. It really was abeautiful sight, getting to see all the cities landmarks, beautiful flora, That Captain lady staring right at Trainer and Pidgeot....... wait that last one didn't sound right.

The duo snapped there heads back to were the Captain of the 3rd Division stood along with there Tiger Companion. Now thankfully there was quite a bit of distance from the two as they were sailing through the sky and even though Mina was on a roof of a tall building the distance was still great. Though not great enough as Mina's shout reached the duo's ears.

Mina: Please come down, I just wish to talk to you!

Now that was a bit unexpected especially considering how the last time went, but now she wanted to have an actual conversation. After a quick discussion with Pidgeot ( after years with a pokemon you learn to understand them a lot) the decision was unanimous.

The duo would have a conversation with the Captain.

Mina didn't expect her plea to work and the kid to agree, if their descent towards her and Bakko was anything to go by. After their first encounter with each other, she expected the youth to be scared and avoid her at all costs. Thankfully they accepted her olive branch she was holding out, fostering goodwill and getting the duo back to base with her was Mina's top priority. It's why she didn't shot at the duo, that along with her 2 other reasons, of shoting act the strange bird Kaiju would injure the child and the other was the fact that the bird Kaiju showed no signs of agression from any of the Defense Force reports unless provoked.

The beat of wings made her sharpen her focus as the strange duo land a fair distance away. Alright this was her chance to convince them.

Mina: Hello there, allow me to introduce my self. I am Mina Ashiro and next to me is my companion Bakko. If you are comfortable with it, would you mind sharing your name?

The duo looked at each other and began talking to each other though not loud enough for her to hear from her current position.

Trainer: My name is Trainer, and my friend's name is Pidgeot. If you don't mind me asking why did you flag us down to talk to us?

The kid's name is Trainer and the Kaiju is named Pidgeot, alright now to see if she can convince them.

Mina: I would like if you and your Kai- friend came with me back to the Defense Force. It's not safe being on a battle field where Kaiju can strike at any minute especially for someone as young as you. So please, take my offer and come back to the Defense Force base.

Trainer: Ummm, listen I appreaciate that your worried for my safety, but don't be. I * turns to stare at Pidgeot* I have my friends to help me and when we're together no one can take us down. So thank you for concerning yourself over me, but I'll be oookay. Also sorry, but I have to cut this conversation short. I've been out for awhile and the others will start to worry.

Readjusting there helmet, they gave Pidgeot the command to fly and quickly rose to the skies. Mina wanted to say stop and that it wasn't safe for them, but knew that they wouldn't budge from this conversation and change there mind.

Trainer: HEYYYY, CATCH!!!

Looking up they saw the kid toss something down to Mina, which she adeptly caught, which on a closer look was a big blue berry-like fruit.

Trainer: I FIGURE A LITTLE SNACK WOULD HELP LIGHTEN THE MOOD, I KNOW YOU'LL LOVE THE TASTE OF AN ORAN BERRY, BYEEEE!!!

Shouted the rapidly retreating form of Trainer and Pidgeot.

Mina may not have been able to bring them back to base, but if the strange fruit in her hands was anything to go by it was fruitful.

She definitely perked up by Trainer mentioning others. Could there be more strange Kaiju with them? Also that Oran Berry definitely sent over for a quick analysis.

The results shocking for the Science Department as the item contained minor healing and energy restoration properties. Seeds were taken with hopes to grow more although Mina made sure she at least eaten a piece. (It would've felt rude not to.)

She did indeed enjoy the Oran Berry.

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harufallinwonderland · 6 months

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THE BRAINROT IS REAL!

CURETIEL TIME (how many fanfics have it been now 3?) @shinysparklesapphires

Here the ocs but this time PLOT TWIST

Curetiel IN POKEMON engough said.

Not much to say besides LETS GET THIS STARTED

——————————————————————————

Title: WAKE UP

The sun rises on the wonderland region with all the corviknights and pidgeys chirping and flying around and the kricketots playing there music waking up the people of the Sage town which has become A routine for the town’s morning well besides one person.

The young man Ink lays on his bed his Persian at the foot of his bed resting both completely ignorant to all the noise of the morning outside well untill Persian opens one of its eyes seeing A familiar white hair man walk into the room with his chandelure floating infront of him which leaves the Persian yawning before getting out of bed wanting to avoid being caught in the way of Ink’s daily wake up freak out.

The chandelure floats above Ink and making its flame grow brighter lighting up the room which in return Ink slightly opens his eyes looking at the chandelure like A grumpy night owl would to the sun and then to his “best friend” sitting on the corner of his bed fully dressed “hey Ink time to wake up” Marble says lightly uncovering Ink from his blanket before he could cover his head in protest.

Ink looks to the digital clock right besides him and tries to stop himself from having A heart attack “CRAP I’M GONNA BE LATE FOR WORK” he quickly got up nearly kicking Marble off the bed as A side thing as he ran to the bathroom to get ready and Marble just sighing heading back to there living room

A little while later Ink was in the living room in his gym leader clothes as Marble was brushing Ink’s Persian’s fur A big plate of eggs and bacon on the table and chandelure “BEFORE THAT I GOT T-“

“I already have all your Pokémon fed and all your gym trainers are at the gym ready for when you arrive also there a lot of trainers in town today so I made you A bigger breakfast than normal just in case you have lunch late”

“OH THANK YOU SO MUCH MARBLE” Ink says chomping through his breakfast and Marble finishing brushing Persian as thanks Persians rubs up on Marble’s hand with he responds with pets.

Ink finishes his breakfast getting up grabbing his poke balls running outside returning all of his Pokémon that hang outside in there poke balls besides Persian who was running with him making A b line straight to his gym with Marble with him as well and his chandelure floating right with them.

“Any idea how many challengers they are today!?”

“About 7 I have already scheduled each match for today with engough time for A short rest and some time at the end of the day for any last second challengers”

“Have I ever told you how screwed I would be without you and how much you mean to me Marble?” Ink says to Marble with A big grin on his face as they run.

“Yes everyday Ink although I am not saying I have A problem with it” Marble smiles back with A flight blush on his face.

—————————————————————————-

“Wild cat chase”

“Congrats kid you have beaten me amazing effort I can tell your on your way to great things here is your first gym badge the Sage town gym bag” Ink kneels down to A girl with brown hair handing her A small charm with wings at the side betraying the gym’s dark type theme.

The girl smiles taking the gym badge smiling as her growlithe tackles her “yes yes you did wonderful Komugi” the girl picks up her dog and bows to Ink as she walks out the gym and Marble walking up to Ink “seemed like A strong girl huh?”

“Yeah her and that growlithe were super strong out of those two pure will power and bond could probably could beat my 2nd badge team” Ink says waving the girl goodbye and then stretching returning the two Pokémon he used for the battle back to there poke balls while doing so.

“Anyway despite lunch being A hour late it’s still impressive you got through all the planned trainers today” Marble pats Ink on the back as they walk to the front of the gym telling all the gym trainers it’s break time.

“Yeah well there was A surpriseing amout of less experienced trainers today nobody above 4 gym badges although they wore out my teams for sure” Ink says sitting on A nice table that was in front of the gym as Marble puts some plates on the table then going to Ink’s pokemon to give them there food.

It was silent for A while Ink eating peacefully and Marble soon joining watching the town they live in go about there daily lives from there gym which were at the outskirts of town untill they saw familar faces “Oh Vivienne,Yuuki hiya!” Which catches the two girl’s attention.

They both approach the green hair girl Vivienne in some gothic lite clothes that seem impractical for A journey but she seems fine with her espeon next to her which has A dark bow on its ear and A blue hair girl with fake ears from A cat like Pokémon Ink can’t pinpoint right now and her meowstic next to them nibbling on A treat “Oh hiya Nya” the blue hair girl Yuuki greeted them with.

“So what brings you two into town?” marble asks taking A bite of his food after finishing.

“Out to challenge me for my gym badge?” Ink says seeming to be ready for the challenge already but Vivienne just nodding no “no not yet my pride would not survive if I didn’t challenge you when you can go full power at your 8th badge team” she says with A slight glare to Ink.

“We heard they were kanto meowths around the area and I wanna catch one nya” Yuuki interrupted before things can get tense which Marble silently thanks her for “yeah we were going for my next gym badge but Sage town was just A quick detour away so we are stopping by to feed Yuuji’s addiction to cat pokemon” Viv says which caught Marble’s ear not used to her groaning every sentence.

“Oh I can help you with that plus I wanted to catch one myself could be A nice bud for Persian” Ink says pointing at his Persian that was currently taking A nap on A cat bed near the table “well why don’t you join us for lunch I have left overs from making lunch you two can have” Marble offers before catching Yuuki’s gaze looking to his right in which he sees A kanto meowth in the forest near by stalking them before retreating back in with Yuuki and her Meowstic chasing it.

“Or maybe not” Marble mumbled “HEY WAIT FOR ME” Ink yells stuffing his face full of food before grabbing some poke balls running after them his Persian quickly waking up running with him.

“Idoits both of them” Vivienne mumbles out and Marble nods “but they’re our idoits”

In the forest Ink had trouble keeping up with Yuuki who moved so much like A cat despite being human and her meowstic that used its physic powers to either float through or blow away obstacles which in turn helped Ink clearly room for him and his Persians to run.

It was A constant chase untill Yuuki tripped on A branch from A tree she was planning to jump the meowth from leaving Ink running to catch her along with her meowstic and his Persian still chasing the meowth.

“Are you ok Yuuki?” Ink asks with Yuuki in his arms which she quickly jumps out from “yeah nya is fine but how do we find the meowth now nya?” She says sad that she didn’t catch the beige feline but Ink pats her on the back “hey my Persian was chasing it I’m sure if we walk engough we can find them” Ink says trying to cheer Yuuki up as said girl just nods proceeding to walk the same direction ink and Meowstic following.

They walked in silence for A bit before Yuuki spoke “so how been things with you and Marble nya?” She asks not making direct eye contact looking around.

“Well we have been fine last week he ha-”

“No I mean anything changed with your…relationship nya”

“Uh no why would you think that Marble is my best friend” after those words Yuuki just felt glad Marble wasn’t there to hear those words or else that would have probably been A clear stab to the heart for him.

“Yeah A friend you have been living with since you two turned 18 3 years ago yeah the bestest of friends” Yuuki rolls her eyes at Inks words as Ink gives A genuine nod making Yuuki regret mentioning this at all.

“He is my everything after all” and just like that Yuuki wanted to scream for Marble who probably hear this stuff everyday

—————————————————————————

Marble pours some tea into A fancy black cup for Vivienne who was sitting in Ink’s seat “well thanks marble” Vivienne says taking A sip after munching on her cupcake A bit and Marble just smiling sitting in his seat.

“I swear what is taking those two so long it doesn’t take that long to catch such A weak Pokémon” Vivienne complains through drinking her tea and Marble just chuckles agreeing with her but more out of concern rather than annoyance “well maybe the meowth tricked them” Marble chuckles out while Vivi just nods in A way that just drips of sarcasm despite not uttering A word.

“Well anyway I have A question for you Marble?” She placed her elbow on the table leaning her head on her hand and Marble raises A eye brow “yeah what’s wrong?” He asked but the smirk that grows on Vivienne’s face made him instantly regret it.

