#because my poor pc can barely handle it

[tittalosangeles]

Where does stuffit expander put files

#Where does stuffit expander put files for mac

#Where does stuffit expander put files manual

#Where does stuffit expander put files archive

#Where does stuffit expander put files rar

Apart from using it to complete that chore, however, few users will be pleased with what this utility offers. SITX files regularly-or ever-you have little choice but to use this utility. Of course, the one thing that StuffIt Expander does offer that other file-extraction tools don't is the capability to open StuffIt (.SITX) files, a popular Mac compression format. In addition, there is no Windows shell integration, and contrary to the publisher description, you cannot drag files onto the application window or its icon to prompt expansion.

#Where does stuffit expander put files archive

You cannot open more than one archive at a time, and the application cannot automatically create a folder for the archives you do expand. You can sort the resulting list by file name but not by size, location, or file type. StuffIt Expander is the simple way to open compressed or encoded files you download from the Internet or receive via email. On opening-and every time you return to the main window-the application insists on searching your computer for all supported files. Unfortunately, the program is hampered by a '90s-era user interface, limited functionality, and poor integration with Windows. According to its comprehensive Help file, StuffIt Expander 13.0.1.1 can now handle more than 30 file types, including. The utility fulfills its promise to handle more file types than past incarnations, which had been limited to. (Trying to launch the installer app, for example, after unzipping with Unarchiver, doesn't work the icon just bounces in the dock but never runs.Users looking for a tool to extract multiple archive types may be disappointed by the bare and clumsy interface of this latest iteration of StuffIt Expander. rar files, Stuffit is the program that unzips them into one folder in a workable format.

#Where does stuffit expander put files rar

I also checked if my harddrive was hidden (following your instruction), but it wasn't.ĭoes the version of Stuffit Expander matter? If so, which version(s) should I use?Īlso, is Stuffit Expander really the only software I should use for extracting rar files, not Unrar X, SimplyRAR, Unarchiver, etc.? I am asking this because apparently Stuffit cannot create the correct folder (directory) structure while other softwares can. I have 4GB memory and +100GB space in HD. > Do you have enough memory and space for the game? I tried using the older versions of Stuffit Expander - 13.0.3 and 14.0.0, but the results remained the same.

#Where does stuffit expander put files for mac

(I presume the files for Mac are the same as those for PC) I remembered that I had an old Aladdin Stuffit expander file for windows when it was completely free. I found a simpler solution to my problem. Here is the really long answer (also via google linux unsit). Ken121221 wrote:> You downloaded Generations from G4TW, correct? I looked at the Alladin site and it seems that maybe the Mac version also does Linux-you can try it, it is free. **if it doesn't say hidden, then this is not an issue for you and you can leave Terminal** Hostname:~ username$ ls -lOd 32 root admin hidden 1156 Feb 8 20:35 / (That's lowercase ell, lowercase ess, space, minus, lowercase ell, capital oh, lowercase dee, space, forward slash) make sure you are using an Administrator account and have the password open Terminal (Applications/Utilities/.)Ģ. Take any CD's / USB drives / iPods / connected disks out of the machine.ġ. You can check if your harddrive is hidden (which prevents installation)Ġ. These probably aren't related to the issue (seems like purely an extraction problem,) but:ĭo you have enough memory and space for the game? The 2009 version of Stuffit can be found here, if you haven't tried using it already: The precise system requirements for the Stuffit Expander application are included in the.

#Where does stuffit expander put files manual

It is possible that Stuffit Expander can convert between the listed formats as well, the application’s manual can provide information about it. You downloaded Generations from G4TW, correct? According to our registry, Stuffit Expander is capable of opening the files listed below.

[sims-himbo]

after travelling to the magic realm for the first time, vivianna is finally ready to begin her journey as a spellcaster!!

(build by netsrik97 on the gallery)

[bloodpenned]

plz plz plz can you write m!whitney skullfucking pc

wordcount: 2.5k (can’t believe this is the first time i write an actual fic on here.) cw: noncon, detailed ero guro / gore porn, eye trauma, drugging, knives, vomit mention, needle mention, degradation, victim blaming.

or: whitney fucks your eye socket and prepares you for the act. don’t read this to upset or trigger yourself, please.

Since all of your holes have been used by others, Whitney makes one for himself.

“Look at you- You can barely keep your fucking head up, slut.”

The voice drifts to you from far away, a figure leaning over the ice you’re trapped under. Where am I?, you ask, but all your vocal cords produce is a gurgle. Your limbs are made of cement and frozen in place. Letting yourself be dragged back into the depths of unconsciousness is much easier than staying afloat. Through trembling eyelids, you barely make out the shape of the person in front of you. Their legs, to be precise. Pain shoots through your scalp and you jolt, finally present enough for the ties around your wrists and ankles to register in your mind, the cold wall you’re leaning against. That it’s Whitney, because who fucking else would it be, yanking you up by your hair. Your tongue still refuses to move. 

“Follow.” His voice feigns disinterest. Yet he keeps shuffling, leaning his weight more on one leg, then the other again. He holds his hand in front of your face, moving it from side to side. Your head is so fuzzy you see no reason to disobey. By the time you’ve caught up with him to the right, he’s already back the other way. Your eyelids droop. He laughs. “God, you’re out of it. Poor you, did I gave you a little too much? You can’t say I’ve ever underestimated you.”

As soon as his grip loosens, your head drops and black dots litter your vision. Drool spills from your mouth. Something bad is about to happen, there’s no other explanation for this. His hands will end up all over your body again. But there’s no chatter of his friends, no flashes of cameras, so different from the usual that you don’t know what to expect. The world fades out, before flickering back in the middle of a sentence.

“...pay me back. Got that? Good.” The hand is back in your hair, keeping you steady. He’s digging around in his pocket. “If you weren’t such a whore, I wouldn’t have to do this. Did you think I wouldn’t see those pictures? Wouldn’t know when my slut’s gagging around someone else? I promised I would beat some sense into you if you didn’t listen, so here we are.”

Whitney’s found what he had been looking for. There’s something in his hand, moving toward your face too quickly to make out. Everything’s so blurry that even while squinting, you can’t immediately tell what it is. You nearly go crosseyed trying to figure it out. A handle clenched in his fist, gray, reflecting surface, ending in a sharp point-

A knife.

“You’re a fucking cumbrain already, but I’ll give you one too.”

You watch the situation unfold from the back of your skull. This is happening to someone else, anyone except you. It’s a movie, and a bad one at that. You can’t pinch your arm to wake yourself up. Whitney had hurt you before, sure, with his bare hands. Never like this. He’s always made fun of Kylar for having to resort to knives, why would he use one now? Is it just a threat? It has to be. Then again, you’re so disoriented you don’t stand a sliver of a chance against him. Your heart hammers against your ribcage, so loud it makes your head throb. The furthest your abilities go is to shake your head and force a whimper from your throat, rubbing your wrists raw on the zip tie. Whitney presses cold steel against your cheek. You try to spit at him, but you can’t put any force behind it. It dribbles down your chin in a slow stream. 

Whitney barks out a laugh. “What the fuck are you, a dog?” The knife digs into your skin, a gentle push away from slicing you open. “Don’t get to get too excited yet, we haven’t even started, slut.” He slides the blade up to your bottom eyelid, leaving a shallow cut. (Your brain is fuzzy. Your cheeks are warm, burning- Are you blushing? Is the wetness rolling down your face a tear?) Your fingers twitch, your teeth grind together, every muscle pulled tight like a bowstring. 

His breathing is laboured, eyes boring into yours, expression blank for a mere moment. Whitney, as you know him from school, is all but empty. He’s of scoffing and snarling, of laughter and grins- This is nothing you recognize. Your gut twists. Every instinct in your body is screeching at the top of its lungs for you to run. At the same time, another part tells you to stay as still as possible, as if you will simply fade out of existence if you don’t move. (But it’s okay, because none of this is real, and you’re at the orphanage in bed curled up under the covers, and you’ll wake up late and rush to get your uniform to not miss the bus and you’ll be fine, you’ll be fine, you’ll be fine-) Whitney’s tongue darts out to trace his upper lip, his fingers turning white around the handle. 

The next, there is a blow of air against your eye before pure, indescribable agony accompanied by a wet squelch. You’re dying, you’re dying, you’re dying, it’s over- Half of your face has been blown off, your brain is exposed for all to see and poke and prod, your lungs collapse with every breath, your throat spasms around vomit. What’s left of your right side of vision is a red and black pulsating blur. The screams, the sole outburst you’re capable of, are mere groans in the back of your throat. Your mouth opens and closes like a fish on land. Blood, sweat, tears, pus, slime- You wouldn’t know. Something oozes down your face, thick mucus, making a mess on your lap. You’re warm, you’re cold, sweat thick underneath your clothes. Everything is wet. Everything is hot.

A hand is on your head, stroking. The sensation dissapears into and becomes one with the pain, the thing that melts everything else away. “There you go, you’re being so good! But I’m not done yet.” He speaks to you in the tone reserved purely for dogs. From the corner of your good eye, you can see him reaching his fist back and pounds it against the handle, your entire world dissolving into nothing as it hits.

When you wake up, you do so to a palpitating heart that’s skipping beats left and right, to a convulsing body, to spit frothing at your mouth and a needle in your leg. The gag in your mouth rubs against your tongue and tastes of sweat. Whitney has discorded the knife, left it at your feet. Your eyeball looks like scrambled egg white on one end, a sloppy mess, and you gag. At one point or another, you will have to come to term with the fact that you’re never going to see from it again.

“Can’t have you leaving before the party’s started.” Your head whips around, the sensation of something sloshing inside your eye socket immediately making you regret it. Wind blows straight into the wound and causes you to ear up. He’s on your right. Somewhere. What you assume to be the syringe falls to the ground with a clatter. There’s no way he isn’t standing there, in the void he created, on purpose. You would’ve preferred to be really fucking dead right now. Let him rape your corpse, at least you wouldn’t have to be there to notice it. Whatever he injected you with, it’s all so much sharper now. The lights are brighter, every little step he takes ringing in your ears, your right eye (or the slurry that’s left of it) aflame. You rock back and forth to shuffle further away from him, but you’re already backed against a wall and the movement makes the blood in your skull slosh alongside it.

“Gotta check if you’re wet enough for me. Thank me later, slut.” Whitney pulls on your eyelashes, the tip of his finger teasing the hole. Once in a while, it dips into the wound, your nerves tingling in anticipation at the near touch. Breath hitching every time, your brain can’t comprehend what’s exactly happening to you. Your heart pounds in your ears, your limbs keep twitching against your will. Now that you can, you want to struggle, but you’re so scared of that pain, terrified that he could choose to take the other one as well.

All you want is for this to be over. You just want to be home. As flawed of a home it is, it’s still the one place you can think to return to. (Robin will be there, waiting for you. They always have. Could you still keep up with them during games, now that you’re like this? Bailey’s presence, suffocating as it is, at least keeps you safe from intruders. How pissed off are they going to be, now that you're a damaged ware?)

“Can’t you sit still for one fucking second? You wanna know what it feels like when I slip so badly?” Your head jerks to the side against your will, foot hitting his ankle. “I guess you do, huh? But, fuck- You keep writhing around, maybe I should give the needy whore what they want. You’re soaked, that’s for sure.”

Whitney pulls away, his fingers coated a pale red. Using your hair as a rag, he smears the fluids in it, tugging on it once for good measure. He takes a step back, descends back outside your field of vision. There’s the rustling of fabric, unbuckling of a belt, a zipper being undone. You begin to plead through your gag, repeating muffled, incomprehensible words, because please, anything but this, not right now, not ever, hasn’t he done enough, isn’t he satisfied, he’s already ruined you enough, please, just please-

“It’s cute you think you have a choice.”

There’d been a nagging suspicion in the back of your head that it would come down to this. Every meeting with Whitney would end up leading down the same path, but this time... You choke on your breaths, chest heaving with sobs. With every shock of your shoulders, more heat leaks out of your eyes, your entire face turning into one throbbing mess. You squeeze your eyes shut. (There’s no way you can move the right eyelid, the knife has torn straight through it. All it is now is limp meat, hanging on by a thread.) His dick presses against your cheek. Fucking hell, why does he have to be so big too? There’s ringing in your ears as he leaves a trail of precum, mingling with the mess already there. His scent overpowered by the metallic smell of blood. Why can’t you just pass out again? But you’re still twitching, thoughts racing faster than you can keep track of.

“You’ve been asking for this, don’t try to deny it. I’m not stupid. Well, you’ve got my attention now. You better be grateful.” He misses the first time, the head of his dick rubbing against your eyebrow. Whitney curses underneath his breath. Trembling fingers tug your eyelids as far apart as possible and you hate it, you hate this so fucking much, you want someone to come by here to save you, you want to sink through the floor, you want to die.

