#anime storyline did not go as hard for me as the game story

[oktobun]

[jetra4ivor]

I can’t get over the fact that Minecraft:Story Mode is abandonware now. After it’s removed from Netflix there will be no legal way to access the game anymore.

So much time, energy, and talent out into a game that simply cannot be played anymore. A whole generation of new Minecraft players growing up never even knowing this game existed. And even if you managed to get it working, you’ll no longer be able to see what choices other players took. Which decisions you did that other people didn’t.

And think of the performances lost? Ivor’s a delight to listen to. Lucas has one of the kindest sweetest voices ever heard. And Petra’s emotional breakdown in season 2 still gets me every time. All that emotion and effort. All that pain and heartbreak… just gone. Forgotten.

People scoffed at Story Mode when it was announced, but I honestly think Story Mode did an amazing amount of world building for the community. It took the ideas being created by YouTube personalities and animations and codified them into a coherent universe with set rules and functions. Items are flat. Blocks grow when placed down. Crafting is akin to alchemy. Ages do not exist. And even disappearing in a puff of smoke leaving behind your inventory is just how you die in this world.

So much work was done to make such an amazing series of games, and nobody is going to remember them. And far fewer are going to actually play through all 2 seasons and experience the joys of season 2’s emotional storyline. It’s so sad.

I don’t have a point to this. I’m just depressed at how this game has been overlooked, shunned, ignored, and flat out tossed aside by the Minecraft community. I hate seeing hard work just cast aside so quickly like that.

The amount of polish and effort out into MCSM was way more than it likely deserved and I’m eternally grateful that this game exists. I just want others to play and love it too.

[anonymouschishiyaimaginesandmore]

BestFriend!Chishiya

Minors, do not read! Contains mentions of smutty behavior!

MASTERLIST (up-to-date)

This is Part 2 !!HERE!! is Part 1 !!HERE!! is Part 3 !!HERE!! is Part 4!

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Alice in Borderland/Imawa no Kuni no Alice characters or original stories, only the plot of this fanfic. Alice in Borderland/Imawa no Kuni no Alice characters and original storyline belong to Haro Aso, who made the Manga the Series is based on.

Trigger Warning: Explicit Smut in later Parts, both Characters are Teens, Slight Toxic Behavior, Complicated Consensual/Not-Consensual Behavior Summery: Chishiya x Female Reader

BestFriend!Chishiya has been watching you closely ever since that one day, posing as the ever so unbothered best friend of yours, who was, in no way, interested in what happened nor what it could mean to you. Things are supposed to feel normal. Boring. As black and white as ever. Just the two of you. As friends. But that wasn’t the case anymore, at least not for you.

BestFriend!Chishiya eyes lay carefully on your figure, while you are pretty much slumped over your homework. You feel his stare. At least you think you do, cause every time you look up, his brown chocolate orbs, framed by peroxide blond strands, are focused on his books instead and it confuses you. A lot. Are you going crazy?

BestFriend!Chishiya knows it does and he also knows that you can feel him starring right into your soul. It amuses him how you react. Thought it only animates him to do it more often and see how far he could drive you up the wall. You, on the other hand feel like you can’t trust your own instincts anymore. Whenever you look up, sure to catch his attention on yourself, only for it to be somewhere else, he does grand you with a tired look of his own, asking less interested “Is there something?” only for you to shake your head and return to your notes and scribbles of halfhearted done work.

In the past, you were always sure when BestFriend!Chishiya was staring at you. You caught him but it was ok because it was nothing than just a game. You were confident to know when he tried to poke you with his mind directely and see if you react, but now, after that fateful day, your instincts seem to play with you, or does he? You believe to know when his eyes roam your body, but as soon as you look up, you are only met by his presence, not his attention. You can’t help but think, maybe, just maybe, it is just in your head.

Perhaps you wish for BestFriend!Chishiyas attention? Maybe, after what he asked of you, so blatant, so easy, but still so consequential, it toys with your head? It can’t be. Shouldn’t be. Wont. BestFriend!Chishiya isn’t this kind of person. You have never seen him interested in anyone, beside his work and some side projects, but persons? Actual Human beings? Not if it didn’t benefit his future career or any other entertainment, so even if he looks at you. Even if your mind isn’t playing games on you and making you see and feel things that aren’t there. Even if. It doesn’t matter because he surely sees you with no different eyes than before.

BestFriend!Chishiya says “Speak up”, ripping you out of your thoughts and this time, when you do look up, his attention is undeniably on you “Huh?” you ask confused, tho you have a feeling what he meant “You haven’t asked me to help you with your homework yet, but I can see from here that most of it is either incorrect or so farfetched, it’s not rhetorical anymore, but a fable”

BestFriend!Chishiya watches you lower your gaze, playing the dumb one, what isn’t that hard, since compared to him, you are practically dumb “I have no idea what you are talking about”

BestFriend!Chishiya grabs your book and notes, turning it towards himself and scans thru it, before a smirk appears on his handsome face. Did you just think handsome? Oh god no… “Who is axelot the great? Any why did he conquer your pants?”

BestFriend!Chishiya admires your confused face as you take your book back from him, reading over your notes and mentally slapping your head at least 5 times. You know that your brain isn’t fully there. More likely over the place, just like your mind. Every sentence you read, needed to be re-read at least 5 times before it sunk halfway in, what made you slower than usual but such errors? That was truly stupid, and you feel your cheeks flush and palms getting sweaty at the realization, just how far away your thoughts had been during homework.

“Didn’t know your pants can be conquered” mocked BestFriend!Chishiya amused and you flash him daggers, words shaky as you open your mouth, wanting to bark at him, but what comes out is barely above a whisper “Shut up”

BestFriend!Chishiya notes with amusement your obvious embarrassment. It can be captured with a camera, that’s how evident it is. So you give up, for the day, scrambling your papers together, wanting nothing more than to leave this uncomfortable situation. The Last days you have done nothing but waiting for something to happen. A sign, that what happened, did happen and wasn’t just a dream or something. That it was real, but BestFriend!Chishiya has gone back to his usual self so fast, you almost got whiplash from it.

It is like all you two did, all BestFriend!Chishiya did, with you, all the touches and words and everything was nothing more than an illusion and it makes you crazy. It makes you question yourself if you have gone insane and dreamed it all up. After all he never lost a word about it, never brought it up, never asked how you felt after his hands had touched every piece of skin, no matter where. And as if he hasn’t made you touch him. Him. It!!!

BestFriend!Chishiya stops your actions, taking your book right out of your arms and opening it at the last page he read one movement ago. It impresses you every time how perfect he does things. How nothing he makes, ever contained any failures. No step ever went into the wrong direction and no word was less correct than the ones before and all that followed.

BestFriend!Chishiya was perfect. His whole actions always had been, but now, it is like the colors he forced you to see, also reflect on him in a way, that makes you see more of him. Truly him. Not just your best friend. More of how perfect his body is. How manly he is. Why did you never see him like that before? Is it because until that day, BestFriend!Chishiya was nothing but a friend and not a guy? And seeing his sex made you realize he was one all along? Is one.

No, that was wrong. BestFriend!Chishiya is no guy, he is a man. There is no way just a guy could be so talented with his hands like BestFriend!Chishiya was. No guy is so gifted like him in certain places, no one and yes you looked the average up on the internet afterwards. BestFriend!Chishiya is certainly not one of them. He is so…big.

BestFriend!Chishiya proceeds to correct your writing as if it was nothing to him and with a totally collected appearance. Like your stupidity is no problem at all. Like all of this is just an everyday happening. And it makes you angry that he treats it that way. Then again, it also makes you angry that you feel the way you do and the emotions that you shouldn’t feel. Then again, can you really blame him for the thoughts you have and the way he faces them?

BestFriend!Chishiya made sure, that day, what his action meant for him, beforehand and you knew that. You agreed to it and now, you have the audacity to be angry he doesn’t feel more? That his mind isn’t as scattered as yours. Unable to focus on simple tasks. How fucked up are you exactly?

You sit down again, giving up on your intentions of leaving. It would only throw off questions like why and to be honest you can’t really answer them correctly without admitting your messy brain, so you give up and look at him instead. Really look at him, up and down, trying to see what really changed about him, because you feel like a lot did, but then again, also nothing. BestFriend!Chishiya is still just him, and way more. Gosh your mind is truly a mess. You can’t even think straight!