“So how been you and Ink been going?” She asked snickering which gets A glare from Marble “mind clarifying What you mean by that?” Marble asks in A stern tone to get her to back off but all she does is smirk more “on don’t play dumb how are you and Ink doing you two slow dancing in the moonlight yet, one room one bed situation come on”

“That’s engough out of you…there is nothing going on” Marble says taking A bite out of his sandwich which made his words come out more as A grumble then his normal polite tone “well why not come on just confess already your bassicly his spouse at this point he would be FUCKED without you and you know that”

“Yes I know but….i just don’t want to ruin everything….i mean he is my everything” Marble says looking away not wanting to confront Vivienne’s smirk but instead of that she had A sympathetic smile before she noticed what she was doing then going back to her smirk “weird that seems like something A certain someone else says a lot huh?”

Marble couldn’t bring out A physical response like he knew he had no out of this conversation that he could lose like he knows she is right “listen I get it Ink is super openly affectionate with his words but…he is like that with everyone you know that despite all your threats and such he still is A sweetheart to you excuse me for assuming he is just being close to his best friend” Marble blurted out breaking his normal serious and calm voice into something slightly more emotional and confrontational.

Vivienne just sighs “well are you ok with being just his best friend?” She asks him Marbles goes silent for seconds then minutes collecting his thoughts before speaking again gaining back some of his composure but not all “of course I don’t fully like it I want to be able to be more intimate with him but…I’m still happy just being with him makes me so happy being able to talk with him, live with him, take care of him and his pokemon, help him everyday despite everything if things ended like this it wouldn’t be perfect but it would be A nice happily ever after…”

“Am I even talking to Marble?” Viv asked leaving Marble confused “what happened to the guy that faced admins of dotsuku when they started invaded wonderland and fought them off,what happened to the guy who had no problems telling people to suck it up and talk out there problems huh?” Vivienne asked sounding somewhat gentle for once while A bit straight to the point making her words clear.

Marble stayed silent unable to deny anything she said then she sighs “sorry but listen I get that sometimes things like this could get you to be…not normal and I won’t force you too confess but just know there is going to be A day where everything boils over and you blurt out all you feel at A bad time and I’d say it’s better to confess before then and…you two mean everything to each other I doubt much bad will happen if he doesn’t feel the same” Marble sat there shocked that Vivienne could actually give out advice like this no insults just getting straight to the point leaving him to just nod.

“Heh wouldn’t it be useful to be able to follow your own advice?” Marble says but Vivienne just smirked at him “oh I did already”…… “HUH!?” He yelled in surprise but before they could continue Yuuki and Ink came out of the forest injured but not to much to be concerned about it.

“Got what you wanted?” Vivienne asks in which Yuuki nods holding out A ultra ball with A M she put on top in marker “GOT IT NYA” Vivienne nods “anyway we should get going we have hotel reservations in the town close to here and Marble consider my advice…or don’t” they quickly walked off like there trying to give them room to talk …..wait A second THOSE GIRLS!

Before Marble could compose himself fully he sees A bleeding cut on Ink’s head “holy crap ink are you ok!?” Before Ink can utter A word Marble sits him down and goes to grab A med kit in the gym and patches him up.

…it was silent for A bit just the two enjoying each other company but then Marble spoke “Hey Ink I lo…I mean I have A question” he interrupted himself before he could finish the fourth word and went to change subject proving Vivienne right even more then he would like to admit.

“Yeah Marble?” Ink answers tilting his head in questioning.

“Do you think…we are each other’s everything…in every life?” Marble wanted to face palm himself to the distortion world after saying that WHY DID HE SAY THAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER TO CONFESS AHHH.

Ink was silent just stareing Marble in the eyes making Marble internally scream before his eyes light up and A big smile appear on his face him shining brighter than even the sun to Marble “OF COURSE I mean I would love it if that was true but….” He grew red even he seems to have A limit to his friendliness before he get embarrassed but at least he wasn’t alone with Marble silent because of embarrassment as well.

But Marble just smiles going back to treating the cut “thanks if we both can agree on it must be true and if not… we can just make it true Nagisa Ink” Marble says the biggest Grin ink has seen on him for A while appearing.

“Of course Honoka Marble” Ink grins back them being lost in there own world before being bought back to it by Kira running up to the two A smile on his face t oo

“I really did have A weird dream Honoka”

“Oh I did too maybe we can tell each other it after school?”

“Sure….oh it’s Hikari we should hurry and catch up with her”

“Yeah let’s go”

#HOLY CRAP IM TIRED #AND I SPENT LIKE 3 hours on this!#AND TO EXPLAIN THE END I HAD A VISION IDK WHAT IT WAS BUT ITS A VISION #not my best work but I’m still kinda happy with it #but legit forgot the Pokémon part of the Pokémon fanfic lol #sorry?

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pokemonvillage · 2 years

Text

Title: Birds of a Feather Characters: Volo, Akari AO3 Link: (Here) Word Count: 2868 Warnings: Shippy! My take on Akari. Spoilers for events after defeating the Fifth Lord and Mission 13, and if you squint/know what you're looking for, spoilers for the whole game.

In a ‘harsh, cruel world’ where you had to struggle to survive, fit in, or get tossed out to the ravenous fangs of the wilds… Who could trust you if you were deemed an outsider? Who could you trust?

The first day of her exile had been spent wandering with no recourse, turned away by those she hoped she could trust. The first night had been little better; she’d wasted the day supplicating for aid and couldn’t make even the most basic shelter, despite those red skies casting an eerie glow over everything.

And then Volo found her, sometime in those hours between late and early. His familiar smile, his kindness, the ready way he spoke to her without fear, blame, or reservation… The dam broke, the tears came, and embarrassingly (in retrospect) she couldn’t stop herself from hugging him. When was the last time she’d hugged anyone? Other than her Pokemon, months. She used to give her mom a hug every time she saw her! Her friends, too. Needless to say, people in Hisui weren’t exactly used to such sudden displays.

He accepted it kindly enough though, touching a hand atop her head and saying nothing as he let her have her moment. Where would she have been without him? Yes, she had her Pokemon, she could have found a way to survive, but it’d have been hard and time-consuming, and would wear her down in every way possible.

They made their way to Cogita’s hideaway, made introductions, settled on the most basic accommodations. Exhausted as she was, Cogita opted to wait until the morning to speak on the weighty matters of duty and what must be done next.

So her second night in exile -the first at Cogita’s retreat- Volo set up his little tent bedecked in Ginkgo Guild colors. It was no bigger or more elaborate than the ones the Survey Corps used, but plenty enough for them both to sleep, he assured her. She was so exhausted that she couldn’t offer much in the way of even polite resistance, or ‘worry about the implications’.

Volo sat just under the further edge of the tent, a variety of papers and old books splayed around his lap. He poured over them by the light of the campfire with a weighty focus she could feel, but was too tired to comprehend before she inevitably dozed off.

The third night, however, with a clearer goal in mind and a renewed sense of purpose, she sat up under the tent, hugging her knees and staring into the campfire. Haruki was curled up at her side, one of his long ribbons curled loosely, almost idly -but certainly with purpose- around her ankles as he lightly snoozed.

“Shall we get an early start in the morning then? I’m afraid I don’t think that red sky will give us the luxury of taking our time,” Volo mused as he moved to hunker down beside her, words never accusing or harsh, always with an air of levity.

“Yeah, probably a good idea to get a move on it,” she nodded, not taking her eyes away from the fire for a moment. But then she turned her gaze towards him with a smile, feeling that innate relief and comfort that always seemed to come with his presence. “Thank you again, Volo. You know, if this really works, you’ll be a hero,” she said with complete honesty, but also a hint of playful teasing. He blinked at her, eye wide and brow raised high.

“How exactly do you imagine that? You’re the one who’ll be having to face these trials, might I remind you.”

“And it’s not as if anyone else would have been able to point me to Cogita’s doorstep, and gotten me the information on these trials,” she gave a firm nod of her head, “Nope, it’s all thanks to you.”

“Haha… I suppose that is true,” he chuckled quietly, thoughtful for a beat before he continued. “Though I’m more than happy to leave all future accolades to you. After all, I’m merely interested in-”

“The ruins,” her voice overlapped with his, laced with a laugh. His own laughter followed suit.

“You know me too well,” he said praisingly, but in the back of her mind there was a blip of a thought: that she didn’t know him well enough at all. Not nearly as much as she wanted to, at least.

Though, that was probably for the best. All of this stuff with the rift seemed connected with her, of course, but once this was solved, and she’d sought out all Pokemon as she was told… she’d be going back home, right? It wasn’t like she was avoiding making friends or any close connections, and she didn’t think she could have stopped it if she wanted to, but she was constantly aware that one day she would go home and leave all of this behind. At least, that was what she hoped. Or what she thought she hoped…

For a while there, she’d been getting very comfortable with life here. She thought she was a part of Jubilife Village now… But now she had to wonder, how much of it had just been polite masks of friendship and civility, and how much doubt and mistrust had still lived on beneath those masks? Living in exile definitely made it feel a bit easier to want to go home these days.

Part of her didn’t care so much about having her name and deeds slandered, she knew what she’d done, and why she’d done it, even if she didn’t always have the best answers or reasons, none of it had been out of malice or ill intent. But it still hurt… To have fought so hard, to have so many wounds marring her body for these people, and to be so easily cast out, as if on a whim. Even if she told herself ‘she understood’ why, it didn’t change the weight or the feeling of betrayal.

“Vee…” Haruki nudged his head against her thigh, the ribbon around her ankles hugging her, soothing away some of the dark clouds in her heart. With a wry smile, she reached over to stroke her hand between his ears.

“You alright? You got really quiet…” Volo spoke softly, and she nearly started at the sensation of his fingers delicately brushing the strands of her hair back from her face.

“Oh, sorry…” shaking her head, she felt her cheeks warm as she sat up straighter. Yeah, she’d completely zoned out there for a minute, though maybe she could just chalk that up to the exhaustion and trauma. “What were we saying?”

His lips slightly pinched, he tilted his head at her with a thoughtful hum. “Nothing important, I’m more curious what’s on your mind now.”

It felt gently like concern, and she both appreciated that and… felt apologetic for it. He had already done so much for her, after all…

“It’s nothing, really, just… still kind of coming to grips with it all,” she shrugged and stretched her arms out over her knees, trying to get fully back in her body as opposed to in her head. “There’s not really any time for that though, I know.”

He was quiet for another brief moment, before he shifted a little, in a way that seemed almost to accept what she’d said and move along. His hand reached up to remove his cap, the other smoothing over his hair briefly before he fiddled with the hat in both hands.

For just a split second, she instead made a different realization: he was fidgeting. Was he nervous about something?

“It’s a harsh, cruel world, isn’t it…?” he said very softly, and she couldn’t make out much from his expression in profile, that one silver eye locked on the simple patterns and threads of his cap. “No matter how much you do for them, how presentable you are to their expectations, you’ll always be an ‘outsider’ first.”

And then, she had the sudden inkling that she was on the precipice of understanding… Just why he kept very carefully measured distances between himself and others. Polite, smiling, friendly, quick with a joke or a helping hand, but rarely did it seem to go much deeper. The people of Jubilife or the Celestica people, or even the other Ginkgo Guild merchants… Cogita, too, or so it seemed.

She remembered when he’d found her napping in the Fieldlands that one day, not long after she’d first arrived. He’d extended cautious concern to her, but now she realized… He understood how hard this world could be. He had at least half expected her to be dead.

And in a ‘harsh, cruel world’ where you had to struggle to survive, fit in, or get tossed out to the ravenous fangs of the wilds… Who could trust you if you were deemed an outsider? Who could you trust?

Suddenly, she felt very cold, and very lonely, and hugged her knees tighter.

“I think… that’s why it’s important to stick together,” she spoke in an almost helplessly small voice, her words feeling more like a desperate, foolishly hopeful prayer rattling coldly in her hollow chest. They were supposed to be warm, kindling to chase away the chill. “When we find the people we really connect with.”