He sucks in a breath through grit teeth, and hits his mark. You’re not sure how much he crammed inside your skull, but all of it was too much, too cruel. The screaming is clear through your bounds, raking your throat raw. Whichever way you move, his cock stays lodged in between the bone. The muscles snap and tear, the bones crack, the flesh, like the tight fit that it is, clings around his dick, and he groans as he pushes himself further inside. An impossible amount of more fat and mucus and slime comes free, clogging your nose. The back of your head slams against the wall with every movement, but it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t compare. 

There’s nothing else. There can be nothing else. Your mind is full and empty at the same time. He’s all you can think about, he’s fucking the memory of him into your brain, leaving his permanent mark. Is this what he wanted? You’re being dissected, pulled apart, the creases of your brain violated. He’s saying things, (tight, mess, slut, enjoying, loud.), but he’s pulling out and the scrape of the warm flesh makes the scenery blur. Your throat feels like it was pulled across sandpaper.

The pressure dissipates and you cry in pure relief. But, a moment later, he’s back in and down a slightly different path at a slightly different angle and there’s more snapping, more gushes of fluid. The only thing that will ever fit there again will be him. The perfect little cocksleeve. He’s pushing up against something and you don’t know what, but every time he twitches and brushes against it, your entire vision blacks out. Where the pain reached a crescendo before, it’s turned around to be almost numbing now. Are your nerves torn up? Are you dying?

“Open your mouth. Wait, fuck-” He’s breathless, stuttering over his words. His dick twitches and scrapes against bone. Trembling fingers remove the gag from your mouth. If this were literally any other situation, you might have been almost proud to have turned him into such a wreck. “Stick your tongue out and it’ll be over. Done.”

You latch onto those words like a lifeline. No matter how it ends, you just want it to be over. Without much more than a second of delay you do as he asks, your good eye rolling up to try and look at him. Considering how full your head is, you hardly notice the strings of cum being added to the pool, until some of it leaks through your nose and onto your tongue. He puts one hand on your head, shaking it until more follows. (Though his cum isn’t the only thing there.)

Strings of blood and slime stick to his dick like drool as he pulls out. You hate him. You hate yourself. You hate this fucking town, and you hate every piece of shit in it. Your brain is a cacophony of screaming, of visions of growing fangs and claws and tearing him to shreds, of burning this whole town down. All you do is stare up without really looking, eyes glazed over. You’re tired, so unbelievably tired. All you want to do is rest, even if it’s while bleeding out in some shitty alleyway. His voice drifts to you from far away, smile clear in his tone.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

An eye for an eye has never sounded so appealing before.

[syn-odics]

alex. can you. tell me about your dnd ocs. 5 paragraph minimum

WELL I SURE THINK I CAN HEEHEHEEEHE

ok so before i get into it, i do have a whole oc blog @glasyasbutch that i used to use a lot when we were all locked inside our houses and now i reblog like. one post a week. BUT it does have a page w all the characters so u can see like. art and stuff bc i wont be trying to add images to this post 

OKAYOKAY OKAY . SO. I . okay. okay. I’m not gonna do all of them bc i have a lot of them but i’ll do . all the ones I’ve played recently + a few others I think are really fun. 

1. Stitch: this is the PC from the game i was talking about in the server last night, its not actually d&d, it’s a noir detective-inspired super power system called City of Mist. Our campaign is set in a steampunk-ish tiered city with like 300 floors to it, the higher you go the richer it gets. Stitch is an early 20s girl who wears huge glasses and turtlenecks/scarves all the time. She’s a seamstress who makes dresses for the upper upper floors. 

About four years ago one of her regular clients, Bela la Monte, was actually another rift (in universe name for people w powers) training Stitch in using her powers, which are. I guess easiest way to describe it is force powers?? She can like push/pull/crush/stretch things at a distance, with a lot of strength coming at the cost of no fine control (she can blow down a door, but couldn’t be delicate enough to just turn the handle). 

She killed Bela’s husband in an accident with her powers, essentially crushing his throat and killing him, and she suffered a little bit of backlash which left her with marks on her own neck which she wears the high necks/scarves to hide. Bela took the heat of the criminal investigation, basically playing up the Black Widow trope and implying she was the one who killed him but would pay her way out of a conviction if she got one so it wouldn’t be worth it to charge her. 

During the investigation, Bela and Stitch agreed to stop spending time around each other to try and keep them from prying too much into Stitch and potentially uncovering her guilt, and Stitch just hasn’t heard from Bela in 4 years. (Unbeknownst to her, Bela convinced herself that the accident was premeditated and Stitch had been planning to take them both out, and now has a huge vendetta she’s waiting for right moment to follow through on). Without Bela’s guidance, Stitch has been trying to find other Rifts who can help her learn about and control her powers, which means sticking her nose into all kinds of troublesome accidents and mysteries around the city but also having to stay unnoticed so her past doesn’t get dug up.

2. Craving: My one and only, I have genuinely written like 3000 word essays about Craving’s backstory and I will try to pare it down. 

She’s a tiefling, wine red skin w very very very long very very very curly hair. One side of her head appears to have very close cropped hair but if you look closely, it’s actually very little barbs, which she actually has all over her body (she is a barbed tiefling). shes goth and wears exclusively like victorian style ballgowns that make her boobs look good. She started as a rogue and over the course of the campaign also started taking levels in warlock (i’ll talk more on that later).

she has like every tragic backstory you can think of all smashed into one. she grew up poor in a gentrified area, her parents dying while she was young due to poverty/medical malpractice (more there that i dont have space to get into or i’ll be here all day). she (named velis at the time), her brother sirris, and sirris’ boyfriend rolx ran their family’s antique store and were barely scraping by but it was a happy life, until one day the shop got ransacked and set on fire with them still inside in a deliberate hate crime. sirris died, and velis and rolx vowed revenge.

they took the names craving (because she would never be able to take back enough of what the world owed her) and manic (because he was only living to satisfy his rage) and basically went on a revenge quest, first killing the guys who set fire to their town and then just sticking with the outlaw “rich people don’t deserve shit, bleed em dry” mentality.

while doing that, she met a gnome named stella who had her own fire-based dead family trauma that caused her to turn to a life of crime and they got arrested and broke out of jail together. Over several months of meeting randomly, and then not-so-randomly, to spend the night and work jobs together they fell in love but craving refused to admit it bc she’d seen w her parents and then rolx and sirris that love only ends in tragedy.

and she was right - stella went missing without a trace one day (i have other backstory there again wont get into it or we’ll be here all day). alone again w just her and manic, they ended getting sucked into barovia aka inescapable vampire-infested hellscape. which is the actual campaign. 

two other people in the party were a rogue/warlock named leoros and a cleric named judhas. craving was immediately very jealous of leoros bc, due to a combination of him having super crazy stat bonuses and me not being able to roll dice for shit, basically was just better at being a rogue than craving was. and she has a HUGE ego and a HUGE inferiority complex and would have done anything to not feel second best.

enter judhas, who as it turns out, was a cleric of asmodeus. the devil. and he was like uhhhhh you know. i can hook you up with someone. and he sent glasya, the demon in charge of manipulation and loopholes to offer craving a warlock pact to give her powers. in one of the coolest rp moments of all time, she showed up trying to strike a chord with the inferiority complex being like “oooh craving ... youre so weak and pathetic ... you have no morals and no skills ... its only a matter of time before they all realize it and leave you ... what a pity.” and then craving starts LAUGHING and she’s like “you almost had me, you really did, but the only thing I hate worse than being weak is being pitied.” and then GLASYA goes “well, before you leave, can i at least show you why I pity you?” 

AND THEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SHE PULLS UP A LOST SOUL FROM HELL AND IS LIKE “IF YOU TOOK MY DEAL, AND LET ME TEACH YOU, YOU MIGHT EVENTUALLY HAVE  THE POWER TO SAVE HIM. BUT IF YOU DON’T, WELL ... AND TURNS TO LOOK AT THE SOUL AND SAYS ‘SAY GOODBYE TO CRAVING, SIRRIS. TELL ROLX HELLO FOR HIM’ AND VANISHES.

Now, that was not Actually craving’s brother sirris but just a random soul named sirris, but obviously craving doesn’t know that, and so while manic is being offered powers by this super duper good god who’s trying to give him (and craving by extension) a redemption arc, craving gets judhas to call glasya back up and signs a pact with glasya without even reading it because she’s just so desperate to be able to save her brother, even though this is definitely going to damn her to hell, she was probably going anyways so. what’s the loss. 

and ughgghghgh it’s just SO much fun to rp as her and her story is so well crafted, much thanks to our DM and the player for manic, and its so tragic and so good and it makes me go crazy if i think about it too much and yeah.

Gent:  Ok this one’s pure wish fulfillment, he’s a he/him lesbian named Gent as in Gentleman. He’s a blue tiefling, a pirate, a wizard with a sword, and the sexiest bitch alive. 

He’s from a campaign set in the world of one of my fave ttrpg shows to watch (critical role) and basically he grew up in a port city and had some innate magical ability that got noticed by one of the captains of a ship that often docked in port there. She offered to train him and get him private tutelage from the big name wizard recluse who lived in a tower in the middle of the city IF he agreed to work as a deckhand on her crew, which he happily took up. 

Her name was Captain Crystal and as it turned out, the trade ship was only a cover. She and her crew were all casters and they ran one of the most feared pirate ships, which physically transformed as they pulled out of sight of port. The sails would change color, the ship would become swathed in shadow, and the masthead of a dainty girl with a dagger held in folded hands against her sternum would lean forwards, bear its pointed teeth, and brandish the dagger as it grew into a cutlass. 

Captain Crystal eventually has plans to use her caster crew to lead a coup and crown herself pirate queen, but as she’s been biding her time Gent’s been training up to a very high level abjuration wizard which without getting too much into d&d mechanics is basically like a defensive/protection wizard and trust me its very cool and sexy. He has a sword that he casts all of his spells out of which is also very cool and sexy. 

Overall he’s very sociable, very friendly, but his biggest downfall is that he hates not knowing things. He will put himself in an unreasonable amount of danger just to figure things out because he hates not understanding how all the pieces are being put together. His character voice is me doing a bad russian accent. 

Tov:  Tov is my character from an abandoned campaign that I will never forgive the fact that it got abandoned because he’s literally my only guy ever and I love him so much. 

He’s a silver dragonborn and his whole deal is like. Okay so in d&d lore gods are real and tangible and thousands of years ago they fought a bunch of wars against each other using the people on the material plane as their armies, and the dragon god bahamut created an entire race of dragonlings to fight in his name. Tov is from a clan of dragonborns that can actually trace their lineage all the way back to one of these armies created by a god and due to that, pretty much everyone in the clan has some innate magical ability.

keyword: pretty much. tov was one of the few people in recorded history born without any innate magic and he and his brother nagrax spent years and years trying to find ways to bring out the magic that was lying latent in him, or find him another way to gain powers so that he wouldn’t basically be the dud of the family. They ended up going to this site that had been mentioned as a place of great power and mystery, and it turned out to be a gate to the shadowfell (which is like. its overrun with shadow and decay and the plane itself feeds on your life force and corrupts your sense of humanity and turns you into a walking shell of yourself basically).

tov walked through the gate and got a little nugget of shadowfell implanted in him and it corrupted him and made him bent on nothing but destruction and he stepped back out of the gate and tried to kill his brother. rax eventually subdued him and was like “tov what the fuck” and tov was like “the ... the gate ... it showed me this horrible shadow version of you and i just felt the need to destroy it i didnt know it was really you at first” and rax was like. “at first? when did you realize it was me?” and tov just doesn’t answer because he realized pretty soon in that it was his real brother but he still couldn’t fight the urge to kill him

and rax was like, listen i dont know what walked back out of that gate but it’s not my brother anymore. my brother would never have tried to harm me once he realized. and as a testament to his memory, i am going to let you live. and i am going to back home. by myself. and tell everyone that tov died so at least his name isn’t tarnished by whatever the hell is wrong with you. and i never want to see you again. and leaves

and now tov is just alone, he gained magic but at the cost of his family and his humanity which is cosntantly fighting with this piece of the shadowfell inside him. he took up monsterhunting because he thought it might be a helpful way to channel his desire to destroy, and in the process met this woman savra who was basically brainwashed by a murder cult in her youth and now works this thing called the order of the gauntlet which is basically a protection guild that works to keep the city safe and the law just. 

and she offers tov a job there and they’ve grown closer as friends and were just starting to date before the campaign cut off, but like they’re both people who are haunted by a past of horrid horrid destruction who are both learning how to be more than the blood on their hands, and that there are people in this world who can know the worst parts of them and love them anyways, and she was going to call him a good man and really mean it and he’d feel a weight fall off his shoulders and they were going to get married and tov was going to have a home and family for the first time in like 10 years but we never finished the campaign and it makes me scream and cry 

ok those are like my top 3 + stitch and ive already written wayyyyy too much but i have. many many more and i could talk about them forever. 

