#and trying to improve things to make a game ppl want to play

[ezlo-x]

“Wow I hope BotW gets a sequel someday…” - my TotK summary <3

It’s been a year, and honestly. I did not complete that game at all. I watched lets plays and cutscenes in youtube and a few playthroughs of my friends. And every time, my regret of buying this game grows ever so slightly. I know I sound mean and harsh but I prommy I got nothing against ppl who actually enjoyed TotK. This is more of my personal experience of how my excitement playing this game completely burned me out less than halfway through the game.

Gameplay

I’ll start with gameplay first, as I have issues with it. Let’s start with the physics of the game itself. Ngl, there was a small worry in the back of my mind when I realized there would be in-game physics and that you have to rely on those said physics. I personally don’t have a good experience with game physics and they usually tend to frustrate me. Which somewhat happened when playing the game. It didn’t happen too often, thankfully, maybe because the zonai parts didn’t tend to last long. Speaking of Zonai parts and builds

I wish building Zonai stuff was a bit more fun. Or at least give us more time to experience our builds. We already have a disadvantage by having a limited amount of batteries that you have to slowly upgrade throughout the game. So, seeing that one of your Zonai pieces starts to flash and disappear is annoying. I understand we can obtain more zonai parts throughout Hyrule, but I wish it lasted long enough. Also, the fact that you can’t really travel a lot in many of the builds, oh how disappointing it was to build a cool Zonai truck with big ass wheels but get frustrated that it couldn’t pass through a few bumps on the road. I feel like the Hoverbike is the best Zonai build of the game.

The Ultrahand is fun when trying to solve puzzles or merge random items. Fusing weapons, on the other hand, is my favorite thing in the game. There’s something really satisfying about fusing a really powerful weapon together. I really don’t mind that the weapons are breakable if that means I have a spot to make a strong weapon. Weapon durability never really bothered me. Both games push you to explore around to look for weapons. I think it would be boring if they weren’t breakable.

The shrines are a big improvement from BotW's shrines. I wished there were more challenging Shrines over the many King Rauru blessings. I can't really say much about the dungeons as I only completed two out of the five. But I think there was a bit to be desired; it's almost a Zelda dungeon.

Sage abilities. I want to speak to the game designer who thought it was a great idea to activate the sage abilities with the same button you click to pick up items on the floor. A total downgrade to the way you’d activate the Champion abilities in BotW.

Rupees. I would like to speak to the game designer who thought it was a great idea that you now have to manually press A to pick up rupees from the floor rather than casually walking in front of it to automatically pick it up. From my previous point, do you know how many times I’ve tried to pick up rupees only for Tulin’s ability to fly them away from me?

The sky islands, ohh boyyy, finding out that they had to reduce the amount of sky islands is disappointing, but I understand in a game design aspect. BUT it is disappointing that the game was advertising itself for the sky islands, only for there to be very few in the final. Like remember back in 2021 when they were advertising SkSw HD, and then i think a year later a totk teaser dropped and Link was falling from the skies? Good times ❤️

The Depths: I enjoyed the Depths a bit more than the Sky Islands. But it does get boring after a while if you’re not there to fight monsters or look for treasure, which is also disappointing. I love the OST descending down a chasm and entering the depths. Also, don’t get me started on how frustrating it is to use Zonai builds there compared to the surface or sky islands.

I think those are all my thoughts on the gameplay. I still have a few more issues with it but I feel like it mixes with the story so lets get that over with

Limitation vs Freedom

My biggest issue with this game is that it gives you the freedom to do whatever you want. However, there is still a story attached, and the story still wants to play out linearly. So, we have a game that grants you total freedom on how you want to play this game, but the story is still linear. But even if you decide to experience the story while doing dungeons and shrines. The game doesn't update with the piece of information that you discover.

The Dragon Tears are a really flawed way to experience the story. Zelda's memories are scattered across Hyrule; the number of times I've seen ppl say they accidentally got the tears out of order cause they thought it was similar to BotW's way of getting the memories. Basically, if you happen to be near one memory, you might as well get it cause it'll get annoying to go back and forth. Only to the person's shock, they got a cutscene meeting the Queen and King and then going up the Hebra region as that's the closest memory from the previous one. Just to see Queen Sonia dead on the floor.

What also bothers me is that the game doesn't update when you make a discovery in these memories. For example, I found out that Phantom Ganon can transform into Zelda in the memories and walk up to the NPCs in hopes of a change of dialogue. But getting nothing, walking up to Purah, Tulin, then Yunobo, and seeing no change of dialogue got really tiresome. It's as if the game doesn't believe you're smart enough to connect the dots.

Also, for people who decided to explore and get the Dragon Tear memories before entering any dungeon. There is very little change of dialogue, suddenly the game strangely punishes you by not letting the npcs acknowledge what you just discovered. While it's not an actual in-game punishment, you're stuck with characters asking a million questions that you already know of. Suddenly, the game's freedom to do whatever you want gets put to a halt because you decide to have the freedom to experience the story however you'd like.

NOW I get to move the part that I’ve been waiting (dreading) for!!

Lore

Sheikah Tech…I don’t care how simple the explanation is on why they are gone. It is probably the dumbest explanation I’ve seen. The fact that it wasn’t even questioned in-game and by the developers baffles my mind. How does it vanish in thin air? Their explanation is that the Calamity no longer exists doesn’t make sense to me either. The Sheikah tech has been there for more than 10k years but only in a dormant state. I don’t want to ask any more questions, or I’ll be here all day, but it drives me up a wall how the lore of the Sheikah got shafted to the side for the new stone technology aesthetic. Speaking of which-

Zonai in general. The fact that WE DONT EVEN GET LORE from the Zonais aside from being viewed as gods is sooooo ughhhhh I wish there was more. Why are there two remaining Zonais? (This probably got answered tbh but idc to look) Who’s the ancient hero and how come he looks like a Zonai or just in fact a different race we’ve never seen before?

Draconification…god. I have many thoughts and also many thoughts about the secret stones. It is an idea that I find interesting and could’ve worked for me. If it didn’t contradict itself in many aspects, as in how becoming a dragon, you will lose your sense of self. I think it would be a nice foreshadowing of the fate Zelda could’ve had. I think making the other dragons take a role in that and expand on it would’ve worked. Idk I think instead of implying it, it could’ve been expanded and shown a lot more severity of the situation.

Apparently I don’t got much on lore, but you know what I got much of????

STORY

This one is going to be a FAT one so bear with me. God where do I even begin here, I'm going completely omit the part where the game feels like it’s gaslighting you through the npcs cause I feel like everyone knows that.

My biggest frustration with this game is that it has such interesting story concepts and cinematic moments. But I can’t but feel like these moments were there first, and everything else was built around it. However, whatever suspicion I feel about how they created this story, only to my shock and horror that there isn’t a credited group of people in the credits, only an outside team (company?). Before I continue, I think it’s dumb when people say TLoZ didn’t have much of a story when previous Zelda games had a storyline to follow (OoT, MM, WW, TP, fucking…even Link’s Awakening, and more). So yes, TLoZ does have stories. It’s not just about the dungeons if I'm being honest.

What I find so odd is that Monolith Soft has games such as the Xenoblade games, where the latest game of that series does have a credited team of writers. Hell, BotW had two credited writers. But I won't go far speculating why they decided to hire a company outside the team to write TotK; it is only interesting to me why they did that. Since there really isn't a solid team of writers, I will focus my issues on Fujibayashi as a story writer; after all, he is the director of this game. And I've seen multiple interviews after the game's release where he explains a lot of the game's "lore" and story that should've been easily explained in the game in the first place. I think this will be me sharing my opinions rather than critiques... boy where do I even begin...

Sages—the ancient sages, not counting Mineru, are pointless. I felt no connection seeing the Ancient Sages meet their predecessors. Can't believe Age of Calamity made me feel more strongly about the Champions meeting their predecessors than the ancient sages did. - I also think they really don't share anything important. Maybe the first time, yes, but you could easily remove their cutscenes and just have Mineru explain how everything went down, and nothing will change. - Now, to the present Sages, I can't really say much, sadly. Tulin and Yunobo were the only characters for whom I completed their quests, and I enjoyed their character arcs, especially Yunobo's. If I could pick up TotK again, I would try to do Riju's arc, as it seemed really fun to play from the playthroughs I've seen my friends do. I don't really care for Sidon. Before I dropped the game, I was going through his quest and got really irritated fast for many reasons that I have mentioned here previously.

King Rauru and Queen Sonia – There has never been a character that I've enjoyed where I think they deserved much better than what they were there for. I get it; Sonia was only there as the character to be killed off to move the plot forward, but oh my god...I could've saved her. I wished we could've seen her more involved in the story than just standing by Raruru's side. - King Rauru, my brain turns foggy when I think of this man, and sometimes there are too many words to explain my issues. But to water it down, I feel we centered ourselves too much on these characters who don't even affect the main protagonist to some degree. Sure, King Rauru first appears at the beginning to show you his magic hand abilities. But I guess I was hoping something like how the previous TLoZ games had your companion help you throughout your journey and are the key fact of many things in the story (Midna and KotRL appear in my head when I mention this).