“You are starring” No question, no reminder of your unnatural behavior, just an obvious statement and you smile. Sure, a lot has changed, but BestFriend!Chishiya was still the same in many ways, after all.

“I was thinking.”

BestFriend!Chishiya chuckles, his eyes not leaving the book in his hands. Red pencil correcting every mistake of yours like a teacher. But a handsome one “About?”

“Just” you start but interrupt yourself, because the words in your mouth seem like another elusive explanation instead of the truth “I thought…no I questioned myself…did it really happen?”

“Did what really happen?” BestFriend!Chishiya makes a big X over a whole paragraph of your writing and you swallow. This action makes you rethink your words again. Your sentences made sense to you when you wrote them down, but to see how wrong they are now, makes you self-conscious of your ability to judge the situation rightfully. Probably, you are wrong after all. Have you gone insane?

“You know what.”

“I don’t” says BestFriend!Chishiya nonchalantly, another paragraph falling victim to his sharp eyes. You highly doubt his statement, looking at him with a bitch please expression.

“Don’t play dumb. It's not convincing.”

BestFriend!Chishiya stops his actions. He freezes in his position for what felt like minutes. Red pencil in his right hand, head lowered, gaze towards your work. Completely in his element and still. Time froze him up. Or maybe you did? “Do you really not know…what I mean?” you ask, words stuttering again, but this time your tone was at least content. Demanding an answer. Or was no answer the actual one?

BestFriend!Chishiya sighs heavily. Head rising, massaging his nape, he finally turns to you, with the oh so familiar playful smile on his face “I do know what you mean” This isn’t enough. You need him to say it out loud, so it was clear, the two of you are talking about the same thing. You need him to admit it in a full sentence that it really really happened.

“And what is that?” you ask, swallowing nervously. BestFriend!Chishiya doesn’t miss is. The way your breath picks up. How your chest raises with anticipation, expecting his answer, and hoping for the right one “I asked you to undress for me. Then I touched you on places that seems like you haven’t showed anyone else before me. At least your reaction to this whole topic tells me this” if possible, your heart races even more, lungs hitching like a broken-down car. You bite your bottom lip, unbeknown to yourself, but BestFriend!Chishiya sees it and cant refrain from smirking amused “Then you expected me to be turned on by your naked body and I tried to make you understand that it takes more than just some skin and flash to truly…excite me”.

You say nothing. Thoughts racing in your mind, BestFriend!Chishiya sees all the wheels turning, so he adds casually “Ah. That’s right, there was something else, I forgot. You touched me too. Or did I make you touch me? Who knows?”

BestFriend!Chishiya takes your silence as an invitation to lean forward and the fact that you don’t back away, is enough for him to proceed “Wanna see it again?” your eyes widen “Last time you barely got the chance to take in the sighed. Must have been your first time seeing one in real life, hm?”

BestFriend!Chishiya notices how you chew on your poor lip, unsure what to answer. If you should even answer at all, but you can’t help yourself from looking down at his hidden sex. The picture of it was engraved in your mind, never able to forget. Ever. Even if you wanted to. Do you want to? Who knows. However, you did somehow crave for your fingers to feel him again. Want to explore him the way he did with you. But your thoughts are focused only on one of his parts and BestFriend!Chishiya knows it by the way you eye his lower body, trying to undress him with your mind and feel every blue vain around the limb flash, meandering a way to its pink head “All you have to do is ask” BestFriend!Chishiya whispers, watching with delight how your fingers twitch with expectancy “You know. Like I did”

Your eyes rip from his dark pants when you are sure, no when you could swear you saw something move inside. Could it be? BestFriend!Chishiya sees how shocked you are at this realization, questioning if you really saw what you saw and it pleased him. The plea in your eyes, the black of your pupils widening to it extant with want, maybe even lust? He has no time to find out, because something scared you so much, you stumble practically to your feet, shoving everything you can get in one move inside your backpack and swinging it over your shoulder, rushing out of his room and with that out of his apartment, but before you are out the door, you hear BestFriend!Chishiya shout to you “Write me when you are home. I will bring your book with me tomorrow” and this was all that was said, before you were out and on your way home.

At home, no one asks you why you look so over the places. No one realizes how dirty your thoughts are and you don’t want to tell them, until you lay in bed, with your pajama on and damp hair from the quick shower, holding your smartphone clutched to your chest.

BestFriend!Chishiya. You forgot to write him. Or more like you didn’t forget but you pushed it aside, hoping to. The universe isn’t on your side tho, cause while lying around like that, you felt bad that maybe he could be worried about you, and you made him feel like that intentional.

BestFriend!Chishiya looks at his phone when the familiar ping sound of his notification chimes. He sits on his bed with his laptop on his folded legs, scrolling thru news all over the world and his mind taking in all the information’s like a sponge sucking up water. When he sees the message is from you, he smirks mischievous and moves the electronic device from his body, sinking deeper into his pillows.

YOU: Sorry I forgot to text you YOU: Been kind of busy since I got home

[dreamsy990]

so 358/2 days, amiright? heres my thoughts

this game is just. god its an emotional rollarcoaster

i guess ill start with the things i dont like!! which is mostly the gameplay. i dont really mind the mission structure shockingly (i like being able to roam around but having a clear goal makes things easier for my adhd ass, and i think the miniature storylines are very good for the most part) but i simply could Not get into the combat. especially coming off of kh2 it feels so stiff and unfun to play the only part of the game where i enjoyed the combat was fighting riku at the very end. i think the panel system is okay but i dont like that levels take up space. why did they do that.

story-wise, i dont like the retcons!! a lot of the ones i take issue with are very minor but things like roxas only fighting riku once instead of the implied multiple times (even the dialogue doesnt make sense when you change that, why does roxas say 'how many times do i have to beat you' when theyve only fought once?) are the kinds of inconsistencies that just annoy me.

im also a little bit annoyed at the very concept of this game at all. i think roxas worked just fine as a character without this game. it feels sort of unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. also, xion. i love xion, dont get me wrong, but i dont think she adds anything to the series over all. thats not to say she doesnt add anything to this game because shes a great character and i love her, but shes just. kind of like this game in that if you got rid of her i dont think it would really change the narrative so much.

BUT DESPITE THAT ALL!!!!!!!! i fucking ADORE this game. it is genuinely so full of charm and soul that i just cant bring myself to dislike it. i think this is one of the best written games in terms of dialogue. every scene (at least for me) hit exactly as emotionally hard as i think it was meant to. i was laughing at demyx's antics and crying at xions death and yelling at saix and i think thats exactly how the game is meant to be seen.

days at its heart is a slice of life. its working a 9 to 5 its going through a depressive episode its losing friends its grieving its making fun of your coworkers its living. its a game about life and i love that.

this game really did make me forget that axel roxas and xion dont get a happy ending. i spent so much time looking forward to them making up that i forgot that roxas ran away. hell i almost forgot that xion died.

days is emotional and its story and its characters are just so fucking good. the conflicts all felt very real and you can tell exactly where everyones coming from. the way axel roxas and xion fall apart hits so fucking close to home. but god damnit if axel had any good communication skills like half of this could be avoided

its also one hell of a love letter to axel's character. hes always been one of my favorites (he recently earned first place) and i think this game does him a lot of justice. hes trying to do good. he wants to keep everything together he wants to be there for his friends he wants to make things right but he just cant. its just AUGH its so fucking good

that thing about axel's characterization really also applies to roxas. i dont have much to say about him beyond the fact that i think it does his character very well. also tism. hes so autism.

i kind of like the very limited graphics too. sue me i enjoy low quality games. the hands are not animated and they all have two expressions (blinking and not blinking) and their weapons are flat and im living for it. the very few fully animated cutscenes are good too!!

the (real, i dont count riku) final boss is unfortunately very easy. you can just stand directly in front of her and mash a she wont hit you its too easy but vector to the heavens did mess me up a bit. also earlier scene but "ill always be there to bring you back" with the other promise playing over it? fucked me up man. yoko shimomura is once again killing it

i cant believe roxas didnt get to go to the beach.

i have to give this game a 9/10. its writing is incredible but the gameplay could use a lot of work. its just not fun to play. but again the characters, emotions, and music all make up for that tenfold.