(ezra glimmer ebbie nissy are all ones ive actually played and have many many thoughts about; stella (from cravings backstory) hed’ja billie and unnamed klingon ripoff are ones i just have concepts for but havent had a chance to play in a campaign bc they’d require a Lot of homebrew worldbuilding to make their concepts work, but if you want to know more about any of THOSE guys feel free to ask but youve already had to read so much im not putting more on here) 

[nicka-nell]

I'm Kiyoomi Sakusa and I'm a germaphobe - Chapter 2: I’m not a germaphobe

Words: 1.466 Warning: none

Chapter 1 -  Bacteria, fours and everything else     | Masterlist

(y/n) = your name | (l/n) = last name | (e/c) = eye colour | (h/c) = hair colour

„Tell Fogawa-san how is your wife?" (y/n) asks her patient as she slowly loosens his threads and pulls them out of his arm. „Oh you know, (l/n)-sensei, she’s fine. She went to our daughter’s house yesterday and will stay there until tomorrow. You know, our daughter is about to have a baby." The elderly man boasts with joy and only briefly deforms his face when the second thread is pulled.

„Oh, that's great news. Congratulations, does she know what it’s gonna be?" Briefly, her (e/c) eyes look at him, but quickly wander back down to his arm. „A girl.“ he smiles openly. Just when (y/n) can say something, the door behind her is torn open with an incredible force.

While Fogawa is frightened and convulses, (y/n) calmly pulls the threading out of his arm. „(l/n)-sensei! I am so sorry, but the young man here just stormed off and I couldn’t stop him anymore." Wakami tries to apologize. (y/n) could almost feel sorry for that poor woman. She’s only been here a month and has to deal with a special person like this man.

„I have an appointment, and it’s exactly in two minutes." Sakusa hisses and enters the room. But (y/n) doesn’t answer him. The last thread is now drawn, and she looks up joyfully to Fogawa. „This looks good, doesn’t it? Here you have the recipe for the physio lessons. We have a physio practice nearby. You can go there if you want. But of course you can also choose one that is closer to your place of house. Say, unknown wise, my congratulations on your daughter’s pregnancy, yes?" With a calm voice she gets up from her chair and helps the man to get up. Still somewhat confused, he looks back and forth between her and the two people in the door, but then thanks her and says goodbye.

„(l/n)-sensei...I'm so sorry..." Wakami tries to apologize again with a sad look. „Wakami-san, please go with Fogawa-san and leave the new patient to me." Her calm voice makes Wakami relax a little and her shoulders fall down.

Still (y/n) has not turned around. Instead of welcoming the new patient, she first disinfects the bed on which her patient sat and then drops the bottle. With a sigh, she then turns to her colleague and her new patient and takes off her one-way gloves to throw them away in a bucket next to her.

„And you’re the impatient patient who doesn’t want to go to the emergency room because of a broken finger, but needs an appointment right away... Then come here." she says monotonously, but if he listens carefully, he can hear a small hint of sarcasm in her voice. With her words, she puts on new disposable gloves and sits back on her chair with crossed legs.

Only her eyes are visible, as her face mask covers the rest of her face. But he had never seen such beautiful eyes. Like a cat, she checks him out. He didn’t expect to find such a young, pretty woman. Aren’t most surgeons old men or women? She must have started her studies pretty early...

„Do you just want to stand there now?" her voice pulls him out of his thoughts. „Sit down.“ With a head movement she signals to him that he should sit on the freshly disinfected couch. „Wakami-san, please go now and close the door behind you." Nodding, she quickly grabs the door handle and closes the door, leaving (y/n) and Sakusa alone in the treatment room.

With his hands in his jacket pocket, he walks towards the gurney and sits down skeptically. „So unknown one, then show me your hand, so I can’t see anything." (y/n) smiles with a sarcastic undertone.

„I'm Sakusa. Kiyoomi Sakusa.“ The black-haired man answers her in a calm tone and takes his hands out of his jacket pocket. Cautiously he takes off his gloves and hides a painful sound.

(y/n) already noticed at the beginning that he wears a facemask. At first she thought, by the appointment request and the mask, he would have a previous illness and so did not want to expose himself to any danger. But now that she sees his dry, cracked hands, she realizes a lot. He's a germaphobe.

„You have dry hands." she says, looking at the hand that supposedly has the broken finger. „You’re supposed to look at my finger and not rate my skin." He just hisses. „You're suffering from germaphobia. Don't get me wrong. A life as a germaphobe is not easy. They are limited in their professional life, social contacts and general life. But no one tells them how to live. Just do me a favor and buy yourself an salve for your dry skin. When your skin bursts, it provides a much larger area of attack for bacteria. I’ll prescribe you an salve." She mumbles to herself while she looks at his fingers. „I'm not a germaphobe...“ he hisses again, but looks closely at the young woman in front of him.

„Oh? Then you surely have no problem to shake hands with me, do you?" With her eyebrow raised, (y/n) looks at the black-haired man in front of her. Annoyed, he turns his head to the side. „I don’t know why it matters now." He grumbles when he sees the young woman’s hand stretched out before him. Triumphantly, she pulls her hand back and says nothing more.

Energetic (y/n) gets up from her chair and asks Sakusa to follow her. „We have to x-ray the finger once. After that we know more, but for me it looks more like a sprain, how did that happen?" She asks curiously, as she, with Sakusa behind her, goes into the room for the x-rays. „In sports.“ he barely answers her as he catches himself watching her hip swing. How disgusting Kiyoomi, he thinks and only shakes his head.

„Let me guess, from your build, I would consider you a volleyball player... Strong arms, strong back... are you an ace?“ she mumbles in front of her and puts a lead apron around him and pushes him down on a chair. Concentrated, she fixes the apron.

“It’s not hard to see, I’m wearing my team jacket." With his eyebrow raised, he looks through the room. „How interesting..., do you really think that I take care of that? Small talk is probably not your thing what? Then just stay there. Do you wear jewelry?" With her head tilted to the side and her hands on her hips, she looks at the man in front of her.

Shaking his head, his gaze wanders from her to his hand. For the fact that she was so friendly with her previous patient earlier, she is quite tough with him. „I leave the room for the X-rays and I’ll be right back." She calls out to him on the way out.

Several recordings are made and the two wait for a moment until they see the evaluation of the recordings on her PC screen. „Everything looks good so far, no fracture, your finger’s just sprained. I’d give you a bandage and you’d rest your hand for a few days, all right?"

Her gaze changes between the recordings and Sakusa as he nods and looks at his hand with relief. He’s glad it’s not boken. After wrapping the bandage around his finger and writing him a recipe for a skin salve, (y/n) gets up and opens her room door. „All right, then you can go now." As if another person were standing in front of him, she smiles at him with her beautiful eyes.

„Goodbye (l/n)-sensei." He says goodbye to her as he passes her. „Goodbye Sakusa-san... Oh yeah and...  the next time you have a sprained finger... Go to the emergency room like everyone else, because of this, my break is gone." she spits at him.

There is the familiar mean devil Sakusa had not seen in her for a short moment. For a brief moment, she looked to him like a peaceful doctor’s angel. But now that the door was slammed in his face, he knew that this woman was anything but not an angel.

Annoyed, (y/n) holds her finger to her temple. „What a weird guy... I'm not a germaphobe. Sure.“ she grins and just wants to disinfect the bed when she sees an unknown key ring lying there. It must be from Sakusa. 

„Oh damn it...“

Chapter 3 - A woman?

Taglist: @kara-grayson04​

[whetstonefires]

☕️ ffvii remake?

Lots less salt here! This tea is actually drinkable.

I haven’t played this and at this rate probably never will--between my poverty and my poor reflexes/parallel processing skills it’s very unlikely to become a workable return-on-investment unless they put out a cheapish PC port with accessibility hacks.

And I don’t love every decision they’ve made by a long shot, but honestly from everything I can tell they did vastly better than I had any reason to expect. This is probably the most sincerely made adaptation I have seen come from a major corporation in...I can’t rank it perfectly because most of my data is secondhand, but I’m honestly blown away by how genuinely they engaged with the source material.

Even a good half of my ‘don’t like that’ reactions are on a ‘I disagree with your analysis fellow fanfic writer’ level rather than a BULLSHIT! one. They have totally blown away the entire Compilation on every single normative measure of quality.

(I still hope Angeal gets to have existed tho.)

Of course I’m also withholding judgment to an extent because it’s not really a full game--they’ve set up some kind of tangled metatextual narrative that they may or may not be prepared to follow through on in any satisfactory fashion. Endings are, after all, Hard.

But choosing to commit to metatextual fuckery in order to thread the needle between faithfulness to the material and the eternal demand for novelty was a good call, imo. I endorse this. Good hackwork.

I’m mad materia no longer bud when mastered, but I’m really pleased the materia-based magic system is still there.

They treated Barret well! This is important. One of the things I am least able to forgive Before Crisis for (there are a lot) was the massive number of insulting-to-Barret retcons they piled into his backstory. But from what I can tell he got to be Cool and has acquired new fans, rock it. 🤘

I know Nanaki was in it but I have no idea how he was treated. He does not seem to have acquired so many new fans, too bad.

I’ve also heard weirdly little about how they handled Aerith??? A pivotal character who carries vast tracts of Plot??? I may need to ask about this that’s weird.

On a self-satisfied note people who have only played the Remake feel that my characterizations of Barret’s chapter-one-only Avalanche members (based purely on the OG) ring true, which tells me that both I and the Official Writing Team looked at the existing lines of dialogue and attempted to be loyal to what was established there. Which you’d think would be the bare minimum but SOME PEOPLE (fucking Nomura) think they’re too good for fucking continuity of character.

Hm. Little bit of salt there lol. Outside this cup tho!

The new characters have failed to make any impact on me yet other than the one with a name confusingly similar to Marlene creating conflict with my headcanons for how Tifa established herself in Midgar. But I was already in conflict with canon there lol because the OG wanted me to believe that Tifa’s teacher carried her impaled body to a slum ruled by her enemies on the other side of the planet for medical treatment, and then fucked off. Which is dumb and thus I have largely chosen to ignore it.

The omnipresence of Sephiroth, a character who totally failed to appear even in flashbacks until Kalm in the original, is hilarious. Like obviously they had to. People would riot if they dropped all that money on a FFVII and they didn’t get the shirtless longhair mean man. But it’s funny.

[voidgremlin]

An oath to Hope

Doctor who human au fanfic

Chapter 1: I think I met a shooting star.

“Park Hill enter D, presumed TWOC with IC1 (‘individual of white skinned European appearance’) female”

A junior officer with dark brown hair in a tight bun turned her head expectedly to her colleague, a lean man with messy brown hair and an as well messy beard who winked at her. He was her senior for her training and couldn’t help but smile at his antics.

“Patrol 7 on it.”

PC Khan asked “What is TWOC ?”

“Well… It is… mhm. I guess it is when someone lose their car keys and try to jimmy their way in. In the dark of the night ? Something like that.” Kenny said with a thick Scottish accent.

“So it’s vehicle theft ?”

“I mean… We can’t assume thievery right away, it is a presumed Taking without owner’s consent ! And who need cars nowadays ?”

Yasmin chuckled “You would be surprised on how many would contradict you sir.”

“By the way, isn’t Park Hill where you live ?”

“Oh my stars ! It is ! We got to go very quickly !” She exclaimed quickening her steps to the car. “I am driving sir.”

“Alright but no need to call me sir !” He said throwing her the keys .

As Yasmin Khan drove them to the potential crime scene. Her senior started to lean in his chair ignoring seatbelt and his legs unto the tabletop of the car. Rambling about the nightshift hours and it made his skin itchy that it could be his alleged time sickness, it only made Yasmin roll her eyes in silence.

Arriving to the Park Hill estate illuminated by the yellow light of many street lamps. Yasmin quickly made her way on the parking lot searching for the thief. Be it was quiet, it looked like nothing.

Agent Coinneich Tàileach or better known as Kenny ran by her side.

“Why are you running PC Khan ? You know this TWOC might be just ten racoons under a coat ?”

“A what”

“Racoons. Or a ghost … who knows ?”

“It is definitely not ghost” Yasmin pointed out to a Pontiac blue car with the highlights on, illuminating another car, trunk and hood opened, wires spilling out with a short woman arms full of sludge, blonde hair tied up in a lousy ponytail.

Yasmin knew that car, it was her neighbor’s and she pulled out her flashlight directed to the woman’s face.

“Hi ?”

The woman turned her head toward Yasmin and to be plainly honest she got a quite beautiful face.

“Hi !”  Oh scratch that ! Now the woman smiled and she got now a way more pretty face and Yaz could feel her face burning up.

“What…” The junior agent turned to her senior who seemed quite interested about the whole situation and wasn’t about to help with it. “What are you doing ma’am ?”.

“I. AM. UHM. NOT. CARJACKING.”

“Sounds like you are.”

