#also i'm very glad all the monsters look like dog shit in this game

[rainbowninja00]

Bluetale (no real spoilers for Chapter 23 of TSE)

so in the newest chapter of This Solar Eclipse, we are introduced to Aqua, Bluetale Toriel. but what is Bluetale?

I'm glad you asked! I'm gonna have a cut cause this might get long.

Bluetale is just like Undertale, but blue. the characters, locations, and even items are all blue!

the characters are either blue or have a blue tint to them (Toriel and Asgore's fur is lightly tinted blue while Alphys and Undyne are just blue) and use blue magic a lot more. so instead of Undyne using green magic in her fight she uses blue, they all do.

Chara and Frisk have blue streaks in their hair to match their souls. speaking of which! determination isn't the primary soul trait here, integrity is. Frisk has a soul of integrity while Chara has one of patience, that's how they stuck around for so long.

"but what about the human souls?" they got another kid with a patient soul and one with determination instead of integrity.

let's talk character design cause I can't draw :')

Frisk wears a sweater coloured robin's egg blue with baby blue stripes. they look pretty much the same other than the sweater and hair streaks.

Chara has blue eyes instead of red, and their sweater is sky blue with powder blue stripes. they are also pretty much the same other than that.

Flowey resembles an echo flower so he can easily sew seeds of chaos throughout the underground. Asriel has a powder blue sweater with sky-blue stripes and slightly tinted fur!

Toriel has a deep dark blue dress with the original white accents, the delta rune on her chest is the same colour. her fur is slightly tinted blue! (her omega timeline design is a bit different, I will describe it more in the next coming chapter of This Solar Eclipse)

Sans looks relatively the same, he has baby blue mittens and slippers instead of pink.

Papyrus has a deep blue scarf, boots, gloves, and emblem. the yellow parts of his outfit are the same tho. much like how everyone draws him he has the body suit thing covering his arms and legs, but instead of being black, it is a very deep navy.

(all the NPCs look basically the same but recoloured blue, for the shits and giggles I might just photoshop some sprites of UT characters to show what I mean.)

Monster Kid is a very light blue, almost seeming white with how pale they are. In contrast, their lil poncho is sky blue with royal blue stripes.

Undyne is very much the same, but her hair and accents are black. her boots are a pain so I say they are just any fuckin colour cause I can't decide. she already has a lot of blue and idk.

Alphys is the same shade as monster kid, if not a bit more green, think a very pale mint.

Mettaton is just switching the pink for blue, either sky blue or a deep blue im not sure.

Asgore's blonde hair is black and his cape is royal blue.

Last but totally not least, the annoying dog has a slight blue tint to its fur and a dark blue paw print mark over its left eye.

the plot is the same as Undertale, with no real changes except for BLUE.

integrity is so important because it's about honesty and being true to yourself and others!

I am definitely gonna recolour some of the in game sprites to show off what they look like so keep an eye out for that! feel free to ask questions about this au cause I'd love to play with it more.

@dreemurr-skelememer Thought you might be interested in a more classic style AU (big 2015-2016 energy here)

[ravelights]

TEETH AND CLAWS FOR THE ASK GAME PLEASE

For you red, the beginning of the squeal to teeth and claws. I give you Blood and Guts:

-----

Date: January 7th 

Name: Izuku Midoriya

Life has been strange ever since I got away from All for one, I'm still puzzled about how I was able to escape anyway. All for One always kept me at arm's length, and then one night, the door was just wide open, and he was nowhere to be found. 

Sometimes I wonder, what if it was all just a trick? I fear that he has just let the leash slack, buying his time before he drags me back to his wretched castle. 

After leaving the castle behind on horseback, I found my way back to UA after two days of non-stop riding. My friends were happy to see me none of them let me out of their sight for several hours, saying how they had searched high and low for me when they realised I never made it to my mother's house.

All Might did stop hugging me for almost thirty minutes when we met up again, it was then that did I tell him what I found out. It was terrifying telling the greatest vampire slayer about my heritage, I had no idea how he would react to that. But when he ruffled my hair and told me that:

"Being a Dhampir is never something I will look down on nor judge you for. Besides, did you forget the first person to wield One for All was also a vampire? And I have met many along the journey that I consider friends, you are not the first and I hope you will never be the last"

I'm pretty sure I flooded the tent but that's not important, after a few days without blood (the thought of it still sends a shiver down my spin). My teeth eventually returned back to normal, but as I feared there is still an... urge. I think I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life, it's like what All Might said "it's like never moving a muscle, but it's a lot easier to ignore when you don't know it's there"

Never the less i can safely say i'm back to being human again, i know that i'll have to tell everyone at some point. inculding mum, but for now, I'm just glad that everything can go back to normal. 

