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winged-self-indulgence · 1 year

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No Point in Running (STNAF)

Little fic for @stnaf-vn , a yandere VN. Hopefully I got Friend's personality down okay. Minors DNI. Get off my lawn! For context, this fic takes place after Day 1. Enjoy!

The bar crowd is thin this evening, a perk of coming in on a Tuesday evening instead of a Friday night. You’d managed to finagle a day off work after picking up one too many shifts for a co-worker, and Friend pretty much made his own hours, so you’d invited him out for drinks. It was the least you could do after ghosting him all weekend.

No, you correct yourself sternly, even as you fiddled nervously with the cork coaster resting on the bar table. You hadn’t ghosted him. That would be super rude, and mean, and extremely immature of you. You had just…needed a little bit of space. He understood that. You’d texted him about it and Friend hadn’t seemed that upset.

Of course, he wouldn’t. He was your best friend! You’d known each other for nearly forever! Just because you’d nearly hooked up on your couch one night, riding high on endorphins of requited love, only to wake up feeling like someone had just poured ice-cold water down the back of your shirt because oh god you almost had sex with your super hot childhood best friend oh shit and then hid in the bathroom like a dumbass until he’d left…Friend wouldn’t hold that against you…right?

Right?

The thoughts flee your mind when you glance back at the door for the fifth time in half as many minutes and perk up when you spot Friend walking into the bar. As always, his gleaming eyes lock on you instantly, and he begins to approach. A bit redundantly, you lift your hand and wave.

"Hi, I was waiting for you!"

"You're such a sweetheart,” Friend responds, hugging you a tad too tightly for comfort.

Oof, so he was upset. You let him squeeze you, inhaling the warm scent of his skin and hair where it brushes against yours and makes you dizzy with the memory of his naked skin against yours. You want to pull away, to apologize for hurting him, but before you can even say a single word Friend had already released you and settled next to you at the bar.

“Speaking of, I’ve got a surprise for you," he grinned.

“A surprise?” You echo, watching bemusedly as he reached down and pulled a small paper-wrapped box out from behind his back. “It’s not my birthday. You know it’s not my birthday. Or at least I hope you know when my birthday is-”

“Obviously I know when your birthday is,” Friend interrupted, rolling his eyes as he offered it to you. “Jeez, give a guy a little credit sweetheart! Just open it and tell me what you think.”

Partly suspicious, but mostly excited, you rip apart the paper to uncover a small wooden box. Opening it reveals a brass vintage locket, polished to a mirror shine. A clasp on the side pops the hinges, and you almost tear up at the pictures inside.

Friend is rubbing the back of his head, eyes on the top shelf as though the bottles of liquor were the most fascinating things in the room. “I repaired and restored it to how I imagine it would have looked years ago. Figured you might like to have it. It seemed just right for you."

"Aw, Friend, you spoil me!" You take the locket out and admire it, still cooing over the tiny picture of you and Friend making stupid faces on either side. The moon softens into something honeylike and sticky-sweet, and you immediately feel that flicker of inexplainable panic.

Abort. ABORT.

"You sap,” you force a casual laugh that wouldn’t have fooled a five year old, let alone your best Friend. “Are you trying to butter me up for something?"

"Maybe," he grins at you. His tone shifts until it resembles that of a child asking for a piece of candy. "I have a favour to ask. My dearest sweetheart, may I see you put it on?"

As always, his teasing puts you at ease, and you can’t help but laugh. "Only if you help me with the clips," you reply and turn around, putting your back is to him. The silver necklace settles around your neck, cold but quickly warming up the moment it made contact with your heated throat.

Friend carefully secures the locket of silver chain around your neck. As he lets go of the locket, you feel his warm hand resting against your skin. It’s only for a second, maybe less, and yet the brief touch makes you shiver in your seat.

"There. Perfect," he murmurs, spinning your seat back around so he can admire the way the brass pendant lies in the centre of your chest, dangling right above your heart. “I knew it would suit ya.”

"Thank you, Friend," you give him a fond smile, reaching up to play with the oval weight. "Still, don't you ever get tired of buying me stuff though? I mean, I barely know where to put all the stuffed toys you've gotten me."

Friend laughs, leaning back in his seat. "Is that all you think I do, buy you stuff? I just get you things that remind me of you. Nothing wild, just all sentimental things."

“Right,” you roll your eyes playfully. “And this is pure sentiment? Buying and fixing up Victorian era brassware for me?

Not answering immediately, Friend instead reaches his hand out to touch the locket around your neck. "You like it? It's a real antique, you know. Not your typical locket. Just thought you deserve something special, that’s all."

And of course, he needed something you wouldn’t want to take off. An earring was far too small and an actual ring would have frightened you off entirely (not that he would have let you go far) but Friend couldn’t afford to lose you. Preparations were still being made, but until everything had been finalized he couldn’t afford to lose sight of you for a minute.

Friend smiles sweetly at you, satisfaction oozing through his body as he watches you coo over his gift. In his pocket, the GPS app buzzes with new, up-to-date coordinates.

You would understand. He loves you so, so much, and one day you would see that there was no reason to run. That there was no point in running. All you had to do was say yes.

#stnaf #see thru need a friend #fanfic

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colourprinter · 6 months

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Probably too personal thoughts, feelings, and ramblings around Our Wonderland

A couple of warnings, this will likely spoil all of Our Wonderland and this will likely get personal on the thoughts and feelings. It's a personal look (and total ramble) at this game more than anything.

If you haven't played or don't know what Our Wonderland is, I don't know how you found this but you can find it for free on this link.

To keep the spoilers hidden and to prevent forcing , I've put everything in the expand below.

I found this game from the Queer Halloween Story Bundle on itch, I was looking around what was in the bundle and enountered this game. I had already played a visual novel from the bundle that didn't gel too well with me so my hopes weren't too high.

I had no idea what this free game in a bundle had in store.

I was casual during the intro, I don't know when it hit but I knew I was locked in when act 2 hit and I saw what the meat of this game really is.

Something in this game sucked me right in, and wouldn't let me go.

I can't say I remember every detail but I was quickly emotionally invested, trying (and almost always failing) to keep Iggy alive and seeing how this friend group had completely gone off the rails, how their wishes twist around them.

Everything gave me the feeling I believe it was meant to, Gidget's advances on Iggy, Orlam, Buck's outright brutality, Genzou trying to get out alive while throwing the worst words at Orlam (I think he's just like that anyway) and Iggy having the worst time of his life.

While that doesn't sound like much, I don't usually get a reaction from a lot, the mix of visual and words hits just right... or wrong given how horrifying some of this is. Well, some things in the game would easily get a reaction...

For a bit of context for the next parts, I am aro/ace, something I truely discovered myself in the middle of a relationship, not that I hate being in a relationship but I think I'm completely incapable of feeling romantic love, there's just... nothing there. With being ace, I kinda resented the way my brain would react, litrally wishing sometimes that I was ace, glad I grew out of that for my own sake.

I also tend to feel awkward enough around sex in video games. I got goaded into the House of Hope scene, the first time the game crashed to save me and the second time I went dead slient and fixed my eyes down, only looking up enough to see the choices... I've now got an agreement to never have that happen again.

So obviously Gitget's sections got a big reaction from me, I thankfully haven't had any expriences close to anything like that, I could understand Iggy's perspective.

But enough about the horrible stuff for the moment, I'm not going to explain that, yes, seeing Orlam's and Buck's scenes were also shockers because eating human flesh and brutally murdering people are kinda bad things as well.

What I want to focus on next is something I currently only have one full perspective of, the romance. I usually verbalise everything to myself in RPGs and VNs, doing silly little voices for everyone (doing 6 children voices at the end hurt) so when I was given the choice of an ending... obviously, I chose the Genzou ending. Usually I'd feel awkward and stilted reading out the words but this time, it felt nice, I haven't done the other endings but I'm sure they're just as good, even if they're not, I got at least one good romance which given that this topples my fav VN romance (Slay the Princess which is pratically a joke romance anyway), I'm more than happy with it.

Niceness is over, I have another list topper, worst thing I've ever encountered in a video game, something so bad that even being foribly censored (I'm not checking if there's a visible version this time), it made me sick to my stomach. The tree and the infant in Her branches. Now I've played though and done some horrible things in video games, including child murder, but the way the body is described, the way everyone reacts to it. I can't call it anything below truely horrible and I'm putting this above freaking turn based RPG murdering children, I thought after that nothing would get me again (I think doing it actually knocked a screw loose because I've suddenly stopped being a goodie two shoes in video games, that's how bad that was). I mean this as a compliment but that is the worst thing I have ever encountered in any media.