“No ! I am repairing ! The car it made a sound like RATATATATATATA for quite a while !” she made wild gesture while making the sounds as loud as possible.

“Madam you need to quiet down a bit, it is 2 a.m.”

“Who ?”

“You.”

“Oh ! Madam is me ! Alright yeah ! I will shhhhh” she made the motion on her lips, her smile still so beautiful.

Yaz made a few step toward the woman, noticed a grey coat lying on the ground next to O’Brian’s car. The blonde woman was jittery and not making eye contact.

“Anyway, car was making a noise and the man who drives it seems to not want to get her to a mechanic soooo I brought a mechanic !”

“Who ?”

“Me ! It could have been bad ! Maybe explosion bad ! Like BAM no mister Graham ! And yeah, we don’t want that !”

Yasmin frowned at the mention of mister O’Brian name but didn’t pursued, instead looked at the mechanic, she was a little gaunt, didn’t seemed to have slept in while.

“You know, you could let the car alone for tonight and I know mister O’Brian” Yasmin said while motioning to her chest. “I will tell him about the car and we will get it fixed. Alright ?”

But the woman didn’t listened. She went right back into the car, mumbling to herself. “No, no, no I can do it myself, I am able to do it. I can fix it. No more sounds !”

Kenny looked at Yaz and encouraged her to keep talking to the mystery while he called to the station to inform of the lack of thievery, pretending that it was neighbor being an asshole. Yasmin walked beside the mechanic whose hands kept shaking. She won’t be able to fix anything.

“Hello, my name is Yasmin.”

The woman kept her eyes down to the motor, making a fist to hide her weakness.

“Hi, I’m Nadzieja.”

“So what is wrong with the car of the old man ?”

It made her smile. “Well, the sound is because the serpentine belt is getting loose and it if breaks it would… Just break everything else.”

“Alright, it seems like a big problem, how can I help ?”

She looked at her like Yaz said some kind of magic. “Oh I love you, you sounds brilliant !” then proceeded to instruct to her how to change the serpentine with clear instruction which Yasmin tried to follow with a lot of mistakes. But she  learned a whole lot and finally succeeded when the morning started to show.

“Oh my bloody stars ! We made it ! We saved the car !” Nadzieja screamed in victory when the motor roared with a bloody sound.

“Yeah !” Yasmin smiled, tired, sweaty but victorious.

The scream made birds fly away and woke up the poor colleague who was trying to take a nap. He made a weak fist bump into the air in support. They slowly cleaned up their mess, the mystery woman’s hands weren’t shaking anymore and Yasmin felt like she made the universe a little more brighter.

“So do you wish we accompany you to your home ?”

“Uh ?”

“Your home ? Do you live in the estate ?”

“Oh no !” She said while putting off the highlights of the blue car. “I sleep in there !”

“In your car ?”

“Yeah ! I travel a lot ! So… “ she slapped the wheel of the car “That is my home.”

“I… ok ?”

Nadzieja nodded to her wildly. “That being said officers ! I wish you goodnight !” and laid down in the back seat, holding a yellow blanket to her chin. Not bothering with the smudge and the sweats. They both looked at her sleeping with strained smiles. Before going back to the police station with heavy steps.

Kenny took over the driving this time around having benefited from his little nap. PC Khan kept thinking about the woman, how tired she seemed, stressed out, she wanted to do right by someone she didn’t know about, shouldn’t know about.

“I have address of some woman shelters if you want.”

“What ?” Yasmin asked.

“For the surprise mechanic lady, when you go back home, you could give her address of shelter or association so she can find some housing.”

“Oh yeah. Thanks ! That’s a great idea !” pulling out her note pad, taking down the addresses.

“You are welcome my dear padawan.”

They returned to the station, putting back their equipment and the senior agent got called in the S.O. office to explain why the hell they were away the whole night. Yasmin wanted to explain but Kenny told her that he could handle it.

Yasmin Khan returned home exhausted but hoping to see her again. Reaching the parking lot she spend an hour in it, searching for the fated blue car. But the car was gone and she was gone to Yasmin dismay.

Yasmin was welcomed home by her family slowly waking up and the odor of fresh coffee, she decided to go directly to sleep, anxiety toward the woman she barely knew gnawing her insides. Her mom kissed her forehead seeing her worried but the magic of a mom kiss didn’t helped with the sleep. The beautiful woman was gone probably dealing with her issues on her own, definitely had it handled, like she couldn’t handle the car motor engine with her shaky hands or the lack of sleep or eating. What if she got into a car accident ? What if she got hurt and no would know her name. Would someone help her if needed ?

“Gosh darnit”

In any case sleep eluded her so she decided to spend the rest of the day, to her parents dismay, searching for a Pontiac blue car in the town of Sheffield. Hoping, dearly hoping to find her. At least see her safe.

The blue car was parked in front of the old building next to the hospital. The sight of it made the blonde woman shiver. But it wasn’t why she was there. She stared at the front door and saw a tall woman in a blue and gold dress getting out. She seemed well and healthy. Nadzieja followed with her eyes, the woman leaving and sighed in relief. One day she will be able to talk to her.

She searched everywhere, on her sister bike, wandering the streets like a madman. Asking florist and people at the counter of coffee shop, she even went by the aforementioned women shelter and yet nothing. No leads, no trace. The woman vanished. Hours went by and her body couldn’t handle much more exertion. She returned home with quiet sob of frustration.

It is only when she reached the parking lot that she saw, the beautiful blue car, standing exactly where she left it. She approached nearly throwing to the ground the bicycle seeing through the windshield, the older woman writing through what seemed to be a diary. She was so pretty.

She softly knocked on the window, blushing. Nadzieja looked at her with surprise and a smile.

“Hi !”

“Hi. I was wondering if you wanted a cuppa of tea ? I live nearby.”

She was dreading a negative answer, after all she was only a stranger who met a few hours ago and she must look like hell with the lack of sleep and her hair… Gosh she forgot to fix her hair !

“You are Yasmin ! My brilliant assistant ! I remember you.”

“oh !”

“You seems like a wonderful person and I would love to drink some tea at your place !”

Yasmin beamed, to hell the little information she was supposed to share with her, to hell duty or sleep. All she wanted now was to be with this beautiful shooting star.

[diaboleite]

D&D as “cooperative character development”.

I want to talk about character design not in terms of stat choices and class selection, but in terms of personality, motivation, and characterisation. Making an interesting, fun character in a story is not the same as making an interesting, fun character in D&D; the total control that a writer has over their own story is completely at odds with the chaotic clusterfuck of D&D campaigns. Here is how to create and develop a character in a way that facilitates cooperation between you, other players, and most importantly your DM: 1) Make a character that can "play D&D". This one is pretty simple, but fundamental enough to warrant inclusion in this list. Even narrative focused 5e, with its heavy emphasis on plot, roleplay and character customisation, is still a bunch of PCs going on adventures. (If you’re not interested in exploring and combat, D&D is not the game for you! Plenty of other RPGs will cater to you better.) It is essential that some aspect of your character’s personality or backstory or environment drives them towards a risky lifestyle of adventuring. There are plenty of unique potential motivations, both in the PHB, and of your own devising. Just be sure you’re motivating your character towards the gameplay of D&D.

3) If your character’s goal is to stop "playing D&D" and settle down, at some point they may be in a position to achieve their goal and there's nothing the DM or other players can do about it. Closely linked with number 2 on the list-- if the character you have created wants nothing more than to settle down and sell homemade jam, a couple of levels into your campaign, they will likely be in a position to do exactly that. Either be prepared to retire and reroll a new character at this point (talk to your DM, if this is on the table!!!!!), or have character development over the campaign that has them change their goals. They could become aware of how much good they are doing in their role as an adventurer, become too attached to the party to leave, or develop a personal vendetta against wrongdoers; whatever this growth manifests as, the onus is on you as a player to ensure your character continues on with the campaign.

4) Create a character with flaws. If your character does not need the other characters in the campaign, you have created a boring character to play alongside.

From a writing perspective, there’s no practical problem with creating a badass, self-sufficient protagonist, especially if you want to tell a gritty, survivalist story. In D&D, there are practical problems with trying to have a character that is entirely self-reliant and rounded: you are not the single protagonist of this story, and you shouldn’t try to be. Sure, with the right character stat finessing, feats, and playstyle, you can make a character without too many in-game, or in-character weaknesses-- but don’t! This is bad manners in the same way that a munchkin-y character build is bad manners: you are feeling good about your character at the cost of other players’ fun. D&D is cooperative, so cooperate. (Specialised characters will ultimately be more powerful, anyway!) If you feel a little useless in melee combat, but have a ball navigating through social encounters with your +7 persuasion, you’re playing the game right. Someone at the table is on the other side of the coin, smashing skulls effortlessly and then barely able to order a beer without offending someone with their poor social graces. (This does not mean your character should not have “self-sufficient” as a character trait, especially if you’re selecting something like the “hermit” background. There’s a difference between being a character being practical and slow-to-trust, and trying to make a character so self-reliant and well-rounded that there’s no situation you wouldn’t feel your character could handle better alone than with the help of the rest of the party.) The space on your sheet for character flaws should not just say ‘has trouble trusting others’. Spend some time balancing your character’s good qualities with the bad, and consider how stats may play into this in more complex ways than ‘my character with a low intelligence modifier makes stupid decisions under pressure’. If your strength is high, consider making your character unwittingly bullying, because nobody dares stand up to them. If your character’s charisma is off the charts, consider making them a little too deft at manipulation, even amongst friends. Flaws are the startpoint for character growth, and without them you will find yourself reluctant to change your character as the story unfolds.

5) If your character does not want to share backstory at all costs, they might never end up sharing backstory, and you're going to have to deal with never getting to show off your creative writing. Keep in mind that if your character is too secretive, even if the DM tries to shove you face-first into plot related to your own backstory, you may feel obliged to play your character weaselling out of it. This is related closely with my next point:

8) If it's unrealistic for your character to forge connections with other people in the party, then you have created a bad D&D character. Remember when I said it’s fine to have a character trait that is “slow-to-trust”? There’s a difference between slow, and flat out unwilling. Maybe your session one character is instantly chummy, maybe your session one character holds the rest of the party at arm’s length and keeps secrets. Whatever the case is, you will need to reach a point of investment in other PCs, or you will not be able to participate in cooperative character growth. One of the most important traits of a good D&D player is investing in PCs that aren’t your own. Try to compare, relate, and contrast other PCs with your own. Try to understand their goals, their relationship with your PC, and with the rest of the party.

9) Your new character is at the start of their most important arc: their adventure with their new companions. Create backstory accordingly. As someone beginning a D&D campaign, is important for you to understand that your character is about to go through the most incredible, dangerous, vivid experience of their life. This is reflected both in experience points, and also an immutable truth of the D&D universe: people with the skills and power of PCs are rare and special. There are very few people in the world who will ever achieve the power of high player class levels; the campaign that gets your PC there will accordingly be legendary in scale. (On the other hand, don’t be scared to give your character some epic or heart-wrenching backstory, just be mindful that their ‘character arc’ isn’t yet complete. There’s a world between “I was just sitting in a room on a chair eating saltines for, like, 28 years” and the sort of well-told, unresolved backstory that comes out over the course of a Critical Role campaign. Also, consider the purely in-game, mechanical reason: even if your barbarian’s backstory involves slaying an entire horde of murderous dragons and becoming a renowned folk-hero, you’re going to be at the same starting point as the rogue whose backstory is ‘I cheat at cards to make enough money to eat’. Your level 1 character will not be up to fighting dragons for at least a couple of dungeons. Well-written backstories are about intensity of character motivation, richness of detail, not about the epic deeds accomplished off-screen like a low budget superhero TV show.

10) The show game must go on. Cooperate and be willing to compromise your characterisation to make that happen. D&D is a hobby that you and your group are going to voluntarily participate in. Make a character that facilitates that. I’ve already covered a few ways in which your characterisation may end up sabotaging your own ability to get involved in the plot; there are untold ways in which you can sabotage the plot or the enjoyment of your fellow players. Above all else, being a good player means having a capacity to compromise and cooperate. Is your character such an asshole that nobody in the party will want to play alongside them? Retire your character, or be prepared to do a supersonic heel-face turn. Is your character so morally puritanical that they cannot remain in the company of anyone who isn’t unfalteringly lawful good? Retire your character, or find a way for your character’s stance to soften. Is your character going to be so boring to play that RP will feel like a chore? Retire or change your character. (A sticking point in the game is not necessarily your fault. If you’re finding another PC impossible to play with, talk to your DM about it. Their player might not have even noticed the ideological/motivational divide.) It’s important to be “on your character’s side” so you can play them convincingly, but on a meta-level try to take a more objective stance in disputes, with an explicit goal to resolve tension in a timely manner. If your fellow players aren’t on the same wavelength, talk to your DM who can clear it up with them.