....Well somewhat normal. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"FUCK!" Kacchan yelled, the mutated wolfs' mouth clamping around the blonde's arm. Kacchan punched the wolf in the face several times, but the creature remained stubborn, Iida rushed over with a sword in hand and sliced off the wolf's head. 

The body fell before the head, the wolf's mouth still clamped around Kacchans arm before the jaw went slack and got exploded off his arm. "Mother fucker, that hurt" Kacchan hissed, holding his bleeding forearm.

"Bakugou-san, are you all right?" Iida asked, sheathing his sword and jogging up to Kacchan as blood dripped down his hand.

"Damn it four eyes are you that fucking blind, I'm bleed everywhere, shit head" Bakugou barked, before doubling down in pain, his breathing ragged and heavy. Izuku sliced through the last floating night monster with his own sword, Uraraka dropped the monster to the ground with a wave of her staff.

"Kacchan can you stand up?" Izuku asked, running over to his wounded peer, Kacchan growled at him, as a dog would do to a stranger. Izuku and Iida stumbled back at the uncharacteristic sound, 'somethings wrong' Izuku thought as he saw his childhood friends begin to break out in a sweat and start to pale.

"Uhhhh, guys!" Mineta called out, grabbing everyone's attention. "Please tell me that isn't what I think it is," he required, holding out a shaky finger to the dead mutated wolf. Instead, it wasn't a wolf anymore, it was a man early 20s and very much decapitated, Izuku felt his heart drop as he looked up at the night sky. 

A full moon hung in the sky, the pale face illuminating the night, someone gasped in the background as the realisation settled in.

Bakugou had been bitten by a werewolf.

"FUCK" Kacchan screamed again that night.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Iida was picking at his food, as everyone around him was trying to comfort the speedster. "Look, man, you did what you had to do in that situation. I mean let's be real, most people thought werewolves were a dying breed" Kirishima comforted, patting a weeping Iida on the shoulder.

"It's not that I'm worried about, it's that fact that I was meant to be taking care of bakugou and in my own carelessness he got hurt" Iida wept standing straight up. "Bakugou got injured and cursed because of my failure; I can not go on being the group leader knowing I couldn't protect one of my own team members. Because of my actions, Bakugou could be as good as dead" Iida explained, clenching his fist with passion. 

"Oi fuck tard, I'm still alive" Kacchan barked from his hospital bed, his right arm completely bandaged up. "I ain't gonna die so shut your trap" He added, wincing as he put too much pressure on the wound. 

"But dude you were bitten by a werewolf, you know what happens when that happens," Kirishima said, Kacchan rolled his eyes before lying back down. "Come on man, we're worried about you" Kirishima added, watching with a crestfallen expression as Kacchan rolled over.

[revchainsaw]

Stephen King's Graveyard Shift (1990)

Blessings upon you congregants from your dear Reverend my beloved Cult of Cult! Gather round a receive today's message as hear a word from the writings of Saint Stephen! I have a bit of inside baseball to share with you today, and that is that I love the fact that Hulu curates a list from your watchlist that lets you know what films have been sitting queued up unattended. You know those movies that you kind a want to see and you keep saying "i'll get around to that" right before you binge King of the Hill for the 90th time? Well Graveyard Shift was one of those movies for me, in fact, I frequently decide what films to cover based on what is about to disappear. In many cases the films I sit through are not very engaging or surprising. I think to myself, yeah, this is about what I thought it would be, no wonder I chose not to engage. Graveyard Shift, however, was actually quite a wonderful surprise.

Sermon

Graveyard Shift begins at the overnight shift of a rat infested textile mill. The employee working the machinery has been so severely pushed to the brink by engaging with the little invaders that he begins to toy with them and sets a very tragic precedent for the film by gleefully tossing living rats into the cotton picker. We get some shots of a blood and viscera mixed into the cotton before this son of a bitch is offed by an off screen force. I'm not gonna hold out on spoilers here for you folks, the movies 30 years old and it's a giant mutant bat.

