If you have time and energy, roleswap klapollo? If not, either way thanks for all your art. It's very fun
the beginning of something, I think-
quick notes:
klavier:
-can hear uncertainty due to the magic earrings but it echoes in his head so he has to wear special earplugs to dampen the effect? (they also look like custom earplugs for musicians)
-as a gameplay mechanic the beeps that play with the text sound distorted at the parts the witness feels uncertain about. the more difficult witnesses have other sounds that mask the distorted section
-pleasant normal guy. his funny trait is that he's never once considered taking the earrings off to stop the echoes
apollo:
-his eyes being hidden until the end is symbolic of whatever big reveal frees him from inner turmoil
-also like him showing his true self/finally being able to face people without a facade
-he doesn't have his perceive ability (it's referenced by his earring though)
-left-handed; recently overexerted his wrist while practicing piano and has to wear a brace
-famous solo artist (indie rock genre?? idk I didn't think about that when I haphazardly threw together his outfit)
594 notes
·
View notes
mmm would it be possible for Mistystar and Leopardstar to fight/met during the BOTTE? or was Leopard already fed up with Tigerstar, his batshit insane plans and her status reduced to 'Tiger's another lackey' (like Darkstripe and many others) to really care about revenge? if she ever thought about it, that is.. im assuming she would be pretty pissed about being killed (there was a post about Mistyfoot first trying to poison her and Leopard realized it and instead decided to take her on a solo patrol to.. deal with a rogue i think? and then Misty gave her a rock appointment) and might had thought about making Mistystar pay, but it's been soooo long before BOTTE that she might had.. moved on? or just decided she had better things to do, not sure.
I have a BIG rule for the BOTTE, an unmoveable object, which I will abide by like a solemn vow;
NO spirit will be killed by the same cat twice.
I already changed it so Yellowfang doesn't get Brokenstar (he's not even present) and Brambleclaw doesn't get Hawkfrost, so I certainly wouldn't have Mistystar do it to Leopardstar!
I have some ideas but first; context.
The Killing of Leopardstar
Mistyfoot was sloppy.
Leopardstar recognized the way that Mistyfoot had poisoned her food, because she'd done the same thing to Crookedstar before her. Not enough to make it quick, just enough to weaken.
The emotion that licks at her is frustration.
Is this what her life has come to? Dramatic irony? Is this some kind of cosmic joke? To die just like her predecessor, wasting away for a few seasons in the darkness of this musty den, before solemn mourning and empty platitudes from her underhanded murderer.
What should she even do about this? Reveal Mistyfoot in front of everyone, exile her, she plots against her from the safety of another Clan, some kind of rebellion, rah rah rah we just dealt with this.
It's boring. It's so boring it's offensive. This will be the state of RiverClan forever, deputies poisoning leaders and taking power quietly until the end of days. No honor, no nobility, just treachery until the sky dries up and its rich blue becomes a crackled pale-brown.
If she is to die, she will not go out in the slow and painful way she killed crookedstar without a fight.
So she smacks the limp fish aside and brushes past Mistyfoot with a snarl, not even caring enough to drink in the way her traitorous deputy's ears flushed pale, knowing she'd been caught.
Leopardstar calls for a rushed meeting, telling them all that there's actually 40 - 50 feral rogues on the border right now and she saw them all last night or something, so she's taking Mistyfoot to go confront them right now. Don't follow us.
(Something that the more astute members of the Clan immediately recognize as Leopardstar setting up cover for a death match, including Misty's brother Swansong. She snaps at him when he runs to stop her, Don't Follow.)
Once they're a fair distance away, at the southern delta that divides WindClan and RiverClan, where the cliffs will hide them and the wet stones will not catch the scent (and where Reedwhisker will die, someday), Leopardstar lays it out.
No more tricks. No more schemes. If one of them is to die, it will be with honor.
"You want my lives?"
(Boss music fades in. Misty sees the health bar appear lmao)
"Come and take them."
After she came and took them
Leopardstar is kind of obsessed with the final battle of her life. That fight was everything she hoped for, except that she didn't win.
She wants it again, and she will triumph this time.
Hawkfrost is easily able to twist it into, "You lost only because StarClan shone upon her with that stone. It wasn't real skill. Join our cause and we can get you that rematch, we will defeat Mistystar, win back RiverClan, and dethrone the Stars!" But at the end of the day, it's an excuse.
Same sort of excuse Leopardstar came up with when she believed she wanted an honorable battle, rejecting the guilt and fear that clawed at her to think about dying the way Crookedstar did.