[bidonica]

Anyway elaborating on this and the potential for a Higgs redemption arc/reluctant ally arc/his chaotic ass pulling a Vegeta in DS2, I was finishing Mama's chapter today (spoilers if you haven't played the first Death Stranding yadda yadda) and a couple of things jumped at me:

When Lockne's soul merges with Mama's she does this, suggesting it's actually Mama embracing her/wiping her tears. Looks familiar:

(this actually doesn't have anything to do with Higgs' potential Vegeta arc - I don't think - but I feel it had to be pointed out. What is powering Fragile's second set of hands?)

Lockne does a bit of exposition about how Mama wasn't really alive because her soul went on to the afterlife while her body was kept "alive" by the soul of her unborn baby, so when Sam severed their link she started to die definitively. Something something what with the gut (but probably umbilical cord) window and him literally rising from a coffin, that's probably the state Higgs is going to be in in DS2. More or less. Somewhat. I have theories on how he might have manifested himself into the physical world again but they're very vague and also not the point of this post

But most of all what made me jump in my chair was this email you get after Mama's death:

Which honestly sounds like A Lot when applied to Mama because it's hard to see Mama's "betrayal" as even a betrayal at all - it's just her feeling guilty and traumatized, a big misunderstanding with no ill intent behind it. But who is the character who became a minion of the real adversary in this story and was tasked specifically with causing trouble for the hero...

And then there's that little aside about second chances at the end of the email which... Kojima I'm in your fucking walls. Why did you bury that in an email about Mama of all people. I might be reading too much into this (because it's explicitly about Mama), and Kojima said he heavily rewrote DS2 after the pandemic, so it's hard to tell how much of what is laid out in Death Stranding will end up paying off in the sequel. But... redeeming the villain from the first part of the story and/or making him a reluctant ally is a classic anime trope and something I actually thought about back when I finished my first playthrough because why keep Higgs alive (albeit stranded on the Beach) only to rehash the same storyline from the first game?

I'm trying not to get my hopes up but... the more I think about it the more it makes sense to me, especially because I got a feeling from the new trailer that the real antagonist is going to be Bridges (or whatever APAC is), so a sharp turn from the more metaphysical threat posed by Higgs, Amelie and Clifford in the first game.

[delenaisepiclove]

When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass it on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love!

Hey Cosmic! Well let’s see…five fav fics that I’ve written. I’ve written a bunch on FanFiction.Net but for this post I’m going to stick with the ones I have up on ao3. First one that comes to mind is The Reunion. It’s about Faith and Buffy reuniting after her time in prison and it’s currently my most popular piece on ao3, so that makes me very happy. Not only that, it was my first time ever writing a w/w fic so to know that a lot of people liked it really meant a lot. :)

Second would have to be Partners in Crime. It’s based off of the animated show She-Ra and is centered around Catra and Adora, two of the main characters in the show. It’s another one that got a lot of attention that I really enjoyed writing. It’s very wholesome and sweet with a dash oof mischievousness thrown into it. Very very cute.

Third would be an on-going fic I’m writing called Star Crossed Enemies to Lovers. It’s a vampire fic centered on two characters from the show Killing Eve. Eve is a vampire hunter focused on hunting down a vampire named Villanelle, and the two have this back and forth cat and mouse game for awhile until feelings eventually between the characters. I only have a few chapters up and am in the process of writing the third chapter, but it’s coming along nicely and I can’t wait to post it! It’s my first vampire fic I’ve written in years so I’m pretty stoked about it. :) It’s not quite as popular as my last two but I’m hoping it’ll gain more traction as I add more chapters to it.

Fourth is A Blast from the Past, my latest Delena fanfic. This one is pretty dark, and is based off of a storyline I did on my RP account with a close friend many years ago. Damon and Elena are still vampires and have settled down, and even conceived a child together. But sometime later on down the road, something happens that causes Damon to revert back to his old ways where he only cared about Katherine and nobody else. It’s another WIP of mine and I’m not sure when I’ll have the second chapter posted. I just have fond memories of writing that with my friend and wanted to share it with more people.

And for my final story it would have to be Dark Savior. It’s another w/w fic set in the Buffy series only this time it’s centered around Faith and Willow. This is takes place during the Dark Willow arc and instead of Xander calming Willow down from her plan to end the world, it’s Faith. Unusual pairing but I think it works really well here, though I’m more of a Fuffy (Buffy/Faith) person personally.

If you’re interested in reading these stories you can find them all on my ao3 page. I only have a handful up so far so it’s not hard to find the five fics I’ve talked about in this post.

https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelestialStorm/works

[about-faces]

Hi, I want to read some DC comics about how Harvey transformed from former DA to the criminal mastermind who ruled half of Gotham's Underworld (against the Penguin). I've already read/seen: Two-Face: A Celebration of 75 Years Batman: The Long Halloween Batman: Dark Victory (1999) Batman '89 Batman: The Animated Series Batman: The Audio Adventures

Any other reading recommendations? Thanks a lot for your help. :)

So you're looking for origin stories, or at least ones that shed more light on Two-Face's origin? Well first off, I'm glad you read the 75th Anniversary collection, because that has three of my very favorites: the original Harvey Kent trilogy from 1942-43, the Grace Dent story from Secret Origins Special (1989), and "Eye of the Beholder" from Batman Annual #14 (1990).

Besides those, and the ones you've listed, here are a few others to check out. Some are great, some are mixed bags, and some are downright lousy.

First and foremost, I STRONGLY recommend the 1989 Batman newspaper comic strip, which I loved so much that I posted the whole two-year saga on its own tumblr account. You can start from the very beginning right here, but keep in mind that Harvey's storyline--which runs all the way to the very last strip--doesn't really start until the second arc.

Next, Batman: Dual to the Death by Geary Gravel is a YA novelization of the BTAS origin, seamlessly combined with the two-part Batgirl origin episodes. It improves on both the animated versions in small but crucial ways, and it's highly recommended for BTAS fans. Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to find.

On a similar note, Peter David's movie novelization of Batman Forever can be found more easily, either in used book form or on the Internet Archive, and it's absolutely worth reading. I love the movie of Batman Forever, but it's objectively a terrible take on Harvey. The novelization adds SO MUCH, including an original prequel scene with D.A. Harvey Dent, and his ending is far more satisfying.

Cartoon Network's CGI animated series Beware the Batman (2013) also features a series-long origin arc for Harvey Dent, but it's one of the worst takes I've ever seen on the character. He's a petty, selfish, ambitious little prick, an absolute scumbag, completely devoid of depth or tragedy. Thankfully, few have seen this arc, since the majority of Harvey's episodes were never aired after the series was cancelled, but they're all available to watch for those morbidly curious to see just how badly someone can screw up Harvey as a character.

"The Big Burn" from Batman and Robin, vol 2 #24-28 (2014), also collected in B&R volume 5. After the huge DC reboot, this was Harvey new origin, which tried some very different things with him. A VERY mixed bag, but one that ended in a hugely exciting way that makes the whole thing worth reading. Follow it up with its sequel, "Ugly Heart," from Detective Comics #1020-1024, collected in Detective Comics Vol 5: Joker War.

Finally, watch the entirety of the recently-released/cancelled CW series Gotham Knights, with Misha Collins performing a surprisingly rich, interesting, and flawed Harvey Dent origin arc. The show got a lot of shit, some of it undeserved, but Collins' Harvey was an intriguing surprise, and I fear nothing we see from Harvey in any Reevesverse media will bring half as much care and interest to Harvey as GK did, for better or worse. All 13 episodes can be watched for free on CW Seed, region permitting.

EDIT: Oh right also the Telltale Batman video game! I haven't actually played that yet because I know enough about what happens and the illusion of meaningful choice indicative of Telltale games that I just don't feel like putting myself through that. People seem to like it a lot, though! I just... don't put me in a position of choosing to save either Harvey or Selina if you're just going to cheat and have him go evil anyway.