Our hero Hall, a drifter with a tragic past, blows into town and is quickly hired by Warwick, the womanizing and half insane owner of the textile mill. Warwick has an awful habit of giving easy work to the women in his mill who provide him with sexual favors, while punishing those who don't with the most filthy and strenuous work he can find. This abuse also extends to any of his male employees who he sees as competition for their attention. This is why when Hall begins a relationship with Jane, an independent type who has repeatedly told Warwick to back off, they are soon destined to land on the sub basement cleaning project that brings them into contact with our nocturnal beast.

As this plot unfolds Warwick and Hall become increasingly at odds. Hall at this point has been substantially assigned to contend with the hordes of rats in the basement, playing games and almost training them in a way to leave him be. Eventually the time comes for the much feared cleaning of the basement levels of the mill, and our three main characters as well as a slew of murder lambs descend to their doom.

These poor blue collar folk are accosted by rats, floods, collapsing architecture, the Mutant Bat Mama and Warwick himself descends into madness, killing Jane, before he himself is eventually caught in the leathery wings of the blood thirsty beast. This leaves Hall alone to fight the monster. The battle for survival between Hall and the Bat works its way back up to the Mill where Hall uses the cotton picker and ingest the creature in a bloody cottony mess the likes of which I haven't seen since a 13 year old Chainsaw tried to teach himself to shave.

The Benediction

Best Character: Who's the Boss?

Sometimes with certain characters there's a certain intangible something or other that draws a viewer to them. In the case of Warwick it must have been the pure charisma of actor Stephen Macht. He was definitely not the best actor in this film, it was very clearly a phoned in role with some questionable choices, like I don't get what that accent was about. The character was a sleazy heel and I was absolutely satisfied when he was killed. He provided a very realistic menace despite the utter cornball portrayal. This is truly what they mean when they talk about characters you love to hate. Fuck You Warwick, you magnificent bastard. I'm glad you were eaten by that giant bat.

Best Actor: Chucky's Cheesin' It!

Brad Dourif is perhaps the only actor in this movie who was memorable. It's always great to see Dourif outside of the chucky role. He's always bringing his best stuff and although I didn't mention him in this review, Dourif plays an absolutely demented Vietnam Vet/ Exterminator with his little rat catching dog Moxie in this movie. Whenever I think about Graveyard Shift I think about Warwick, Brad Dourif, and the Bat!

Best Kill: Nana nana nana nana BatMess!

Unfortunately for Graveyard Shift most of the deaths that occur are incredibly tame. It's a creature feature that mostly plays like a Who Dunnit. Its honestly the weakest feature of the film. In fact I'm going to call it right here. (Worst Feature: Genre Confusion). In a film that fundamentally does little more than 'Giant Bat Eats Mill Workers in Mild Criticism of Capitalist Exploitation', I'd like to see some people getting absolutely wrecked by this bat. That doesn't really happen. Most of the kills are off screen, or obscured by big leathery wings. The bat looks pretty damn cool, and when it is chewed up by the Cotton Picker it's about the most gore and effects you get in the film. It's a shame that it is the monsters undoing rather than the monsters doing that really shows off the effects. C'est La Vie!

Worst Kill: Rats Off to You!

In the opening scene that fucker is throwing rats into the cotton picker just for being rats. I know there's a ton of them, but it's such a mean spirited bull shit way of eliminating rats. Rat Terrorism is bullshit and I'm against it. Fuck you you weird rat killing guy, Let Brad Dourif do his thing and stop picking the rats up by their tales you asshole.

Summary

Graveyard Shift was a disappointment to Stephen King, who called it just another "quick exploitation picture" and you know what, that's all it had to be to make me happy. Graveyard shift has a cool looking bat creature, that is unfortunately underused. A quick and engaging little story that doesn't try too hard to be too deep, and I know that was probably a huge temptation with the themes of the story. The characters that are notable are over the top and interesting, and those that aren't are the perfect murder lambs, they are just unique enough to differentiate and keep the action moving. It's by far not one of the greatest films you'll ever see. It's a creature feature that doesn't do enough to feature it's creature. It's effects are good when they are shown, and I'm so happy it was made in an era where we didn't get bombarded with weightless grey blobs of CGI rats everywhere. It's exactly what the doctor ordered for a low stakes night in with some pop corn and a coke. Don't let the haters stop you, definitely give Graveyard Shift a shot.