And I think because I've felt these strong emotions where I haven't been hit so hard before, I've become completely pulled into it all. The fanwork contest was the first bit of my own art I put online in years and that kick started me getting back into art as a hobby, something I don't think I would have gotten back into if I didn't do that bit of Iggy art to prove to myself that I could do it if I put myself into it.

So... Carrot, thank you so much for this game of romance, fun, death and wishes.

If I land on my feet, I'd like to make a game with multiple acespec PoVs one day, much less horror though.

#our wonderland #ramblings #video games

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gotstabbedbyapen · 9 days

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Too Long; Didn't Read: I'm working on a trilogy fanfiction for Apollo and Hyacinthus called "Singing For A Flower" because I have way too much time :)

Too Short; Need More: For those who don't know (actually, I don't think anyone knows), I've been writing fanfics for a long time now. I've written for many fandoms, couples, and characters, but never in a million years I'd thought I would dedicate a portion of my life to writing a whole ass trilogy fic for an OTP I only started to ship in the summer of 2022.

How did I get into this?

Well, for starters, I've taken a ride to Greek mythology since June 2022. And as you may know (you must know if you've been sticking around long this blog enough), the myth of Apollo and Hyacinthus is my top favorite. And you probably know that I have lots of thoughts for them. Like, a lot. I'm storing too many Apollo/Hyacinthus ideas inside like an inflated balloon and if I don't dump them out soon, I will explode into a million pieces.

So in that case, I decided to write a fanfiction to pour all my OTP heacanons into it.

No, really. I won't even call it a retelling because it is not qualified to be one. Let's just say it's a high-effort fanfiction written by a foreigner who was raised and lived in a very different culture and always be more to learn.

Introducing:

Singing For A Flower

At first, I only planned it out as a meet-cute oneshot. But the short and sweet story soon branched out and couldn't be contained under 10K words anymore.

I want to write Hyacinthus and Apollo flirting but also having anxiety about their relationship.

I want to include Polyboea and give her a character arc about joining the virgin huntressess.

I want to explore Clio and the Muses' relationship with Hyacinthus, their mortal son and nephew.

I want to flesh out the other occurring characters who are in or related to the myth.

Endless scenarios and questions keep coming and they don't stop coming, and now I'm left with bits of prompts to string into one coherent plotline. There will be a lot for me to rewrite, add in, cut out, and more before I finish the first draft.

The "Singing For A Flower" trilogy will be written in Vietnamese and then translated into English (the VN version will be posted on a different platform, but you don't need to care about it). I can write the whole thing in English in the first place of course, but as with the second language, I can't convey all my ideas as fluently as in Vietnamese. When the English version is done, I will publish it on Archive Of Our Own and maybe other novel platforms.

It will take time to do everything all by myself. You'll have to wait a long time - we're not counting weeks or months, but years. But not to worry, because along the way, I will publish some (translated) WIP snippets to keep myself motivated and keep you guys up-to-date. So, we cool?

If you're interested in my planned Apollo/Hyacinthus trilogy and wish to see the final product, I admire your dedication - thank you a lot! And if you can't stick around to the end - it's okay! I'm glad we can be companions for a while.

Let's hope all of the gods above, my sheer determination, and an unholy amount of coffee will help me make it to the end of this project and not crash and burn before that!

#hyacinthus #apollo #apollo x hyacinthus #hyacinthus x apollo #Singing For A Flower #greek mythology #introduction #my works #work in progress #fanfiction

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annbourbon · 9 months

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🖤 ✨ 🖤 ✨ Rika ✨ 🖤 ✨ 🖤

Let's start with Rika...

⚠️possible spoilers ahead, be warned⚠️

I can't believe I actually didn't realize that. I mean, I did it. Like 7 years ago, but I had no clue on how to explain it.

Besides it needs from Mystic Messenger Timeline *which I'm still working on, and trying to finish* to actually make sense.

Disclaimer: Please take into account that whatever I say here, it's only my opinion after playing the game so many years. I'm not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, or therapist of any kind. I'm just a writer, who loves to spend time analysing characters and stories.

I did asked to my mom to help me with this and the other characters because of how difficult the task ahead of me was. My mom, who is an actual therapist, did her best to help me, but I did most of the analysis here, since I'm the one who knows the in's and outs of this game. Besides, I did my research and I'll make sure to quote it! So give it a chance and keep reading even if you disagree with me. And then, I'd love to read your thoughts on the topic 💕

Narcissus. Also known as daffodil.

Should I talk to you about the dark side of the flowers and tie it to MM characters?? Anyways, Rika is a narcissistic. But also has a profound trauma. One doesn't exclude the other. Here's a quote from Mayo Clinic:

«Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism.»

Causes: The cause is likely complex. Narcissistic personality disorder may be linked to:

Environment — parent-child relationships with either too much adoration or too much criticism that don't match the child's actual experiences and achievements.

There are other two, that are genetic, and neurobiology causes, but I'll be focusing more on the environment, which let's be honest, it's what is displayed on the game. If you're interested on reading more about it, there's a link before the quote and, on References, I'll also be leaving every single link.

So let's go back to Rika and please read the next three images while remembering how's her relationship with V, and Saeran. Sometimes even with MC, and Mika.

As you can see...

Attention:

* Creates the RFA. Receives attention.

* Creates Mint Eye. Receives attention.

* Says V is her Sun.

* As soon as she gets tired, says V's killing her and wants to leave

* Wants to mix RFA and Mint Eye. I assume is because despite everything, she feels like she's losing attention on everything she created. And MC is the reason of that too.

They don't choose losers:

V is a millionaire

Jumin is a millionaire

Zen is super sexy and hot

Jaehee and the twins are really smart

Do I need to keep going? Even Elizabeth the 3rd is one of the most beautiful cats ever seen.

Grooming:

Here's the part that keeps bothering me because I realized about it before I could actually explain what it was going on. Seven years ago I decided to play the game, and I finished feeling a bit too weird on how everyone was so infatuated with Rika... it wasn't any other person that just dies and then the group dies too. It was still active two years after losing her (?) Even though they have only know each other for... 4 to 6 years?

Some even less. Like Jaehee. Which randomly brings me to: She's an ENFJ so she does focus on details like Jaehee (Jaehee might be ISFJ, ISTJ or even ESFJ considering how well she manages around people too. But that's another story.) Her enneagram is probably 1.

I can understand Yoosung, but... you know what I mean. It was weird. And once I reached the first VN novel about V and Rika I felt even more weirded out by these two.

I don't think I can pinpoint it but I felt like Rika was manipulating V so I was surprised when I realized some members were tying these two as lovers and a beautiful couple. Do you guys remember V being surprised by Rika quoting "The Sun is the mother of all"?? Yeah... Even back then, for me it was a highlight of how messed up their relationship was. But again, I couldn't exactly pinpoint it. Until, now.

After Cheritz released Another Story, and Rika DLC, many of my theories came true. But still in a disorganized way. Which is why I created The Mystic Messenger Timeline.

I did confirmed one thing:

Rika is a narcissist and V is a people pleaser (that doesn't make him any less villainous of what he is, but I'll explain once we'll reach his profile. I promise.) at least at the very beginning of this story.

She probably has psychopatic tendencies

She definitely has sadistic and abusive tendencies: I have a hard time putting through her whole behavior during Saeran's Route and especially during his AE. But she takes pleasure in hurting others. V, Saeran, MC, Mint Eye associates, etc.

A bit of One on the Enneagram:

It is called The Reformer.

Because Ones have a “sense of mission” that leads them to want to improve the world in various ways, using whatever degree of influence they have. They strive to overcome adversity—particularly moral adversity—so that the human spirit can shine through and make a difference. They strive after “higher values,” even at the cost of great personal sacrifice.

If you think I'm too far off, then please check the levels of healthy and unhealthy Ones can have. They sure ring a bit too much for me on Rika's behavior. From Level 1 to 9, we can see her evolution during the game. But here you have a couple of her worse traits.

Unhealthy Levels

Level 7: Can be highly dogmatic, self-righteous, intolerant, and inflexible. Begin dealing in absolutes: they alone know "The Truth." Everyone else is wrong: very severe in judgments, while rationalizing own actions.

Level 8: Become obsessive about imperfection and the wrongdoing of others, although they may fall into contradictory actions, hypocritically doing the opposite of what they preach.