[cat-of-starlight]

I DO have a long Project Moon Universe post/mini-essay(?) I wanna make (Well. focused on Limbus, but also the other games as well), but I want a few more Cantos to go by first for references to prove my point,,,,

Spark Notes draft below the cut if anyone's interested in the premise: "The City, and its relationship towards those who are too gentle for it's cruelty"

Ok great, for the people still here- The sad little essay I wanna eventually make-

I think it's. TRUELY heartbreaking how much kindness as a concept seems to be punished in the city, to the point where its often an active point that the truly kind (or at least notably non-violent) characters always seem to get the shortest straws.

I won't get into too many specifics till I make the Whole Real Post, but- It feels like a few things typically happen to "Kind" people in this city

They distort

They flat out die

They become an outcast

The city beats the kindness out of them by force until they are forced to conform to cruelty

And tbh? Not loving how the community collectively treats some of them.

I mean, one one hand, we have people like Yuri- People LOVE Yuri. She never did a single thing wrong, and we can all agree-

But those who distorted or conformed? Seem to be collectively treated worse, while other OBJECTIVELY worse characters get off scot free

(*Note: Final essay will include more examples, these are the main ones I have off the top of my head)

--

For an example- Think back to Runia- I CRIED through Philip's plotline. I could clearly see the story of a man who- maybe wasn't the most courageous- who TRIED to help how he could- Got pressured so hard that he snapped and distorted under the pressure, becoming something that was beyond his own feelings, letting his distortion bury his heart to not feel that pain again- I LOVED that storyline, and then I come online and see him mocked for being some useless dipshit coward- THAT'S JUST SOME GUY- It's not his fault for being caught up in horrors beyond human comprehension (*Note: I checked his wiki for details. that man was only 24. He is younger than me. This man is barely an adult, no WONDER tbh)

--

Or my most... controversial character opinion, considering how I feel about Dongrang. Let me start with a disclaimer- I didn't read the books, and my opinion of him has exactly NOTHING to do with whoever the real life counterpart apparently is- I'm EXCLUSIVELY talking about the FICTIONAL character.

Limbus went out of their way to show that he'd, at least at some point, been a guy who was SO KIND that he was actively wasting his own money to help people/animals, and his co-workers ACTIVELY berated him about it- He wanted his tech to be healing, just so he could save people-

And then, of course, like every kind deed in The City, it didn't go unpunished- And to survive, he adapted. I'm not saying his actions weren't wrong- they were. I am, however, saying that I don't necessarily BLAME him for snapping.

He never WANTED to become like the other cruel people in the city, and even the cutscene images of him complying with it show him in visibly agony over it, and one image even shows him in tears- He never WANTED to be another cog in that awful machine, but when faced with that or utter destruction, he made a choice to survive.

Hell, half of him distorting himself was due to how guilty he felt for doing all of that in the first place-

Meanwhile, online, 90% of posts about him are "teehee I hate this piece of shit-"

--

For both of these that HAVE committed questionable acts in some way, I'm not saying I condone the things that happened. Because I don't. But I CAN feel sympathy and pity for them over the things that happened to make them what they became.

I can only imagine what the city would be like if kind people like them and others had been ALLOWED to be kind, without being punished for it.

--

And with all of this, all these characters who DARED to be kind, who DARED to fight back, even for a little bit, before inevitably being either physically or emotionally destroyed by the sheer weight of how this city works at its core- ...Some of the TRUE villains are treated better by the fandom then they are.

Canto III? Kromer- People go nuts for her- Some people even ship her with Sinclair, despite it all. She gets so much fanart. She gets SO many people ogling "ooo evil lady pretty", only for her to commit atrocities with a smile, and without a single slimmer of remorse.

Canto IV? Alfonso. Batshit insane, evil as hell- at least half the reason that characters like Dongrang ended up as fucked up as they did. You'd think "Wow- this is the person that made the person we hate the way they are, lets hate her too!" right? WRONG. Again, she gets the "pretty evil woman" treatment and people brush off her atrocities to ogle her. She also gets love by at least part of the fanbase.

And to that, WHY? I don't get it, genuinely. - Their actions?: horrible, terrible, not redeemable in the SLIGHTEST - Appearances?: You know what, I'll be honest- I think ladies are pretty (I'm Demi, but I can 100% enjoy a view) but I think these are actually two of the least attractive women I've laid eyes on. (Not the point of the post, and that's just opinion, but anyway)

And I'm not sure what causes it, honestly.

There are moments where at its worst, it almost makes me feel like the distant cruelty of The City isn't so distant after all- Those who are mostly kind, but fell into despair and tragedy, and turned into something worse get overwhelming hate-

Those who are evil, yet a bit more charismatic in approach become beloved?

Overall- Its a strange, curious tragedy of The City that the kind are often scorned and punished, and the evil stay beloved and in power-

It's just odd to see the mirror of that in the fanbase's reactions.

---

ALRIGHT GANG- That concludes my EXTREMELY rough draft of my eventual thing about The City's weird relationship with people who try to be kind, and the overall mirrored reactions of the fans-

If something in here is just rambling, or doesn't make sense, sorry- again, rough draft, but I thought it was worth sharing anyway

--

EDIT: Ok before anyone notices them not being included, I purposefully left out main LCB sinners and ESPECIALLY Dante, because though I could write about them forever, I want a little more canon content to work with before rambling about them in this post- They are a GREAT midpoint as someone who can't remember the cruelty of The City, and is now clearly struggling with the urge to stay kind in the face of The Horrors™- Honestly they were my main inspiration for this, but I DO want more info before writing about them fully, thanks <3

[anosrepasi]

10 Character/10 Fandoms/10 Tags

Tagged by the wonderful @aeide :)

Nil (Horizon Dawn Zero/Forbidden West) - My current obsession I'm rotating around in my mind. What's not to love he's charming in the sense that his most common AU occupation is "Serial Killer." Will he kill you? Depends! Only if you suck, and he promises to never stab you in the back, he wants to look you in the eye if he tries to kill you. But actually, I find him utterly fascinating and in the context of HZD he's just. so nuanced it destroys me. This man has decades of c-ptsd and asks the question of what happens when someone drenched in violence is suddenly expected to stop fighting- the answer is, it takes a lot! I adore him.

Kassandra (AC:Odyssey) - Look the more I think about Kassandra and like the canon quests in that game the more I'm like. They did you wrong, girl. They did you so dirty. SHE JUST WANTS TO GO HOME. IT TAKES DECADES. HER STORY IS A FUSION OF THE ODYSSEY AND THE ILIAD. YOU CAN APPLY THEMES FROM BOTHA ND IT DRIVES ME INSANE. And. And then they say, all thsi you worked so hard for? Well. We have other things we need from you. I am going to chew through my arm.

Mizu (Blue Eye Samurai) - Look. I could link thousand upon thousands words of meta about Mizu and her/they're relationship to gender and existence as a mixed race individual in isolationist Japan. And it still wouldn't capture it all. And past that it's hot person brutally murdering people in absolutely fantastically animated fight scenes.

Vincent Valentine (Final Fantasy VII) - Look. He's my original blorbo. I saw 10 minutes of screen time of him in Advent Children and have been insane ever since. I bought and played through Dirge of Cerberus for him. Something about him apparently just imprinted on me as a child, I've been a lost cause ever since.

Xaden Riorson (Fourth Wing/Iron Flame) - These books are still relatively new so I'll hold my tongue since a lot of what I am obsessed with re: him is spoilers but oh my god. oh. my. god. buddy.

Axel (Kingdom Hearts) - Also an original blorbo from childhood, imprinted on him like a baby duck. His death in KH2 made me bawl. His entire storyline makes me sob, he's the reason why every single aspect of Roxas' story was a gut punch cause like. The best way to make people care about characters is give them someone who loves them then make it sad.

Charles Milton Porter (Bioshock 2: Minerva's Den) - Look. This dude's DLC made me cry. big cry. I still kinda get choked up when i think about it for a while. it's about the grief.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits - I can't choose a characters from this, so I just advise everyone to play this game. It's so good. You're going to be emotionally devastated. It's also about grief. Every character in this game is so so good and you will feel things.

Joe Miller (The Expanse) - He was not the first but he was my defining love of shitty noir space detectives. I loved him from when he was introduced to when he left the series and my love was rewarded so much. Holden and Amos were the runner up characters for this fandom.