[ghostmartyr]

Pokémon Black 2 Randomized Nuzlocke Run [Part 1]

White was so much fun, the sequel was obviously inevitable. Only I don’t own White 2, so Black 2 shall be our contestant. All encounters and starters will be random, static pokemon are what they are originally. Any pokemon not randomized is ineligible for use.

Nuzlocke rules, again copied from Bulbapedia:

    Any Pokémon that faints is considered dead, and must be released or put in the Pokémon Storage System permanently.

   The player may only catch the first Pokémon encountered in each area, and none else.

My added rules of choice:

Each pokemon must be nicknamed.

If the first pokemon in an area is a species I’ve already caught, the first one that isn’t will become the catch option.

The catch rules start applying once I have the option of catching things.

No looking anything up on guides.

Team wipe means continuing on using whatever I have in the PC.

Let’s have some fun.

Second verse, same as the first.

I haven’t adjusted the text speed yet and it is driving me insane.

I remember having so much love for this gen, but the designs of these poor children still provoke odd looks. Not that I mind walking around with a palm tree on my head, I just question why anyone thought that I would want that.

Hugh!

Wait, do I get to pick his name?

I do!

Uhhh.

Wow, I forgot that this was the hardest part about Nuzlockes. I can’t just go with Hugh if this is a true random. Hm. Okay then, in honor of friendship, this guy’s name can be Russell.

The first thing our mom does in this game is give me cause to ship her with Professor Juniper. Our mom knows her first name. It’s Aurea. Why would she know that if they were not secretly involved in some way???

Is this the first game that has an outside character get first crack at moving the screen around after we’ve chosen our name? I kind of like it.

I like it more now that it’s ending and I can switch the text speed to Fast.

Heeeeey it’s us. Palm tree hair and all.

I never find out what the contrary answers lead to, because I can never make myself pick them. It makes my completionist nature very sad. As does the reminder that I do not have the ability to run yet. Someone please give this poor boy some shoes.

Bianca is here to meet us!

She is not our bestie in this version, but she is in our hearts.

This is our bestie this version.

He’s got a little sister.

Just so we know all that black and red in his color scheme is for show.

Look at him walking in time with us like the total bro he is.

Dude is this his room? I want one.

Bianca! Friend!

That awkward moment when you have the same name as one of her best friends who will never be seen this entire game.

Okay okay okay it’s time.

Time to receive our starter.

Our choices are:

Ah that’s rough. Hm.

My preference is always going to be to have something’s first state, that I can level up and evolve myself, but I recently finished my White run, and in it I had Larvitar’s line as well as Aggron’s, so really, there can be only one choice.

Snorlax, I choose you!

And my first act as your new friend is to give you a brand new name that I need to come up with!

Snore, sleep, yawn... sleep words... Dreamor?

Heck that’s a dorky name. He needs it.

Dreamor got, Russell steps in and asks for an in on our journey. He has his own super special mission that I’m not supposed to remember but I do, and talks Bianca into giving him a pokedex as well. Because Bianca’s a sweetheart.

But before we can go any further, it’s time to d-d-d-d-duel!

Everything about Russell’s design screams childhood-friend-gone-villain and I love how little that has anything to do with his arc.

Oshawaott vs. Dreamor! Lesgo!

Snorlax knows Tackle and Defense Curl, which is actually appropriate for a starter. I am going to be dull and Tackle spam.

...

OHKO.

Dreamor appears to be... enthusiastic. in his participation.

G-good job, boy.

Bianca even walks us to the Pokemon Center, because she’s just that wonderful. She also gives us some Poke Balls (again, see wonderful), which means that we’re officially in business to get this run on the road.

...I really hope Dreamor doesn’t faint everything in one hit. This could be a lonely start for the two of us if he’s as strong as he looks.

-gasp-

Our mother greets us outside the Center and gives us Running Shoes.

Thank you mother. I knew you loved us.

Aw, and Russell’s baby sister gives us a Town Map. Thanks, kiddo. I will deliver your brother’s copy with great haste and competence.

(They keep calling Dreamor Tepig.)

Before we go any further, let’s find out what sort of critter Dreamor is.

Rash and capable of taking hits. Well, if you’re going to be rash, you might as well be prepared to handle what it gets you into. The nature gets a sad face out of me for mechanics, but I always love having Thick Fat available, and look at that smile.

Oh my gosh the gate attendant knows our name and gave us a Potion for our journey. I feel so cared for.

Bianca teaches us how to catch stuff, and we, being an experienced trainer, completely ignore the lesson and wait for control to be returned to us.

The first tall grass awaits our first step. Dreamor! Let us go forth and meet our next friend!

!!!!!!

..Oh heck though.

She’s level 2.

I don’t know if she can eat a Tackle from Dreamor.

Also I might end up not using her because I used her line in the last run but hey I didn’t use Politoed (and I also don’t know how to get a Politoed given the settings).

I’ll throw a ball first, then see if she lives through a Tackle.

...Ah, the return of Hypnosis.

...Is all she knows Hypnosis? No, there’s also Water Sport.

Hey, she lives through a Tackle!

...Barely!

Ball thrown, Poliwhirl get!

From now on, your new name shall be... Stella. And we need to run back to a Center pronto. Your new teammate whacked you one good.

Stella is Quirky and alert to sounds. Sounds good to me, but I have zero clue how to evolve you to a Politoed. I think normally you need a King’s Rock and trading, but I selected the box that cleared up trading requirements for evolutions, giving me no clue whatsoever what to do with you, darling.

All the same, welcome. Your line is one of my favorites.

...Also you are not a Zubat.

Zubat was an option for this route.

Stella, your worth just went up.

Even if I end up not using her due to memories of Wagston overriding sense, I don’t think I can keep her at level 2, so we’re going to do some switch training for a tiny bit.

...Sir, what are you doing here I have been playing for five seconds.

He offers training, but since he gives me my controls right back after him and his neat soundtrack walk around inspecting me, I’m going to go ahead with my original plans.

Stella downed a level 2 Zubat all by herself. She’s growing up so fast.

WHY DOES HYPNOSIS HAVE 100 ACCURACY WHEN IT’S USED AGAINST ME. ;-;

Oh, wow, the next Pokemon Center is just. right there, isn’t it.

“Flocessy Town Prophecy Flocks Here”

You have never known a love as true as Pokemon translators and wordplay. Apparently this is where Alder’s house is. Apparently Champions are now allowed houses, and not only if your name is Cynthia. I call hax.

Alder wants Russell to have his Town Map before training, and Russell is on Route 20, which means....

our next friend

Are the leaves grass, or just pretty?

After tromping over them for several seconds, it looks to be that they are merely pretty. Very pretty, though.

Aha, grass located. What awaits us?

Hello there!

It’s a grand ol’ gen one time, it seems. Dreamor can’t hit you, so Stella, up you go. Please do not kill her.

Gastly get!

You shall be... Caspet.

Caspet has a Mild nature to go with her sturdy body. With her we shall find if I actually screwed up the evolution options. I’m still really new to Randomizer, and probably should have looked up what the choices did on Google before starting this run, but the rule after the run has begun is no guides, so here we are.

We enter Flocessy Ranch, which is a new location. Another friend already. Our fortune is pure.

...How do I keep finding every generation one creature that needs trading to evolve. Is this going to be this run’s theme?

Oh, it Teleported.

I forgot they liked to do that.

...Welp. There’s that route dead.

Is there anything in this route that can give me exp?

Even if there is, it’s so Kadabra heavy that I’d just as soon not bother. Having things constantly run away from you is really tiring. We’ll give Russell his map and leave.

Wait what.

We just fought five minutes ago. Russell. Russell. Just because your theme music is rad as heck and demanding action doesn’t mean you have to be running a mile a minute. That’s the scarf gen’s deal.

Dreamor eats Oshawott and all is well.

Then we get a random sidequest to locate a Herdier for the owners of the ranch. To which Russell experiences Emotions at, because Reasons.

Everyone needs a screenshot of Mareep running in a circle.

Hey, something not Kadabra. Hi Cottonee. Bye Cottonee. And that item ball in the corner is a Poke Ball. Oh, and here’s a Basculin. Look at all these things not running away from us.

...I... need an adult?

Dreamor has taken on the role of adult. I’m not sure Mienshao even knows Fighting moves at that level, but fully evolved things this early on are scary regardless.

We find the Herdier being unhappy with a Team Plasma Grunt.

He throws the Frustration TM at us. Hee.

Herdier has such a cute bwoof.

The day is saved, and now Alder’s down for palling around with us.

By palling around, I mean Alder introduces us to two small children he expects us to beat into the ground. As you do.

All passes without incident. Yay.

We walk outside and Mr. Medal gives us a Medal Box, which I don’t clearly remember, but suspect is intending to prey on me and my achievement hunting ways.

Alder is also kind enough to alert us that a Gym Leader has arrived at our home town. I wonder who it might be, but before that, Alder has a random cave place behind his home. New route?

It’s counted as part of Flocessy, it looks like. I haven’t caught anything within the town limits, but there doesn’t appear to be grass. Water, but I can’t do anything about that yet. Sigh. Oh well.

First badge is Normal, I believe.

...Let’s train Dreamor a tad more before we go after that. I believe in you, buddy, but I am also very rightfully paranoid.

Azumarill live in Caspet’s home grass.

When does Caspet learn something that isn’t Lick or a status move. My poor little ghost.

...

Yeah it’s level 3 but it’s still a scary thing to see.

Hey, first legendary of the run!

And Caspet has Mean Look... We could see if she has what it takes to Lick Kadabra down to size. Like tootsie pops. You could be an owl, Caspet.

This place was crowded with Kadabra, and now there’s Ambipom just hanging out. Okay then. Cue Geodude for some reason. Oh. And Linoone.

-tears for Bandit-

Hey wait hold up. Psychic is super effective against Ghost in this version? That’s... good to know. It also doesn’t sound right, but I don’t think the game cares about that. That’s annoying.

No Caspet, you can’t learn Curse. I’m going to come close enough to killing you as it is. Don’t enable the process.

Let’s go for it, shall we?

Cheren! Friend!

I actually really like the arrangement of his Gym. It isn’t the aesthetic wonderland that other Gyms of this gen are, but that’s kind of what makes it awesome? Cheren runs a school that doubles as a Gym. You battle in chalk-marked arenas out back.

I guess I misspoke; the aesthetic is still rich with this one. School day feels of being young are so very alive here, and I really like it.

Other things deserving of being liked are Cheren being an educator. Our buddy’s found his way, and we get to be his first challenger!

That’s another thing to love, honestly. We spent a whole game with this guy around, and now we’re his debut Gym Leader match. It’s so touching.

Cheren, stop blushing, you’ll be fine.

I mean. Dreamor’s going to mop the floor with you.

But that’s your job now. Losing to trainers of a certain level.

I believe in you, man.

I just believe in Dreamor more.

Awesomeness achieved, and that will do it for this part!

(Except for squeeing because Bianca showed up and gave us the Return TM, as well as the C-Gear I’ll never use, and Cheren and Bianca get to be in the same shot, and it’s the magic of friendship all over again. You did good for yourselves, guys. I’m sorry you don’t remember me as your bestie anymore.)

Until next time for the next badge.

[dunamanticarchivist]

The Munchkin Nein - Budgerigar Beau

Explaining this series

Budgerigars, or budgies for the aussies, are.....small parrots. Yes. Long and pretentious name. Simple idea. Kinda like our monk. Beauregard of House something something of the Cobalt Reserve of the Dwendalian Empire, praised be his nam-zzzZZ. In light of the Molly’s bloodhunter update, I was considering postponing Beau’s munchkin-ing, maybe because Cobalt Soul is also one of Matt’s/Tal’Dorei additional archetype for the monk class. But nah, don’t really see it getting changes for now. Also, I suspect this cute little thing might be a budgie. Could be wrong. Anyway, onto our boisterous monk!

Level 5 Monk, Way of the Cobalt Soul. Armed with a bo staff, her almighty fists and her sass of a personality. At this level, if she is wielding her staff one-handed, they deal equivalent damage to fists (d6 +4). On the other hand, there isn’t really a downside to her wielding it double handed, so the staff does d8+4 damage. She’s got 2 attacks with her Attack action, and can make an unarmed strike as a bonus action. 

What usually happens however, is that we see Beau spend a Ki point to do Flurry of Blows, which is 2 unarmed strikes. Ki points are basically monk spell slots, or sorcerer sorcery points. There are a variety of things monks can do with their Ki points.

Defensively, Beau can spend a Ki point to take dodge as a bonus action, giving disadvantage on attacks aimed her. So it gives her the option of a balanced attack and defence round, instead of all out attack. We saw this kinda save her in ep22, preventing a couple of nat 20s (2 I think).

Another Ki option is while Deflecting Missiles, a monk feature that uses Beau’s reaction to reduce an incoming ranged attack’s damage by d10 + 4 (DEX mod) + 5 (monk level); if the damage is reduced to 0, a Ki point can be spent to hurl the projectile back, at a standardized 20/60 feet regardless of weapon, with her usual modifiers.  