It was a simple, straightforward sentiment, one you could find anywhere. But she was talking to him, and she knew she was talking to him, because in this moment there was recognition. That all along, perhaps, he’d seen a bit of himself in her, and maybe that was why he’d always been a little kinder to her. Maybe that was why, even though it made him fidget with some discomfort, he opened up and gave voice to one tiny sliver of himself he didn’t allow others to see or hear.

She felt him looking at her, and shyly raised her gaze to meet his. Again, she couldn’t quite make out what he might have been thinking, except that he seemed to be thinking deeply. Maybe he’d call her naive, or foolish.

It wasn’t like she expected much… Almost all she wanted was a friend, someone who could accept her. And she would do the same, she’d never had a problem making friends after all… But she couldn’t help fear that he would laugh, or dismiss her, or turn her away. That she would lose the last warm, human connection she had.

The cool tips of his fingers touched the side of her face, and a shiver ran down her spine. For just a minute she couldn’t process this gesture or the reaction; some part of her brain tried, but failed. But then he was leaning closer, and her heart suddenly thudded against her rib cage as all parts of her brain were instead scattered into a frenzy. Surely he wasn’t- Was he?

His eyes closed, and she felt his lips touch hers before her eyes fluttered shut as well. So sweet and soft - brief, but the moment lingered lazily around them. He didn’t push deeper for more, but instead slowly drew back, his hand drifting lower to rest against the side of her neck, thumb brushing her chin.

“I…” his voice cracked slightly for how small it was, before he swallowed and gave a small shake of his head, close enough that the strands of his hair tickled her face. “I’m sorry, that was…” he mechanically pulled his hand back, and sat straighter.

But she grabbed his hand and leaned back in, kissing him again. She didn’t want him to apologize, she just wanted him to keep kissing her. And she knew damn well she shouldn’t have. Hadn’t she just been telling herself she was going to leave after all of this, that it was better not to get too involved with people? But she also knew there wasn’t any helping matters where the heart was concerned.

And how… How could she want to leave if she was falling in love with him?

Then, however, she felt what he’d probably felt; a rise of embarrassment at how sudden and forward this all was, and jerked back, face red.

“Sorry- uh, I mean…” she shook her head, and he laughed - bright and jovial.

“Perhaps we’re both getting a little ahead of ourselves?” he suggested with a smile, his hand holding onto hers. “Though I suppose I am the one who started it,” playfully, he gave a wave of his other finger. “I’ll accept any punishment you deem fit, Miss Akari.”

Right, it was probably a rather serious offense in these times, wasn’t it? But she just laughed and shook her head, grateful for his levity, feeling a very real weight lifting off of her heart. Though, he was probably right, they were probably getting at least a little ahead of themselves.

“Hmm, I’ll have to think up an acceptable punishment to fit the crime,” she grinned teasingly. No, she wasn’t going to call attention to the fact she’d kissed him back so they were pretty much even. “I’ll be merciful though, so don’t worry too much.”

“Truly, you are too kind,” he placed his hand over his chest and gave a bow of his head, and she laughed some more.

“Syl…!” beside her, Haruki chirped up, and Akari blushed as her laughter turned sheepish, petting him.

“Oh geez, I forgot we had an audience here,” she chuckled, “Don’t worry about me, Haruki, I’m feeling better now.” Which she said naturally, as Haruki was often very in tune to her emotions, and she wanted to simply reassure him. And not thinking at all that she was giving a rather obvious confession to just how happy that simple kiss had left her.

Haruki was appeased though, giving her a happy little cheer and nudge of his head before settling back down to snooze.

“Maybe he’s worried I’ll put him out of his job,” Volo teased musingly with a smirk, and Akari blinked back at him, taking just a moment to puzzle what he’d said and what she’d said together, before she felt that heat return to her face.

“Haha, don’t be silly,” she shook her head, “Both of you are irreplaceable.” It was a simple enough thing to admit, even if it was still a little embarrassing.

“Irreplaceable, huh?” he repeated, that surprised look on his face again, almost like she’d said something truly bizarre. For just a split second he went still again, gaze shifting away, and she thought it felt very similar to when he’d been fidgeting with his hat before.

“Well, regardless… I had just wanted to say…” he spoke haltingly for a second, before he found his stride, “I agreed with what you said before. That we should stick together. After all, with my knowledge and your skills, I daresay we’ll accomplish much.”

“Like saving the world,” she said with a laugh and shake of her head, hugging her knees again. He was so close, she wanted to just… lean over against him, but managed to refrain.

“But before we can hope to accomplish anything, I think you ought to get some rest. It’ll be you and your Pokemon facing the trials of the lakes, after all. Though, of course I’ll be cheering you on.”

Her gaze turned to the red skies as he spoke of rest and trials, sobering her slightly.

“Mmm, yeah, all right,” she sighed and started moving to get herself laid down for sleeping. Yawning and half-asleep, Haruki followed suit. “But,” she spoke as she shifted around, “just you being with us is more than enough… It really does mean a lot to me, you know?”

After all that exchange about outsiders and acceptance and sticking together, she was pretty sure he did.

“I know,” he answered quietly, and she gave a small laugh to herself.

“Maybe you’re my good luck charm.”

“I’m afraid buttering me up won’t get you any discounts, my dear.”

She gave another laugh, curled up on her side with Haruki curled up against her stomach, watching as he pulled a book out from his bag. Though she might have told him he ought to get some rest too, it was probably for the best, or her thoughts and nerves might get the better of her. The former were already bouncing all over, thinking not about trials or red skies or exile, but kissing him again. Holding his hand again. Butterflies in her stomach thinking about him lying close to her, despite them each having their own bedroll.

But rather than him falling into that steady focus while reading by the campfire she’d witnessed a few times by now since she’d known him, he shifted around towards her, leaning on one hand. Her heart thudded quietly once more, awed by the sight of him silhouetted in the glow of the fire, and that faint red glow from the night sky.

“Rest well, Akari. I’ll see you in the morning.”

That was obvious, of course, but the sentiment behind those words weren’t lost on her. Perhaps she presumed too much, but what else could she read from them? ‘I’m here. And I’ll be here. You can count on that.’ One of the few things that she could rely on, and the comfort she took in hearing it was not small as she hugged Haruki a little tighter to her with a smile.

“Mm, you get some rest too…” she replied softly, and with a faint smile he turned back. “Good night, Volo.”

#writing: akari #ship: wishes & stars #bonds: volo #volokari #one shot #semi-angsty romance stuff #volo #pokemon volo #pokemon akari #pokemon legends arceus

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jupebox · 2 years

Photo

good grief it took me over a month to finally finish my hourlies from this year but i did finish them!!!! watercolor on a weird accordion notebook i found in my paper stash. i bought myself some fun sparkly and color changing watercolors on etsy and tested the sparkles out for shiny fuecoco and the “ALEX!!!” panel, so, included a closeup of those at the end so you can see the sparples.

Transcript provided below the cut for people who can’t read my chicken scratch!

6:40 “i need to get an autofeeder”

i am sleeping. my alarm starts beeping, and immediately my cat begins screaming at full volume, leading me to her empty food bowl. Once I put food into the bowl, the scream morphs into eating noises. with a dead-eyed stare, i contemplate this. my father says “good morning!” after a pause, I reply “no, good night”. the munching noises continue through all the final panels.

7:20 “i should enable do not disturb”

i am back asleep. my phone buzzes with a “bzzt”. On the screen is a picture of a bunny and a message that reads “LOL that’s totally my bunny!!”. i put the phone down, thinking “cute”. after a beat, I look back up and my internal monologue says “oh god i said so much stupid stuff in yesterday’s interview. there’s no way i’m getting that job now. aaaauuuugh brain shut UP”. The last panel is a small zoomed out drawing of me upset and screaming aaAAAAaaa

8:40 “undending regrets”

i am still in bed. my phone buzzes with a “bzzt” again. The screen says “interview: thanks for the email! feel free to ask any questions! :) - name”. the last panel is a zoomed in closeup of my upset face, surrounded by my internal scream of “I SAID SO MUCH STUPID STUFF”

9:40 “do it for him”

i am STILL in bed, but annoyed, when my phone buzzes with a “bzzt” again. This time the screen says “bro: hey when do we need to book kirby cafe stuff”. the last panel is me typing furiously on the phone while thinking “yeah I’ll wake up for that”

10-10:30 “too bad about those 530 fuecoco eggs”

I am playing pokemon on my nintendo switch. I say “ah. my whole team is physical attackers, huh”. the screen shows a tinkatuff, a flamigo, and the top of a veluza. The last panel shows a rabsca, with the text “except for the one that sucks, huh.”

10:30-11:15 “cleaning the bathrooms + harrow the ninth”

I am wiping down the counter in a bathroom, wearing headphones. text across the top of the panels reads “...because in those eyes, you were already dead. Your 18th birthday passe-” and is interrupted by me looking up, incredulous, saying “18???” loudly. “HARROW IS 18!? BABIES!!!” I say, while holding cleaning supplies. The last panel is just text that reads “i am absolutely mercymorn.”

11:25 “going for a walk outside!”

the first panel is a drawing of me, all bundled up. there are labels pointing to all of the warm things I am wearing - hat, scarf, hoodie, fingerless gloves, turtleneck. The second panel is me surrounded by people in tshirts. the text says “Forecast: 45F and sunny. I am a californian.”

11:30-12:05 “priorities”

i am walking by the river with my friend and infodumping about my pokemon troubles. I am saying “...and even after like 600 eggs we STILL didn’t hatch any shiny fuecoco”. “oh my god” she replies. “wait.” she says in panel 2, with a consternated look on her face, “so, winning a boss battle with items is “tedious” but spending 10 hours breeding eggs is a fun challenge?” a tiny chibi of me holds up a finger and says “listen.” in the last panel, as though this were any kind of defense.

12:05-12:15 “impeccable timing”

my friend is walking toward her car; we have finished our walk. “lunch at that indian place?” she asks. “yeah! i don’t actually know the address but i’ll google it” i confirm. “ok, see you there!” she says, and then leaves. in the second panel I type “indian” into google maps. in the third panel my phone fucking dies. in the last panel, i stare down at it with a customer service smile, text above my head “r u srs”

12:20 “little white lies”

we’re sitting down at a booth in the indian restaurant (i did finally manage to reboot my phone and get there but that’s another story). My friend is looking around while holding a glass of water. she says “my friend was upset when i said i was checking out this place without her”. “oh no!” i reply, “should we go somewhere else?” my friend waves off my concerns in panel 2 with a “nah, it’s fine. let’s see if it’s as good as she said”. Just then, our food arrives. The third panel is drawings of the food we ordered, with my star ratings and descriptions next to each. they are:

veggie biryani: 1.5 stars. flavorless & wet. veggies good tho

cauliflower pakora: .5 stars. flavorless & dry. somehow worse with the sauces

chicken tikka masala: 3 stars. rice was fine. sauce was fine. spice level ok. best thing we got

garlic naan: 2.5 stars. as crunchy garlic bread, delicious. as naan, useless

panel 4 is a top down view of us contemplating our empty plates. in the last panel, my friend is sweating and thinking hard, and says “when she asks me if it was good i dunno if i’ll be able to lie.” i encourage her “be strong”

1pm “and i get to pet her every day!”

my friend and i have gone to my house. we are knelt down on the floor trying to entice my cat to come closer. i am saying “hey business! wanna come meet my friend?” my friend is making “pss pss pss” noises. business peeks around the corner and cautiously approaches our outstretched hands. as soon as we reach for her, she shrinks away warily though, while my friend says “oh nope ok”. she finally acquiesces to being touched, but is highly suspicious. my friend says “oh! she is SO soft!’ and I reply with “ikr”

2pm “i want a rematch”

we are playing wingspan and tallying points. I have a phone in my hand, using the calculator app. in the first panel I say “so after adding up my birds, eggs, tokens, tucked birds, round points, and bonus cards, my total is-” in panel 2 i squint at my phone. panel 3: “how many points did you have”. my friend says “uhhh 73?” with a shrug. in panel 4 i flip the phone around to reveal that the score in the calculator app is 72. my friend is delighted and surprised in panel 5, saying, “i won?” I scream in outrage “BY ONE POINT”

3pm “jump to recipe”

This is a text heavy comic. in panel one there is a drawing of a vegetable in a strainer in a sink, with the text “my mom & i trade off cooking. today i’m making chinese broccoli!” panel 2 shows me cutting the ends off of the chinese broccoli, with the text “i had a few things i really wanted to learn to make when i took up cooking, & dim sum-style gai lan was near the top of the list”. the last panel says “i’ve now prepared it enough times that i don’t need to look up the recipe anymore!” and the picture shows the ingredients - sliced ginger root, 1 pound gai lan, garlic, enough water to cover the gai lan, 1 tsp baking soda, 2-3 tsp salt

4pm “5 stars!”