She does this a lot. Dodging feelings of remorse or regret by substituting power fantasies, avoiding any hard lessons. She says she wants revenge, but what she's actually doing is avoiding taking an L. Shame is a vagrant in Leopardstar's heart; she will never let it stay for long.
But...
That's really hard to do when Tigerstar is actively using her and speaking over her in every interaction. Being here, in the Dark Forest, taking the SAME advice she once groomed into Hawkfrost to only look at the positives of Tigerstar's legacy and ignore atrocities, is embarassing.
It's HUMILIATING.
She had her starshine BASHED out of her with a rock and went to the hell she'd been downplaying since she "regrettably" tore down the Bonehill. Being Tigerstar's stooge. Reducing the proud, ferocious leader of RiverClan into a goon.
Towards the end, she will have a scene with Hawkfrost, proud warriors that they are as mentor and apprentice, and vaguely address this. As far as Leopardstar's ego will allow, of course... the shame of it.
It's an important moment, because it's as much about Leopardstar and Hawkfrost as it is about Hawkfrost and Ivypool.
Leopard is too set in her ways to change, even if she is capable of brief glimpses of self-reflection, of which this is one. Hawkfrost, however, is seeing his mentor and himself in a different light. How she'll let herself be humiliated over and over as long as she can cling to her ego... and how by doing Tigerstar's diplomacy work, Hawkfrost is doing the same.
And he's dragged his OWN apprentice into it, too. She accidentally double-killed her friend, Antpelt, but he killed him more by bringing all of these trainees here to begin with. How Ivypool gets pitted against Tigerheart because TigerSTAR is playing mind games, how it's destroying her bond with her sister, how much fun and joy in the Dark Forest he's missing out on by not giving the afterLIFE a chance...
How much he's thrown away for this, before and after his death.
I'm not sure yet if it's the LAST stop before the BOTTE, but it's close to the end of Hawkfrost's redemption arc. Recognition of self through the other. He is part of a cycle he has a choice to break.
But anyway... back to Leopardstar.
She wants to fight Mistystar, but I don't think I'll let her have that satisfaction. She has already gotten nearly everything she ever asked for and can't even acknowledge that she did.
I think it's most fitting for SWANSONG to finally get what he craves; a chance to take a burden off his sister.
Leopardstar allowed TigerClan to STRIP his brotherhood from her because they don't share blood. Forced him to pretend like Rippleclaw meant anything to him, as if Oakheart hadn't been his proud baba as long as he could remember. Stonefur, Mistyfoot, and Swansong are the kits of Graypool; and he's not gonna let this golden FART ignore that ever again.
So my idea is that when Leopardstar meets Mistyfoot in the Second Wave of the BOTTE, she pounces onto her for her rematch, but Swansong BURSTS out of the crowd in response and rips her off, allowing Mistystar to go back to defending their Clanmates
"I don't want YOU," Leopardstar spits, "My battle is with Mistystar!"
"Tough titfeathers! It's MY turn to get a hit in for Stonefur!" He bristles with equal parts fury and excitement, lunging towards a fight he's dreamed of for years.
Still subject to change, though! And I'm not sure if Swansong dies here, or in the 3rd Wave, or if maybe he succumbs to injuries after the BOTTE is over.
It would also be fitting if he got a whack on Mapleshade though... since Maple doesn't even consider him Applekin and won't curse him. It would be neat for him to get angry about that lmao. "What do you MEAN my siblings are haunted by a demon? But NOT ME?? What ELSE am I getting left out of???"
EDIT: I'm currently planning to kill him in the 2nd Wave
140 notes
·
View notes
I definitely do not have the time for a full essay's worth of commentary on the Casting of Frank Stone, but I definitely could give you that if I did. There is...a lot to take apart there. I am certainly...fascinated...by some of the writing & gameplay choices they made, to summarise my thoughts somewhat vaguely.
A few spoilery comments under the cut.
Like I said, I don't really have the time to offer extensive analysis (a full paper) of the game, but I do want to say a few things.
First and foremost: Do not purchase this game. In the words of Mr. Otzdarva himself: Go and watch someone play it instead. Your play through will be 95% the same as theirs. It is not worth your 50 dollars. If you still want it after you've viewed someone else's playthrough, that is your own right.
I honestly became annoyed with the writing much faster than Mr. Otzdarva did, and at first I thought it was because I was spoiled by BG3's infinitely better writing. But no, it's rather that he was being very patient. He finished with a rather negative opinion of the game, after thoroughly going through it to test just how much control you as the player really have.