Zelda—sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I think this game would've been 10x better if she had been the protagonist. I know it probably wouldn't make sense because she turns into a dragon by the end but Idc. What frustrates me about Zelda is that she's given very few options. It's a war or nothing. It's becoming a dragon or being stuck in the past forever. I guess that's the tragedy of her story, but instead of me feeling sad, it frustrates me.

Link—Oh god, here we go. Link has a very small role in this, and you can disagree with me. But how is it possible that this is one of the few Links that has little involvement in the story? Link just happened to stumble into a bigger mystery than it already was. Link didn't even prove himself to Ganondorf why he's a threat to him aside from the first cutscene and Rauru.

Ganondorf - .........I hope this is the last time we see Ganondorf in the series. I know that sounds shocking, but if Fujibayashi is going to take the lead in storytelling for future games, I don't want him to make another iteration of Ganondorf. To me, Fujibayashi works better by making completely new Zelda villains. Ghirahim and Kohga are perfect examples. Ganondorf in this game was so underwhelming and disappointing. He never directly confronted himself with either Link or Zelda. Gameplay wise, he's great, but the story? What is he doing here? Literally, it feels like they only brought Ganondorf back because people questioned about Ganondorf back in BotW.

Conclusion

There are many aspects of the game that I enjoy; however, in my case, the bad outweighs the good. That's why this game frustrates me: There was a lot of potential to be seen. There is probably more for me to say that I'm either intentionally leaving out or just forgetting cause there are many things. Happy one year TotK 🎉🎉🎉

[juni-ravenhall]

sso and "its just a kids game!", "its not that deep!"

ive been thinking a lot about how there are things you really can and should excuse sso for "because its a kids game". those are things like the silly tone in serious situations, when carl and a DC goon just want to eat ice cream instead of doing villain things, or when mr anwir says "so anyway back to my evil speech", or when avalon/druid says :O, or when katja puts on an evil playlist and we change it to a less-evil playlist during a not-really-canon event quest. the goofy tone of the game makes it less scary despite having some dark and scary elements in the story.

(the goofiness shouldnt mess up the logic of the story, though, which i think the dark riders and DC really have an issue with, but thats a bit too much of a tangent.)

or things like making sure you know that nobody died when you and the soul riders did a thing, or seeing someone blast off in a goofy way after being struck, so you dont feel bad about it, or take away the lesson that killing bad guys is fine. making sure to spell it out to you if theres a lesson to be learnt sometimes, or shoving the magic of friendship in your face (although in a shallow way).

or having non-punishing and laidback gameplay (except economically) to suit the youngest players, like not having to lose anything if you fail, or giving the player very clear instructions for quests, or having NPCs not be very hard to defeat compared to games targeted to older teens and adults. (but accommodating young players that barely read and have never played a game before, or players with disabilities that can't always play in the most hardcore gaming manner, and so on - accessibility - shouldnt in any way relate to having bad or clunky gameplay or game design. sso doesn't actually do a good job of being accommodating, it would be much better if there was genuinely fun, well-designed, challenging gameplay for those who seek it, while allowing those who dont to take their time and play the same thing at their own pace without failing - having properly designed races and champs and overhauling the scoreboard system and testing every race until they're at the quality they should be; having rewards like more js for reaching higher scores while still allowing players to earn okay js if they aren't aiming for the gold medal times or highscore boards. having fun and challenging gameplay mechanics with different difficulties. etc. the concept of "adaptive difficulty" is also interesting.)

theres things that are very reasonable to excuse in kids media. theres just also parts that i dont excuse and dont think its appropriate to excuse. when ppl do the "its a kids game!" thing, its not always about what i described above.

should you excuse low-quality game design and gameplay functionality just because its a kids game? no, not at this price point, anyway - there are kids games for free or for a couple $€ out there that might be validly priced. however, this is also *especially* bad in "girl games" (fuck gender and sexism, but society exists). girl games are notorious for being low quality and not comparable in quality to "boy games" at the same price points. perpetuating this - trying to get girl game audiences' money without providing quality girl games - is a problem of misogyny and exploitation. not excusable.

should you excuse bad writing just because its a kids game? i certainly dont. i dont like badly written kids books, or picture books, or cartoons, and i didnt prefer low quality content over high quality content when i was a kid, either (but quality means different things in different circumstances and to different people). your ability to tell if something is crappy or great improves as you age, but even if its definitely possible for a kid to enjoy the hell out of an objectively low quality piece of media, there are problems that often arise from bad writing and bad design... because where low quality writing comes from, there is often also a lack of care for important issues and topics, and a lack of respect for the target audience.

should you excuse racial or sexist stereotypes, or fatphobia and harmful beauty standards in general, or ableism, or cishet normativity, lack of diversity, just because its a kids game? isnt it *even more important* in a kids game, since kids are still learning so much about the world and starting to form perspectives and opinions and feelings about it for the first time?

if you think "but sso doesn't have much of that!", i think you might have played the game with a very different perspective than i did. what about how courtney, the summers sister, is framed as a joke because of how she looks - you're supposed to find it funny (and sweet though!) that carl franz thinks she's beautiful and perfect, because that's not how the game assumes you reacted to her. the brothers obviously also are meant to be seen as goofy looking but i don't remember if it was handled in such a direct way as with courtney. the game also assumes that you find xin scary or strange-looking when you see him without his mask (it's in ydris' dialogue); which is especially fucked up since he's a person of short stature (and also part of the "circus freak" stereotype!), but also always fucked up regardless - people just exist, man. we are born looking some kind of way. it's fucked up to think xin or courtney are ugly. it's fucked up that we were supposed to find a disabled little girl scary during an old halloween event (i think her back was hunched and she walked differently?). it's fucked up to think pi is ugly, or mrs holdsworth, or the GED workers. i want the world to stop thinking of normal human traits as "ugly" no matter how unusual or usual those traits are, or how symmetrical or not, or how popular or not, how old or young you look, how sick or healthy you look, or whatever the fuck. its all ridiculous and should be stopped. we should think of people in terms of kindness, in terms of shared interests and shared joy, in terms of healthy relationships, in terms of caring and loving and making the world a good place to live in for everyone.

and thats just the aspect of beauty standards and shit. i havent even gotten started on the shallow idea of diversity they executed in the production of this game. on how there were lots of random npcs of colour suddenly, but without bringing poc in as important key characters with interesting and engaging continuous presence in the story. how the dark riders feature the most buff and masculine female character, a physically threatening and masculine woman of colour. how they were going to have 3/4 poc in the dark riders while the soul riders are 1.5/4, and the remaining dark rider appears to have albinism which makes it another harmful ableist stereotype. how so many of the important characters were designed as white - yes, its a swedish game, but the game is not from the 1950s, is it? when sso was released, sweden's population was more than 10% foreign-born. today it's even higher. can you guess if there is a class issue and if rich white game studio owners and directors didn't really think about people who weren't blond and light eyed and white?

or the lack of body diversity in anyone else than 40+ year old characters. sure, it's good there was anyone fat or beefy or differently shaped at all. and it's understandable that they didn't have the resources at the time of release to make the player character more customisable (doesn't excuse the lack of diversity in skintones though) and went with their typical fatphobic misogynist 2000's cartoon look they'd already created before sso (dont get me wrong, i love the old art, we can enjoy aspects of things while also criticising them). but they already *did* create npcs with different bodies and faces on and off - especially the 40+ yos - and there was nothing stopping them from spending a little more time on creating a fat young adult npc, or one with an androgynous body, or a beefy female npc, or other diverse bodies and faces, rather than spending it on putting together 10 more generic skinny background npcs (have you ever thought about just how fucking many random unnecessary npcs are in this game?).

those are a lot of things that are pretty serious and that you have to kind of be woke and analytical to think about in the first place (most players - esp if they themselves dont feel especially oppressed irl - arent ever going to really think about these issues, or might actively be *for* some of the issues, such as in the case of fatphobia directed towards the player model update). other things like the game design and quality of the gameplay, inconsistent writing and design and graphics and so on, are things more players might notice since it can make the game just feel more boring or frustrating compared to other games you play, even if you dont think too hard about the whys and hows.

but the fact that kids might not realise that theres ableism or racism or fatphobia or misogyny or that theyre being pushed into spending money on something that isnt really up to the standard - thats not really a reason to excuse those things. and if someone says "the writing is really bad" or "this makes no sense" or "why did they design these characters this way" or "this horse game sucks and is boring and inconsistent", rather than just saying "its just a kids game", "why do you take it so seriously", "its not that deep", maybe its worth considering this, that there are things you absolutely should excuse kids media for, and other things you really, really shouldnt.