Level 9: Become condemnatory toward others, punitive and cruel to rid themselves of wrongdoers. Severe depressions, nervous breakdowns, and suicide attempts are likely. Generally corresponds to the Obsessive-Compulsive and Depressive personality disorders

If you want to know more about this, check this.

So, why do you (player) like Rika as character?

Because it's okay, I know people who actually like Rika. I don't, but I definitely don't hate her either...

You don't need to be worried about it as long as you know what she did was wrong. That's it. Now, why do you like her/identify with her?

Things that might, or not, ring a bell:

* Trauma: Rika has a traumatic past. And you might feel like it's a mirror of your past. Hence identifying with it might not be something difficult. Of course this doesn't mean you are leader of some religious cult.

* Her willingness to fight despite having everything at odds. Let's not forget that before she goes nuts and starts brainwashing people, she did a lot of great deeds. Tried to stay positive and all that.

* Her kindness (we can discuss over certain things, but as much as she did terrible things, she also did amazing things, like creating the RFA to help people. Wether she did it with a certain master plan in mind or not, she did helped as much as she hurt and that's the important part.)

* She's just a great villain! It might be hard to understand for some people but you actually just look at her character as what it is, a character, and you're impressed by how many discussions and hot debates she brings onto the table. Understandable!

* Her flower means forgiveness♡

Do you have any other ideas for why you might like Rika? I'd be happy to read them. 💕

Also, this might be one of my last post about her. Might not be the last but I do need to finish with the Mystic Messenger Timeline, and I will but I don't think I have a lot more material to write about. So thank you for sticking with me all this time! I'm linking the main post on MysMe theories I have, I still need to finish tying up all nicely. But we're coming to the end. I'm definitely talking about trauma, coping mechanisms, parenthood, childhood and societal pressures but it'll be in other posts, possibly not even linking them to this one. Who knows? Stay tuned~!

References:

Mayo Clinic - Narcissistic Disorder Personality

Between Narcissistic & People pleaser

Medium - Beware a narcissist with a hero complex

Paired Life - Hero & Narcissist

Enneagram Institute - One

#rika mm #mystic messenger theory #mystic messenger #mysme #mystic messenger analysis #character analysis #psychology #character psychology #mystic messenger spoilers #mystic messenger theories

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toyota-supra · 9 months

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My Top 10 Favorite Games I Played In 2023

In chronological order. It's a long one.

Titanfall 2

I've been told to play this for years now, though for most of those I did not really know why, as it never seemed like my kind of game. But, ever since I started really getting into mecha sometime in 2022, I decided to finally give it a try. I'm very glad I did. Titanfall 2 is a criminally short First Person Shooter with a very fun mech/pilot dynamic, really good mechanics of movement and combat for both, and some of my favorite level design of any game I've played in a long while. The platforming is crazy good! The mechanics are tight as hell! The mech is awesome! I recommend Titanfall 2 for literally anyone reading this.

Mega Man Zero

The Zero series is the one that most called to me in the Mega Man franchise every time I looked these games over, and I was right in that judgement. While I couldn't say if I was going to appreciate most of the GBA era action platformer difficulty or not, it was clear from Zero's more agile movement and bite-sized missions with very memorization-heavy bosses that I would enjoy it. And I did enjoy it a lot! Most of the bosses kicked my ass but it was an absolute blast to finally learn their patterns enough to defeat them. The problem is, I went out of my way to not get any of the game's health upgrades or energy tanks, making the final boss so hard for me that after days and days of attempts I gave up. Not beating Mega Man Zero is probably my biggest regret of the year lmao

Fate/Stay Night

Honestly, what do I even say? You can see my Saber icon, right? Fate is a franchise I never bothered to get close to, knowing of its name only through vague images and names of more popular characters (not even from FGO, just in general), and from later on getting to know that Fate/Grand Order was the game it is I felt like it wasn't for me at all and who cares. So when I learned what the original VN was actually about I felt stupid. How could something so fitting to my tastes have gone under my radar for so long...? Despite not being much of a reader in general, F/SN is a very long game that feels like it's just as short as you need it to be. The prose flows so well, every single character is lovable in many ways, and there's so much passion written into them and the situations they're in that it's one of the most smooth-flowing VNs I've read (which granted are not many) even though it's around the high 6 digit wordcounts. I love this game dearly.

Stranger of Paradise - Final Fantasy Origin

I wanted to play this game since the first few trailers! How cruel was it that, not only did I not have a powerful enough machine at the time, but the game wasn't even on Steam until the year after release? Final Fantasy Origin is the game it presents itself to be. There's something about it that's so special to a certain kind of person (which I happen to be one of) and that falls flat for everyone else. The combat and its many Weapons, Jobs and Skills to use are just fantastic in how nice they feel, and I really do like the type of story Stranger tells. I haven't finished it yet, but I'm close to it. I like to describe Stranger of Paradise as everything good about PS2 and PS3 games in a modern title.

Pseudoregalia

An old feeling from a new friend. Pseudoregalia is everything I like in 3D Platforming, and a little bit of what I don't. If you've ever looked at a single gif or video of Super Mario 64 and thought, "this looks pretty fun to play," you should be playing Pseudoregalia. If you like goat ladies with big butts, I can't say I understand if that would sell you on a game or not, but it is a feature everyone mentions. I wrote on this game already, so please do check that out and get it. It's one of the three titles of this list that came out this year, and I have not heard enough people talk about it.

Armored Core VI - Fires of Rubicon

My favorite in this list, which is funny because I don't know what to say about it at all. Armored Core is a series I've been studying up on from the outside for a while, and the announcement for this title was my reason to finally dive in. Unfortunately, I did not get past playing the first mission of AC1 a few times and booting up AC3 once. But I will get to it eventually! Fires of Rubicon is one hell of an action game, that I adored for every single one of my (currently) 67 hours of play. Going through the campaign with builds a little too busted for the AI most of the time was my dishonorable focus of the experience, but there's a lot else to do for every kind of person. The amount of freedom you have for messing with your builds for either single or multiplayer is not to be underestimated. Though it could be better. Here's hoping there will be a game that is.

Midnight Club 3 DUB Edition Remix

I played this game as a kid so much that the main menu and its theme are scarred into my mind, yet this whole time I had no idea what the game was actually like due to the fact that most of my playtime was doing a few races and just cruising around. Once you dive into trying to finish the story, MC3 is a much different experience. One that frustrated me so much, I got actually ill from the stress. Please take breaks, gamers! Your health is more important than finishing an 18 year old game! Still, I did eventually do it. Midnight Club 3's handling model and gameplay structure are really impressive in comparison to the much more popular Need for Speed series, and I have to admit I did enjoy the game a lot. It's just a lot harder than it ever needed to be. I'll probably never forget this game, and that's not really a good or bad thing. Just, advice from me, if it gets too hard, maybe switch to sports bikes. Buy that Ducati.

Test Drive Unlimited

Another car game, but this one I have the least to say about of any on this list. I had played TDU on PS2 multiple times before and thought it was awesome. The atmosphere and immersion of this game are unrivaled by any racing game to this day. But playing the PC version with a steering wheel and pedals made everything so much more incredible. I played the Platinum mod, which adds hundreds more cars and fixes a lot of issues with the original game (but not all of them; the game was still really rough and I hate how much the resolution is a pain to change). Overall, one of my favorite experiences with a steering wheel controller so far. Otherwise, a pretty good game if you like driving.

Super Mario Sunshine

An old friend, and a new feeling. I don't play 3D platformers as much as I wish I did, because they're really not part of my main priorities looking for games lately, but every time I play a Mario game, it's like I found love again. It was not the first time I played Super Mario Sunshine, as I had collected a dozen or so Sprites years before, but playing the whole game in I think two weeks during the latter half of the year was such an incredible experience. Unless for some reason you play it on the Switch, Sunshine is a game that loves you as much as you love it. And you do love it, right? I know I do. I'd love to play this game many other times in the future. Granted, that applies to every game here, I just wanted to say it out loud for this one.

Lethal Company

A fairly recent release! Having played it with many groups of people by now, both modded and vanilla, I think Lethal Company is probably one of my favorite multiplayer experiences ever. It is scary and hilarious, but also just really really good, to a level that surprised me for my quality standards of co-op (horror) games. Lethal Company turns friends into improvised horror movie actors and it's incredible. I'm almost at 30 hours played and will likely get to 40 at minimum. It's also pretty cheap and likely runs well on all sorts of machines, so consider checking this one out too.