Overall Grade: C

[retphienix]

I Have A Lot To Say So I'll Read More This.

The short of it?

I'm glad I played Joker- I played it because I wanted to know how DQM evolved when it reached the DS and I got my answer.

It's mediocre. Not bad exactly, I enjoyed playing it, it adds some REALLY appreciated features to the DQM series and if you were playing it at release it had online play which plays well with the post game content which I haven't touched by the time I wrote this:

-but there are some engine/console specific things that made it a drag and there are some parts of the game that are just weaker than the previous games which is amusing since the previous games were simple GBC titles.

And finally, I don't really recommend playing through Joker 1. Can't speak on the sequels, but Joker 1 was a pretty middling experience for me so I'm the wrong person to get a positive recommendation from.

And since the opportunity presents itself: If you like monster RPGs and haven't tried it- go emulate Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 for the GBC, it's really good and also if you emulate you can fast forward the GBC era grind if that's your taste- really a win all around.

On to my rambling:

I debated on writing, rewriting, rewriting, and better presenting my thoughts on this game and the series as a whole but nah, Joker ain't getting that, I'm ramblin'- lol

I will split it slightly between "The ending" and "The game as a whole" though.

Ending:

1:07 - This is slightly a 'game a a whole' thing but honestly it's funny to me that you unlock a permanent repel in this game by doing the main quest. I entered this dungeon feeling strong enough to beat the game, so I just avoided 90% of encounters entirely.

5:00 - I genuinely got a laugh out of Sparkpug's whole deal in this finale. Not story wise, that's fine, no complaints- I mean that Sparkpug is clearly built to be a monster that can carry an ineffective team. He's clearly meant to be bred a few times and a god tier member of a potentially inexperienced player's team- but I literally never used him after the intro.

So during this scene it's supposed to be like "I'm a demi-god monster, you can't possibly beat me" and I'm thinking "Dude, you're like level 10 and shit tier, you can't win, this is hilarious."

Obviously it's a real boss fight and not 'face the monster you once had' but I was having fun roasting him behind the scenes of this recording.

45:00 - What an entirely unexpected change of pace.

Like, I had it spoiled for me by a screenshot that Dr. Snap becomes a monster or something- but I thought maybe he was always a monster or something, and also I got a bad look at him.

HE TURNS INTO A BODY HORROR BEAST, THAT'S NUTS.

Genuinely a highlight of the game.

52:00 - I fucking laughed what a meaningless exchange where the payoff is saying "He was stupid!", it's honestly just silly and dumb but not necessarily bad just dumb lol

55:00 - Not a great 'you won' victory lap. Like at all. Kinda feels like they should have just made this all a cutscene where I appear back at town and see that Solitaire is the leader now etc etc.

I kinda don't understand why it's a victory lap at all? Because all anyone says is "They picked a weird successor to Snap >:(" or "Snap went to the island? I bet he was stopping the calamity :)"

If you have 2 lines of dialogue prepared, maybe don't make a victory lap???

1:00:00 - What a fucking stupid payoff lol

Like sincerely, Solitaire does NOTHING the entire game! She's meaningless from start to finish! And the 'surprise' is that she's the new commish??? And she got the position because she's a rich spoiled brat??? Like LITERALLY that's why????????

What a stupid fucking ending lol

Now her proposed evolution of the contest is fair enough, I mean it's childish as hell, but to be fair- more contests is a fine idea especially since prior games and this game demonstrated the public's interest in watching monster fights. And the goal being to fight her as the final fight is fucking egotistical and stupid- BUT- it does play into the fact that the player didn't get to fight her the whole game so it's whatever?

1:03:00 - This is both the best and worst lol.

This game has no story, like at all, it's fucking empty front to back, and only explodes with like- 1 event at the very end.

This moment is a montage of memorable moments with your 'best friend' Sparkpug. It's cinematically very nice to be honest! Even includes a moment I don't remember at the arena which probably didn't happen lol.

So visually it's cool- I dig seeing the camera zoom out as we run across the beach, and the flashback moments intersplice over us making our way to the scout memorial- that's very well done.

The content is empty lol

As I said there's no story, these moments are nothing lol

And that's that.

All said the ending was a very nice challenge to face with my team- I had to abuse items like mad but I MADE IT! It was a GOOD fight.

The rest I've already said.