Death (The Book Thief) - I read the book thief for the first time in 7th grade I think? Every day of my life since them on my commute to work or when on break I look at the sky and think about how Death would describe the taste of the colors. This book irrecoverably changed me from the day I read it and firmly cemented this Death as the death i hope is there at the end of everything, i love this version of it so much. This death is like. look. go read the book if you haven't had the opportunity.

Tagging for anyone who wants to do it: @ongreenergrasses @lobstermatriarch @airmidcelt @tirsynni @aevallare @duesternis @salsedine @avelera @thehoundkeeper @green-nbean

[wondergirl2007]

These five artists have inspired me to do art myself and I really admire their art ~ So I’m going to tell you about them and why they inspired me and they will even be tagged. If any of the artists that are in the list see this, then I just want to thank you for inspiring me.

5. Kika-ila

This artist is known for doing Total Drama art, and I was obsessed when I first saw her art! Her style is so freaking cute and I actually think her Total Drama Kids stories are better than Total DramaRama itself. I actually used to love Total DramaRama, but now not as much. I don’t hate it thought. I love Total Drama, but most YouTubers I watch that do TD content are leaving the fandom, like TotalDramaRicky and Noahh, which really does suck, but I can see why and they want to move on to other stuff. I really like the timeline drawings she did, and she even did it for FNAF (Five Nights At Freddy’s) too! FNAF is one of my favourite horror video game franchises, my favourite is the second one, which is actually a prequel! I didn’t even know that until a few weeks ago! But overall, Kika does awesome art and she deserves more attention!

4. thegreatrouge

I love this girl’s art. She’s known for doing art with rubber hose characters, like Felix The Cat, Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, Mickey Mouse and even Cuphead and Bendy! She has made a whole series called “Bendy And Boris And The Quest For The Ink Machine” and it’s amazing so far! The project is currently on hiatus right now, I’m not sure if she’s discontinued the comic and I really hope she hasn’t. I hate stories that are left on cliffhangers, along with “Two Sides Of The Story” which is a HTF comic by one of my good friends Emmy, she discontinued the story because she believed it was cringe. The art? It was cringey at first, but the art got better at around chapter 4. The actual storyline? Yeah, it was quite cringey actually. Can’t really blame her, but I actually did enjoy the story, I’m even doing a redraw of it and might even do a non canon continuation of it! I won’t do it for BABQFTIM, since there is already some continuations of that story. Rouge has also done a Cuphead In Wonderland project too which is pretty good too! Unfortunately, she’s been losing motivation to do art recently, which really upsets me. She’s an awesome artist, and I’d love to help her feel motivated again. Most of her art is sketched, or digital but without colour, but I can understand that colouring in art can take time. This girl is pretty good at art and she definitely deserves more motivation to continue doing what she loves.

3. The-Wallop-Cat-12

This artist mainly does Cuphead art, but she also does Sailor Moon, Splatoon and Mario art! Which is awesome, since I love all of those video games and Sailor Moon is my favourite anime. I don’t watch anime a lot, but my personal favourites are Sailor Moon, One Piece, Naruto, PPG Z, Yo-Kai Watch, Demon Slayer and Dragonball Z. Cuphead is definitely one of my favourite video games, despite how hard it can be. I got it for Christmas last year at it has been fun playing it. I also love VOAdam’s comic dubs of Cuphead Comics and he even did dubs for Wallop’s Cup Bros In Wonderland comics! I was working on a comic about it, but I discontinued it since I lost interest. I still love the idea of it though. Cuphead X Alice In Wonderland. I love Alice In Wonderland. There’s even some heartwarming comics she’s done with the the Cup Bros comforting each other that are real tearjerkers. I also really liked the Size Shifting Cup Bros comic she did. I like how Drama Days (a YouTuber I like) coloured in the comic too. I don’t know why, but I love a cartoon episode where someone becomes a giant. Don’t ask me why I love it, I just do. Probably because of Alice In Wonderland. Wallop is my favourite Cuphead artist, and she is very good at what she does!

2. ChaoChao0071

Oh my god, this girl… SHE IS AMAZING!!! I’m actually kinda jealous! Her art and animations are so damn good! She mainly does HTF content, but she also likes Invader Zim and My Little Pony. I love her crossover series with HTF and MLP “Everything Is Broken” and I like her Invader Zim series, “Not Your Enemy”. Looking back at when she started compared to now, she has been improving over the years! I really like her fanmade MLP character, Creepybloom. She’s such an amazing and interesting character. Chao’s voice acting for her is just splendid. (No pun intended cos there is an HTF character named Splendid and he’s my favourite character). I love villains that eventually turn good and realise their mistakes, like Sunset Shimmer in MLP: Equestria Girls and Vomitdid in Drama Days’ Splendid series. I also really love him. Definitely an interesting fanmade character. I also love her HTF OC’s Whiskers, Smokey and Holes. They are awesome concepts to EIB. Fun Fact, I actually didn’t like them at first when I first saw them in Part 12, but I eventually grew interest to them in Part 14, since we didn’t really see them in Part 13. Overall, this girl is AMAZING and I hope I’ll be able to animate like her one day. Her animation is so smooth and she is so skilful!

1. EmmyJeanBean

Emmy, if you are reading this, then I just wanna say… Thank you. Thank you so much. You are my best friend. You were the one to inspire me to do the art I do today. You have improved so much throughout the years, and I love every single art piece you have done. I follow you on DeviantArt, Instagram and Amino. I’ll make sure to follow you when or if I get Twitter. You are the reason why I do the art I do today. Everything about you AU makes me so curious and I love the way you made the characters and you OC characters are amazing too. It makes me wish they where in HTF too, like Angus, (Lammy’s ancestor) Samantha, (Splendid’s sister), Tammy, (Cuddles and Toothy’s kid), all of Cuddles siblings, everyone’s moms just all of your OC’s definitely deserve to make it into the show if it ever comes back. I’d love to to anything to bring HTF back. We can bring HTF back together. With all the fanmade stuff people are making, like Amensia, Nemao’s fanmade episodes, Drama Days’ Splendid series, EIB, etc, we can definitely make it possible since that shows that people still care about the show. Happy Tree Friends is my favourite cartoon and programme and I’d love to give it a revival. Let’s all bring HTF back to life, together. Emmy, you have actually inspired me to do some projects and art pieces, like your ‘Cannibal’ comic. It has inspired me to do a comic that I’ll be working on for the whole summer, but I won’t spoil it yet! I’ll keep it a surprise until the cover is out. I love so many of your projects like TSOTSS, Cannibal, Tammy’s Arc, Understanding Nolan, I’m Not Leaving and my favourite is A Stolen Heart, your Lifty X Splendid fanfic and my favourite HTF ship. Emmy, you are the best artist I’ve ever seen and nothing will change that. You art is so inspiring to me. You are the best.

And that’s them all! These 5 artists have inspired me to do the art I do today!

Kika-ila

thegreatrouge

TheWallop-Cat12

Pupster0071

EmmyJeanBean

NONE OF THE ART BELOW IS MINE! ALL CREDITS GO TO THE ARTISTS ABOVE.

[eeveeas123]

My final thoughts on Pokémon Scarlet & Violet…

Incredible! I felt like it was one of the best games I’ve ever played! There are many things that caught my attention:

Clothes weren’t restricted by gender

The characters. Arven’s motivation, both before and after Mabosstiff was saved, was inspiring! Team Star’s members were awesome too because even though they were definitely odd in different ways, they never let each other down in friendship. Some people say Nemona actually lacks character but that’s not true for me! She just represents the bulk of Pokémon games, battles! Kieran going from super shy and hiding behind Carmine to having more confidence (Not without “Bumps” in the road to get there, of course). Overall, I loved the personality these guys have! I felt a connection with many of these people

Music. Kieran’s first battle theme took number one on my personal chart! I also enjoyed the Tera Raid Theme, Gym Leader theme and so on! Some themes were also emotional, I’d get lost in them pretty easily but not everything can be cheerful all the time, even Pokémon tunes

The stories/plot. So “Twisty”, I’m not saying I enjoyed learning the fact that Arven’s parent died in bad incident but if anything, it made the story more interesting and mature. The Team Star storyline makes me cry at certain parts (Even after playing through SV 4+ times). Plus it’s a very relatable issue, bullying as well as being misunderstood. But they worked hard to help the poor students despite them also being victims. I’ll admit there wasn’t much extremely new about the Victory Road plot but that’s because they knew at least one thing shouldn’t be changed, battling and the earning badge system (It’s just something the majority are used to)

The Pokémon species. Fidough? Oh. My. Lord! Such a clever idea and the Paradox forms were very mysterious and cool since they resemble older Pokémon… Ogerpon was adorable and we finally have a dolphin species in Finizen/Palafin! Lechonk as the first Pokémon you can catch was nice! (Pigs are one of my favourite animals). I think this particular batch of new Pokémon felt very fresh

The open world approach. You could basically go anywhere you wanted by the game’s end, also, three maps!? (Paldea, Kitakami & The Terrarium). I loved how free it felt

The classes. Probably not the most popular opinion but I loved the school classes in the academy. It was a great way to learn facts you might not think about otherwise (I wouldn’t have looked up the odds of critical hits unless it was necessary, good to know though!)