Honorable Mentions

Witch on the Holy Night and Story of Seasons - Friends of Mineral Town are games I am adoring and could definitely go on this list, hadn't I started them both quite late into December. Maybe next year I'll give them a shoutout!

#video games

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morphogenetic · 5 months

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Mediaposting 2024, #6: Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2/The Great Ace Attorney Resolve

Completed: April 21st, 2024 (/i still have to watch the DLC episodes that didn't get released with the official loc, I guess but I'm not playing it any more so ?? lol)

Time spent: 49.5 hours (will be like 50.5 after the DLC stuff)

Rating: 9/10 (more objectively. but a very biased 9.5 in my heart.)

ohhhhh my god alright where do i even start with this. i guess i also have to talk about dgs1 a little bit in this review/mini completion log but I will TRY and keep it to just 2. [editor's note: somehow succeeded with this! lfg]

first, to get the non-spoiler parts of this out of the way:

please for the love of god play this fucking game if you've played the original AA trilogy but not the DGS duology. i can not stress this enough. i would not recommend playing them as your FIRST aa games because a) they will set your bar way too high (and too low simultaneously bc wow dgs1 still has whack as hell pacing) b) there are a few details, especially in this particular game, that will evoke no reaction in you if you haven't played at least the main three games but WILL cause you to start gnawing on drywood if you have Knowledge Of The Future

the whole dgs duology - and specifically as a duology, bc 2 makes no sense without 1 but 1 by itself is not on this level - is absolutely in my top 3/4 AA games now. i admittedly have not replayed the original trilogy in quite a while, buuuuuut T&T/AAI2/DGS1+2 are my new top 3. not necessarily in that order, give me a bit to think about it lol.

im going to be thinking about this game for the rest of my life probably. i can see why my best friend wanted me to play it for uh. seven years. because yeah it really is that good.

i want to cosplay four different designs from it. i have not wanted to cosplay anything new (to me) since neo twewy came out three years ago. take that as you will.

music still slaps. obviously. my favorite new song is absolutely partners (IYKYK) but agh. the new theme(s) that characters get are all so fucking good. clenches fist. the leitmotifs

definitely becomes relevant in retrospect in a few places where capcom obviously cut the hell out of the budget but they saved it for where it matters so i dont care. im also uh. very used to low budget VNs so frankly even 3D models are better than I'm used to LMFAO. i also you know. didn't realize that they did that until after the fact. so. they hid it well

if you havent played this go and play it (after playing the original AA trilogy). please for the love of god im on my hands and knees.

everything below the cut (i.e. below this point) has blatant unfiltered spoilers. you have been warned.

okay so welcome you've presumably played all of dgs2 if you're reading this. i have THOUGHTS. a lot of these will come off as critical/negative but i need to strongly emphasize that these are the only reasons that this game is not a 10/10 for me and otherwise i'm in love with it. it is fucking CLOSE. i am not talking a lot about the things i really love because that is.............................a lot of the game for me and we'd be here all day. the critiques are much more limited in number. but. you know.

dgs2 absolutely has much, Much better pacing than dgs1 does overall. it does not take 3 cases to get past a bunch of tutorial cases. this is a good thing. however..............the first two cases are still very slow. i won't call them pure filler, because a) reminding us about yuujin was a very good idea, b) they contribute to the Themes of the game. and im glad hosonaga was there again and (of all of the side characters we could have had) seeing souseki was good. i like them. but they really didn't need to be there to fulfill the themes of the game. case 2 in particular feels like a filler case, which I do not love given how tight the rest of the plot feels. if anything i feel like they should have done an interim flashback case without susato, as much as I adore susato, because as-is it's canon that ryuu had 3 cases in the span of a week. which feels INSANE

speaking of better pacing: im so glad dgs2 remembered that AA games can take investigation breaks between courtroom shit because running through ALL of the trial after ALL of the investigation in 1-5 was. let's say. taxing. the 'finding their footing' aspect of the first game

i do kind of wish we got One more case with the masked apprentice where susato wasn't there at all for the entire case. if only because then the delay between ryuu Thinking It and susato Knowing it would be even more painful. but i do really appreciate that they don't try to make it a woah big reveal as much as a painful "i know who you are but you don't." really adds a certain je nai se quois or however the fuck you spell that. idr. its 1 am when im typing this

also hey asougi can we fucking unpack how susato (the girl you were raised with to some extent, probably not like your sister but your weird younger cousin) called your name and you didn't remember who you were but you DID remember when you saw a wax reconstruction of your dead dad. can we fucking talk about that for a minute. can w

speaking of asougi. my god. they did such a good job with him. i think i wouldn't have cared nearly as much about him if all we had was the dgs1 stuff but his extreme motivation for the truth almost turning him into a violent attack dog is. aaaaaaaaaah. god. and the parallels between him and his father's followers (read: the von karmas) that one has from playing the mainline AA games. truly brainworm material

speaking of this: i can absolutely tell they did NOT think about writing the professor stuff with this game until they added in the masked apprentice - before he got turned into asougi - even though the reaper was obviously something that was planned. i do not care personally about this, because game dev is weird as hell and it REALLY works with asougi and van zieks' character arcs. in the same way that i don't think [SPOILER CHARACTER] from vlr would have been as good without the knowledge of 999, i think if barok had been foiled against a new character it wouldn't have worked as well. all that said. it sure is obvious they didn't know what they were doing. this makes me even more impressed that that they got it to work at all

the same is true of everything with the hound of the baskervilles but im really glad that they took it in the direction that they did.

also man it is so obvious that they probably wanted to have this be a proper trilogy like the original trilogy but then budget happened. because 2-3 through 2-5 all slap but they feel so fucking weird next to 2-1 and 2-2. like i dont feel that theres anything missing per se but a little more time for character growth would have been nice. hell even adding in an extra case (and/or editing 2-2....)

the only writing thing, aside from. 2-2 being like that. and the other weird pacing issues..that extensively is off to me is the whole assassin trading plot. i do think it is Very stupid and that they clearly wrote themselves into a corner with 1-5 on how to deal with it because they just...proceed to not deal with it until 2-4 and 2-5. however. even with that said. i actually kind of like that it is so stupid. because stronghart definitely feels SO obsessed with his version of justice that he wouldn't think through the potential downsides of having two free-roaming assassins running around and maybe coming to get his ass. obvious flaw that would not occur to him because of his insane ass behavior

its still dumb. but it's ace attorney dumb. so i can excuse it a little bit

stronghart being a damon gant expy was funny but goddamnit was it predictable. making him be so obssessed with justice that he talks to ryuu about it for 4 hours was funny as hell though and absolutely adds to him as a character. still dont like him that much Personally but hes definitely a character

his breakdown was peak. by the way. top 3 breakdowns in the series

jigoku being like that kills me. also. the way he just let genshin

g. genshin impact (sorry)

i dont care that sherlock's bullshit was a deus ex machina bc honestly.....electricity was real at that point. its fine

also. holy shit i love ryuunosuke in this game even more. 'i'm not doing this for you, kazuma. i'm doing it for the truth.' BANGER!!!!!!!!!!!! his growth across these two games is really good but especially in this one he shines so brightly

however..........this game made the glaring lack of ryuu's parents even more obvious. its not like i Need it or anything but considering how he very literally refers to yuujin/susato/sherlock/iris as his family in 2-4.....where are your parents!!!! what was your childhood like!!!!!! I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS THAT I WISH COULD BE ANSWERED!!!!!!!!!

and asougi. i could write an essay on asougi alone i think. but i adore how both he and ryuu are like 'you've changed' at each other and neither of them are wrong but then by the end they're like 'wow you're the same as before.' theyre so fucking gay. anyway

and sherlock (WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU WHY DO YOU LIE FOR FUN LIKE THIS????????)

and yuujin (partners ~ game is afoot starts playing and i start crying). obsessed with how they only had to write the dynamic for a single case and you can believe all of it because they can just go. lol. ACD canon. anyway

and susato

and, most surprisingly of all for me.....fucking barok van zieks. i would not call myself a Fan of him in the way i am a Fan of asougi and ryuu, but i am obsessed with him. he did so many things wrong but realizes he genuinely fucked up and wants to atone for it. he gets genuinely upset in prison when he can't join the red-headed league. he's a professional alcoholic. he has bats in his office (???). what is wrong with him. (i know the answer is 'literally everything that could be wrong with a person.' but still

i love every single character in this game (or i hate them but because they were written to be hated)??? how did they manage this again. dgs1 helps so much here because the character growth.

argh. the character parallels with everyone realizing their parent / mentor figure was fucked up and/or hiding shit from them in some way. thinking emoji rotating in a circle goes here

wow that magically became way less critical as i was writing it. i thought it was going to be a lot stronger of a critique. its still weird pacing stuff basically that bothers me but i have very minor complaints that im forgetting aside from this

UHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEAH HI GUYS IM BRAIN ROTTING NOW FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this has had almost the same brain impact on me (as evidenced by the 1 million words about it) as raging loop i think and thats never a good sign since i still think about raging loop at least once a week despite the fact that i played it 3 goddamn years ago

#dgs thought spiral #< if you're wondering. how much personal hell i am in because of this game. i made a tag for it. lmao.#mediaposting #junpei.txt #finished writing this at 1 am my time but im queueing it for the morning so people can read this like the fucking morning paper. you know.#long post

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centrally-unplanned · 10 months

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Oh I had some YU-NO thoughts cache'd I never shared. Thought #1: Btw YU-NO is a 1996 eroge time travel PC-98 VN, context I guess.