[clamsjams]

QSMP Purgatory Opinions Wanted!

i’m making a video dissecting purgatory from a game design perspective and talking about different ways to improve the design. but i’ve been trying to avoid purgatory for a while bc of personal reasons (the design issues made me so fucking angry i couldn’t stand to watch it) so im pretty sure im missing some stuff. plus with the amount of creators and the length of purgatory it wouldn’t really be realistic for me to be able to see everything anyways

and also just acknowledging that i’m a human being with my own perspective and biases, im hoping to get more perspectives and info on how other ppl felt abt the event, things they felt worked and what didnt, etc.

so id like to ask the tumblr community their thoughts and feelings. streamer perspectives would be super appreciated as well, if a streamer mentioned something on stream i would love to hear it. i often miss things bc i only speak english, and even on english streams i just can’t watch all the time bc im a college student who has classes and responsibilities. so if u have something that u wanna let me know just drop it in my askbox! but before u do that, here’s a few guidelines of the stuff i’m looking for

i’m mostly looking for thoughts about the design and mechanics of the event, so please try to stick to those topics. the story will definitely come up at some points, but if u have a story critism please try to tie it to a mechanic in some way

the regular qsmp server mechanics will also definitely come up, but this is mainly focusing on the qsmp purgatory event, so pls try to stick to that

being more specific and detailed is best! for example saying “i don’t like pvp” is totally valid, im not a huge fan of it either, but its not really helpful. something like “i didn’t like how the emphasis on pvp encouraged people to start spawnkilling” is way better

the point of this isn’t to criticize any individual streamer or teams actions or play styles. if u have a specific incident that u want to use to show how a mechanic worked or didnt work that’s fine, but make sure that the mechanic/design is the main point

if u want to tell me something that a streamer said, it would be super super helpful if u could tell me where to find the vod and the timestamp of the streamers words. a link or a clip would be even better. if u don’t have the exact timestamp i would also appreciate details like which day it was and what the streamer was doing at the time

i will also be doing my own individual research in addition to this, but there’s a good chance that some of these asks will end up in the final video. if u don’t want ur username to be shown or mentioned, either send the ask on anon or u can just mention in the ask that you’d prefer to stay anonymous

that should be everything! anything that anyone wants to send in would be very very appreciated

[phospadparadscha]

my thoughts on persona 5 playing it for the first time (and right after giving up p4 because it made me mad lol) ((also spoilers up to the start of madarame's palace, i'm not far yet but want to write my thoughts down)):

pros- i really love combat and the baton pass mechanic. the protagonist has a great design and personality, the main cast actually has great chemistry, and the story is very captivating. the idea that we actually fight our personas now as shadows is very interesting. the locations are beautiful and i really like morgana (wayyyyyy more than teddie). also i love that finally i can see available social links, it makes the game feel much more fair, bc before i struggled keeping track of where everybody was at all times and even missed out on fulfilling some links just because it wasn't clear they were already available to me. the dungeons are really fun, i love prowling around like a thief and doing cool moves, its incredibly satisfying. honestly everything about this game is a drastic improvement upon persona 4 and the sour taste it left in my mouth after, before that, persona 3 blew my expectations clear out of the water. oh, and i like that the game isn't sexualizing its highschool girl cast as much as the previous games (at least so far). like ann has a sensual persona and outfit, but its empowering for her, not embarassing her like the bikini beauty pageant in persona 4 (shudders)

cons- the game feels really railroady, especially in the beginning. i want to explore and see all these locations and i'll constantly have morgana telling me i can't do something or that i can't even walk down a specific area because its the wrong way, when i just want to see this giant ass map. the characters are always telling me what to do, which for a game about disobedience and going against the grain, is pretty funny lol. it was rly hard to navigate the train station the first time, and i still struggle with how big the maps are. maybe because i played persona 3 portable before p4, i'm used to cozy maps, but at the same time i do enjoy the vast world, it might just take some getting used to but i was getting frustrated that first time trying to get to school. i feel like the character designs are more bland in this game compared to persona 3, and that the characters all have a bit of same-face syndrome. also, there's this weird yellow tint to all the portraits that looks really nauseating at times. i haven't made too much progress yet with madarame's palace and story, but as someone who has done nude modelling for figure drawing, i feel like its being framed in a really weird way like Ann will lose something virginal if she does it which is a bit of a stereotype for nude models, especially women in the field. but that's just a very niche thing i think very few ppl would even notice or be thinking about, lol. while i do really like the personas being enemies in palaces, i do really miss the old shadow designs because they were just so cool, even if they were becoming repetitive. also, i reallyyyyy miss the tarot cards flipping mechanic. it was my favorite part of dungeons in persona 4 actually but i guess i understand why its no longer there? and, maybe biggest of all, i can't get past igor's new voice. its really not what the character sounds like and i realize the voice actor passed away, but i just can't get used to it, it doesn't match his face and personality at all. he's supposed to be this impish character and he feels so solemn in a way that i don't like as much as previous igors.

that's about it sorry for the long post, i just wanted to share my thoughts because i love this game but there's also some things i can't get used to quite yet lol...

[utilitycaster]

I feel like something so many ppl just don’t get is it’s improv. I’ll see ppl be like “I hate this arc” or “this dragged on” I’m like?? If you want to watch a curated tight fantasy story with a normal beginning middle and end maybe don’t watch long form improv media? Also maybe I’m just fundamentally misunderstanding what ur post is about. I’ll constantly think and say “it’s their game” not as a “they’re above criticism” way but more in a “cmon it’s not like this is a script that’s being poured over by ten ppl sitting in a room debating whether this 30 seconds drags or not”. Like I love Play it By Ear from Dropout but I’d never hold it to the same standard as like Six the musical or whatever. Improv/normal media requires a completely different rule set for criticism imo

Hey anon,

So here's the thing - I agree with this in terms of formal, published criticism (Ebert's Law, if you will) where you are, to an extent, grading on a scale; you should be judging on what the work is trying to achieve and not some abstract ideal that applies equally to all works regardless of provenance.

However, for personal discussion (including your own personal Tumblr blog)? This is totally irrelevant. You're allowed to dislike things, whether it's a 30 minute improvised musical or whether it's the Marriage of Figaro, for any reason. It is 100% valid for someone to look at the Mona Lisa and say "eh, doesn't do it for me," and, moreover, it's just as valid for them to say "it doesn't do it for me because I don't care for representative art and prefer abstract, modern works, but Da Vinci's sfumato technique is indeed masterful" as to say "It doesn't do it for me because it's fucking weird to me that she doesn't have eyebrows." People's enjoyment of a work is not necessarily reliant on effort put in or how much the artist cares about - it should be based on how much the art appeals to them.

It's fine if people hate an arc. If they hate it so much that they aren't able to enjoy watching, then I think they should probably stop watching...but that's a choice for them to make, and as someone who loves complaining, I've talked about arcs dragging and had it interpreted by total strangers as "you clearly seem to hate this" when really it was just a case of me...not liking some aspects of a larger whole, and choosing to talk about that because I had things to say. Like, I do think the early Campaign 3 pacing was deeply frustrating, and I do think that this wouldn't be the case if it weren't improv, but there have been many improv actual plays that I felt had great pacing, and also it was still frustrating to me and I wanted to express that.

In fact, what I was getting at in my post is that if you're trying to provide a counterpoint to other people's criticism, you need to focus on the points they're making; and if you're trying to defend something in general, you need to be talking about what you find good that is specific to that thing, rather than making excuses like "the cast likes it" or "it's improv".

To give an example: I love the Aeor arc, which was, to an extent, divisive. Here's two responses I could have:

"I think the Aeor arc built up to a satisfying and emotionally charged final boss fight that was thematically resonant with the Mighty Nein as a group. I think the path there had a good balance of adventure, combat, and RP scenes, especially given its position as the final arc of the campaign and the one in which many of the character romances were realized. Eiselcross was a fun and well-crafted environment that was challenging for a party of their level, and Aeor provided new insight into the Calamity, which at the time had not been explored in depth, while also providing a lot of opportunities to tie into the arcs of the various individual characters, notably Caleb and Caduceus. I also personally am a big fan of exploring fallen technologically advanced civilizations in a fantasy setting as a trope."

2. "Well, it's the cast's table, and it's improvised."

Both are true, but the first one lets people know what I see in that arc and why I love it. The second one ends the conversation, is true of almost everything Critical Role does, probably doesn't address anyone else's complaints, and doesn't even explain why I like it. And for what it's worth I don't think meta needs to address anyone's complaints - you're allowed to look at the Aeor arc and say "cool, I think it took too long and dragged and was too stressful" and we can part ways knowing we are different people with different tastes. But if I were, hypothetically, passionately trying to defend the Aeor arc and were openly resentful towards people who disliked it, the first option is obviously superior to the second option, which makes me look like someone who cannot come up with a single specific reason why this thing I allegedly love is good, and who is whining because I lack the maturity to accept that my opinions are not universally shared by all.

[tau1tvec]

hey, maybe you have some advice..but how do you make your gameplay pictures so beautiful? The colours, your sims faces don't look awkward even if they aren't posed, the interior/setting always matches the vibe. Your game looks so so beautiful! Every time I'm playing for fun and take screenshots I feel good. But then I see all those posts on my dash and begin to feel bad about my own.. I want to make my game look magical too. You inspire me to play the game again, every one of your posts is so magical to me and also captures the beauty of gameplay itself. Sorry if this is too much/confusing

Okay, I’m gonna use this ask as an opportunity to be real with you, and anyone else who’s reading who also needs to hear this.

