#aside from combat

[nerdierholler]

So I feel like I've been a little harsh on one A du Mortain lately. Still not loving that end of book 3 thing they did. Bad idea. Not actually in the MCs best interest. HOWEVER, I can see some of the mental gymnastics going on here (especially with Adam and Ethan, YMMV).

They are starry eyed. Yes, yes they need to constantly remind the MC that they're a squishy slow healing human but the MC also set their heart aflame in a way no one ever has. They need the MC to be strong to survive what this line of work entails. Ideally both physically and mentally but, squishy human, so mentally will have to do. The MC has had so much going on and so far they seem to be doing okay (the books never really let the MC completely fall apart) so it's easy for A to project that or look for all those confirmation biases even when the MC isn't at their best. It's wish fulfillment that creates a blind spot for A.

They need to convince themselves they did the right thing. To some extent A believes, or tries to convince themselves, that emotions like those for the MC are a weakness or dangerous. Only bad things can happen if they go down that road. A knows they're hurting the MC but they hope that hurt is temporary. If the MC is strong, stronger than A, then they'll get over the rejection. They'll pull themselves up by the bootstraps, see things like A does, and they'll have a professional relationship that's not more dangerous than necessary in this line of work. Of course this isn't actually the case but A emotionally really needs the MC to have that strength so again there will be a confirmation bias, especially if the MC is trying to pretend everything is alright when it isn't.

In a nutshell, both before and after the end of book 3, A has blinders on. Either they're so enamored (while telling themselves that they aren't) with the MC that they don't see the cracks forming or, in order to make peace with their choice regarding not pursuing a relationship, A needs the MC to be ok in order for A to feel better about that decision.

I don't think either thing is intentional. I think it has more to do with A being in uncharted territory emotionally and trying to rationalize a way out of it where what they really need to do spend more time looking at and learning about their feelings.

[backpackingspace]

I have such complicated feelings about Athena's regert in epic. Because on one hand. Athena WAS right. Odysseus did need to listen her. And he did need to kill the cyclops. And her regert and her desire to find a better path for the future makes it seem that wasn't the case. That odysseus was right to adopt polites mindset (WHICH is a whole other post I might write up. I have. Thoughts!)

And that is very much not what Athena is regretting. She regerts leaving and LEAVING ONLY. (And maybe her comment about the dead friends). She regerts not being able to make odysseus listen. And later she regerts what happened to odysseus because she's horrified about what he suffered with calypso.

How many times in those ten years did Athena almost go visit odysseus on the automatic. When she left, she had convinced herself that odysseus was just another mentee just another one of her heros. She had been convincing herself of this for years, for odysseus's whole life basically. And then when she left she found that that was not the case. The pain she felt would not allow her denial anymore. (Yall ever lose a friend? Have a best friend become a stranger? That shit hurts like nothing else.) So at first she's angry and hurting and then later she's idgent with herself (she's not going to apologize first. Like hell shes the goddess here.) and hurting and then she's just lonely and hurting.

Shes not really close to any one on Olympus. And odysseus always took such good care of her (his prayers and devotion and inventions fed her so well) even though she's a war goddess and doesn't need it. And he was always fearless of her. Comfortable with her the way literally nobody else is. (Because he's her friend /her best friend) and Olympus is all politics and cold distance and catering to her father and she tried to go visit diomedes but (the poor boy) is still so afraid of her. And was all great Athena direct me to where you need the spear thrown. (The feeling of heart break is familiar now. She's never felt this human before how do they cope)

And so she's lonely and bored and hurting and she MISSES her best friend. She REGETS leaving. And she's missing and reverting enough to swallow her godly pride and go visit odysseus friend. Maybe she won't apologize first but she can extend the first olive branch. So she goes to Ithaca and does not find him. That's super weird but she does find telemachus

Telemachus who, despite his circumstances is so happy. Who teaches her about how the future could be. And they talk about it, how the future could be. (Honorable warfare. No more camp slaves, so more women hiding in her temples and Athena failing to protect them from being raped. Giving your enemies a the chance to surround and then dealing out a quick death honorable death if they dont.) Telemachus who calls her friend immediately. Who is maybe a shyer happier verison of his father. Who odysseus might be if he ...hadn't had her in his life. (It's a horrible thought. Heart break is a familiar feeling.)