That’s all I’ve thought about for now, maybe I’ll write more soon (Also, if they come out with Scarlet 2 & Violet 2 soon like they did for BW I’ll probably faint with happiness! But it looks unlikely…)

[abimee]

so tbh i was hard on nier:a while playing it cos i don't really like a lot of the anime tropes BUT i really like tragedies and i was promised some twists, and got some. but i wanted to ask you how you felt about the pacing. basically, did it feel like there was a solid line connecting plot points, or do you feel like certain things happened at random? barring the fact that yoko taro said he literally wrote the story out of order, is that how it felt to you? imo it felt really rushed through super cool parts and like things that were annoying or setpieces ran on for too long. ig i'm still fked up over how much it fell short of my expectations bc even after playing nier:a completely thru and h8ing how absurdly film-student its tone and ideology are, i was hyperfixated enough to read some of the side literature and learn drakengard lore. tl;dr, nier:a is cool and has some fun parts but i wish the android were more mature (or artificial) in physicalilty to avoid weird anime loli baiting in the fans and also they'd asked a writer to help revise and implement the og author's ideas okay bye thx for reading my rant ♡ i'm glad u had fun and ur fanart abt a2 and the indoor grill made me cough

ill gladly listen to people bitch about yoko taro ive had PROBLEMS with this man since a young age ☝️☝️☝️☝️

I was actually thinking about the pacing and insertion of certain scenes/plot points today because admittedly like. okay this might be all over the place but

The start of the game (Route A + B) was like pretty solid pacing I think due to being low risk, and I thought it was cool that the game let you see 9S' side of things --- but it really started to fumble when it got into it's moe complex storylines in C-D-E and went on to deposit a lot of information on it to the point where it felt like we were forgetting entire plots and characters because something new and shiny showed up

Like okay first off. Adam and Eve and the aliens. We never once got any sort of explanation WHY adam + eve killed the aliens, or why the aliens made the machines, but within that general thought we did learn that humans died before going to the moon (and possibly even before the aliens came?), and that YoRHa's only goal was to fight the machines until a specified amount of data was gotten and then they were to explode. Never did we get more elaboration on the aliens or adam/eve, and while we got some YoRHA spotlight stuff it also entirely just decided that explaining the true mission behind making YoRHa and why the androids had to die is beyond it. Which frustrated me because it Brings Up Ideas but doesn't specify if thats the true reason, like we learned that the machines fight purely because that was there sole reason, and so they made an enemy for themselves purely to enact that goal that the aliens gave --- but then it even goes ''haha okay but hear me out'' and introduces Red Girl and this vague idea of the Machine Ego and wanting to defy their masters of the aliens, but then DOESN'T ELABORATE WHY. Like we don't know WHY adam and eve and the machine ego wanted to develop enough to defy their machine logic and purpose because it wraps back around to ''theyre human just like us because they want to defy their masters because.... they're human like us?"

Like it often felt like some concepts or plots brought up walked itself in a circle, dog-chasing-tail style, where it's entirely contained within itself and refuses to expand upon it's existence, which then causes it to get sort of left behind when the plot finds a new fancy idea to latch onto. Like how quickly the story introduced, focused on, then discarded Adam & Eve is almost criminal because of the things it could've done with them literally as the closest approximation to what the Machine Ego/Red Girls wanted, since they defied their creator's orders to be their own selves. Eve especially feels wasted in this regard --- like if the plot spent a little more time focusing on Eve & Adam in a B-plot scenario showing Eve and Adam learning more from humans and even leaning into Eve's wants that we saw in his mind when 9S hacked him (the human home built around him and his brother, and his brother wanting to go somewhere peaceful with him). Like they even could've tied that to when they get on the Ark and leave and Adam is holding Eve, that's literally Adam bringing Eve somewhere peaceful, but because those two instances are so seperated from each other and their own sort of throw-away concepts it becomes hard to Remember the tether between those two thoughts

This is also my biggest problem with A2's writing, I can only assume she's meant to be a Kaine-type character (and boy did my eyes momentarily widen seeing Emil say ''it must be fate that we've met!" to her) where her reserved nature and somewhat limited character blends in with her personality, but they really could've just given us like at least 2 more hours-game to learn about her past rather than just infodump us with her lore in some logs at the Resistance Camp. This is another problem Red Girl had where I feel like the fact you get unit data on them that basically explains away the confusing parts of their involvement in the lore felt cheap because this game has over 40+ hours under it's belt but couldn't be damned to give us information on our main antagonist directly in the game instead of in a post-credit LOG?

Like okay. I love my baby boy emil. He is the most special boy in the world to me and I am so happy seeing him get a pretty decent character arc for himself in the sequel to his original iteration. But why do we learn information about Emil more easily than the Red Girls? No unit data paragraph, no document information to read, no external book needing to be sourced. You learn whats up with him, why his big event out in the desert happens, and how it ends. You even get TWO special areas involving him. Red Girl gets to speak for a little bit and then vanish. It just astonishes me a bit

And it's not like the game doesn't try to expand characters last-minute either, that entire cutscene where Pascal reads Nietszche and then gets surrounded by the baby machines before the events of the Factory/suicide felt so forced in suddenly that it felt rather obvious something was going to happen. And I say this as someone who was in tears seeing Pascal get called ''uncle Pascal'' and see him defend the children in the factory --- it was super obvious that they possibly didn't originally plan that scene but needed something to really show that Village acted just like a human community with children and babysitters and family. Like not to be like ''this couldve been something beautiful'' but i think giving us a little time between A2 and the Village more could've done something beautiful. A2 getting the necessities to build the slide definitely made me drop to my knees but I noticed even the LPer was confused why A2 had a crying child inside of her as her enemy at the end of the hacking (like how 9S had 2B at the end of his destroying his memories), but the game didn't do anything with that besides lightly imply A2 lets down her mean bit for children sometimes (and again. why is this Kaine behavior). And then the fucking laughing children sound at the end of the route where she hacks 9S and she looks to the sky like ? This is all very interesting but it doesnt mean anything.

NOT TO MENTION 2B BEING AN EXECUTIONER TYPE. COOL CONCEPT BUT IT DOESNT MEAN ANYTHING IN THE END. It's just another thing to tack onto 9S's migraine of learning everything is a lie but nothing gets DONE with that incredibly interesting though afterwards because we never see 2B after that because she's been dead for a while now. We had a brief hint at it when we heard that transmission of 2B being her new name but the payoff just doesn't work if you just state it and then not do anything with it.