I will be fair-- It is certainly a visually stunning game, as far as Supermassive titles go. Much better looking than The Devil in Me. The music is also incredible. And some of the voice acting was well done and added much needed life to otherwise bland characters.
But good grief is the writing utterly nonsensical!! Even if you respect the "a multiverse exists, so anything is possible" fact which is canon to Dead by Daylight itself, it still doesn't make any damned sense. I mean, is it ever explained why there is time travel involved? Or how it is even possible? Did they simply expect people to just assume that Augustine figured out time travel in a certain timeline? Does it have something to do with the Entity, since it can clearly traverse time? If so, why was Sam able to voluntarily time travel to Madi & elder Linda's timeline? Why and how the FUCK is Frank Stone first bound to the mill and then camera using what is clearly the same magic as the horologium, when we know the Entity has not yet been brought to that timeline??
And playing the "anything is possible" card would be fine to explain certain things, I will concede, but it really starts to feel meaningless when you realise just how many massive plot elements are never explained and that none of your choices really have any impact on the ending of the game. The story literally ends the same no matter what you do. And to be fair, I do not think it is a bad ending at all. Barring the corny "trial starting" sound that they jammed in at the last second, I thought the ending was one of the better parts of the game. It works great to make you feel hopeless, and like there is truly no escape from the Entity. I just feel that this format of a "your choices impact the outcome of the story" game was the incorrect format for the story they wanted to tell. Because it truly doesn't even matter if you get everyone killed, or you save everyone-- everything happens the same way and the world's fate is the same.
There are other things that bothered me, too. I thought having Frank Stone appear as this corny, glitchy spectral monster for most of the game was...a terrible choice, both design wise and writing wise. Now, I do not think killing him in the opening was necessarily a bad decision. I honestly thought it was a bold choice that functioned well to surprise the viewer and urge them to continue, so they might discover how the story plays out after the death of the titular character. But keeping him as this ghoulish creature, that honestly looked as though it were from some solo indie developer's first low budget horror game, was awful. He did not feel threatening whatsoever, just wildly out of place in a visual quality sense. I hate the final design much less, it is certainly much more threatening and much, much more gruesome, but it still does not make sense as to why he looks that way. The Entity still had not taken him, why did he appear as this inhuman monster before his entry into the Fog? They should have kept a more humanlike design until the very end of the game, when the Entity arrives. Then, a transformation sequence where the Entity mutates him should have been restricted to the ending where no one from the cast is seen in the Fog, so players at least get something different in that allegedly "unique" ending. After all, if a cast member does get taken, at least you get to see visions of what followed the 1980s storyline.
Also why did Augustine work alone when she is clearly part of the Black Vale? The excuse of "the cult didn't exist yet" doesn't work here, because she can time travel and is fully aware of the multiverse she exists in. Like... I thought elder Linda's mention of secret passages being for staff "so they are seen as little as possible" was foreshadowing for Augustine having fellow cultists aiding her, but it just went nowhere. Another thing that goes nowhere is the baby that Sam can save at the very beginning. Should the baby live or die has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the story, which feels like an enormous mistake to me. That baby should have grown up to be a character that the cast could have interacted with to gain...oh I don't know, some piece of important knowledge, or an item, that could then later change the fate of the cast. This way, the player's choices in the 1960s segment actually have an impact on later gameplay, rather than meaning absolutely nothing.
I'd also love to know why the hell elder Sam was sent alone to prevent this situation from occurring, when the Imperatti (I think they were called? The parents of the Pariahs, or something, right?) would have surely realised the gravity of this situation? Like, how does this make any sense? And this is far from the only moment that makes no sense at all.
Why do Jaime and Robert have almost no relevance whatsoever after the 1980s segment concludes? Robert is guaranteed survival of this segment, as that part of the game is written so that two characters always survive-- be that Linda and Robert, or Sam and Robert. As annoying as Stan was, I didn't hate him because he had great dialogue that pushed other characters to have different dialogue than what we were used to. But it felt scummy that Robert was just given this sad, offscreen death instead of being included in a lot more meaningful way.