So she hustles telemachus off the island. They make a plan, telemachus will be safe from the suitors. Athena will block the women's door so none of the suitors can go in. And telemachus will look for his father in the mortal relam, seeking odysseus's old comrades and she will look for odysseus in the godly realm.

So Athena, filled with heart break and regret but hopeful for the first time since she was four (and play fighting with pallas) goes time diving for her old friend. And is /horrified/ when she finds him. Finds out how exactly he spent the last seven years. Another one of her chosen violated another one she failed to protect. Her best friend gods. What has she done? This never would have happened if she had never left. Why did she leave? It was odysseus's first fuck offense why did she leave?

She has to help. SHE HAS TO

So off she goes, pissing off her father for the first time ever. And putting her pride to beg (also for the first time ever. Odysseus do you see this shit I'm doing for you)

By the time she's talking to odysseus again. She's spent ten years of heart break missing her best friend, the guilt has cumulated into self blame for not preventing odysseus's violation. (Keep in mind that witnessing trauma is just as traumatizing as going through it. And Athena is a chaste goddess. ) telemachus has shown her a new path for the future. Hence her regert and wondering about leading odysseus astray.

But then this tragic complicated guilt and character growth Athena goes through gets boiled down to actually polites was right (again I have thoughts about his philosophy and that is a completely separate post. As is how telemachus and polities views differ (because they do!!!!!) But again. Separate post.) And any killing at all is bad. And then you have fics where Athena begs odysseus's forgiveness and claims that all killing is bad and (like no hate obvious people can write and headcanon however they want. ) it's just an instant fuck no for me and I've got to click out of said fics. And I know this is part due to this culture we've developed lately and childish black and white thinking (bad vs good. No nuace. If anybody disagrees with my opinion that's uncomfortable and that threatens me so therefore that person is evil and I must attack them) and partially because in fandom things get summerize, nauce gets lost. And it's hard to see the nuace in a musical playlist anyway. And everybody is going to interpret things differently and all that.

But at the end of the day. Athena was right that the cyclops needed to be killed. And she knows this she doesn't regret this. Just how she handled the situation , just that she was so ubrupt with her best friend, everything that led to odysseus being trapped on that island for seven years.

[serpentface]

Retconned Wardi firearms- a basic handgun, a highly decorative ceremonial handgun (belonging to Faiza), and a lance-gun.

Gun tech has officially been nerfed down to hand cannons (press F) (this has been a long time coming but I'd been fallacy of sunk costs-ing myself out of retconning).

Handguns are held similarly to a shotgun, with the butt pressed into the user's shoulder, one hand gripping under the barrel, and the other free to ignite the gunpowder. These represent the most advanced firearms in contemporary usage, both in make and in their use of uniform iron projectiles built to match the gun's bore for greater range and efficiency. Lance-guns are the more basal form, usually larger and mounted with the pole held over the shoulder, and are most effectively used by two people (one to hold and aim, one to light the gunpowder).

The spread of firearms is currently mostly limited to the Eastern Inner Seaway peoples (with some additional distribution via overland trade), and actual manufacture of hand cannons and gunpowder at Significant scale is limited to the region's core powers.

The reason for this limited spread is partially due to specific elements of the technology's history. Gunpowder was first synthesized by Burri alchemists and considered to be the discovery of the legendary divine weapon + solar fire of the deity Inanariya, and its formula (along with techniques for ideally refining its components) remained a closely guarded state secret. It was used predominantly in priestly contexts to generate flame and explosive sounds (in conjunction with earlier practices of generating multicolored flames with use of other chemicals), then integrated into combustible weaponry in the forms of fire lances, which would eventually develop into early handcannons.