There's many cases of this and I notice it with how much questions I have that simply have no answer in this game despite the fact we have nearly 5 routes worth of time that could've gone into either sticking to like 3 ideas to the end or bridging the gaps, Which the story Does Do Sometimes! Red Girl talking about fucking up its own network to make pacifistic machines that want nothing to do with the war, the lie of YoRHA

OH MY GOD ALSO. SPEAKING OF RANDOMLY PUSHING STUFF IN. OPERATOR 210. The fact that they wanted to pull the whole ''she was curt and distant with 9S but secretly saw him as like a son because she wanted a family :(" could've gone INSANE if they didn't decide they wanted to bring that idea in at the last possible second and make 210 randomly baby 9S (and then make him point out how strange she's acting), and then ignore that until we get to the cutscene that they wanted to make for it. Like they could've had 210 start out as curt and distant, but as 9S operations with 2B got more dangerous she could've started laying on the doting mother thing, but it just came so abruptly in Route.....C? That it felt forced and rather last-minute, like they finished writing A and B and someone walked in and went ''wait I want 210 to see 9S as her son :(" and this is how they crammed it in

oh this post isnt even about the pacing i'm just talking about dead end plot concepts. But I can definitely see where you're coming from there because we spent an awfully long time with the Resistance only to know so little about them, but it defos felt more ''a lot of stuff is getting brought up but we dont have enough time to give it developing room because we want to bring in the next concept asap". A2, the forest king, Red Girl, hell even Pascal and Adam & Eve all suffer this. the only person who really got a steady character Was 2B and 9S but 2B felt like she got cut short and just became a puppet for 9S' plot which is so tiring how often we get dual man/woman protags and the woman's story just becomes part of the man's story and she becomes a nebulous concept. that yoko taro brand Misogyny

I SPENT AN HOUR TYPING THIS? I haven't even gotten to how I feel like 9S' plot feels like it was destined for something more but got bottlenecked for time and cut off at the like 80% mark

I can definitely feel that though of feeling like Nier:a didn't meet expectations, when I finished all the routes and the playlist i was watching just Ended I genuinely sat up and bed and just felt a deep sense of ''THAT'S IT? THATS ALL?"

it's crazy too because I really, REALLY loved what it had going and im going to be thinking about this game forever but it also just left me feeling like i'm missing something so badly that when I try to think about it sometimes my mind just draws blanks like im left speechless at it.

Like that was nier: automata? that was just 40 hours of being asked what it means to be alive

[sexy-swashbuckler]

10 and/or 23 for the pirate101 questions? :3

10 + 23 :3 here u go

well firstly - i said this in a previous answer - but i made nightingale during the pandemic and it was the first pirate i had actually stuck with after years of creating and deleting characters. in a post i made i said that playing as swash is like playing the game on hard mode. this is the reason that nightingale is so special to me. its because that save took me FOREVER. it took me two years to finish with so much difficulty. but i did it :D.

i'm really big on story telling so i really put a lot of thought into my character's background, even if some of those details are only in my head lol.

nightingale:

when i was making nightingale i was also playing ac: syndicate, so i had this obsession with victorian england (lol) and that's why i chose marleybone as their world of origin. i chose swashbuckler because i loved the finesse/melee animations of the game. looking back, their world of origin and class really compliment each other. i see a lot of marleybonian officers and what-not with sabres so it makes since to me in that my pirate probably learned fencing by going to classes. its suggested by a badge that the marleybonian-raised pirate knows military discipline, so i like to think my pirate was put into fencing classes - not exactly against their will - but the way most kids are put into soccer when they are small.

as for the colors, i wanted to pick something that was neutral and looked good with the gear and ships. at first i wanted black and white (which is the colors i chose for my pirate's clothes in character creation) but then i didn't like how some shades of white looked kinda pink in-game. so i chose beige instead. i absolutely love this color combo and think i made an excellent choice.

i actually changed the coat of arms on the flag when i was in cool ranch. i had the compass/north star thing with the criss-cross swords but i don't remember why i didn't like it. when i was picking a new one, i just thought the fish looked pretty sick :D.

(i'll get into clothes after devereaux)

devereaux:

i have this habit of limiting my worlds of origin to the class i'm going to pick (like i'll only choose witchdoctor if my character is from krokotopia). because again i'm big on story telling and i like things to be very obvious and make sense. but with devereaux i was like "let me switch it up a little. what about an underdog story of a kid from scrimshaw but they are a privateer. they are a natural born leader with hidden talent and potential."

although i wanted to start a new save with devereaux just for the story aspect and for the heck of it, i also realized recently how important side quests are to understanding the lore of the game. i feel i rushed through nightingale really fast because i was so eager to learn more about the main storyline but neglected everything else.

colors: i read this series of poems last year here on tumblr about the colors of the classes that was so beautiful. there's a line in the privateer poem about how the blue in their color scheme is like the blue of the skull island skies and i thought that just fit my pirate so well because they're from scrimshaw. I DONT REMEMBER WHO WROTE THE POEMS IF YOU WROTE THEM AND YOURE READING THIS PLEASE TELL ME SO I CAN GIVE YOU CREDIT. but that's why i chose blue. i tried so many variations of blues tho and colors that complimented them and it was exhausting. i ultimately came up with this color scheme and i think its perfect and exactly what i had imagined. for the coat of arms, i wanted something that looked regal but not too obvious, so i thought the fleur-de-lis was good. devereaux is also a french name so i thought it was a cool nod to irl history.

clothes:

clothes can say a lot about a character. with nightingale, i didn't give their clothes much thought until the very end. i usually just equipped gear that fit in with the theme of the current world so i could get good stats. but when i got to valencia pt.2, i did a clothing stich. i knew that the game was almost over and i probably wasn't going to touch this character for a while so i wanted to give them something that i would enjoy simply looking at. i wanted the clothing to look like an officer's uniform but with a pirate's flare. i went back to marleybone and bought some clothes. their hat is from the bazaar.

with devereaux i plan to do the same thing. i want to stich "great coat" with something that has high armor once i get to aquila or marleybone (whichever comes first i cant remember). but for the time being, i want them to looked at pirate-y as i can make them lol.

that's my answer, i didn't realize it was so lengthy lol

[veebs-hates-video-games]

I finally went back and finished the very last route in Jack Jeanne after taking a break for a few months, so now I guess it's time to have opinions on it. As someone who's agender, aromantic, and asexual I may or may not be coming at it from a different direction from most people. I have a feeling some of my thoughts are pretty uncontroversial and not influenced by that at all (it's basically a sports anime, but instead of being about volleyball or tennis it's about theater and gender), and some might be a little weird (the individual character routes and romantic relationships are the weakest/least interesting parts of the story).

I'll just say up front that it's been my favorite thing I've played so far all year, and I was already ready to say that after finishing a single route. And that single route was probably a little strange of a way to start the game, but it was also the perfect way to do it for me.

See, I couldn't decide on a specific character to go after right away, and I had no idea how important stat raising and stuff was going to be, so I kind of just did a fuck around and find out playthrough. I focused on raising whatever stat was lowest and spending as much time with as many different characters as possible to get to know everyone and what was going on better so I could make up my mind about stuff later. Top priority was Ao (the main character's friend from middle school (also let her be chubby, she already is in my heart)), then whichever main character had a ! scene available, and then whatever side characters I hadn't seen recently.

This ended up with me getting the neutral route obviously, but along the way I got to see roughly the first half of every character's storyline and got the endings for all but two side characters on my first playthrough. I got to see so much more of the world and to know so much more about so many characters than on subsequent playthroughs going for specific characters' routes, and it really fleshed out the world and story so much more.

It also let me see almost all of the stuff I was most interested in without much of the stuff I'd later be a little disappointed by. Let me explain.

The writing has a lot of strong points overall, but a couple things in particular stood out to me personally. One is that the characters are all great, including the ways they all grow as people through the story and their relationships as a team and teamwork in general develop are really well done. And the other is how many different levels almost everything in the story can be read on and how much of it is a commentary on or discussion of itself.

You have artists in the real world telling a story about characters they created who themselves are artists who tell stories about characters they create, and in some cases those characters are telling stories about characters they created who are telling another story. And if you squint a little, each of those layers can be read as commenting on or a reflection of all of the ones above it.

You end up with a story about a story about a story about itself, where "itself" can be any or all of those. It's about people coming together to make art and tell stories and learning to work together to do that, and how important all the pieces are to the whole, but also about individual genius vs a team being more than the sum of its parts, and about potentially difficult and inaccessible art for its own sake vs "simpler" art for the purpose of entertaining an audience that engages directly with them on their own terms.

And somehow all of those things also manage to simultaneously be about gender.

For something written by cis people it's remarkably insightful and nuanced when it comes to gender (usually...I have some complaints about the individual character routes). Like I've met plenty of trans people who haven't thought this hard about it.

The central gimmick of "main character is a girl who has to pretend to be a boy who has to pretend to be a boy pretending to be a girl sometimes" could go in a lot different directions, a lot of them less interesting or even bad, but they mostly leaned into the good bits of it. Like overall they went all in on the idea that gender is both a performance and performative, which then gets mapped pretty neatly onto a story about performing arts.