Not going to lie, it reminded me of how in Stranger Things 4, Patrick was the one teenager whose trauma wasn't really explored or given the same respect as the others. It's like the writers went, "Guys, guys! It's okay! We still have the other Black guy! This makes our game Diverse, and therefore no one could possibly complain!" Meanwhile, we get an entire cutscene about Madi's nightmares, and elder Linda's movie career and associated trauma is talked about numerous times. But all we know about 2024 Robert is that Stan took advantage of him, and then he later died, utterly miserable. Also, Sam somehow knows about this and he and Stan know one another, despite this Sam being from a different timeline than elder Linda, Madi, and Stan himself.
And Jaime, poor sweet Jaime, he really just feels like he's there as someone they can conveniently kill to shock the player. The first chance he has to die results in a horrible, very graphic death (although not the most graphic in the game by a long shot) that I feel many players will encounter because they see it as reasonable to visit the curiosities shop first, and then to later attempt to save Chris (even though her fate is the same here, regardless of what you do). And even if you should keep Jaime alive through that first confrontation with the spectral Frank Stone, it's not as though his survival impacts following events. He can die again, when fleeing Frank with Bonnie and an injured Linda. Why they have Linda, who has a gaping hole in her shoulder, attempt to pull Jaime up the platform alone while HIS OLDER SISTER just WATCHES is beyond me. But writing his death, whether it be here, or earlier, to have no impact on Bonnie's fate, or any future events, is plain bad writing.
You cannot save Bonnie, no matter what you do. And this scene makes no sense. When Frank grabs Bonnie, Linda points the camera at him, which should work. There really isn't any reasonable explanation as to why this should not work, or should not even momentarily distract him (Which could have led to a different ending where Bonnie lives and Linda dies instead?), because in the storm drain, so much as yelling at Frank causes him to abandon whoever he's attacking to seek out the new target. I suppose, at the very least, 1980s Bonnie's death does serve some kind of purpose in the 2024 storyline, because it serves as foreshadowing for Madi's potential fate. But just like Robert, 2024 Bonnie is given a sad offscreen death and we never really learn about how she or Jaime survived that night at the mill.
And I will say, it just feels shitty from a player point of view, to make it so you cannot save certain characters. Like, I'm sorry, is that a canon event? Where is Mr. O'Hara? Because Madi must be a god-damned anomaly, being Bonnie's daughter!! And Chris- god- Chris who mysteriously travels through time...I really do hate this part of the story because understanding its purpose can only happen if you manage to get the secret ending where she goes through the projector screen and DOESN'T burn and die. Which would require you to not have taken the pocket mirror or given the "protective" amulet to her. This unlocks a secret ending where she goes back in time to the moment where she, Jaime, and Linda were inintially shooting in the mill, right before Sam interrupted them. I took this as the writers trying to show us that there would be one timeline in which Frank Stone is never released (not sure how he ever was in the first place, really), likely saving them from the Entity. But other than the player somehow luckily getting this ending, I really don't see the point of Chris' time travel, because she can also be sent immediately back in the horologium, which does nothing meaningful. And why does it have to be Chris? Why not write it so it could be her or Jaime, so that maybe the player's choice to have her and Jaime breakup or not actually has some kind of impact on the gameplay?
One of the worst things about the game though, and I cannot stress this enough, is how badly the references to DBD are integrated. I love a good reference-- it can serve to add a little playful flair to a moment, or even go so far as to have the viewer look at the piece from a different perspective they had not previously considered. Buuuut... this is only if the reference is done well. And, well, what this game does could hardly be described as tolerable, even. In was so heavy-handed, it felt almost as bad as product placement in a Michael Bay movie. Many of these "references" felt out of place to the degree that someone with no knowledge of DBD would be likely able to pick them out, because they heavily disrupt either the game's aesthetic or the gameplay itself! One generator was funny, and honestly expected, but THREE of those damn things? Clunky, corny, and honestly? Lazy.
Unfortunately, I feel those three adjectives describe how I feel about the game overall. I feel bad for the people who put hard work into making it, because there is potential there for something great. But it really felt as though they were pushed to release this game as quickly as possible, so BHVR could sell us a 50 dollar, five-to-six-hour advertisement for their next DLC chapter. Hard to think anything else, really, when completion of the game is followed by a a literal ad for it.
All I can say is-- I really hope we get 2024 Linda as a survivor. It seems more likely that it will be Madi, but it is possible we could have a two-survivor chapter (unless they specifically outlined in the roadmap that there are no upcoming 2-survivor chapters?).
Madi and 2024 Linda would be cool though. We have no older women as survivors, despite having more than one older man. I think it's about damn time. And I love the mother/daughter bond that can sort of develop between Madi and 2024 Linda in the game.
11 notes
·
View notes