The treatment of gunpowder as a guarded sacred or semi-sacred substance continued with Wardi adoption, where knowledge of its making is considered a closed rite. It's name (inya tsatsul or just tsatsul, a derived adoption of the Burri iñazatsūya) still reflects a divine solar association (the Burri word means 'sun's thunder', the Wardi 'inya' invokes the sun, 'tsatsul' is an adapted loanword and has no meaning independent of the substance itself), though its priestly use is now predominantly associated with the firearm'ed Odonii (rather than priests of the solar Face Inyamache). The composition of gunpowder can no longer be regarded as a Secret by any means, though efforts to obscure the methods of its creation are still moderately successful and has kept knowledge of gunpowder manufacture more limited than the total sphere of firearm usage itself.

The actual strongest limiting factor of firearm usage is the rarity of natural saltpeter deposits necessary for making gunpowder. The practice of actively producing saltpeter via nitraries has not been developed anywhere in the setting, and all is instead obtained via natural sources. These sources are rare and limited within the current spread of firearm technology, and result in gunpowder being a limited and expensive substance to produce. The weapons themselves are also very expensive to manufacture (a good quality steel SWORD is far too material-cost prohibitive for most people to own), particularly high quality firearms designed for use with standardized ammunition.

These guns are also very basal, and logistical difficulties in their use (weight, very slow loading and firing speed, high visibility, Relatively low reach and accuracy) along with the restrictive cost of production has kept firearms far from rendering conventional weaponry, armor, and projectiles obsolete (even within the societies that have access to them). They are still, however, very devastating in use within their contemporary context, particularly in that high quality guns have a longer range than the best arrow-based projectiles, and utterly negate most contemporary forms of armor at close range.

[memento-morri-writes]

Rook's Horrible, Very Bad, No-Good Day

(Aka, just one part of Rook's first Horrible, Very Bad, No-Good Weekend. (he's had two of those.))

I posted a small portion of this yesterday, but I'm just so obsessed with this scene, and I figured it's time I shared a slightly more complete version of it so you guys have a little bit more context. There's actually a lot more because a whole 'nother very intense conversation happened after this one, but that's for anther time. Enjoy getting stabbed in the heart several times in quick succession! pov: Rook wordcount: 1.7k character(s): The Liars [Rook (D&D), Sigmar (NPC)] canon status: canon session rewrite trigger warnings: mentions of death, suicidal behavior, and self-harm; implied self-sacrifice. (yk, usual Rook stuff.) summary: Rook wakes up after collapsing in the middle of a tavern. His mentor, Sigmar, interrogates him about the circumstances leading to his collapse. Note: I can only take credit for some of this, since the dialogue is as close to a direct transcript of the dnd session as I could manage. You can thank my amazing DM for all of Sigmar's gut punches here.

Rook comes to consciousness slowly, his mind fuzzy from sleep. He slowly opens his eyes, blinking them several times before he registers a wood-beamed ceiling. Where is he? He raises his head ever-so-slightly, looking around. The room comes into focus, semi-familiar. This is his room at the tavern. He has no memory of going to bed. The last thing he remembers is entering the tavern after the fight, and then…

Footsteps draw his attention away from that mystery. “Rook, you’re awake!” Sigmar rushes over to Rook’s bedside, relief clearly visible on his face. “You were out for twelve hours.” Seeing the question forming on Rook’s face he adds, “You fainted last night. It was… concerning to say the least.”

Rook slowly sits up as Sigmar continues talking. “What happened to you? I knew things were rough for you after we talked on the way here but the way you looked last night… you’re lucky to be alive.”

“I wasn’t.” The words are off his tongue and out of his mouth before Rook can process what he’s saying. “I wasn’t, yesterday.”

Sigmar peers closer at Rook, concern mounting on his face. “You weren’t what,  Rook.”

Again, he speaks without thinking. “Alive. I wasn’t alive yesterday.”

The color drains from Sigmar’s face. “What do you mean? What do you mean you weren’t alive yesterday?” 