I am lounging on the couch, texting someone while my cat is on top of me. “made rin’s cheater chicken soup today!” i text. “oh yeah?” “yeah!” the second panel says “i just subbed the gai lan cooking liquid for the chicken broth, whatever veggies we had in the fridge for the frozen veggies, and pork potstickers for the chicken wontons!” each substitution is accompanied by a little drawing of the intended ingredient and the replacement. the last panel reads “... so you made a completely different recipe.” “yeah i sure fucking did huh”. i stare off into the distance with tears tracking down my smiling face, with a tiny “gomen” next to my head.

5pm “noble snacrifice”

each panel has a caption and small drawing. panel 1: “i overcooked....... the soup.........” with a drawing of a large pot of soup. in the pot there are indistinguishable vegetables, labeled “formerly: baby bok choy. now: mush, sad, unappetizing”. panel 2: “the textures are all wrong....” i am eating the soup with a tearful face, saying “weh”. panel 3: “but business was asleep on my feet & i couldn’t turn off the burner in time...” with a drawing of business asleep and purring

6pm “watching recovery of an mmo junkie”

i am sitting in bed with a laptop on my lap, leaning forward, invested, saying “does sakurai have the brain cell???” in the second panel i am making a victorious pose and shouting “HE DOOO” (fuck yeah!) while the laptop goes flying

7pm “friendship is magic”

i’m still lying in bed on the laptop, when my phone buzzes with another “bzzt”. The notification reads “joltik tagged you in a tweet”. panel 3 is a drawing of a tweet from “edelgard stan 4 lyfe (@tinyjoltiks)” that is just “@jupeboxal” and an image. the image is of a shiny fuecoco, with the text “fuecoco hatched from the egg!” the last panel is a chibi drawing of my overwhelmed and joyfully tearful face, with an enormous “ALEX!!!!” caption

8pm “tOo BaD aBoUt ThOsE 530 fUeCoCo EgGs”

it is a single panel. the panel is a 5 x 11 grid of tiny non-shiny fuecocos as you might see in a box view in pokemon scarlet/violet. There is a text dialogue at the bottom of the panel that says “Would you like to save your progress and start the Surprise Trade?”

9pm “no seriously where can you buy these”

In the first panel I am peering at a bookcase full of notebooks and art supplies, thinking “hmm what should I draw my hourlies on?” in the second panel i am selecting one notebook and thinking “i gotta have some watercolor paper somewhere”. the last panel is me stretching out an accordion watercolor journal with bugged out eyes, thinking “THIS IS SO COOL??? WHERE DID I GET THIS???”

10pm “she never leaves you guessing”

i am in bed again but now I am drawing in the watercolor notebook with little “skitch skitch skitch” sound effects. a large brightly-colored “MOW” yelling bubble appears at the bottom of the panel. the second panel is overlapping MOW” speech bubbles surrounding me, no longer drawing. panel 3 is from my perspective, of the door to my room, where my cat is screaming “MOW” with a hair tie in her mouth. In the last panel, I have put down the notebook and am sitting up saying “ah. it is play time.” while my cat stands demandingly on the bed, having dropped the hair tie in front of me, with a very long loud “MOOOOOOOW!!!” spanning the entire panel in the background

11pm “it’s something”

a drawing of the accordion watercolor notebook, unfolded. Outside of the notebook, the text reads “finally working on hourlies!” with sparkles surrounding the word “hourlies”. inside the notebook there is a sketchy drawing of the first comic, the one from 6:40. the next page of the notebook says “...hourly”. the next page says “i did one.” the next page has a drawing of the “it’s something” rage comic person, and the page after that says “it’s something.”

#comics #hourly comic day #hourlies #comic #sequential #cats #cat #watercolor #traditional art #watercolors #pokemon #fuecoco

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pierswife · 1 year

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Slides in here Hi I hope you don't me popping into ur asks, but might I ask you to tell me a bit abt ur s/i for piers? :00

Hi hi!!! I saw this last night but was super wiped bvhdvbsdghv but!!! I don't mind at all and would love to talk about them a little bit! I've also got S/I lore asks that I need to do so those should give some info about them too!!

And here she is, the funky little genderqueer! Her name is Amanda and beat for beat is definitely the closest thing to an actual self insert that I have (like, still a little idealized and OC-ish but that is just me). She doesn't have a particular type specialization, but they heavily prefer Water-type and Steel-type Pokemon, their ace being an Empoleon that their older sister gifted them when she came back from traveling in Sinnoh. Her main team is Empoleon, Swampert, Bisharp, Lycanroc (midnight), Boltund, and Arcanine. Rest is under a cut cause it got a little long whoops fhbjsdvb

Amanda is non-binary (femme presenting) and primarily uses she/they pronouns (doesn't mind he at all and honestly doesn't give a shit). She's a trainer from Unova and a former Coordinator who has become fairly well-liked by younger trainers in the region since she'll often help them learn new ways to bond with and raise their Pokemon. I wanted to expand on Unova's lore a bit when I was making them, so their family actually owns and runs the Floccesy Ranch, taking the role of the NPCs the own the Ranch in BW2. Whenever Amanda is staying home for a while, she helps any kids that pass through, giving them all sorts of tips and tricks! She has all of Unova's gym badges, but did not complete the Elite 4, always losing to Grimsley any time she tries so she just kinda gave up lmao. She also has all of Sinnoh's badges and lived there for a few years with family while she competed in Pokemon Contests. She eventually retires from being Coordinator for her mental health and moves back home. She has family in Galar that she visited often as a kid, but less frequently as an adult. They eventually go back to Galar during the events of Sword and Shield to help some friends/researchers at home (which turned into the Unova League going "wait omg we can turn this into a bond opportunity for our regions) and like... Best way I can describe it is a boss rush cause they go and fight every fucking gym leader (with special permission from the Galar League) to gather combat data and to learn more about Galarian Pokemon not seen in Unova. Needless to say, definitely scared the shit out of more than a few people when she shows up with a fucking Empoleon.

tldr; Ace trainer who has traveled multiple regions, participated in 2 gym challenges, retired coordinator, basically an older sibling figure to younger trainers in Unova, literally went to Galar to say "fight me" @ every gym leader.

#region they have been to that I didn't write: hoenn kalos alola #those three she only kinda traveled around to see the sights and didn't stick around long (and participated in a few contests in hoenn)#got some of their dear partners in those places tho <3 #i actually made a bulbapedia lookalike doc on google docs that I'm working on for them fhjdsvfbs #thank you for asking about them btw! i appreciate it!#guzmapkmn #s/i: amanda (pkmn)

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captainshyguy · 1 year

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with the last chapter posting tomorrow, i'm yeeting my playlist for something to believe in right here! song choice/reasoning's under the cut. most of it is simple plan bc thats kinda the sound i built the story around. i wanted something a little edgy, a little prickly, a little 2000s (but ultimately not too hardcore)

(some spoilers under the cut for story beats kjfnjskgsd)

playlist here!

anyway, song reasonings

young the giant- something to believe in: eyyy, its song i named the fic after, and the theme for the fic! a bunch of the core themes come from here. mainly the idea of being given 'something to believe in' obviously fkjnsjd, like luke learning to open up and believe in and trust others again, his mum learning to believe in him, being a "slave to your mind". plus 'tragedy has a hold of my mind, but i can see the light between the lines' really fits luke once he befriends arven.

sleeping at last-eight: luke's overall theme. i dont think a single song sums up his journey better. its about someone who has clearly closed themself over very guardedly to avoid getting hurt, with a lot of motifs of brokenness. as the song goes on the subject learns to open up, be vulnerable, and becomes stronger as a result. all the lyrics are perfect, i particularly enjoy 'now i'm a broken mirror' 'i'm standing guard, i'm falling apart' i am strong enough, to let you in' 'im shattered porcelain, glued back together again'

simple plan- i'm just a kid: a good moody one that sets up his general demeanour at the start of the fic. 'i'm just a kid and life is a nightmare' 'what the fuck is wrong with me, dont fit in with anybody'

simple plan- you don't mean anything: early story, dealing with nemona and feeling isolated and distant and frustrated about it. 'I know you think you know me, you don't know anything'

simple plan- welcome to my life: early treasure hunt dealing with the first titan/base/gyms. the kids very disgruntled an not in a fantastc place. 'Are you sick of everyone around, with the big fake smiles and stupid lies, while deep inside you're bleedin'

simple plan- me against the world: song for the big low point, one i think he identifies with a lot i think. harsh, edgy, and pained. defiant, snarled spiteful yelling. 'i'm a nightmare, a disaster, that's what they always said, i'm a lost cause, not a hero, but I'll make it on my own'

simple plan- fire in my heart: song for the moment arven wakes the kid back up and pulls him out of that depression slump and back to earth by explaining the whole mabo situation to him. upbeat, not edgy. 'i bet you didn't know, you started up a chain reaction'

simple plan- everytime: theme for the boys, at least, from luke's pov. the song has a sort of melancholy and longing to it (heck, the lyrics imply the singer is talking about a past relationship) but i think thats the lens he'd view this developing relationship through anyway. 'every time I see your face, every time you look my way, it's like it all falls into place, everything feels right'

owl city- bird and the worm: representing arvens music taste and also luke branching out and connectign with his friend. listening to each others songs and sharing their hobbies. song is sweet and upbeat and a little romantic. 'swirl me around your room with feeling, and as we twirl, the glow in the dark stars on your ceiling, will shine for us'

simple plan- gone too soon: luke opening up about the death of his dad. the song fits how he feels about it all. a lot more subdued than most of the simple plan ones. 'oh I miss you now, i wish you could see, just how much your memory, will always mean to me'

pokemon- area zero: we know why this is here >:] theme for the kids going down into the crater.

simple plan- holding on: latter half of the crater, the quiet talk in research station four, and parts of the climax. mainly here for 'in the night there's a fire in my eyes, and this paradise has become a place we've come to cry'

simple plan- take my hand: aftermath, luke and arven kinda sticking together as the latter tries to navigate his grief. the song is a lot more upbeat, but i see it as almost like...determination on luke's part, to be there for him. its a good song for them in general too actually. splashes of romance since he's aware of his feelings now. 'take my hand tonight, let's not think about tomorrow'

simple plan- last one standing: song for luke's fight with the other miraidon and resolve to finish his pokedex. defiant, confident and reckless. 'did you think that I would surrender easily, that just like that, you were getting rid of me'

simple plan- when i'm gone: this song is an interesting one. its unanimously turo's theme for me, but also luke's in his worst moments.(parallels, narrative foils, all that) like when he recklessly explores area zero by himself to finish his pokedex. 'another day, another casualty, but that won't happen to me'

simple plan- promise: luke coming clean to arven, panicked but resolved to fix this. a little fast paced, scattered, but still determined. 'i promise, i won't let you down (you down), if you take my hand tonight'

ed sheeran- celestial: BOO ed sheeran jumpscare. gkjngjkds no but seriously i did really like this one as a credits theme. the space theme still doesnt really fit the game or story, but i cant resist 'you make me feel like my troubled heart is a million miles away'. like what a great summary of how luke feels now that he has friends, his mum, and his pokemon by his side.