I know it’s common for everyone who’s asked this to be like, “oh no nonny, don’t do that, don’t compare your stuff to other ppl’s stuff, you’re fine the way you are,” and that’s all well meaning and sweet, but sadly this is the real world and society sucks. ✨

Despite how good it is to hear that what and how you do things shouldn’t matter, it doesn’t change the fact that social media doesn’t really care about that, and isn’t built around that mindset. In general, not comparing yourself or your work to others is incredibly difficult to do. Even I do it occasionally, impenetrable self-esteem isn’t a thing, it’s something that’s fragile and easily broken, sometimes without our ever even knowing until it’s too late. So I realized the best way to look at it, is to remove some of the negativity from it.

Controversial take, as a creative, comparing your work to others doesn’t always have to be a downer experience… it can be good, and enlightening even. The great thing about consuming media is that it can do so much for us, the appreciator, like bring us joy, bring us sadness, start a conversation, or stir inspiration, that last bit especially.

Lean into those inspirations, and no I don’t just mean other sims content. Rewatch your favorite old movies, replay your favorite old games, start a Pinterest board, go through some old family photos, create a Spotify playlist that transports you somewhere you’d rather be. Examine them, study them, focus on the colors, the lighting, the textures, there’s formulas in all kinds of media, even your mom’s old Polaroids, aim to create your own.

Learning is a never-ending journey. You can never learn enough about anything. There are so many tutorials on YouTube, and hell, even on here, if you feel like you’ve got somewhere you can improve, don’t be ashamed to do so, and change is good, bc the great thing about change is that you can do it again, and again, and that’s totally okay. Don’t be set in your ways when it comes to content creativity, it’s too beautiful a hobby for there to be any one way to be.

I think the one reason why I love Simblr so much over all other sims communities, is bc everyone here does things their own way, and everyone ( at least I hope ) appreciates each other for that. This adds variety to my dash, and makes it all the more enjoyable to look at. My game looks the way it does bc that’s how I see it in my head. I’m heavily influenced by Hayao Miyazaki, Guillermo del Torro, and old 90’s movies. I lean into the bright colors, I lean into the ideal big kitchen, I lean into the excessive neon lights, and I lean into the cringe dialogue, bc that’s what brings me joy, and that’s what brings me nostalgia.

The Sims itself brings me joy and nostalgia too, and that’s why first and foremost I enjoy playing it, lol, everything else… having a space online to share it with others who also enjoy playing it is just an added bonus.

Now as for the funky faces, there are mods out there that minimize the awkward grin, whether they still work idk tho.

You can also try putting a little more space between the bottom of your sim’s nose and their top lip, it might look weird in CAS, but this will help avoid a lot of the wonkiness from the over-exaggerated smiles in-game.

Learning to love sims for all their quirks, bad animations, and goofiness is also a good tip. 😆

[universe-requests]

Got any college tips?

Ps make it lengthy

Yeah! Note that a lot of this will be based on my own experiences as someone w ADHD at a large public university, and may not apply necessarily to you!

Academic Stuff:

even if textbook readings aren't mandatory, if there are associated sections/readings w your classes, you should read the textbook. there is a ton of stuff in there that's not gonna be covered well by your lectures, and you'll benefit from the additional context and examples you get from reading

make calendars and to-do lists weeks in advance. if your classes have syllabi with schedules, put all their deadlines onto your calendar. from the calendar, write down what you want to get done each day. i usually try to do 1-2 assignments every day. i do this usually a few weeks to a month into the future, so that i know what i need to get done each day. if you need to push an assignment, you'll know what you have to do for the coming days and can balance where best to put stuff you couldn't complete.

go to office hours! if you start an assignment and do what you can on it b4 going to office hours, you'll be able to better ask questions on what you're confused abt. for some of my harder classes, i went to office hours sometimes twice a week.

you may need to change your major! that's okay. i changed mine like 2 or 3 years in and had to do an extra year to make up for the change. i was afraid to "give up" on my first major (biomedical engineering), but if i'd switched sooner, i would've avoided needing to take extra time. if you do end up switching a bit later like i did, it's not the end of the world tho! it's more money obv, but this major has been much easier for me n i've made way more friends in informatics than i ever made in engineering

apply for disabilities if you think you'll need accommodations! i originally tried to go without them n realized that i was depriving myself of resources for no reason. having extra time on assignments n exams improved my grades bc i could take the time i needed!

Friendship Stuff:

compliment ppl on things like their fashion, hair, phone cases, pins, or backpacks! this is a great way to start a conversation and get a conversation flowing and i have had multiple friendships start just by giving a compliment and then continuing to chat from there

start/join campus discord servers! it's a great way to meet ppl in your classes or your building. i've made multiple friends thru discord servers for my classes, and you also get to work thru assignments or clarify things together

hang-outs don't have to be big plans. you can just msg ppl if they wanna get food at the dining hall n sometimes that'll evolve into a bigger hang-out if you end up wanting to go do smth after!

Mental Health Stuff:

if you're living in the dorms, you'll probably feel rlly scared/sad on your first night or even first few nights abt being on your own n such. both myself and my therapist sobbed our first nights in the dorms! but it'll get better n you'll feel more confident doing things by yourself/being away from home as you go

the first year can be rlly tough to adjust to. i was so depressed i was sometimes peeing in my trashcan bc i couldn't get myself out of bed. now, i'm doing much much better! as you go, you'll get better at your time management skills and knowing your limits and coping w frustration/anxieties

as much as possible, go to events on campus. go to plays, movie nights, clubs, concerts, craft nights, game nights etc. n don't feel afraid to do it by yourself! it's fun to have things to look forward to and get yourself out of the dorm and making sure that you're eating meals (bc if you're already out, you might as well eat)

[livingfictional]

hiii i love your rdr2 writing & matchups!! if your still accepting requests i'd like to make one (⌒▽⌒)

i don't use labels for gender & sexuality (aside from being asexual) but am pretty masculine and like all, regardless of gender, and my pronouns are he/him :3

about me, uhh,, im vegetarian, my favorite animal is the octopus, ive actually recently started playing rdr2 (after playing rdr1 quite a bit on my switch), my favorite characters so far is arthur of course but also javier (whenever i can find him?? i hardly see him in game </3), my dream job would be to be a paramedic if not for aforementioned chronic illness, i have a weird paradox of being somewhat strong (yayy muscles slowly growing from like half workouts and walking) while also being weak, and i cant rly do things for a long time lest i get a 200 bpm, but can still pick people up. im also punk!! better yet actually cripple punk :3

for hobbies, i enjoy reading, especially non fiction; classic lit, and danmei my friends have forced me into, video games as aforementioned (hades, gi, and ace attorney being other favs), i make art of many kinds but mainly physical sketches, i loovvvee music despite knowing absolutely nothing about it mechanically, i enjoy writing literally just fanfiction and some cringy poetry here and there, and i do tarot!!!

as for personality: with strangers i can range from actually rather confident to a bit shy but willing to talk (contributed by my goal of complimenting least one person each time i go out, its great!!), quite intuitive, can improv quite well in many scenarios, mainly w humor, friends would call me.. probably laid back with a big heart, also easy to talk to—thats actually something ive been told a few times. but i also have this lovely habit of bottling up my feelings to no end for a negative trait—and though thats been getting better, i can still never cry in front of ppl. i can also get irritable rather often because of adhd and anxiety </3. and ihave a potty mouth which i have to control around others,,

for likes: loud music/concerts but quiet rooms, cats, nu metal, uhh....what do i like... aforementioned video games, cold treats (though its not like i can eat/drink hot things..) plushies, trying new foods and going to restaurants!!! my idea of a fun time is an interesting restaurant/cafe. i also like matcha a lot, just odd foods in general, i also have chickens and they are an absolute blast to have long as they arent acting up (which i suppose would be relevant in the rdr world), and an odd love: yogurt/white chocolate covered pretzels. its delicious you gotta believe me

as for dislikes: rude people. not nice people. bigots. assholes. any variation or synonym of the type, also people who mistreat kids and dont know how tf kids brains work too—personal pet peeve. and people who dont like cats. always a red flag. but other than that not many things,, i consider myself open minded

woaw didnt mean to write an essay;,, augh anyways thank you for even reading my request, much love (*´ω｀*) and no pressure to write anything relating to disability if ur not comfortable/confident/just dont want to!!

Maaaan, having chickens sounds so fun. They're so cute 🥹

I match you up with... Charles!

Charles, just like you, is quite open minded as well.

The kind of person to go for quiet walks with you, never rushes you. He likes to just stroll through the forests near Valentine with you, just talking about anything and everything.

Well, he doesn't talk that much, but he definitely listens.

On the subject of that, he's a great listener. Mutter something quietly about craving a certain food, he's on his way to get it, if possible. You saw a thing you liked in the store window? Let's go in and get it.

Charles just wants the best for you, trying to spoil you as much as he can.