On to the game as a whole:

I have issues with this game, but there's good too. It's really like 4 steps forward 6-7 steps back it's weird, it's really weird.

Positives are neat!

> First and foremost- TRAITS!

Monsters in Dragon Quest Monsters have always had a problem with keeping their identity for long. The way I'd explain it to an outsider to the series is that Monsters DO have special stat variance and intended movesets and all that jazz- but the breeding system completely and entirely destroys that relatively early into the game.

While a monster might normally have really high defense and low other stats while knowing buffing magic- breeding, EVEN UNINTENTIONALLY, will have that same monster come out with 9 billion attack and all ice magic.

Monsters in DQM have a habit of becoming canvases for the breeding effects rather than their own mons- and this is undeniably a downside. It makes the game feel unique, it doesn't 'hurt' it, but when by mid-game monsters are more easily identified as sprites rather than strengths and weaknesses or even types (family) it's a slight downer on the series.

Traits fix this a lot by making every specific monster have unchangeable traits which offer things like "immunity to x type of damage" or "higher crit chance"- it's small, but it gives each monster more identity.

> Second and secondmost- SKILLS!

The older games didn't use trees, it used each individual spell as a potential pass on during breeding.

Each monster could have 8 spells, and when you breed two monsters you pass on all 16 spells to the offspring (they don't learn them all at once, they learn them as they level up) as well as the natural spells the monster would learn by level up.

So in the older games it is really easy to end up with a refined and overpowered list of 8 spells on each of your monsters.

Now spells are tied to Skill trees and your monsters can have 3 skill trees total (which are passed on as OPTIONS when breeding).

All to say skills do a lot for removing the "Master of all, weakness of none" spell lists that the older games made trivial to make, now you have to limit your builds and be more specialized- also they added skills like "Attack up" to add more variance to a build- instead of having spells you might just have high stat buffs as skill trees.

Overall I think Skills are an improvement because coupled with Traits it makes each monster feel much more specialized and unique and less like a sprite with no identity.

> Breeding is improved.

This is very much because of skills and traits- again- but also the system is just improved in general. Instead of being told "That's a monster you haven't had before!" and judging your decisions based on the name of the offspring breed, now you get to see a small sprite of the resulting monster to help you decide- ALSO instead of getting 1 result for every combo (to the point where you have to back out and choose Monster A + Monster B and Monster B + Monster A as separate options), you now get up to 3 results to pick between for every breeding opportunity.

It's just better.

> The engine is impressive.

At least to me. This is a DS title using (from what I read) a rework of the DQ8 PS2 game's engine- it certainly looks like it.

Combat models are nice, using moves looks nice, overworld exploration looks nice- it looks nice.

Now for some negative and general nonsense- all of which is more often than not 'weird'.

> I gotta be unfair and say "The Story" first and foremost.

DQM 1 and 2 are not intense story games. They aren't.

But they both knew how to handle their story well for what they wanted to tell, I can and will praise both for their narratives because they know what they are and do it well.

DQM:J does not. It's fucking bad.

Basically: The overall story doesn't exist- you're told to be a spy, but that comes up 1 time towards the end of the game and LITERALLY doesn't matter at any other moment INCLUDING the one time it comes up.

You have NO meaningful objective from the start up until near the end of the game. You show up and have no goal- so you get told to get some crystals with no meaning behind it (not even a lie because they are clearly evil- not even a lie to motivate you! NO MEANING IS PRESENTED! JUST DO IT! TO DO THE CONTEST I GUESS! WHY? SHUT UP!)

So 90% of the game time you're not doing anything meaningful. So what about the islands? Any small narratives to keep things moving?

NO!

NOT AT ALL!

So you go 90% of the game having no real objective, just kinda wandering forward mindlessly- and then the game suddenly goes "Oh! Guy who seemed sus! He's evil! He's gonna unleash the calamity that you were 'kinda but not directly' working towards with your dog! You know, that plot point that's kept vague and paid 0% attention to the entire game? Yeah it's happening! Aaaaand you're done! GG!"

Basically there's just nothing going on in this game, it's all background noise until the last 10% of the game. And that's lame.

DQM1 had a light story- but from the very intro cutscene you have a clear objective which makes every action you do seem relevant as you are working towards that goal.

From the start of the game you know "My sister is gone! The king says a magic wish can get her back! I'll go do that!" and then you do!

DQM2 has a much better story!