#luke rambles #something to believe in #my ocs #luke (scvi)#pokemon #pokemon scvi

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implausiblyjosh · 1 year

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Snack Pack Adventures #2: A Crystal Clear Nuzlocke

Last time we were here, we beat Falker with the help of Salt the Geodude. Now we move towards Azalea Town!

We head towards Route 32 and look for a new friend. It’s night again, so our encounters may not be that good, but we’ll see who we find! Our first encounter is a Rattata. The Hoothoot. Then…

A Mareep that Salt accidentally hits a little too hard. Well then. Guess we’ll put MTN DEW up top and switch train this route.

Switch training starts off easily enough, and I’m trying to battle every trainer available to me on the route. It’s not too difficult, to be honest. I’m watching a Scott the Woz video in the background as I beat up a trainer with 4 Magikarp. I put on a Yakuza 6 speedrun as I’m going through this and almost lose Celery. You see, there’s a trainer with a Qwilfish and a Goldeen. The Qwilfish is fine, but the Goldeen seems to only know Peck, which almost takes out Celery. Instead, Salt has to come in and deal with this issue. If I wasn’t paying closer attention we would have lost dear Celery!

I forgot that Azalea’s Gym is a bug-type gym, so we’ll be attempting to level up Pringle throughout Union Cave. But also, we need a new friend for the team. Who will we get from Union Cave?

Before we get an encounter, we run into Tiko. They’re one of the added characters from this hack, and I get told about Pokemon footprints. My Pokedex can scan these prints, and it will occasionally trigger an encounter, on top of adding Pokemon data. So let’s see…

… and it fled. Great. I’m counting this encounter as a regular wild encounter, so. Guess we just lost that opportunity! Let’s move on.

Wait... there were Slowpoke in this cave, too? Aw man.

Okay, for real moving on.

Union cave is uneventful, and we get out without much issue. Outside of being disappointed over the lack of Slowpoke or Cubone on the team, we’re doing really well. Hoothoot needs to get to level 11 for it’s first flying type move, but we’re almost there! Outside of Carrot and Sandwich, all our Pokemon are at or above Lv. 10, so we’ve got a pretty nicely leveled team. Before we heal up in Azalea, I need to check the grass of Route 33…

BBQ has been added to our team. I heal up in Azalea Town and real-world Josh Average is suddenly hit with a wave of exhaustion. Seriously, I can barely keep my eyes open. For me it will be a sleep break, for you a paragraph break.

I did take a quick peek in Slowpoke Well. I didn’t go in on the way into Azalea, so now’s as good a time as any! After seeing a bunch of Zubat, we finally see a non-caught Pokemon!

Sptite is added to the team! On the way out of the well I head back to the entrance to Union Cave. There’s a trainer I avoided that I’d like to show y’all.

This little boy has a shiny Zubat, a Wooper, and a Tododile and he’s dressed up like a Wooper. He’s adorable, he’s pretty easy to beat, and he gives you 3 rare candies after being defeated. He rules.

Anyways, Pringle learned Peck, so now it’s Gym Time. Let’s look at the team so far:

Pringle, Lv. 11 Salt, Lv. 14 Celery, Lv. 14 MTN DEW, Lv. 11 Sprite, Lv. 8 BBQ, Lv. 6

Let’s do this. Our first trainers are Twins Amy & May. They bring out a Ledyba first, and 2 Pecks will take them down. Next is Spinarak, which also goes down to 2 Pecks. Pringle feels indestructible. We go to the next trainer, Bug Catcher Al, and they open with a Caterpie. Caterpie takes 3 Pecks, but is ultimately no match. Weedle comes out next and while I’m nervous about poison, Pringle feels nothing but power. Despite 3 Poison Stings, Pringle does not get poisoned and easily beats Weedle. Have I created a monster? Next up is Bug Catcher Sergi with a Paras. Two hits of Peck and they’re down. Bug Catcher Benny comes out with Weedle. Down in one hit from Peck. Then Beedrill and I think maybe I should let Salt take this one, but Pringle insists. Four pecks from Pringle takes them out, but we get taken to yellow health. Pringle doesn’t care. Kakuna comes out next and Harden will not save it.

It’s Bugsy time.

Metapod comes out first. It’s Lv. 14, which is one higher than Pringle, but we should be okay, right? It only knows Harden and Tackle, so we’re fine. Scyther comes out next and Pringle refuses to switch out. Quick Attack does nasty damage to Pringle, and we have to swap him out. I’m so sorry buddy. Salt comes out and eats a Fury Cutter. One Rock Throw and Scyther’s down. Kakuna is up next to I let Pringle back out. Despite several Poison Stings, Pringle stands tall and Pecks the Kakuna into oblivion. The Hive Badge is ours.

That was a pretty quick leg! Pringle really shined in this Gym, and I’m glad Salt is around to basically act as backup. Pringle is a little on the weaker end comparatively to others on the team at a similar level, but he held his own pretty well in this instance. MTN DEW will also be a staple on the team for now, as Hypnosis is going to be very helpful for catching Pokemon as we make our way through new Routes.

Next time will be Ilex Forest, Route 34, and Goldenrod! Will we be able to take on Whitney’s Miltank?What Pokemon can we get from the Game Corner? Find out next time!

#snack pack adventures #pokemon nuzlocke #crystal clear #pokemon #text let's play #josh average plays

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hedgiwithapen · 2 years

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i’d really like for you to write some of the au where flash(2014) cisco is universe hopping and stumbles upon the yj verse in the middle of the episode where nabu possesses zatara and prevents that whole mess.

The night air was pleasantly cool on his skin as Cisco hopped through the breach, one more stop on his retirement vacation. This earth looked much like his own, more than some of his other stops, with crickets chirping and only one moon hanging above the buildings. Still, something was very much off. He couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was as he headed towards the main street in search of a diner, determined to see if anything could top his own Earth’s Big Belly Burger. He’d heard from Cynthia once that this particular earth’s “Chicken Whizzies” were surprisingly delicious. Reaching the road, though, the sense of wrongness increased, and with it the little alarm that even retirement couldn’t turn off. Abandoned cars, some of them crashed, lined the street. He jogged towards one, seeing through the window a child wriggling in a car seat. There wasn’t an adult slumped over the steering wheel, or pacing the crashsight calling for help, and there wasn’t any blood either. Cisco felt for the right frequency and popped the door open. “Hey,” he said brightly, wishing he was better with little kids. “Hey, it’s ok.” The kid just wailed louder, and Cisco winced. “Are you hurt? Can you tell me what happened? I’m here to help.” Cisco pulled his badge from his pocket, something he’d figured out was useful to have three earth’s back, even if Central City didn’t exist everywhere. The kid looked maybe 4, or five, old enough to talk. He hoped. “Hey!” a high pitched voice echoed oddly down the street. “Holy shit, it’s a grownup.” The sound of a gentle thwack and a muffled ‘ow’ followed as he turned, one hand still working the car seat buckles. A few more children--most of them roughly hobbit height, so maybe 8? 10?-- and a teenager were moving towards him, and fast. Cisco glanced around and had a sinking realization that they were talking about him. I’m the grown up. Oh no. I’m The Adult. I need an Adultier Adult. “Yup,” he said with what he hoped was a tone that did not betray his sudden desire to get out of this entire range of earths. “So, uh… what’s up?” If this was some Girl Who Owned a City shit, he was noping right on out. Lord of the Flies he could probably handle, what with the superpowers and all. “ All the adults are gone,” the teenager, a girl, said, eyeing him with suspicion and relief. “Ah,” Cisco said, trying very hard not to let the panic out. “ Gone gone, or dead gone?” This turned out to be the wrong question to ask, because the kid in the car seat, being expertly freed now by one of the ten or eight year olds, started to cry harder, their face crumpling like a tissue.

“Just Vanished,” one of the boys said. “How are you still here? Or… is everyone back?” “Ah,” Cisco said. “Uh… no, I’m going to guess no. but… I’ll try to help figure it out?” “You need to come with us,” the first girl said. “To the school. Robin needs to hear about this. Cisco did not know where that was. “Lead the way,” he said, reaching out a little with his powers to be sure that they still worked, should he need to beat a hasty retreat to say, the pokemon corner of the multiverse.

It was a short walk, mostly deserted, and the entire time Cisco could feel the Not-Quite-Right like a too tight shirt, taking up more of his focus than he wanted to give it, but unable to let it go.. “Who’s got the Radio?” the teenager asked as soon as they were in the door of a gym. “We need to get through, tell Robin there’s an adult.” “Who’s this Robin?” Cisco asked at last. A couple of kids, one offering a radio that looked like it had been scavenged from a truck, looked at him as if he was not quite bright. “Robin. Like, from Gotham.” When that didn’t get an instant note of recognition, another kid tried “Batman’s sidekick? He and his friends are going to fix things.” “They’re going to try,” a third kid, one of the group that had found him, said, a little bleakly. “Oh, right,” Cisco said, suspecting that this was yet another earth full of teenage superhero nonsense. He was right. Shortly after the radio transmission went out, a flicker of lightning brought a red haired kid in a momentarily terrifying yellow suit skidding to a halt in the middle of the gym. “Let me guess,” Cisco said, nodding to the lightning bolt, “Kid Flash?” “That’s me,” Kid Flash nodded. “ So. Who are you? How are you here? How’d you stay? Is it a leap year thing?” “Uh… I’m Vibe.” “Never heard of you, but it’s all hands on deck, you know. Mind coming with me?” Cisco did not want to be sped anywhere by a speedster in a yellow suit, especially one that did not look like Wally West. “Go where exactly?” “Headquarters. It’s kinda a top secret?” Cisco heaved a sigh. “I can follow you.” Even on this earth with the frankly strange vibrations, following a speed signature wasn’t hard. “Really? Cool.” And he took off. Cisco followed, and found himself surrounded by a gaggle of confused and stressed teenagers. Some symbols or gear looked familiar-- besides Kid Flash there was a girl with Oliver’s shade of green on her mask, and a bow, a dark haired boy who wore the El Mayara of Clark and Kara on a dark shirt, or the redhaired green girl who was probably Martian. Some didn’t, like the girl in a top hat. “Who’s this?” Superdude asked. “The only adult in the world,” Kid Flash said. They all looked over to two people that Cisco definitely didn’t recognize, a tattooed kid with shaved blond hair, and a dark haired boy with white plate goggles covering most of his face and a large “R” on his cape’s front flap. “I’m Vibe,” he said again. “You’d be uh… Robin?” “Yeah. This is Aqualad, Kid Flash, Zatanna… “ “Introductions can wait,” Zatanna said. “We need answers. How did you manage to stay?” “It’s a leap year thing, I’m telling you,” someone--Cisco wasn’t sure who, murmured. “ Stay isn’t exactly right. More of a ‘ came here after whatever happened’ thing.” Cisco said, and flinched. Again, he felt the something not right itching at his brain. “Came?” “Yeah. From another… oh. Oh that’s--” it all clicked, a puzzle piece slotting into place. Or really, the opposite. The Vibrations of this earth weren’t off they were missing. Or really, half of them were. The place where every other note ought to have been was empty. “Someone split your earth,” he said, definitive. “You can’t just cut a planet in half,” Superdude said. “Not… the planet,” Cisco shook his head. “The… dimension.” “Wait. Like… the multiverse stuff? You’re from another earth?.” Kid Flash said. When Cisco nodded, he whooped. “ I knew it wasn’t magic.” “I mean, it might have been caused by magic. Unless you have a Vibe here and he’s evil it probably was.” Kid Flash groaned, getting elbowed in the ribs by the Green-Arrow-Girl. Aqualad shook his head at them both. “ We… knew, that there is another … half, of our world. We have a go between. But if you know more about this kind of thing, we would appreciate the help. Our current plan is a bit of a risk.” Cisco nodded, not liking the sound of that. “Ok, well, I think I… theoretically can help. What’s your go between?” “Me!” a tiny kid in a red sweatshirt said. “Great,” Cisco said, rolling with the punches. “Ok. Weird, but ok. Can you… do whatever it is that you do, while I hold on?” “I can’t take anyone with me.” “Right,” Cisco agreed. “I just need to get an idea of what’s missing. My powers work with vibrations. If I can get a sense of the other half, I think i can bring the two back together.” “I like that plan,” Kid Flash said. “Scientific.” “If magic did this, only magic can fix it,” Zatanna said, clutching a golden helmet and looking like she wanted to be wrong. Before what had to be an old argument about magic and science could break out, the ten year old waved his hands. “ I don’t know if that’s safe. I kinda have to get hit by lightning to do it.” Cisco wished halfheartedly he had aimed for the earth with fried jellybeans instead of chicken whizzies. “Eh, I’ll live. It won’t be the first time.” It hurt. Cisco fell forwards as the kid vanished, pulling blue from the bright white of lightning and pain. “Yeah,” he rasped. “That sucked. I’ve got it, though.” Everyone backed up, nervously, as he reached out with his hands and his powers straining for the other half of earth 16 until he could feel the cords in his hands. He held the two strands of vibrations and wove them back into one.