Rook is taken aback by the forcefulness in Sigmar’s voice. Why does he sound so worried? Slowly, parsing out the words to keep from stumbling over them, he says, “Wolf sent an assassin after me. She succeeded.”

Sigmar’s brow furrows and his voice get louder. “Why didn’t you tell me?” When Rook doesn’t respond he adds, “Who saved you?”

“Aki. At least, I think it was him. I woke up and he was next to me.”

A flash of surprise crosses Sigmar’s face before vanishing, obscured by a new wave of concern. “What caused this? You looked terrible last night.” There’s a thread of something that sounds vaguely like fear in Sigmar’s voice as he says it, which catches Rook by surprise.

Rook takes a long moment to think. He can’t tell Sigmar the truth, at least not the whole truth. He’d tell the rest of the party immediately, and they’d all be in danger again. Rook settles on a partial truth. 

“I haven’t been sleeping.” He thinks hard, trying to remember the details. “I don’t think I’ve slept more than a couple of hours in the past two weeks.”

Sigmar’s jaw drops. “With that little sleep, you’re lucky to be alive.” He looks at Rook closely, inspecting his face. Rook shifts uncomfortably under his gaze. “What has been keeping you from sleeping?”

Again Rook pauses, taking a moment to consider his answer. “I don’t know. I can’t fall asleep and when I do I wake up again shortly after.”

Sigmar narrows his eyes. “I’ve told you: you and I are the same. We’re both liars. So don’t lie to me.”

An answer pops into Rook’s head and he puts conviction behind it, laying on false hesitation as if he’s revealing a big secret. “It’s Captain Wolf. Ever since I ran into her again, I haven’t been able to sleep. I keep having nightmares. About her.”

Sigmar stares at Rook for a long moment before seeming to accept the answer. A sense of relief floods Rook’s body. His secret is safe, for now. 

“Why are you doing this?” Sigmar asks, breaking the silence.

Rook blinks at him, uncomprehending. “Doing what? Coming to Torsek?”

Sigmar nods. “You’ve been pushing yourself to your limits, throwing your life on the line over and over again. Why? You’re endangering yourself, you’ve even died,”  Rook could have sworn he heard Sigmar’s voice waver on that word. “But you keep doing it. What could possibly be worth that?”

An answer leaps to Rook’s lips. “Because they need me.” It comes out quietly, but seems deafening in the empty room.

Sigmar leans back slightly, eyes widening in surprise. He looks Rook up and down, as if he’s reevaluating him. 

Without thinking, Rook adds, “You’re one of them.”

Sigmar, who has opened his mouth to speak, closes it again. He regards Rook for a long time. Eventually he says, “Your motivations may be more noble than mine, but at heart we act for the same reasons. I know you have not felt the care of a parent the same way I did…” He trails off momentarily, then continues, “But you are desperate for love all the same. I do everything in hopes of someday committing an act that will make the world love me. You, you act in hopes that the Vanguard will love you.” He looks Rook directly in the eyes, face serious. “You’re a fool.”

Rook says nothing, unable to summon up any kind of response to that statement. Sigmar continues, “The Vanguard does nothing but show you love, try to help you. They attempt to show you their love over, and over again. But you refuse to accept it.”

The words hit Rook like a slap, and he opens his mouth to retort, but Sigmar pushes ahead. “Instead of accepting their love, you throw yourself recklessly into danger, putting your life on the line again and again. You’re killing yourself, Rook.”

Rook’s eyes blaze with anger. He isn’t killing himself at all. He doesn’t want to die, far from it. He fights viciously for his life in every battle. He snaps back, “I’m not killing myself.”

Sigmar’s reply is swift and painful, like a bullet from his gun. “You might as well be.”

Rook finds himself speechless. What the hell is Sigmar talking about? He crosses his arms and turns away, refusing to meet the other man’s gaze.

A long silence stretches between them. Sigmar finally breaks it by saying, “I’ll help you. I just need to know that you’re telling me the truth.” His voice is surprisingly gentle, much softer than the whip-like tone from a moment earlier. 

Rook looks up at him. “I am telling the truth.” 