Anyway, so in visual novels you often have two goals: fuck multiple hotties and tell an engaging story. These goals are synergistic when your love interests are the story; you choose a girl, and your learn about her and date her and have relationship drama. That is one type of VN, but its not all types - every genre is present in the dating sim VN world, mystery & sci-fi/fantasy plots most commonly.

Here you start running into an issue; you want multiple romance routes, but you don't want to just repeat the story each time you date them. Most people will play multiple or even all the routes. But its not like you are going to write five different endings to your mystery plot. And you can't just...fuck all of them on the way to the ending as one cohesive story, because you are pathetic coward of a dev team and also a nation. A common answer to this dilemma (I first experienced it in G-senjou No Maou) is for you to have a "main" girl, whose romance arc is the plot arc. And then the other girls are clear side girls, who are involved in the main story, sure, and who will give you tidbits, of course, but at a certain point in your arc with them you just trail off. You forget about the murder mystery or whatever, you just date them, have sex scenes, and you will even sometimes have an epilogue where you remark "man, whatever happened with that crazy shit back then?" Its a bit of an odd genre convention but you can see how it works, its lets you have new content and date all the girls without ruining the story, you know who is the 'main' girl is after all.

YU-NO is a mystery sci-game, and it a quantum multiverse/timelines mystery game. You go through the story, and you collect objects along that story, and you also get jewels that let you anchor your spot in the worldline and teleport back to them with your inventory intact. It looks insane btw:

You get no in-game explanation of it at all, the idea of playing this without a guide seems like a cursed no-sleep streaming challenge.

But anyway, this opens up an interesting idea to you as a designer. You are intentionally supposed to hop back and forth in time, to collect items, and unlock the true ending. So why not build all the romance route storylines around that time travel? And put items at the end of each of those romance arcs? Now you can date them all! In fact, you have to! There is a perfectly logical, in-universe reason for why you have 5 different romance arcs; they are happening in different timelines. You date girl one first, then skip back in time, and start on the next - the main character only barely remembers the time skips, to him he doesn't even feel like he is cheating. Pretty sure its intentionally written that way to make that plot conceit work.

I'm sure other games have done similar tricks, but I think YU-NO is the first - it is a pioneer in VN space for using the high-concept quantum timeline stuff, that is its claim to fame. Its a cute little trick, I like it a lot.

#YU-NO #VN design discourse

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chattercap · 6 months

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Monthly Update (April 2024)

Hello everyone, it's Chattercap!

I apologize for the slightly late April devlog, but I was in a bit of a daze after the MindMindMind release! Wow, March went by in a flash for me! Let's get down to it!

I released not one, but TWO games this month! (If you missed them, you can find the links in my pinned!)

Kanau

I spent the first part of the month programming and ironing out the Kanau release. I added mini CGs to my VN framework and also added the ability to rename your save files. After that, it was full steam ahead with actually implementing everything - all of the art, BGM, SFX, VA, and GUI, including updating the gallery. I also set up the itch page and put together some social media announcements. Since the content warnings were pretty stark with this one, I also added a trigger warning screen. After that, I had the game beta tested, and it was released by the 8th!

After that I…took a few days break, haha! (I should have gotten straight to work on MMM, but alas, I always enter some kind of trance right after a game release!)

MindMindMind

For the first part of the month, I was mainly scripting as I needed to get the script done for the VAs as quickly as possible. MMM was my QUICKEST script to date, as I finished 20k words in less than 10 days, wow! (I think that the relatively simplistic prose, with a heavy emphasis on dialogue, helped a lot.) During that time I also reviewed the MMM voice acting auditions and made my selections; in addition, I made the promo artwork and reached out to someone for background photos.

After I was out of my post Kanau-release trance, I immediately started work on the sprites! Kalei's sprite was easy to finish, although Geist's sprite took a bit of time (I kept messing up his face…). I also finished all of the backgrounds and then started work on the CGs; I managed to finish one CG per day! While I was doing that, I also cleaned and adjusted the VA samples. On the final week of the month, I animated all of the art and then basically did the same things for MMM that I did for Kanau - adding all of the art, sound, and GUI, making the itch page, updating the gallery. I also put together a walkthrough and implemented name and pronoun selection. I managed to get MMM ready for beta-testing by the 25th, and I spent the rest of the time prepping VA announcements and putting together the artbook! MMM was released on the 29th!

Other

With new game releases comes a myriad of little tasks! I submitted both Kanau and MMM to IMDB and updated my carrd, Tumblr, Twitter, and patreon. I also added MMM to Steam! (It's here! You can wishlist it if you want; I'll probably upload it there fairly soon.)

And then…after MindMindMind I entered my post-game release coma again. I think I did a few things (started sketching the Hanasu cover art and an updated art for Actala, started a commission for an updated Actala logo, and continued writing the Hanasu script, but I'll be honest I've been in a bit of a daze…)

I'm really blown away with the reception that MMM has received, and I'm happy that so many people have played and enjoyed it; I'll upload a postmortem sometime soon, haha!

What's on the docket for next month?

Amare Jam is going on this month, and I hope to finish The Deepwater Witch for it! There are only a few CGs (and some optional mini CGs) to do, so I think I can! In addition, I want to finish the Hanasu script this month. After TDW is finished, I'll be working on Actala - doing updated backgrounds, sprites, and CGs. I want to work on both a Hanasu release and an updated Actala demo for a summer-ish timeframe (whether I can get both done for Otome Jam remains to be seen…)

If you want to hear from me more often, I also post frequently on my Patreon with sketches, writing snippets, sneak peeks, high resolution art, and weekly devlogs.

Thank you to anyone who took the time to read; your support means the world to me! I'll see you next month!

Chattercap

#general #general-dev

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mudstoneabyss · 1 year

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can you make a list of your top indie horror game recs ::3

yeah! so these wont be in order of what i like the most, they're just going to be here in whatever order I think of them. i'm also trying to go with what I think are more lesser-known ones, and if one is more popular it'll because I think it's one people write off that are actually good. as i'm writing this i'm going back up to say the descriptions for these will become less detailed because i got tired and cant keep repeating the art!! the atmosphere!!