The characters very literally perform genders in their art and explicitly learn and rehearse the signifiers for the gender they're trying to embody. They help each other practice Doing Gender and then perform it for the world on stage. They also construct an entirely new system of gender adjacent to but partly separate from the one in the outside world though, with arguably four genders existing and eventually a fifth being created.

Some of those are strictly as part of on stage performance for some characters, but for others they persist in their daily lives. Depending on who you talk to there's some pretty significant questioning of what gender is, why gender is, and whether it needs to be that way or even should be. And a lot of that is reflected in the stories-within-stories or commented on by them, most commonly with regards to Kisa, the main character, but also not infrequently in other contexts as well.

A lot of the time the same elements of the same plays being put on by the students simultaneously can be read as being about the characters performing them and their own situations outside of the plays, the nature of creating art and telling stories and the conflicts between different approaches to those, and the creation, performance, and perception of gender.

Getting to see all of that my first time through was pretty surprising and pretty great. Nearly perfect, almost no notes. Good stuff.

And then I did the individual character routes and it promptly fell apart. Oh no.

Don't get me wrong, there's still good stuff in them. It expands on their backstories more and gives them each some good moments to be the stars of their own stories, and it's mostly fine overall. It's just that it very abruptly derails into heteronormativity and even biological essentialism sometimes in some of them, and it's so, so, so much less interesting to me as a result. The writing is strongest when (almost) no one knows Kisa's gender so they can't get distracted by saying anything stupid about it.

Overall I'm still glad I went through each character's route because it's fun seeing how it changes the final performance and letting them each have more time to shine, but I liked the game the most and had the strongest feelings about it when I'd only done that first playthrough.

Also since I never really got the chance to mention it anywhere else, Jack Jeanne is also the best rhythm/music game on the Switch. Yes I've played multiple others probably including the ones you're thinking of, and they're fun, but I feel like the people in charge of those gameplay segments in this have a better understanding of music than the ones who made those other games, or at least understand it in a way closer to how I do. As someone who's been playing music since I was two years old, this feels the most like the kind of connection I have to a song I'm playing and like they have the best grasp of what aspects of a song are most important and make it feel the way it does. Also it helps that all the music is excellent.

Anyway, it's great and people should give it a chance if anything at all about it has ever sounded interesting. I'm glad I did when I saw how great the reviews it was getting were and was intrigued by the premise, because it's not the usual kind of thing I tend to go for, and I could've missed out on something pretty special.

[dindjarindiaries]

prev anon voiced my thoughts so much better than I would’ve been able to, I haven’t rewatched season 3 once and it’s bc it irks me so much that we got bo doing the same thing she did in rebels and there was noooo need for that storyline again. make something up with din and grogu something new! that’s what got us so into the mandalorian in the first place, the disconnect from everything else it felt so fresh.

Star Wars is really bad at keeping things fresh, unfortunately, and it's been this way (in live-action—animation my beloved, you're exempt from this) ever since the sequel trilogy started. TFA being an offshoot of ANH and then sidelining the potential to have a Black former stormtrooper Jedi in the next movie was CRAZY like?!?!?! Who is deciding these storylines????????

Rogue One, The Mandalorian (season 1), Andor (to an extent), and The Acolyte are the only exemptions, imo. Rogue One was telling a familiar story, but it did so with a ton of fresh faces that we were able to bond with and mourn by the end of the movie. We all know what Mando season 1 is like (that's why you're here! hehehe). Andor isn't overly saturated with the BIG characters, and it has a ton of fresh faces and really compelling storylines. And The Acolyte is literally in a largely unexplored part of timeline, and the first live-action media to go outside the Skywalker saga.

And that's why these are the projects you hear praised all the time (most of The Acolyte hate is for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual show, but we know that). Star Wars fans want something new.

The biggest problem with these cameos and rehashed storylines is that it does damage to the past stories and characters we love so much. For example, people have a hard time with Ahsoka now, even though she's literally one of the franchise's best characters, because it honestly feels like she's overstayed her welcome. And it devastates me to say that.

I may talk big game about never wanting Din Djarin to disappear from Star Wars or die, but man, do I hope this never happens to him. His story will need to be complete one day to make room for others, and that's okay, because I don't ever want to be burnt out from him.

[smash-64]

2022 Game of the Year 1. Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition Square Enix Nintendo Switch, 2022 (orig. 1999, 1996)

The rumors were circulating for a while, and I honestly didn’t believe that there would ever be a remaster of Chrono Cross. So it was a huge shock to me when it finally, truly came to fruition. I got it on day one, and even ordered the physical version from Play-Asia for the collection. The cover for the Switch version beats the socks off the original PS1 release, imho. Not that the PS1 version is bad, I just think they really outdid themselves with the new art.

Chrono Cross is a masterpiece, and the remaster is giving tons of new people the chance to play it, while keeping true to the original. Character art has been updated, with everyone getting a glow up that stays true to their original design.

3D models also got an upgrade, while still keeping all the original animations and movements. They look clean, bright, and vivid. I was thrilled to see that they kept the original PS1 feel, but made everything clearer. It’s a hard thing to do and many developers feel the need to make something that breaks too far from the original, but Chrono Cross stayed true.

One thing I was most worried about was the background art. Chrono Cross went with an impressionist style when drawing many of the backgrounds, which gave each location a timeless feel. I never cared for impressionist art before playing this game, and I have come to really like it because it is meant to be imprecise and left up to interpretation. As such, it has a sort of timelessness that isn’t tied to the inevitable aging of graphics. However, simple upscaling can give harsh lines where perhaps none existed. There are a few backgrounds in the remaster that suffer this fate, but I find them so few and far-between that it did not affect me in the slightest. Probably the only example I can find of one that stood out was how the railings of the exterior of Fort Dragonia look a little jagged in the remaster. Everything else was very satisfying.

Other backgrounds go full-on sci-fi pulp novel and it’s honestly breathtaking. I showed this one to a coworker and he actually gasped. It sounds a bit goofy, and he’s not a video game fan, but he loves old pulp novels and he thought it was perfect.

I can’t say too much about the combat that hasn’t already been said. I like the element system with its levels and single-use spells. I like the customization. I like the tiers of attack strengths. And I love the animations. It’s a great battle system, with really the only downside being that maybe it’s a bit easy, especially in New Game+.

The cast of characters is unwieldy and some suffer because of it, with very little development for them. However, you can mostly overlook adding characters to your party, should you choose to do so. There are a few tied directly to the storyline, and you’ll have to use them, so you’ll never be short on characters. Additionally, you can seek out lots of characters just for fun. My personal favorites are Starky, Razzly, Kid, and Harle. 

The soundtrack is possibly the best in video game history. From the heart-racing punch of Time’s Scar in the opening sequence (the one single thing that originally interested me in the game), to the smooth, comforting tunes of Arni Village and the sunny, relaxing bounce of Home World, Chrono Cross sets the tone of the early game very well. Your carefree existence will inevitably change as you begin the story, and each new area has a perfectly matched song to go with it. Ghost Ship. Hydra Marshes. Chronopolis. The songs alone will clue you in to what each world looks like and feels like. Finally, the credits song, sometimes called Radical Dreamers and sometimes called Unstolen Jewel, can still bring a tear to my eye even after years of listening to it on repeat. This is a perfect soundtrack. Only one game even comes close in my mind, and composer Yasunori Mitsuda also worked on that one.

Finally, this special edition of Chrono Cross comes with the Japan only game that eventually became Chrono Cross: Radical Dreamers. It’s a text-based adventure game that shares a few characters with its eventual final version, as well as a few locations and songs. I think I prefer the final versions of all of the songs, but it’s great to hear them in their Super Famicom, proto-versions. It’s hard to really rate this game because it was essentially just a DLC game available exclusively on the Satellaview, an Internet-enabled Super Famicom add-on (yes, in the mid-90s), but for what it is, it is filled with charm. Kid is at her snarky, thieving best in this game and it’s definitely a must play if you enjoy Chrono Cross. 

Chrono Cross was the game that won me over to JRPGs as a genre; I still remember @boner-taunt​ in disbelief when I told him I was playing it. Replaying it in glorious HD was the highlight of my video game experience in 2022.