Sigmar frowns. “Rook, I told you, don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not!”

“You are. I know your tells.”

Arms still firmly crossed, Rook keeps his gaze fixed on the floor. He won’t – can’t – tell Sigmar the truth. 

Sigmar seems to realize that Rook plans to stay silent, and sighs. “I can start listing off my theories. My ideas as to what’s keeping you from sleeping.”

Rook says nothing, still looking at the floor. His eyes follow the grain of the wood as it meanders through the planks.

“Did Maka do this to you?”

Before he can stop himself, Rook’s head whips upwards, mouth falling open in shock. “What? No!” 

Sigmar merely nods, and Rook is hit with a sudden feeling that he may have just played right into Sigmar’s trap. Rook turns away again, trying to find the same grain on the same plank he had been before Sigmar had spoken.

“I’ve felt the same symptoms as you are now, but lesser, once before. Do you still bear Furicifer’s curse?”

A chill runs down Rook’s spine. He forces his voice to stay steady and calm as he says “Furicifer was banished. He’s gone.”

Sigmar is silent for a long moment, and Rook’s heart begins to race. Surely Sigmar will believe that. It’s not far off from the truth.

When Sigmar speaks, it almost knocks the air from Rook’s lungs. “I told you not to lie to me.” His voice is deadly serious, simmering with anger. As he begins to speak again, it grows in intensity, though still quiet. “What in the gods’ names were you thinking? We need to get rid of him.”

Rook interrupts him, voice firm. “I can’t. If I lose this curse, Furicifer is free to return to the material plane.”

Sigmar shakes his head. “We’ll find a better demonologist. Someone stronger than this Dr. Zayeed.”

Without thinking, Rook blurts out, “You promised you’d help me!”

Sigmar immediately falls silent, looking at him. His face is a mixture of sadness, concern, and something else that Rook can’t quite read. He stares at Rook until Rook grows uncomfortable, looking away. “I have two options here. I can enable you, help you continue to hide this from the rest of the party. Or I can tell them. Let them try and talk some sense into you.”

“I can’t.”

“What are you talking about? Of course you can. Tell the party and-”

“I can’t.” Rook’s voice shakes, but his tone is determined. 

“Why not?” Sigmar snaps back.

“It was them or me.” The words are out too fast, and Rook regrets them the minute they’re out. But he looks up, meeting Sigmar’s gaze. He says again, softer, but more steady, “It was them or me.”

A long silence passes, and Rook eventually looks away. He stares at the ground for  a long, long time, before he sees something enter his field of vision. Sigmar’s hand, holding one of the pills he’d made. Rook looks up at him, surprised. “Take it.” Slowly, Rook reaches out and grabs the pill. 

He swallows it quickly, downing it before the taste can manifest on his tongue. Energy floods his body. Though he feels miles better than the day before, he hadn’t realized how much exhaustion still lingered in his body. 

Sigmar grabs a pouch, presumably holding the other pills in it, and holds it out to him. Rook reaches for it, but Sigmar pulls it back. “I’ll help you on one condition.” Rook stares at him, but says nothing. “If your condition worsens again, I’m telling the party. And if you’re in your right mind, you’ll be telling them too.”

Rook’s shoulder slump in defeat. He needs the medicine desperately. He looks down at the floor again as he says, barely louder than a whisper, “Fine.”

Sigmar places the pouch in his hand and turns towards the door. “The rest of the party will want to see you.” 

As he reaches the door, hand on the knob, Rook speaks. “Thank you.” The words are quiet, but genuine, tinged by the weight of Rook’s desperation. Sigmar’s hand hesitates on the doorknob, but he doesn’t reply or turn back before he opens the door. As he walks off down the hall, Rook can hear him calling out to the party, “Rook’s awake.”

[crowleycringe]

Actual Addyson art for once

[redbootsindoriath]

More Dungeons and Dragons sketches.

It's probably a good thing for the sake of our characters' lives that we had to cancel the campaign because none of these guys were quitters. All three of us players chose intelligence or wisdom as our dump stat on the character sheets.