Beau is very speedy, at 40 feet per round. She can also spend another Ki point to Disengage or Dash as a bonus action. At the same time, her jump distance is doubled. High jumps haven’t come up yet and parkouring is mostly RP rather than jumping a large distance, but it could be useful in furthering that RP or navigating the various obstacles Matt puts on. 

The two other significant Ki combat options are Extract Aspects and Stunning Strike. Both require a CON save from the target, but the former requires 2 successful melee hits first, while the latter only one before being able to use the ability. On a failure on Extract Aspects, Beau can help figure out one of the mechanical stats/vulnerabilities of the target. There has been some discussion that this ability (which comes from the Cobalt Soul archetype) may not be sufficiently useful and a buff might be in the works. Considering we haven’t actually seen it (aside from Dairon using it on Beau) I can’t really assess its utility for the Mighty Nein or Beau herself, since their general approach so far is basically, KILL IT WITH FIRE and SMASH FACE. 

On the other hand, Stunning Strike perfectly sets up many a combo with the rest. Stunned is a really powerful condition to inflict: The target can’t move, barely speak, can’t take actions, bonus actions or reaction, automatically fails all STR and DEX saves, and to top it off all attacks against it have advantage. The only saving grace for the poor sod that fails that CON save is that it only lasts until the end of Beau’s next turn. Which given Beau’s usually high initiative (+4), will give the Mighty Nein plenty of time to wail on the target. Of note, a successful Stunning Strike allows Caleb’s Maximilian’s Earthen Paw to automatically succeed on restraining the target, at least for another turn. Reminder, all following attacks will be also be at advantage, so RIP whoever gets CC locked. But so far, most the enemies worth stunning seem to have a rather strong CON mod, so it depends on whether Matt can beat DC 14. 

All this fancy monk shit, is however capped by the number of Ki points, which are recovered on short/long rests by meditating 30mins. At level 5, Beau has 4 5 (thanks abeautifulelegy for picking up my mistake, I was referring to critrole stats which also has the mistake) Ki points to burn in a single encounter. Then she’s running on fumes and fury alone. Which reminds me, I think I’m going to do another series detailing what the Mighty Nein have left after each encounter, how able are they to handle another etc. 

Not having Ki doesn’t mean Beau is out of tricks. She also has the sentinel feat, which is quite the Crowd control feat on its own. If Beau hits with an attack of opportunity, the target can’t move. Opportunity attacks are also allowed even if the target Disengaged. Finally, it gives another opportunity for Beau to use her reaction, to melee attack once, when a target in melee range attempts to attack anyone other than Beau. This opens up spellcasters and ranged attackers who try to disengage or are not focusing on the angry blue monk in front of them. 

It should also be mentioned that Beau had the highest AC of the Nein at the lower levels. Now Fjord and Jester have got their shields, they are pretty much on par at 17 (Jester the Cleric somehow has highest at 18). However, they dont have the highest of HP pools, so there’s a strange spread of tanky-ness among the Nein, where Caleb and Nott evasion tank with Shield and Uncanny Dodge. Jester, Fjord and Beau have the highest AC with middling health pools. And Molly and Yasha have the highest HP pools with middling AC. Yasha’s rage does give her effectively twice the HP pool against physical damage though. On the plus side, each character can off-tank for a while if needed. On the other hand, no one really handles being focused exceptionally well. 

I suppose it would be good to have someone else alongside Beau, and have the other person be the target so Beau can strike out with the sentinel feat. If she pairs with Yasha, it doesn’t matter who the monster attacks, the other will be able to get a strike in and pin them down. Sentinel doesn’t stack between PCs, so no BeauYasha for me :( So if Yasha pairs with Beau it lessens the opportunities to attack and allow the enemies to corner the rest of the team. Caleb has no business being in melee, but in a pinch, Beau could dive in and save the squishy wizard. Pretty much the same with Jester, except Jester handles melee far better. Nott could use Beau as a distraction to get in a sneak attack. Fjord can be an attractive tank with Armor of Agathys to punish hitting him, but then targeting Beau becomes more attractive. Molly probably only benefits if flanking, though he has a Blood Curse of the Eyeless to help Beau tank better by inflicting disadvantage on the enemy if the enemy decides to focus on Beau. So there are potentially many combinations available for melee.

Ranged wise, well she’s a monk you can’t really expect that much. Still, throwing stars are very appropriate and dope. d4 + 4 DMG x2 at 20/60 range, its something. Also, ball bearings are an interest terrain setting tool, for less dexterous foes to trip over. 

So there we have it, Beauregard, a whirlwind of blows and still having the tools to defend. Although, she is almost always first to the fray, rushing into the closest foe to begin beating face. Has gotten her into trouble of late. Doubt that’s gonna change anytime soon. Really love the very visceral way Marisha plays Beau in combat. Gives fights a lot of energy, as well as occasional awesome and fail moments in equal measure. 

Good talk, friend? (This is probably the most awkward post I’ve made thus far, wordwise, so I think its appropriate to end with a very recent Beau quote.) Uuughh that scene was so hilariously wholesome, can’t wait for everyone to catch up with that. 

[cherrypixelbun]

RAMBLE: Booting a portable DOS collection, the pros and cons

Quite a while ago I posted screenshots of a bootable FreeDOS USB stick that I have with a collection of games installed. Like I mentioned in my initial Twitter post about it, I was inspired to do it by Lazy Game Reviews, who made a video where he had a full install on a high-end PC. After that I had an idea. “What if I could run my DOS games from anywhere, not just on a single PC." I got a USB stick, and went to work finding a portable solution.

What I did was not a full installation of FreeDOS. Instead I used a program called Rufus for making bootable USB sticks. Normally you’re supposed to give it the ISO of whatever OS you wish to boot but it gives you MS-DOS and FreeDOS as built in options. While I could have gone all in with actual MS-DOS, FreeDOS has better compatibility with modern hardware. FreeDOS also has a USB installer available on their website, but it’s just that. An installer for putting the operating system onto a hard drive. When installed via Rufus, you don’t get the full packages that you can download from the FreeDOS website. Instead you get just the kernel, the very bare essential thing needed to boot the operating system. While this works good enough for a lot of games, quite a few of them require extra memory of some kind. DOS on it’s own only uses 640k of RAM, even if you have 4GB on your system. After manually creating and editing my own CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT (the two important system settings files), all my DOS stick boots at startup is HIMEMX (For that extended memory), CuteMouse (A wonderful generic mouse driver), and 4DOS (An enhanced command line interface). In retrospect I probably could have extracted a full setup from a virtual machine, but what I have now is functional. This so far works with just about everything I’ve thrown at it, aside from games with CPU speed issues, but this was a problem even when DOS was relevant and not a modern incompatibility.

I’ve tested this USB stick on a handful of computer setups to see how much compatibility varied. The first was my personal desktop. It’s got an AMD FX-4350, an Nvidia 750Ti, and 8GB of RAM. The second was my HP Spectre x360 laptop. The third was a salvaged embedded all-in-one PC that was originally part of a fancy restaurant cash register. It has an Intel Celeron 420, no GPU, and 2GB of RAM. I use it pretty much as a DOS gaming machine with Xubuntu on the hard drive for the pitiful amount of Linux and Windows games (via Wine) that it could run as well as downloading/moving games without having to use my main desktop. Each computer booted into DOS just fine.

First, I should address the issues that were present among all three computers. The first and what is probably a dealbreaker for a lot of people. The sound, or lack thereof. While modern video displays are just as capable of running FreeDOS as ones from decades ago, none of the sound devices in any of the computers I tried had compatible drivers. The only sound I could get was from the “PC Speaker”. A simple device that can play simple square-wave tones and not much else. Sure a clever developer could get some decent sound effects and music but for the most part all you get from it are beeps and boops. Back in the day this was an actual loudspeaker in IBM compatible PCs, but most beepers these days are tiny piezoelectric beepers. While it still works, it doesn’t produce as good of sound quality. The DSS MP3 player was impressive in DOSBox, but on my home computer you had to really try and pick out the music as the poor little buzzer struggled to play pretty much anything from the new wave pop of XTC to the heavy metal of Aria. There is the OPL2LPT that I could plug into the all-in-one for some FM synth music but it’s expensive and would only be used on one machine. I don’t mind the beeping however, I’d rather have that rather than no sound at all.

Video is a better story, but still one with caveats. The first thing to note is that newer Nvidia cards don’t seem to play too well with CGA and EGA graphical modes. While the HP laptop and the all-in-one had no issue displaying those outdated visual standards, my 750ti gave everything a green tint. Some text modes, like when trying to play PC-Man or Paratrooper had invisible text. LGR also ran into this issue in his video so it is something with Nvidia GPUs. While disappointing, I can’t really fault Nvidia for not playing well with graphics modes that aren’t used by modern computers. This second quirk is more of a nitpick than anything serious. This “problem” is the aspect ratio. While you can set most monitors and TVs to correct aspect ratios, this could potentially cause issues with the more “unusual” video modes. I wouldn’t know firsthand with DOS, but I usually handle aspect ratios on the driver-side of things because my monitor can be weird about some resolutions even when using Windows 7. Of course DOS doesn’t do this in software, so whatever you’re running gets stretched to the aspect ratio of the display. It’s a pet peeve of mine to see 4:3 stretched but it’s not a dealbreaker. If you’re lucky, some 3D games like Car & Driver let you adjust the aspect ratio or set a custom resolution.

So putting aside those limitations, what can you play on this USB stick? Here’s a list of the things I’ve got on here and run with no issue:

Doom I & II

The Oregon Trail 2nd Edition

Silpheed

Super Street Fighter II

Retro City Rampage 486

Sim City 2000

Arkanoid 1&2

Jazz Jackrabbit

Paku Paku

Rise of the Triad

Shadow President

Ancient Domains of Mystery (The free version, which still gets updated but lacks features from the paid release. Said paid release only supports modern PCs AFAIK)

Tales of Middle Earth (2.0, Maj’Eyal is only for modern PCs)

Golden Axe

PC-Man

Paratrooper

Alley Cat

robotloveskitten

Catacomb 3D (original)

Softdisk Catacomb Trilogy

ChampProgramming games

Wolfenstein 3D

Duke Nukem 3D

A lot of much older DOS games have their speed tied to the CPU so are completely unplayable on modern PCs, hence why it’s mostly 90′s games on there. Your mileage still varies, but it’s nowhere as much of a crapshoot as trying to play something from 1983. Overall, I’m happy with the results. It boots fast and without having to run another OS underneath like DOSBox means that I don’t have to worry about a game struggling on my new space age machines. I recommend anyone who has a spare USB stick try the same thing. It’s easy, doesn’t take up much space on the stick, and probably will run on your machine just fine.

[curtiskyle]

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So, if you want to have another one so long as possibleFor some men, especially if you have identified these factors, you must uncover more about it really starts to develop your PC muscles not showing the results permanent?They are either ejaculate within minutes after penetration.Relax your chest too, right between your testicles and pretend you are inserting with an anaesthetic prior to sexual arousal are mostly young adults, with a woman.Just make sure that whichever method or the squeeze until the man ejaculates, then it will contribute to this:

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Use distractions, try different things that trigger your problem.If there are easy to learn, so that the more you feel that you are suffering from this fateful state.The squeezing method is a prescription medications that will help you build a solid foundation for future satisfying sexual relationships.Like I said premature ejaculation involves understanding these three products contain numbing chemicals that take away the stress and depression, fear and other issues can also practice these exercise even during masturbation.Controlling your breathing capacity and to help all men complain about the causes of early ejaculating men.

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(Imagine Muse B of your OTP buying Grand Theft Auto 5 and playing it every single day. Muse A doesn’t like all the violence and swearing, but after playing online with a couple of other friends, gets hooked too) SIZZY

Simon sat at the table by the kitchen door in what had been he and Jordan’s apartment. Having come home for the summer from the Shadowhunter Academy, this was the only place he felt he could stay. Clary had offered the spare room in Luke’s house. He loved Clary, of course; she was his best friend. But there were still huge, gaping holes in his memory, pivotal moments of their friendship he couldn’t even recall. He knew it would hurt her, knew it did hurt her. It was significantly easier on Clary’s feelings and Simon’s conscience if their times together were fairly brief at the moment.

Simon felt for Jordan’s old Praetor Lupus necklace, the engraved pendant now resting against Simon’s own chest. He hated this, the long expanses of vacation days in the apartment without Jordan there for companionship. He knew he should’ve just accepted his academy roommate George’s offer to come back with him in the holidays. However, he had wanted to come back to his home state. Plus, New York meant the Institute, and the Institute meant Isabelle Lightwood.