#Dammit Hedgi Day 2022 #Dammit Hedgi Day #The Flash #Young Justice #Cisco Ramon

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sg2tiger · 2 years

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Finally, this is my 2022 gaming wrap up! Usual ramblings under the cut.

Pokemon Throwback

With my 6-year old nephew living with us, it's my job to get him on and off the school bus. Last year, when he was in preschool, he had the afternoon class, so we had all morning to do whatever before we had to get ready. It ended up becoming a regular part of the routine to play Pokemon for an hour or so before get dressed time...and the game he chose specifically was LeafGreen. What we actually ended up playing was a FRLG romhack I found with a grab bag of pick-your-own QoL changes called Pokemon Throwback. In essence, we were playing LeafGreen, but things like cut trees staying cut, ability to obtain all pokemon in one cart, phys/special split, consecutive-use repels and other things just made life a bit easier, especially when coupled with the emulator's fast forward feature (GREAT for grinding).

Ultimately, over the course of the school year, we made it through the entire main game, Elite Four, and all of the Sevii Islands (I was pretty burned out by then, and he actually wanted to move on and play Gold, but he also didn't want to stop until we got his Dragonair to evolve...and it had about 5-6 more levels to go after we beat the Elite Four...). Then we went back, caught all the legendary birds, and Mewtwo. We didn't catch 'em all, but we DID catch every single Unown of the alphabet, which took about 3 weeks (again, we only played for about an hour every weekday) and probably made me go more insane than catching 'em all would have. In the end what matters is that he had fun and was excited to learn more pokemon than just the handful of popular ones on his pajamas and stuffed toys. And he really did learn them, and retain what he learned - kids are smart! Even if his sense of nicknaming was essentially 'the animal it's based on + y' (he had a real crisis when we caught Horsea).

We played the game on my phone, with my bluetooth controller. I really liked this controller and was pretty bummed when I upgraded to a slightly bigger phone and the mobile clip just simply did not fit anymore (we still use them as Switch controllers for multiplayer, but still). I ended up getting a different type of mobile controller that attaches horizontally for my new phone, which will hopefully accommodate at least one more phone in the future before they start making them TRULY gargantuan.

Minecraft: Arid Adventures

One night...at a time where I actually hadn't played Minecraft for several months...I had a weird dream. It started out with a friend gifting me some kind of VR survival horror game about exploring desert tombs and recovering artifacts while being pursued by the angry undead guardians. At some point, the dream called for sand physics, and my brain reached into the video game sand physics databanks and pulled 'minecraft sand blocks falling all at once'. The dream then shifted from a more realistic style to that familiar blocky aesthetic (though the non-aesthetic elements were still very survival horror and NOT minecraft). When I awoke and recounted the dream, the minecraft image ended up being what stuck with me, and I wanted to see if anyone had made any kind of desert-themed modpacks. I found...one, which I didn't really like, so I took it upon myself to spend a month and a half working on my own.

The result is a sort of desert-flavored kitchen sink pack, filled with tons of places to explore, loot to discover, challenging enemies, and some light survival with thirst/temperature mechanics (offset by lots of food items to hydrate and keep you cool because I didn't want hardcore survival to be the focus of the pack). I spent a lot of time creating a huge arid ecosystem of modded desert, badlands and savanna biomes filled with tons of desert ruins, bandit camps and other structures across the landscape. But despite how much time I spent fine-tuning and playtesting it, when we actually got it on our friend server we ran into more than a few problems...like the massive overspawning of deadly, deadly scorpions. Still, regardless of some oversights, I'd like to think the pack was a success, and we had some fun playing it together between April/May (I spent half of February and all of March putting it together).

Arid Adventures was ultimately my less-polished-than-I'd-hoped first foray into learning how to make Minecraft modpacks, and I've applied a lot of what I learned about things like NBT structures and datapacks to other packs I've made since. Still, I've got a soft spot for this one, and I'd like to recreate it on 1.18 or 1.19 if possible...and I think it should be, I'm just waiting on one mod in particular to update (Team Abnormals' Atmospheric, for its additional desert biomes as well as resources like aloe and yucca which my bespoke desert food mod incorporated as ingredients for lots of recipes). Maybe when the time comes that I'm able to remake and polish it up a bit I'll even post it publicly on CurseForge. I'm pretty shy and have a massive lack of confidence in my work, though, so I tend to just keep my packs private for our friend group server 😔

(we’re actually currently playing a winter-themed modpack called “Arctic Adventures” which is “Arid Adventures but Cold”. Except not really, because I just took a light vanilla+ modpack I’d made and threw a couple winter-themed mods on top of it. But I thought the name was funny, so maybe there will be more [x] Adventures packs in the future)

Vigil: The Longest Night

You can really tell that 2021-2022 was me trying to work up the nerve to play the actual Dark Souls by warming up with various Soulslikes first. I don't even remember how I discovered Vigil, but probably I figured that if I liked Hollow Knight and Salt and Sanctuary I'd have fun with Vigil too. And I did, actually. Unlike the aforementioned, I even finished Vigil with 100% completion, grabbing all achievements over the course of two playthroughs.

Combat and healing felt a lot more forgiving than the others Soulslikes I'd played, at least if you picked the right perks. I ended up running axes, focusing entirely on that tree and the general survival one, and generally it always felt like there were very few enemies and even bosses that gave me a truly difficult time by the latter half of the game (several of the early bosses did kill me many times). At least, as far as the 'main' content goes - once I hit the bonus bosses like Bluemagpie and Redsparrow I really felt like I had to memorize every possible move the boss could take and counter appropriately. Frankly, if not for the fact that I misunderstood one achievement as having to collect EVERY weapon/armor set in the game, I probably would have given up on fighting Redsparrow after my first 10+ deaths...but I persevered and killed every optional boss in the game too.

I think what I spent the most time on in Vigil was just my obsessive determination to discover every nook and cranny on the map, because games like this where your map is fogged until you traverse it always compel me to reveal it all (I'll never forget the hell Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey put me through because of this urge of mine). The game is absolutely chock full of little secret rooms that you can just barely see a hint of on the map...usually there will be a small passage you have to slide through or something, sometimes hidden behind breakable objects or just otherwise in places you wouldn't think to look. I'd call it the 2D equivalent of Dark Souls' love of invisible walls. Between hunting down places that I sensed held secret passages and trying to platform my way through the trees in the forest areas, I got really into unfogging the map. But hey, in doing so, I was also working my way through all the various loot required for achievements, so one gameplay loop always fed into another in a satisfying way.

I feel like Vigil is the kind of game that's easy to overlook in the sea of 2D soulslike metroidvanias out there, but I had a good time with it. By the end I even really wanted to know more about the story and the lore, unfortunately somewhat marred by a translation of questionable quality. And with the way some of the endings played out, I'm really hoping that there might someday be a sequel, because it definitely feels like the devs left an open door for there to be. I'd say if you're into this kind of game, though, Vigil's worth checking out.

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot

I was pretty torn between rating this "Pretty Good" vs. "Decent", because I feel like my expectations for this game were unfairly high, but I also feel like every time I play I find something that I feel like the game COULD have done better, but for some bizarre reason chose not to. Kakarot was a game I was looking forward to a lot when it first got announced, because conceptually it seemed like something pretty different that had a lot of potential to be interesting. And while I think Mistake #1 was choosing NOT to start the story off with kid Goku in the original Dragonball (which would have suited the survival and exploration mechanics so so SO much better if we started off with him before meeting Bulma) I understand that we must bow to the whims of the marketing gods at the end of the day, and 90% of the target audience doesn't care about the original DB at all. Still, despite the name being 'Kakarot', it was obvious that a lot of the game would be spent playing as characters who are NOT Goku...and in particular, Gohan, and the idea of playing through his training with Piccolo with these game mechanics sounded like a lot of fun.

That comes to my first issue with the game...speed/pacing. And I get it, because the game spans the entirety of DBZ from Raditz to Buu, but even so it always feels like we're skipping way too fast through the parts of the story that would service the gameplay the most. I thought what would make this DIFFERENT than the usual DBZ fighter is that we would NOT be skipping over the 'less interesting' parts quite as much, because the gameplay involves more than JUST fighting this time around, but more often than not I still found that it skips massively through major story beats when it should slow down and try to be more immersive. I've been playing intermittedly over the course of a few months so I don't have a lot of specifics off the top of my head, but the most recent part I finished was the whole entire Ginyu Force segment...in the space of about 45 minutes.

I remember being irritated that the game barely conveyed what an actual THREAT the Ginyus were to Gohan/Kuririn/Vegeta before Goku shows up, because of the way you still 'win' even the losing battles of this game. And while I know we're kind of in an era of de-bloodening the Dragonball franchise as a whole, the lack of violence also really lessened the impact of the absolute beat down Rikum gives everyone, and thus also diminishes just HOW powerful Goku - who shows up and stomps him in 10 seconds - has become. Then the whole Ginyu body change bit is just kind of raced through with little ceremony at all despite being one of the more iconic aspects of the whole Namek arc IMO...I don't know. I felt like Goku went from space ship to healing tank in even less time than usual, and in a game that's literally named after the guy it's EXTRA noticeable just how little time is spent focusing on him (admittedly if you go over all of Z in your head you'll realize Goku is actually out of the spotlight for a whole lot more than you'd think, but the game's fast pace doesn't help matters either).