[heartcircus]

i don’t think fighting drain is necessarily the problem with realm pvp since good pvpers are used to fighting until armor break and replacing armor is just exping with extra steps. it’s the fact that you still can’t die after breaking all your armor easily and potion belts with super long potion times being a thing at all. you can just spam a billion turtle masters and just never die until the timer runs out and all your armor breaks. also the extended reach for pvp from levelling feels super unfair and bad for pvp, basically forcing you to max level martial if you don’t want to get combo locked for eternality while you can’t reach the opponent. it’s just reach hacks but not hacking. also the whole farming skill tree and the increased healing stuff from gaps also makes it so any damage dealt is instantly healed. realm pvp seems destined to be forever fighting drain and being forced to grind to be able to do anything unless they rework a more things than getting rid of the pvp reduction

i mean i agree pvp in and of itself on the realm needs a whole rework the reason i specifically called out the length of the fights as per the durability is because it was something clown mentioned when talking about why he never wants to fight on the realm again . the fights last too long without you ever dealing any actual damage until the armor is broken. you should be able to deal more than 0.4 without having to break your opponents armor.

generally speaking you Can kill someone in full armor in minecraft and not every fight necessarily requires you to break said armor. with good pvpers, yes, they tend to go until armor break, however it is not impossible for them to get a kill prior to it like it basically is on the realm. the only way to currently get a kill is to do something cheesy like bleed damage or the spear velocity thing. you cannot just do a proper 1v1 because it will take you hours to do anything substantial.

[nirvanaida]

the p4 remake seems unavoidable at this stage, and the only way i could see it being worthwhile is if they made SIGNIFICANT changes to the character writing. im talking entirely reworked arcs and social links, and not just for yosuke, kanji and naoto but like, all of them. but judging by the speed of p4re’s development, and the p3re team’s unwillingness to even slightly change a story that needed to be reworked at the STRUCTURAL level… it’s so persover.

[spellsparkler]

writing elias is fun for, i expect, the same reason a lot of people find the dark urge fun: I know more or less what's going on with her and she's got no fucking clue. she's a very information-driven person, and as soon as she realises that there is some largely indefinable difference between her and the rest of them she immediately starts trying to catalogue it and narrow it down. it's interesting to write someone who is so deliberately aware of themself and observing themself all the time

[mossyflowers]

I can't do this anymore just take it. Take the ace combat art. I'm going to explode

[ladyaster]

Because this game is so good and there was so much thought put into so many tiny little facets, here's a somewhat rambly list of details I think about a lot in Kuon (Fromsoft, 2004).

Spoilers below the cut.

For starters, something mentioned in interviews was how the weapons the protagonists carry were meant to reflect their personality. On a surface level, it can be seen as a very clear Onmyodo reference, that Utsuki being the more feminine of the two has a knife which could be seen as more menacing while Sakuya who adopts a more masculine persona has the more elegant-looking fan, the little blotches of white within the black and black within the white. HOWEVER it's even deeper than that, as fans were really effective weapons in ancient Japanese melee combat, meant to slice up the arms and wrists of enemies who came at you close-quarters or just whack opponents with a series of blades connected together, with Sakuya having studied her trade for so long it makes sense that in terms of combat she's prepared for anything, including using a very tactical melee weapon when a foe gets too close to hurl a fireball at. Utsuki on the other hand is a gardener in her spare time, and for a bit of fanart I was doing I decided to research Heian era gardening tools, and look at that, turns out that knives were a primary gardening tool back then for digging, measuring, cutting out weeds, etc. Even if this isn't a hori hori like she'd be using normally, this is still a weapon that'd feel familiar in her hands (she even uses a lot of downward swings when she attacks like she'd have to do if she were digging).