You have a goal from the start (The kingdom is physically dying and you have to save it by getting a new plug!) AND it has stories for each world you visit!

THAT'S MILES BETTER! THIS GAME COULD HAVE DONE THAT FOR THE ISLANDS!

Anywho. Story is lacking and empty and lame especially when DQM2 has a similar format but does every part better- you have a clear objective you're working towards AND side stories to keep the light narrative moving!

WTH!

The spy plotline doesn't matter! It could have been used to build suspicion on who's the good guy!

The islands are so empty of story!

DQM2 has a fun mix on how a rival character works which makes every world interesting to see how they get involved!

This game has a rival that does NOTHING!!!!!!!!!

It's just such a step back from the previous games, it's weird to see DQM 1 land a solid simple story and DQM 2 build a great format to expand the story going forward- and then DQM:J just slams its head into the dirt and wipes out.

> Game's slow.

The engine switch is a good thing overall, but it makes combat slower (a lot), adds loading screens to combat (primarily), and they didn't bother speeding up the grind from previous games.

Because of the grind still existing which isn't a problem in and of itself- the game becomes SLOW AS HELL because the engine makes that grind take longer.

Also world exploration is slow which is to be expected when moving from 2d to 3d, but this is countered by adding things to the world to find or do- and Joker tries but it's still noticeable. The world exploration isn't a problem, it just stands out alongside the combat being slow as hell.

The engine change was a great thing- but it feels like they should have put more work into speeding up combat to counter the slowdown of load times and flashy animations.

A GOOD WAY TO FIX THAT MIGHT BE XP!

> Music ain't great in my opinion.

DQ has amazing music. This game has some weak renditions in my opinion. The CELL HQ theme song is a pretty good poster child for the worst there is, but just in general even the better music is lacking compared to the chiptunes of the GBC or the better mixes of the main series.

Maybe it's unfair, it's a DS game, I don't know, I just know I ended up just muting most of the game because it didn't sound great. I played the GBC games OSTs instead for a large portion of my playthrough. I listened to videos instead for the bulk of the game.

It's just not pleasant to me, sorry to say.

> XP!!!!!!!

I'm being a spoiled ass on this but yeah!

XP SUCKS IN THIS!

There aren't good placed to grind until you beat the game! (apparently)

The first level blatantly has too low xp which makes you grind before you can tackle the boss of the island- and the late game has you mindlessly grinding low xp rewards in order to be ready to face the final boss.

It's WEIRD!

Why is it so low!

> Tech is weird!

I could ramble on this alone but here's the short version:

DQ has a unique fantasy world aesthetic that each game has explored in its own way. It's basically "swords, magic, monsters, and charm- things feel light but aren't afraid to get scary sometimes :)"

This game... doesn't.

This game has fuckin' tech watches, jet skis, TOWER PCS????

This ISN'T dragon quest on a world building level.

It's like, contemporary modern world but with slimes.

And that could be good I guess, but it feels so fucking weird to see PCs right alongside swords and axes and a dracky.

Like... why?

It's a poor aesthetic according to my tastes. Maybe I'm an ass for that. The tech is weird.

All to say, in a poor rambling "I gotta get this out of me" kinda way, is Joker was fine.

I enjoyed breeding. I enjoyed seeing the engine. I enjoyed the unique additions like a 'hero monster'.

But I also had to grind mindlessly on a slower game.

I had to endure a story that forgot to show up until the very end.

I sat there thinking about replaying the older ones the whole time.

It was fine.

It's mediocre.

I'm glad I played it.

I'm done now :)

[spacedlexi]

Hello! I like your TWDG art and I'm curious if the Final Season was your first exposure to TWDG series? What do you think of the series overall, if you've played them? Any favourite characters outside of S4? I personally stopped playing the games after S2 left me severely disappointed, I think S1 will always be the best of them.

oooo cool questions. and thank you!!