Again, I'm sure a lot of this is just my own expectations being unreasonably high for a Dragonball game, but it bums me out when the general presentation - the extremely faithful cutscenes, the soundtrack, etc - is really immersive, but then they'll just go and race through a whole story segment to get to the next fight. Oh, I remember another one that annoyed me. Imagine if the game wasn't afraid to actually let you control BULMA for the brief interlude where Popo takes her to Kami's spaceship! Imagine actually having to explore around as Bulma (you could even give her Popo's magic carpet so she could still use the game's flight mechanics) and scavenge for mechanical parts (which is already a thing you CAN DO in the game mind you!!) to try and do some repairs to the ship. Or just having to search around the area, maybe in the middle of a blizzard (it was a snowy place iirc), to find the ship at all. Instead the game just kind of went from 'Vegeta got away' to 'but they found a spaceship to go to Namek' almost IMMEDIATELY. Being that I'm playing the game alongside my nephew, who started to get curious about Dragonball (I think he saw some kind of Goku vtuber playing Minecraft on youtube or something, and got excited when he found out that I knew all about Goku), there's lots of bits like this where I end up having to summarize some of the stuff the game glosses over, because watching the story unfold via this game IS his first exposure to Dragonball (which I guess in a way makes it a good thing that the violence is generally pretty toned down compared to the original).

Anyway, yeah, idk. I feel like even when the game does let you explore it's all very barebones and watered down. The fact that only the story cutscenes are voiced and all the original sidequests are just grunts and noises also irritates me because it feels so lazy (Xenoverse does the same thing but idk, it didn't bother me there, I guess because all the battle dialogue was still voiced and it was just overworld stuff that wasn't). I also don't feel like I ever really have to use mechanics like fishing or cooking or any of that stuff because the battles are pretty easy? At least on normal difficulty, because the combat system is so simplified compared to a proper DBZ fighter. It's more about like, Touhou-style attack dodging than anything, which is fine, but I find that it's rarely challenging enough that I feel like "damn I should have spent more time scavenging ingredients to cook food before the battle!". It just feels like they tried to make a game with these survival RPG mechanics but didn't know HOW to, so they're very tacked on...and they just made a bog standard 'let's rehash the same DBZ story once again' Dragonball game when it COULD have been something better. Especially if they dared to start with Kid Goku's life. Sadly I know that a AAA game focusing on OG DB is basically a pipe dream.

Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights

After I finished Vigil I was feeling hungry for more 2D metroidvania soulslikes, and Ender Lilies just happened to go on sale like, a few days later. It had really good reviews so I picked it up and spent the next few days playing it obsessively. In fact, based on the dates of my achievements from start to end, I finished the game in less than a week (31 hours total), 100% completion with all achievements. And after I did I just kept feeling like...it wasn't enough and I wanted more. I really got sucked into the world and its atmosphere, particularly through the amazing soundtrack. And once you start digging and trying to understand the lore, it's extremely compelling as well.

While I'd really like to see the devs make another game like this, maybe even set in the same overall world, I'm not really sure if I want a sequel per se. In a way, Lily's story has just begun, but I also don't feel like I want to PLAY whatever lies in her future. Probably because if I did it would mean what awaits her is more monsters and more sadness. But I really would like to explore more of the Ender Lilies world, perhaps beyond the boundaries of the kingdom, or maybe even delving into the past of the Ancients before the events that lead to the game's story.

I can't really talk about the game too much without spoiling too many things that I think are just better discovered for yourself. The game is tough, but not unforgivingly so (especially if you're not going for all the achievements), and it's pretty short if you can hit 100% in just 31 hours. I'd absolutely recommend checking this one out, especially if other similar 2D soulslike metroidvanias seem too challenging. Or at least watch someone else play it (ideally without commentary). Ender Lilies is a whole experience, between the art and the music and the story and the lore and the way the gameplay itself just clicks, and it's one of those things that I'm sad I'll never be able to play for the first time again.

PS - I want more games to take a hint from its map system, particularly in highlighting a room when I've collected everything in it to let me know I really didn't miss anything, because that shit is SO fucking clutch when you're achievement hunting, or just if you're the kind of person who hates the idea of overlooking anything.

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes

As I mentioned in the addendum of my 2021 post about Three Houses, it took me so long to finish that game that I actually saw the release date of Three Hopes (mid to end of June iirc) as my deadline. And that wasn't because I had any intention of GETTING Three Hopes (especially on release day, because I just don't buy games like that), but because I knew my Three Houses-loving friends WOULD, and I'd be right back in No Spoiler territory with them after just finally breaking into the inner circle of 3H spoilers. Thankfully I did manage to finish my final route (Crimson Flower) just a week or so before Three Hopes came out, and I even played the Three Hopes demo afterwards to see what it'd even be like (I've never played a Warriors game before). When I saw that the story was actually pretty engaging I was like, oh, this is less brainless than I thought, maybe I'll buy it (eventually)...and ended up getting a gift copy from a friend instead. Nice!

Except...while my Three Houses friends all expected to get obsessively sucked into it (after also enjoying the demo), and I was excited to actually be there with them this time, they unexpectedly became engulfed by a DIFFERENT fandom...progress sort of halted on the Three Hopes front...and then I became the one who was afraid to spoil THEM by pulling too far ahead, so I slowed down...and eventually that just sort of killed my momentum entirely and...yeah. I've stopped playing for now.

Being that I had done the two Eagles routes back to back as my last two routes in Three Houses, AND that being the favorite house of said friends (and the one they were also gonna pick first), that's where I'm at. I have no idea how far into it I am because the game seems surprisingly on par with a normal FE game in terms of story pacing...maybe halfway, or not quite halfway through? I wanna say I got to chapter 8 or 9 before I burned out. I do want to go back to it at some point, ideally when (if?) my friends become re-interested, but either way after how long it took me to push through Three Houses I suppose it was a good time for a Fire Emblem break regardless. I've still got a bunch of other Switch games (notably Shin Megami Tensei V) waiting on my shelf, and I had intended to jump on that when I finally finished Three Houses before Three Hopes came along and threw me that curveball. I've just kind of had the cartridge in my Switch ever since, deluding myself into thinking I'm 'still playing it' because I know the minute I take it out that won't be true anymore.

I suppose I should actually give a review, huh? Well, despite how not far at all I actually am in the game (considering the other routes), I feel like I've played enough that I've seen pretty much every type of gameplay mechanic. I gotta say, despite it not being a turn-based strategy, it feels a lot more Fire Emblem than I thought it would. Just about every downtime activity from Three Houses reappears here in some form, and there's a lot more to do at your base and on side missions than I expected. Trying to get all S ranks can also be really addictive and I spent a lot of my playtime retrying the same missions over and over because I felt like just one small change could improve my time and get me that S (and so far, with maybe one or two exceptions, I've managed to S rank every mission by retrying it a few times). The missions are also still very much what I would call strategic, just in a different way, and the main missions especially give you lots of options for how to tackle your objectives so long as you've been thorough about clearing the map and picking up resources and intel along the way.

I find the gameplay pretty overwhelming with the realtime combat when so much is going on, so the way I adapted to that personally is that I spend a loooot of time pausing and opening the map screen to issue orders to the other characters. Then I usually pick one and try to carry out my own goal while they autonomously work through theirs, periodically swapping to someone else to see how they're doing and just for the variety of playing as someone else here and there. But I'm basically ALWAYS checking my map every 30 seconds to get a feel for where my units are and what they're doing, and what needs to be done...which I found helped me keep track of things a bit better amid the stream of endless enemies, special attacks flying around, and being constantly bombarded with dialogue while I'm trying to fight. It took a bit of getting used to but I think it's pretty fun once you get the hang of it.

What surprised me the most when I played the demo (and made me consider getting the full game at all) was that the story does play a big part in the game. I guess I just sort of expected an excuse plot that sent a bunch of familiar faces out to use anime moves against an army of bad guys. I have no idea how the plot kicks off for the other houses, but what really drew me in with the Eagles was how the decision to reveal and act on one thing at a much earlier point in the plot lead to a completely different outcome, spinning the usual Three Houses story off into an AU that still felt internally consistent with the original characters and events. When it came up, I was like, "no way, that's going to basically change EVERYTHING!" and got really sucked into the plot even before the demo wrapped up - so kudos also to the demo for providing enough content to actually suck the player in. That said, this game is very much only for people who finished Three Houses...at least, I sure can't imagine being able to keep track of the story, or even being interested in it, if not for knowing what ORIGINALLY happened and how differently a few factors of Three Hopes influenced them to change course. So while I'm sure there ARE Warriors fans out there whose interest in the game is mostly that aspect, I think for most people you're not gonna want to just pick this up without having played the original first...IMO, anyway, this game is NOT Standalone, despite being an alternate universe version of Three Houses' plot.

But yeah, I do wanna go back to this someday, because I was enjoying myself. I think just the combination of my friends falling off (not having anyone to talk about it with anymore after liveblogging ALL of Three Houses to them felt weird) and just generally needing a break from these characters after 8 straight months of them warranted a break. It's time for me to accept that, pop out that cartridge, and move on...I'll come back eventually. Probably...

DARK SOULS: Prepare to Die Edition

So, after all those soulslikes paving the way, we finally arrive at this point. All of it, training me for the mindset to go into a game known for its frustrating level of difficulty. I'd actually had Dark Souls in my Steam library for YEARS (that's why it's the old Prepare to Die Edition and not the Remaster), but only now did I finally feel like I was ready to take it on. And so, after applying the DSFix patch/mod (and one other mod that makes crates/barrels occasionally drop things like arrows and throwing knives because I was gonna smash them all anyway (currently really missing this in DS3)), I began my journey in June 2022...and only just wrapped it up in November.

I talked about this a bit in my Undertale review back in 2020, but what you know/expect/feel about a game before going into it can very much affect the experience you have when you finally play it. In the case of Dark Souls, I was strongly influenced by fear of how difficult it would be, due to its reputation. That fear lead me to watch lots of videos before playing, as a way to kind of prepare myself for what was to come (because going in blind was too scary). Most of these were challenge runs, so the focus was on the boss fights, but it all gave me enough of a taste of the general progression and various hurdles I'd be facing along the way. As such, I often knew exactly how to prepare, and how cautious to be making my way through areas, which trivialized a LOT of that expected difficulty.

To give perhaps the best example, I was very aware of Blighttown's reputation because it's practically a meme. People hate this Blighttown place. It's full of aggressive enemies and a deadly poison swamp that's become a staple of all future FromSoft games. It's the worst area of the game. Etc. Granted I later found out a good deal of the hate was due to the terrible framerate the game had on consoles (wasn't an issue for me on PC, at least with DSFix), but I imagine a lot of the hate also comes from people recklessly rushing their way through the upper level and getting caught by the constant ambushes, especially from the toxic dart guys. But because I KNEW ABOUT THIS REPUTATION, I went through Blighttown very slowly and cautiously. I had my bow ready at all times and a solid supply of arrows, which I used to tag enemies from a distance so they'd come attack me one at a time instead of ambushing me in large groups. I came prepared with blooming purple moss from Darkroot Garden to counteract the toxic from the blowdart guys, and since I knew they wouldn't respawn when killed I wasn't really afraid of them in the first place - after all, once they shot me, I'd pretty much know their position and be able to kill them, heal the toxic, and be on my way.