[hbyrde36]

@griefabyss69 really keeping me busy with the tag games AND I LOVE IT 💜💜💜

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

20! A few are short drabbles and one also one series that prob should have just been a multi-chaptered fic, so it sounds like a bit more than it is, but i'm super proud of my body of work so far

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

219,683 😱- which sounds absolutely insane to me considering i just started writing/posting in February of this year.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Only Stranger Things for now, but I could see myself doing this with future hyperfixations as well.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Times Like These

Shelter In Place

Caught in the Undertow

Life is a Game (and True Love is a Trophy)

Steve Harrington: Vampire Hunter

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! I don't always manage to respond to 100% of comments, but I really try because they do mean SO much to me and i want ppl to know that and to thank them for reading!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't think I have any, at least right now, with an angsty ending. Happy endings always and forever over here 💜 Angstiest fic, in general, would be (i think) Caught in the Undertow.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

This is a tough one because, of course, happy endings always, but I like the hopeful and open ending to Times Like These. It's nice after all the rigamarole of the time loop.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

*knocks on wood SO hard* I have yet to get a negative comment on anything and I feel so lucky for that because I just know how dicouraging it would be. That said, it does make me wonder if I play it too safe sometimes, and so i'm considering pushing myself a bit more out of my comfort zone in the future.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do, though usually as a small part to a larger fic. I have yet to write smut for the sake of itself. (though I do worship those authors that do. You are all wonderful and i'm not worthy!!) I'm still very self conscious of my spicy scenes, but i've been working hard at it and i'd like to think i've improved quite a bit since my first time.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I do! My fic - Steve Harrington: Vampire Hunter is the love child of Steddie and the long running Anita Blake vampire hunter novel series. It has been so much fun to write and I love every comment i get from a reader who has never even heard of Anita Blake but loved the fic anyway! From the moment I imagined Steve as Anita and Eddie as Jean-Claude, i just knew i had to do somethign with it. It's been an absolute blast and i can't believe it's almost complete.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No - but that would be amazing!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I havn't, but would definetely be open to the idea with the right person. (assuming i had the time to commit to it) I am doing the reverse big bang, which is not cowriting of course but is a collaboration and i'm super excited for it.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Steddie got me into this whole fandom/fanfic mess and they are without a doubt my favorite but i'll read just about any ST pairing if it's written well.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I plan to finish every project i've started, even those i'm not yet posting. For my own sanity i don't think I could leave anything unfinished (no judgement whatsoever to anyone who had left a fic unfinished though, this shit (and life) is hard sometimes!)

16. What are your writing strengths?

I don't know really, um, I think I do pretty good dialog? I know that's the part of writing I tend to enjoy the most, and the part i usually write first for any scene. I can hear my characters voices very clearly in my head so conversation comes easily and naturally most of the time.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Getting too caught up in the little details (and stressing about them) and letting it slow me down

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I havn't done it myself but i do love it in other fics ❤

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Stranger Things/Steddie! I'm a fanfic late bloomer and only started reading it a year ago, and writing it 9 months ago.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

You can't make me choose! I love all my children equally!

Ok, fine. I'll say - Life is a Game (and True Love is a Trophy) is my current favorite because it is probably the most insane and creative project i've undertaken so far. It was a long time coming too. I had the idea for it way back in March, but I doubted my ability to take it on for a long time and only starting writing and posting it in july. It still feels intimidating to think about, but I love the way I've twisted canon to fit my weird idea.

No pressure tags! @penny00dreadful @thisapplepielife @manda-panda-monium @steddiecameraroll @chaosgremlinmunson @spoookysix @steventhusiast

[dandyshucks]

hiii dandy !! i wanted to ask, what do you think you and guzma would do post-canon after the events of sun & moon ? (i might have asked this before - if i have, i apologize..) (i also wanted to say that its been really cool seeing ur progress on ur plush!! it seems so hard, so you having that skill is rly admirable and i wish u lots of luck w finishing it!!) (@dmclr)

CLARA HI i hope u (and dimitri hehe) are doing well :] !!! wah thank u for the question, u havent asked it before dw !!! 

OKAY SO admittedly I mostly only know the story through reading Guz’s wiki page a few times (teehee) and through osmosis from the general fandom dsgjkl, i want to play the game one day and maybe read the manga, and I’ve watched the anime eps he’s featured in and that’s all i’m watching of that LOL. I haven’t actually experienced much of his story (or su/mo in general) first-hand myself though fdsjkl

answer below the cut because.... the rambler's curse got me LOL

after the events of su/mo, I don’t think he’d actually disband Team Skull because… what is the point of that honestly LOL, so Team Skull stays together in MY version of the world hehe. they’re required to do community service to make up for whatever shenanigans they get up to, but they stop stealing pokemon and move onto just like… graffiti and casual pranks and stuff. they still cause trouble, but it’s mostly mischief now rather than any actual crime. I set them up to work on murals for shop owners around the islands so they can spraypaint and be artistic that way rather than randomly tagging walls and getting into trouble for it fjdskl. they keep their disdain for authority figures and rules because at the end of the day most of them are rowdy teens who feel outcasted from society, and that’s just the way the ball rolls with them (also a certain level of that is healthy and warranted tbh). I work with Plumeria to organize events and outings (outside of community service) for the squad though, which helps give everyone healthier outlets for their energy and focus.

Hala mentors Guz to help put him onto (and keep him on) the right track, and Guz learns to appreciate the islands and their traditions a bit - even if he still doesn’t agree with all of them. Part of that mentorship is also sort of therapy (in a more holistic naturally-occurring way rather than like... clinical therapist sitting with patient), so trauma gets unpacked and healthier ways of handling emotions are learned and implemented. Also fuck the Aether Foundation HFDSJKL I keep Guz far away from Lusamine and make sure she never gets close to him again (idk what Gladion and Lillie get up to, I haven’t thought enough about them yet fsjkl). There’s a lot of healing and self-improvement and learning how to Be A PersonTM for both of us tbh!

Beyond that, it is mostly just regular Alola/island living!! Beach visits, walking around, getting ice cream and popsicles, casual battles with tourists, catching wimpods, all that sort of thing :] Also we visit Sinnoh (my home region) for half the year (i have… a whole schedule worked out for that actually LOL) so there’s that, too.

as for the plushie omg thank u sm WAUGH :D i cannot tell if it’s just because i have a weird hodge-podge skillset but i DO think it is not actually all that difficult !!! you just need a pattern for cutting the felt and then I learned the ladder stitch for hand-sewing, and it’s been very straightforward on how to sew the pieces together!! the hardest part so far has just been the hair because I have a difficult time translating 2D images to 3D reality in that way.

I just really want to encourage ppl to try their hand at new crafts and creative skills because I think it’s really fun and honestly really good for ppls well-being!! i am very passionate about making creativity accessible to people as much as possible!!! maybe i could make a tutorial or smth… the pattern I'm using is free and available on the creator’s website, and it’s genuinely not that difficult esp compared to some other things i’ve tried my hand at in the past LOL I feel like some of my paper mache projects have been more complex than this lil goober!!

THANK YOU AGAIN, AND SORRY ABOUT BECOMING THE RAMBLING RAMBLER LMAO i actually entirely rewrote this once because I wanted to shorten it and it STILL ended up this long 😭

[clowningaroundmars]

Fuck it

Burners hcs

Chuck my beloved 🩵

-Chuck’s anxiety spikes out of control sometimes and so he’s often up and at ‘em even at like 4am just mechanically coding well into the morning just bc he can’t sleep. Other Burners have TRIED to help him fall asleep and they’ve had varying levels of success but no one really knows how to combat Chuck’s insomnia for sure

-Older Chuck smokes weed like a chimney and you cannot convince me otherwise, that boi self medicates like his life depends on it. His whole room be dank as hell

-Messy af room btw, but there is def a method to his madness. Wires and car parts EVERYWHERE tho and also scraps of cloth that he cuts and sews shittily for his LARPing stuff. He still loves it tho

-I love the hcs floating around that he can be very assertive when he wants to be, and likes to take control every now and then :) I’ll leave it at that for now :)

-Chuck tried making a racing game for the Burners, and he got so far as figuring out how to model everyone’s cars but eventually gave up on that passion project after the race in Blonde Thunder. Even just being behind a virtual wheel was too distressing for him LOL

-He’s canonically a cyborg and spends time looking up, downloading, modifying random codes for his own internal wiring. He “mods” himself sometimes and as anxious as he can be, he’s very confident in his programming skills and trying out sketchy codes on himself

-That being said, he’s kinda insecure about being part-robot. No one but him and maybe Mike knows exactly how much of him is metal, and how much of him is organic. He keeps that info to himself bc of self-doubt. Who knows how the rest of the Burners will treat him if they knew? It’s bad enough that he doesn’t know how to drive!

-Besides programming, Chuck actually does try to take up a bunch of other hobbies like learning to play a guitar, a keyboard, trying to improve his sewing skills so he doesn’t just make messy stitches on LARPing costumes, painting, doodling etc etc but like Mike always says “sometimes being a Burner can get in the way of personal stuff”

-PIERCED CHUCK PROPAGANDA!!! I definitely buy into it!! Chuck may hate getting tattoos but this dude gets pierced up later on, I JUST KNOW IT. He has a cool collection of piercings on his ears (daith, triple helix, industrial, orbital etc etc) as well as tongue piercings and… other piercings 😏

-I truly believe that Chuck ran away to MC first— before Mike— and then they met up again there when Chuck heard about a “cadet who saved an apartment full of ppl”

-He ran away in the 1st place after believing that he “lost” Mike when Mike got promoted from being a jr cadet to a full cadet. They hung out together a lot less after that and Chuck couldn’t ignore the evil he was finding as he was training to be part of R&D… so he dipped, terrified and lonely

-Jacob “adopted” Chuck immediately after taking pity on him. One could only watch a scrawny blonde kid stumble around Motorcity and get picked on for so long lol

-That makes Chuck Thee Original Burner!! Fight me about it

-Chris P. confirmed that Chuck knew about cars even while living up in Deluxe, often bragging about how well he’d drive if he ever got in one. It was Chuck who introduced the concept of cars and driving to Mike in the 1st place when they were younger

-Chuck is JUST AS protective of Mike as Mike is of the Burners, that’s his childhood friend!