my first exposure to twdg was actually when the demo dropped for the first season!! yea ive secretly been here the Whole Time lmao i didnt play it myself tho i watched my friend play. it was the first time i had been exposed to the telltale choice game kind of format and i didnt really know how to feel about it so i didnt pick it up for myself i just watched others play. it took me a while to catch up and i didnt finish the first season until after s2 ended

the end of season one, like with most people, left me like.....really super heart broken and emotional like man i was Empty inside ahah that ending still and always will get me just Right in the fuckin heart meat. so, feeling as empty as i did and wanting to know where clems story went i jumped Right into season 2 ............ and that left me even More fuckin empty and sad than season 1 lmao fuckin season 2 is probably The most depressing season imo i didnt think i could feel worse than the end of s1 but s2 took it as a challenge

i Hated s2 and was really suffering through it but when kenny showed up i was like OH THANK GOD a familiar face (even tho he really tested my patience in S1) because i capital H Hated the new cast. sarah was fine and luke was Generally ok for the most part but the adults pissed me the Fuck off and still do for how they treated clem (an 11 year old!!) like a whole ass adult and personal therapist. but then kenny got Real scary after the whole sarita thing and jane was pissin me off for not only constantly pushing kenny (a man who was desperately holding onto a very thin thread) but for trying to convince clem that she didnt need anyone and that she’d be better off on her own (AN 11 YEAR OLD!! in the zombie apocalypse!! even tho yea the s2 cast were shit to be around). looking at s2 in hindsight the only good thing about it was AJ..bby boy...

and then about a year or so later the trailer for s3 dropped and i was like YES look at clem fuckin badass fuckin shotgun fuckin take no shit Yes but then i was soooooooooo so disappointed when i found out you were gonna be playing as some fuckin Nobody new character i was like fuck off i just want clem back. season 3 was just....pretty boring in my opinion and the only saving grace was whenever clem was around and the whole “wheres aj” plot that i wish the game focused on instead. out of the s3 cast (minus clem/aj) i only really cared for javi and mari...and well.....we all kno what happens to mari and how fast l o l rip. eps 1-3 (generously) were ok and interesting but the final eps just... ehhh. also jesus was ok but hes also a part of the comics/show whatever so he doesnt rack up points for telltale. javi flirting with him was pretty cool tho. both protags are bisexual you love to see it. bi rights hell yeah

AND THEN....SEASON 4. i immediately fell in love with the entire cast (even when vi was mean to her when they first spoke cuz i was like “yeah yeah i know you dont mean it i saw the way you were lookin at her from the wall i KNOW youre gonna be a romance option”). the whole troubled youth boarding school was such a great choice finally clem was around people her fuckin age no more adults looking to her for guidance or to parent. and she was Top Dog these kids had no real experience and i knew it was only a matter of time before she slipped into the role as their leader. i was NOT expecting it to be because of how ep 1 ends like omfg the end of the 1st ep is just.....Real Good. the ep itself was pretty slow getting you introduced to everyone but my god shit gets Real the moment clem walks into that basement and from then on out the ep is just Wild and ends with a (literal) bang.

E2 started testing my patience with a few characters (lookin at you louis specifically (even tho i still like you) because i will never get over how now AJ was the one being treated like an adult (A 5 YEAR OLD WHO ONLY KNOWS KILL MONSTERS TO SURVIVE and has never been in a group setting that he can remember))(its why my clem could never romance louis sorry dude) but violet was 💕💕 amazing standing up for clem and aj against the whole group and she takes on the role as leader cuz “no one else stepped the fuck up” i love her.... and then lily shows up and the whole drama with the raiders AGH love it

up until this point i was still just watching others play since the seasons were either too depressing or boring for me to want to pick it up for myself

but then telltale shut down. and i was like.....oh my god....clems story is gonna get cut right at the end?? i loved this new cast and i dont get to see how it ends??? im not gonna get to play it for myself!??!?! so when skybound stepped in and saved it i bought it up IMMEDIATELY i was like “that was TOO CLOSE im gonna finish this series for myself Dammit” and i did and it was great i played eps 3 and 4 when they dropped at midnight im so glad i got to experience the ending for myself on my own. i cried ahhaha so fuckin hard and i still do CLEEEEMMMM you did it bitch i love you

season 1 and 4 are really the only ones i like. and for me s4 ranks higher than s1 because of the cast and the found family trope and how its just..not as fuckin desperate and depressing and hopeless. it really just comes down to preference but s4 wins for me with s1 close second. i only ever go through seasons 2 and 3 for the sake of setting up s4 like its just formality aha. plus getting ajs plot established makes it worth it. and knowing how clems story ends makes the depressing parts easier to get through

SO YEAH OOF SORRY for the long answer i talk way too much ahah but i do really love this game. seasons 1 and 4 now reside snugly in a little corner of my heart where they will stay until i die lmao. if you havent i definitely recommend at least going through s4!!