Scarlet Hollow: A heavily choice-based horror mystery visual novel about going back to Scarlet Hollow- a small town in south historically ran by your family- for the funeral of your late aunt. its episodic and there are currently only 4 of the 7 episodes out. even with just them it is my favorite game. I love the writing and the art and the whole atmosphere of the game AND the soundtrack brought Brandon Boone (the composer) into my top 5 artists in my spotify wrapped last year

Slay the Princess: Another choice-based horror visual novel (and dating sim!) by the creators of Scarlet Hollow where you are tasked with, well, slaying the princess to prevent the destruction of the entire world. It's only a demo right now-releasing q3 of this year- but I'm excited for the whole game! my selling point for it with my followers is that the narrator (and some other characters) are voiced by Jonny Sims and hey podcast fans you like him check out this game

Endacopia: A click and point horror game inspired by Humongous Entertainment games such as Pajama Sam. Currently also a demo and set to release in October of 2024, I can not emphasize enough how excited I am for it. The game's style is so fun and there's lots of little details and the music??? There's two musical numbers in the demo alone. Some of the style and writing also reminds me of Undertale and even Homestuck somewhat (I say as someone who hasn't read homestuck)

FAITH: The Unholy Trinity: This is an 8-bit style horror game inspired by the 1980s Satanic Scare coming in 3 chapters with multiple endings, a very good example of games not needing high-end realistic graphics to be scary

Doki Doki Literature Club: Glances at my icon. who could've seen this one coming. I feel like most people know about ddlc by now, even if they don't know anything past "horror anime dating sim". It starts off for a long while a seemingly normal, if bland, visual novel dating sim until-seemingly suddenly- twisting into psychological horror. There's, however, a lot of foreshadowing once you see the beginning again after knowing what will happen. Honestly I think this games brilliant and its such a shame it somehow got lumped in with "cringe" mascot horror (its not even a mascot horror game?). For me a lot of the horror comes from the amount of scares left up to a random percentage- and how subtle a lot of them are. You can replay it and have a fairly different experience than you did the first time- and be scared by completely new things. There's also this existential and cosmic horror element that is less one you experience while playing it, i think, and more thinking about it afterwards. This isn't even touching on a lot of the secrets and easter eggs. a few years after the original game came out, Doki Doki Literature Club Plus was released, and it leaves the og game experience essentially untouched while adding a new vn experience the length of the og game (thats seemingly horror-less) as well as some more lore to the world, not of the game, but around the game, and builds more on the existential/cosmic horror. Needless to say from the length of this, I adore this game. also take the content warnings seriously, in the (free) og the game opens with warnings and a link to a page with specific tws, and in ddlc+ you are given the options to see those warnings listed before starting the game, as well as the ability to turn on tw pop-ups before game events

Home Safety Hotline: Also currently a demo, a horror game where you work for a home safety hotline, answering calls to help people deal with pests and other household problems. as the game progresses you get some more... off-putting calls and access to more unusual problems. I love games that put you into the role of someone who works a mundane job dealing with horrifying shit (similar reasoning to why I like the I'm On Observation Duty games, which I think are more popular rn than I want to put on this list)

NiGHT SIGNAL: By the same creator of Home Safety Hotline, this one's a short one about getting a new tv set and finding some strange channels during the night, inspired by The Twilight Zone and a 1995 game, The Dark Eye. A lot of the art in the game is done with clay which creates this really nice uncanny look and atmosphere- details about which you can see in an artbook you unlock after playing the game, which is REALLY cool I adore seeing the creativity behind and what goes into games like these.

and there's a bunch more I like, these are just the ones off the top of my head and I also dont feel like typing a bunch more dfnafnsk I'll also say if yall haves one you really like that I havent mentioned feel free to send an ask talking about them

#ask #anonymous #I'll ramble off a few more um #WATER WOMB WORLD is really good but I think a lot off ppl know Yames's games. Darkness Under My Bed I haven't played myself or seen too #too much of but I loved what I saw. Cooking Companions I played the demo and enjoyed but I havent played the full game though I plan on #doing so. Future Racer 2000. Cave Crawler. The Missing Parts of Maria Gwozdek. Out of Hands I've also only seen part of but I think slays #long post #I also have a BUNCH of itch horror game pages bookmarked to play

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misarem · 4 months

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Umineko Episode 4 Thoughts or The Rise of a New Supreme (VN Protagonist)

i was fully gonna make this abt battler before i started as if he was challenging my big 3 vn guys or smth. And hes absolutely delightful and by the end of the game I'm sure he will grow to be one of my fav protagonists. But right now its no one else but Ange's time.

Overall this episode had some of the highest highs I have experienced so far, but also some, I don't wanna say lows, but very excruciating, tedious moments. True visual novel gamefeel friction. I almost feel like I'm back to watching a certain titular vn girl drone on about peeling skin and donating grievous amounts of blood to the masses but I'll get to that.

Ange as a character really surprised me. After 3 episodes of the same 20 people I was of course excited to get one fresh face (not to say the others are dull at all because we are literally, constantly seeing new facets of them, but like you get me right) but I did not think she would hit the emotional chords that she did. Her first scenes are great, something about the imagery of her being chased onto the roof of a building and diving into the brightly lit city below is weirdly powerful and evocative of, almost like a sense of desperation and disregard for her own life and the lives of others she deems unworthy that informs her whole character, and it contrasts the past three chapters of people clinging to life and trust in an old Western setting starkly. Admittedly I almost was scared she'd be a bit tropey with her being like a stoic young woman from the future trying to change what traumatized her, although it works at the very beginning as a palette cleanser after Battler's unreal level of sincerity. Hell she's a great foil to him even going beyond their obviously contrasting personalities. "Flipping the chessboard" as a means of understanding the mystery is hugely present from the first episode of the story, and it's so ingrained within Battler's character that besides defining his empathetic approach to situations that begins naive but is quickly maturing, it's almost like his second catchphrase after zenzen dameda. But this is something Ange had to learn for herself after enduring years of emotional abuse, and the way this value is imparted to them in different ways says a lot about positioning in regards to traumatic events in people's lives, with Battler picking it up easily having not been around the Ushiromiyas for all of his adolescence and Ange being cursed by that same bloodline with no real closure or other means of coping. That this facet of their characters is partially a commentary on trauma, to me, is also backed by the fact that this is a value of Kyrie's, given to Battler directly, which he was fortunate for, and given to Ange indirectly and though very harsh means, because of the impact that the Rokkenjima tragedy and the Sumadera family had on her upbringing, and how they led her to this point. I also think that trauma and how it affected their upbringing also makes their relationship to "magic" contrast, with Ange being a proficient witch/summoner(?) and Battler being said to have a high magic resistance. When I talk about magic later, this will become kind of a circular statement, but just playing with the fiction within the fiction, I think this is an interesting point, especially considering the differing ways they are separated from family.

Speaking of Ange's magical proficiency, I cannot talk about her without mentioning just that: her relationship to Maria and Sakutaro, though Maria's book, as well as Mammon and the other demon sisters. I guess to get even more personal than I did talking abt the family dynamics, I have kind of a weird history with maladaptive daydreaming that blossomed when I was around high school, when I was Ange's age. That I can even use a term like maladaptive daydreaming to talk about this makes me less self-conscious, also considering that around that time was my parents divorcing + coping with emotional and verbal abuse from my mom + dealing with a predator in an online friend group + generally being kind of a loser. I had such vivid relationships with whole groups of people I would fantasize about constantly, mostly fictional characters (from fire emblem and pokemon LOL). This, probably, profoundly impacted how I grew up and, since I hated my home life and had no close irl friends and was so wishy washy with my online group, was really all I felt like I had for emotional support at the time. Genuinely my fantasies ran so deep at times, often supplemented with music and whatever movies I was into at the time, even though, as it was when I was 16, all of it is almost gone from my brain. I can't really daydream the same way I did before because of just becoming an adult, having more obligations and outlets, having a reliable irl friend group and much more solid circle of online friends than I used to, and while I have mixed feelings on it I've overall accepted it as a part of who I was/am as far removed as I am from those tendencies now. And I really get the same feeling from Ange. Bittersweet is a really common adjective for moments that are outwardly happy but held back by a painful sense of reality. Her means of coping, the different bonds she forms with everyone, and specific moments like her arguing with Maria about her parentage (Maria is supposed to be in her rights but I fw Ange resenting Rosa and cherishing Maria's innocence) or the word game everyone played together, these moments are extremely sweet. Horrifyingly saccharine to the point of making my older palate just feel sick. Like staring into the void and feeling a dull pain as it tries to pull me in and I can't look away. Moments like her being cornered by her bullies or Kasumi and her men are even worse, which is kind of where this chapter's slog begins, not helped that we're frequently being pulled back and forth from Ange's time and Battler's time. It's just a hard read, a good read and a deserved read but a hard one, where Ange's innocence and vulnerability are more raw and harrowing than any sequence of murders (except maybe getting gutted and stuffed with candy idk). Even more harrowing seeing who I once was reflected in her story. And to be honest, as hard as it was, it's absolutely what I needed from a character in this game at this moment. Outside of the varying degrees of subterfuge surrounding the characters in Rokkenjima, everything Ange exists for is laid bare in the most incredible way that even the moments of true emotion during the last few chapters hasn't reached yet, and honestly, that jettisoned her to the spot of my favorite character even after three episodes of Beatrice's incredible dialogue and voice acting, Kanon and Shannon looking out for each other while struggling with their identity and humanity, and Jessica just being fun. Probably open to change later, I think her whole relationship with fantasy IS very important to the status of witches and the mystery of their existence, and I hope it imparts something upon Battler too and that he reaches her level for me, but IDK. I fuck with her heavy after this chapter and I hope to god we see more of her again somehow. Beautiful that her last moment in episode 4 was finally being able to give her life for something she found worthwhile, her family, but I can't help but want more closure for her.