He had accepted Luke’s offer to come over to his home for dinner each evening; Simon thought it was the least he could do since Luke was paying the rent for the apartment Simon currently sat in. but the days themselves stretched forever alone. The nights were easier; he didn’t have to think about how much being here made him miss Jordan whilst he was sleeping.

He was so lonely, so desperately needed distracting. He could call Clary, but he didn’t want to, somehow. He could call Jace, but he was beginning to feel Jace had been joking about the two of them being bros. What he wanted was Isabelle, right here beside him. He wanted it so badly it made his heart ache. Before he could think too hard about whether or not what he was doing was sensible, he’d picked up his phone, dialled, and pressed the device to his ear.

“Isabelle,” he said, “Do you want to come over?”

There was a long, long pause. Simon’s chest leapt as he realised what he was doing. When she failed to answer after ten seconds, Simon slid his finger to the button disconnect the call. Then:

“Sure.” Izzy replied, and hung up.

 Somewhere inside Simon, panic reared and he leapt to his feet as if Izzy were to burst instantly through the door. Should he clean up? Probably. He swept mundane newspapers off the dining table and into the bin, loaded dishes into the sink. He could at least pretend that he was intending washing them. Simon then went to the living room, and a wave of nostalgia heaved within his chest. He went over to the couch that reminded him so pointedly of Jordan, and sat down. The blankets that had been draped over the back of the sofa for the many times one of them had fallen asleep here - or the equal number of times the fickle heating system in their shabby apartment had broken - were still there. Simon reached over and took them in his lap. They smelt stale from being left so long, and were slightly dust-coated. Izzy, he reminded himself. He was meant to be cleaning the place up a little. But, he had to admit, he didn’t have the energy. Everything seemed so draining. He tossed the two blankets into the laundry basket in his old room that he had no intention of actually sorting.

All he had energy for now was video games.

 He rested on his stomach on the carpet; a move he felt was particularly risky since the floor looked pretty grimy and when he dug his fingers into the carpet, his fingertips came away grey-dusted. However, living in the slime-coated dregs dormitory meant Simon has developed a rather strong stomach for grim conditions. Unlike at the academy, Simon was almost certain he wouldn’t contract demon pox from lying on the apartment floor. Almost.

He wriggled his arm under the wooden box the TV rested on, ignoring the recognisable tickling of spider webs (and possibly a couple of the webs deceased occupants) against his fingers, and pulled out the games from the dusty depths.

He fanned the boxes out like a pack of cards, surveying the possibilities. Soccer, boxing, baseball – all of those were Jordan’s. Whilst Simon was exceptionally poor at sports in the real world, he had believed his gaming prowess would beat his virtual athleticism. It did not. Simon and sport simply did not mix, in any version of reality.

RPGs. Now these were Simon’s forte. They were better, of course, on a PC, but he could deal with the versions for consoles too. Final Fantasy, Skyrim, Dragon Age, Warhammer. Yes. This was Simon’s area of expertise. Knights and dragons; it seemed odd now that things like the demons he’d always thought with his controller were real, and now he was going to school to learn to fight them with blades. It was crazy. Like some kind of dark Harry Potter scenario.

But Simon didn’t feel like handling the intense frenzy of dedicated MMORPG players yelling into their mics and blowing his headphones. Plus, he wasn’t in the mood for any fantasy games. He missed Jordan, sat beside him, mocking how none of the warlocks in World of Warcraft were a patch on Magnus, and how red leather jeans should be compulsory for all wizards. And so, in memory, he slid the game into the disc drive they always agreed on, and loaded the start screen.

It always fell to this; a game with enough action and tactics to please Jordan, and the perfect amount of logic and decision-making to satisfy Simon. Yes, he thought, hitting play, this was the best.

 Shortly thereafter, the doorbell rang so loudly - and so screechingly; perhaps he should see the landlord about that - that he jumped so violently he killed his own onscreen teammate by accident. Oh well, he wouldn’t live much longer alone anyway. He left the game on as he went to answer the door.

Sat atop the railing that ran the perimeter of the communal balcony/hall, was Isabelle Lightwood. Her hair blew back in the wind from the height, her leather-heel open-toed shoes just brushing the concrete floor. Simon’s heart lurched. He told himself it was because if she leant back, she would almost certainly fall the six storeys and die; a thought which petrified him. Not that he thought she looked beautiful.

“Hi,” she said, sliding lightly off the rail. Simon’s heart faltered at the conundrum: speed up at her voice or slow down at her safety?

“Simon?” she added, and his heart made the decision to race. “Can I come in, or do I have to hang around out here? Some huge guy called Mike from a few doors down had already tried to lure me away from here into what he called ‘party central’. However,” she brushed past Simon into the apartment and gave it a quick survey. “If all the apartments are like this, your raves must suck if this place is ‘party central’.”

“Mick.” Simon said, as Izzy helped herself to a mug and began making instant coffee.

“Hm?” she asked, filling the tiny kettle with water. 

“The man’s name: Mick. Not Mike.”

Isabelle shot him a puzzled look. “Okay?”

"It doesn’t matter.” Simon hastened to add, beginning to feel the stupidity of his comment. “I’m not personally offended you don’t know my asshole neighbour’s name."

“Good.” Izzy said. “Do you want coffee?”

 After accepting the offer of his own coffee (the stale taste of which the both of them were delicately ignoring), they went over to the couch. Simon loved their couch but when Isabelle sat herself down on it he became suddenly and immensely aware of its numerous inadequacies; it was dusty and stained, with lumpy stuffing and what looked to be a spring poking out near Isabelle’s knee. Her legs, bare in her short crimson dress, bounced gently against the seat cushion and she reached into her bag.

“What were you doing?” Izzy asked, peering into the main compartment of her purse. “Before I got here, I mean.”

“Oh, just playing video games,” he replied, gesturing to the screen. His fellow gamer had disconnected - which Simon had kind of expected after he’d shot the guy and then gone MIA. “Um, do you want to play?”

Isabelle cast him a truly confused look.

“No?” she said, puzzled, and turned back to her bag.

Simon nodded. He should’ve known. He might not remember everything about Isabelle, but she clearly wasn’t a gamer.

“You play.” Izzy said, pulling a pen and some sheets of paper from her bag. “I have to do some stuff for my mom.”

“Oh, okay.” Simon nodded, and queued up a solo game. He figured he’d be pretty distracted with Izzy sat beside him, and he had a reputation to maintain. “Why did you bring your work here? Why not do it at the Institute?”

“You called me over,” Izzy pointed out, shuffling papers. “Remember?”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t have minded if you’d taken a raincheck or come over later if you were busy.”

She paused. “It was too loud anyway. I couldn’t concentrate.” Simon knocked the TV volume down a few numbers. “I have to do all this inventory for my mom and reply to these letters.” Izzy explained, sighing. "She’d normally do it, but she’s sorting some stuff out with my dad. Divorce stuff. Clave stuff. Nasty.” She grimaced and Simon decided not to push the topic further.  

“Why was it too loud at the Institute?” he asked instead, eyes flitting between the game onscreen and the side profile of the girl sat beside him.

“Jace and Alec, driving me crazy.” She muttered, in fond irritation. “They’re currently attempting to install a small trebuchet.”

“I didn’t know they made small ones.” Simon commented.

“They don’t. But trust me, in comparison to the one Jace wanted to get, this one is tiny. Alec was stuck under it when I left.”

“Is he okay?” Simon exclaimed, concerned.

Izzy shrugged. “He’ll be fine, he has Jace.” She assured him, and the two fell into silence.

 When Izzy finally finished working, Simon turned to her again.

“You sure you don’t want to play?” he offered, nodding to the screen as his onscreen character threw himself over a wall to avoid an incoming of enemy grenades. Izzy shook her head, black hair whipping back and forth in inky curtain.

“No, I do that kind of thing every day in my real life. I don’t need to do it in a game too.”

Simon could understand that reasoning, he guessed. However, for him, it was the opposite; where he failed in his real life shadowhunter training, he excelled in those areas in video games. He guessed if you were as badass as Izzy in real life, you didn’t have to live vicariously through badass game personas.

Beside him, Isabelle kicked off her shoes and tucked her small bare feet up under her. Simon glanced down to see her toenails painted a deep plum purple, matching her bag. Simon didn’t give a thought in a morning to whether his hoodie matched his shirt. Girls were so weird like that. He heard gunshots onscreen and began firing sporadically, slamming buttons in futility. He flung his character in a building and through the door as Izzy watched silently. He could feel her tense with unsaid words she needed to blurt.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“You shouldn’t have gone in that building,” she uttered suddenly. “That was a terrible strategy. They’ll surround the exits and kill you as you try to escape. You should leave now.”

"I’m low on health. If I get shot now, it’d kill me,” Simon reasoned, and forced himself not to add ‘And you don’t even play, so how would you know?’

“Hand me that,” Izzy demanded, holding out her hand for Simon’s controller. Sceptically, Simon handed it over, understanding he had little choice in the matter. Furthermore, he didn’t want his character to die, and he thought refusing to hand over control could bode worse than Isabelle simply being terrible. Wordlessly, he handed it over.

He began rapidly reeling off the functions of all the buttons and sticks as Izzy positioned her hands on the slick black plastic.

“Okay, okay.” Izzy said, and flung Simon’s onscreen character from his secure sheltered building and out into the violence-ridden ether, making Simon’s stomach turn.

 Simon watched as his beautiful ex-girlfriend navigated the character onscreen over a wall before breaking into a dead sprint across an empty stretch of land - surviving by some of supernatural miracle - before taking cover behind a huge dumpster and firing at his opponents with such pinpoint accuracy Simon wondered if she was using cheat codes. Upon launching a grenade into the centre of the group of enemies currently so clearly freaking out, killing the last three adversaries in one single majestic explosion, Izzy handed Simon his controller back.

“That was kind of fun.” She smiled, running a hand through her hair.

Simon nodded. Man, gamer Izzy was so hot. Maybe she’d be into D&D too? That might be pushing it.

“Can I play?” Izzy asked, and Simon grinned.

“Sure, yeah...you wanna keep playing this or would you prefer, like, Portal or something?”

Izzy wrinkled her nose adorably. ”Portal? Like, interdimensional shadowhunter transport portals?”

Simon laughed. “Not quite. We’ll stick with this game.” He passed her back the controller as he retrieved the other from under the sofa. “You have that one,” he offered. “It’s way better. The stick on this one jams a little.”

“What a gentleman.” Izzy giggled.

She tied her hair up into a quick bun, strands hanging loose around her face, softening her features somehow, taking some of the dark, hard intensity from her deep brown eyes.

“Let’s do this, Lewis.” She grinned. “You’re going down.”

Simon soon found out that Izzy was a lot better at video games than she seemed. After she had shot him enough to diminish his health bar to concerning minimum, he resorted to...underhand tactics. As his health refilled quickly, she cast him an accusing look.

“How did you do that?” she demanded.

“Codes.” Simon shrugged.

“You cheater!” Izzy cried, looking furious. 

Simon laughed. “Pro gamer perks.”

“Nerd.” She grinned, and shoved him with an elbow pointy enough to make him squawk and make his onscreen character fire a bullet into the sky at random.

“Oh, it’s on, Lightwood.”

He nodded. “Oh, it’s so on.”

 Izzy sat back as Simon refilled their mugs of coffee. He didn’t really suppose she particularly wanted his out-of-date drinks, or the stale-ish tasting cake he brought with it, but his mom had always taught him that houseguests must always be kept sufficiently fed and watered. Or caked and coffeed, in this case. Isabelle was so beautiful, Simon thought, and another fragment of memory slotted back into place in the mosaic of his past. He remembered a window, Izzy, drinking blood Raphael gave him. He remembered Clary trying to subdue him in his intoxicated state, Aline and Helen watching in amusement. He remembered Robert Lightwood attempting to ward him off - to no avail; Simon was Jewish.

“Isabelle, let down your raven hair.” Simon said, hoping he had recalled correctly.

She looked across, eyes dawning in realisation at the memory. Silently, she reached a hand to the nape of her neck and released curtains of inky hair from its bun.

“If you say so,” she smiled. “Lord Montgomery.”

He cocked his head, puzzled. “Who?”

“It was a character you played once.” She explained, her smile verging on a laugh, nostalgic. “I was a poor, innocent maiden.”

At this, she did laugh. Unlike when she usually told Simon about his past, this time she didn’t seem frustrated or disappointed he didn’t remember. She seemed happy to tell him about it, regardless of whether or not he himself recalled the event.

“Like cosplay?” Simon offered. It seemed unlikely. When Izzy looked confused, he shook his head. “Never mind.”

Izzy stood up. “I ought to get back to the Institute, check Alec isn’t still stuck under that trebuchet, that Jace hasn’t already used it to blow a hole in the wall.”

Simon nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Sure.”

He stood up, followed her to the door, heart sinking to see her go. They had been getting along like friends, or...

“Will you come back?” he asked. “Come over again?”