Silkworms are of course a big thing in the game, and a line that always stuck with me was in one of the loose journal pages from Manju (the Fujiwaras' son, for the uninitiated, his name was left out in the localization due to a translation error) when Miyoshimaru explains the practice of raising and breeding silkworms to him: "Why do they have wings if they cannot fly?". Yes, it's a distinct parallel to the Ashiya sisters and specifically Utsuki wanting to go beyond her house and the cliffside path after being so isolated all her life, but looking into domesticated silk moths a bit more, hoo boy, these little guys are basically the pekin ducks of moths. In short, they are very much a livestock animal (for the uninitiated, when a silkworm spins its cocoon it's boiled, killed, and the silk from the cocoon is turned into fabric) bred to exchange their ability to fly for maximum silk output, and they are also far more ravenous as caterpillars than their wild counterparts: if you don't bring them food regularly and fast, they will die. Sounds a little bit like what Kureha is experiencing as the subject for the kuon ritual (the ritual itself is also very reminiscent of how these rapidly growing caterpillars have to continuously molt through several instars before they reach the proper size and prepare for metamorphosis). So yes, the flightlessness and eventual death at the hand of the one who raised her reflects on one sister and being raised to become something else and used for someone else's own profit reflects on the other, and due to their captivity neither have grown to be as moths should be. Doman: father of the year. (for my source and further reading on domesticated silk moths, see here)

I type that out now and I just realized that making Utsuki a gardener who probably has had a hard time at least at one point dealing with some species of caterpillars eating her irises only for her to end up another figurative mulberry leaf for Kureha to consume and progress to her next instar was a stroke of cruel irony and symbolic of what their relationship had deteriorated into...like normally a moth would be a good pollinator and help flowers grow while the flowers provide the moths with nectar and as such they sustain each other, and ideally sisters should be sustaining each other, especially in tough situations, but now it's just a relationship where one consumes the other both figuratively with all the guilting and lashing out and literally with the ritual.

Aight I've mentioned in a past post that abuse and how it affects people seems to be an underlying narrative of the game which I do wanna do a proper essay about later, but I intend to get to work on that after a friend of mine who understands both Japanese culture/history and psychology better than my largely humble understanding plays the game with me and we can more properly analyze certain aspects, so stay tuned for that, but let's cover how this reflects on the tutorials of all things. Sakuya's personal experience with abuse is mostly but not entirely systemic, the manual highlighting that her family is particularly misogynistic in an era where women already aren't held in high regard, and in the Japanese dialogue she speaks with a very masculine tone and – until the endgame where she's seen her charges, coworkers, brother, and friend die and finds out that her supposedly open-minded teacher was just picking up whoever he could to send to the slaughter and breaks down in front of Seimei – acts very stoic in what seems to be an attempt to distance herself from what is traditionally feminine to be more accepted in a male-dominated field of work. There's a lot to dig into with this in regards to the essay I wanna do, but I wanted to point this out because we see in the tutorial that Sakuya may have people in her life, but they talk down to her. Sure, this is good info for us the players, and Sakuya is new to the squad, but I feel like a number of these things her coworkers point out, especially with how she's been studying magic and the art of exorcism since childhood, are things she probably already knows. The tutorial is largely just showing that, in spite of her hard work, Sakuya really does get very little respect. On the flipside, Utsuki doesn't get a proper tutorial. Once that pagoda falls over and Kureha peaces out to go chomp on people you're on your own, and you gotta figure the button commands and configurations out yourself. Now, one may say that this could be because the game may be pushing you to pick Sakuya first because her campaign has the more clear plot and the story overall makes more sense if you pick her first, but I think this also says a lot once you know more about Utsuki's home life. No one is ever in her corner. She's always left to take the fall (literally that one time). Her status as the family scapegoat is so very well portrayed in the early game where it's just her figuring out how to survive on her own and compared to Sakuya's storyline where, condescending and unhelpful as they are, she at least has people she can call allies, Utsuki is just totally alone and only has her knife to protect her until Sakuya helps her out. (side note: we already brought up the possible reason she even has a knife, and I just think it's really heartwarming to think that her hobbies gave her strength. Like they were her escape back home, and now her experience with them has allowed her to survive in a life-or-death scenario.)