Mike 💚

-Has his cadet days drilled into his bones unfortunately, this poor guy always does his bed up military style, wakes up at 6am SHARP every single day and works out first thing in the morning. Still, the routine helps a lot and it’s one of the only habits he appreciates from his past

-Has nightmares not too often but… when they hit, they hit bad. Sometimes he just decides not to sleep at all and just joins Chuck on a couch somewhere

-I truly believe he has ADHD!! I’m integrating that into my belief system fuck it

-Bc of that, he often forgets to take care of himself. And not even in the bad I’m-gonna-do-this-dangerous-thing-that-might-kill-me kinda way (well most of the time) but the oops-I-forgot-to-eat-and-it’s-been-8-hrs-since-my-last-meal kinda way. Chuck definitely helps remind him to eat and take breaks, otherwise Mike’s gonna jump into another hours-long errand run across Motorcity without even eating a peanut

-Mike’s super grateful for Chuck, they’re opposites in the way where they complete each other. Chuck eats CONSTANTLY and likes to nap often, Mike basically paces himself on Chuck’s schedule when he’s feeling all out of wack and can’t take care of himself. Chuck happily bosses Mike around and makes him do some self care when this happens

-Older Mike might have some reservations about drugs n shit (good ol Deluxe conditioning in his skull) but he’s not an asshole to other ppl about it. That being said, this mf smokes cigs like a chimney and loves them. Cigarettes are the only thing he smokes, he doesn’t like being not-sober bc it makes him feel like he’s out of control (and the Terras drugging him in “Mayhem Night” didn’t help with that either lol)

-Where Chuck’s room is messy and chaotic, Mike’s room is scarily perfect. He stress cleans so ofc his room is gonna look pristine! Neatly folded sheets and shoes all in a straight line near the door, clothes all hung up perfectly in his closet just like in his cadet days. Not a wrinkle or a spot to be seen anywhere

-Likes to garden as a stress-reliever as well. Mike’s gotta use his hands and get his body moving or else he’ll Explode. He joins Jacob in his supermarket or just does chores around the garage whenever he can

-Burners know that the neater the hideout looks, the worse Mike’s mental health is tho. It sucks, they’re still figuring out how to help calm him down sometimes

-Funny, but for a guy who’s so sunny and upbeat all the time, Mike fuckin LOVES scary dark music. Grindcore and black metal are his top fave genres, much to Chuck’s chagrin. Chuck doesn’t hate metal, it’s just that listening to terrifying hardcore music while Mike’s doing donuts mid-air in Mutt after going 325mph absolutely doesn’t help calm his nerves

-Mike is… not very good with emotional stuff. He’s also shown in the show to be a lil short-sighted and DUMB as hell when it comes to taking social cues (the employee at the refinery acting weird and CLEARLY reading from a cue card in “The Duke of Detroit Presents…”, Chuck’s personality doing a total 180 IMMEDIATELY after Julie brings in the Kaneco booster… like Mike why in gods name would you miss those obvious signs) and it’s probably bc he was trained to be emotionally stunted as a military boy. He still tries his best tho <3

Dutch 💜

-Chuck and Dutch are the bestest buds aside from Chuck n Mike, don’t @ me. They work on the Burners’ cars all the time, how could they not be! Dutch is always giving Chuck props on wiring and upgrading the cars and Chuck thinks that Dutch’s designs and mechanical skills are godly

-Dutch eventually takes their art off the paper and walls and moves onto tattooing after seeing so many Motorcitizens rocking cool art on their arms. They start just like any other teen tho: shitty stick n pokes

-Eventually, the other Burners want tattoos on themselves too (well not Chuck cuz he’s a weenie LOL) and Dutch is more than happy to provide. Even Mike asks for one, much to everyone’s surprise. Julie gets a couple tiny ones where she can easily hide it from her dad. And everyone gets a Burner tat, absolutely

-Ok yeah I also integrate “Dutch is an enby” into my belief system. Sue me. He doesn’t believe in the concept of gender, just goes by he/they for convenience but I really think he doesn’t give a single fuck about it all otherwise

-They start learning from Tennie after going steady in their relationship, and they bring back all the sweet Cabler’s knowledge into the Burners’ car upgrades

-Claire and Dutch start chatting about fashion one day while Julie runs off and leaves them to hang out. After that, Dutch is much more mindful of his wardrobe and even hits her up sometimes to swap fashion ideas and tips

-They love customizing like, everything ever that they can get their hands on. Dutch’s room is for sure the most tricked-out one in the hideout, complete with custom furniture, decked out wall of lights (that Chuck helped program to feature Dutch’s art on it) and more art on the walls than anywhere else in the garage. It’s Dutch’s own slice of heaven

-Older Dutch also partakes in the smoking of the zaza, so him and Chuck just chill out in their lil weed corner outside (bc Mike and Julie hate the smell so no smoking indoors!) just puffing on blunts and showing off new bowls and bongs that they recently bought

-Dutch goes to Chuck to figure out how to establish a private non-traceable line so he can call his family every now and then without alerting Kane grunts. He updates them about stuff (and privately tells Dar about Tennie lol)

-Dutch picked up ROTH’s body after a battle against the Kane bots, intending on studying the metal polymer stuff Kaneco makes to use on the Burners’ cars. But then ROTH woke up, the battle completely wiping his intended functional coding and shocking the hell out of Dutch. But ROTH didn’t attack, and then slowly but surely everyone got used to having a floating Kanebot cluelessly wandering around the base. Dutch decided to paint the bot so he doesn’t keep surprising everyone LOL

Julie 💛

-She’s a weeb idgaf if everyone else thinks so too, it’s my hc now. She pirates and downloads shitty old anime onto drives with Chuck’s help and brings them up to Deluxe so she can watch them in secrecy

-Julie has a room in Deluxe ofc but she also has one built for her down in Motorcity as well. She thinks that the room that she has freedom to decorate and customize is way more “her”. She’s got anime figurines, posters that Dutch painted for her (featuring her fave anime characters ofc), plushies practically spilling out from the shelves, and she’s so happy that she gets to have a room where she can really be free!

-Julie pops the collar of her vest, inspired by Mike

-Idk what kinda music is allowed in Deluxe (probably nOT MUCH) but anyways Julie discovers pop and techno in Motorcity and literally cannot shut up about it afterwards. The other Burners do not really share her enthusiasm for Kpop but they try to be supportive nonetheless

-Jules is oddly enthusiastic about music in general. How could she not be, after hearing only pleasant elevator music all her life? She obsesses over playlists and makes ALL the playlists for the Burners

-She’s the sentimental one for sure. She hoards more stuff in her room in MC than in Deluxe but either way, wherever she makes a space for herself, it’ll always be filled with photos and doodles and lil gifts she receives from other ppl. Even 9Lives has a couple toy charms dangling from mirrors and compartments lol

-Julie loves makeup and painting nails, something she got from Claire. She tried to hide it away from the Burners to “fit in” and then immediately blew that cover once Dutch broke out the nail polish and started to paint their nails one day. After that, she teams up with them to paint everyone’s nails and does cute designs

-She DID know about Mike before formally meeting him after he defected. Ofc, she’s always been observant even tho Kane always tried to hide her away from the public. After Mike ran away to MC, Julie watched it all go down from her dad’s security cams and followed him down there. She has to pretend she doesn’t even know much about Mike, despite having access to his files

-Mike and Julie are The Shippers and wingmen of the group FOR SURE. I know this is kinda canon but idc, you can’t convince me they don’t get together and gossip about other ppl’s relationships all the time. Mike only knows about other ppl having crushes just bc of how observant Jules is

-Julie’s stolen cop car isn’t from Deluxe, it’s from a junkyard in Motorcity. Cops were disbanded in MC a while ago— courtesy of the gangs lol— so that meant easy pickings for Julie

Texas ❤️

-Born and raised in Motorcity (confirmed by creator), Texas helped run his family’s automotive business fixing up cars from junkyards and selling them/their parts (mostly to the Duke lbr). He was the only Burner who had a car even before the Burners formed

-He was The Ride before Mike and Chuck finally built up Mutt and got her running properly, but his car wasn’t Stronghorn just yet, just a custom car cobbled up from various other car parts that he borrowed from his dad

-I truly do believe Texas has a huge family with like a million siblings and that’s why he’s able to get away for long periods of time and do crazy stuff with the Burners all the time

-Potential angst right there… maybe. Cuz he doesn’t get enough attention at home being one of like… 7 or 8 kids or something 😅

-Chris P. said Texas’ parents are the total opposite of him and are intellectuals. Maybe they’re also from Deluxe (R&D even) and couldn’t see themselves having children safely there after Kane went crazy with power, so they ran away to MC and gave birth to their kids there. For as long as Texas can remember, his dad ran the auto shop and his mother headed the Motorcity development council. His parents are VERY involved in the community but… not very involved with the family

-I LOVE the idea that Texas and his siblings are all named after the states. I feel like Alaska, Iowa, Delaware, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Dakota, Nebraska… even Maine are cute names!