Might be getting ahead of myself posting this early but luckily the positions haven't changed thaaaat much besides Krauss who gets points for finally doing something and fighting hard for his daughter. He might go back down later but lol.

Putting Rosa with the crazy ass witches not literally but I just have this little pet theory. The dead Chiester sister is listed as having lost in a battle with the black witch and I can't help but notice the thing with the sisters listed in the game being a quartet of bunnies, and how Maria has four of those marching band animal bunnies where one of them was broken by Rosa. Its just a minor theory and if its right or wrong idc that much but it just got me thinking about the possible relationship between what's described as "black magic" with abusive tendencies stemming from trauma (Rosa, Eva, possibly Beatrice from being kept by Kinzo) and "white magic" with less destructive tendencies (Maria). I could be wrong but I think I remember something about Beatrice needing Maria and forming their witches alliance because they compliment each other so well, with Maria being creation and Beato being eternity, Maria being "motherly quality" and Beato being "fatherly quality". Hard for me to pull these things back up without digging cuz Google can be a spoiler minefield but when I see them I'll address them again but the dichotomy is making me think theres smth thematically deep there. Also think that Ange is potentially a master of black AND white magic. She might normally be a black witch having been abused by Eva and her peers with not much else to cope, which I feel manifests in some things like her overall disposition and how she treats other Rokkenjima victim families when wringing info out of them, but what makes her different to Eva and Rosa would be that she has Maria not just as a positive presence in her life but as someone she can learn from and depend on, who can directly heal her trauma in some way (IDK if Hideyoshi could have done this with Eva). Granted IDK what THIS specifically says but like I'm letting it cook for now cuz I think its cool regardless. Maybe black + white magic represents understanding of life and ines circumstances which leads to LOVE?!?!?!? (Idk lol) And it's possible too this idea of Maria as a pure witch is over after the scene where she tortures her mom like EvaBeatrice did. But yea I love Ange.

Just to break away from heavy thematic discussion, I thought the Rokkenjima side of the episode was. Interesting. Perfect word for something I don't know how to eloquently talk about. A cool break away from the formula for sure, with the clock not even hitting 12 before most if not all 17 of them were killed. The first twilight, to me, was the peak of this, just such a crazy moment watching everyone's reactions to the absurdity of Kinzo's crazy murder rampage. George and Jessica's fights were also super cool, as well as Krauss and Kanon working really hard, with the groups supporting each other super fiercely even tho it ended in vain. Can't wait to figure out how the hell George and Jessica were supposed to kill each other in reality. When Kinzo wanted to test the grandkids, I had a feeling Maria was actually gonna win him over and its hilarious that did happen. And after how thoroughly Beatrice challenged Battler's sincerity in the last episode, I'm very surprised at how despondent she seemed after giving her test to Battler and watching him fail. I feel like I could guess any number of ways Battler could have 'sinned' in Beatrice's eyes, from maybe hurting Maria or Ange on accident, or denying magic as a kid, to something related to his uncertain parentage, like maybe replacing another Battler Us-style or something like that. None of these concrete but I'm just throwing stuff out.

Overall, the Question Arcs had a lot to say about family and escapism, and seemed to do a great job laying the groundwork for Answer Arcs to just go absolutely insane. Like the last episode's post, I wrote this over a few days and I'm still in the middle of chapter 5 which, I understand will give me a good framework to work out the murders on Rokkenjima, but after that, I'm gonna need to buckle down and reread a lot, from the murders of the four previous episodes, to maybe dipping into the manga somewhat, and even keeping a list of red truths and Knox rules for detective fiction, and after that I'll come with my chapter 5 thoughts and my predictions, because despite kinda throwing myself into this very quickly, I do want to engage with the mystery on some level. I do have a few overarching ideas on what might be happening though.

Since postulating on them a little bit in the previous chapter, I've kinda honed in on Rudolph and Kyrie, especially Kyrie, a lot more. Beyond what I said abt Rudolph's death premonition, their shady business dealings and their competency fighting the demons, they just feel kinda detached in a weird way. We understand Krauss, Eva, and Rosa's role in the family very well from the details we got, but beyond a general 'younger-middle child' idea, we don't have a vivid picture of Rudolph's role and dynamics with his siblings growing up, which, on its own isn't super suspicious but feels weird with how detailed and integrated the other characters are. There's also the way Battler's parentage has been cast into suspicion, or how we don't have much of a perspective on them from Battler not living with them for years. What sets Kyrie apart is how she operated in this episode. Despite Krauss playing the part of the leader of the hostages, a lot of their escape felt like Kyrie subtlety leading them along, and I can't get over the way she just. Died off screen. Over the phone. Without a blood splatter. And a smaller wound than anyone else. After telling Battler how much he should believe in magic. So much suspicion here to the point where it feels like a red herring. But I'm just keeping the option of her being some sort of mastermind pulling the wool over everyone's eyes with mass delusions in my mind. Also think the servants are complicit. Not directly murdering everyone but facilitating the ritual with their cooperation and their lives. ATP it's sorta obvious Genji is connected to Ronove and Kumasawa is connected to Virgilia, and Kanon and Shannon are aware of their own powers, and Shannon reasonably could have masqueraded as Beatrice to act as her at certain points. I just don't have anything solid or any specifics ironed out just yet but over 5 and 6 I'll try to work it out. Other questions I have: I almost forgot about the Battler not being able to claim Asumu as his mother. Guessing that he's Kyrie's kid and maybe that, since Kyrie was said to have a miscarriage, maybe the babies were swapped for the family to save face? Kills me he never tried to confirm being Rudolph's son in red. Also considering how family and trauma is such a huge thing, especially with how Kinzo's kids were raised....... who IS Kinzo's late wife? What kind of woman was she and why do we have no answers. IS it a human version of Beatrice? Is she disgraced from the family or something? Still confused about the real status of who we know as "Beatrice" as a whole, and the captain dude saying he stopped delivering to Kuwadorian around the same time Rosa saw a Beatrice die isn't lost on me. Maybe I'll figure these out as I piece things together.

#if i missed anything (idr if i talked about the sin thing i have to figure it out) im sorry this game is doing insane shit to me #umineko no naku koro ni #umineko when they cry #uwtc #ange ushiromiya

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minevn · 1 year

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i feel like we as a society are sleeping TOO HARD on kei. he’s a sick, sick, individual and it feels like no one notices!!!!

honestly, it’s genius. his character by nature is DESIGNED to fall under the radar; always there, but never seen-type. love him so bad lowkey.

he’s, like, the 3rd(?) biggest yan of the game, CANONICALLY, and yet the people do not care 💔/j

bro is dangerous as hell, sorry. i cannot stop thinking about him. think with me. he was partners with mc— a person who really didn’t care for him—for a singular class project in high school and yet he switched around his entire life’s trajectory for them. he left everything behind; his future, his family, his sanity. all to seek the attention of someone who never glanced twice at him outside of the classroom.

chances are he knew how insane this was. when his parents screamed at him for letting his grades fall off the bone, there was probably a voice in his brain that was also shouting about how unreasonable he was being. and yet, despite all that, he pushed on. for some unclear, yet fascinating reason, it’s obvious that kei has no plans on stopping anything he’s doing until you’re his.

after meeting you, his mindset changed. and as it changed, so did his social circle. he went from the smartest kid in school to having “most likely to be jailed” written under him in the yearbook (credits to haruto, probably). okay ramble over! sorry your little guys literally won’t exit my head

final thoughts: he’s so cute. i want him.

LMAOOOOOOO nah fr fr though, I actually love him and have so much planned for him. I think honestly, he's one of my favorites??? at least at the moment. It's really fun to write him and to just think about him.

Yeah he's the 2nd most yandere, everyone is too focused on Yani(so valid though, love her<3) He's so slept on though :,( /hj There's like 2 people in the discord that have the Kei role, literally slept on so much LMAO. Still, I'm happy that you love him so much!