My gosh it's honestly really sad how predatory Doman is when it comes to who he takes in as students. Like yeah Doryo mostly seems to be apprenticed under him because before he got kicked out of court he had a good resume and I guess that's how Sakuya joined as well, keep in mind he took in students just to feed Kureha or help her reach her next couple of instars to complete the ritual. Sakuya may have been the sister of one of his earlier students but he still took her in mainly because it didn't matter to him who showed up, so long as he had more fodder, and her desire to take on the family business in spite of how she was disregarded for being a woman made her an easy target. Similarly, Dokai is an older man obsessed with research, likely either an exorcist left to the wayside as he got older for a perilous line of work or even just an old man wanting more adventure out of life and never got the chance until now (still doesn't excuse him for locking Sakuya in a room with a gaki though my dude). Dochin is the one who really gets me because he's literally just a kid, either this is also the family business or he thought being an onmyoji would be super cool and fun only to realize too late how dangerous and scary it is.

That last one was horrible, time for something happier or at least more bittersweet. Alright so the moon's light is a reflection of the sun's, right? For the first half of Utsuki's campaign, it's largely identical to Sakuya's, and this is due to the fact she's having a dream while merging, so she's reliving a lot of both her own and Kureha's memories, but the fact so much of it is Utsuki in Sakuya's place in opposition to Kureha instead of just reliving Kureha's actions in the story, I just think it speaks volumes of how much actually having a friend impacted and inspired her, which honestly is the heart of the game: finding a support system and people who actually care about you. Just...ugh they are Kingdom Hearts levels of friends and for such an otherwise depressing game it's so wholesome.

Gosh if it's not so cool how you can only play as ya girl Seimei until you've played both campaigns. By experiencing both the On and the Myo, you have effectively become enlightened enough to earn the right to play as her and kick some serious butt. Personally I'll never get over how this game has a big "Holding Out For a Hero" finale. It's perfect for the fact that, first and foremost, Kuon is a folktale, and a folktale needs the folk hero to swoop in and save the day, and it honestly makes Seimei's campaign so fun.

There's other details I wanted to tackle based on the game's narrative and themes and lore and such but saving that for the essay, but if I think of any other details unrelated to that, which undoubtedly I'm sure I'm forgetting some other really good ones, I'll see if I can reblog with an update.

Just...HNNNNG this game is so good! They really thought of everything! It's a shame that to play it legitimately you have to choose between it and paying your student loans but like watch a playthrough if you can! I can't recommend it enough!

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

I have so many thoughts about my egg ocs and no way to convey them. aaaaaaaaaa

[thejokig23]

After playing Portable 3rd a bit more, I really gotta ask WHY some people call it the best in the series. I understand why it sold so much in Japan, but I don't really get the amount I've heard western players claiming it to be the best.

A few hours in, yes I'm having fun cause it's Monster Hunter, but I can't really think of any reason to play it over 3 Ultimate. 3U is just missing Bulldrome (literally who cares), Tigrex, Brute Tigrex, Akantor, Ukanlos, and Amatsu. 32 large monsters, compared to the 51 in 3 Ultimate, or the 59 from Freedom Unite.

Is it just because it's a 3rd gen game without underwater combat? Is that all it is???

[wardensantoineandevka]

sometimes I remember that, in a combat where his AC was 10, he lost 48 hit points (43% of his total) before his first turn and lost 69 points (nice, 62% of his total) by the end of round two, and the rest of the Nein don't enter initiative until the third round and most don't get to the main deck until the fifth round, it took until most of the way through round FIVE to kill Fjord

[autumnoakes]

i hate that i get so confused so easily in video games like why are there one william sidequests? why is there 100+ hours of gameplay that's required for one (1) singular playthrough? why is your map confusing? where do i need to go? how do i manage my inventory? no stop giving me every tutorial all at once this isn't helpful. stop it.

[castleinthemist]

finally got panzer dragoon working and daaaammn this game is pretty...gorgeous score...also there was a split moment where i was fighting a airship with a couple of floating things around it and using the lock on charge shot and briefly felt like i was in a blue drakengard....