-Yknow what… those all sound like girl names lowkey. What if Texas is the ONLY brother in his family which is why he hams up his masculinity so much? Hc accepted. Texas and his 7 sisters, I dig it

-Hear me out. Texas initially taught Dutch the basics of constructing a car, transferring and modifying engines, etc etc but Dutch is a smart cookie and eventually their knowledge surpassed Texas’

-Texas is the movie buff of the group and fucken loves sci-fi, old westerns, martial arts, noir and thriller movies. His room is overflowing with movie memorabilia, posters, and shitty crayon doodles of his movie heroes. Any time he’s got downtime he’s always on his lil VR movie headset goggles rewatching something called “5 Dragons of the West: Journey to the Gold Snake” or something

-Texas, like Julie, doesn’t live in the Burners Hideout since he always just goes home after the end of the day. Only Mike, Dutch, and Chuck live there full-time. Julie has the room she stays in sometimes, Texas crashes on a couch (probably where his workout gear is) if he’s too tired to drive back home

-Mike got his adrenaline junkie habits from riding in Texas’ car before building Mutt

-Older Texas absolutely gets tatted up. AND he starts wearing more muscle shirts to show them off ofc!

-Texas is ridiculously emotionally intelligent, even tho he’s a knucklehead most of the time and I believe it’s bc he’s got a ton of siblings. He’s also one of the middle children too, so he’s capable around lil kids as well

-Texas can’t spell bc he’s dyslexic

-Junior and Texas absolutely have SOME history together. Maybe they even grew up together, as that’s not so far-fetched since ppl might buy cars from Texas’ dad’s shop to enter the competitions in the Mama’s Boys Arena

Jacob 💙

-Obviously The Dad of the group of ragtag kids. Mike and Chuck aren’t the only kids that Jacob’s helped out of the rubble of MC, but they are the only ones who stuck around. Yes, Jacob’s an old crazy coot but he has endless patience and plenty of seaweed casseroles for everyone :)

-Motorcitizens know him as The One Who Helps Orphans, specifically ex-Deluxians since he’s one of the only elders who’s been up in Deluxe and didn’t disappear amongst the Motorcity population yet. In “Off the Rack” there’s a split-second where Jacob’s shown greeting the recent Deluxian defectors at Antonio’s, I feel like he takes responsibility over helping Deluxians integrate into MC

-Bc of that, he’s got some p sweet connects across the city. Jacob’s got doctors and nurses, librarians with info, and resources all on speed dial just for the kiddos

-Jacob was the 1st person to show Mike what a car was irl and showed him how to drive in Sasquatch. It was Mike and Chuck who figured out how to build Mutt in the 1st place tho, and they took lots of inspo from the old car magazines lying around Jacob’s office in the supermarket

-The lil haunted house the Burners built for Halloween for the kids of MC was Jacob’s idea :)

-Doc Hudson and Jacob absolutely hook up after Hudson gets settled in MC, sue me. If you cringe at the idea of two old men bumping uglies, you are weak and will not survive the winter

-MC basically celebrates every holiday with a parade or a giant block party somehow, and the city’s first Pride Parade did not disappoint. Jacob made sure to sign the kids up for a spot in the parade and helped them build the float. It got crashed by Kanebots (of course) but the Burners saved the day (again!)

-Jacob stays away from the Burners’ main living space but still lives close by to check in on them every now and then. But he gives the boys their privacy for the most part

-Jacob DOES have Texas’ parents on speed dial as well. Which he uses to threaten Texas into behaving every now and then, but it’s no use. Everyone knows he never calls anyone’s parents unless it’s an emergency lol

[sophfandoms53]

I agree I wish people could view things with more neutrality because it would greatly improve the type of gameplay that we see but It feels sometimes like the fandom has these unrealistic borderline double standard expectations for how houseguests should act. There is so much negativity and hate around things like players getting frustrated if someone is making a move that will negatively impact them, or crying when someone they like gets voted out, or venting and shit talking other houseguests who are getting on their nerves. There is anger if players make up lies about their faves but also anger if people in the house get mad about people lying because lying is part of the game. I could go on but I won’t bore you any further lol. but the fandom who isn’t even competing couldn’t stop doing any of those things if their life depended on it so it’s like why then do those same people insist that the ones actually playing the high stress game for a life changing amount of money should are bad and wrong and silly for being emotional when things aren’t going their way.

Omg im so sorry for responding late to this 😭

I am answering this now bc i still think its kinda relevant especially when it comes to how people talk about Cirie or Cory’s game recently.

You can’t appreciate or criticize how either of them play without someone trying to bash them or misinterpreting how they’re playing for the sake of wanting to feel valid for disliking them.

I really like Cirie and Cory as players and people but I’m not gonna act like they’re flawless in every way or that their strategies don’t have issues. They for sure do, Cory’s been cracking a lot recently especially with Jared treating him the way he has. And Cirie and Izzy spiral every hour and change plans constantly, its a disaster in there LMAO

But they’re also just trying to play the game and their moves don’t need to be over analyzed with some deeper motivation behind it bc they’re going after someone or they aren’t working with someone you personally favor.

Full disclosure though, you’re allowed to dislike any houseguest for any reason. It doesn’t have to be this essay of reasons or you searching for evidence so you feel valid about it. That’s kinda the problem with ppl here and on twitter, they wanna feel validated for not vibing with a houseguest so they constantly misinterpret things that arent that big a deal and want ppl to agree with them. And its kinda not necessary imo.

I think we’re just so used to disliking a majority of the hgs that people don’t know what to do with a cast that’s messy all around as people and players but are overall decent (cameron, red, and jared suck tho lemme be clear they are not part of what im talking about), so some people wanna just hate so they reach to the most extremes because that’s what we’ve come to expect. But humans don’t work in such a good or bad way, and i think this season is a reminder that people are messy and complex but aren’t bad.

It’s hard for players to truly play BB and it’s hard as a viewer to talk about gameplay bc of this “this or that” lense ppl watch the game through.

[springtrappd]

not trying to sound rude or aggressive or anything i swear, but what exactly Is it abt like. eclipse and ruin in general that you have critiques of? i'm still trying to figure out exactly what i think of it myself - it wasn't ANYTHING like what i was expecting, and to be perfectly honest i was also one of the Book Doubters(trademark pending) so that was a huge culture shock to me as well. idk i go in-between being really impressed and really liking it, to being salty that it wasn't what I think a good chunk of ppl including myself were expecting? looks like there's gonna be more down the line as far as this SB storyline goes so i'm curious and cautiously optimistic. i'm not totally sold on the mimic yet but thats probably bc I haven't been reading the tales books. guess i should start now lmao

i should make it clear that i actually haven't finished ruin yet, which is why i've been holding back on talking about it -- i'm up to bonnie bowl! so i'll refrain from commenting on that, except to say that the gameplay is a massive improvement from sb and only has more minor design flaws vs the base game's... fundamentally broken, lmao. they listened to criticism, refined their ideas and executed them with the resources available, and they did it well! i have mostly positive things to say on that front, which is nice. :)

eclipse is harder to talk about because... like, to give you an idea of how badly it effected me: it pissed me off so bad i started dissociating for the rest of the night, gave me stress stomach-aches when I refused to stop playing and then woke me up at 6am this morning nauseous and in pain. and that's not me being a wimp, that's me experiencing somatization, which is a real thing that i struggle with a lot, so hopefully you can understand why I'm not exactly keen to talk about this? especially when literally every time i even try to someone gets mad at me for breathing. please keep this in mind as i go on to say: eclipse is ableist as fuck and completely inexcusable.

as presented within ruin's visit to the daycare, the dca is left in a state of disrepair after the earthquake and subsequent abandonment left the pizzaplex to fend for itself. they're trapped between their two personalities, with both of them insisting that they are the one who knows what they should do; sun wants to be a good boy and do arts and crafts and whatever, and moon wants to send everyone to bed, blah blah you know the drill. as you complete the segment sun and moon regularly argue with each other, with sun holding the upset moon back from attacking cassie as she reactivates the generators, turning the lights on and stunning moon long enough for her to whack him with the faz-wrench, forcing a system reboot... and he's immediately reborn as eclipse, a lovely and kind figure with no memories of anything that happened who gently escorts you out and wishes you well. he's fixed now, you see! you did it! you got rid of his evil split personality, you've made him normal again, and without the aberration that is plurality he has not a cruel bone in his body!

the implications of this are incredibly fucking obvious and deeply deeply upsetting, and why i'm gonna point-blank say i'm not entertaining further discourse over whether this is reaaaally ableist or if they reaaaaally meant for them to read as a system or... nope, it's done, we're not fucking going there. it doesn't matter what they intended -- what they intended is pretty obvious, actually; they've decided to tackle a subject they're incredibly ill-equipped to handle, and the result is a character -- descended from the visual language and cultural canon of tales like split and psycho -- whose arc concludes with the reveal that it was being a system that made them violent. and the boss fight was dumb and bad and ignored all the previously-explained mechanics of this character to do this. it is aggressively stupid fanservice that turns what was once simply "poor taste walking the line of good faith" into "actual offensive caricature with zero room for doubt", and the only thing more despair-inducing than this twist is the community of people gleefully eating it up as their yummy angst fuel for their ultimate comfort character. and i shouldn't be surprised, considering it's coming from the "how dare you ask me to examine why i find it scary when the dca experiences altered identity states" crowd, but i am, unfortunately, an idealist doomed to be let down by normies. huzzah.