Aside from one or two deaths by fall damage (one particularly funny one was when I saw an item on a ledge that I could practically sense was schmuck bait...but I jumped down to get it anyway, and sure enough the floor collapsed under me and I fell to my death) I didn't have any trouble from Blighttown AT ALL, and definitely not one bit of frustration. It was TENSE, because of how dark the place is and because I was in constant fear of being ambushed, but it just didn't really happen because I could always spot the ambush from afar and tag the enemies individually with my bow. In a few areas with particularly dangerous drops of walkways I just decided that I didn't need the items that badly and ignored them. I got to the middle level bonfire without issue, and then made my way to the bottom of the swamp from there rather easily. And despite the poison swamp at the bottom itself being an obstacle, I had already gone back to the asylum to pick up the Rusted Iron Ring (though originally that was so I could get through the pool in Darkroot Garden), and the enemies at the bottom are much weaker than the ones in the top half of Blighttown so you're really only using your estus to heal off the poison anyway. I spent a lot of time farming the slugs down there for titanite shards and it felt like the poison, while it lasts for a million years, REALLY doesn't even do all that much damage, so as long as you don't panic and keep an eye on your health bar it was really easy to just periodically heal through.

The point is...one of the most hated areas of the game was a piece of cake to me because of the way I approached it. And I approached it that way to begin with because I went into the game knowing about its difficulty, preparing myself accordingly, and taking it slow and steady instead of rushing through and getting caught in a dozen ambushes. Of course this experience is built on the back of the millions of players who played this game when it WASN'T a decade old, and I'm not trying to trivialize the experiences of people who DID struggle with Blighttown by saying 'just like go slower lol'. But I do think it's fascinating how much easier this game is when you approach it the right way. I think, if I didn't know about all this stuff in advance, I too might end up trying to play it like Skyrim or something, just recklessly running into ambushes and traps and swinging my weapon wildly with no regard for enemy attack patterns. But by 2022 I think almost everyone knows that you can't play Dark Souls that way, and they probably wouldn't even try. And if you're not trying to play it that way...it's really NOT that hard of a game at all. It's a challenging game, and it will punish you for playing carelessly, but it's a far cry from the reputation the game has for being hard for the sake of hard. In fact, having recently played Megaman 1-3 with a friend via Switch Online, I feel like THAT is much more of a hard-just-for-the-sake-of-laughing-at-your-failure kind of game, where it just feels insurmountably difficult for no reason half the time, in a very un-fun kind of way. And the whole time we were playing it (and making heavy use of Switch Online save states along the way) I kept thinking about Dark Souls, and how much more forgiving it is than fucking NES Megaman (or NES Mario, or lots of NES games tbh).

Anyway. While this preparedness probably is the entire reason I was able to push through the game and finish it with 100% completion (even if it took me 6 months of playing cautiously), I did also end up feeling like it trivialized my experience in a sad way too, because I didn't really get to learn what the game wanted to teach me by punishing me, since I always knew what was around each corner. That's why I'm currently playing Dark Souls 3 blind (though I'll go back over a walkthrough once I finish an area to pick up items I missed, I'm NOT looking into things ahead of time). I think I probably would have been too scared to play Dark Souls blind, which is why I used those videos as a crutch in the first place, but I'm stronger now and I want to have that experience.

So, would I recommend Dark Souls? Yes, unless you absolutely hate third-person action RPGs in general. I think even if you're afraid of Dark Souls for its difficulty, you should give it a chance. Don't feel ashamed for looking up a walkthrough to prepare you ahead of time - you're still the one who has to beat the area by yourself, after all. While it did make me a little sad after the fact that I didn't get to experience the game blind, honestly, if I hadn't played like this I might never have had the courage to experience it AT ALL, so I'm glad that I did. I still felt pride when I conquered a tough area or boss on my own, even if I knew what to expect before going in. I guess it's like, if you were going to climb a mountain or explore the woods, wouldn't you feel a bit more peace of mind if you had a map of the area? But the map isn't going to climb the mountain for you...at the end of the day that's still something you've gotta do with your own power, and you can still be as proud of that as the guy who didn't buy a map. Or something like that, anyway. And also, don't believe everything you hear about on the internet, because I feel like the game's difficulty has been memed and exaggerated far beyond the actual truth anyway. Just take it slow and steady, prepare as much as you feel comfortable beforehand, and whatever you do, don't you dare go hollow.

Skyrim Together

Oh boy. So as we know, every year I find some way to play Skyrim again (except last year where I played Oblivion instead), and this year that took the form of trying to get Skyrim Together Reborn - the multiplayer Skyrim mod - set up and working with some friends. Except the idea of playing vanilla Skyrim (even with friends) sounded too boring to me. No, instead, I waited until someone else released a stable Skyrim Together modlist and then tried THAT out...and then proceeded to cannibalize it, removing mods I didn't like and adding new ones in that we wanted instead. You know. Just normal Skyrim PC player behavior.

Anyway, after about two weeks of working basically nonstop on my list, patching it and everything, making it as stable as absolutely possible on singleplayer...we took it online. And I learned that just because I've got Intermediate+ Skyrim modding knowledge, I don't know SHIT about what's going on under the hood in Skyrim Together's arcane black magic system. Long story short, we had uh. Problems. Lots of them. Most of them actually very funny, like, being attacked by a wolf (on my screen) and being told I'm actually crazy because it's a fucking skeever (on their screens).

Or looting the dead wolf/skeever and finding 148 bones, 296 dog meat, 539 skeever tails and 148 wolf pelts on it.

Or having...whatever this is, happen whenever your friends move around, except on THEIR screen YOU’RE the one doing it

Or getting launched into the sky for having the audacity to shield bash...

OR the respawn system sending you to the back half of a dungeon you just started, potentially behind locked doors that only open from the front side, leaving you essentially trapped.

You know. Normal Skyrim behavior.

Suffice to say, after many days of saying "okay let's try it again but do [x] this time", we just couldn't get past a lot of these issues. And funny as they were, they were kind of impeding our ability to play Skyrim...together. Eventually we all just kind of got so tired of trying that we quietly abandoned the project. Even me, with the fierce determination I had to make the modlist work for that two week period, just couldn't understand why things were so hilariously broken once we got online, and lost all my zeal for trying (the only thing I could possibly think to do was to ask for help on a support Discord, and given the choice between troubleshooting with a stranger and just giving up, I chose giving up).

Honestly, even if things WERE working as intended, the whole process quickly became tiring. Every time I made changes to the list I'd have to reupload it for my friends to then redownload and overwrite their files with. And we had to get VPNs to connect to a private server session with (the need for extra tools like this is why I listed this as "PC" and not just "Steam"), and depending on which one of us was hosting we'd often experience slightly different flavors of bugs. And it didn't even matter how hot we made our orcs, because certain RaceMenu features just don't sync properly to the server, so all the time we spent perfecting our Himbo body morphs was for naught. It just kind of kept chipping away at our patience a little at a time until the cons started outweighing the pros of playing Skyrim together, and we all just lost the desire to keep trying.

But hey, this was all happening in September, just a month or so after Skyrim Together Reborn's official launch. And it was only DAYS after I saw someone else post a modlist that I then used as the basis for mine. It was probably too early to be as ambitious as we were. My hope is that development on Skyrim Together, and its Nemesis fork, make enough progress that by the time ky desire to play Skyrim again rolls around I might be willing to take another crack at it, and maybe things will work better by then. The day may yet come that our hot orcs will finally be unleashed on Skyrim...together.

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2

I've mentioned a few times how me and a friend of mine like to co-op play ostensibly singplayer games with Switch Online, but they do have some multiplayer-friendly games on there too, and sometimes we do also play those. One time we got very into playing Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine on Genesis. And then shortly after that my friend discovered an alarmingly similar game on the SNES called Kirby's Avalanche. We started to suspect this might be a case of some Japan-only game that they didn't expect to take off in the west without more familiar marketing, so we looked into it and it turned out to be the case - for a series of puzzle games called Puyo Puyo. After finding out there was a modern Puyo Puyo x Tetris crossover for Switch (that might be easier to play together than doing it via Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine) we both grabbed a copy...and I even grabbed a second copy on Steam when there happened to be a Sega sale about a week later and I spotted it there too.

Anyway, I may have briefly fallen into a week-long period of Puyo Puyo Fever where I couldn't stop playing, and all my dreams were haunted by falling puyos and tetris blocks. I got over it, but I still think it's a really fun and addictive game, and the multiplayer aspect of dumping garbage on your opponent's field to screw them over is a really fun way of turning what I tend to think of as a singleplayer genre into something competitive. And there's tons of different modes and ways to play, too, whether you wanna play Just Tetris or Just Puyo Puyo or a combination of both, time attack, all kinds of weird variations...and there's a weird over-the-top anime singleplayer story mode as well, where you can launch special attacks at your opponent as well. I actually got stuck on one of the bosses in this mode because I suck at utilizing the special attacks and you REALLY have to in order to beat her, but I'll get her...one day...

My nephew also got addicted to it and even got his own copy of the game for his birthday, so we can play together too (or by himself instead of him borrowing my switch all the time). He particularly likes that you can reskin your puyos to look like Sonic characters. But yeah, honestly it's a pretty fun game, especially if you just want something to pick up and play on the bus, or while you're in a hospital waiting room because you've had an ear infection for 3 weeks, or something. It's pretty pricey on Switch at least, though, so I'd either grab it on Steam (where it's $10 cheaper even when it's not on sale) or wait for some kind of Sega sale to get it cheaper. I think it's a lot of fun, just like, not $40 fun. There's also a Puyo Puyo Tetris 1 that's cheaper, which I imagine can't be all THAT different unless you care about the online scene or something.

Super Mario 3D World

My Switch co-op friend got me this because he thought we would have a fun and friendly time doing co-op together. Oh how wrong he was.

First of all. It’s a fun enough little game, though I prefer the gameplay style of Mario Odyssey myself. I feel like this game’s levels are definitely designed more for quick play sessions, with the star and stamp hunts kind of working like bite-sized versions of tracking down moons in Odyssey. I played through the first world or two by myself before we headed online together for jolly cooperation. Or more like (I’m Mario)...

You see, the game feels nice and friendly and colorful and there’s even a lot of cases where co-op is encouraged. But you can’t show me a results screen at the end of the level where one player can do better than the other, even to the point of being awarded a crown to wear into the next level, without awakening the blood fury inside me. Every time he performed better than me (due to my overwhelming tendency to hurl myself off cliffs) it would ever so slightly raise the rage meter inside my heart. I would become obsessed with doing better in the next level. And at first this was sensible...get more coins than him. Collect the stars before he can. Get the checkpoint and exit flags to show my M instead of his dumb L. All things that would give ME more points. But sometimes you’re just not as good at Mario games as the other person and it’s easier said than done to just BE better than the competition.

But what if there was no competition in the first place? The solution was in front of me all along. Eliminate him. Pick him up and throw him off a cliff, or into an enemy, then use the resulting precious seconds to race ahead and get all the goodies before he can catch up. Of course, this became less and less successful as time went by and he caught onto the fact that I’d try to throw him at virtually any opportunity. Sometimes he’d flip the script and throw ME off before I could get a chance, resulting in a lot of back-and-forth warfare. But more often than not it goes like this

Turns out I’m REALLY good at playing myself. In fact, while looking for a video clip for that first gif of me throwing him off the cliff, I found about 6 like this where I try to pick him up but end up being the one who dies instead.

Honestly though, my favorite was this time, where I spent a while playing nice and not doing anything overtly evil, until we got to a toad house...

The toad house gets marked as cleared as soon as you exit, and he didn’t have any powerups on hand while I was running around with my raccoon suit, so he was pretty pissed about this one. Perhaps my finest moment of video game dickery of all time, and it’s not like it was premeditated (I’m not that smart). I just thought it up on the spot and thought it would be funny. And it was (to me). And that’s what it’s like playing Super Mario 3D World with me.

#sg2 plays video games #sg2's game reviews #this post was already long enough but I also had a little writeup about my experience with the bosses of dark souls #since I've already got it typed up in a txt somewhere I'll probably throw it into a second post and just link back to it here

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