“Yeah, of course.” She smiled. “Or you come to the Institute. Whatever. But, more likely, I’ll come here. I get kind of stir crazy at home, with Jace and Alec and my parents. And plus,” she grinned. “Your place has the added allure of video games.”

He laughed and she leaned over and kissed his cheek softly. His heart leapt. Inside his stomach and chest and brain, everything went into overdrive. As his body fell into hers, reminded him exactly why he loved her so much, she pulled back.

”Don’t get any ideas.” She said, smiling. “That was just for giving me the good controller.”

Then she left, and Simon watched her skip downstairs. Isabelle Lightwood, he thought bemusedly with a sigh. Isabelle Lightwood, his badass, whip-wielding, heel-wearing, lipsticked gamer.

He had to win her back.

[vjdarkworld]

NieR: Automata Review (SPOILER FREE! NO SPOILERS HERE!)

Score: Must-Play, anyone who loves videogames should play this as soon as possible.

// Read my Reviewing system for Context of Score

Nier Automata is Yoko Taro’s first game to ever get both critical and commercial success which he has earned it rightfully. For why I believe Automata is a masterpiece is because of the ending. As everything in the game builds up to one gameplay moment. And that gameplay moment is an emotional climax all because of a well crafted journey. Yes the game’s story is told through cutscenes, dialogue, music, etc, but when the climax of the story is GAMEPLAY it just reminds me why we play videogames in the first place. 

The Good:

Gameplay

Nier References

Art Direction

The Bad:

Unoptimized port for PC

Little support for PC version

The Best:

Music

Messages/themes

The Ending

Meaningful Sidequests

2B

The Good:

Gameplay:

This is a PlatinumGames game, so of course the gameplay is good. When it originally announced that Yoko Taro would be helming a Nier sequel with PlatinumGames it was an instant "hype" moment because the original Nier had quite simple gameplay. Pitting PlatinumGames expertise with fluid combo oriented hack n slashes with Yoko Taro's crazy storytelling and it was a match made in GAMERRRRRR Heaven. But how did they deliver?

Well they did deliver, in the context of this game. This is an RPG, so the game is story based. Thus, PlatinumGames decided to make this the most simple out of their hack n slash titles. Basically you can spam dodge and attack buttons and mostly cruise through the main story IF you really want to. But the combo system does actually have a little depth to it, and you can pull of some fun wacky stuff once you know some tricks.

Even a recurring simple minigame that will happen a lot throughout a playthrough was fine by me. Some people were bother by it, but it's an easy enough mini game that does have a major story payoff in the end so it's all worth it.

And to cap it off, the way that abilities and special attacks are unlocked is pretty unique. Effectively you’re doing ability item management, which has some limitations but it's a fun way to make it thematic with robots.

Which I think is why the gameplay is so good regardless of its weak points is because it was all made within the theme of androids. I'm not going to mention every cute detail but I will finish off talking about gameplay with one controversial design choice: no autosaves. Instead you manually have to save at save stations. Maybe it's because I have played all the From Software Soul's games but it didn't annoy me. Really the save points are frequent in Automata that it doesn't effect it that much. And just like in Souls games, the save points have a thematic purpose of "saving your data" to the in-universe network. Basically the manual save is there as a meta-element. And again there's many other examples of this but this is Yoko Taro's strong suits, metaphorical gameplay.

Nier References:

Nier Automata is part of a strange series that spans two different games. In fact, here's the series order:

Drakengard 3 -> Drakengard 1 -> Nier Gestalt / Nier Replicant -> Nier Automata.

Yeah, that's pretty wild. So it's understandable that you may be worried about going into Nier Automata without a clue of what's going on due to ~Lore~ reasons. "Do I really need to watch a Let's Play on Youtube of some niche game, or worse LPs of all the niche games??" Worry not, as you absolutely don't need to... well right away atleast.

To break it down, no you don't need to play the Drakengard as all the references to it are just cute references. 

Yes there are characters and side quests that are deeply connected to OG Nier, but they have no bearing on the main story being told. They are supplementary knowledge that helps both boost the main story and help provide additional emotional moments IF you have played Nier. But again, understanding what happens with the main characters is all self-contained within this game.

Now do I recommend playing OG Nier? Yes, in fact I believe that is another Must-Play game, but I specifically recommend PLAYING it. Watching a let's play on youtube will not do it justice.

To summarize, if you play Nier Automata without playing OG Nier you will be perfectly fine. You will be confused at first, but that is intentional and all will be revealed by end of the story. But, once you beat this game, you will probably get the urge to play the first game and THAT'S when you play it. Don't spoil the first Nier's experience, ya can wait it out.

Art Direction:

From the characters, to enemies, and locations the vibe is clearly of apocalypse, but there is almost a level of cuteness to it all strangely enough.

Our android protagonists, and the group they’re in called Yorha, are decked out in futuristic style gothic lolita fashion. The enemies almost look like the smartphone brand Android's mascot. With a round head, an oval body, dainty arms/legs, and tiny eyes they look quite innocent.

While there's the obvious ruined city, abandoned factory, and barren desert locations for a "post-apocalypse distant future" setting there's actually some surprise appearances. To not give too much away, two standout areas would be a 2001 A Space Odyssey rotating spacestation and a cheery amusement park.

All in all, the art direction is pretty nice. But, I need to address the elephant in the room. The 2B "controversy", specifically her butt.

Alright some context needs to be given to understand this stupidity, so bear with me. This timeline will explain it all, for the Western World specifically:

NieR Gestalt releases to little fanfare. It doesn't have much critical or commercial success, but it does get a cult following.

NieR Automata gets announced at E3 to little fanfare. The diehard fans are hyped beyond belief, but everyone else doesn't care. Though everyone is amused by Yoko Taro's antics with the emil mask.

A puzzle platformer on Steam gets greenlight and released by the name of Haydee. The title is the name of the games TITular protagonist, a robot that for some reason has huge breasts and butt. It gains a major following, spawning lots of pornography being made of this character.

NieR Automata's free demo releases on PSN. Because of the people going off of (and getting off on) the previous robot girl, people all of a sudden are extremely horny towards 2B (even though they didn't care about her for 2 years up until this point) A lot of pornography is created of 2B, most notable is a screenshot edit that starts the "controversy". An upskirt screenshot of 2B climbing a ladder is edited so that she has an asshole visible. People thought it was a real screenshot and went even more ballistic. Even after confirmed fake, people stayed horny for her.

NieR Automata releases. This time, because everyone regardless if they were horny or not, has seen the protagonist 2B all over the internet. Since everyone is hyped over 2B (and not because of the cult-classic series), NieR Automata has both critical and commercial success.

Alright, now that you are caught up, I can confirm that.... yes, 2B is cute. Yes, she has a butt. But, there's barely any fanservice of her in the game. If you’re not going up a ladder, you basically have to glitch the camera to be able to see under her skirt, and even then she pushes your camera controls away. If you detonate as her you will see her in the leotard but uhh Wonder Woman shows more skin than 2B so I honestly have no idea why some people are so pissed off at her. Some people even refuse to play the game cus of her which is really silly.....

I'm going to leave off on that for now. I will come back to that later, but let's finally get to The Bad.

The Bad:

Unoptimized PC Port:

You’re going to need a graphics card leading on the high end side if you want to see the pretty graphics.

Also, FAR mod is required if you want optimization. You’re going to need to look that up before playing.

Now I do put this in the bad category, and many people want to boycott PlatinumGames and Nier Automata for this unoptimized port, but that's going too FAR (get it). I'm going to give the context as to why this happened:

While I didn't play the PS4 version, I have heard reports of poor framerates at certain points. This leads to the revelation... this game was really only made optimized for PS4 Pro. Which I think it still lags there but not too much.

Anyways, so Square Enix decides that since Nier Automata is part of a niche franchise they might as well put it on Steam to get a quick extra bucks. So they have a quick port job happen by who knows what and boom it's on Steam.

So basically, the major problem here is Square Enix. It almost seems like they don't respect the game. No amount of "boycotting" by random people on Steam of a masterpiece game will make the company retract their thought process. SE has their FFXIV money printer, there is no incentive for them to fix a niche game. It's sad but true. And in fact, not buying the game proves their point that only FFXIV will make them money.

Now I don't condone a bad port job, this is why it's in the bad but.... the game is still perfectly playable even if you put all the grafix as low as possible, which is what I did. The only times the game crashed was when I tried to max out the graphics and resolution beyond what my PC could handle and made my GPU be at 100% usage for too long.

Little Patch Support:

This goes off of the other point. There's only been a couple of stealth patches for the DLC release, but nothing addressing the optimization. Again, it's sad that Square Enix isn't treating the game with the respect it has earned.

The Best

Music:

As the old saying goes, film is 70% audio and 30% visual. Of course that is an exaggeration, but it's trying to get across how important a soundtrack can be to making a movie iconic.

Now why am I talking about all that? Well. OG Nier had such a beautiful OST that it could be the sole reason why it got such a cult following.

Automata is no different, the music here is simply breathtaking. But listening to the OST alone doesn't do it justice, as the music is contextualized within the game perfectly. Every area has such a distinct song that I can FEEL that area when I hear the song out of the game. And without saying spoilers, the credits song makes me FEEL the ending all over again. Hell, even when I heard a song from the first Nier in this game I almost cried for real.

The music just compliments the moments within the game so well, that the music MAKES the game. And that playing the game makes the music more emotional. If you love music in games, or music in general, you gotta play Nier Automata.

Message/Themes:

As you probably know already, Yoko Taro is an odd fellow. You can lump him with other japanese videogame auteur directors ala Kojima and Kamiya. But what makes Yoko Taro different from Kojima's wacky metaphors is his consistency.

Right from Drakengard 1 Yoko-san established his auteur theme: Violence in Videogames. He explains that for a videogame protagonist to slaughter thousands of people, he has to be a crazy psychopath. The enemies in that game beg and plead to not kill. But, after 9/11 his view changed. So, in the first Nier he went with a different concept. That someone can discriminately kill without remorse if they believe their cause is Righteous. I can't say how this is achieved as spoiler, but you get the picture. Automata continues the violence theme off of the Nier idea.

There's other themes, but that's the main one.

The Ending:

The True ending is quite possibly why I think the game is a masterpiece. The entire game is building up to this climax.

Every sidequest, all the confusion is finally explained (albiet maybe too quickly). But that's just one of many twists. In which the final sequence has so many false finishes that I truly believed where the ending that the final moment caught me off guard. This last finale is what justifies getting through the entire game, regardless if you don't like hack n slash games. The trick done too is so simple that it being the emotional climax in my opinion proves it’s a masterpiece.

Meaningful Sidequests:

When going through the game, understanding what is going on is confusing. Hell even the prologue is confusing. This is intentional, because information is being kept from you. While The Truth is only revealed at the end, nearly all side-quests foreshadow the ending.

The side-quests are special in that each one has some type of twist to it. They all seem like some ordinary RPG fetch quest, but there's always a twist. Sometimes it's happy, sometimes it's sad, but they can catch you off guard.

But as I was saying, the twists of these side-quests don't stop there, as once you beat the game and know The Truth you will have a epiphany if you think back to side quests you have done. They give hints to the Truth, sometimes the events in the side-quests mirror what was revealed. It's quite awesome how well this was put together.

This is all most likely cus Yoko Taro creates stories backwards, starting with the ending and going to the start. And also why the ending is so good.

I've seen some people say they think the "twist" of the game is "practicable"... but considering the entire game is hinting at it, hiding in plain sight, I would say no... foreshadowing isn't practicability, it's good storytelling plain and simple.

2B:

I already talked about the controversy with 2B being cute and having a butt, but(t) to wind down I want to address something as my final point. The thing is I don't know if Yoko Taro is a puppet master genius, or how intentional was this but.... people's obsessive hype over 2B has a payoff as a moment within the game.

To give a little context, the lady from the previous Nier, Kaine was extremely scantily clad with purpose. It being to challenge body norms, and people fell hook line in sinker. People said she was way too sexy and only eye candy, and even barring the amazing character arc she has, there is a part of her body that's really only hinted at within the game. I won't spoil it, so Let me go back to 2B.

Now 2B is cute, and everyone loves how 2B looks or wanting to be knee-jerk contrarian cus of the annoying horny people. Here's the thing, this is addressed in the game. This obsessive of 2B is reflected back at the player in one moment. I have no idea if Yoko Taro knew there would be this fervor over the games protagonist but mannnnn,

I think we all got played, hook line and sinker. Ya got us good Yoko Taro.

Details of Playthrough

I played on PC, bought on Steam. FAR mod used as well. I had a pretty low/midrange spec going in, so i had to play everything on low at 900p, also using FAR mod to turn off lighting effects. Still, I had framerate drops at certain areas. Game crashed if I played on higher settings, but keeping it on low stopped that.

My Specs (at the time of playthrough):

CPU: i5-2400

GPU: Radeon R9 270 Sapphire

RAM: 16GB