as for the mimic: I'm perfectly fine with afton getting laid to rest (he deserves it!), I'm not one of those guys, but in its current iteration (and from my understanding of it) it suffers immensely from having literally zero reason to be doing any of this shit and being yet another rejection of the supernatural in favour of sci-fi bullshit. because it's from the novels and the novels are allergic to ghosts. and having your entire story drip-fed in mediocre spin-off novels filled with blatant fetish content marketed to naive twelvies is so obviously bad storytelling that i don't even think i need to get into the piss-poor prose and legitimately cruel messages to explain why i hate that one

[breathplayed]

17, 29, 48, & 55 😁🫖

oh u GOT me got me lets go

(17) what is your favorite line you’ve ever written? babe plz this one is too hard..... there's too many...... I HAVE 920K WORDS ON AO3 AND ~50K INCOMING I DONT EVEN REMEMBER THEM ALL......... uuhhhhhhhh ok ok ill try to narrow a few down. it's all gonna be recent tho bc that's what i remember most + i have rly been indulging myself stylistically as of late lmao

for just ~pretty language~ my favorites rn are

"Jimin is almost too pretty to mar with mortal hands, but Jungkook finds desecration is half the fun when his hands slip lower" (folie à trois)

"Some floodgate inside him has broken, the last bastion of resistance crumbled, and now he’s a drowning man in the dead waters" (folie à trois)

“I love you,” he whimpers into Taehyung’s kiss like a prayer. Too devout; Taehyung’s hands and lips pause. Jimin’s own lip is already trembling, caught, so he lets the confessional spill like it’s the last Sunday he’ll ever see." (the losing game ch17)

"[Taehyung] used to dream, sometimes, after Jimin was gone, that he was holding him again, that he could crack open Jimin's ribcage and crawl inside to make a home beside his heart before they burned together." (the losing game ch5)

"Sometimes—in his darkest moments, on his worst nights—Jimin dreams about Taehyung carving over each and every one of his scars. Creating clean new edges to each of them, prying fingers in the wound to be as close as possible, rewriting their memories and meanings with a jagged, almost unbearable intimacy." (the losing game ch17)

"The graves we dig ourselves are often the deepest." (the graves we dig..... now thats a real throwback huh)

there's too much i could say for dialogue but.... i'm super fond of the hurtful conversations present!vmin have in tlg (especially ch14, i reread that a lot), ignite the stars ch5 (also reread that a lot), and also i love pretty much everything that comes out of taehyung's mouth in folie à trois lol

(29) give us a spoiler for one of your stories. answered here, but since this one could be answered multiple times i'll bite......... my queue tag ("i'm glad it was queue") is a play on one of my favorite lines in all of tlg that i have been excited about getting to for yeaaaarrrssss. no one but me knows the line yet (or how hurtful its context is) bc it's in one of the final chapters hehehe but it's "i'm glad it was you" ..... :')

(48) do you reread your own stories? the answer to this used to be a strong NO!!!! but that has actually changed in the last two years! i don't rly reread anything older (my writing style has changed so much + there's things i'd change about older fics esp <2020 so it's not an enjoyable experience to me, i'd just fret over editing it) but there's some newer fics i reread bc they are So written to my own taste. i think i really improved a lot getting to write a bunch in lockdown lol + started caring less about whether ppl liked the fic and just wrote for ✨Me✨ so several of those recent fics i'm happy with and do reread sometimes like a stupid idiot narcissus

The ones i've reread the most are "sit, stay" + "sea legs" + favorite parts of "ignite the stars" and my favorite parts of "the losing game". the other scattered pwp's since 2020 have gotten reread about twice each. and i recently reread WBIO for the first time since writing it in early 2020!!! mixed feelings on that one bc i felt like i would change some parts of it if i wrote it today but that's a sign ur growing and improving i suppose

(55) do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them? oh i have so fucking many 'WIPs' it's not even funny. there's probably like ~12 completely bullet point outlined medium length / longfics in my docs down to exact dialogue i'd write, and dozens more fic attempts that have a whole plot and ending. bc as soon as i come up with an idea i already immediately know how i want it to end. which gives me way too many Plot Bunnies that are viable to be turned into fics!!!!! two years ago i made a list of every idea i thought should at least see the light of day in threadfic form if not an actual fic and it came out to 30 fics lol (and that was cutting it down to the essentials)

the thing is, very few of my WIPs are ever 'abandoned' in my mind, it's more like... i put them in my mental freezer. on hold / on ice. and some of them are closer to the front and get taken out and rotated around and worked on more often, while others are shoved to the far back of the freezer as i say "i'll make that someday" and forget it exists til the next time im reminded of it. there's only a few that i'd actually toss in the trash (aka truly abandon and never work on again).

the ones that are definitely abandoned in that i know i dont Want to write them are all on the more domestic romcom side (think like 'meaner than mean' or 'i like us like this') i know people like those but they're the hardest thing for me to write, those were the most annoyed i've ever felt while writing, i would literally groan out loud working on them, i am rly only happy writing conflict/angst or pwp lol

tbh, if i were to be realistic with myself, i'd say most of these wip's are 'abandoned' in that i probably will never get around to finishing them. but i dont want to call them abandoned because i do like the plots, and think ppl would like them, and want to share them!!! i just think they would suck / not be fun to write. Maybe Someday i will do an archival effort and work on translating as many of them as i can into threadfic form so they see the light of day in some format and are no longer abandoned to rot in my docs... bc there's no way that most of them are ever going to be written the way i wish i could do them justice :') and then i can abandon them knowing that ppl at least got to read a vague outline of what could have been

fun fact: i opened the aforementioned list of all these ideas to count and on one of them, a fic i've been poking at since 2018, i have the note "finish this or die" next to it. guess i know which one i've picked atp 🪦

[single-malt-scotch]

i think one of the directions fandom has taken with mcyt in the recent years that i dont get, is this perspective that these videos are like, comparable to actual written tv shows and to react with disappointment when you dont get "content" focused on person duos/concept/etc. as if these ppl are planning things from the view of fans who wants to be catered with some nonexistent character driven narrative. when 90% of the time there are no characters or narrative. like youre not gonna get all your "character development" between your favorites sometimes, or most times, bc they arent like. trying to do that most of the time. theyre not writing these things out with complex timelines and points to hit. its not a tv show w a writers room that needs to make a coherent story.

and i find it kinda frusterating when ppl project that vibe onto very non-RP creators. i love the improv and the stuff they happen to do, but theyre just bits in the end. they happen with little thought, and bc theyre just Guys Playing Games its unlikely theyd ever think of it in the way fans do- fans that want something deeper. youre free to interpret things as deeply as you want but you cant put those nonexistent expectations on the creators who literally dont do any of that stuff at all, and its just fandom exaggeration

[moonlight-yuyu]

🦋 Hiii I wanted to request personality ships with the groups twice and izone. I really hope I didn't write to much. Could you perhaps add a little description if that’s okay ? 🦋

I have a calm and optimistic personality. I'm very shy around people I don't know. I either talk too much or not at all. I can see through people quite easily and I often analyze their behavior.which would be the reason why I have a really small circle of friends and I can't hang around people that give me bad vibes.I also only really laugh when I’m nervous or scared usually I don’t laugh I just chuckle.

Some of my personality traits are that l'm loyal, empathetic, open minded, optimistic, genuine. My life goal is it to improve myself and to always think positive.I rather express my feelings through words than through actions. Nobody really knows me besides myself. People say I'm a very creative person but I think my thinking is more logical but my mind process it in a innovative way if that makes sense. I do come off as a rude and reserved person because of my resting face, but I always try my best to look approachable. I rather listen to music alone than with others and I prefer upbeat songs to slow ones.

General information

- Mbti: Infp 9w8

- Favorite color: pink, green, blue, white,black but basically any bright color will work

- Likes: animals, pasta, flowers, beach, compassion, memes, spring/autumn, astrology

- Dislike: loud voices/screaming, rudeness, bad manners, insects, closed minded ppl

- Hobbys: researching stuff(my notes are full of random things that want to know more about), listening to music, baking, dancing, working out, playing games, doing my makeup & skincare

Habits: scratching my neck while talking, falling asleep in the car, saying one word repeatedly for weeks, sitting with one leg over the other, laughing when scared, can’t live in silence (music,tv, humming, talking), taking my time with doing anything tbh (slow)

- Love language: gift giving, quality time

🦋I really hope that wasn't too much, i appreciate your time and work and thank you so much in advance. Also could you please keep the description private if possible.

Hope u have a wonderful day and stay healthy 🦋

thank you so much for requesting I hope you’ll like it!  and take good care of yourself !☀️✨ of course I can here you go hun <33 I hope you’ll like it and feel free to request again 🦋💙

Twice

Jeongyeon

IzOne

Eunbi