The urge to literally SPILL all of the info I have on Mine is insane, I cannot wait to share this story with everyone! It's definitely not the only or first vn to do this and I think I'm actually seeing a lot more vns do it but still, I have a bit more planned still so even if you guys find out early on there will still be some major plot twist! Anyways sorry, we're talking about Kei and I get so hyped about the plot of Mine LMAOOO he's so suspicious(I say as if I wasn't the one who made him)

I want to write so much more for this but I would be spilling so much lore LMAOOOOO Like fr though, Kei is slept on so much even though he's like one of the most important people to the plot. I've stated so many times how I write characters in most significance to the plot and how their routes are set up and Kei is just ignored. If any of you figure out the plot of Mine beforehand message me, if you get it right I have no reason not to tell you LOL However I totally understand wanting to play the game and figure out the plot yourself while playing, makes me feel big brain when I do that. But I actually love posts like this where it's psychoanalyzing characters and theorizing, it makes me so happy.

LMAOOO yeah, Haruto would do that. Tell you what, it was a shocker for Haruto and you when you two beat Kei who has been 1st in class since elementary school. He really threw everything away for you. Went from being loved by his parents, friends, and teachers to being rejected by everyone, including himself. No one has loved him for such a long time, he hopes you can change that <3

Yeeeees join us, one of us one of us one of us! love having them stuck in my head and it makes me so happy that others have my characters stuck in theirs!!

#💝-minevn #visual novel #yandere vn #🎤-asks #💻-Kei

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anjanettexcordonia · 1 year

Text

A/N: Welcome to chapter 4 if you’ve stuck around. This chapter has a song that helped me pump this one out. Enjoy. No word count. Please excuse grammatical errors because I’m half assing editing. Sorry. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 4

Ransley

The Last War-Epic Music VN

Mine. Mine. Mine. That’s all that is going through my head as I hold her close to my chest. Her perky tits pressed against my chest. Mine.

I am taking her home with me. There is no choice. I can not let her go. I know she felt like I did. I know she felt the zap up her arm when our fingers touched. I know she felt the magnetism between us and I know she felt my hard on when I pressed her against me. Hard on all for her. I couldn’t care less about any other woman here. I can’t see them. I can feel their eyes on me. I know I am a mystery. I know they think I am a recluse like my father. They think I am grief stricken and destroyed. Just doing my duty. How wrong they are. I am not a recluse, not even close. I am a very social person. I am known all over the world. I hold many business holdings all over the globe. I chose to study abroad in New York. Until I was summoned home, I lived my life thoroughly and uninhibited. But I’ve always known my duty and never balked against it. I’ve led a life of privilege and gradeuer and now it’s time to honor my father.

And honor my father I will by choosing the first and only woman that I danced with tonight. Taking her home and making her mine in every way imaginable. Mine. I will own her.

“Mind if I grab a glass of water?” Her big blue eyes look up at me. She's nearly a foot shorter than I am. Sweat is beginning to bead across her forward and her chest is heaving. I nod and grab her hand as I pull us from the dance floor. “Fair is over.” I announce it to Bernie, my head of security. Without waiting for response I pull my sweet girl along behind me feeling her stumble in her stilettos but not relenting even a bit. The faster I get her out of her the faster I can satisfy this animalistic need roiling inside of me. A primal urge I can’t control. It's almost a high, I can’t seem to control it.

“Slow down please.” She tugs on my hand but I only grip hers tighter as we get closer to the exit of this charade. The crowd parts like the Red Sea to let us through. People bow as I rush by but I don’t spare them a glance. I can feel her tension growing as the fleet of SUVs comes into sight and my men; they may be the King’s men, but they are my men all the same; flank us from all sides. The door to the coach opens and I pull her in behind me.

“What are you doing? Where are we going?” Juliette’s voice has an edge to it. Her eyes darted all around the vehicle, to the privacy screen and blacked out windows to the chilling champagne and back to me. Her eyes harden. “What’s going on?” The vehicle roars to life and begins to accelerate.

I ignore her.

“Where are you taking me?” I can sense the panic beginning to set in. It only fuels my need for her. Fear me and only me I want to tell her. I don’t of course, I remain silent and stoic. Stoic as all royals.

“Home.”

“I am not getting out of the car.” It’s been twenty fucking minutes of this. Her refusing to get out of the car. My anger rising and rising. I think steam may be billowing out of my ears. “I am going to drag you out of this car and lock you in the dungeon, you have ten seconds.” I can hear Bernie’s snickers behind me. He is going to be locked in the cell next to her if he keeps it up.

“This isn’t my home. Take me home.”

“Ten.”

She thinks I’m joking.

“Nine.”

“Take me home.”

“Eight. You are home.”

“Seven.”

She crosses her arms in defense and huffs out a breath.

“Six.”

Eye Roll.

“Five. I will put you in the dungeon.”

“You don’t have a dungeon.”

“Four.”

I smirk. This is going to be fun.

“Three.”

“Take me home now.”

“Two.”

I take off my jacket and start rolling up the sleeves of my dress shirt.

“One. Last chance.”

Nothing. She thinks I’m bluffing.

I grab her by the ankle before she can pull it further out of reach and yank her out of the car. I throw her across my shoulder. I hold her legs still but she’s beating the shit out of my back. She’s making sure to stay as far north of my ass as possible in this position. That makes me hard. Fuck.

The metal bars slam on the decrepit dungeon door. I’m not sure these doors will even hold her in here. She could probably just kick them down if she tried hard enough. I don’t see that happening. She’s submissive. I can sense it. I will break her and mold her to my will. The key clicked the lock and I turned without a word. She thinks I was bluffing. She will see to never fuck with me. I am a King after all.

Tags: @txemrn @tessa-liam @kingliam2019 @twinkleallnight

#fanfiction #theroyalromance #trr #choices

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imjustabeanie · 7 months

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Hello again! This is my submission for a love and deepspace romantic matchup (*^▽^) And thank you so much for being patient with my questions!

For starters, I use she/her pronouns and my sexuality is tentatively demisexual since I'm still experimenting. My zodiac sign is also cancer, while my enneagram and mbti type is 2w1 and INFX (I'm still really unsure if I'm an INFJ or INFP).

Then for my personality, I'm usually shy, awkward, and reserved, so I struggle to talk and connect with people. I also can be pretty insecure. But despite that, I'm also known by my peers as kind, sweet, and hardworking since I'm generally nice when talked to, while also being considerate to others and diligent in my work. I've also been described by my close friends and family to be playful and energetic when I open up or when I'm with the right people, since I can affectionately tease/be a menace and act really bubbly when I'm feeling it. They've also said I can be pretty empathetic, which drives me to give emotional support and (apparently) good advice.

But I also have some flaws, specifically being perfectionistic, too much of a workaholic, an overthinker, and a bit self - sacrificial. I sometimes work myself to the bone in order to have something that fits my high expectations due to my fear of failure. I am also too cautious and anxious when it comes to taking risks or seeing the positive in a situation, which is funny since I'm pretty idealistic. I also tend to put other's needs before my own, and it results in me having difficulty in sharing my feelings and forgetting to take care of myself.

As for my hobbies, I really love playing games (especially vns), reading, writing, and listening to music (specifically musicals, j-pop, and indie pop). I'm really passionate about them all since I love exploring and sometimes analyzing the creativity, emotions, and depth that goes into it. Although I will occasionally take walks (especially in the rain) when I need a break from my mind.

Lastly for my love languages and deal breakers, my love languages are quality time and words of affirmation for both receiving and giving. Then as for deal breakers, I dislike people who are arrogant, cruel, and dishonest. I also find it a deal breaker if someone is too stoic or uptight, but not because I dislike it, but because I think we would clash due to us being too similar.

Hopefully this wasn't too much info, I tried my best to edit it as much as I could. Anyways, take care, and there's no rush to do this immediately! Thank you and have a nice day (*´∀`)♪

Your match is Rafayel!

Xavier was a close second to be honest. But Rafayel is more playful and would help you out with your workaholism. He's a great distraction.

You're the nicest of the couple while he's just his usual bratty self. Rafayel still admires your kind self and just makes sure that you don't get taken advantage of. But when you decide to be a menace he'll be your n1 enabler.

Rafayel loves ranting to you. Yes he does take your advices to heart but ranting is his sport and he feels comfortable doing it with you. When your flaws kick in Rafayel is here to the rescue. He'll scold you and show you how good your work is and then takes you out on a surprise date. Rafayel likes surprise dates. He's a very spontaneous lover who lives in the present. It makes the relationship very dynamic. But he knows when to get serious and won't interfer with your work unless you're over doing it. Rafayel also likes staying at home and dancing with some music in the background. He tries to play video games with you but he's bad and pouts when he looses. He likes physical touch too.

He may be a little arrogant with other but he loves you in his own way

#matchups #match ups #love and deepspace

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